R.S. Farris Poems

I am one of those who write in journals knowing,
somewhere inside, that we really want someone to
read this. Not blatantly, but somehow, some
way, we want someone to know. Why else would we
...

when you live your life too quickly,
you react as in a daze-
...

A high-water mark in the process of growing up
is the dread realization that the world is not
cut and dried anymore.
A child sees the world from
...

at the top of the hill, near the college, last night,
was a beautiful yellow-gold moon
it was painted in place, with the soft touch of brush-strokes
like contrails across the night sky
...

It would not be a violation of my will
If You were to take me now.
Just consume me; end this
Constant struggle to be
...

Do you kiss on New Year's?
Do you still flirt, laughing at each other's
Faces as we laughed back then?
Do you eat chocolates and build
...

If you pluck a yellow bloom in early May,
Will it blossom again in the summer?
If, fearful of a chimney-sweeper's fate,
You break the stem and fail to save the bud,
...

The paint stains my fingers and cakes on my palms;
You stand behind me, watching silently.
The outlines are rough, and the color's all wrong-
What beauty could You ever see in me?
...

In a quiet place, where no one goes,
I sit, swaying a little in the breeze.
I wonder if the water in the stream
Has ever tried to quell the never-ceasing
...

hemingway wrote clearly and concisely.
in fact, his works were so accessible
that thirty percent of us saw just
what he meant. the rest of us
...