Poetry for Regular People
Vol. 1
Nathaniel Fincham
Copyright © 2014 Nathaniel Fincham
All rights reserved.
a fEW WORDS
This discombobulated collection of poetry embodies many, many years of my existence, beginning with a confused young man to an even more confused older man. These poems are my attempt at understanding my life, my world, and myself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Thank you, reader.
Nathaniel Fincham
A LOVELY PRIZE
I will chase me a pretty life
like an insect pursues a star,
by flirting with seductive words
and passionate phrases.
My pretty life will be beautiful indeed,
loving me for the lies I have told
and the games I have played
to win my lovely prize.
One day my pretty life will leave me,
as do all wonderful things,
sending me in search of another
pretty life to pursue.
BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION
Beautiful obsession consumed,
like a rosy apple
or optimistic friend
to fill up
and sustain me.
A repeated purposeless thought
directs toward compulsion,
keeping me from wandering lost,
stumbling in the dark,
or finding a solid place to stop.
Satisfied without meaning;
hope among the pointless;
faith in nothing real.
I strive for the unreachable heaven
and I always will.
BEAUTY BE DAMNED
Beauty be damned.
Is there more
than skin
in which to love, to obsess?
Youthful giggles?
Her lips mock me,
laughing when I am ignorant.
They are vicious, yet soft.
Shy voice?
My wrongs sound sweet
and forgivable.
I will try to oblige her.
Unforgiving body?
Her smooth, pale cheeks
redden as the blood
rises beneath her face.
The giving in?
Remaining desire,
in spite of the questions.
I happily forget them.
Magnificent screams
of the inevitable crash?
Damn flesh and lust,
only the surface I can touch.
BLEED FOR IT
Bleed for it,
I think as I reach
into the thorns,
the stabbing and catching,
as sharp pain should.
A lovely flower is hidden
beyond the jagged barbs.
I swear I glimpsed it,
and am now obsessed;
I will bleed to touch it.
BLEMISH
Stroking the statue of beauty
smooth and flawless
I feel it crack and begin to crumble
beneath my fingers
Against my altering touch
it reacts to my ugly
and is no longer perfection
but blemished
BLISTER
Men like me
enjoy the burn
Whatever color
the fires turn
Ash us down
spread us around
With love or hate
or simple ache
Whatever color
the fires turn
Men like me
enjoy the burn
BUILD THEN BURN
Burn! Burn!
Sharp and sweet
Forked tongue
to lick the heat
Burn! Burn!
The world into naught
Smallest of sparks
causes pain and rot
It burns! It burns!
And the fault is mine
I burn the ladder
upon which I climb
It burns! It burns!
A joyous roar
I will build then burn
and then build some more
CLARITY
After
the friction has ceased
leaving sweat
and smoke
to linger,
I am allowed
brief clarity.
A fleeing moment
without
distracting lust,
wondrous thoughts
to seize quickly
before
desire leads me away.
DREAMING
Are we all asleep?
Drifting within a dream?
The nightmare of one creator,
or the connection of many streams?
Is the world just an illusion?
That will fade when we awake?
Into a world of love and laughter?
Run for heaven’s sake!
When we sleep where do we go?
Into a dream within a dream?
Do we get a glimpse, does the real world show?
Will we ever know what me mean?
When we die do we wake up,
Or enter just another stream?
Will the chain ever end?
A stream within a stream?
Is the dream everything
And we are nothing at all?
When the dreamer wakes or dies,
will we loose it all?
DRIFTING TOWARD A DREAM
The dark behind my eyelids
contain flecks of lingering light
and swirls of gentle red,
like blood roses
in a mourner’s bouquet.
My funeral. Will anyone come?
Empty church and realized fears,
and I lie within a polished box,
as I had when youth was new,
before the shine begun to dull.
But even the sun becomes older
during it’s burial within the horizon,
emitting sparks upon the ocean.
If I could lie on the white sand beach,
would that finally be Heaven?
Or only a silk pillow
used to soften sleep.
If I were weightless as my thoughts,
not space nor time would exist.
No regret, or reason to dream
as night rains against windows.
Images and poetry float like water
around me as I drift
within a liquid slumber.
EMPHASIS IN ITALICS
Waving tree
of an autumn sunrise,
bare, bony fingers
attempting to tickle
the burning horizon.
Small nose with large nostrils
above subtly bent smile lines
and faint freckles
focused around leaf-colored eyes,
seasoned spring and fall.
One single insight
with simple words
what fall short,
written in a leap of faith
and an emphasis in italics;
Beauty
is in the awkward combination.
EVEN THE HANDS OF GOD
A gentle brush of fingertips,
upon the face or temple skin,
wipes away the daily sweat,
like the chalk from a dirty slate.
Worshipping the forgetting,
dancing to a pulsating pitch,
short and swe
et and forgiving
until the moment it fades.
But a quiver and a shake
and a temporary saint;
will do no more than blind
with a fleeting white light.
Here then gone and too far to reach,
the might is firm but the grasp is weak,
even the hands of a faulty god
cannot hold on to us for long.
FEED THE REAPER
She walked a ways to meet the reaper,
but wept a lake when he would not keep her.
She tried to
feed him gold,
feed him time,
and feed him souls,
yours and mine.
She cried a while then walked away,
but lived to cry and try another day.
She got to
keep her gold,
keep her time,
and we kept our souls,
yours and mine.
