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Vinyl.

I just wrote this about… ten minutes ago while watching Alan play Metal Gear Solid Five and listening to Maurice Jarre’s magnificent score for Lawrence of Arabia, on a first print vinyl.

Took a great motorcycle ride to Ma & Pops’ house and finally got a hold of my moleskines from when I was in college. Those always prompted me with their size to write the very particular kind of poetry I love to write. I was sitting on the couch and begining to wallow about still not being able to write poetry.

So I said, “why not?” to myself, picked one of the unused ones except for a single line — crossed it out and began to write beginning with today’s date. This post will be going up at 4:00PM Sunday, but I am typing this out at 11:50PM Saturday night. May 5th, 2017. My second poem now in many years.

Vinyl.

These records we listen to give us such bliss,

With many a note,
or just a few.

The obsidian architecture spins weaving the sweetest of nectar.

For the scene we see in abstract is an indoor campfire,
with no matches,
but tracks.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017

 

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Long Nights.

This was written August 7th, 2008. I used to have so much difficulty sleeping. Even during nap time, I would stay awake and make finger fights.

These days it’s not so consistent, and it has been better since I have been writing again. I feel like I have accomplished something and therefore sleep finds me more easily.

I do still have nights where I do not sleep. I will stay up until 1:00 AM of the next full cycle before it wraps me in its embrace. However it is nowhere near as bad as the poems  I used to write represent.

I actually don’t need to be driven in a car or otherwise, and it didn’t take someone doing that, though Megan would — for me to find the person I want to spend my life with.

It is still a nice thought though.

Long Nights.

I didn’t sleep last night.

Just like any night where I lay, exhausted body to sleep.

My whirlwind mind keeps attention in a dreamless reality.

Clinging desperately to unfinished, un-analyzed, arbitrary thoughts.

I will not find sleep, until the sun falls again.

In fact, I never find sleep, it finds me.

I can control it a little more than before.

Sleep used to find me in such opportune times as every class in school.

Every day.

Sleep shies slyly,

smiling, and slipping away.

As my eyelids close and my brain fires into a bustling metropolis.

The one place I have always been able to find rest,
almost instantaneously,
is in the backseat of a moving car.

Maybe one day I’ll meet someone,
just crazy enough,
to drive me around until sleep takes its hold.

On these wonderfully long nights.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017
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Lullabies.

January 5th, 2009. I think this may have been the very first thing that I wrote after getting out of Kahi Mohala. There’s a lot in these words I am still trying to make out. Thinking about it I am pretty positive that I was wondering if my substance abuse and halting of dreams at night had anything to do with making me crazy. And my dearest friend would be myself, the former self.

I still don’t dream very much any more, and when I do it is usually a nightmare. I am comfortable with that reality these days. That when I dream it is often pure torture. I think many have this problem.

Lullabies.

Dreams…

Real?
Unreal?
Or Surreal?

Nightmares.

The haunting eclipse that has daunted the narrow path,
since before I can remember.

I used to fall to my death multiple nights of the week,
to wake up right before I hit the ground, on my bedroom floor.

I used to be scared shitless, of the open closet door.

Though supposing the halt of these subconscious realities every night,
made it hard to deal with the problems I never knew existed.

Was it you? One of my dearest friends, that made the reality back home, so much harder to bend?

If it was, just know.

That I will go farther in life, than you could ever go.

One step back I may have taken,
but from this crack, my bones won’t be breakin’.

So from those deaths in my dreams,
I will always be stronger, than when you were scheming.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2009 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016.
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Scattered.

Something I wrote September 17th, 2008. This, for me, may be the most beautiful poem I have ever written. I am not sure if I am capable of writing anything like this ever again, and it pains me.

I was so terribly broken when I wrote this. I wrote in this poem what writing means to me in a way that actively makes me feel the pain I was feeling — and how writing wouldn’t help, no matter how hard I tried.

Scattered.

I thought it was gone,
but now it’s come back.

As I lay down, my thoughts begin to snap.

I cannot find the peace and tranquility —
that is to thrive in dream-filled continuity.

Then to pass the time away,
scribbling, scratching, thoughts — ’til I decay.

I eventually crash when the sun arises,
a new day.

Though I despise this repetition,
what I reap in reprisal is refinement.

Reflectively recording all rational thought.

On scattered shreds of my soul…

 

I wrote recently about gaining my love for music back, and I did also write my first poem in years the other day. However I have not yet unlocked poetry within me. I need that again, it’s my favorite thing about language.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by John Elms ©2014
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Don’t Run.

A piece I wrote October 2nd, 2008. I think I wrote this after a disagreement with my parents about something. I got super upset and was called “angry man” again.

For the longest time I thought the way I was expressing myself was okay, and this poem is proof of that. There’s an idea within this poem that is good — but there is still a level of health and safety when it comes to expressing ourselves that I was not capable of at the time.

It’s interesting to look back and literally see me writing about my bi-polar without being able to understand or accept its existence.

Don’t Run.

Emotions ebb and flow, you can’t control where they go —
depression, anger, sadness, they flip flop to and fro.

Frustration fails to forest freedom frequently,
fundamentally factualizing my frequency.

Killin’ and fillin’ me with doubts,
sometimes it feels I got a good-day drought.

But I won’t pout.

I may be drunk, trippin’, or in a six-round bout,

’cause I live life to the fullest, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

I have my morals my friends and my brain,
shit one day I may have some fame.

But as I stand now not every day is the same.

I live, love, and have fun.
And these emotions of mine, I don’t run from.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
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Friggin’ Chicks.

December 14th, 2008. Ugh. This is one of those things I look back on and go — “Well, sure, it’s written decently, but damn. I was really angry at something, and someone.”

