Could the Indiana housewife do any differently?
toting along her art deco bag
and her fried chicken
as mate talks to teacher
and beauty refuses to come into focus
Men become wax figures with their tears
As Texas drag stars smile
licking their lips for presentation.
Lights go on and off
marking meetings and scandal
glowing red with the sunrise explosion
Lights rushing in lines
as the crow flies
beneath the buildings
and off into the distance
I sense destination
glowing green like Absinthe
as the moon crashes into the tower.
cars like dice roll past
promising anything
but snake eyes
they act like frames
window panes
doorways to the other side of town
but we’re crossing streets
in between taxis
and moving vans
under the astrology
of corporate warfare
traffic light patterns regulate
the rhythm
as some abandoned soul stops
simply to stare
as the rest glide down into the cave
revolving through doors that place them closer to an escape.
Are we machines
pacing meat and applying
labels as the repetition replaces
our ability to see?
Our white coats can’t protect us
from our own sins
entire cities run by the same
coming and going times of railway cars.
Our hands trained
mechanical tools
to fix machines or
operate a joystick
Even in leisure, we can’t find
peace.
Everything a transaction
when capitalism
runs
its course.
Making men make machines
Making men machines
Mechanically forcing them
into the ground below.
Yet we glide through life like a NASCAR race
trying to finish first
fastest
freest.
Shadows providing just enough
pause
to dull us.
Our lives are on every channel
in double
We are who they say
Unless we choose
unless we see
If we blow everything up
holding our hearts
Still we remain
to ensure our world stays the same
Day after day without peace
glowing pink
like a map of the plague
a computer grid
with infinite parts
small cities complete with parking lots
Even a cigarette can’t calm our nerves
When we’re working on the 12th floor,
Yet my grandfather’s brother makes me cry
reincarnated in anyone over 80.
The white male made homeless by time
While the homeless live on,
peering out of open windows
naked.
Can the nurse quiet my shaking hands?
Can these pills save me
from sanity?
Stocks crash
white receipts
covering the floor
falling from American Dreams.
We watch her take off, blinding us
with heat and majesty
her glow giving hope to hundreds
arching in the sky to explode
and plummet
leaving behind a stream
of memories
spiraling now
ignited still
in sadness.
This metal shell taking
shape
becoming another
legend
on the wall in black and white.
12.14.2004
11.07.2004
11.03.2004
torn and replaced
My white lies in lines
torn to pieces in your hands
leave a whole hole in my mind
where I’ve wasted words
The memory of the way blue and red
dances on a poster
cannot climax again
now that life’s moved on,
and only you know
how beautiful
those words could have been.
But to fill in that hole with emptiness
I keep the cycle going
Each loss of love a new birth
Each falling a new death
Each day a new belief
can trickle in.
With the scattered pieces
my leaden body curls up,
A corner between tile and ceramic
becomes a far away sanctuary
worth the pilgrimage.
If I crouch there
shake and shiver
with my face all wet
and my pen dripping
the ink of my pain
pouring on paper
in vain
may become something beautiful.
But Words written and lost cannot be replaced
once that sheet is pulled up over our heads
to drown out the music.
torn to pieces in your hands
leave a whole hole in my mind
where I’ve wasted words
The memory of the way blue and red
dances on a poster
cannot climax again
now that life’s moved on,
and only you know
how beautiful
those words could have been.
But to fill in that hole with emptiness
I keep the cycle going
Each loss of love a new birth
Each falling a new death
Each day a new belief
can trickle in.
With the scattered pieces
my leaden body curls up,
A corner between tile and ceramic
becomes a far away sanctuary
worth the pilgrimage.
If I crouch there
shake and shiver
with my face all wet
and my pen dripping
the ink of my pain
pouring on paper
in vain
may become something beautiful.
But Words written and lost cannot be replaced
once that sheet is pulled up over our heads
to drown out the music.
10.29.2004
as marilyn
Part I.
Blazing blue
bonny billy spirals
like a lightbulb glowing
revealing the way hair wraps around itself
strangling singularity and leading the eye
circling in down the tunnel towards truth.
He’s aloof as he stands there
like a lighthouse saving ships
without moving
He takes my hand and spins me around
our costumes clashing
different minds united in one time
waist line leading to wasteland
His hair on end at the sight of skin,
he’s doing up the figures
on the relativity of love.
I thought I saw him sigh
as I walked
back down the stairway.
Part II.
Awkward in his suit
the most powerful man
the most powerful land
and a girl to throw it all off
He’s lost in the way I glance back
over my shoulder
asking for help with my gloves.
To see this prince stutter, mutter
forget the point of his platform
the planks giving way to desire,
to make a liar out of an honest man,
it makes me even more sure
I do what I can
and come out
victory in colors.
Part III.
So I looked in the mirror
at myself
equal parts
of this evening performance
I smiled and watched
the corners of her mouth trace a semicircle
out of habit
So beautiful
are those things we most want
and so lonely when they want for identity.
Bleached and painted
pursuing excellence in personification of the lips
the swing and the bush, the curl and the blush
of the hips of the hair of the lips from the stare
She’s aware of what she’s doing
still she proceeds
But what of her needs?
It’s true.
We are lost.
Blazing blue
bonny billy spirals
like a lightbulb glowing
revealing the way hair wraps around itself
strangling singularity and leading the eye
circling in down the tunnel towards truth.
He’s aloof as he stands there
like a lighthouse saving ships
without moving
He takes my hand and spins me around
our costumes clashing
different minds united in one time
waist line leading to wasteland
His hair on end at the sight of skin,
he’s doing up the figures
on the relativity of love.
I thought I saw him sigh
as I walked
back down the stairway.
Part II.
