Insufficient Canvases (I'll be ay-okay)

[More fun with form and content, and more day dreaming about uncertainties. Enjoy!]

And there are some things I can’t say aloud, to you, that
I can confess to a crowd, I do, not
Really understand, why I prioritize so upside down
Either go on your way or come back
I’ll be ok either way

I’ve been living every year at a day by day pace
Turning every corner, expecting to see your face on
Every stranger, starring as they pass by
Two years ago, you left, sunspots on my eyes

They say I have to move on…

But I will not settle for less
I won’t let anything get in my way
My cannon’s armed and ready
I cannot lower my aim
I’ll be ay-ok.

Anything I say becomes
Rock like and stone and I might just regret sharing
Everything, they are little words and phrases
these little sounds I make,
Elocution flaws
Loose around my mouth,
They can’t explain all you are.

A painter that wants the sea recreated, on
Insufficient canvases
Every stroke misplaced
Like sugar free, so slight yet
Like prosthetic legs - not enough, undone,
like this song.

And I will not settle for less
I won’t let anyone get in my way
My cannon’s armed and ready
I cannot lower my aim.

I shoot for the moon to land among the stars
The distance sometimes feels that far
Either way, I’ll be ay-ok.

#18 (Eighteen)

[Poem about both the age and the sonnet - I'll give a million cool points to who can specifically recognize the inspiration of this piece. DISCLAIMER: Cool points cannot be redeemed for cash, only compliments. - Theo.]




18.


Eighteen months later, I’m still at this desk,
Tallying the days since June Twenty-fifth.
I’m next to the phone, incase you should call.
Should you write, I moved it near the mail box.


I just sit and I stare… I double-take where,
I see familiar strangers with sun in their hair.


Eighteen months, over a year of my life.
Five hundred twenty days to be precise.
I’ve filled book aft’r book, this entire time.
I’ll run out of page ‘fore I keep you mine.


This case is hopeless, Yes, but regardless
The dream mixed with the memory
Producing endless poetry
Surpassing the beauty of reality


So you are heartless, Yes, so I know this
Slither, shadowed by gallant fantasy
Facts dissolve in attractive mystery
They live longer then us, in infamy.


Once… I write it right, I write.
“It will once… I write it right.”


When you leave your things, you leave an excuse,
To converse, return, what we’ve been reduced.
Words cannot tell how or what is true of:
When beauty lived and died as flowers do, love.


Someday, somehow, a letter will summarize
Immortalize passion that never dies.
I’m too much of a perfectionist
When its done I swear you’ll get it


But not this letter
I can do better.


The dream mixed with the memory
Producing endless poetry
Surpassing the beauty of reality
Facts dissolve in attractive mystery
Someday, somehow, a letter will summarize
Immortalize passion that never dies.


Once… I write it right, I write.
“It will once… I write it right.”



Oh, Eighteen

Months, your sunny blonde turned white.
Slither, Shadow, Six feet below sun’s light.


The dreams I had will eternally thrive
In publication of my written mind.


Once… I write it right, I write.
“It will once… I write it right.”

(Temporary Title)

(Here's another piece, returning back to my usual form and rhyme tendencies. This is also one that sounds better performed then just read, so keep that in mind. If you pay attention to the meter, and the amount of syllables in each line, you'll see what I'm talking about. The form has as much to do with the meaning as the content does. Or, you could just read it, and not count. Which ever. Who am I to tell you what to do? :) - Theo]


Love,
It’s… Strange.
Love?
We’ve changed.

Slowly
But surely
Things are
Coming to me
Learning
And Hurting
Starting
Understanding


It’s moments like these
When I’m not asleep
But lying in bed
Toss-turning my head
In two directions
Making no decisions
I’m learning my lessons
But handed graded quizzes

And “sorry”
It just might be
Just short of
Of explaining
How I feel
Bout how you’ll feel
For this New Deal
As it is revealed

But you have no choice
But to raise your voice
This time you can’t stop me
And I won’t give up lightly

It’s because
I lost to you
Far too many times
And now you have lost me
And I’m finally all mine

Words will never explain
How these tragedies build up
On to such a great dream
So it can never live up
To its fullest potential
The decay is exponential
And once it finally dies
Then, Then I will no longer cry

Oh, Forever, The ship has been sinking
And trust me, believe me, I have been bailing
The water rushes in faster then my pail fills up
Not necessarily quitting but a necessary give up
Surrender, Surrender, to heavy problems that pile, pile up
Then you will see there are more fish in the sea once you get in and you swim
Its time to dive in, no more wading, no more waiting, no more toe testing in
It’s over.

