- sometimes
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- sometimes i feel so cold
- in this den of separation
- my only company
- a billion voices
- asking why
- because life is a lapse of luxury
- because worlds coincide
- because women are freer than men
- because they know they're not
- because labels are cages that trap
- the soul until it rots
- because the thousand words
- tattooed on my identity
- by an increasingly-distant other
- are not my name
- because those that claim
- those same names
- don't recognize me as such
- because freedom is only realized
- by those who've never heard the word.
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- ©1997dec19 Kyle Hawke
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- contents
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- i do not dream
- i nightmare
- i storm tears of white ice
- and watch their descent
- as they prism and refract
- all available light
- reducing everything
- to component parts
- i do not sing
- i scream
- an amplified whisper of loss
- of terror and despair
- and listen to the echoes
- and the resonance
- allowing the silence
- that much more clarity
- i do not see
- i remember
- shattering cordite visual lies
- that sting and tear with claws
- and carve onto my retinae
- another yearned-for yesterday
- that obscures the mist
- congealing into tomorrow
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- 1995feb26 ©Kyle Hawke
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- contents
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- cigarette on the ground
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- there's a cigarette on the ground
- as deep in this groove on the sidewalk
- as i am
- and i've been thinking five minutes about
- picking it up
- but that would be
- like letting everything stale and dirty
- back into my life
- it would be like coming back
- to those bits and pieces
- those shattered fragments
- of remaindered dreams
- it would be like coming back to you
- are these my alternatives–
- to stand here and cross-reference my obsessions?
- or to fall backwards into self-deception?
- i dismiss that out of sense and necessity
- i can't believe i'm not stronger than that
- i walk on
- but my mind is circling a cigarette
- moving in for the kill
- dancing through possibilities
- over chasms of reason
- writing answers into addiction
- and familiar comforts
- i find myself returning
- the routes we choose, choosing us
- each weakness a detour sign
- and it's still there
- this time, i try and avoid stopping
- wondering if it'll stop the avoiding
- knowing that a second simple surrender
- will turn the intangible inevitable
- there's a cigarette on the ground
- as deep in this groove on the sidewalk
- as i am
- and i've forgotten which corner i left it at.
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- ©1994mar26 & everytime i quit smoking Kyle Hawke
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contents -
- death, i will not succumb
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- death, i will not succumb
- though i welcome your embrace
- your constant threat of
- separating me from the beauty
- that lies potential in tomorrow
- gives it the savour i will enjoy
- when it arrives
- death, i will not succumb
- i will marvel at your every caress
- that shallow kiss which
- allows me to separate that which matters
- from all the fallow that does not
- passing along responsibility
- so i can glory in completion
- death, i will not succumb
- i will hold you tenderly
- taking care not to abuse the love
- shown by your presence
- taking care not to take for granted
- each gift which you empower me
- to experience and enjoy
- death, i will succumb
- but oh, i will make you wait
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- ©1993may20 Kyle Hawke
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- contents
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You can visit Kyle Hawke's website,
synapsis.
Poetry from Pete Schweitzer, John-Ward
Leighton,
and Laila Biergans are also on the
site.