dampness. Jasen Sousa

      

      dampness

      Other books by Jasen Sousa

      Poetry:

      Life, Weather

      A Thought and a Tear for Every Day of the Year

      Close Your Eyes and Dream With Me

      Almost Forever

      A Mosaic of My Mind

      17-24: Selected Poems of Jasen Sousa

      Humming Eternity

      Somewhere Lost

      Fiction:

      Fancy Girl

      dampness

      jasen sousa

      Special thanks to Rebecca Van Horn

      for poem editing and sequence assistance

      A J-Rock Book

      Somerville+Boston+Worldwide

      dampness

      Copyright © 2014 by Jasen Sousa

      Copyright © All Rights Reserved by J-Rock Publishing

      Editing by Rebecca Van Horn

      Photographs by Alex Foster

      Book Design by Alex Foster and Jasen Sousa

      J-Rock Publishing and Dime Designz

      In affiliation with Eudimeonia Entertainment

      All rights reserved under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, electronic, mechanical, or by any other means, without written permission of the author.

      Address all inquiries to :

      J-Rock Publishing

      45 Francesca Avenue

      Somerville, MA 02144

       WWW.JASENSOUSA.NET

       WWW.JROCKPUBLISHING.COM

      Library of Congress

      Cataloging in Publication Data

      ISBN 978-0-9853359-9-1

      eBook ISBN 978-0-9853359-8-4

      Manufactured in The United States of America

      Printed in Somerville, Massachusetts

      In Memory

      of

      Ann C. Mento

      Alex Foster

      Tom Westcott

      Author’s Note:

      Dampness was a difficult collection of poems for me to compile and complete. They took place during a period in my life when I lost two long-time neighborhood friends and felt creatively dead. Writing has always been a source of therapy for me, so instead of using excuses of why I could not write or not find the perfect words, I decided to walk through the mud in order to find some type of stable land in my life, and in my creative universe.

      I hope that you, the reader, are able to take something away from these poetic experiences and remember that being in a bad space does not mean that you have to stand still. Move with me in thought and motion to a place where creativity, inspiration, and hope can once again be familiar to all of us.

      Peace,

      Jasen Sousa

      FORGOTTEN POCKETS

      Puddles and other places

      I am seen throughout the day, stranger

      to the world and to myself. A portion

      of my being slowly evaporates underneath

      Weeping Willows and AC’s that droop

      out of 3rd floor windows. I walk past a park

      in the middle of July and watch

      balls fly, there is no place that kids have to be.

      Reminders of intruders

      who party on the balcony of my conscience.

      I carry a lot with me in different compartments,

      but it is the items I have left inside of forgotten pockets

      that I desire to reintroduce to my fingertips.

      Falling out of my dreams, parachutes

      containing incomplete goals imagined

      on dim-lit days. My toes yearning to be comfortable

      inside damp, disfigured boots. My previous success

      is an equation I can no longer compute.

      I walk swiftly past store windows to avoid eye

      contact with the man no longer intact, the man

      in black, black backpack, black hat, swallowing

      a black...gun. Future memories blown out the back

      landing in cracks where the sidewalk and street meet, until

      a machine comes by and sweeps them away.

      Roofers that quit and didn’t take the ladder down. Good kid,

      madder now, scowl, molded angry brow because there are forces

      which will not allow the man I witness throughout the day

      to be present now.

      WALLS

      756 square feet

      of new space

      I have never slept in.

      Windows are shut

      to keep rain from damaging

      my bamboo floors.

      The smell of new paint

      covers me like the sheet

      that drapes over one leg, July heat.

      Everything in here is foreign, I have trouble

      sleeping, surrounded by walls that will never know me

      as much as I will get to know them.

      I try to sleep in my new place

      longing for old

      comfort.

      A bookcase full of magnetic voices

      that call to my metal brain, wanting me to read

      them all at once.

      Voices of wisdom, despair, try to get me

      to do something

      I don’t want to do, be.

      I am kept company by a single LED light

      that lets me see

      what I’m writing, while I try

      and ignore what I’m thinking.

      CRUMBS

      A bed of