Awkward in his suit
the most powerful man
the most powerful land
and a girl to throw it all off
He’s lost in the way I glance back
over my shoulder
asking for help with my gloves.
To see this prince stutter, mutter
forget the point of his platform
the planks giving way to desire,
to make a liar out of an honest man,
it makes me even more sure
I do what I can
and come out
victory in colors.
Part III.
So I looked in the mirror
at myself
equal parts
of this evening performance
I smiled and watched
the corners of her mouth trace a semicircle
out of habit
So beautiful
are those things we most want
and so lonely when they want for identity.
Bleached and painted
pursuing excellence in personification of the lips
the swing and the bush, the curl and the blush
of the hips of the hair of the lips from the stare
She’s aware of what she’s doing
still she proceeds
But what of her needs?
It’s true.
We are lost.
10.28.2004
the words in a poem, on Li Young Lee
His face silhouetted against
the angular painted busts
talking about God and the universe
and knowing nothing.
blazer and collared shirt over jeans
acting the part
mysterious starving artist
rasping out truth.
Feeling myself breathing every word:
the identification
that comes
when one really knows
In this room full of half smiles
awe and hope
eagerness reflected in their wide eyes
each looking to be the next to find the truth.
His hands nervously trace the wrinkles of an envelope
Long writers’ fingers
and I am entranced.
My words coming from every moment
a whole life culminating
over and over
each second the paths trace backwards
to yesterday.
He comes to life as his words take over his face
stretching and molding
his personality writing itself in scribbled cursive
on his forehead
trickling out
oozing through
my whole body trembling
in fear of the truth.
Submitting ourselves
as writers
as slaves
emptying our bodies of life onto the page.
Our ink taking shape
bleeding out of us
so this paper has a pulse
throbbing rhythm
so I can continue
writing on.
A demonized prophet
a poet
a painter of pictures on pages
and experiencer of rages
He says that’s what we are.
Does he know he’s preaching to a congregation
of the lost,
Hoping to be found somewhere in his sentences.
Searching for ourselves
and excuse for feeling different
“one mind in different quadrants”
reminding each other we’re okay.
This is the William and Mary I’ve been searching for.
The people who make me feel okay
the angular painted busts
talking about God and the universe
and knowing nothing.
blazer and collared shirt over jeans
acting the part
mysterious starving artist
rasping out truth.
Feeling myself breathing every word:
the identification
that comes
when one really knows
In this room full of half smiles
awe and hope
eagerness reflected in their wide eyes
each looking to be the next to find the truth.
His hands nervously trace the wrinkles of an envelope
Long writers’ fingers
and I am entranced.
My words coming from every moment
a whole life culminating
over and over
each second the paths trace backwards
to yesterday.
He comes to life as his words take over his face
stretching and molding
his personality writing itself in scribbled cursive
on his forehead
trickling out
oozing through
my whole body trembling
in fear of the truth.
Submitting ourselves
as writers
as slaves
emptying our bodies of life onto the page.
Our ink taking shape
bleeding out of us
so this paper has a pulse
throbbing rhythm
so I can continue
writing on.
A demonized prophet
a poet
a painter of pictures on pages
and experiencer of rages
He says that’s what we are.
Does he know he’s preaching to a congregation
of the lost,
Hoping to be found somewhere in his sentences.
Searching for ourselves
and excuse for feeling different
“one mind in different quadrants”
reminding each other we’re okay.
This is the William and Mary I’ve been searching for.
The people who make me feel okay
10.25.2004
creases
The tree outside the window sprouts the Jamaican national colors
protesting the move from spring to fall,
it’s flaming tips tickling the ice from the sky
as night falls
so too do the leaves
burning like embers
carried by the wind
drifting along with me on the brick pathway.
protesting the move from spring to fall,
it’s flaming tips tickling the ice from the sky
as night falls
so too do the leaves
burning like embers
carried by the wind
drifting along with me on the brick pathway.
10.10.2004
Koyaanisqatsi, part I.
painted druids
headbanging their ways
to falling debris
red like the sun
dandruff dancing
powder drifting like snow
from the space shuttle
fading to canyons
craters in the sun
devil horns form
in the panning red line
valley stretching
river running
over the edge of the world
waves rolling through the
shadowed giants
humming their way
rifts and ridges
down through the hole of Mother Earth
the abundant architecture--
an experiment in the anatomy
protruding up from the plain
pillars competing for fame
The battle ship trapped
a Monty Python laugh
between the lines
of water winding
its way through
the plot
A dot of mist rising off the
crash of the master
making waves through solid matter
What's the matter?
Never seen a fingerprint before?
Do you see the tie dye?
The clouds bleeding like bullets
over the dusk below
rising like the plague
repeating again
as the grandfather smiles
in the background?
single flower, misty cave
the wings flutter in the
monarchy of sunlight
Fear fading to perfect skies
rolling like waves
dissolving in midair
pillars of pillows
for childhood bears and dreams
movie scenes
playing themselves out in nature
Stop to savor the pouring of a mile of water
turning to a sea of static
playing gravity and moonbeams
flying up like fire
pulling the pirate under
below the glittering
sequins and sapphires
crashing against the mountainous shore
sliding down the slope back to bay
falling like prey over Scottish hills
airstream winding its way down the
fjord-- icebergs turning to
Holland tulip gardens
a patchwork quilt
and what of an island we
hear as a battlehorn
becoming a billowing
army of 6s
putting us in fixes of
visionless night
blocking light
becoming machines
before
our very eyes
Miles of pipe bleeding oil
over the Alaskan skyline
Power lines
metal giants waging war in
lines kitty cat faces
squinting.
