Author’s Note
I wrote these poems between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two. They are fragments of the human I was then and revisiting them now at twenty-seven was a deep practice of reflection. There has been a lot happening in my life this year, and sometimes nothing at all. Growing is painful and many of these old poems came out of painful growth. My passion was more untethered then, my wit more certain, my love more desperate. In the past few years, I think a lot of me diminished into background radiation that poisoned the apathetic shell I had been until late last year. To come back to these shards of personhood was a healing process. To comment on them required some sensitivity and forgiveness for the person I have been lately. I still have some healing to do, and I still have some forgiveness to practice. Skipping Stones was a personal journey, as all good poetry books are, and there are many more poems to be shared from those ripples of experience. For now, I hope you enjoy these thirty-six pieces.
Thank you.
— Will Edgcomb, 12 August 2024
Selections from ‘Skipping Stones’
Upon Her Lips1
Your crimson lips spread thick with red lipstick and when I tease you for it you take defensive position and tackle me with feminine precision but you miss the point; your lips make me nervous and what lies behind them gives warning to my awareness: A colour never held such sway.
Choice Becomes Us2
i. My necklace grows heavy in the seconds where I question integrity as a cloud comes over me ii. I don’t know what to do in the gaps of time when I gaze into broken pools and find that my heart is empty iii. Is it choice or logic? In the ripples of these pools which is the more tragic of the two? Nonetheless, a change will come iv. And in my mind’s twilight hour The realm of my heart echoes Wanting only the path of beauty And so I fall, upward, like a reflection into everything.
Touch3
The space between your nose and chin — this is my domain I will enact acrobatics upon you — flesh to flesh While your wanting lips submit My hands approach your neck with gentle caress Thumb against throat As you release breaths between us — panting gasps O, my name — spoke at last.
Ode4
What desperation to feel more vast than the universe herself? In this my drum for you is beating the rhythm of existence You are my evergreen muse coiled with intangible dissatisfaction For I am Tantalus beneath your branch and above your surface I am Daedalus whose weariness remains unheard my warnings unheeded I am Pygmalion watching you and waiting for your animation I am Sisyphus and you are my wayward boulder girl Let my drum pound to the tempo of your heart's fertile beating May you never cease speaking the melody May you grow old and ever radiant with the grace of clouds or snow May the designs of the crows printing your eyes leave such footprints that they should be considered Masters of Their Craft Your beauty is eternal — you encapsulate it's Truth and through you I have attained magnificent fortitude Your mere existence astonishes me Like gazing at the stars or an ocean receding That is how I feel in your presence — vast.
Young Love III5
Oh my God it’s real As determined by a kiss I hold on to this memory In fear it will vanish You ought to know the power of a kiss As you let one determine our beginning While I let one determine our finish
Young Love VII (a car ride)6
Evening now, the sun is down and driving home your lap a pillow as revolver plays and johnny says “i’m only sleeping” So place your hand upon my face your fingertips my dreams erase and take me from this awful place I’m only sleeping
Lapse.7
I wish I could un-write the poems I wrote for you I wish I could un-speak the nice things I said to you I wish I could take back the touches the kisses the hugs the looks we exchanged I wish I could reach into my memory and remove your hand from places I should not have allowed it I wish I could un-whisper the secrets I told you I wish I could un-know you and that you would un-know me too
america.8
This flag is weeping torn threads stars falling in tattered shreds long stripes fading red and all the people's up is fed Some whisper comes down the line if not now when is the time become the how and not the why you will not see the people cry Love not hate makes countries great and this one's become second-rate breeding idols clearly fake thinking they can take and take Sleep, sister, and let me fight in place something sinister has crimes to face some people have american dreams to chase some things have to pick up the pace... I hear america sleeping stunted snores and steady dreaming four years of steadiness for the dignity she's keeping I hear america weeping steady streams of tears are leaving small crystals someone's stealing seems fears are too revealing Mr. Whitman, I hear america singing but not pretty tunes she's ringing those are the blues she's screaming and I must abide the feeling
Il Pleut en Paris9
The sun hides silent in the window — yellow and still Rain falls outside leaving teardrops on the windowsill Yesterday the trees were glowing, radiant and full Today the trees are shining, sombre and dull with rainwater bulk that causes tender leaves to sulk and the yellow fan is off now with Paris heat away but a gentle breeze comes through with drizzling water-spray and I’m sitting near to feel but the roof is in the way
The Forest Scene10
Moss clumps to the logs while the trees hold drapes of green shrouds — cobweb vegetation — in their branches. Above the canopy, a bit of sunlight dapples the forest floor and ignites the moss chartreuse and gold. There we walk barefoot on the soft carpet of fuzzy plant life with the warm tree fabric brushing our cheeks. Between us a hummingbird stops to hover and gaze at the yellow flowers in our hair to contemplate a drink. Then, like us, she moves on and disappears into the forest while the mossy cloth dries on the clothesline branches.
