Selected
Poems
(2006-2012)
Copyright 2013 John Christopher
All rights reserved.
SELECTED POEMS
(2006-2012)
By John Christopher
Contents
Preface
Author’s Note
Madman Poem
Marisa’s Poems
Marisa’s Poem
Become as Women
Like a Dog Waiting for his Master
Coffee Shop
Katherine’s Poem
Katherine’s Poem
Dae’s Poem
To Dae
Mandy’s Poem
Mandy’s Poem
Iris’s Poems
To Iris
At Every Meeting
At the Botanical Garden
When I see Love Bloom
Jordan’s Poems
God Did Whisper
If You Were Mine
None of Them Will Love You, As I
Hand in Hand
Quiet My Soul
A Love so Easily
Hour upon Lonely Hour
Only Say ‘Yes’
That We Know Of
My Love is Free
Her little Pet
It is My Grief to Love You
Torture My Heart
Betrayal
Other Love Poems
Sometimes I Wish
Love Elemental
The Perfect Girl
They’re all the Images I Know the Meanings of
Return to Me My Heart
Accept Love
My Heart, When it Opens
I Need You to Love Me
Variation on a Nursery Rhyme
Her Fair Soles
A Moment
Invigorate Her
The Real of Love
The Divine
Gods We Are!
The Death of God
The Moon
Worship the Cunt
Man on Wires
Social/Political Poems
Come to me O Lost Ones
Look Listen Feel
Animal Cages
Orphaned
There is a Question You are Asked
Prisoner
Poets and Prophets
A Sad Suffering Grasp
Faces of the Mob
The Ultimate
No Masters
On Watching the Parade
Manic Depression Poems
The Stars Gone Out
Let Me Be
I’d Rather Stop the World and Listen to the Sounds
Surely as One Could Write Upon the Stars
The Vine
My Apartment is a Mess
A Face in Wax
Widow’s Walk
Wet Damp Mule
Chirping Bird
Becoming
Tempest Toss Me
Contact Information
Preface
My name is John Christopher Collins, and to make a confession, I have always been a madman. I go through extremes of emotion and I fixate and obsess unnaturally over trivial things. I go crazy and try to seek my freedom. I am a rebel, and have tried to assert my own individuality. I am also a moral perfectionist, and punish myself often for my imperfections. Daily I punish myself- Daily I repent and try to reconcile myself to life- but often I am left with doubts on the edge of the cliff- I love the whip. I am often suicidal, and punish myself for the least indiscretion. My soul is always crying out, and these poems, if they are poems at all, are expressions taken from an overfull and ripe heart. My soul is tender and raw- it is free from comparison, there are none like it. I am pregnant with deepest feelings. I have no guard, and I cannot help but tell the truth. My temperament is hot! This may be a flaw among my fellows, I have never learned to hide, and if you look at me you can’t help but see right through me- my sad desperate eyes, lonely, and full of longing, betray me everywhere. They are wet and reflective. I have bothered many a pretty girl, and stolen from her what I could, or else I have raged and yelled out from the mountain top in desperation- these images I have discovered here or there and collected them, like love letters in a trunk. I have always been a rebellious man and lived my own way against the grain. I don’t follow the crowd, and don’t like rules or obligations. I would have no rules or obligations! Our love must be free, and boundless as the sea. We must never be contained/constrained, and always open.
I am a man who is never satisfied. I am never satisfied that I am a good enough man, or am a capable enough poet. The two run together in my mind. I feel when I have written a poem that I have accomplished a goal, and have performed a moral service to mankind- as if it were my only gift and purpose. I am more myself, and more whole and fertile, and I have built up this identity within my breast, so that now I am incapable of seeing myself in any other way. I am inseparable from my writing. I have tried my best to learn to be kind and good. But, I struggle with my behavior and sometimes get carried away by some passion. I am a passionate man, and cannot help myself.
When I was young I was given over to fits and rages, and my parents could never control me. It is good that I was never a good son- I don’t want to be healthy and good. It is a point of pride with me. I was born in Beverly, Massachusetts on December 30th 1985 to Robin and John Collins, a school teacher and woodworker respectively. I am the oldest of three brothers, and was always the most troubled of the three. I always had a dramatic personality, in the sense that I threatened to kill myself at times, or was energetic and full of life at others. I used to scream and cry and throw tantrums, banging on the walls of my bedroom without consolation. My mother was given over to fear, and because of this kept us often at home. In my seclusion I developed my own games at play and learned to use my imagination. I developed my imagination, and began to draw pictures and write stories for my own amusement. Something always fascinated me about books, and although I was never an avid reader, I always felt drawn to the idea of composing my own someday.