These mirrors of the sky
shattered in corresponding pieces
held back by the ball and chain
Mushroom turning to budding rose
pointing arrow, jellyfish,
artichoke
fist held mushroom in the sky of
bikini island
taking fall to nuclear power
tourists staring at silver etchings
heat wave duplicating
pages
bleeding from the nose
becoming a playful Pluto in profile
set to blink at any moment
traffic writing letters
S.O.S. in its pattern
clover leaves
tin like legos
jutting knife blades
walls of windows upon themselves
digital clouds crowning the sky king.
building sliding like a pirate ship
people clearing in and out
waiting in line in clusters of color.
symbolism.
the same man comes back
for more
cowboy hat in the fifth row
car clogging arteries
cholesterol shifting rubber
from magic to Main.
headbanging their ways
to falling debris
red like the sun
dandruff dancing
powder drifting like snow
from the space shuttle
fading to canyons
craters in the sun
devil horns form
in the panning red line
valley stretching
river running
over the edge of the world
waves rolling through the
shadowed giants
humming their way
rifts and ridges
down through the hole of Mother Earth
the abundant architecture--
an experiment in the anatomy
protruding up from the plain
pillars competing for fame
The battle ship trapped
a Monty Python laugh
between the lines
of water winding
its way through
the plot
A dot of mist rising off the
crash of the master
making waves through solid matter
What's the matter?
Never seen a fingerprint before?
Do you see the tie dye?
The clouds bleeding like bullets
over the dusk below
rising like the plague
repeating again
as the grandfather smiles
in the background?
single flower, misty cave
the wings flutter in the
monarchy of sunlight
Fear fading to perfect skies
rolling like waves
dissolving in midair
pillars of pillows
for childhood bears and dreams
movie scenes
playing themselves out in nature
Stop to savor the pouring of a mile of water
turning to a sea of static
playing gravity and moonbeams
flying up like fire
pulling the pirate under
below the glittering
sequins and sapphires
crashing against the mountainous shore
sliding down the slope back to bay
falling like prey over Scottish hills
airstream winding its way down the
fjord-- icebergs turning to
Holland tulip gardens
a patchwork quilt
and what of an island we
hear as a battlehorn
becoming a billowing
army of 6s
putting us in fixes of
visionless night
blocking light
becoming machines
before
our very eyes
Miles of pipe bleeding oil
over the Alaskan skyline
Power lines
metal giants waging war in
lines kitty cat faces
squinting.
These mirrors of the sky
shattered in corresponding pieces
held back by the ball and chain
Mushroom turning to budding rose
pointing arrow, jellyfish,
artichoke
fist held mushroom in the sky of
bikini island
taking fall to nuclear power
tourists staring at silver etchings
heat wave duplicating
pages
bleeding from the nose
becoming a playful Pluto in profile
set to blink at any moment
traffic writing letters
S.O.S. in its pattern
clover leaves
tin like legos
jutting knife blades
walls of windows upon themselves
digital clouds crowning the sky king.
building sliding like a pirate ship
people clearing in and out
waiting in line in clusters of color.
symbolism.
the same man comes back
for more
cowboy hat in the fifth row
car clogging arteries
cholesterol shifting rubber
from magic to Main.
8.11.2004
birth and death of a mimosa tree
It’s the seed he planted
demanding attention
a vantage point mentioned
by one who’s a friend
yet I still can’t tell the end from the in
the beginning
was sinning
yet now we’re alive
bending and mending
each other’s insides
Finding a stride over gravel and grass
separating our pasts
as we forge new ground
rolling around
down hills alone
searching for home
between two oak trees
back and forth swinging
with your friends all singing
ancient Egyptian blues
encrypting clues
for me to find
my sallow green light
approaching the night
inside my mind
with a pocket knife
to saw off the time
that it took
to think something up
that could sizzle
and cook
mixed up in the rhyme
at the glances I steal
your rod and your reel
playing the flip game in my rear-view-mirror
the far side of the bridge
getting nearer
and clearer
queer somehow
since hours before
it played the score
of a 50’s musical
unusual how
the stars became snow
dashing to and fro
inside their globe
falling down
celestial glow
and the glint in your eyes
like you know something
when you blow, tingling up
an explosion
erosion of walls
through sleeping bag stalls
with kisses and misses
synapses glimpsing
our words filling lapses
perhaps patching holes
in our sew back together souls
Explaining how I feel whole
when I come.
I know then you’re not numb
to the sense
of wonder I get
when I speak words
I finally comprehend
so lend me a piece of your notebook paper
while I enjoy the taste
your lips make
mixed with stream water
Don’t bother with understanding
the demanding
way my mind works.
The quirks all come from the peace I can’t find
so wind me up in this blanket of being
warming me
freeing me
until I am seeing that seed unsprout
until I’m tearing it out
defeating my doubt without words.
demanding attention
a vantage point mentioned
by one who’s a friend
yet I still can’t tell the end from the in
the beginning
was sinning
yet now we’re alive
bending and mending
each other’s insides
Finding a stride over gravel and grass
separating our pasts
as we forge new ground
rolling around
down hills alone
searching for home
between two oak trees
back and forth swinging
with your friends all singing
ancient Egyptian blues
encrypting clues
for me to find
my sallow green light
approaching the night
inside my mind
with a pocket knife
to saw off the time
that it took
to think something up
that could sizzle
and cook
mixed up in the rhyme
at the glances I steal
your rod and your reel
playing the flip game in my rear-view-mirror
the far side of the bridge
getting nearer
and clearer
queer somehow
since hours before
it played the score
of a 50’s musical
unusual how
the stars became snow
dashing to and fro
inside their globe
falling down
celestial glow
and the glint in your eyes
like you know something
when you blow, tingling up
an explosion
erosion of walls
through sleeping bag stalls
with kisses and misses
synapses glimpsing
our words filling lapses
perhaps patching holes
in our sew back together souls
Explaining how I feel whole
when I come.