At Long Last11
When finally I feel nothing when I view your photos and no butterfly remains when the universe becomes more beautiful than you again when you are just another very small thing in my life when the memories of us begin to fog over uncertain when the relief pours in knowing I won’t love you anymore when you are a mere shadow of the lovely soul I once knew still there will be a sadness a beautiful melancholy for the exhilaration of what might have been
X, from “Eleven Erotic Poems”12
Herself, watering — softens a Calla Lily — delicate pheromones are released.
Farm, Summer, 6 or 7 am13
Dawn to the misty fields aglow Thick with virgin sunlight sown Candles for the death of spring And the lowing of the cows Marching barnward for relief
Little Harbour Town14
What a day is this that perches gaily On the mountains east from our little town The ships come in west there softly sailing Bringing with them word of foreign lands The war and beauty, mist and sage An idea of things we’ll never know Safely kept in our forest glade With a port to hear the aching world
Moonlight Sestina15
Two nude forms twist in the night, bodies chiaroscuro in the moon filtering through the white curtains like pale dust floating on the humid air of soft exhalations as the forms caress curves and search after ways to feel less hollow first in parts that are hollow, hoping to fill the silence of the night with the music hidden in their own curves and thus soothe with a melody that moon who from the window adorns them with soft immolations that bound them like a pale. The woman moans — her breasts are pale as they rise with her chest while her hollow mouth admits the tongue of the man whose soft hands touching mix the soundtrack for the night, sliding down from breasts to the subtle moon of her and strumming on those gentle curves. He performs the songs on her eager curves, delicate fingers wrapping around pale cheeks to lay kisses while her lovely moon bathed body shows him the wanting hollow between her legs so they can sleep at night knowing she will have been loved until soft. As they writhe and fuck, the soft mattress sinks and molds to their shifting curves and the man’s performance gladdens the night by conjuring pleasant howls from the pale shape of the woman lying with her hollow mind awake to the corpulent moon. There is wisdom in that moon; they draw on the holy power as the soft heart of the woman yields to the hollow palms wrapping around it to relish curves hidden beyond flesh; the lovers turn pale and the music finishes for the night. The moon gazes on the tangle of curves. Their bodies are as the light: soft and pale. They are lying still in the hollow night.
( ( ( ( (o) ) ) ) )16
A blue ripple opens this soft aperture (my mind) is one pebble dropped in the sea (my being) so silent and still it grows and covers ev’rything
Anxiety17
With each emotion a raindrop they’ve made an ocean. And the waves give the notion of drowning. Into a thought we plummet ourselves, raping. As we balance on the summit of this Hell we’re shaping. and shaking we wait with patience for a mercy un-swift in becoming our Love.
