Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Swell

I caught myself
falling
face first with eyes closed…
and it felt like dissappointment when
I managed to regain consciousness,
regain balance, retain my teeth;
I wonder were it better if
I’d dashed my face into the corner,
breaking something, or many things,
so that I may be permitted to stay home awhile
to recover from the falls that neither
bleed, nor bruise, nor swell.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Valiant

The flow between the swift and high,
in slips, and steps, and slides, together,
make this a feast for those who yearn
to taste the thumping force they weather;
dancing through the dash of storms,
wherein the thrawls of crimson valor,
name themselves as Kings, as Queens,
as Gods to those who tap and stagger.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Unpause

Today was made for sweaters and tea,
hunkering down in glass conservatories,
listening to music, and rain on the glass,
and tomato soup for lunch.

The world at pause,
I fill my pen with ink.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Outgrew

Imagine it.
And imagine then that’s all you had;
a slither of reality –
no. Ideality. –
existing only inbetween
material connections,
like sequencing the static,
making messages of snowstorms,
reading not between the lines
but all the edges of your letters,
drawn out to both confess and hide
and seek and lie and whisper
halve truths, whole truths,
broken thoughts and details,
alluding to a truer you
that once you knew;
at once, outgrew.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Give

Give over to the soul who tolls,
and steals you from the sandy tower,
rings hard and true on every hour,
demanding that you give again.

Give everything you had reserved
for dire needs and empty shelves,
and spill it bare upon the floor,
to be adored, to long for more.

Give in and let it drag you far
and low beneath the peak and crest.
Come rest where memories bury deep,
where waters take and give you sleep.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Just so

Is it any wonder how
the lesser now at best allows
a sense so dense that sheets feel tense,
and heavy on the belly of the everyday disguise
that rumbles with a hunger, and sends tumbling his eyes,
lolled about and rolled throughout the wetness of his mind,
a blind grind, spit n’ shined disgusting kind of kind
that doesn’t know it’s mocking as it’s fucking from behind;
it’s as designed, it’s as designed,
the better the devil you know,
lest find yourself accomplishing transcendence from ‘just so’.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Holes

The trick is to have just enough
to rouse the raw, and rest the rough,
and hold, and hold, and keep it fed,
lest wake the rested, festered dread
that bends the heavy bottom shelf –
it waits for me to less my health –
and not but fifty feet from here,
the train blares high (and low) in fear
of lost, of poor, of tired souls
who head, who sink, who long for
holes.

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Poetry Adam McMillan Poetry Adam McMillan

Reset

Sometimes we find ourselves encumbered,
sooty with our tribulations,
heavy with our trials,
loomed over by mountains,
and tripped up by molehills;
our hands and knees are grazed and stained,
our faces flecked with dirt…

So burn it all!
Tear off your clothes,
and throw them into fiery pits.
Come roar with me
in flame,
and shame
the hurricane, by comparison.
We’ll blow and torch it from our skin.
We’ll watch it sizzle,
and scorch,
and spin…

At last.
Not a sound but beating hearts.
Not a tree or blade of grass
surrounds-
just us.
Just…
now.
Just blackened earth, and ashy sheets.
Just glowing coals, where once were eyes.
Just red-hot poles, where once were bones.
It…
emanates,
eliminates,
and consummates the act.
We let the winds brush off our skins;
our souls,
revealed,
intact.

We cool,
collect,
breathe in,
accept.

We rise,
redress,
breathe out,

Reset.

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