Lost Thoughts

I only wanted to write.
I stopped making notes on my phone.
But I lost
so many ideas
because I need to move
with upward
swings.
Not against them.
It would be like
moving against the current.
Just because the sand
seems different
upstream.

Riley Welch
8/27/2015

100, and 100 more.

This summer my goal was to write a hundred poems. Below I bring you, my hundredth poem of the summer. It is, of course, about words and letters and how incredible it really is.

Stretched out
letter by letter
line by line
solid stacking
up.

Although,
if you stared at the top,
then down.
There's so much overlap
in 26 letters
and spaces.

Endless combinations
tears,
shivers,
laughter,
grins.

Searing sun,
prickling goosebumps,

and here I read the end.

But it may be the start.

8/25/2015
Riley Welch

Bossy

Green leaves
overlapped,
rich and rooted
on a big, brown, bossy
oak tree
outside a mother's house.

[The particular mother in this case is not important, but it is important to note that it is a mother.]

And the leaves fell
occasionally
as squirrels would run
under and over and under
the turbulent
twisty
branches of that big, brown, bossy oak.
And as the leaves fell
the oak willed them
to stay.

[Because, remember, the oak tree is bossy.]

But
they did not
because once they

detached

without a place to go
they had no choice
but
to litter the mother's
lawn.
And it became coated
in all these
leaves.

[Although the squirrels aren't really to blame here, this is just nature.]

And eventually,
so many leaves piled up,
the mother-

[Just a mother, specific mothers are still not important to this story.]

-had a son
or daughter
or helpful neighborhood kid
rake up those leaves.
Usually for a couple of bucks.

[Probably a crisp five, or four ones, because it seems like as much, but isn't.]

And a soda,
because sugar is invaluable.

But in a few months,
Fall would set in
and all the leaves could fall at once
and the squirrels
wouldn't matter
anyway.

[The squirrel would still matter, just not in the context of the leaves.]

And then the son
or daughter
or helpful neighborhood kid
would rake in the big bucks
in raking up yards
for more than just
a few
off-season
fives and sodas.

And the big, brown, bossy tree
would be glad
because it would have willed the leaves
to fall
this time.

8/24/2015
Riley Welch

Waves

Nightmarish
seas
full of
fish
salt
plants
monsters
a deep
black
drowning
crashing
open ocean seems
to vast
for my mind
to grasp.

8/23/2015
Riley Welch

Check

Right
and
wrong
seem unfairly determinable.
Let's do a majority vote.
So many situations
check
yes
check
no,
could we even get
everyone
to vote
for
anything.
At all.

8/23/2015
Riley Welch

5, 10, 15, 20

Addition.
Two and three make five.
And five is even.
Technically,
it is odd.
But the clean way
fives fall into tens
is even
and nice.
Ten fives, make fifty.
Twenty fives, a hundred.
And that is a wonderfully round number.

8/22/2015
Riley Welch

Baby Blue

This is a strong disclaimer that I am not writing about today's gloomy Saturday in the below poem. 

I'm sure there is something I am forgetting,
but for today,
at least,
I have a strange
wash of contentment
I am not used to.
I'll visit those 4 corners
and probably find
nothing,
but
that is something
I am okay with.
At least for
this sunny
and blue
Saturday.

8/22/2015
Riley Welch

Keyhole

I peered through a keyhole
and your eye looked back at me.
The only thing reflected
in it.
Was my own eye
right back.
Together we were two mirrors facing each other.
And you refused to let me in.

10/12/2015
Riley Welch

Scribbled

I worry I will
forget how
to lay words out on
a page.

How sad to forget
the order we
became accustomed
to.

Do we repeat?
Repeat?
Repeat?

The brain grows old
and learns to
speak in a code
no one can decipher.

Short looping
and long phrasing
to remind someone
what they once knew so easy.

Goodbye is not always
permanent.

10/12/2015
Riley Welch

37

Long term memories
always feel like over cast, rainy nights.
Eyes on the brim -

Full of emotion,
you bottle up,
that's socially acceptable,
you know.

And sometimes, they spill
over.
Here's to release.
Some days it feels so lovely,
to forget.

10/4/2015
Riley Welch

OF

Voices
lightly sprinkled
the back patio
and I stood
with some wonder.

Did they see me?

I kept walking.

Foot, over foot, over foot.

That's how you propel yourself forward.

It wouldn't work otherwise,
you'd stay stationary,
so I've learned.

10/4/2015

Speculation.

If you read too much
you fall
into circles of narration
where your life becomes
one
big
bad
non-ficiton
essay.
And you think about
all the parallels
between
your past
and present
and you speculate
on the future 'if'.
You tell yourself
stories
about things you did when you were younger
and translate it over to your
current actions.
Someone
somewhere
would eat it up,
if you would just write it down.
You.
Unraveling every present
second.
Bit by bit.
Narrating the way you towel off
after a long shower
and wrap your wet hair
into a tight bun on your head.
And you think about that phase you went through
when you were young
in 3rd or 4th grade
where you didn't bath.
Well, not totally,
you took a shower every night
and turned the hot on high
and stood in the corners
so only the heat would touch you.
And that's when you started taking scalding showers.
Now your showers are cold,
because you need to be woken up.
Or at least feel like you do,
just want to stumble out of the shower
eyes wide
and ready.
But that's how your brain
churns
now.
Now everything is broken
down
into all these past
and present
and sometimes future words.
And that's what happens
when you read too much.

8/21/2015
Riley Welch