Portrait of a Love Letter (Good-bye the Second Time)18
She has been Autumn then cold and beautiful when the blonde sun lessened during sorrow summer’s end Her yellow hair was akin to molting leaves on forest trees and the colours of sunsets as their patterns faded into seas We were young and gentle kids not knowing how to be when between us there was something beyond our comprehension So, when she left this gorgeous thing and abandoned collective reasoning, I was left stunned and stuttering — perhaps I’m too protective While I am in a twilight-place where she remains forever still her pocket of mourning here seems never to fade, though I know it will So I deliberate on how to handle the act of speaking with her and whether to admit that my words still catch on a butterfly For, I had a dream of simply being around, upon or perhaps within right beside her when she sleeps to silence even the way she weeps and calm the waves of wayward minds to cease the cruel enchant of time then crease the folds of — (but i awoke as the mourning came back again) And, sallow air touched me then; it reeked of her perfume with the sugar and vanilla scent of Sunday afternoons spent watching her existence She is my Autumn then while summer of her soul is thin And upon my lips: a fading wish The echo of a horrid kiss.
Note to Self19
You’re fighting Fate insisting things without assistance — losing. Flow with Fate and she will carry you like the sea. Flow with life Like river with rocks Yielding. Flow with self learn your limit learn your mind learn your heart learn your love. Be.
True Love20
A flower cannot teach you To be pretty Any more than I can teach you To love yourself But if you rest in silence with me And stay awhile Perhaps we’ll find a better way To know ourselves
How to Be Pretty21
Boys came to you with flowers They told you their flowers Would teach you how to be pretty You would always believe them Soon after, their flowers Would wither and die A Man came to you one day He offered you his hand You asked what he could teach That the Boys had not already He said, “I will teach you how To be a flower and you will Teach me how to be pretty.”
Thread of the Universe22
I am infinite — look and You will know before I was an infant, I was a shared dream between two people and they were many people leading up to me I am them and before them, I was water and other particles before that, I was the stars in the sky further still, I was the energy and the heat Then, I was the Previous look! and You will know: I will be grandfather infinite all who come from me will feed the universe They will multiply and everything they do will affect everything that is Then, I will be piece-of-the-earth and of all else touch’d by what is left behind Hence I will become one with the Beyond (i have left time) was and will be are no more —they are (i become a thread in the quilt of the Universe) I become my opposites I un-become
Nature of Time Quatrain23
Time is a sunflower— Bright and beautiful— Fraying at the outside— Dropping seeds as she withers
To Departed Friends24
We,
in your passing
—take this:
For all that you never
—I will
For all that you are
—I am
For all that you were
—I become.
— for L.
Quatrain to a Human I Met at a Hipster Mosh-pit Who Reminded Me of Paris, France25
You saw the water in my eyes. Clear—pond—blue—mind— Don’t you want to dive in? Take a swim where eternity ends?
A POEM.26
Still and cold had I thought my fire been Ere we met, the embers of my passion Were extinguished, naught but ashes ‘Til you raked the coals and struck the matches For the ancient pyre found within
Penumbra27
How you inhale sunlight Through the parchment Of your face will determine The amount of time I spend Aching for your comfort And how your smoky hair Falls across the province Of your shoulders’ lace Will determine the theme Of my passions for you These thoughts portrayed Through a photograph Taken on a summer’s day
Fleeting28
I dreamt of you last night In the musings of a former life I was a daisy and you were a butterfly My petals shivered in the spring breeze So I longed to know the shelter of your wings And you wanted my nectar So you landed on me
Quatern #129
You mustn’t kiss me the way you do Your teasing lips touching the fabrics While I wish you would taste the crack’d Chalice of my own breath’s aperture So please listen close to this apparition You mustn’t kiss me the way you do It’s not polite to confuse the gentleman Who tries to be another friend True though my heart may still beat It stops with each lip’s embrace You mustn’t kiss me the way you do I waste away with what remains So I must ask that you stay away Or at least attempt a bold refrain For, as still I wish to be your fool You mustn’t kiss me the way you do
Syntax30
You make verbs beautiful and adjectives lovely— This delicate language you speak helps me to love English— In being, you encapsulate every virtue of vocabulary— All the good words belong to you.
Untitled31
On my nightstand a rose gathers ashes and loosens smoky petals before her stem takes my fingers’ embrace and prepares to be born again. The nonsense goes first loosening bits of time clogged in my head as I watch the sand shatter the soundscape in a beautiful euphoria of glittering dust and intensity. When the purple fades my eyes are left with a sunset lingering as the sky drags it loosely into the sea and there is no difference between the stars and your freckles. They are the same.