FLOATING ON CHAOTIC DELUSIONS
Inhaling mist
rising from the sea,
sailing toward bliss,
Elizabeth and me.
Strawberry blonde sunrise
spreads across the water
in ripples, low and high,
like the hair of my imaginary daughter.
Through the ocean
of liquid remorse,
we slipped on,
away from reality’s shore.
With sails filled
Obsession glides,
stern winds, strong willed,
and a ghost at my side.
Beyond a dome of clouds,
to an island I have built,
a safely hidden mound
of rock and sand, mistakes and guilt.
Home on a memory
with the little girl I lost,
sitting on the beach
watching waves toss and toss
and toss.
FORGIVE ME
Forgive me sensitive skin
as I speak callously of lust--
The urge to devour someone’s flesh,
simply to feel full,
turns lonely people
into irrational cannibals,
only aware of the meat
and not the aftertaste.
Betrayer of brothers;
enemy to oneself.
In the attempts to quench burning
with friction and gasoline,
people are driven to temporary insanity,
where all sensible thoughts evaporate.
But, oh, pleasure incomparable;
damn you sensitive skin,
I must feel others against me,
damn the consequences.
Forgive me beloved heart
as I rant against love and love-like--
To fall, to leap, to plunge,
to give a piece of my soul away,
are the cliques that will break
and make me unwhole.
I give myself,
I lose myself.
But, love is “wonderfully everlasting,”
like permanent dementia,
trapped in an opiate fantasy,
where the pain never registers,
until the withdrawal.
But, I need my morphine
to numb reality away,
a shot directly to the chest.
Forgive me brittle existence
for the lust and love I shatter you with,
again and again.
FROM WHAT COULD BE SEEN
From what could be seen,
smooth eyebrows,
like porcelain,
perfectly plucked and maintained,
held in the gentle middle,
aware of beauty but
not controlled by it,
between loosened hair,
like tumbling amber falling
toward shoulders,
choosing chest or back,
heart or spine to spill over,
to cover and harden,
and eyes full of ocean,
as deep and far,
filled beasties and
lovelies alike,
sailors and swimmers
enjoy and beware,
she is everything.
The rest below is hidden
behind computer screen
of the campus library,
lost in a void, yet
the not knowing gives possibility.
What lies beneath the eyes?
Like a blank page or
untouched stone,
she could potentially be
anyone and everyone
I imagine I need.
Isn’t that love?
FUSING BONE
Pulled together,
She and I,
twisted and bound
by the pressures of life,
in which we clenched each other,
until our bones fused,
skins meshed,
and the collective implosion took us.
Inseparable,
our bodies enfolded
into one,
a single meaty entity.
If death leaves behind only blood
for some cosmic collector,
She and I,
shall surely share a jar
HUNG(FROM CLOUD NINE)
Comfort leads
to the careless acts
which thread
my thick rope.
Dyed
in golden intent,
my noose
is beautiful.
Strung from
cloud nine,
I hung myself
with happiness.
I AM LIQUID
A raindrop dropping
from a gray-green sky.
A single, simple, insignificant
speck of wavering water
falling freely within the storm,
reflecting lightning light
and pulsing with thunderous thuds.
One among a downpour of bubbles
forced from a safe heaven
to an unknown underworld.
I am liquid
and fall
whenever the rain
returns.
I CLIMB
I will climb a mountain,
cause I know I can.
Gasp in the powdered clouds
and visit the baby blue sky
that hangs above life
and everything living it.
On the shoulder of this titan,
up the back of a king,
I will glance down,
from the corner of one eye,
to the life on the ground
and laugh at the ants,
living so small
and scattering at my feet.
Laughing to myself,
for I was once an ant,
and now I am among giants.
ICON
The saddest man ever to be
lives locked within a clear cube,
withdrawn into an emotional fast,
starving in front of the world.
Crowded around the glass box,
people pause then pass on by,
peering at the lonely spectacle
who bears his pain beaten face.
Becoming a symbol of a possibility,
this suffering image in a see-through coffin
is dying to benefit all onlookers;
he reminds them to live.
Alone among many
and an icon of selfless despair,
he mumbles to himself,
“I don’t believe anyone cares at all.”
FLOATING ON CHAOTIC DELUSIONS
Inhaling mist
rising from the sea,
sailing toward bliss,
Elizabeth and me.
Strawberry blonde sunrise
spreads across the water
in ripples, low and high,
like the hair of my imaginary daughter.
Through the ocean
of liquid remorse,
we slipped on,
away from reality’s shore.
With sails filled
Obsession glides,
stern winds, strong willed,
and a ghost at my side.
Beyond a dome of clouds,
to an island I have built,
a safely hidden mound
of rock and sand, mistakes and guilt.
Home on a memory
with the little girl I lost,
sitting on the beach
watching waves toss and toss
and toss.
INHALE THE SEA
In indulgence, I dove
into the bitter ocean,
plunging through
the shallowest chill
and deepest pressure,
each unique
in thrill.
Avoiding
the surface,
I welcomed a drowned fate.
Risk in liquid
or safety on land?
I inhaled the sea
and swam.
JINGLING KEYS
Jingling keys
dangling for her to grasp.
When fingers brush against
knuckles,
a subtle moment lingers.
Amazing. Seconds of touch,
pale skin,
and I am forever aware
of colors,
blended and borderless.
Right bleeds into wrong,
becoming the tint
of smoke,
and forbidden shades
turn lavender.