you should have never

you should have never set me free

for now i'm flying recklessly

and weave new roads from symetry

a tangled dark geometry

you should have never sewn me wings

for i have stolen sacred things

and crossed the paths of clumsy kings

who yield their crowns to hear me sing

you must have known that i was wild

a reckless feckless freckled child

when tossed among the ranks and files

of royalty and scarlet styles

you should have never set me free

for i have bargained honesty

and released all modesty

consuming generosity

douglas brent smith

 

Sketch: Bodacious Mistake

 

Sketch: Bodacious Mistake, 1976

She Didn't Believe It

i tried to tell her hell i

try to tell all of them

but she didn't believe it

when i said to expect

the unexpected

and to deal with

puzzling deals nothing

to be dealt with normally

there being nothing normal there

so i should not be held responsible

naturally

for twisting a phrase,

opening the horizon

or breaking her heart

i tried to tell her that 

might happen but

she didn't believe it but

being pro-active and smarter than me

broke mine first 

douglas brent smith

on and on again

when the page turn

burns

the writer's hand

a grimace grows

surfacing the strands

of captured particles too bland

to turn the twisted

trip again

as the sunlight

fights

against the night

the struggle of

forgotten sights

resumes its earnest empty plight

even when the product's

trite

it falls apart and leaves a scar

while forgetting who you are.

douglas brent smith

 

my father's house

my father's house bears change

these days

the voices bouncing

off the walls

are not those of my family

                                          but

of strangers

taking the space

i once knew so well

they speak with West Virginia accents

                                                             strangely

and treat me as a stranger

there are few things left

in my father's house

to remind me of familial love

to comfort me in shared history

something has been transplanted

and another thing supplanted

my father's house which

once was also mine

is no longer even

my father's house.

douglas brent smith

 

the numbers

you're living (it's truly

amazing) i'm crazy

though windows to open

will never close doors

you're giving (i'm 

living)

much more than before

together we wonder

while skies shall surrender

when life lends us love

the threes become fours

but what matters

above all

when people may choose

is magic in making

the ones become twos.

douglas brent smith

 

envy

he smoked a pipe

that would make any author

drool with envy

which (by the way) need not be green

but it's also available in

red, blue, and occasionally paisley

although perhaps best

invisible.

douglas brent smith