New Poem

[image source]

This is a first draft without any edits (which may be obvious). Just wanted to get it out, now, as it is, and post it before I can get self-conscious about it.

comfort

black asphalt parking lot shimmers
in the afternoon heat, empty
except for a few cars scattered
in the far corners

Elliott Smith plays in my earphones,
his sad acoustic guitar
accenting the life-weariness
in his heroin-addled voice

so many nights a bottle in my hand
comforted me while Elliott tried
to confirm the Seattle rain's promise
that it never gets better

I remember those nights
as little more than a poem
I once read, vague words
and images of decay

now this desert sun, ever-present,
dissolves the self, melts everything
beneath its glow, blurs the lines
separating me from myself

I sit in the evening, sticky
and salty, never quite getting cool
enough, so I watch my breath,
and wander off the cushion

but the breath anchors me in now,
pulls me back to its rhythm,
a stillness that still feels strange
when hungry ghosts crave escape

my mind repeatedly tries to flee
and recalls a night I saw Elliott
play at the Crocodile Tavern,
he seemed so painfully shy

later that night in the bar,
I bought him a beer and thanked him
for his music, but I wish now
I had simply held his hand

Tags: poetry, poem, Elliott Smith, Seattle