People

A Wintered Heart (Narrative Poem)

/ michaelkilman / Leave a comment

A Narrative poem titled A Wintered Heart. The artwork I created goes by the same title.

A Wintered Heart

A heart of winter, a wintered heart,

She lay quiet, the letter torn apart.

Her tears streamed, like rivers to the sea

And she tried to make bargains, and made endless pleas

An age had past, and cold crept in

No smiles, no warmth, and no new life could begin

The fresh dark tears of the next mornings song

Rose up her cheeks and sapped her strength so that she could not go on.

There she lay, no warmth and no light

A mistress of time, without the slightest delight,

Waited, she waited, with her breath deeply bated

But once the cold crept in, her permafrost was fated

An act so unkind had birthed her present dread

And soon, she had sores from her long days in bed

That act of greed, and a lust for glorious stone

Had left her heart broken, now widowed and alone

She sat there all winter, in endless defeat

She lay so still, mice nested at her feet.

And as the spring time came, the sun drew in

And pressed on her face, lighting her skin.

It planted a seed below her dread,

And as the sun shone that morning, she swung out of bed

Her pain, had nested rot in her heart

And she could not bear the thought of no more love

AND no more art

And so that day, she made her demands

At the canvas she threw red paint and smoked contraband

But from her mess, came a new kind of love

A love of life, hard won, from travels above

Her wintered heart still, held great sway,

But she got a little better with each passing day

And new mediums of art caught her attention,

And she found small victories with her creative affections

So she took one step, and then one more

And one day soon she found herself outside her front door

And found a new canvas to shed her grief,

Though when she spray painted her mural, the cops chased her, called her a liar and thief

Though she had not finished and ran and hide

She planted a new seed on the cities west side,

New murals sprung up in tangent with her own,

And she started a club, and though at first people groaned

About the “grafetti” and the murals, it became a place for many to call home.

And though many of the wealthy had made their gripes

Soon the color that flooded the city brought new life

Community gatherings of collaborative art,

Helped her to get a kind of political start

She found that art brought so much relief

To help people shed the weight of their tragedy and grief

She started centers all over her city

And named them Wintered Heart, to make light of her season long self-pity

For she knew that seeing the signs swinging above

She would always remember her long lost love

And She would honor him with every stroke of a brush

Or spray can, or clay, or charcoal or the burning of sagebrush

Her wintered heart had planted a seed of hope

In place where so many felt at the end of their rope

And they loved her, and taught her a new kind of joy

That’s found in friends hearts, without any romantic ploys

Winteredheart… they chanted her name,

With love and respect and begged her to enter the political game,

Soon after elected mayor she made the city her new project,

Used art, music, theater, and poetry to help them remember self-knowledge and respect

Through her acts, she brought great change,

For the city filled with color and it helped her to rearrange,

The divides and the differences that people perceive

And she taught them that it was, in each other they should believe.

Still her wintered heart held great sway,

For she barely forgot about her lost love for more than a day

Her heart still long for his eyes and his lips

Or to run her hand through his hair with her fingertips

But she smiled, and felt, the joy of all she’d done  

Many victories, in her community, she had won

And her heart was frozen but happy at the same time.

For even a Wintered Heart, can find new rhythm and new rhyme.

TuT! TuT! (Poetry)

/ michaelkilman / Leave a comment

My first piece of poetry for 2022. The artwork is a photo collage of several images. Enjoy!



TuT! TuT!

There is a theme to be found in the hollow cheeks of children with their wide vacant eyes. Their gaze fixed on concrete with only the occasional stare as you walk past, curious, and ever certain of the sins of the last age.

Their tear ducts are empty from an era of dispossession, obsession.

Tut tut

Their dreams are the broken glass you walk on with bare feet.  

I traverse hulking skeletons along their spine. In hidden highways I stride past the corridors of indifference. Saturated with knowing.

The markets make gamblers of us, casting bones in cups, with aged, choked knuckles, that align our lots with one unblinking eye.

Tut tut

Nerves splice open and raw, and in the light, only exposure

There was failure there in the corner, passing for a human, with arms outstretched in asking, looking for any reason to find two solid feet to stand on.

His teeth were clean but his thoughts were of days when the fix was fresh. When color nourished every pour. He is poorer for it.

Tut tut

I turn my head, not wanting to see a possible future.

You don’t hear the children play anymore between these concrete monsters, it is the commerce, the smell of flat wages, caffeinated mornings, and empty bottles in the evening, that drive us to wanting

And any hope of fresh air rots in our complacent cowardice

Tut tut

My stomach aches, the pill caused a hemorrhage again

There is a trembling in my pocket, and as I slide my hand against it, to quiet it’s nagging, I realized I’ve lost all the silence and stillness, maybe forever.  

I cannot adjourn from this court of chaos. There is no detachment, just desire.

Tut Tut

The engines scream in my ears as the gears grind for another cycle. My anger is but a thumbprint away.

What should you feel as you pace through passageway of the damned? All the sulfur stinging your eyes in between rows of unkind smiles, glaring at you like idiot passengers on a doomed train car.

Drink it in, for the fountain must not overflow and everyone’s stomach must be distended before the sun kisses the earth.

Tut Tut

The screams always die before my throat can catch them.

Grass, fields, pasture lay ahead, the eye of the storm. With shouting, rasping, chuckling fervor, I pass through the gates.

There are ducks lolling just out of the reach of so many unleashed hounds, and people pampered in concrete corners.

Tut Tut

Their grief has no knowledge here.

Sitting, I wait for the fall, for a stall, for anything. But I am left waiting and wasting, sitting in the center of the eye and staring at the hulks on my periphery. Knowing they are watching every minute of rest. Flailing me with their guilt.

They are always looming, day or night, they block out stars and dreams

Tut Tut

They were built with rage in mind, and a coffin around the corner.  

I hear it. A close, friendly conspiracy. Shoulders pressed together and whispers of the young for an honest days work. They stand, run, in search for sign in splashing creeks. They hunger for the chase of minnows between toes, with plastic cup in hand.

Dunking, wishing, smiles, even in the mistakes. In folly they fly past the skeletons, and into the forest to where they always belonged.

Caring not, to Tut Tut.

Yearning to breathe free, I breathe with them.

I stand.

I join them.

My hand will be my cup.

And it will fill with joy.