I know then you’re not numb
to the sense
of wonder I get
when I speak words
I finally comprehend
so lend me a piece of your notebook paper
while I enjoy the taste
your lips make
mixed with stream water
Don’t bother with understanding
the demanding
way my mind works.
The quirks all come from the peace I can’t find
so wind me up in this blanket of being
warming me
freeing me
until I am seeing that seed unsprout
until I’m tearing it out
defeating my doubt without words.
8.07.2004
me too
It’s tough
you know
sometimes
to show you
the two on my knee
and the things I see
sitting next to you
with my eyes closed.
We’ve been posed
face to face
here in this place
the most space
for personal growth
we’ve ever had together
The weather couldn’t be
better
for staring at the stars
driving cars
racing speed
around the curves
the verbs
four letters
tethered to chains
rearranged
to describe the day
bounce ball, hit, play
a different way
of looking at the king of kings
everything
between peace and war
the corner and the store
What’s the score?
42 to your 1 billion
a million stars glinting
as far as my reply can see
All the way
through the trees
the leaves
our sleeves rolled up
rolling down the hill
smiling still as if it were sand.
you know
sometimes
to show you
the two on my knee
and the things I see
sitting next to you
with my eyes closed.
We’ve been posed
face to face
here in this place
the most space
for personal growth
we’ve ever had together
The weather couldn’t be
better
for staring at the stars
driving cars
racing speed
around the curves
the verbs
four letters
tethered to chains
rearranged
to describe the day
bounce ball, hit, play
a different way
of looking at the king of kings
everything
between peace and war
the corner and the store
What’s the score?
42 to your 1 billion
a million stars glinting
as far as my reply can see
All the way
through the trees
the leaves
our sleeves rolled up
rolling down the hill
smiling still as if it were sand.
the ghost on the hill
Young boy with a crown of thorns
lanky like you
lean and aloof
white skull glaring out
closer and closer
he walked
like a ghost
Can it be you?
Big brother to the bewildered
and the blushing
Verifier of Verse
Protector of Prose
Emperor of Imagery
King of keeping the door
Locked and Toweled
How is it, my friend, that you
reappear
Ready to ride into the wind
My imagination cutting the bush
Out of our way!
Move aside ye Beasts of Below
Brendan is coming through!
Where do you come from sir?
Your swagger and sway when my mind is at peace?
Did you float in from Connecticut
on the diamond dish of the moon?
Or flap from far away
flashing your awkward smile at the breeze.
At ease soldier
Take your leave
For it is deceiving
to appear
as if back on the front lines
buying wine
and soaking in it
bread for skin
changing purple
in the night sky.
You and I
parted ways
but you haunt all my days still.
lanky like you
lean and aloof
white skull glaring out
closer and closer
he walked
like a ghost
Can it be you?
Big brother to the bewildered
and the blushing
Verifier of Verse
Protector of Prose
Emperor of Imagery
King of keeping the door
Locked and Toweled
How is it, my friend, that you
reappear
Ready to ride into the wind
My imagination cutting the bush
Out of our way!
Move aside ye Beasts of Below
Brendan is coming through!
Where do you come from sir?
Your swagger and sway when my mind is at peace?
Did you float in from Connecticut
on the diamond dish of the moon?
Or flap from far away
flashing your awkward smile at the breeze.
At ease soldier
Take your leave
For it is deceiving
to appear
as if back on the front lines
buying wine
and soaking in it
bread for skin
changing purple
in the night sky.
You and I
parted ways
but you haunt all my days still.
8.06.2004
wheels that won’t turn
license plates
blind dates
constantly rising interest rates
rebates
mail-in
five
one-hundred
nine
ten
doing everything over again
lack of silence
violence on the news
heavy shoes
the blues
not believing
deceiving
perceiving you in the wrong light
sleeping alone at night
fear
the tear that comes
trying to say I love you
being above you
seeing through liars
fires too hot for skin
not knowing how it feels
to be in someone
Film reels
cigarette burns
tobacco fields
left-hand turns
Red ribbon
Robins
Reading just to learn
Caterpillars
when they’re yellow
marshmallows
plastic handled teakettles
without water
Being someone’s daughter.
sorta.
blind dates
constantly rising interest rates
rebates
mail-in
five
one-hundred
nine
ten
doing everything over again
lack of silence
violence on the news
heavy shoes
the blues
not believing
deceiving
perceiving you in the wrong light
sleeping alone at night
fear
the tear that comes
trying to say I love you
being above you
seeing through liars
fires too hot for skin
not knowing how it feels
to be in someone
Film reels
cigarette burns
tobacco fields
left-hand turns
Red ribbon
Robins
Reading just to learn
Caterpillars
when they’re yellow
marshmallows
plastic handled teakettles
without water
Being someone’s daughter.
sorta.
and the fallen tree
Over his head?
That’s what he said
Analogies, logic
Brain wave patterns
that clatter when I let them out
I wonder how he feels the breeze
the rain
the grass
is it all the same
inside of someone else’s body?
Trying to figure it
a geometric barrier
I can’t work through
I would need a tutor for that.
It makes no sense when you say nothing
I like it still
Still
still
still
a quiet glass pool
reflecting
reversing
the stalactites
growing them out of the ground
like the flowers you smile at
Sometimes I don’t think I grow like that.
Is it wrong to be happy at peace
no pushes out onto the stage?
But I still want someone to clap
Can you do that without understanding?
My batteries ran out on the top of the mountain
I’m tumbling down crazy
a dizzy daisy
finding comfort
as the granite bashes open my head
Blood red
touch
of land
something we both command
the pulse of my heart.
