Jeprox G. Lingamen

Jeprox G. Lingamen Poems

Jeprox G. Lingamen Biography

Call center agent. Post-graduate student. Peace educator. Poet.)

The Best Poem Of Jeprox G. Lingamen

Poeticaffinity

for Xeth

I.
Jeff says what if nothing moves me, nothing
Would mean enough to change me far too
Many times, and the weight of these words
Remain the same, the way their answers
Never seem to matter to the poker face
That uttered them, looking back at you from
The cracked bathroom mirror that has seen
Things that give those lies away, or the pools
Of your eyes, dark with their solemn truths,
Welling up like a fierce fluid wound crying
Out its convictions to the world, that a heart
Could learn to trust again, that it is worth
Living for, even if the ebbing is sure to come

II.
Where two stranger souls meet
Between carefully-pruned lines of haikus
Still learning to say more with less
A mute hope flares up in the gloom
Of things that never could be, like the
Memory of a lost love’s caress, windborne
Across the ashen wilderness of time

Jeff laments how helpless you can get
When Hope, like a furious little child,
Pulls out all your wings and leads you
To the edge of the universe to make
A choice you don’t understand, and run
Far away from the past in your heart

III.
A sudden deafness took over
As if there isn’t anything good left
To hear when words between us
Seem to fall like broken gongs
Heralding a finality, cold beneath
The weight of the things we should
Have said to each other while eternity
Felt like it didn’t have a mind of its own yet

The soundless words working your lips
Were fingers clenching, pulling at my
Heartstrings, yanking out my every
Breath with their temerity and strength
In the distance spanned by my final
Gasps, an enormous circle of white light
Got consumed by its dark growing core
The color of burnt blood on bone

IV.
I watch the pores of the off-white
Paper towel disappear under the tip
Of my fountain pen I just refilled with
All the ink I have left-a little of black
And much more of red-drenching every
Hole in the way close, mapping war
Across nothingness, bleeding permanent
Words, the color of burnt blood on bone

V.
You asked me with your eyes if
I’d stay where you and I bordered
A realm to ourselves with meter
After meter of truth-obsessed sonnets
You watched me draw a huge tree
On the back of my hand that seemed
To wilt from the heat of my pores-tell me,
Did you need words to feel what it meant?

VI.
Xeth said once, There are friends that are
In name only, and I thought that feels right,
When what binds you together cuts deep
Through worlds spawned by poetry and ideals
Revealing the decay of lifetime after lifetime
Of hoping to connect with people who would
Make us whole again, of disillusionment, or
The ugly remains of Happiness after it drew
Fire helium-like from the growing hell in our
Embittered souls, and torched all that mattered
I say, what does everything matter, when we
Can’t even see it triumph over darkness in
The far-reaching bleakness in each other’s eyes?

VII.
Somewhere quiet and untouched
By Time, a memory breaks
Like a dandelion in the breeze
I could not count the snow-like
Fragments drifting away, light
As the feelings they coax out of
Hiding, freeing me of a weight as
Dark and endless as the night sky
That morning sun chased away

VIII.
I see you there, frail and pensive,
Unguarded, as on the first time
You risked naming me your friend
Your fingers wrapped around
A yellowed notebook in which pages
Mythical beasts exchange sonnets
And words forge a kinship that’s
Thicker than blood, wiser than love

I wonder what you see in me, see
Beyond the poker face breathing
Nothing moves me, nothing would ever
Mean enough to change my distrust

I wonder if they hurt in the exact same
Spots, where the heart is most tender
And the scars are young, those words
We measured the depth of our bond by
At a time when our combined emptiness
Seemed less daunting than they used to be

IX.
I feel my soul answering the call
Of those words, unbridled by fears,
Exorcised from Hate and Disbelief
Truth professed by many a valiant
Deeds unearthed from the ruins of Faith
I am not, and will never be, the friend
Who rips your heart apart for all to see
Who revels in fraternity then disappears
Who breaks your spirit in search of
Perhaps a jagged piece to make me whole

X.
You asked me with your eyes if
I’d stay where you and I named
A realm to ourselves with verse
After verse of soul-knitted metaphors
You watched me draw a grove of trees
On the back of my hand that seemed
To rise from the depths of my pores
Into the waiting infinity of the skies
Words could never hold within their grasp

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