Little Faces32
Let’s make faces, little faces Made of you and me We’ll take them off to foreign places And everyone will see Let’s shape them so they grow up kind Grow up to be True We’ll water all the good seeds in them Good seeds made from two And while the world is quiet, thinking Of the things it needs I’ll believe that it’s in desperate want Of faces made by you and me
”You bite back.”33
They bite me sometimes, firecracker lips snapping up my sentences, masticating my diatribe. It’s exciting, somehow, to have them chewing, to have my words digested so entirely. And they seem to strike least of all when expected, inciting a great thrill in me that I cannot get elsewhere.
Sacrament34
Come break bread with me The children are sound asleep Partake of my flesh And my blood is you We mayn’t another chance Once the night is through
Acrostic #435
Chase the lingering Energies left by me In your heart Let them change you Into who you want to be
Breakfast with Father36
Dad makes pancakes, shaping them like mice
Maple syrup goes to waste, drowning fork and knife
A peanut butter christening and whipping cream for crowns
We feel no other man alive could steal away our frowns!
Dad steeps cream of wheat, stirring out the lumps
Brown sugar makes it sweet with milk to mix it up
A single scoop of ice cream to cool the porridge down
We feel no other man alive could steal away our frowns!
Dad molds biscuit rolls, kneading with his fists
The scent alone warms up the home, baking ‘til they’re crisp
Then out with the butter, jam, and honey, spreading all around
We feel no other man alive could steal away our frowns!
— for G.
When I was 19, I fell in love with someone. This poem is about the process of realizing that I was falling in love with them. They teased me for teasing them about wearing lipstick at noon on a Saturday while they visited our family. Little details have power; in this case, lipstick had power. It was red and beautiful like a fresh, smiling cut.
When I was 19, I fell in love with someone, but I was already in love with someone when this happened. Love was new to me, and interpersonal relationships were only a bit less-new to me. It was difficult to navigate my emotions and my integrity in my relationships. I struggled with my mind, and hurt people I cared about. This poem is about that growth.
One of my first ‘erotic’ pieces. I enjoy writing ‘eroticism,’ but I do not set out to be horny in my poetry about sex or love. I try to speak for the intensity of movement and pleasure, something words often have little part in beyond play or fantasy. I like this poem, but it is young. Perhaps I like its youth. It is an aspect of my sexuality I have struggled to relate to in recent years, but I know reading this that it is still a part of the animal I am.
Love is intense, and this was my first ode, and an ode to the human I fell in love with at 19. They are a lovely person, but we do not talk anymore. I was, at times, too intense. I like this poem, but not because I think it has artistic value. It is a good reminder of the folly of young love and the intensity that leads one astray from love’s true path. I miss those feelings, but I would never wish them on another. They are illusory.
When I was 16, I fell in love with someone. They were my first love, and I ended up hurting them when I was 19. We do not talk but managed to settle our old traumas a bit some years ago when I timidly offered to talk with them about it after shadowing them online (cringe behaviour, but nature is cringe and still beautiful). I am not proud of how my first love ended but I am proud of the lessons I have worked to practice since. My mistakes have occasionally looked similar to those of my youth, but I am wiser in my resolution now.
Falling in love for the first time is blissful, almost ignorant, and beautiful. I miss the early feelings of love and loving, when all was new and there was no anxiety for the unseen circumstances of fate. This poem is a small ode to a quiet car ride, a soft human to lie against, and the great tones of the Beatles’ Revolver playing over the car speakers. Midsummer, and a day of helping neighbours move while my first love visited us. It is a small prayer for the past, a moment of grief and longing given up to time.
Sometimes we hurt people, sometimes people hurt us. When I was 19, I fell in love with someone, and they ended up hurting me in an unexpected way. It was not their fault. Life is just hard, and young people struggle. I do not feel the pain in this poem anymore, but I respect the younger version of me who did. I remember what it was like to be them, and I hope they are feeling better now.
