douglas brent smith

 the words you want most to write never come until they (you can't find them) find you unprepared: unaware and they laugh fast and run the people who all mean the most  you take for granted as their memories become lingering ghosts of lines you never chanted songs you never sang but i refuse to let that slide because it boldly matters and honestly, without you i'd be forever sadder douglas brent smith

  Filling the spaces, sketch by douglas brent smith, 1976 The doodle sketches of a busy time, from Journal#9, Midwest Blue, 1976-1977. Letting go, moving on, trying on Chicago for size, while also re-inventing in New Jersey. The notes on this page span a wide amount of time with notes for plays in Chicago and rehearsal with -- DD -- in NJ and a Polaroid picture of Annie herself, standing outside 2065 Pennington Road. Not sure that any of this is noteworthy much less art worthy but here it is anyway. History.  

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, 1976

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

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 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  

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  

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  

Stars stream madly across the frozen sky sending drops of passion into the pathways of                                  our wings unmasked unfolded                                  we yearn for the mystery painted on the faces of leaping lovers of circus grips and tunesmiths sing, push, and pull the lever once pulled overrides all the rules the camera once flashed disappears with a crash the secret once known leaves the lover alone. douglas brent smith  

  Space Fish Nothing spectacular, just a fish in space who has swallowed a space station and is apparently surrounded by black holes. Oh, and an orbiting top hat, too. douglas brent smith 

oh lovely lady locked into real world rollers with past tense terrors run off with me somewhere like the mountains of Colorado where we'll build a log cabin right next to  our own peak while the snow falls, the sun rises and the television set's blue glow flows on we'll sing all day long and in the evening keep each other warm. douglas brent smith ------------- Note: When I wrote this, possibly in 1975, I had no idea that I would actually some day live in Colorado. Life can be funny like that. It wasn't in a log cabin, and it wasn't with the lover in this poem, but there was an interesting symmetry to the adventure.