Brenda Nichols

			Clear night
			Space-Aged Souls
			All at once....
			I know what love is not....
			If I could climb....
			Slow awakened sun....
			The phone rang once
			Stephen
			Physex and Philosotry
			My imagined you....

At the time of writing this I was working as a medical courier by day and the assistant manager of the [major national newspaper] routes at night. I spent 80 hours a week in my car those days. At night I didn't really have to do much except sit in my car and babysit bundles of newspaper to make sure the people who did the deliveries got their papers. I was alone most of the time and I really truly enjoyed my job. I got paid for sitting outside, smoking, drinking Mountain Dew, and watching the bums and prostitutes wander around. It doesn't rain at night very often in Florida so it was usually clear and cool compared to the hot ass days.

Clear night

Bring me moon-glow and I feel alive.
She fuels my passion's heat within.
She flashes her smile down at me
Like a secret between friends.
Give me skies of scattered starlight,
And calm my troubled mind.
The bright stars are far flung friends
Reminding me of long-gone good times,
And lightening my life of darkest plight.

A study in modern Brendism.

Space-Aged Souls

You told me of souls that grew apart despite a
Sacred bond,
And the holy symbol
Becomes jewelry relegated to the engaging hand:
The hand that participates
In manufacturing magic through making loveless love.
We are faking tragic lies for lust.

You left me lost
Somewhere in the juxtaposition
Of the lyric rhyme of my iambic imagination,
And the prosaic rambling of daily existence.
Screaming into deaf ears so I can listen;
Groping others to find:
My feelings bring me no sensory evidence
Of reality.
And I can only be friendly to strangers,
Until the familiarity is fertile
To conceive only contempt.

I am writing
As an attempt
To calm the writhing torment.
I am listening intently:
Forcing existentialism
Into the popular commercialized anthems of
The lost generation.

The universe has been crushed
Into the dimensions of the television screen and the computer monitor,
And much has been lost amidst the humming white noise.
This perversion of relative theories
Has imploded space and time
And our souls are left wandering in the aftermath.
(The only enlightenment my soul has gained is the awareness
Of the cannibal called convenience
That gains nothing from consumption.

This poem illustrates how I feel the majority of the time. It is a profound emptiness that I have self-diagnosed as depression; it's not necessarily a sadness, but more of a nothingness. Therapy, drugs, counseling, great sex and love can give me a temporary reprieve from this state, but I feel more comfortable learning to live with it rather than let others define how I should feel.

All at once I've lost my own awareness
As I realize I'm no longer here
All around me life carries on
The normal pace
As I've become
In an instant
No longer here
I'm surprised at my own lack
Of substance
Even words have more mass
As they echo through me
And stars shine through me
Clear as air
Sound and light have no impact on me
The most sensitive radar can't detect me
Wild animals and insects ignore me
Even ghosts don't see me
No blood pours from my deep wounds
Streams of water make no wake around me
I can't find a pulse
With no wrists to palpitate
I can't remember a name to identify me
When there's no love inside me.

I ripped off Emily Dickinson in this poem but I added my own glum twist.

I know what love is not
I live that everyday
And happiness forgot
To make its path my way
At least I have the friend
Who brings to me the hope
That as my life nears end
I might have learned to cope
For love from dearest friends
May not a fam'ly make
A broken heart will mend
Until again it breaks.
So lets have joy today
And leave all ills behind
Dear friend show me the way
And ease this weary mind.

I wrote this in all seriousness for my occasional boyfriend at the time but now it sounds kinda humorous.

If I could climb inside your mind
I would.
But instead I climb into your bed.
I stare at you but all I see
Is darkness.
I put my head on your heart
And listen for its beating;
But all I hear is your teeth grinding
And your shallow breathing.
I try to lie close to you,
But you're positioned in a way
That prevents me.
All I can do is roll away
Across the vast expanse of your bed,
Turn my back to you,
And become as self-absorbed as you are.

....I was inspired by a groovy young guy who plopped his dork right on a flatbed scanner at my request and sent it to me via email....

I
Slow awakened sun:
Misty, beautiful, new light
Dissolving night's dream.
The awakened hope
Of dreams of finding new joy:
Part yearning, part fear
II
Sun's light exposing
Earth's colors: bright and vivid,
Soon dulled gray by clouds.
Sweet passionate dream
Sensation: blissful, complete.
Joy from finding you.

This poem was written in the days that I had a cell phone on me at all times. Convenience and technology can sometimes cause a lot more trouble than they're worth. After racking up a $400 bill one month I got rid of the damn thing. Its been a couple of years since then and it will be at least a few more until I get another one...

The phone rang once

The phone rang once
(I knew it was you)
For a split second
I wondered once again
What I should do.
Is this the deciding moment
When I refuse your call?
For your tricks I won't fall?
(You don't love me at all)
Another ring sounds
I check the caller ID;
I'm right, it's you
I wonder what you want from me;
I think of the beauty of your eyes
The hot, passionate nights
The cruel shouting fights.
And then a third ring
How long will you try?
(Will my love for you die?)
Tonight will you make me cry?
But that empty, lonely feeling
Kills all logic and reason
I grab at the receiver
Just in time to hear
A distant sound
Bitch
And I hear you slam your
Receiver down.

I wrote this after seeing Stephen Hawking on TV, although the Steven in the poem could also be a unassuming character that whose magnitude of creativity, intelligence and charisma I have never encountered in another person, although when I first met this Steve his appearance did not give me the inkling that he would be such a moving figure in my life.

Stephen

The greatest mind of our time-
Pale and thin as a stick figure
Limbs gnarled and curled-
Is wheeled into the lecture hall
Attended by the runners-up,
Bent and intent
Leaning in
Quiet and focused on the figure
All minds concentrated on this focal point
As he mumbles groaning noises.

Here's another byproduct of watching Hawking on PBS.

Physex and Philosotry

I didn't need the physicist to tell me
That the universe is expanding
I've felt it for many years
As the days slide away from me
And the nights leave me so lonely.

The dreams of the future
That I conceived in my childhood
Are farther away from me
Than the most distant galaxy.

My soul is like a balloon
That expands and spreads
And it is filled with plain air
If I let go it merely floats down
With the pull of all this depressed gravity,

And for all the ones who loved me
I might as well been an unknown planet
As fictional as some sci-fi novel fantasy
But perhaps a book is only alive and understood
By the reader; the author is irrelevant,
And the work itself alone does not exist.

One of the constant struggles in my life has been meeting someone and having an instant affinity with them that is super intense, and then after a couple days the lust wears off and the relationship slides into the toilet.

My imagined you killed by reality

I can imagine you no longer
The confusion has locked Hope's door.
Although the dream began so beautifully
Your surreal love is now a horror.
Like a fantasy that became flesh
I thought I'd met you long ago
But as our lives do intermesh
The more I find and don't want to know.

More of Brenda's work, including the infamous "Peach," can be seen here: http://www.worldnetpublishing.com/poetry/bnichols00.htm