Some Kind Of Wonderful

Is this where I’m supposed to rip the picture
of our love in half and burn the memory of your smile
in the fire pit of my anger?
Is this the part in the movie script where I’m supposed
to break down and wilt into pathetic
ball of crumbled self-hate because you are no longer
the nest of warmth next to me to wake me with a stare?

Who the fuck made up the rules for a broken heart anyway?

Because tears do not drip drop into puddles of emptiness
without you by my side because you instilled the courage
to love and to bare a soul I kept hidden all my life.
You welded my heart into a concrete storage place
for dedication, passion and caring that can never again
be penetrated by the crafty hammer of loneliness.
You showed me a companionship that will last beyond
the fortitudes of partnership.

You are indeed some kind of wonderful
for recognizing the world out there through eyes
visualized to heal. And you healed me
without leaving a scar; without leaving me with an ache
that returns with every memorized vision of hurt
and you continue to be that sweet morning sunshine
that provides the vitamin D I need to rise and shine
as fearless and provide an energy to reveal to life
the brighter side of believing.

It is my pride and human nature that is defining you
as some kind of wonderful.

© 2009
Tarringo T Vaughan

It Came To Me In A Dream

I'v stood here before; right here
in the center of a moment watching my own existence
romance the skies of time with elegant
touches of prismatic duration.

But these were not my hands;
these were the hands of history
massaging everything that is now
into the relaxation of reoccurrence

of momentary fingerprints smudged
down the glass of fossil images reflecting
faces emerged within visions of sound/silent
but heard brightly in mutation.

But these were not my ears;

These were the ears of sight
listening once again to the sweet melody
of imagination as it walks
on hard wood of oak waxed by reality.

I'v stood here before; right here again
in the middle of my mind watching jumbled
thoughts perform on the stage of consciousness

with no beginning act and no ending
applause; just the stage fright of symbolic distortions
serenading with gestures of definition/undefined

but present in the clarity of sleep.

And it all came to me in a dream
that I'v stood here before( not as me)
but as fragments of imagination’s reality.

© 2010
Tarringo T Vaughan

Through A Third Floor Apartment Window

Spring sings through the microphone of melancholy skies
as I take a sip of a delicate breeze
through bohemian eyes.
I am a wanderer with a mind
rapidly in bloom as I look down
at smiles existing as journalists in discovery
of the beauty of being.

Through a third floor apartment window
I am looking down upon faces
of many centuries applauding the rebirth
within the beauty of time
and new discoveries. They walk on sanded curbs
of adventure without balance but they are sturdy
in their quest to exist

and through a third floor apartment window
I am looking down upon reflected shadows
of the afternoon sun blazing in laughter
and tap dancing on glistening sidewalks
crystallized by nature’s dimples.

This is why we question;
This is why we believe;
This is what we write for.

As a blue jay
lands on the fractured limb of a tree
parallel to the distance of my view,
I quickly land in the captivation of something new;
something to honor
and while I sit here gazing through a third floor
apartment window half way taken by the sky
and half way a part of everything down there,

I become the air breathed by life.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

There Comes A Time

A half glass of warm beer sits just to the left
of a pile of scattered newspaper crumpled just enough
to see a half page of an Obituary; someone has ran out of time
today/no chance to open their eyes again to breathe
into another day/no chance to speak into silence
and to pause another moment.
I lay on a couch wasting my own hours
pretending not to be afraid to let this all leave me/
all of this/that makes my presence matter --

it is during these times that I hesitate
to take the small things in life for granted. My thoughts
are thirsty for a sip of recognition. The phone is not ringing/
haven’t rang all day--
the faucets are not dripping, the clock isn’t ticking/the battery
has died and I haven’t dusted
the framed memories hanging on my walls in days.

