writers – Page 6 – 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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Snake

Thin, diamond-eyed weaver
Of rhythmic, pulsating speech
Spells spill from forked, cunning tongue

Whispering secrets that never fade
Of things that are only just out of reach,
Union, knowledge unknown to the young

Ruddy red splatter on the worn blade
Spirit piercing flesh and taking root
Dew sits lightly on the petals of a flower

Serpentine speaker, knower, deceiver,
Thief in waiting to purloin the loot
Beneath the cover of the witching hour

Author’s Note: Yesterday, I learned that someone passed away in my apartment building (presumably within a day or so of when I heard about it). I had never met them and they hadn’t been living here long at all. Their death was apparently not unexpected; I was told that they were in poor health before they ever arrived here.

The weird thing is, they lived in the apartment right below mine. But stranger still, I had occupied that apartment myself, up until just a few months ago. When my current unit became available, I took the opportunity to move because it’s quieter on the top floor. While I don’t think I ever met the tenant, it was a brisk reminder that death is never far away.

Death is right under your feet
But try to put it out of your mind
There are chores to do and
Demands to meet
So, try putting it out of your mind

Death is coming up behind you
It is wise to not make a stink of it
Since you cannot stop it, and
There’s nothing you can do,
It’s best to try and not think of it

There beside you, Death hovers
I suggest you pretend not to notice
It will pounce on nervousness,
Any weakness it discovers,
So, just casually appear not to notice

It may approach you from any angle
You are bold, but Death is much bolder
You can tell it’s there by the cold, stale air
That envelopes your throat to strangle
Death patiently perches on your shoulder

not exactly dire

it’s pressing, I will admit, yes
and it was needed yesterday
however, it can wait,
if you’re short on time

a kiss and formal gesture to bless,
to take all the pain away,
to set everything straight,
and smooth out the rhyme

no one is used to getting
all that they want,
and most certainly not
in this economy

tea leaves, crystals, and bloodletting
a beg and a ruthless taunt
the emperor’s still got
his priests and astronomy

but you and I, the commoner type,
left only with crumbs and the crumble
of entropy and its effect on us
if we wait for it to sort itself out

or loudly, we may boldly gripe
with a roar, or at least a rumble
and let them feel our fuss
and threaten to do more than pout

and then, that which we release,
it falls from memory, and at last,
we clear the debris, and the way
and walk into the here and now

with a little squeeze and some grease,
we can break free and hold fast
and hear everything we have to say,
about the where, the when, and how

A Ridiculous Thing

Don’t worry, you will love no part of it;
It’s certain to please, someone, somewhere

Possibly and definitely, maybe
No one who isn’t everyone, but is

Enter the theater of the absurd

And words… did I mention…
There is words; there are many word

A poem, a bit of a slight,
A sleight of hand, poetic
Stream-of-consciousness to commence
Leaning into the background
A handy little bit of conscience, handed
Down onto the foreground and landed
And not the slightest bit of it
Made any sense,
Not one single mode or section

Reason completely escaping detection
And hence,
Thoroughly not the throughout…
It’s good
And it’s okay if you realize that it isn’t
Okay to be good at detecting
That it is, but only when you know
That it might be

Peek behind the floor
There’s nothing under the door
And someone is beside the rug,
Shrugging at the sound of the wall
And laughing at all the empty windows

We might have just enough time
To do everything
With the rest of the nothing

No one needs an excuse to be a poem

A poem is an utterly meaningless,
Ridiculous thing,
And everyone has
Every bit as much right
To be one
As I do

Tag: writers