R.S. Farris

I am one of those who write in journals knowing,
somewhere inside, that we really want someone to
read this. Not blatantly, but somehow, some
way, we want someone to know. Why else would we
...

when you live your life too quickly,
you react as in a daze-
...

A high-water mark in the process of growing up
is the dread realization that the world is not
cut and dried anymore.
A child sees the world from
...

at the top of the hill, near the college, last night,
was a beautiful yellow-gold moon
it was painted in place, with the soft touch of brush-strokes
like contrails across the night sky
...

It would not be a violation of my will
If You were to take me now.
Just consume me; end this
Constant struggle to be
...

Do you kiss on New Year's?
Do you still flirt, laughing at each other's
Faces as we laughed back then?
Do you eat chocolates and build
...

If you pluck a yellow bloom in early May,
Will it blossom again in the summer?
If, fearful of a chimney-sweeper's fate,
You break the stem and fail to save the bud,
...

The paint stains my fingers and cakes on my palms;
You stand behind me, watching silently.
The outlines are rough, and the color's all wrong-
What beauty could You ever see in me?
...

In a quiet place, where no one goes,
I sit, swaying a little in the breeze.
I wonder if the water in the stream
Has ever tried to quell the never-ceasing
...

hemingway wrote clearly and concisely.
in fact, his works were so accessible
that thirty percent of us saw just
what he meant. the rest of us
...

o, bright, my dandelion kings, how bright
in the softly falling rays of the morning sun-
o, bright as the sun rose high, unmoved in its
ascent by your quick steps and happy noise
...

the air stands close and still.
time pauses, poised upon
the movement of a hand,
until the releasing, the beckoning noise
...

some have called you proud, and so you are,
though, rightfully, you have no grounds to be:
oh, death, you cannot keep me long.
triumphant though your victory may be,
...

i do not know so many things,
and this blank dearth of ignorange
is paralyzing, conquering at times
...

do i have a right to be lonely
when you cling to scraps of love?

what grounds do i have to be tired
...

Fragile words on scattered sheets,
Looseleaf, blowing away, being
...

Stay? This land is bleak and barren!
A withered leaf flaps in the unrelentless
...

How can you claim to be alive when anything
is more important than the chubby arms wrapped
...

This poetry is not my cup of tea.
An essay’s more my type of writing; prose
is what I crave, what I devour in
my spare time, what I love, as cliché as
...

Life is a vending machine—a real one,
not the impeccable myth that perpetually coughs up correct change.
Put in hard work and you’re supposed to get results;
put in love and love comes back.
...