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Kentucky Collection

Flowers all are falling now (25/25)

7/15/2016

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trainyard_sunset_full_lyrics.m4a
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*i wrote a song again. and again.
​music & instrumental by Nathan Hall

Flowers all are falling now
bowing in the sun
There is nothing holding back
you from coming undone
Wonder where those trains have gone
wish they’d wait for me
Coal’s what keeps the streetlights on
sunsets burn for free

Sleep is like your leaving back
shadows at my feet
Faster goes the day that’s done
all that’s bitter is sweet
Skyline’s bleeding honey and
no one seems alarmed
I would like to bottle some
light in this train yard

Beauty hurts to look straight at
I don’t close my eyes
When the stars come pouring out
I’ll play seek and find
Nighttime slowly swallows this
place I’ll look for you
Waiting for the dark to come
ain’t so bad with two

Will you come and grant me
one last quiet dance?
Mountains curve their backs to rest
in this sleepy land
All is still and hushed to see
what will happen now
Whistles sigh and call your name
can you hear that sound?

Playing pups are tumbling
by the dusty tracks
Train cars rumble through the town
wish you could see that
Don’t know what the night’ll bring
maybe dreams of you
Morning’s not so far away
it could still come true

Flowers all are falling now
bowing in the sun
There is nothing holding back
you from coming undone
Wonder where those trains have gone
wish they’d wait for me
Coal’s what keeps the streetlights on
sunsets burn for free
Picture
hunting for pokémon in whitesburg
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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shadow shapes (24/25)

7/15/2016

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shadow shapes are not always telling
of the grace with which creatures prowl
Picture
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Akong (23/25)

7/14/2016

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*wrote another song

I’ve been away for awhile now (oh oh)
Looking for my own place out of town (oh oh oh)
There’s a girl you said
used to live here downstairs in this house
Don’t you remember
that was me
your granddaughter, your baby
 
You taught me how to sing
how to be louder than anything even
if you were shorter than everyone else in the room
You weren’t ever afraid
to make the whole world your own stage
I can’t believe I was ever embarrassed by you
 
And I can’t remember if I ever said it enough
And if I did I wonder how much of it stuck
 
Akong Akong
Did I say I love you ever
Akong Akong
I’m losing my mind to this storm
Hold on
I am
coming back for you
I will sing you all of your favorite songs
 
I am booking my flight to New York (oh oh)
Why do I find it so hard to go? (oh oh oh)
I’m afraid to see
what I’ll find in my family
when all of you is a memory we lost
when all of you is a memory we lost
 
You taught me how to drink
that is, drink all the sweetness of good company
diabetes of cheesy stories never ever killed anyone
You loved us all so much
how could I look for myself
as you fall out of touch and
lose more of yourself every passing day
 
And I can’t remember if I ever said it enough
And if I did I wonder how much of it stuck
 
What am I even saying?
 
Even if you forget me
Even though I’m far from ready
I’ll be that faceless girl
Singing you to sleep
 
Akong Akong
Did I say I love you ever
Akong Akong
I’m losing my mind to this storm
Hold on
I have
come back for you
together let us sing all your favorite songs
together let us sing all your favorite songs
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when a child knocks (22/25)

7/13/2016

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​when a child knocks on the fortress door— 
the nightlight makes her bedroom dance with things that want to eat her
—guilt pulls sticky limbs from the mess of sheets and mumbled kisses
​
it feels selfish to beg a place to remember me, just long enough until i can return to search for myself again
when all my grandfather can do is forget
Picture
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Suppose we'd be beautiful together? (21/25)

7/12/2016

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Suppose we'd be beautiful together?
and fairy lights dripping over the bar doorway also make me look sweeter in the half-light 
shoulders draped over lazily with a fog shawl left over from the rain
​would the shape of my eyes be known for the mind it let peek through?

Suppose
the roads that crumble away at their edges into
     the rusty orange creek that has been drowning
     the same car without an engine for years now
open their battered backs to my feet 
like an invitation or late night phone call from mother begging daughter to visit before she forgets her name too
​     along with everything else, diseased into an afterthought
would the smile in my voice echo in their teeth?

