When you hand them a key
then send them blindly down a hallway.
They try opening every door
and knock on the ones that won't open.
This is what you were hoping for:
The echoes of their handfalls
resonant off the whitewashed walls
while you dance to the rhythm in a room they'll never notice.

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

Why do we feign such rapturous delight,
in pretence to others that all is alright,
what if the soul is quietly suppressed,
cloaked in darkness, hidden and repressed,

Are we ashamed to drape the veil,
to retreat into darkness and embrace the pale,
truth can be found from deep in a frown,
so why wear the clothes and tears of a clown.

© H V Swan

1158

Best Witchcraft is Geometry
To the magician’s mind—
His ordinary acts are feats
To thinking of mankind.

Dear Shane,

I do not worship celebrities.
I see them as humans doing their craft
and it might seem daft
but I have to sometimes remind myself your a human.
That your just like me. That you
put your pants on one leg a time.
When I first met you, Shane,
I didn't say much.
I made a fool of myself really,
What I said was "You're awesome."
What I wanted to say was "You saved my life."
I have no sob stories to offer,
I've lived through plenty
but this isn't about me.
You killed monotony.
You put my fears to rest
with a glass of milk and a bedtime story.
You made everything seem doable.
You practically sweat tragedy,
with the life you've had.
But you remind me to take the time
to take the time.
You are the message in the bottle
to a man shipwrecked.
If I am a castle, then you are my architect.
You're just a man,
but the hubris of believing that it only takes a man
to turn speaking into an art form,
has to be part of some god's plan.

You got me into this hobby,
mostly because I enjoy it
but also because you make art with such ease.
You can make words resemble a breeze
and then a squall in the same moment.
Even if that was all,
you'd still be above amazing.
"If I knew you better than I know,
I'd know that fast isn't the way to go,
so how about this?"
When I do my own poetry,
I have to separate it from yours
because your words are closer to my heart
Than my own.
People tell me I remind them of you.
I've never been more gracious of a compliment.
I've spent so long trying to sing a swan song
worth anything more than anything at all,
just so I could try to hold a candle
to the wall upon which your name is written
in the hall of the greatest poets.

I could speak forever at this rate,
but I'll close with this.
You have changed me
infinitely for the better.
If you ever get this letter,
I don't expect you to read it right away.
I just want you to have it,
so my words will be with you
as yours have been with me.