WELCOMETOMYWORLD
L.A. Knott
1
Table of contents
To All the Wallflowers 2 For My Tristan 3
Mostly void Partially Stars and Snow in the Desert 4 Killing Time 5
The Death of Romance 6 After life 7
What’s This? 8 Servitude 9
Loot 10 Awake 11
Average Day 12 My World 13
Empty Soul 14 You Say I’m a Demon 15
Noah 16 Screw you 17
Tears under the Water 18 Haiku to my roommate 19
Dreams 20 Superglue 21
Beyond Knowing 22 Credits 23
Author’s note (reflection essay) 24
2
To All the Wallflowers
Life is a tunnel.
Born into it, we don’t remember the beginning.
Just the beauty of life,
Wind rushing through our hair.
Life is a tunnel.
Dying is the journey, we won’t remember the end.
Just the beauty of having lived,
We are infinite.
3
For My Tristan
Dear lover,
We broke the frame.
Our hearts hover,
We fall like rain.
You are mystery,
I’m an open book.
We’ll make history.
Take another look
At the people we’ve become
The way our lives changed.
For better and for worse
Let’s always stay the same.
4
Mostly void Partially Stars and Snow in the Desert
Winter falls on the desert
Ever hot and sweltering days
Lunar nights most beautiful
Come together under the void
Overhead, stars falling
Moon watching as we drop
Earth, sand, caked in our hair
Tonight we fell in love as the stars hit
Our cheeks, freezing our skin and blood
Never has it snowed before
I can’t shake the feeing, I’m dreaming
Grey eyes meet mine, assure me that we’re living
Heat in our bodies dissipating
Tonight feels like the end of the world
Void rushing down to meet us
Already, we are buried
Lights passing over head
5
Everyone unsleeping
Killing Time
Light fades from the sky
We’re killing time together
Radiating life
6
The Death of Romance
He killed me in my sleep,
How dare he fucking weep!
As I lay there bruised and broken
He cannot help but take a token
Of the life that he had stolen,
As he cuts away a lock of blood soaked hair,
We used to be the perfect pair…
He looks in to my vacant eyes and
Grants me
One last
Kiss
Goodbye.
7
After life
Murdered in his bed
His lover dead
Beside him
Weeps the killer,
A jealous girl.
A lonely boy
Longs to join his lover in the afterlife.
8
What’s This?
It is the flavor of Christmas time,
It sends a chill through the tongue as well as the heat of spice.
As it melts there, slow, like the minds of the elderly recounting holiday memories.
To children who are experiencing their first Christmases.
The angelic circle of red and white stains the soul
With joy as,
Cavities, form on its surface.
9
Servitude
His eyes shone with uncommon luster as
He gazed upon the monolith. Its surface laced
With crazing and gold leaf. It beckoned
To him in tones of fluctuating values.
Serve me.
It commanded.
Worship me.
It hissed.
His skin had drained,
Gone white as porcelain as
The monolith’s desires crept into him like nocturnal creatures at the first sign of daylight.
Set the fires.
Breathe the ashes.
Worship me.
As hard as he fought to break
From the tendrils of the monolith’s power,
His body moved against his will.
He watched in terror as he set the fires that blacked the city sky,
Wanted to choke as the ashes of the dead filled his lungs,
But his body relished it.
No.
Needed it.
The only way to survive now was to set the fires,
Breathe the ashes,
10
Worship the master.
Loot
Pattering feet of
Little mice race along the floor
Ever rushing for the treasure on the other side of the door.
Asking that we leave them tinder, tasty treats
So that they can feed their families with
Extra love and care.
Looting from our pantries,
Exiting the door,
Traversing treacherous traps to
Make their babies round.
Ever hoping they’ll grow up
Wise enough to win, against
Insidious humans and
Never face the end.
