Someone else's

I have met many poets online. I believe in my heart that all poets cannot resist the urge to spill their lives onto paper. They're not writing factually, they're not following established formulas, like in fiction. Normally, they're just bleeding their emotions all over the paper.

Someone that I've lost for now, whose poetry I greatly admire is a young "tragederian" poet from Michigan, Jon Meredith, who writes ghostly poems of love and loss in the aftermath of his divorce and separation from his children. Here is one of Jon's. Jon, wherever you are, I hope you google this and find us all again. But more than that, I hope your life runs smoothly..


I AM


I am
a voice inside your head,
the anger in your bed.
I am
the darkest soulful night
and our brightest light.
I am
the air you breathe,
a nicotine fix you need,
the one you hope to get
and the things you can’t forget.
I am, I am.

I am
the sweet birthing flower,
our endless final hour,
burning summer swelter
in your icy igloo shelter,
the song that makes you cry,
a toxic spill that gets you high,
the kiss that brings you back
from a late-night sneak attack.
So don’t try to fight me.
You didn’t invite me,
but I’m here for good,
like something you didn’t but should.
Unwrap the sticky wrapper -
put new batteries in your Clapper
for I unfold the hidden dark,
like a walk too late through the park.
Fill your cup like amber ginger ale,
these shadows will make you pale.


I am
the sweaty shadow of man,
congealed grease in your brain pan.
I am
the kiss you say you need,
the honesty of your greed.
I am
an unsuspecting desert rain,
the pleasure in your pain,
all the things that you project
to hide the dirt that you protect.
I am, I am.

So tell me, tell me, tell me
of the fire in your belly,
the prize you wrap in silk
to suckle like mother’s milk.
Drop down to your knees
before the god you please,
gonna make you scream hallelujah
when you let that spirit do ya.
All brothers and sisters in crime,
our fullness revealed in time.

~Jon Meredith