This page contains a selection of the poetry I’ve published in various journals over the years. Thanks for reading!
LISTEN
First published in The Offbeat, Fall 2016
to the wistful words you whisper to yourself
when you are quiet
and alone
and growing dusty on the shelf.
to the patterns and the
little desperate measures all
repeating blinking bleating
in the pastures of your pleasures.
for the currents that are
welling up around you, that are
threatening to drown you
in the fullness of the sound.
for the laughter, lovely,
lapping at your doubts,
all the hopes and all the hands
that will support you when you’re out.
listen for the signs that you are
stewing in a fear.
listen to your dreams,
and with attention bring them near.
listen to the hollow things.
listen to the deep.
listen to yourself when you are living half-asleep.
Fuck
First published in The Offbeat, Fall 2016
I was right on the cusp of it,
scribbling, channeling:
pure inspiration and joyfully fiddling,
knowing my heart
and attempting to set it all down.
Ah!
It was coming in canopies,
bursting with melody,
dancing delightfully,
drawn down the page.
It was building to something,
a blossoming bellow,
a statement of passion that had to be made;
and the pen struck like lightning;
the prose in a flood;
the essence of life all alive in my blood,
thrumming, thumping thick like mud –
and fuck, I got distracted.
Sound Collage for a Bicycle Commute
First published in The Remembered Arts Journal, August 2016
I’ve been trying to listen
as I zoom down Market Street:
bicycle mindfulness,
morning mélange.
I’ve been trying to listen
to honking and heartbeats:
the sounds of a city
waking up.
On the corner, a man
beats a drum kit of buckets,
and chants to the high-rises,
rhythm and rinds.
A bus gently screeches
to halt at the stoplight,
and opens its doors
with a hiss and a sigh.
A car engine rumbling
endless explosions,
impatiently waiting
and raring to go.
The clack of a trolley-car
changing its tracks
as it makes its way down
to the water and back.
I catch conversations
like snippets of ribbon
that waft in the wind
while their speakers are hidden.
This is the city:
the life and the living,
the frothing and frenzy
that well up unbidden.
I’ve been trying to listen
to everything happening:
all of the laughter
and all of the songs,
and the clicks and the clacks
that are spines to our backs
in the concrete, the rush,
and the fog.
I’ve been trying to listen
to become aware.
To understand
and make more clear
the choice I face
in every moment:
be the murk,
or be the mirror.
Hold each heartbeat
briefly
in my ear
so I am really near it.
Breathe, release:
the fathoms and the fears.
I am here.
Hear it?
Branching
First published in SunStruck Magazine, March 2016
People that go and people that stay:
Humanity splits in a billion ways,
and builders, breakers, finders, makers,
lovers, leavers, givers, takers;
weaving webs of arks and acres,
all in search of Home.
So travel far or settle near, and find a “where”
that feels sincere, and give in to the wanderlust,
and do not live in fear.
Remember: this is human.
This is dreaming.
This is true.
This is why the earth is teeming, and it’s why
there is a “you.”
If your heart is a horizon and you yearn to bloom
anew, there is nothing else but motion.
There is nothing else to do.
Joy-Song
First published in SunStruck Magazine, March 2016
Going!
All suddenly;
leap into motion:
into the clouds and up over the ocean,
to sing through the sunsmiling sky with devotion.
Up into everything,
– ROARING with power –
soaring and losing all sense of the hours,
and seizing this moment:
going to GO:
uncorking the lifeblood and letting it flow:
through this now and the next,
and each wondrous breath
a birth, a death, a changing of clef.
So go.
Be bright.
Be bold and be light.
This is the joy-song of taking to flight!
Foggy Morning in the Channel
First published in The Catalyst (UCSB), Spring 2014
I stood and watched the fog,
if largely for the sake
of the countless cups of coffee
that were keeping me awake.
And the action of addition,
so much greater than the sum
on a stairway by the ocean
waiting for the dawn to come.
and the sea breeze whispered, salty
and I knew this was enough
for peace rolls gently through the channel
after storms have made it rough
So up the steps I clambered home
to brewing pots and fuller cups,
and the sun was shining brightly
once I realized it’d come up.
Tommy Alexander 