When I became older, and went off to high school, the emotional disturbances of my youth grew worse still, and I found myself withdrawing from the world entirely. I was a morose and angry person on the whole, and spent my time brooding alone. I spent much of my time in the library among the stacks of books and began to write poetry. None of the sick and twisted lines I there composed have yet survived, as I didn’t save them, but I did experiment and learn the sound of words. I also began to read somewhat, when my muddled and confused mind would allow me to do so, and I became interested in philosophy. I was searching for something in those books, wanting to discover some truth or way to live, so as to escape my own predicament and suffering- something to heal me and transform me.
I went off to Glendale Community College when I escaped high school, and I struggled there with my identity and my mind. My soul was pure, and is still yet pure, but my mind is diseased and causes me nothing but hardship. I have always been a crazy man. Because of my struggles with my sanity, and my nerves- this existential funk I fell into, I started to look for a cure, and I decided that the only thing which could save me was love and tenderness and that it would heal me decidedly. I began to make an attempt at finding this cure by startling and befuddling many a young girl- going up and trying to begin conversation with many broken words and false gestures. I never was successful at it, and found many impediments, but still made the attempt. However, one evening while attending a political science class at the college, I saw the most remarkable and beautiful woman I have yet to come across. Her name was Marisa, and I followed her out of class one evening to try an
d talk to her. We agreed to go to coffee, and it was there that my world shifted.
There was never much between us, except a few phone calls, a dinner and such, but she was very kind to me, even though I was awfully dull in conversation, and by comparison to her I was no beauty. She had a way about her which drew me in- a confidence and strength, a selfishness and a vitality, which caused me to become instantly obsessed with her. I have a tendency to fixate and become obsessed. I tried to date her, or to make her my girl, like all stupid boys would do- but she would not have it, and left me finally alone. It was then that I realized how ugly I had become and how covetous and cruel. I suffered a mental break from reality and dreamed of her in the night, always. She made me see the error of my nature and to want to change it. I realized that I had to become an artist like her. I had to become someone worthy of admiration like she was. I composed the lengthy poem for Marisa during this time.
I was then introduced to a concept that would haunt me throughout the years- I always looked for a woman, and a muse to inspire me creatively as well as to inspire changes in me. I hold women in high regard for their emotional capacity, as well as their ability to captivate- and some combination of sexual and spiritual desires have enthralled me with them. I have written much of my poetry under their influence.
After the incident with Marisa, I gathered the pieces and went off to Arizona State University to finish my Bachelors in Political Science. I was supposed to attend law school upon completion. But, I began to become increasingly rebellious and radical in my views- I no longer believed in the political system and wanted to distance myself from all things political. For this and other reasons I dropped out of college, and was living on my own for the first time in Tempe, Arizona. At this time I began to see myself as a radical poet and a working man, and I began to drink heavily, still trying to cope with my mental illness. I didn’t write much during this time, and what pieces I did write are now lost. I wrote poems for a girl named Sanaz, who was a college student from Iran, and poems for a girl named Katherine, who was a sixteen year old actress/model. Of these poems I have found only one, a poem written for Katherine, which was written a year after the fact.
My drinking rebellious ways soon got me into trouble however, when I got into a major car accident, and was forced to return home with an injured shoulder. I then experienced a prolonged period of depression, whereby I lived in the upstairs of my parent’s house and seldom went outside, for a period of four years. What little excursion I did have, was with a few young women who I composed poetry for, and what works make up most of this volume. I will put description before the poetry to allow the reader some level of understanding of who they are addressed to and where they come from. The poems for Iris, Dae, and Mandy were written during this time.
After this period of years, and at the request of my mother, I went to see a psychiatrist and was there diagnosed with Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features. My diagnoses was evident, and I began to take medication and stabilize myself. During this time I met the girl named Jordan, who inspired me again to write, and I wrote her many poems, most of which are included in this volume. I also decided to go back to school to get a degree for the purpose of teaching in high school, and am currently back at Glendale Community College finishing some preliminary classes.
My road has been a circular one, and I’m cautiously looking toward the future. I’m glad I took the long crooked road because it has yielded much to the creation of who I am. There are many poems left within me to write, and I feel compelled to add that this work of poetry is by no means final or definitive. Much of what is here has been gathered through my experience with young women, but there are also many that are composed in reflection in solitude or on other circumstances. I hope the reader will enjoy them, as they are the only gift I have to give.
Author’s Note
This book of poetry is a selection of those poems I have kept over the years 2006-2012, from the ages of twenty to twenty six. I have lost many poems from the earlier years, but what I have maintained of them I will here publish. I usually only write poetry when I am inspired by something through my experience/ whenever some emotion takes hold of me and carries me away in a burst of euphoria and creativity. Otherwise, I am prone to procrastination. This euphoria is not only one of happiness, but is also filled with dark and lonely thoughts or reflections. It is when I stumble upon some shining ray of truth through the cloud cover that I become euphoric. A few of the poems are addressed with names, and most of the love poems were written for someone of significance. I place them here now as a record of my experience up until this point.
