Levi J. Mericle- Three Poems

Levi J. Mericle is a poet/spoken-word artist and lyricist from Tucumcari, N.M. Currently he is associated with the New Mexico State Poetry Society and gives readings from his work. His work has appeared in multiple anthologies and his work can also be seen in multiple lit magazines and journals such as, Black Heart Magazine, The Mused, 101 Words, Eunoia Review, Awakenings Review, Penhead Press, Zaira Journal etc. Levi spends his days daydreaming about poetry and writes, at least a little bit every single day no matter what.

Child Gone

(Previously published in Mused)

Her whiskey knees
were always too drunk to hold up her body.

Her palms were a flight risk 
jumping in surrender whenever she felt captured,

felt insecure.  

Her elbows were never pointing to shadows that didn’t exist
but just to the ones no one claims.   

Her shoulder blades sharper than the tongues of serpents
easily colder than any iceberg you could imagine,
slabbed in the middle of her back like the titanic awaiting to plummet.

I always hoped and believed she’d acquire normalcy.

But to her being normal was too underrated for her understanding.
She believed she was a nobody’s nobody.

Just a slab of flesh living in an earthly meat counter,
awaiting to be consumed inside the belly of time.  
 
I hated to know her,
Because knowing her meant I cared way too much.

Knowing she was just a child gone wrong
and living in the skin,
                                      of pure oblivion.
That’s what I hated the most.      
   

To Sylvia

Life set you going with a pocket full of dreams

Yet your lining grew, filled with nightmares

And you fell to the element of death

The morning sang to you a lullaby

But then skipped the stepping stones of earth

And let you fold into the stream of wasted wishes

Melody forgotten

I found why life gave up on you

God jealous of your poetry

The devil envying your smile

I don’t know where your nightmares grow now

Or if you have any more at all

Maybe you’re plucking tulips

Inside gardens where winter never visits

Or maybe you’re sitting in the darkness

Lapping up a mirage of happiness

You now Ms. Lady Lazarus

You have walked the paths of life

And felt sorrow amongst the world

Yet your path is paved and growing golden with

Dreams

Still on earth

Please don’t forget why you existed

Because earth will always remember your smile

You’ve set the path we walk on

You are a goddess in your time

A heroine amongst the dead

You are the melody

And a pocket full of dreams

Your legacy will never be plucked

You are the tulips

The dreams

You are Lady Lazarus

You are Sylvia Plath

America

You fat and slothlike America

Clothed in Jewels and your Stepford Wives

You sit in camouflaged happiness

With thousands, your millions

“Buy Me a pony, a condo”

“Give the poor a photo of what life is like,

Happy.”

You slanderous sluts of gossip

Folded cackle for life’s little gnomes of poverty

Fits of “give me more, you tired, you POOR”

You call yourself a god or goddess of wealth

But you have no dignity

Past what your wallet can provide

You pretend yourself a god

Because the one and only God will not claim you

So sit in your caged habitat of wealth and pride

And forget that a life exists beyond your Prada-skinned world

Face the truth

(Your highness)

You fat

You slothlike America