11
Awake
Mind drowning
Alarm blaring
Killing the snooze
Eyes pasted tight
Its agony to move
Too much to bare and
12
The day hasn’t even begun
The Average Day
I feel like an explosion
Blowing in upon itself
Implosion
Eroding away like so much
Nothing
Alone, falling
Like so much broken glass
Into my veins
Folding
Into
Nothing
13
My World
In my Hell there are many eyes
In many rooms
In many halls
In my Hell there many lies
They come in whispers
They buzz like flies
In my Hell there are many ties
Ties that wrap
Ties that bind
They choke and grip, I wish I'd die
14
Empty Soul
Can you hear it?
That sound of an empty soul?
If it’s close behind you,
Heads are bound to roll.
But that sound
Is from within,
And there’s nothing you can do,
To stop
The boundless,
Angry,
Thrumming,
Of
An empty
Soul.
15
You Say I’m a Demon
Human souls are best
With ranch and croutons
Souls are salads
16
Noah
Blond hair and blue eyes
Intensely thin with a confident stride
Too bad I hate you, too bad you hate me
Cut the crap Noah I know you see
Hate is what binds us, it will break us too
Forget about the friendship we outgrew
After a year this bomb still ticks
Count the days you sarcastic prick
Ever after you'll make me sick
17
Screw you
I’d like to punch your stupid face.
You idiotic, conceded, asshole.
18
Tears Under the Water
Hey kiddo, this is you, and you got help!
Those candle lit, music muffled, tantrums in the shower are a thing of the past.
Your parents only saw high water bills when they should have seen your anguish,
But you opened up to your mum, you got medication.
It dulled the pain of being afraid of all those around you
You saw a therapist twice a month in the summer before you started college at Ball State
By the time you quit going to her office, she swore she saw an improvement in you.
You have an amazing roommate, she's just like you.
She helps you, makes you feel safe,
Take your meds every day, take them in the morning.
You cry less that way, you'll still get down but you really do hurt less now.
Chin up you'll make it.
19
Haiku to my roommate
The calamity
Of Ammity is that she
is perfect for me
20
Dreams
Dreams are not so
Different from nightmares and these
Not so different from
Life. They lift spirits up to
Crash them down, break and build.
21
Superglue
I’ve broken so many times
To put myself together
Superglue at my seams
Uncertain were the missing pieces go
Certain though that something is missing
Kicking my heart in time to its beating
Superglue at my seams
22
Beyond Knowing
Shelves full of books,
Beyond knowing
How many there are.
My baby sleeping
On my shoulder,
My husband reads
From the books,
Beyond knowing when
The baby fell asleep.
A family
Beyond what I know now
Beyond what I can guess
But somehow it’s still mine.
23
Art By
L.A. Knott (Cover, 1, 2, 3, 11, 18, 19)
Chelsey Arnold (5, 6, 15, 20)
Kate Leth (4, 7, 16)
Dave McKean (10, 22,)
And Dholl (14)
24
Author’s note
This chapbook was a fascinating project. I love artsy things so getting to
design and organize my own book was a real thrill for me. I arranged my poems in
a form that, I hope, flowed from dream to nightmare, nightmare to reality, and
reality to the future, where possibilities are endless. I constantly feel trapped in a
space between and my intention for this chapbook was to bring people into my
world, hence the title, so that they could maybe catch a glimpse of what that
feeling is like.
If anything from the books of poetry we read has crept into my work I hope
it is the humor of Peter Davis, who wrote Tina. His work is hilarious with many
sections where the hilarity comes from a place where something seems bleak. I
feel that most of the work in this book is fairly dark, that’s just how I am, but I
sincerely hope that readers will be able to pick up on the places of underlying
humor as they sift through the murky places in these pages.
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It took a lot of planning and re reading to put this book together and to
decide what belonged where and what images should go with what poems. I am
just grateful that I got the chance to do this to be honest.
It delights me that poetry can be a vehicle for all different genres. Horror,
romance, fantasy, adventure, you name it, it can be made into poetry. It’s not all
nature observation, it’s not all teenage drama and depression, its art and we can
all make it and shape it into whatever form we please, because we are the artist,
the writers, the poets.