Poetry By Jeff Finlin

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The Becoming

And all this movement collapses
Like a fallen flame
Quiet and Descrete as a silent lover
That clings to you alone in the night
As a memory
Fading
To Become
An invisable earth within

To be rested in
Cradled
and
Loved

Beyond the hum that is emotion-
need
And body
Beyond the sweetness of sound
draped in dreams
Beyond the wear and tear
of metal on metal
That is
A lifetime of boiling blood
To grieve itself impermanent
like the dying of ones mother
Facing upward
Under the endless sky in the fall
expressing the sugar maples
Exploding in color
And countless time
We must trade
For the deal
That is the day
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​HARRISON

I saw the
Toothless
Eyeless
Wrinkled
Writer
Man
corroding like a piece of rotten meat
Cigarette dangling
Smiling
Sitting at the kitchen table
Dreaming of fish
lichen
And birds
And the openness of land
Wine and words
a hogshead to make
Head cheese from
Becoming it 
all

I realized he’d left it all on the paper
And I thought to myself

Shit motherfucker . . . 
You . . . 
Yes, you . . . 
You’re still carrying something around
Something you need to put down
Maybe it’s that gnawing feeling in my gut and heart
The explosion of breath and heart that kept happening
Clogging the catch
Under the front walk
Barking a fathers fear

I still had something to lose
Something to gain
Something to get
Something to hang on to
A dream poisoning the river
And the fish were frozen
In the mercury meld
Of hanging on
Waiting for the thaw
Maybe his ounce of smoldering hope
Accepting the hopeless
With its ratty ass devil eyes
Dawning a sunset hat
Made of perfection and
Talking of thunder
coyotes
fame or fortune
Or a grass greener than….
the brown chunk of winter inside me
backstroking through my blood


if freedom is to come
I have to leave nothing for the birds at the landfill
but teeth and bones
not a word
unwritten
unspoken
undreamed
and 
Maybe 
God
Will pluck my eyeballs for a new birth

In the next life
Like a raven in the Borders
So I can truly live again



Born in Cleveland Ohio, Songwriter and writer Jeff Finlin was born the grandson of Irish railroad workers (who seemed to be in the habit of leaping from trains.) Having released numerous records to critical acclaim around the world, the latest of which is Soul on The Line . His Song “Sugar Blue” was featured in The Cameron Crowe classic film-----“Elizabethtown.”

The Chicago Sun Times writes of Jeff Finlin--- “Finlin writes with the minimalist grit of Sam Shepard and Raymond Carver. Tune in for an elusive magic.”

Jeff has written two books of poetry and prose and a book on yoga and recovery. His latest book, Lightbox, is out now. He has written extensively for the East Nashville Magazine and been published nationally in American Songwriter, Elephant Journal, Huffington Post as well as the  other online rags.
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