utterances

I'm a big fan of George Herbert and John Donne. If your'e interested in religous poetry, I recommend these old guys. They're great. Much like Herbert when he was young exclaimed "When I grow up I want to write religious poetry like John Donne," I have an increasing interest to do the same. It seems writing things does, in a way, to me, mean more and is more understandable and many many other reasons than just saying it. or whatever. I guess its the same reason anyone writes. Even if you don't like God or necessarily believe he exists, feedback is still welcomed.


Utterances








Lord



To utter Your name
is to desecrate it
distort it
deform it

defame it,

For my tongue is a railroad spike
not used for Your continuing methods
but for death and fornication.

To allow my utterances is pure grace,
to allow my silence while you are hammered on the cross
with mouths, my mouth,
is grace.

Lay Your track Lord.

I'm an engineer
lacking skill
surveying the land
questioning.

I am an orator who has lost his language,
and like Babel
I stare at my sky scraper unable
to explain it
or praise it.

It must exist alone
and I must
walk away

from it,
following those vaguely familiar
tracks
returning long way round
to a vaguely familiar home

following sunsets
and the sounds of birds
the mouth of the river speaking
more perfect than I.

MIni Iambic

Mini iambic






I'm looking at you from across the room,
the fears of the world melt and drift away.
I hope I will be back in you're arms soon
and unswerving, face the resistless day.

God's Blood

God's Blood








Shaking you held the tray of God's blood
but not out of fear
exposing the seriousness in your brow


you cried during a Christmas church service
over a sermon you didn't particularly care for
you yelled hoorah
even though you were a mechanic
for the airforce

my grip on your truth is shaking





As a child I envied
the fearless with
disrespect for authority
embarrassed
I spent nights crying

I remember the smell of the
gloomy classroom staring
at the road darkened
by the clouds I anticipated
the end of the day doodled
played with my glue


my memories of childhood are shaky
like your hands on God's Blood.

untitled

This is a generally unedited, sort of list of thoughts that I put in line form. its untitled because I couldn't think of anything

Discontent!

Brows pushing eyes down
wearisome frown
can't sit still.

I don't want to be asked about it, my

INSATIABLE LUST...(god help me)

GOD HELP ME
chokedown this medicine,
ring the bell of
discontent, the chord of

DEAR JESUS I CAN'T STOP

but you won't stop it will you?
In what way could I exercise my will
If I didn't have the freedom to work for it . . .



I want to retire to the bedroom
and watch the long legs make blisters on the floor
pacing, over and over, like the ebb and flow
that is my desire for natural skin.

The Words, the Word, these words,
your words,
crawl on my skin like spiders,
and like a web,
I can craft the truth just so
you can't see it unless the light hits it
just right.

Ah, the light. Well, the light. Yes, the light.

It would be honest,
but it would make me utterly known,

exposed, naked

like the flesh I long to devour with my eyes.

What is this feeling? this “temptation”?
Why do I wish to hurt and disappoint you?
This feels like adultery, but maybe―
more complicated.

If possible, dear jesus, dear jesus...

be sure to take this seriously.

What stitch can mend this?
Can time loosen the memory?
or will it just continue to stretch, to contort
to broaden until it is a thorn buried deep in the flesh,
working its way towards the heart?


Similar to what I did to you?

W. K .Medlen

The Story of Fathers

In this poem I tried to mimic the story-telling aspect of the poetry of Rebecca Grey (who writes very good poetry, by the way). I don't want to explain the poem away before you read it, but one day my mom told me that my dad's dad used to beat him with his belt. Not like bloody, manslaughter beatings, but 'leaving marks' beatings nonetheless. I was kind of shocked, and humbled, because my father has never beat me or left a mark on my body. This i saw as a miracle, for usually a child will mimic the actions of his or her parents. My father broke this cyclical wave. I am very thankful. I say all of this because I am not sure if it has come out enough in the poem; the re-mention of the "the story" in this poem is what I am referring to. I tried an editing method by Hemingway, where one cuts as much as possible down to the raw of the poem. He called it the "iceberg effect." If you have feedback feel free to criticize…



The Story of Fathers




my dad was upset
stomping through his house
angry at the Legos in his way


his eyes were hanging like sleeping bats



my mother told me the story
one day around the kitchen island
grandma told her the story
about how my father's father
left marks



I screamed
I hate you
in the garage
the whole neighborhood
could hear

my voice tearing


they could hear
the generations of fathers
struggling
to tell the story
of their fathers
who beat them
who left marks
mountains





W. K. Medlen

RE: Portfolio

When You Smoke Cigarettes (ii)





Ashy fingers crumble from my arm
over your body. We don't touch or combine.

An inhale exhale existence. The smoke is the cigarettes thoughts,
and my mind, smoke, dissipates as you walk through it.

You stir the dusty bones collecting on the panes of my soul.

my body, arthritic and old, begins fading into smoke ring
bruises, circular, burned sores. And she is an ember, a single,
          bloodshot eye,

a lifelong memory I can't exhale.













W. K. Medlen

portfolio, revisited

So I am currently applying for a bunch of different MFA programs across (generally) the south and northeast. It is ridiculous. The price for everything is insane… I haven't had money since I was about 16…You think they would understand that eh? anyway, I'm going through and editing my portfolio and here is an earlier poem that I wrote back in the day. It s a little dramatic, but I still like it.



When You Smoke Cigarettes




You inhale mouths, remembering other ashy figures lurking
in your mind, then, vomiting violent exhalations and smoke ring halos.

Don't talk to me with your eyes, un-cage your emotional abyss with raccoon
tailed eyebrows, watch me try and scale the crags of your forehead,

or, with your mouth, clutch my sand torso and unraveling heart
struggling to beat on its own in rivers of running mascara.

Like Michelangelo's God, your lonesome finger waded to me, combed
my soul. It was as big as a moose and scary as an antler. Now that definitions

have changed like a flight plan, what awaits me is a trail of clothes,
slithering through your house, drunken passed out linens.

I dread leaving through the hallway, blood red of dying light, grasped by hands,
seeping with fingered shadows where you hang your lovers.



(I can't quite get the formatting right without making the text teeny tiny. Each stanza is only supposed to be 2 lines)