Emotion is Free

I’m missing your ghost--does he even exist?
Or maybe it’s you I’m starting to miss
The hallways and walkways are paved with our past
Does anything but winter have strength to last?

I slow dance alone and clutch to this space
As I run solo in this marathon race
If I go to sleep will you come be with me?
Because it’s here in our dreams that emotion is free

So I’ll check off my lists and count seconds in twos
Smile at strangers and pretend that they’re you
I’ll watch the sun rise and watch the sun set
And suppress inner voices that scream my regret

I slow dance alone and clutch to this space
As I run solo in this marathon race
If I go to sleep will you come be with me?
Because it’s here in our dreams that emotion is free

I’ve made up my mind to change everything
Chopped off my hair and picked sad songs to sing
I put on my socks that don’t purposefully match
And found a replacement for my broken heart’s latch

I slow dance alone and clutch to this space
As I run solo in this marathon race
If I go to sleep will you come be with me?
Because it’s here in our dreams that emotion is free

It’s here in our dreams that emotion is free

~DaLe 09.25.08 at 10:28pm

The Easy Way

I know lots of you might find this offensive, but it's how I feel.

To justify a heinous crime
And give the sin no consequence
Mortally refuse God recompense
And mock eternal law sublime

Nine month wait for Armageddon
Murder on the streets of infant soul
Pleasure not love the coupled goal
Does law’s soldiers her choice deaden?

Birth and death are her synonyms
Playing the role of God her sick game
Refuses to take the Father’s name
Freedom of choice her euphemism

The fight against death continues
As she secretly does her deed
Her moral chains have been freed
She bids promised life adieu

~DaLe 09.21.08 at 9:39pm

Covergirl

(Conscious Imitation of Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters")

Uniquely she enters the basement room
Empties her pockets of probing success
The air she breathes emanates perfect perfume
Her tinkling laugh flowers her finesse
The ungodly her mere presence does suppress.
Others long for her organized splendor
Hold the sin, envy--her mind could never transgress
She is the flawless knight of truth, his defender
His pattern of precision she will always render

There is a great blessing in being me
In never creating any fault nor sin
I am loved by humanity in every degree
My beauty is not transparent but worn on my skin
I inspire happiness with my sight
My efforts bring motivation for life to light
Mortal minds of millions I ignite
I have been told my face is a work of art
Every brush stroke sets my colors apart.
Like VanGough my masterpiece speaks to man’s heart
My technique of application of beauty is what I impart.
~DaLe 09.14.08 at 12:44am

Mormon Girl- A Conscious Imitation of "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

I don't know how many of you have read the original, but it's one of the most creative pieces of writing I have ever read. I took her work, and turned it into the same thing, but LDS style, using the same syntax and such. I think it turned out pretty good.

Wash the children’s clothes on Saturday and put them on their beds; wash your clothes on Monday, and place them on hangers to dry; don’t wear short-shorts in the summer sun; cook funeral potatoes in very sharp cheddar cheese; soak stained clothes right after you spill food on; when buying fabric to make daughters a prom dress, be sure that it is sturdy, because that way it will dry-clean after a dance; crock-pot stew overnight before you serve it; is it true that you sing The Osmonds in Sunday School? Never eat your food in a deacon way that it makes the Sisters gossip; on Sundays try to dress in your best, and not like the whore the world is bent on you becoming; don’t sing The Osmonds in Sunday School; You mustn’t date before you’re sixteen or shallow boys will follow you; but I don’t sing The Osmonds on Sundays at all and never in Sunday School; this is how you cross-stitch; this is how you find a frame for the pattern you just cross-stitched; this is how you bend down to see if your hem is to short so you don’t become the whore the world is bent on you becoming; this is how you iron your husband’s white shirt so that the collar doesn’t stick up; this is how you iron your husband’s suit pants so that they have a crease; this is how you grow food storage for the family, because obedience brings blessings; when you are growing corn, make sure you are humble and thank God while you are eating it; this is how you quilt a corner; this is how you quilt an entire blanket; then you should give it to someone else; this is how you pray for someone that you don’t like too much; this is how you serve someone you don’t like at all; this is how you love someone you forgive completely; this is how you bring your children to dinner; this is how you make memories at dinner; this is how you set the table for dinner with the missionaries; this is how you pack a sack for lunch; this is how you cook your teenagers in seminary breakfast; this is how you act at all times, all things, and in all places so that men won’t think of you as the whore the world laughs at you becoming; make sure to be clean always, even if it sacrifices popularity; never talk during a fireside, you are not a deacon, you know; don’t gossip on people’s lives, you might hurt someone; never think judgments about people, because you are not perfect at all; this is how you make jell-o pudding; this is how to make orange rolls; this is how you nurture flower pots; this is how you nurture a child with a cold; this is how you make a good memory to treasure a child before it becomes an adult; this is how you pass a test; this is how to change a grade you don’t like, and that way integrity will imprint on you; this is how to find a good man; this is how a good man finds you; this is how you marry a man, and if that doesn’t work, don’t give up, this is God’s only way; this is how to have joy if you desire to, and this is how to find it again if it disappears from you; this is how debt creates tragedy; always qualify for a current temple recommend to make sure God knows you’re worthy; but what if God doesn’t think you’re worthy? You mean to believe that after all you are going to be the kind of Saint that God won’t let into his temple?
~DaLe 09.01.08 at 4:45pm