I do not like the juvenile styling of the poem, but it is important as my first piece of ‘political’ writing. Trump won the election in 2016, and I wrote this the same evening.
In 2017, I visited Paris for few weeks in early summer. For three days, fierce rain pummeled the streets. It had been so hot before, and the rain temporarily destroyed that heat. It was beautiful. Paris is beautiful.
An early attempt at a poem almost wholly unrelated to my life. A non-confessional poem. I cherish this early exercise in developing identity, style, and artistic vision. I also cherish this poem for poignantly referencing a hummingbird long before a Hummingbird entered my life in the form of a human who is quite dear to me. It is almost prophetic, in hindsight, as many things are.
What I felt for them was intense, blind, and ugly. It fostered ugliness inside me and my suffering was exercised often in maudlin poetry that did not speak well for the deep love I felt for them. Despite this, there is a kernel in this poem that speaks ineffable truth. There is always a melancholy pleasure in challenging the simple twists of fate that send us wheeling from each other into different lives. I love the people we’ve become, as I love the people we once were.
From a series of just-okay erotic poems. I like the language in this one. It is often that I focus on feminine pleasure over masculine pleasure. This is not because I find it more interesting or more alluring, but because it comes easier in language to me. It feels like familiar terrain. There is something in the flower that delights the gardener in me.
I worked at a farm for a period of time in my early twenties. It was a good job, and the farmer taught me a lot about responsibility. This is a small piece for that job, for being up at dawn and guiding cows into place to be relieved of the milk. Farming is an inspirational but thankless profession. I am grateful for the experiences I had working on farms in my youth.
Another effort to write poetry beyond what is known to me. To imagine a feeling and put it into verse. I appreciate this poem, and believe it is influenced in part by how the Island where I live feels sequestered from the rest of the world. It is a quaint bit of verse.
This poem was a serious undertaking, even though the end result is not pristine, in my opinion. A sestina is a difficult thing to write, and I ought to try another soon. This took three days, a whole graph of planning, and some mental gymnastics to construct the verses. I went for an erotic theme because I knew it would speak well for the chosen words and be somewhat engaging for both the writer and the reader. It’s a good effort for a young poet, and great practice for any writer.
The ‘title’ of this poem is meant to be a ripple. The content of the poem is perhaps the debut of Eastern philosophy influencing my art. I’ve always liked this piece, though it is small and ordinary. It’s cute and reflective and I’m glad I wrote it.
The first time I tackled in anxiety as a subject and was content with the outcome. Anxiety is hard to write about sometimes. It’s hard to endure, too. My anxiety is not as bad as it once was, but I can still relate to the intensity of my language here. There is no tempest quite like the un-tempered thought that has strayed from the path of reason. I hold peace for my anxiety now, but when I was young, I struggled with it immensely. It soured my social interactions and disrupted my identity. I’m glad we’ve worked with it rather than tried to bury it beneath our personhood. Anxiety is a part of me, but it is not me.
For a failed romance. When I was 19, I fell in love with someone. This was among the final poems I wrote about that romance. I miss them, but I do not miss this period of time. It was a lesson in love and loving and letting go. I was foolish but attached. Now I am just foolish.
Clearly, I have begun to read books on Buddhism and Daoism by the time of writing this piece. It is simple, but essential. There is little else to say. Much could be said of Fate, but not here.
This is a beautiful poem, and I wish I had kept it on my wall these past few years. Relationships are difficult. All relationships. There is a process of exchange that is almost untenable to us. I do not seek to expect or receive so much anymore. I just want to give. This is a recent development after a period of apathy and isolation. I hope my presence has at least left knowledge of self in their wake.
Vulnerability is difficult to practice sometimes. I struggle, I think, because in the past few years I have closed myself from my loved ones in many ways. I am trying to undo this, to sprout from the mud like a great lotus. This poem touches on how vulnerable I tried to be in my early twenties. I think I was more successful then than in the intervening years since. I am proud of them for their honesty and effort. I hope to do right by them now, in my later twenties.