Suppose I came back for you?
​and you rained the creek into an ocean, the fog into a maze, the roads into rubble
and I still came back
what then?
Picture
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my fingers don't look the same (20/25)

7/11/2016

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my fingers don't look the same as they used to 
I've been disappearing for so long that I forgot to look but now that I'm looking
they're red as a confession
five to each hand, one to each knuckle of a punch I never saw coming 
I don't know if those fists were disappearing too or if I just can't see anymore
but he called me Oriental
and I called him out
and we were both confused by how suddenly lonely we were
Picture
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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It's good to be young here (19/25)

7/10/2016

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​It’s good to be young here
It’s good to take a picture and flick the last cigarette butt at his shadow
It’s good to trip over a skateboard and promise you’d used to be good at it and swig the last mouthful of daylight and let it coat your throat
It’s good to grab the rope swing and forget to let go
     and let go and walk around with bruises on the backs of your thighs for days after you toweled off
     and almost died on the hike back to the car
It’s good to fall in love and out of love with the idea of it
It’s good to overheat your car and have to walk
It’s good to forget and not mean to forget but the walkways and stones that built the town are the sleeping bones of everything the dead people hoped you’d remember
 
and then you heard that song on the radio and remembered
 
It’s good to fight for someone else’s life
and explain to the elders why it’s good to do it
It’s good to eat dinner and call everything that tastes right “mamaw’s cooking”
It’s good to learn how to love the voice of the banjo
It’s good to tell your secret and make it our secret
It’s good to fall silent and in love with the way the clouds have pressed their faces against the necks of the mountains
It’s good to buy too much soap from that woman who looks tired
It’s good to bless the kitten that sneezed and now won’t stop following you
It’s good to sip it from the jar and want to spit it out
 
it’s good to hear that song and remember
 
It’s good to pretend that you belong until no one is looking at you anymore
It’s good to tip extra
It’s good to learn to bake when you don’t know a better way to say thank you
It’s good to have gone through so much shit that they mistake you for one of them
    and the old lady insists that you are no younger than twenty-seven
    even though God told you that you'd be dead long before then
It’s good to let the dogs lick you and worry about the rash later
It’s good to trust him tonight and never pick up tomorrow
It’s good to see a dead deer by the road and feel nothing
It’s good to stop the car to help the turtle cross
It’s good to ask for a ghost story and regret it later that night
 
it’s good to sing that song when you remember
and want to forget
Picture
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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i learned how to pray again​ (18/25)

7/9/2016

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i learned how to pray again
​even though i knew how 
even though i thought i knew 
​Cowan, again, had something to teach me
     & maybe it still has to do with God
     & maybe the ladybug i crushed under a blind thumb that realized its mistake far too late will be the last
     innocent person i will be allowed to hurt
but i felt my skin cinch and tug into a touch-me-not
cradled as it were in their sunlight
it, the light, pouring forth from the love these people brought here
made me either a healed thing or that which will heal others
& the words the prayer said didn’t even matter
Picture
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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home (17/25)

7/8/2016

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home
i run
lost child in the mall at sundown
she runs
hides
full rack of velvet that would make a coal miner sneeze
home
she can't remember what her mother looks like
it's been twenty minutes, almost
i
still look in places filled with things that belong to other people
run away from crowded faces
to search for in my loneliness
home
Picture
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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I was a surprise baby (16/25)

7/7/2016

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I was a surprise baby, slipped into the kitchen counter nestled in some paper that crackled under the weight of us. A machine milking something dark and bitter rumbled a greeting. It had been morning for awhile now, but the people were still waking up. How good of the hands that brought us here, I thought, to make us fruits of the happiest time of day. To be still-warm with sleep and sunshine dribbling from the window. I rolled a little against the basket when she blew in, haste practiced and used to taking up space. Her sandals hushed against the carpet as she noticed my intrusion. I shivered a bit under her gaze. The shock of chilled fingers against my skin was swept quickly away at the comfort of being held. I'd traveled a long way to meet her lips, but such makes the moment of finding myself home all the sweeter. 
Picture
Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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  • Hey
  • About
  • Poetry
    • Poemblogs >
      • National Poetry Writing Month - 2019
      • National Poetry Writing Month - 2018
      • Storytelling & Storylistening
      • National Poetry Writing Month - 2017
      • Kentucky Collection
      • National Poetry Writing Month - 2016
    • Spoken Word
  • Voiceovers
  • Gallery
  • Contact Me