What You Still Do

I gave the pieces of my heart away
That broke when they hit the hard ground today,
Deep in a warped drawer I hope to forget
Are emotions I felt that just don’t fit.
I burned the mem’ries in love’s fake flame
I rid myself of you but feel the same.

Chorus:
Every minute changes us
Every moment alters us
I peel myself down to nothing
Thinking I’ll finally be me
But all my reflections see
Are Apparitions of you
I wish you knew what you still do

I was the monarch of my life
Sat in you in the highest chair of honor
Then you pulled out your betraying knife
Like Brutus stabbed my back in honor
Of the country your mind resides in
I’ve confronted my friend Dante

And you’ll be paying for your sin.

Chorus

Break:
To hold your favor--a selfish notion
That gave rise to inflated hollow dreams.
You never condoned feeling emotion,
But you didn’t unstitch the soul-made seams

So please admit that
Every minute changed us
Every minute altered us
I’ve peeled myself down to nothing
Praying I’d finally be me
But all my broken heart will ever see
Are apparitions of you
I wish you knew
I think you know
You’ve always known
What you still do
~DaLe 04.09.08

The Nature of Shadow

A meaningless corner
Adjacent to scarlet brick
The lone companion of long
Stretching winter shadows
Neither cohort befriends
The dormant frosty sun.
They single out a meaningless
Plant longing for light
Detesting the intangible iceberg
Green has faded to black
Hopelessly stagnant inside
Shadows

A Budding young man called Jon
Planted next to third world hesitation
Mocked by confusing shadows
Unable to melt the frost off
His dormant rays of intellect
He must only walk
Abandon dim paralysis
He is young, green
And rooted in
Shadows
~DaLe 04.09.08

Sad Things: A Slam Poem

I have a girl in my Creative Writing Class that keeps telling me that I am weird because I like sad things: Poems, songs, movies, stories...etc. I had to write something for class...and this is what came out.

I like sad things.

I like the perspective that they bring to this world

that hurls happy endings

upon men like

volcanic basalt bombs.

I like depressing songs

that make you want to cry

even if you don’t understand

the reason why the artist raised paper to pen

and forced the manufactured ink

to express what he was too unassuming

to confess to one person but shares

with a thousand sighing fans.

I like it when a man cries

because it shows that he is willing to put aside the notion that emotion from the male gender is stupid.

To be sad is human,

and there are those hollow moments in the middle of the dark

when The Truman show is our reality

and this life is a conspiracy against us—the unsuspecting victim

of silent suffering.

Millions of innocent suffer every day,

and a person dies with every word I say—I don’t mean to give away

the ending, but all people have to suffer

the will of Death.

Like Emily Dickinson, we sit next to him

in a carriage and watch our life from marriage to birth

and then our worth will be decided upon

one basis.

Did we learn from the sad things?

Did the sorrow bring us to our knees

in pleading

for a way to stay the hand of corrosion

for just

one

moment?

Did the pain make us stand up

and speak up

for the orphans without a voice?

You see, you and I, we have a choice

every minute of every day

to go along with our merry way of oblivious harmony

and refuse

to see the heartache of the downtrodden.

Like Marie Antoinette

do we let those that starve

have their cake

and tell them to eat it too,

when all they really need is

a new pair of shoes?

Do we let those that starve in their soul

be alone

with nothing to console them

but Death

and his fine ride?

Oh no,
we can not put away the sad things.

Man must sing.

Man must cry.

He must ask God, “why”.

And if exhalation

is the goal he has for his soul,

then the answer to his wrenching cry is to find God

among the sad things of this world.

Don’t hurl false ignorant bliss

that will destroy.

Instead

learn from sadness

to find joy.

~DaLe 02.20.08