It’s a start.
That’s what he said
Analogies, logic
Brain wave patterns
that clatter when I let them out
I wonder how he feels the breeze
the rain
the grass
is it all the same
inside of someone else’s body?
Trying to figure it
a geometric barrier
I can’t work through
I would need a tutor for that.
It makes no sense when you say nothing
I like it still
Still
still
still
a quiet glass pool
reflecting
reversing
the stalactites
growing them out of the ground
like the flowers you smile at
Sometimes I don’t think I grow like that.
Is it wrong to be happy at peace
no pushes out onto the stage?
But I still want someone to clap
Can you do that without understanding?
My batteries ran out on the top of the mountain
I’m tumbling down crazy
a dizzy daisy
finding comfort
as the granite bashes open my head
Blood red
touch
of land
something we both command
the pulse of my heart.
It’s a start.
any other flower
Purple and blue
my toes
wriggling
giggling
begging the feeling back into my body
Knotty backs giving way
under strong, misplaced hands
Rubber bands stretch and release
tying my hair back in place
out of my hands
off of your face
their dark shadows no longer
covering the space between our eyes
Fireflies flicker instead
racing through the trees
Running away from becoming iridescent spots
on someone’s windshield
Is that where I am?
My glow exploded into a million pieces
Fading faster,
spread too thin
trying to find myself again
inside this jumble of
philosophical bullshit.
But with thoughts too big for even
English language to ponder
my mind wanders to
meaningless things:
cell phone rings
blueberries
baseball bats
the Bible
and suddenly I’m back where I started
chewing my way through the textbook called
life
Never satisfied with the answers no one has
The mysteries
the mayhem
page 96 of your history book
take another look
do you recognize the name?
“Have you ever heard of Marcus Garvey?”
Well I can’t believe no one ever told you.
as you take hits from him
will the irony seep through
or will you wrap yourself up
in what they told you?
“Have you ever heard of Marcus Garvey?”
No.
he’s black and proud
rebellious and loud
likely to stand up
even against you
as the white smoke collects
will you see your own place?
just a face
my face
a see of middle-class Jewish kids
all looking to be the next Premier of Russia
My words,
the wrong color
the wrong sounds
the wrong reasons for preaching the truth
But have you sat on a porch
no one around
contemplating the Golden Eternity
collapsing into a nap
take my word for it
you are nothing
everything is nothing
you are my everything
the logic proceeds
that nothing is everything
and that feels right
tight like your hands on my neck
breath on my breasts
silence in my ears as I press
them into the pillow
arms like a willow
unable to do anything but weep
And sleep.
Because that’s the best solution
when all the words are
speechless.
my toes
wriggling
giggling
begging the feeling back into my body
Knotty backs giving way
under strong, misplaced hands
Rubber bands stretch and release
tying my hair back in place
out of my hands
off of your face
their dark shadows no longer
covering the space between our eyes
Fireflies flicker instead
racing through the trees
Running away from becoming iridescent spots
on someone’s windshield
Is that where I am?
My glow exploded into a million pieces
Fading faster,
spread too thin
trying to find myself again
inside this jumble of
philosophical bullshit.
But with thoughts too big for even
English language to ponder
my mind wanders to
meaningless things:
cell phone rings
blueberries
baseball bats
the Bible
and suddenly I’m back where I started
chewing my way through the textbook called
life
Never satisfied with the answers no one has
The mysteries
the mayhem
page 96 of your history book
take another look
do you recognize the name?
“Have you ever heard of Marcus Garvey?”
Well I can’t believe no one ever told you.
as you take hits from him
will the irony seep through
or will you wrap yourself up
in what they told you?
“Have you ever heard of Marcus Garvey?”
No.
he’s black and proud
rebellious and loud
likely to stand up
even against you
as the white smoke collects
will you see your own place?
just a face
my face
a see of middle-class Jewish kids
all looking to be the next Premier of Russia
My words,
the wrong color
the wrong sounds
the wrong reasons for preaching the truth
But have you sat on a porch
no one around
contemplating the Golden Eternity
collapsing into a nap
take my word for it
you are nothing
everything is nothing
you are my everything
the logic proceeds
that nothing is everything
and that feels right
tight like your hands on my neck
breath on my breasts
silence in my ears as I press
them into the pillow
arms like a willow
unable to do anything but weep
And sleep.
Because that’s the best solution
when all the words are
speechless.
8.05.2004
rain-painted escape
It’s not easy to think
the gnats flying around
each a different thought
circling, never landing
How can I stand on my own two feet
when I don’t know what I’m standing for?
I stopped by the road to move a turtle
His name was Mortimer,
I didn’t ask,
He told me.
Later in the rain
I saw a swallowtail
frozen with her wings
still flapping
each was a chalky print
dots in a grid,
a matrix for nature to duplicate.
As the rain pooled where my fingers had been
I wondered how peaceful her sleep could be
in the grass by the roadside
along with the Wendy’s trash
mile-markers back to
“civilization”
Yet here,
where worms and woods
matter more
than money and ego
I have to disagree.
There is nothing civilized about
a great big blacktop
or chrome
or smoke pouring into the sky from columns.
There is nothing civilized about
food from a fryer
that makes your stomach churn
Congress and democracy
where no voices are heard
houses
where there is no love at all
and the little boy cries
for an egg.
