Poems by Michael T. Smith
When everyone else
turns their back on you,
breaking words that ring true,
I’ll hold your hand.
I’ll go with you.
When the rest of them
pretend again
to be a-kin,
I’ll go with you; when
being itself is yet a sin
I’ll go with you
be a constant friend.
Lay your head on me,
from the inside out.
I’ll be a pillow;
you be the freight.
Stay with me as you
hit the ground, while they say
gravity’s just a habit
you should break
Down. I’ll be with you —
Always, and again.
I’ll stay the night,
and act the gin.
Give to you, another
expression to read aloud,
thinking maybe — maybe
they’ll connect with your face.
But if they don’t
I’ll be around. I never
left. I’m by your side.
I’ll remind you again —
Depression
—
Depression 2
You see honey, I am not
a broken thing,
laying in the dark
waiting for the green.
You see the cage it calls.
It says, “come on in.”
And I walked therein
wearing that stupid grin.
It felt like love, but
a burning thing,
didn’t know how I
had got here singing.
Then you all stand there
behind the glass
smiling at me, but my
heart is steel
And my teeth are mean.
I could kill this
with my bare hands
if they were clean.
You see I laid my face
to the fire, willed
my mind to be cleaned.
I may fall, but I’ll be laughing.
Depression 3
They said it would all get better
as I cried out to the thin world
in a voice so hoarse that it could not
even pierce your tough Mechlin heart
I dug my own grave without hands —
they said it would all get better
in words decked out in fine prosy.
It didn’t and I didn’t, and —
Sleep does not obey the morning:
no matter how loudly it crows.
They said it would all get better,
yet I whittle the hours away.
I’ll tell you how the sad sun fell
a ribbon at a time. Yet I
dared look for the dusk only ‘cause
they said it would all get better.
Depression 4
Oh, I know how to obviate, deprecate, not appreciate —
how to come down, sit down, fall down,
be down —
I know I shouldn’t say this,
but all I want to do is
give up right now.
I’ll even put a refrain in this poem: the only sane response to
an insane world
is insanity I bemoan –
O, I know how to
put on a spot-on run-on
sentence for penance —
couldn’t manage hate, too late, fate
couldn’t ever take what you make
of all this
overexposure; prosers got to keep me from
freefalling, staling, walling up my emotions
in portions, potions, situations and motions —
I’ll even put a refrain in this poem: the only sane response to
an insane world
is insanity I bemoan –
excess, recess – in the corner of my mind
‘bout time to find; I
put a wedge under the door to your mind
in kind, sighed to find
my voice is an id
to kid what I did in my
nimiety
not free, sans fee, a felon rebelling and selling
lies pried and signed until we die —
I’ll even put a refrain in this poem: the only sane response to
an insane world
is insanity I bemoan…
About the Poet
Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published over 100 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 50 different journals. He loves to travel.
