http://DarkLadyPoetry.com/GoogleSitemap.xml Dark Lady Poetry - Joseph Miller

 

 
 

Joseph Miller

 

 

 

 

 

Good Excuse

 

 

She’s got a good human excuse

to stand naked on my coffee table

with all the lights on, shaking a fist

and disrupting the neighbor's sleep.

 

Or when she fears judgment

and lies about her past to make

up for it, she's got a good

human excuse for that, too.

 

She'll stumble around at a party

looking wealthy and confident

and she'll sit alone at home

looking middle-class and insecure.

 

And right now she's standing on

my balcony, dangling a scarf over

the rail, watching it twist to a breeze,

ignoring her hair falling over her eyes,

 

singing an old standard to the

street lights, sirens and cars,

wearing bare feet and a summer dress,

a whiskey glass on the ground.

 

I’m sure she's got a good

human excuse for that as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bb

 

 

The day got tired or lonely, I guess.

The sky’s a color pink that’s fit

for the King’s Cadillac.

Electric boxes hum a B flat;

they’re really too restless to sing.

 

A football is deflated on the asphalt.

A bottle is shattered under a Chevy.

Foreign language creeps up from the scene

and I’m pacing in and around the trees.

 

Amen to the bird that sang too loud for them.

Amen to the night that came down on me.

Amen to the clocks that care to remind you

that we are all lonely, lonely men.

 

 

 

 

Mania

 

 

Just a hypomanic fit,

I’ve learned.

Coffee cups and cigarette butts,

beer cans and vodka bottles,

the same old cliché

that'll never tire

so long as people continue

to gaze at a mirror or the sky

with the same old cliché in mind

that brought them there.

 

When a concrete suburb

isn't enough to fill this much need

and every stranger

is some great lover

or savior or villain with their roses

and songs and hemlock.

 

In a dim cafe where kids

talk about philosophy

and think about sex.

In a dim cafe in the corner

with my coffee cups

and cigarette butts,

trying so hard not to scream.

 

There’s a proverbial little man

inside my head, tapping the walls

he's been up to no good

for twenty years now,

just carrying out his plans

like Chinese water torture.

 

I’ve tried to escape him,

first with dreams, then with drink

I once ran a marathon

and nearly died from exhaustion.

Now I find myself writing everyday

and sometimes I can get a break

when my keyboard clicks at the same

pace as the proverbial little man's

rhythms tapping on my skull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph Miller is a twenty year old poet and songwriter fromDallas, Texas. He's been performing songs in DFW for several years, and is now expanding his artistic efforts to poetry.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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