I love you, I love you.
And while Our lives end
Now, here my life
And your life
Begin,
Friend


[P.S. Anyone with title suggestions? It'd be much appreciated! -Theo]

Malori (raw piece)

[And now you can see a poem as it grows. This is word for word what I scribbled on a napkin after running into an old friend - and I use this term loosely. More like a very close acquaintance, someone I became very close with at a school retreat, hung out a few times, lost touch, and she hasn't given me the time of day since. Until the other day, when I saw her. Strangely awkward encounter and sudden reminder of a love that I had that never grew. I found the napkin and decided to share this infant of a piece, that is, if it ever grows to become a piece, much unlike the subject itself, which never became anything. Raw, untouched, undeveloped, and overexposing how I speak my mind. Hope you enjoy. Theo]


Malori
She has two colored eyes
the left different from the right
ones blue ones green
not a shade in between
but if the two combined
they'd color the Atlantic skyline
they're deep but they're light
illuminating and bright
her eyes leave sunspots on mine
i don't know what the rest of her looks like
because whenever
the pair
is there
i swear
i stare
and fall in.

Whether Accident or Intentional

[My first sonnet! I think you can call it that. My english professor always says writing free formed poems is like painting abstract - it doesn't mean you're a good artist, but it doesn't make you a bad one. Plenty of people say, "oh, I don't do realism, I paint abstract" when the truth is, they just can't. If you can paint the hard way, or write in a traditional form, you'll have a better knack for easy going open verse forms, and you'll actually be doing something when you paint abstract! What do you think? -Theo]


WHETHER ACCIDENT OR INTENTIONAL

What do you do when you wound animals?
Whether accident or intentional.
Do you bring to it a swifter short end?
Or wait and let it walk until its dead?
How can you put it out of misery?
Do you know its capacity to survive?
Since miracles happen so constantly
Yet it’d be sin to let the ‘thing’ just die.
You have in one way, or several others,
Ruined our chance of being together.
Will we walk down aisles until we die?
Or will I quit, Bringing a swift quick end?
Whether Accident or Intentional
We are two wounded animals.

The Spark

[Happy Valentine's day all! Here's one to coincedental/accidental first kisses, minus the hassle of the trouble it can cause! You can read plenty of those poems later. This piece is pure electricity! Hope you enjoy, Theo.]

A fire in my belly
Back drafting out of my eyes
My nose, my mouth, and my hands
Flames leaping out of my pores
And jumping into yours.

Your big brown eyes
Like two big black holes
They have gravities of their own.

Their pulling me in,
imploding in themselves,
Making me disappear,
Blending me into one.


Like metal to a magnet,
We accelerate towards each other.
Closer, faster, and connect.

We catch each other with such finesse
Like a puzzle, it was just meant.
Fate, in a way. Just-
Like two cars clip in an accident.

A spark of static leaps across.
Your lips tingle against mine.
Your arms tangle around me.

We’ve created something, big.
It could be a life, it could be a mess.
Its getting hot standing here
So close to you in the freezing cold.
Is it just me?

Like a spot light from the heavens,
Shining down upon us,
There’s a chemistry between us,
Besides the chemical in our blood.

I pull away, then I return,
as the tension insists.

For a moment I’m surrounded
By an eerie calm of distraction,
an ignorant bliss.

These problems, their symptoms,
No longer persist.
You are a friend, a medicine,
A finely combined mix.

I’m left stunned and speechless
Shot by a dart to the heart
And I didn’t even see it coming.
But I feel as if I could've.

This fire in me,
This fire I have,
It roars loudly and burns quickly,
From one heart to the next to the next.

I'm trying to find the right extinguisher
That will cool it to just a low steam
Slowly emitting a pot of hot water
Ready for a tea.

This fire burns bridges,
But it needs you.
I need you.

You are more then just a convenience
You are much more then just a route.
There’s a reason I stop to speak to you
And I don’t just pass on my commute.

I don’t want to play darts at hearts again,
I tend to miss the mark.
But I cant deny this science
I cannot argue with the spark.

The Spark
copyrighted 2009 by Theo Martin

Imagine (How It Could Happen)

I call you at work and say
Don’t worry I’ll make it quick
You say you’ve got a minute
That’s when I pop the question

This is one of those situations
That I have imagined
Over and over again
In my head, in my head.

It’s a known fact that everyone
Goes to Yankee Stadium
Say what’s that on the screen?
Oh look it’s you and me
It’s a little cliché, I’d say.

So to avoid being a total tool
I take you to see Regina at McCarren Pool
And as the rain falls down
I get jewelry out as you turn around

I hope I’m not being too pretentious, Hoping you’ll say yes
But to be fairly modest, you have a choice I guess
But I’m a believer in fate, and an optimist
Some things are just to great to be coincidence

I’m too wired to sleep, you get ready for bed
You ask if I had something to say, I look like you have three heads
You say, “Oh, I must be imagining things”
Tonight is not the night, I put away your ring.