There’s something about the trees that wards off the need for technology
And something in the water that washes away the need to consume
Yes,
after four days in the woods
you smell
you smell human
Yes,
you chafe
you blister
you freeze
you sweat
you feel
you feel alive
It isn’t something you get from five minutes
or something that comes from pretending
It takes days
it takes feeling the sweat fall from your face
and welcoming it
it takes walking in a creek with no shoes on
and leaving them off when you get to dry land
it takes fire, friends, frustration, appreciation and time
relaxation, a watchful eye, the will to try to find your way
when it’s dark and you’ve lost your flashlight
it takes grass stains and the rain falling
down across your shoulders
into your mouth as you lean your head back
to catch it
like the glint of sun off of the water
instead of a sea of glass
towers of wood
instead of concrete
feeling peaceful
instead of lonely
I stood today and watched two sticks floating down
on top of the water
like kings
one took the easy path through the deepest parts
the second chose the harder road
through turns and spins
the rocks became waterslides
the second stick had more fun.
Today I sat and looked at myself
standing in the creek deciding
which path to take
only to realize
I’ve lost my map
from years of misuse
I guess I’ll have to go on instinct,
which isn’t so bad
when you realize,
Instinct is just your heart’s battle cry.
the gnats flying around
each a different thought
circling, never landing
How can I stand on my own two feet
when I don’t know what I’m standing for?
I stopped by the road to move a turtle
His name was Mortimer,
I didn’t ask,
He told me.
Later in the rain
I saw a swallowtail
frozen with her wings
still flapping
each was a chalky print
dots in a grid,
a matrix for nature to duplicate.
As the rain pooled where my fingers had been
I wondered how peaceful her sleep could be
in the grass by the roadside
along with the Wendy’s trash
mile-markers back to
“civilization”
Yet here,
where worms and woods
matter more
than money and ego
I have to disagree.
There is nothing civilized about
a great big blacktop
or chrome
or smoke pouring into the sky from columns.
There is nothing civilized about
food from a fryer
that makes your stomach churn
Congress and democracy
where no voices are heard
houses
where there is no love at all
and the little boy cries
for an egg.
There’s something about the trees that wards off the need for technology
And something in the water that washes away the need to consume
Yes,
after four days in the woods
you smell
you smell human
Yes,
you chafe
you blister
you freeze
you sweat
you feel
you feel alive
It isn’t something you get from five minutes
or something that comes from pretending
It takes days
it takes feeling the sweat fall from your face
and welcoming it
it takes walking in a creek with no shoes on
and leaving them off when you get to dry land
it takes fire, friends, frustration, appreciation and time
relaxation, a watchful eye, the will to try to find your way
when it’s dark and you’ve lost your flashlight
it takes grass stains and the rain falling
down across your shoulders
into your mouth as you lean your head back
to catch it
like the glint of sun off of the water
instead of a sea of glass
towers of wood
instead of concrete
feeling peaceful
instead of lonely
I stood today and watched two sticks floating down
on top of the water
like kings
one took the easy path through the deepest parts
the second chose the harder road
through turns and spins
the rocks became waterslides
the second stick had more fun.
Today I sat and looked at myself
standing in the creek deciding
which path to take
only to realize
I’ve lost my map
from years of misuse
I guess I’ll have to go on instinct,
which isn’t so bad
when you realize,
Instinct is just your heart’s battle cry.
7.28.2004
madame periwinkle's quest of (not for) solitude
Sand beneath me, crunching like nails across a chalkboard
Something tickling my feet
can’t be the waves because they’re ten-thousand miles down
my body
as small as a grain of sand.
Floating
Rolling
on a bed of waves
Feel like it’s an amusement park that stretches down the continental slope
trickling down and down to the realigning crystals.
Volcanic bubbles creating the land for us to wash away.
And somehow
the thought of erosion being a part of the cycle seems like a new and logical idea
in this world where everyone’s trying to feel a part.
And play one too.
The world’s stage is too small for some characters,
The ones you complain are side stepping.
Watch out!
There might be a ghost in a blue dress dancing on the gates
But I guess it’s better than a devil
praying that you will be the teenage faust.
And what would you sell your soul for?
a Jimi Hendrix album?
a pair of glass slippers?
maybe even a purple people eater,
Because everyone’s got a dream.
Does yours start with a beat?
When you’re tapping your feet
does your heart feel light enough to fly
out of the window
tumbling through canyons in a Dali painting.
And when the world gets too bright,
do you have to put on your rose colored glasses
just to dull your senses?
We all have days like that.
The ones where the Mad Hatter glows purple
and the back door seems a lot safer than the stairway
the one that never leads to heaven
But you can fly,
So who cares about all the fields of sunflowers
you only wanted the seed
Couldn’t take the time to nuzzle one of the yellow petals.
Couldn’t take the time to notice where the word sun comes from.
The yellow that’s in her eyes,
When she looks good enough to curl up in on a cool spring day
Just like the blacksnake that finds the warm spot on the pavement.
Where did you put your fangs?
But here I am now, far out on the shores of summer
out of even your rattler’s reach
feeling like a blacksnake myself
the sun stimulating my skin, until I can feel the melanin shouting to get out.
It just wants some attention.
Only, please not from the eyes like a frightened bourgeoisie
storming the Bastille
only this time asking for shelter.
But are we insane to wonder
if it’s safer on the inside.
And I’m busy screaming:
come protect me from the outside world
because that’s enough to make me dangerous.
Bouncing hydrogen atoms waiting to be ignited
And you offer to light my cigarette.
I tell you, kind sir,
Just wrap me up in a book.
The words should keep me warm and the pages should keep me occupied.
And then I won’t blow up.
I’ll slither along over she seashells waiting for another day
wishing for sharks teeth, mother of pearl, and physics books written by poets.
Something tickling my feet
can’t be the waves because they’re ten-thousand miles down
my body
as small as a grain of sand.
Floating
Rolling
on a bed of waves
Feel like it’s an amusement park that stretches down the continental slope
trickling down and down to the realigning crystals.
