Poetry by Tim Van Schmidt

The House

My head is an attic,

And gray matter the trunks.

Above are beams of decades,

Below, doors letting them out.

The world is a breath

And each room is a lung.

Bones grow like a staircase,

Blood paints chosen words.

The windows are a camera,

The kitchen is a heart.

Lift gently from the foundation

When the walls fall apart.

TVS Poems: “8 Talking Poems” and Photo Art by Tim Van Schmidt

Spirit Like a Comfortable Chair

No longer the calm from the cushion.

No longer the decisive word.

No longer the sparkling eye

That shone on childish play.

No longer moments live again

While the old arteries harden,

Reaching the youth of curious ears

As outside trees are swaying.

Walking, a ghost in a nightgown;

Her wit and chuckle remain.

I dream her voice cradles the night

To whisper that it is alright…

…it is alright…it is alright.

OoB: Opposite of Blink presents TVS and two fingers “Found”

OoB: Opposite of Blink presents TVS and two fingers “Found”

Found

In my pocket is the hand

That gripped the universe and shook.

In my mouth is the word

That love finally heard.

In my shoes the whole earth quaked,

The sea boiled, the sky flashed.

In my eye time stands by

And memory teaches all.

Found in the ruined moments spent

Is the mystery of another day:

In my heart the deepest questions

Lift the veil away.

Classic Poets Out Loud

Selections by Tim Van Schmidt

Colorado Poems Out Loud- Art Compost and the Word Mechanics ‘Jabberwocky’

Colorado Poems Out Loud- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ‘The Trail More Traveled’

Colorado Poems Out Loud- James Tipton ‘Watching Episodes of Unsolved Mysteries’

Colorado Poems Out Loud- Ellen Marie Metrick ‘El Rios de Las Animas Perdidas’

Colorado Poems Out Loud- James Tipton ‘There Are Rivers of Oranges’

Poems Out Loud- Denise Levertov ‘The Secret’

Poems Out Loud- Dorothy Parker ‘Afternoon’

Poems Out Loud- Edna St Vincent Millay ‘Recuerdo’

Poems Out Loud- Ezra Pound ‘Cantico Del Sole’

Poems Out Loud- Langston Hughes ‘The Weary Blues’

Poems Out Loud- Robert Frost ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’

Poems Out Loud- William Butler Yeats ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’

Poems Out Loud- William Carlos Williams ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’

Poems Out Loud- William Stafford ‘Traveling Through the Dark’

Poems Out Loud- Kenneth Rexroth excerpts from ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill (In Memory of Dylan Thomas)’

Poems Out Loud- Allen Ginsberg ‘A Supermarket in California’

Poems Out Loud- Lawrence Ferlinghetti- excerpt from ‘Junkman’s Obbligato’

Poems Out Loud- Frank O’Hara ‘Lana Turner Has Collapsed!’

Poems Out Loud- Hunter S Thompson ‘Letter to…Burroughs & Ode to Jack’

Poems Out Loud- (Kerouac) Allen Ginsberg ‘The Brooklyn Bridge Blues (Choruses 1-9)’

Poems Out Loud- (Kerouac) Patti Smith ‘The Last Hotel’