I’m a believer in fate, and an optimist
Some things are just to great to be coincidence.
I’m a believer in fate, and an optimist
Some things are just to great to be coincidence.

Imagine (How It Could Happen) by Theo Martin

I live in NYC

My scene is where
There's cats in the record store
Chasing lint all over the place
Flicking tails at the consumer
Blowed smoke in their face
I'm where the strong become the meek
Cars stop for jaywalkers in the street
The elephant eats
Out of the underdogs hand
And as long as you have a empty hat
Then you dont need a band
Just loiter
Street corners
Sing some R&B
where the spectrum
Forms a circle
Thats where you'll find me
I sleep in the aisle
and live where the Opposites meet

The Falling Man (Fake It 'til We Make It)

You’re so fucking young
This isn’t even going to affect you
Except it’s going to scar you for life
But otherwise it doesn’t matter

I am one of your many strings to pull
And you are one of the few of my iron shackles
That chain me to this fucking town
Like a collared dog staked to the ground

You make me feel like the falling man
Do or don't, Stay or go, I'm damned
I’m getting out of this burning building
And jumping out the window
Because I want the fresh air in falling
And to see how far my luck goes

There is no sense in standing in the flames
The lights are bright, but they’ll never be mine
There is no point in fighting for my fame
The lights are bright, but they’ll never be mine
Not when you’re around.
No, not when you’re around.

My words are a shot in the arm
You think they’d hurt so much worse
You’ll wince and cringe, As if they did
But it’s a pain that’s well rehearsed
I know this act isn’t your first.

My words are a shot in the arm
But you’re surrounded by doctors and nurses
Waiting on you, on hand and foot
With tissues for your dry eyes


You know what? Fuck it.

Maybe it’s the people in this room but
the future’s pretty hazy from here, but I
Know that we use to have something That I
could hold on to tightly when I
Felt like I was falling in to the raging rivers
That would drag me through life
as if I was everyone else

I felt like I was falling in to the raging rivers
That would drag me through life
as if I was everyone else

Not to long ago
I knew
you were that the log
that I caught
To keep my head above water

I feel like I’m drowning now
But it all must be
All for the better
Because looking back
At what I looked forward to
The future has a lot
To do with you.

So I’m gonna fake it til I make it
If I don’t see my name in lights
I’ll trace it in the stars tonight
Lets fake it until we make it
If the words don’t feel just right
I’ll let the pen just write, Just write

There is no sense in standing in the flames
The lights are bright, but they’ll never be mine
There is no point in fighting for my fame
I’ll trace my name in the stars tonight

Maybe all we need is a little
Confidence
To change our luck
To get us there
To get us home

Maybe all we need is a little
Shove
To change our luck
To get us there
To get us
Home.

The Falling Man (Fake It 'til We Make It)
copyrighted 2009 by Theo Martin

Troilus and Cressida

You have it all
The green eyes, the smile
You have it all
The courage, the style
You have it all
From your laugh to your jokes
From your goals to your hopes
Like finding something long lost
That I forgot to look for
I feel like I’ll never look for anything again

Everyone’s looking into the spotlight
We’re hiding backstage in the folds
All of this, no one knows this story
At least it never was well told
But with a beauty like that
In a situation like this
We could try to explain forever
But we’d never do it justice

You have it all
The green light, the floor
You have it all
From the bed to the door
You have it all
From my head to my toes
From my joys to my woes
Like finding something long lost
That you forgot to look for
I feel like I’ll never look for anything again

I’m yours, You have it all
And its just beginning
Because
You, You’re something else.
You’re something else. Something else.

Everyone’s running for the battlefields
You’re pull me by the hand to the shore
We lie in the beach grass just smiling
We almost forget about the war

Have you ever looked at something
Or someone Or nothing
And wished you had a camera
So you could record everything,
the entire moment that’s fleeting

Can you catch five senses in panorama?
Because I’m sitting here looking at the sky
And I can’t help but think about life
When everyone here will eventually die
Love seems like its reckless to try

But you
You have it all
All I’ve wanted, I’ve needed
You have it all
Everything I have, I will give it
You have it all
Everything that I call myself
Because
You, You’re something else.
You’re something else. Something else.

Hey,
Looking all around but when our eyes meet
Can you feel the burning? We’re creating heat
Keep moving closer in time with the beat
I’m giving it all and its all yours for keeps

But You have it all
All I’ve wanted, I’ve needed
You have it all
Everything I have, I will give it
You have it all
Everything that I call myself
Because
You, You’re something else.

You’re something else.
Looking all around but when our eyes mee
You’re something. Something else.
Keep moving closer in time with the beat
You’re something else.
Everyone’s looking into the spotlight
You’re something. Something else.
All of this, no one knows this story
You’re something else.


Troilus and Cressida
copyrighted 2009 by Theo Martin