Jeremy Szuder 

I had to write down something,
to keep my arteries from seizing up,
to push tiny flames across my brow

and all along the tips of ten limber
fingers.
While people push passed themselves,

a light goes on before my eyes,
it spells out;
“truth be damned!”,

in what seems like one million
different languages.
I had to write it all down or forget it.

The Black Cherry Forests
have burned down enough already
without my ignorance getting in

the way.

The blood gates inside me
open with little hesitation
as rivers of crimson glory

splash up against the gates
of this tabernacle that stands true.
And at the top of every neon halo,

a small speakerbox instructs us all
to please pull up to the next window.
I had to write down something,

because life is an unfair game of
give and take, we walk through
the hallways of the finest artistic

establishments, knowing full well
that the things we see are the things
that keep us awake in the late nights,

shamefaced that we were
trying to sleep instead of running
wild in the streets and making

our own art.

Jeremy Szuder (he/him) lives in a tiny apartment with his wife, two children and two cats. He works in the evenings in a very busy restaurant, standing behind a stove, a grill, fryers and heating lamps, happily listening to hours of hand selected music and conjuring ideas for new art and poetry in his head. When his working day ends and he enters his home in the wee hours, he likes to sit down with a glass of wine and record all the various words and images that bear fruit within his mind. Jeremy Szuder only sets the cage doors free when the work begins to pile up too high. In this life, Szuder makes no illusions of being a professional artist in any way, shape, or form.

https://jeremyszuder.wordpress.com/

Four Sisters Pigtails is a painting by Vickie Wade.