I wonder who is thinking about me;
I wonder who speaks my name
and who reminders a chance we spent together;
I wonder who inhales the scent from the aroma
of my mind and I wonder who hears the vibrations
echoing from the stairways of my heart
because there comes a time where we must
embrace every fabric of our human existence
and rejoice in the interaction of each other
because what is here today can be gone tomorrow

I’ve learned quickly nothing in this world
is meant to last forever except the footprints
we plant in each soul we touch through existence.
I lay on a couch surrounded by comfort
as I enjoy all that is around me
because there comes a time where we must
appreciate and value the small things; the flaws,
the absences and the daily mess of creation
that makes us relevant and remembered.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan
(Tears Of A Poet)

Nobody Is Going To Love Me

I want to love again
I want to love again and celebrate the victory
of two hearts cemented in a stone
of everlasting commitment.

I want to feel the voice of a lover singing to my heart.
I want to hear the touch of passionate surrender
embrace me and never part.
I want to kiss the open air of a collaborative breath
exhaled from the romance
of two souls waltzing together as one
in a dreamer’s dance.

I want to capture that moment again; that moment
that awakened my loneliness
and released a new energy of music from my core
that I have never heard before.

I want to love again
but before I can love I must realize
that nobody is going to love me
until I find a way to love myself again.



© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

There Again

The gorgeous/golden/glisten of silence
awakens as a familiar sunrise parachutes
through the open skies of a new horizon.

A calm/comforting wind shifts
              the hazelnut sands( just barely)
as my mind once again sunbaths
under the currents of ultraviolet rays
that reach through mirrored clouds

reflecting the deep blue
of the ocean’s hue.  I am there again
inside the peaceful serenity of time
basking under a filtered air of steady warmth.

The aroma of the sea deep massages
the shore with strong waves
of its hands as seagulls dance
on finely sculpted pieces of earth,

and I am there again
as a voyeur to the victory of escape
watching seashells whistle their unique beauty
and drunken seals wobble with grace
nodding their silk heads with a laughter
of happiness.

 I take it all in as I am there again
with my smile as an ornament
on this picture perfect landscape
of relaxation; a place I go

                    every time I close my eyes.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

Last Night While Dreaming

I must’ve dozed off into the ease of a new sunlight
as my body became a surfer caressing
the high rolling waves of the impossible,

roaring as the deep surrender
of the ocean air I became

the fearless warrior conquering
relentless gladiators through the armor of spirit
and a toughness that shattered barricades
into mercy;

last night while dreaming,

I became the breakthrough on the collision
course with the wrecking ball of fear;

self-fear

threatening to break the glass shield
of determination glaring over the sea of strength.

Last night while dreaming,

I became the energy emerging
from lightning bolts exploding against
the steel bars of internal passion.

Last night while dreaming,

I became the greatest inspiration standing
as a champion, hand raised, in the middle
of a ring surrounded by the flames of hardship,

and last night while dreaming


I became the endorsement of victory embracing
every challenge as possible.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

The Young Americans

Many say they are nuances as they study
their own adolescence with rebellion.
They masquerade in front of these storefronts
and on these busy sidewalk curbs
as challenged faces barely old enough to cry.

And as I walk,

a young Asian girl stands in my way
as I try to get by. She is smoking a thin cigarette,
slightly puffing from the side of her pieced lip.
Her left hand is covered by a black glove
as she ignores my presence
by rolling her eyes with her other hand.
The expression on her face gives me the middle finger
but the sadness in her stare
politely asks me to notice her.


She is there quietly singing with a loud
voice in style. Misunderstood by the nature
of her appearance is a girl searching for her place
in a world ignoring her,
telling her she’s no good.

And as I watch,
a skateboarder showcases his tattooed anger
by blindly shifting out into the open street
of passing strangers. He is risking his tomorrow
and they are risking his discovery
as they honk their horns to the glare of his eyes
shouting ‘fuck you’
as he pushes his board with worn down
Sketcher sneakers.

For the moment the stage is his
as his spiked Mohawk makes its way
to the other side of the street where a group
of Black and Latino kids battle back in fourth
in a lyrical game of rhyme.

Their words are fulfilled by their hardships
as their voices express the conflict
of human struggle. They speak the language
of adulthood from the bodies of children
hardened by the victories of poverty.


And as I listen,
I hear the breath of a generation wheezing
in the fields of definition. They are an asthma
as they seek to open new lungs in the dampened
air of expectations.