Volcanic bubbles creating the land for us to wash away.
And somehow
the thought of erosion being a part of the cycle seems like a new and logical idea
in this world where everyone’s trying to feel a part.
And play one too.
The world’s stage is too small for some characters,
The ones you complain are side stepping.
Watch out!
There might be a ghost in a blue dress dancing on the gates
But I guess it’s better than a devil
praying that you will be the teenage faust.
And what would you sell your soul for?
a Jimi Hendrix album?
a pair of glass slippers?
maybe even a purple people eater,
Because everyone’s got a dream.
Does yours start with a beat?
When you’re tapping your feet
does your heart feel light enough to fly
out of the window
tumbling through canyons in a Dali painting.
And when the world gets too bright,
do you have to put on your rose colored glasses
just to dull your senses?
We all have days like that.
The ones where the Mad Hatter glows purple
and the back door seems a lot safer than the stairway
the one that never leads to heaven
But you can fly,
So who cares about all the fields of sunflowers
you only wanted the seed
Couldn’t take the time to nuzzle one of the yellow petals.
Couldn’t take the time to notice where the word sun comes from.
The yellow that’s in her eyes,
When she looks good enough to curl up in on a cool spring day
Just like the blacksnake that finds the warm spot on the pavement.
Where did you put your fangs?
But here I am now, far out on the shores of summer
out of even your rattler’s reach
feeling like a blacksnake myself
the sun stimulating my skin, until I can feel the melanin shouting to get out.
It just wants some attention.
Only, please not from the eyes like a frightened bourgeoisie
storming the Bastille
only this time asking for shelter.
But are we insane to wonder
if it’s safer on the inside.
And I’m busy screaming:
come protect me from the outside world
because that’s enough to make me dangerous.
Bouncing hydrogen atoms waiting to be ignited
And you offer to light my cigarette.
I tell you, kind sir,
Just wrap me up in a book.
The words should keep me warm and the pages should keep me occupied.
And then I won’t blow up.
I’ll slither along over she seashells waiting for another day
wishing for sharks teeth, mother of pearl, and physics books written by poets.
7.19.2004
the epic journey of madame periwinkle and her band of pirates
Part I.
As I lie on the sand, I am a conductor as the ocean orchestra rises around me.
I hear a mother scold her child, blending into the scooping birds and crashing waves--
a railroad car hurtling down the shoreline, meeting at my toes.
I can count the waves coming in…
one
two
three
Four dolphins surfacing, breaking the liquid mirror of the sun.
As far as I can see: sky glazed with white,
heavy in places from a brush too thick with paint.
Towering cloud giants-- guardians of sensitive human skin crisp on my back
like the outside crust of a hot pocket. I’m all gooey inside.
What mist is rising! as seagulls soar beside flying discs, their shadows shading my body.
a tiny boy in shorts too big pursues the bird, no matter how hopeless the chase.
I guess girls and birds aren’t so different.
A pelican floating lazily on the water-- that’s where I’d like to be--
numb ears up to the challenge.
Poor gull-- all bruised on one side-- flapping still, crippled, leaning--
nothing to stop the oncoming wave from taking her over,
pressing her down to the bottom with the broken seashells.
Five stuffed-hen sisters stroll down the beach smiling-- sixty and shoeless must feel nice.
their spidery mist veins dabbling, floating on the surface of the water.
A semicircle of grass, expanding like a pupil, sneaks in through a hole in my straw hat.
Part II.
He pulled a bandana out of his
mouth
his crispy, pitchy pout
a painted picture--
painted, purchased Picasso on the wall
tipsy white watch fall
off the free white woven way
back this way
way back to the
O P E N way…
brain smaller mystery mound
sound on the down grades of a shrinking page
growing larger now
like a highway novel--
light beams breaking
Flip with the drip, drip sandy throat-- crusty, crumbly
unfound.
All over again like a new learning
into the dentist’s laughing gassed
that subpass down into the
freezing mass of the oh no fading sunlight.
Crazy blues and yellows
of the friendly fellows-- cellos dancing
in the grass like a backwards
writing.
A Chinese champion could have passed.
Past? Alas!
Like a Maxways outing
prattling to the boat
squinting like a cowlick took to sticking on the blonde-eyed young hare
squinting and pulling the webs back down there
sailing like a pale queen,
yellow cartoon strands of some little girl’s hair
Flutter as I stare
champagne surfer boy physique
on bottom
country boy smile
full all the while
balancing it out on top.
Kerplop! Raindrop-- we dockside pilgrims must go.
“Pink Panther Padua sun”
(British accent) “and the brilliant pear burst”
(telltale story
again) “drunk and driving (through” the nasally negligent accent)
“just burnt off and swallowed” (through the silvery sunset)
“strapping good, (really”)?
His Shakespeare-bashing curly brown hair--on the driveway
telling tales with words
not written
or heard on the black-topped highway
words blanketed with blackballed silk
swaying through the letters.
American shirt beauty rising
like Fender guitar riffs from the grunge days basement.
When you’re really mixed up--
marshmallows taste just like every other puff-painted part of the season
yellow corseted cheerleaders
hang down from the tailpipes of some other cat’s Mustang
as the cops pull up
with long greasy hair
would A Clockwork Orange look any different?
melted bloody battlefield of over-slaughtered states
corporal compost pipes
perched on couches like vulture demons
each time we were failing to fly over a braless brain of trash
the mass of three preteen boys
with a maleficent magnet rope
igniting around his neck in gold
think you’re doing magic
think you’re producing water
like water pouring out on the page
dewy dashes mixed with the Marley matches buzzing in the shade
magic milk-making procedure
in place with an eraser button
full of flakes dripping wet
of paraparetic wrecks
crazy writing, lip biting tools in the rain
losing train of thought as they stare out.
thought and thought on two planes
nouns and verbs can’t be the same
yet wrought with iron spelling
thinking is different.
writing redefined
stories of picture perfect people
(missing states of minds)
ridiculous red strains of fire
raring out of the ground on her head
scary music making the pain stand up
her heart, screaming
gotta stop so I can go!
