hurt – Page 3 – Kevin Trent Boswell

Stare

I’d thought I’d seen
A kindness in her eyes

Upon reflection,
It was never there

I had projected love onto her,
Through my arduous staring;
It was not love she felt, but mirth

The kind of infantile glee
That a child feels upon
Breaking another child’s toy

The hateful smile born of one
Incapable of caring
For anyone or anything

There is a type of impish delight
That a recidivistic child will not surrender,
Even upon the pain of death

A wanton emotional sadism
Is the closest thing
That a void can ever hope to call
Fulfillment

Some spirits are only vacant motel rooms,
Unable to accept any guests,
Because they are filled to capacity
With fear

Staring incredulously at
Love’s credit card, and
Insisting upon fifth and sixth
Forms of identification

The only entertainment they enjoy
Is the sneering, bitter amusement
Of watching others
Fall upon their swords

For a vampire,
Every calorie is an empty calorie

Every kill is
Nothing but a sour reminder
Of the eternal need
For more killing

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell

Sweat

To strive with the burden
Of what the next hours might bring

To have wrestled daily
With the fear of losing life

To be saddled with the dread
That there may be
Some indeterminate sentence
Of interminable, inescapable life
That one is somehow
Condemned to endure

To flounder helplessly
In the drowning pool
That sits between
These two feverish fits of delirium

To have drunk the madman’s wine,
That laced broth which inspires
And conjures those horrid devils
Known as fear, hope,
And love

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storage space

it does not require
very much square footage
to store melancholy

it fits neatly
inside of an eye

discouragement will
fit perfectly
in the bottom
of one shoe,
ennui in the other,

and you’ll still have
wiggle room
for your toes,

as you walk around
no place special,
all by yourself

loneliness doesn’t
take up much space

it fits easily
into a single
empty hand

stain

In loving memory of Jevon Ward

he was speaking vodka,
a language that I understood
all-too-well

as I sat on the edge of his bed,
I handed him the joint
that I had just finished
carefully rolling

he lit it, and taking a small toke,
became suddenly
and uncharacteristically
serious

“You do know that I’m not life, right?”

it must have been obvious
that I had no clue
how to answer that,
so he continued,

“When I was just a little boy,
“your grandpa (and mine) told me,
“he said,

‘Son, you’ll pull time before you hit twenty.’

“At nineteen, I did six months.”

before he could say another word,
drunk people spilled into the room
and the party took over

it was as if the writer
of this dark comedy of errors
had carefully placed
the interruption into the script
for dramatic effect

years later,
I stood in the yard
with my father
one morning

we burned a mattress
in the yard

a mattress with
a peculiar red stain
on the top end of it,
right about where a man
would lay his head down
to sleep

smoke climbed high,
snaking its way through
the bare tree branches,
coating the limbs,
blackening the sun,
giving twisted new meaning
to the wind

with each searing crackle,
each hot little iron
that launched out of the flames,
the notion was solidified
that you would never be
with us again

the red stain
is forever removed,
taken off and away
from the bad blend of cotton
and synthetic fiber

its ugly lack of aesthetic,
permanently removed
from the eye

we have, instead,
embroidered you
into our hearts,
in gold-letter
on satin

a little redirection,
a simple trick
of the firelight
and the mind

a touch of
pre-approved manipulation,
vocabulary and memory,
now twisted
to suit ourselves
with semblances
of sanity

and you, all dressed up,
looking dapper
in a new suit

something to
bring you over
the threshold
in style

we have gathered
many flowers

you were one of them

now, on this rainy Saturday,
we gather more,
but none of them are as rare
or as interesting as you

still, we do so wish
that you were not so

still

now, we are all
so much more careful
with our words

we never had to
monitor our tongues before

we always counted on you
to say something
deliciously profane,
hysterical, sublime

you said things far more terrible
than we could ever manage
(or dare) to bring forth
from our fearful mouths

you said it all for us,
you, being our favorite devil,
you spared no words,
knowing full well that your time
was short

now, everything is
serious and sullen

ash settles on us,
stealing the still-warm
seat of smiles

we do our best
to preserve the integrity
of your memory

with all our words,
so clumsily polite and wrong

yours were so horribly accurate

your list of faults could fill volumes

all of these,
now consumed by fire
and forgetfulness

we will not miss them

we are, in fact, glad
to be free of these;
free from the weight
of your awful acuity

your spiteful condemnation
of this earth was always felt
hot upon our necks

even your parting words of
“Fuck this world!”
were a vicious pronouncement
of a pox on all our houses

that seething sentiment,
ever-present,
laced into the mix
of the cocktail that was you;
virtually indistinguishable
from the indiscriminate joy
of your cosmic jester voice
pouring out over our
wanting brains

we will not miss the
chaos of your actions,
or your allegiance to
an autocratic indifference

we only miss

everything else

but beneath all of the
intolerable heavy,

knowing of nothing else to do…

we dutifully
lift our eyes
to the coming days
where you
are not

Heavy

I see the length of rope that hangs you
I know how you are trapped from within
There’s nothing for you that I can do
Don’t expect you’ll come down again

The invisible shackle on your leg
I feel its ponderous weight, as well
The lock and key don’t belong to me
And neither does your hell

There is no gag to mute your voice
You chose to choose, to beg, to ask
When asked about your final choice
The words could not escape the mask

The floor is yours; of me, no trace
Stepping away, discharging a sigh
One heavy heart, one double-face
For someone other than I

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell.jpg — The Music, Poetry, and Madness of Kevin Trent Boswell

Not Long for This World by Kevin Trent Boswell — — Most recent book release, available on Amazon —

Magus72 on Patreon - the music, poetry, and madness of Kevin Trent Boswell — Magus72 on Patreon – the music, poetry, and madness of Kevin Trent Boswell

a poem unworthy of a name

emptiness strode in
and took the place of fullness

redirection and symbolism
flailed like untrained children,
beating each other with
soft, half-balled-up fists;
fists that were incapable
of accurate aim

there was little violence, many tears

still, it was less comical
and more sad

the end result of
all of this
is nothing more than
emptiness

I am not there,
nor are you,
nor is anything,
nor is anyone else

it is all full
of nothingness
now

and anyone who
can look at this mess
and say that there’s anything
good about it

that’s someone who needs
to have all their teeth
knocked out of their mouth

now
it is all full
of nothingness