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    Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012
    Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012
    Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012
    Ebook292 pages1 hour

    Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012

    By James Welsh

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    About this ebook

    A collection of all of James Welsh's poems from 2008 to 2012.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Welsh
    Release dateJan 17, 2015
    ISBN9781310428579
    Runaway Odysseus: Collected Poems 2008-2012
    Author

    James Welsh

    James Welsh is a writer who was born downwind of a chemical plant in Delaware. His poetry has been published in roughly a dozen literary magazines, including New Plains Review and Grasslimb. He can be reached by email if you have any questions or comments about his work: jaygee1988@hotmail.com

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      Book preview

      Runaway Odysseus - James Welsh

      Runaway Odysseus:

      Collected Poems, 2008-2012

      James Welsh

      Copyright 2015 by James Welsh

      Published at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Other Titles by James Welsh

      Pale Eyes, Fantasy

      Those Years Without, Historical Fiction

      Through the Woods of Babel, Historical Fiction

      Tidal Swans, Romance

      Where the Sugarcane Tastes Like Dirt, Adventure

      Whiskey Romeo, Science-Fiction

      Dedicated to the speech therapist who showed me that you can’t stutter when you write.

      Individual Poems Published

      Benediction for the Outside

      New Plains Review (Fall 2011)

      Calypso for Excuses

      The Stray Branch (Spring/Summer 2013)

      Colors (An Old Man to His Wife)

      flashquake (Summer 2010)

      Ghosts in Subway Windows

      See Spot Run (February 2012)

      how a speed bump destroyed the world

      Caesura 29(2008- 2009)

      I Am My Muse’s Right Hand

      Grasslimb 8(2)

      Penelope's Lament

      The Centrifugal Eye (April 2011)

      Tricycle Worlds

      Kaleidoscope (July 2011)

      Where Fireflies End, and Lightning Begins

      Mused (2011)

      6 AM

      Silhouettes ripple in the webbed

      mirror, against the ashgrey

      sunshine leaking through the

      window blinds.

      It’s all a losing hand

      tossing the dice.

      My fingers are limp, but

      I can feel the scars roadmapped

      across these anemic arms.

      Atlas has finally molded

      the globe he could never shrug off.

      Last night’s dreams glint

      brokentoothed in my eyes –

      flash like fool’s gold – flames

      flickering, starving, wanting

      to come in from the cold.

      But it’s too early for stories –

      it’s always too early for fables.

      Besides, I folded up my biography

      months ago, tired of reading

      into my past like future.

      I’m too quiet, afraid of rubbing

      my past awake. I suddenly

      feel that ridiculous urge to crackle

      the glass in the mirror even more –

      the crimson neons the first

      coffee spoon that ladles out the afternoon.

      November 16, 2010

      A Century on the Mind

      Have you already forgotten you

      are the immigrant's son?

      Have you already forgotten you

      are the immigrant's daughter?

      I guess a century’s long enough

      to sift the dollar from the barter,

      the begging from the supermarkets,

      the starving from the artist.

      Yes, centuries are long and memories

      are the kids too short for the

      carnival rides – but they’re

      not that short that you would

      forget you’re still the immigrants’

      daughters and sons.

      A Death of Cranes

      If I could melt the mathematics

      off my odometer with a lighter, I would.

      But that would mean crawling

      backwards to the beginnings of

      my world, and why?

      Just to watch this walnut of cancer

      perched on the cliff of my lungs

      shrivel down into a seed

      instead of hatching like a popped balloon,

      and an essay of bad words flapping

      out of the nets of my mouth?

      It’s too hard to be born again –

      the birdwatcher says

      it’s much easier to die instead.

      August 17, 2012

      A Goodbye Wave to a Hello Face

      I do not know when the sun will rise,

      will rise again, the night is dark,

      a blackjack of spades spades

      quick through the thick

      dirt that curves and works

      its way, lost, around my veins.

      I do not know, I do not know

      where the crow crows, but

      I do know why – it has

      cried too many times before

      for a bluebird lover that

      loves him nevermore.

      Two deer gather at the

      lake where the red clay

      rises in groans like

      worms at the gardener’s

      hands. Two deer gathered,

      not knowing why nor how

      nor even when in the dark,

      uncharted waters

      sloshing at the trees –

      none of those seem to

      matter to two

      lovers like these.

      I do not know when

      the sun will rise, will rise again

      but until then, I intend to rinse

      my face with the thin

      harvest moon’s rays

      that stray down into

      this forgotten place.

      A hallowed eve in

      a hollowed-out place.

      Well, at least none of that

      is your goodbye wave

      to my hello face.

      A Moment’s Thought

      "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!"

      –Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener

      "For to articulate sweet sounds together

      Is to work harder than all these, and yet

      Be thought an idler by the noisy set…"

      -Yeats, Adam’s Curse

      The pinprick of this pencil opens

      up my veins like a smile,

      smearing the lambwhite

      paper red like a lamb’s sacrifice.

      My blood is already dry,

      though, before it even splashes,

      the drops black and crackled,

      like midnight painted the house earlier

      and now it’s morning, finally.

      Still, I write on,

      and I write more –

      There’s the first bike standing upright, without a rider as a kickstand.

      There’s the first tuxedo, filled out brimming like a balloon.

      There’s the first book, pages turning, the wind literate and interested.

      Perhaps it’s too easy to write off my

      poetry as a ghost’s literature, even

      if the page is inky and rubs off

      on your palm – a page that’s

      a sponge of some writer’s blood.

      October 13, 2011

      A Poor Man’s She

      You’re a poor man’s she,

      rising from the trash

      drumming with tin cans

      and crinkling in brown bags –

      barely enough to warm a shaking

      man drinking his whisky,

      rubbing the bottle like a branch

      to start wildfire in his hands –

      Prometheus I am – yet still,

      summer days leave him

      to cold winter

      nights.

      The old life lingers deep

      in his eyes. The rich man’s she,

      the flickers of once-thick mattress

      memories dancing in

      circles – wearing their

      best watches and purples – all

      those waltzing tides, how they

      wear feet like shoes (a laugh,

      a smile digging up like a sole).

      She was a rich man’s she,

      the glee of a white wine’s

      taste chasing away the names,

      the faces, the days we all

      want to forget.

      Please come back

      and have a drink with me.

      A Time Capsule for Yourself

      Sad man –

      you’ve gone white in the cheeks –

      Man on the Moon –

      It looks like death

      is beating its breast now,

      worshipping

      its frantic power (yet,

      even with such ambitions,

      the wind is the only

      thing that speaks

      death’s language).

      You say you read tea leaves

      easy enough, yet still you cannot

      sleep, eat chocolate, play music or

      urge gorgeous love to crush

      the air out of your lungs.

      Tell me why you’re sober

      on living – the drink

      has turned to water

      in your palms, water

      which you drink,

      then swim in,

      then sleep in and

      drown, the sound

      of smooth bubbles

      lurching – then bursting –

      too much for you to

      handle.

      The water’s gone now though –

      now dance a thousand

      flames on one waning

      wax candle. The

      weak purples that sag under

      the storms of red and orange –

      they’ve become the

      whisper of grain breathing

      in deep like a diamond

      beneath the weight

      of the summer sun –

      no need to breathe out.

      But even when juice runs,

      your tongue still

      feels numb to the touch.

      Even when roses rust

      the dry, iron fields,

      for some odd reason

      you can only smell blue.

      I know you watch time,

      waiting down the alarm

      ringing, the sting of the

      beeping waking you up

      from your sleep, your

      sleep of crude, mean

      dreams free of the

      she’s, the we’s (though

      watching your watch

      does boil the moment

      into an enormous

      eternity dancing

      with itself, though

      the band’s given up

      and left hours ago).

      But though I’ve been

      writing years until my fingers

      ached, rain-chanting

      just a single drop

      lost by a clumsy sky

      full of bitter winters

      and lazy shadows drifting by,

      I’ve been dreaming the rough shape

      of my goddess from clay –

      still polishing the shine

      in her evening gown –

      I know a kiss on her lips

      would stick like honey

      and I know this will

      happen soon, while all

      you have left of love is

      an old picture, the canvas

      gray as the moon.

      A Tumble and a Bluebird

      Obscure is not a virtue.

      It is the prelude to something greater –

      my dancing blind on

      the edge in the

      hopes I fall down

      so that as I

      tumble around,

      I can

      spread my arms

      like butter on

      your morning

      bread.

      I grow feathers from the hairs on my

      arms, I fly. Like leaves would, I imagine.

      And until I hit the ground –

      harder than a tired face

      into a pillow – I’m both a tumble

      and a bluebird, no obscure

      tucked away forgotten in the

      forest.

      ABCs for Poetry

      All Baudelaires carefully diary

      everlasting freedom, grief,

      hurt in joking, kangaroo language –

      many need orthodox poetry

      (quandary? rightfully so)

      to understand vacant worlds,

      xylophoning, yearning, & zodiacs.

      Act Two

      The cottage by the beach still stands inside

      my mind, though, filled with giggles, laughter – all

      of that still echoes (echoes) like the wind

      that rattles a stick along the fence that guards

      Old Wilson’s Cliffs, the cliffs a mile past

      the cottage that my father built. But all

      I see

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