I scared a lot of girls away growing up, and I think I got tired of it. I honestly don’t know why I wrote this though. This was written legitimately days before I went crazy.

I honestly have no clue who specifically caused me to write this, but I was clearly upset at her. There is some explicit language in there.

Friggin’ Chicks.

Okay, to the girls, not women who don’t understand.

Instead of cutting me off, ask me why I don’t act how you plan.

I’m a caring person, I like my relationships.

So when it comes to spittin’ game, I got none unless I’m interested.

 

You need to be straight up, and not out of touch.

Ask me, what do you mean? by she talks too much.

This doesn’t mean I need a girl, by no contrary.

I’m perfectly fine, with fuckin’ and strawberries.

But I want a girl who knows how to do it.

My teacher said, the cock never lies.

So no need to get cocked, and wake up with surprise.

 

Damn girls look in my friggin’ eyes.

When I tell you, these ain’t no lies.

 

 

I went crazy, and then I met Megan. So this is probably the last time anything like this will be written.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2016
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Why Do I Hate Mondays?

From a 5-minute writing prompt in my college English class about why we hated Mondays. Written September 22nd, 2008. I think a Sunday is as good as any other to get this one posted. I don’t distaste Mondays nearly as much any more, but this one was a particularly frustrating one. I was a pretty angry person in general at this time as well.

Why Do I Hate Mondays?

Because I have a case of the Mondays.

My anti-Christ alarm clock makes my hungover head bleed!

I smash it over and over to shut the fuck up but eventually am forced to stumble out of bed,

to fulfill my Dumbday obligations.

I shuffle out of my boiling-hot dorm room to take a shower,

I forgot the friggin’ key!

Now I have to trudge downstairs in my boxers, shampoo, towel, with freakin’ luffa in hand to grab a spare.

When I finally get into the bathroom,

the same asshole has left his stuff everywhere again!

Sucks to be him, I’m pissed so his shit gets thrown,
maybe it broke, I don’t care.

When I finally get out of the shower refreshed and calm…

I realize I’ve smoked all my green the nights before.

No wake and bake?
Fuck Mondays!

Finally have everything ready, headed to class on the moped,
and the damn thing breaks down half-way.

Seriously! What kind of bad karma could I have attracted for this day to go ANY better!

 

 

I still remember scribbling this down furiously in my class. I couldn’t wait to boisterously recite it. It made me feel much better, as did my friends later that day. My friend, Gavin, got to hear this in person the day of.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken 8 days after writing this poem. Photo by Kisa Vanderford ©2008
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Natureless.

August, 2008 – I believe I wrote this just before moving to Hawai’i and was in my parents’ house. I wrote this after smoking a cigarette on my parents’ back porch and having a hummingbird flip in to take a drink.

I was not sober at this time, but it was well before things got out of hand. Not that I don’t agree with what was written here, but I was also going through a very typical anti-establishment phase at the time as well.

Natureless.

What the heck was that?! A Helicopter?

I turn my head and stop breathing the moment I see it.

 

A Humming Bird,  hovering inches from my nose.
It pivots,

one-hundred-and-eighty degrees,


zips upwards and lands no less than one foot away,

on the feeder just above my head.


And here I am, standing.

Frozen.

 

Wide eyed and gaping mouth,

watching one of the most beautiful and special creatures,

on this, our Mother Earth,

inches from my pupils.

 

It makes me wonder,

why we drop bombs…

 

But, I guess you don’t know what you have, until it’s gone.

 

 

With my supposed message here, the irony of me smoking cigarettes as well as littering with them at times is not lost on me. The featured photo in this post was taken during the summer that I wrote this poem.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2008
Posted on by Trevor Elms

Homesick.

Keeping right in theme of my School piece posted this morning — I present a poem I wrote in September, 2008. I believe this is the very first thing I wrote when I first got to Hawai’i.

The impact of this poem is still there with me. I wish I had better kept in touch like I planned, but such is life.

Homesick.

Where I found myself, is not where I am now.

Where I am now, is not what it was then.

I am happy here, maybe moreso.
But I can still look over my shoulder,
and hope there’s one of you there.

We rise in September,
And don’t fall in the summer.

I love the weather, my new friendships, and my school.
And in the end, as the sun creeps slowly down the horizon.

My mind loves to wander towards every little moment,

I spent in the alley,
I spent at the 19th street hill,
I spent in Thailand,
Mexico,

School.

I miss all of you,

And every moment you spent helping me find myself.

I love you Sep kids.
And can’t wait to visit.

 

Looking back, I think this is a fairly positive and calming piece. This was a good time before I began my real descent into madness. The featured photo in this post is the first photo of me in Hawai’i I can find.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo taken by Kisa Vanderford, ©2008
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 6 Comments

Thoughts.

This was something I wrote August, 2008. I remember sitting in the shade of a tree with the moleskine my group teacher, Leslie, from high school gifted me. One of the greatest gifts ever given to me today.

When she gifted it to me, she told me that I reminded her of Ernest Hemingway. That may be the highest compliment anyone has even given me.

I just sat down to write something, anything, and it ended up being about a girl in the dorms I had a crush on. I can’t remember her name, and she never heard it.

I was feeling very alone and scared at this time. I had just recently moved to Hawai’i and I am a fairly strong introvert. I had not yet met the people who were to become my close friends.

Thoughts.

I plan to finish this whole notebook.

As I sit here writing in the fine lines that fabricate recorded thoughts.
On pre-cognitive set pathways that lead to nowhere.

And nowhere?
Led me somehow through all these pages of turmoil, to you.
Why you?

Because the mind tends to wander to those emotions,
that incite feedom,
and hope.

The burning fire…
colorless,
but with untamed form.

A full frontal force that fascinates the multifaceted shatters,
that are my feelings.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo by Trevor Elms ©2008