They are the young Americans -- a new age
of voices traveling through different languages
for growth
and for the freedom to be heard.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

The Lyrics Of Her Song

She was a whistle sitting silently in front of corner store
with her home wrapped openly around her
exposing her life and the orchestra of her tears.
               But no one seemed to care
as she was stepped over and stepped past
             Like an object just in the way.

Everyone seemed to ignore what her eyes have to say.
I stood there at a cross walk
In the middle of June day with sweat
dripping rapidly down the back of my mind
as I caught the song of this woman who was sometimes there
and sometimes everywhere
but often nowhere. She had a stench that hummed
       for a nice bath filled with hope
because for years she has had to cope
       with the stares and coldness
of a world that pretends she is just an excuse.

Her pride has been kicked with abuse
as the slow tempo of her voice has asked for help.
      She wasn’t America’s favorite song
but the way she caught my attention
there was no doubt the singing of her presence
                    was a vision that did belong
as she sung to me.

She was homeless but her strength
stayed strong and in her lyrics was a woman
who had dreams that were battered
by the fist of a mental illness that kept her
unable to hold on to the definitions of herself.
She was hungry but her starvation
was the neglect from the hands that failed
       to reach back as she grabbed
for a recognition to be understood
and to just be seen as a human being.


She was angry but continued to smile
            because she knew she was a song
with lyrics that could change a life
if one just listened to the sight of her
sitting there covered in clothes that haven’t been
washed since the last time she was able to laugh
      which was the last time she felt she existed.


She sung to me that day a song
    with lyrics that has become the music
in my heart.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

The Here And Now

These thoughts are dancing through the hollow
cylinder of my mind as translations of time

                                   (paused)

into the experience of being…a poet
and tomorrow has gone into extinction
as this moment has captured eternity’s glass eye
where I see reflections of no escape
peering through windows scraped

                               by the fingertips of yesterday.

And right here, right now I sit in the middle
of an empty room filled with crowds
                           of inspiration.

They don’t see me because they are absent
shadows of my surroundings.


A blind girl captures the fragrance of sight
as she feels her way through the aroma
        of distant stares.

She is amazed at their beauty
simplified in perfect fragments of…ignorance
as her description and movement is being
written by a stranger who knows her well
poetry is her brail and I read her brilliance
knowing her footprints will not fade
                       into tomorrow’s disappearance.

And right here, right now I study
the sands of time as they blow wildly
through visions I’ve never been introduced to
                       
                         before.

The blind girl surrounded the enigmas
who enhance their eye movement with every
step of her silence realize they are the blind ones
who are forgetting the importance
of the now as they look forward
to a memory that will be forgotten
in never promised winds of tomorrow


and I sit in a crowded room of emptied existence
                      with thoughts dancing through the hollow
cylinder of my mind frantically writing this all
                    into a poem

blind of time.

©2009
Tarringo T. Vaughan

Asshole.

I am but one a man and I wonder if they even know my name
or care
and as I drive down this familiar street
with this asshole in front of me turning with no blinkers/no warning
like these thoughts that are texting my heart to wonder
if all that I give is worth it.

They don’t even know my name
but continue to judge my expression as egotistical
like the asshole I just talked to on the phone from sprint
who wouldn’t adjust my bill after his own mistake
turning it around to justify me as the bad guy.

I am preoccupied driving or is it this driving
that is preoccupying my thinking/these thoughts
are diving my mind because I love to believe in others
but as these tears have barely just dried from the loss
of my mother, I can only wonder if they believe in me
or am I being used in their game to define their own name;
I have to allow these emotions to tame
because I’m always the asshole who takes the blame
when my words shout louder than my dreams
( to be taken seriously).

I am but one man placed upon this pedestal
by those who don’t even know my name; they only know the image.
The asshole behind me just honked his horn,
perhaps I’m thinking too slow or maybe I’m just believing too much
in trust.
Maybe now I’m the asshole turning another corner
without knowing my way
or have I just been given the wrong direction
from those who don’t know my name.


© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan