Amanda Lee | WritersCafe.org

Amanda Lee | WritersCafe.org

Masking the symptoms, ignoring the source

Which came first, the sound or the noise?

The little we owe, the seconds we strain

You last till outlasted, you struggle in vain

The egg or the bird, the word or the tell

The moment we noticed

We’re not doing so well

The place or the people, the people in place

The turnout turned down, the vision erased

We long for the fragments, we stretch towards the voice

We hear the time speaking

And still ask it more.

We’re running on pavement, and skipping the cracks

We long for the silence 

We’ll never get back.

-A.L.J-

"... Poetry is created because we are lonely, scared, grateful, joyous, decaying, grieving, angry, visionary, vital. To make sense of life. Our realities. Both harsh and stunning..."

- Margot Van Sluytman

Keep Me Grounded

Keep me grounded while I'm falling,
I'm liquid and you're stone
I feel the things you offer
The course that you postpone.
Your subtle indignations
Lined up to be nailed down
Rigid at the fault lines,
I caved this time around.

I wrap my fingers round you
Please hold me to the ground.

-A.L.J-

Rainy days, the clouds make way, and shape themselves into a gray
Muddy skies, like tear-stained eyes, bound in droplets running dry
A hunger growls, the windows howl, drawn out colors shade the wall
A static state, of blacks and grays
A white that bleeds an impure slate.
Transitions pause, a dormant clause, the earth dissolves into it's flaws
A static state, of aging grays, time slides by on frozen lakes.

-A.L.J-

I admire the girl there

Up on the hill

Who's lost her damn mind

But is finding her will

Who's feeding the storm

And dragging her teeth

Across the wet grass

And tasting relief

Who walks in the crowds

But still stands alone

Who dances on stars

Just to follow them home

Who opens her mind

To let it spill on the floor

Who's winning the battle

But losing their war.

Who watches whose watching

That touches what's passed

Who catches the breeze

And inhales it's mass

Who's better off knowing

That knowings no good

That wisdom will fail you

When you knew it would

She follows the seasons

And changes with leaves

She sets with the sun

And lives in the breeze.

-Amanda Jowsey-

It's nice to hear your voice, and even nicer still to know your name...

I'd pretend that it's no bother, you'll pretend you're still the same.

Just to pass you on the sidewalk, where these imprints left their mark,

Just to hold you for an hour, just a whisper in the dark...

If I left you out to dry, and the waters took you in

Someone's sure to claim their prize, before you're lost again.

And the timing of it all, in the place I gave you up,

The walking slows to crawls, the crawlings just to drop.

Our patterns so much older, none wiser all the less

When the world falls around you, my heart bleeds through my chest.

I chalked you up in stories, you breathe into the cause

You're half-stained muddy lime-lights illuminate your flaws

In a feeling half-departed, in a moment in my skin

Your absences surround you, I'm afraid to take you in.

I chalked you up in stories, you choked me up instead

I'll leave you on the sidewalk,I'll leave you in my head.

-Amanda Jowsey