SELECTED POEMS
(2006-2012)
By John Christopher
Madman Poem
This poem was written over a few nights in 2006, when I was suffering from mania. I put it here as an introduction to this work, because when writing it I envisioned it as an introduction to my inner world and persona. The Madman is a character I have created, and sometimes tried to live, who always gets me into trouble. He comes from my mania and my wildness, and was written to express this, at a time when I was having a fit. This is a very lengthy poem, which I don’t usually write. There are two such lengthy poems to begin this work, the other being Marisa’s poem. They are the earliest writings I have on hand. This is a prose piece, but I have included it because I consider it to be more of a poem.
Madman Poem
Shall I begin with the first forbidden fruit of a conversation- a release of an inner tension- or to feed off of another as it were. I once heard it said by a profound and eloquent man, that all manner of art is at first little more than a form of autobiography. And no statement were ever word formed which so aptly reflects my often conspicuous proclivity more perfectly, never verbalized with such a clinical sensitivity, or to extent ever written or spoken on the subject which did not so accurately attest to the frank tragedy of it- with or without the verbiage junk, (for what is the difference if they are spoken in discourse along beside the pier on the ebbing water, with the rising or falling tides, or formed in solitude by the lonely heart and written in place of himself as ‘his’ proof.) All autobiographies are got at, or reached toward, (as I am desirous to reach toward a deliverance from the great inevitability of dust), through way of conversation.
I assure you, one can only reach out to the limitlessness by way of either howling or crying- or voice, so let us begin frankly, and speak frankly on my two favorite dilemmas- not to let them rust- my own thoughts and dread spark like exposures to life- which I share and carry on the endless re-write as I go, adding a line here or there, changing a quality or facial expression, a uniting or dividing, exaggeration of the small less-differentiated black hole chasm of tone and pacing- which would not spell it out, or beat the child over the head with the root, leaving out the boring employments and forgetting my watch- the silence which I didn’t ‘get’ the first go ‘round.
Many are undifferentiated, and you could move them about if you want to, and transform their shapes and figures to supplement the well-spring. I care not for them- for they care little for them either. They take many flights, retreats or escapes- like so many absent minded children they circumvent their living burden for easier burdens. I remain unfettered in the rain. These children starve in the cradle or burn up strapped into a car seat. I am always there in the moment- I reap my lot, and endure the reward- the hard weary road- like wet pavements and reflective night surfaces, or plastic diamond rings on her lovely dew drops. I drive at the essences and tend toward, and forward, in my hostility and violent upheaval within- a rejection of subtlety and cruel acquiescence when marked by a grin- for the rage against the bitterly administered pill, with love in a sealed envelope- or shoved into my mouth with bitterly administered justices’.
Rage against the dying of the light, I slam! And she gives her charity over at the sight of wealthier and more reasonably fashioned men.
I am a more remarkably fashioned man! No one is as intricately re- made, as I am.
It is a rage against my images trapped in and turned over in the glass with honey droplets stuck to my sword, in a land of milk and honey. It is to be scorned and scoffed at rather than known or owned, and the rage of my own children against me and my rags and my dog. I care not dancing star should I shine so brightly for it!
A tragic beauty nonetheless- if I am to contain the vast multitude within my vast multitude- whatever it would supply- Their dirty linens or a dance beneath the chandelier, and party-favors among friends on a dull evening full of useless boredoms- like sprinkles on the ice cream cone. Beauty is truth and truth beauty, and it exists for each individual should he fail to realize it, and inevitably so. Alike, I become caught up in the routine.
I favor a statement, rather than a subtlety- for no man broke through a wall with serene complacency, or ease and comfort. Have your delusions Dalai Lama! You still have your title. I travel not a numbered path! Yes, you could hold up an ancient city above the swamp rats by driving wooden stakes into the clay, but you could plant a vine in the decay- a twig of knowledge, raspy voiced and spindly sparse- or a round beat bulb, buried in the thick mud- muddled voices in an ancient underground chamber- walls crumbling from its own opulence and extravagance- and little black figures covered over with sand- who once raised the pyramids!
I’d rather not have my words be regarded as superfluous ecstasies- but as vital delicacies- even though they are superfluous- “he’s full of hubris”- she says to her horse, who wears a mug made of dough. No truth were ever book formed. The experience of ‘what’s written’ can be experienced in its own simplicity. The tragedy is easier to digest and look at- being so full in description and lacking sensations- or much for the sensationalizing!- and little notes or pen strokes around the margins- to clarify. Isn’t it sensational! Let me describe this delicate perfume odor for you. Rather let me corrupt the world for you, and turn your eyes away from the packaging!