This was an early metaphysical/spiritual poem I wrote during early considerations on the interbeing of all matter. I appreciate this poem. A lot. I think it’s grounding and sincere, and that is the most a writer can try for some days.
I love writing quatrains. They are not strenuous but offer an excellent practice in theme and phrasing. To convey small ideas or feelings in few lines is quite joyous. Quatrains are less constrained, and so less difficult, than haiku. It is easier to feel like you have explored something rather than merely scratched the surface. This quatrain is a bit sad to me, though. Time is fickle and it often feels like it escapes me. The future is an impossible seed, but I know that seed is ever-sowed and so ever-sprouting.
Lisa passed away in the summer of 2018 after a period of unexpected illness. I did not know her long, but in that brief time she made a deep impression on us all. Watching her friends and partner grieve was a noble lesson in presence and compassion for me. Lisa remains an inspiration to my writing and her passing will remain with me until my own. I hope she is resting well, wherever nature has taken her.
On 4 November, 2017, in the earliest hour of the day, I met my best friend following their performance at an open mic beside a coffee shop downtown. Our relationship has been a kaleidoscope. This is one of our poems. Briefly, I considered naming this space Clear Pond, Blue Mind before settling on the Distended Orthonym. This quatrain is about friendship and our capacity to have great relationships that transcend mere pleasantry.
This was the first love poem I wrote for a new person in my life after a period of isolating heartache. Love poems strike me like nails in a coffin lid. I cannot control the inspiration that will provoke them and am prone to writing lofty words for the most mundane things. It is difficult for me to deliberately write a poem for something. Inspiration must strike. I was grateful for the inspiration that struck this poem from me.
For a photograph of someone with whom I had fallen in love. Written in the earlier days of my descent. It is not a great poem, but it is very sweet to me.
I think this poem is just lovely. It is likely for the same human that most of these later love poems are intended to encapsulate. I want to be something that gives without expectation. I feel this poem offers a voice to that desire.
They kissed me on the shoulder one evening after a show we attended together. I have a vivid memory of the night. Later, they kissed me on the lips in a moment of interest and passion, and I was never the same. Such kisses are the work of Aphrodite seeking to change our relationship to love. Their kisses are among the cornerstones of my philosophy. I am a fool, and that is okay. A quatern is an excellent way to explore ideas. I recommend.
Some people do not have a way with words yet in speaking are so pure in their expression that they give language purpose. I am blessed to know several people like this. The person for whom this was written has a delightful voice. They way they speak is a song to me. It is not always lovely or eloquent, but it is them, and that is what matters most.
This is a poem from the influence of cannabis. It is quite dear to me. I remember the night for which it was writ. A beautiful night. Sometimes, I miss the incarnations of my youth, but I must remember that I am youthful still, even if life feels denser—older—than it once was.
The future is an impossible seed. I don’t know if I will have children. I don’t know if I won’t have children. I wrote this poem for someone with whom I want(ed) to have children. I write poems for people with whom I don’t want to have children, too. This is art. In another universe, I know these ‘little faces’ are in love with their parents and love the sweetness of this poem. Lately, it has only saddened me. That is why I include it here.
For my best friend. Early in our relationship I was delighted to have someone who was not afraid to put me in place. Sometimes, I wish they still had the courage to put me in place when I do not see what ails me. When you have known someone for so long and love them so, it can be difficult to know where a boundary ought to be tested.
For a future from another universe, I think. See note 32.
I think love with another person should be foremost an invitation to self-knowledge. Love that seeks to control or hinder someone, to misguide them or manipulate them only into a relationship is not a good or healthy love. I am grateful to share a love with someone that reveals aspects of personal truth to me. I know that I will never have an expectation or demand set upon me in this love, that it is a thing of beauty for cradling the ineffable quality of self-refinement. This love is freedom. It is true love, as we have discussed. Difficult to practice, sometimes, but ever so worth the suffering.
I love you, Dad. Thank you for being a man whose living encourages me to be a better man. Thank you for weekends awaking to the scent of warm breakfast. Thank you for passion and guidance. Thank you for your presence and effort for yourself and for us. Thank you.