 |  |  |  |
Back - Issue Two - Next
The Poetry Warrior (c) Abigail Beaudelle - 2008.
All Poetry and artwork (c) the respective artists.
All Poetry and artwork (c) the respective artists.
Your Walls
Ocean Vuong
Let me be your walls
so I can shield you from the storm.
Your beauty incased in concrete
four sides and a roof
to keep your hair from rain.
Let me be your walls
or perhaps an item in your room.
I can be your clock, sitting, idle,
urging a curious face
to flash at my twisted arms.
Can I leap inside your books?
Wedged between chapters
I’ll rip the pages from fairytales
and use them as my own.
I want to be your necklace
sleeping to the music in your chest.
You can take me off, whenever you’d like
for wherever I am is where I’ll stay.
Guessing dreams as I watch you sleep
and if I could cry, I know I’d weep
for of all the pieces, I can never be your
heart
so I’ll just simply sit and wait
’til you tear these walls apart.
Ocean Vuong
Let me be your walls
so I can shield you from the storm.
Your beauty incased in concrete
four sides and a roof
to keep your hair from rain.
Let me be your walls
or perhaps an item in your room.
I can be your clock, sitting, idle,
urging a curious face
to flash at my twisted arms.
Can I leap inside your books?
Wedged between chapters
I’ll rip the pages from fairytales
and use them as my own.
I want to be your necklace
sleeping to the music in your chest.
You can take me off, whenever you’d like
for wherever I am is where I’ll stay.
Guessing dreams as I watch you sleep
and if I could cry, I know I’d weep
for of all the pieces, I can never be your
heart
so I’ll just simply sit and wait
’til you tear these walls apart.
Last Cookout
White chairs bend
from the weight of rumors.
An umbrella fails to keep
its shade in place.
No one saw the child weeping in the window.
How could they?
The stench of gin and flesh
intoxicates.
Last night the keyhole revealed
a man packing promise into boxes.
The papers signed
declaring from his and hers.
The third heart was not heard
beating in the shadow.
The grill’s heat
burns memory into carbon.
Ash scars the house.
Through this smoke
a father saw, by the window
the eyes he helped create
but could not keep.
White chairs bend
from the weight of rumors.
An umbrella fails to keep
its shade in place.
No one saw the child weeping in the window.
How could they?
The stench of gin and flesh
intoxicates.
Last night the keyhole revealed
a man packing promise into boxes.
The papers signed
declaring from his and hers.
The third heart was not heard
beating in the shadow.
The grill’s heat
burns memory into carbon.
Ash scars the house.
Through this smoke
a father saw, by the window
the eyes he helped create
but could not keep.
In 2004, at age 15, Ocean was arrested in Connecticut for the theft of 22
bicycles and painting them all black. "I had to, I couldn't watch the children in
my neighborhood walk in sleet and snow to go to their (basketball) games,
some as young as seven. So, I got them all bikes but I always made sure that
the houses I stole from had at least two cars in the driveway."
-Excerpt taken from Ocean Vuong's website (www.oceanvuong.com)
bicycles and painting them all black. "I had to, I couldn't watch the children in
my neighborhood walk in sleet and snow to go to their (basketball) games,
some as young as seven. So, I got them all bikes but I always made sure that
the houses I stole from had at least two cars in the driveway."
-Excerpt taken from Ocean Vuong's website (www.oceanvuong.com)