“Did you see anything?”
“The back of my eyelids.”
Part III.
The tiny lion's paws crawled
down the stairs to the shoreline
Against the roaring breeze covering
feet in sand.
Twin redwoods towering with
Neapolitan ice cream skin.
Fishing pole tugs at my pen every time
I try to lie down.
7.15.2004
all the glow without the shine
Have you ever been sitting still long enough for your entire life to well up in swells around you, rocking you back and forth, lulling you to sleep with the sound of every love that ever held comfort? I have been there today-- to the place where the rainbow starts producing sugared gum drops, the candy sliding down the arc onto the other side of the world. It's realizing that light reflecting from his eyes is actually coming from you. Some mornings, life wakes us up to flip us onto our backs and leave our legs fumbling for ground, and others we are awoken simply so we can be reminded of what it was like to sleep. Yet no matter the reason, there is no getting around the fact that until you let it disappear, hope returns every morning to give you another chance. And greater than hope-- love, and luck, glamour and self-tanners. Now, wrapped up into a pill we could make a million dollars, but I am much more fond of the hair flip...wait...look...just there. And that was worth the loss to wait for.
It's moments like those when the sun catches the undercurrent of her curls that I am reminded why I find life always stalking me. Each moment holds for me the beauty of the one before, and the moments highlighted with friends and flings are like snapshot images of emotion, brought back by the location of the proper three-ring divider. I hear the first straining notes of a former love song, and I'm in a 15-year-old's body again, staring at a red jeep and wondering how, when I was that age, I could have thought that that the world would always be described by one soundtrack.
Or how when I was 16 I thought that the only love I needed could be shown on one hand and in capital letters, and when that failed, I searched through Ginsburg's psalms, and still found only the eyes of a forlorn lover scribbled down on a purple sticky note a year later.
Or 17 and scared. How I could lie in one place so long when the entire world was crashing down and soaring away again? Of course, it was all in the illusion of a jet airplane, but I still wished for it not to crash. But crash it did, taking out the greater Chicago fleet. If they could have felt my heart stop beating every time they jostled the baggage, maybe they wouldn't have overloaded the planes. Lying in their watery graves, I'm sure they're thinking about the same flimsy paperback book I read every year since fifth grade. Rehasing the part about the berries, or was it bark?
At 18, I was some sort of chicken. Not to be stuffed or plucked. A chicken to set in the middle of the lake with several swans, led to believe that I am a Canadian goose. It isn't until after I miss the flying V that I realize how hopeless a case with crutches is. Yet after treading on, I wonder if I've started to hear things, drunken comments whispered just before bed and forgotten in the morning. I had kept them waiting for two years, yet I only waited long enough to establish my post before backing out through the bars.
But finally, at 19, I'm a figure sketched into the sand, a piper tied to her rat pack, and a mile marker along the way lit by tradition. I'm the heavy eyelids that droop off from exhaustion and from knowing what happens when I wake up tomorrow.
I will still be riding in these waves. Waiting for my shooting start to shortly arrive. Thinking up the best wish and floating with it in the middle of the green brimy sea.
It's moments like those when the sun catches the undercurrent of her curls that I am reminded why I find life always stalking me. Each moment holds for me the beauty of the one before, and the moments highlighted with friends and flings are like snapshot images of emotion, brought back by the location of the proper three-ring divider. I hear the first straining notes of a former love song, and I'm in a 15-year-old's body again, staring at a red jeep and wondering how, when I was that age, I could have thought that that the world would always be described by one soundtrack.
Or how when I was 16 I thought that the only love I needed could be shown on one hand and in capital letters, and when that failed, I searched through Ginsburg's psalms, and still found only the eyes of a forlorn lover scribbled down on a purple sticky note a year later.
Or 17 and scared. How I could lie in one place so long when the entire world was crashing down and soaring away again? Of course, it was all in the illusion of a jet airplane, but I still wished for it not to crash. But crash it did, taking out the greater Chicago fleet. If they could have felt my heart stop beating every time they jostled the baggage, maybe they wouldn't have overloaded the planes. Lying in their watery graves, I'm sure they're thinking about the same flimsy paperback book I read every year since fifth grade. Rehasing the part about the berries, or was it bark?
At 18, I was some sort of chicken. Not to be stuffed or plucked. A chicken to set in the middle of the lake with several swans, led to believe that I am a Canadian goose. It isn't until after I miss the flying V that I realize how hopeless a case with crutches is. Yet after treading on, I wonder if I've started to hear things, drunken comments whispered just before bed and forgotten in the morning. I had kept them waiting for two years, yet I only waited long enough to establish my post before backing out through the bars.
But finally, at 19, I'm a figure sketched into the sand, a piper tied to her rat pack, and a mile marker along the way lit by tradition. I'm the heavy eyelids that droop off from exhaustion and from knowing what happens when I wake up tomorrow.
I will still be riding in these waves. Waiting for my shooting start to shortly arrive. Thinking up the best wish and floating with it in the middle of the green brimy sea.
5.08.2004
the rhythm of our lines, for brendan
No gesture could be big enough for you.
No poem.
No rhyme.
No time spent in your room together,
me falling all over my words
while you watch the smoke curls
floating above the ceiling.
Nothing I can say
While I listen in awe
Wondering if I’ll ever get there
to be with you
and where
to join you tomorrow
to trudge across the sand
and over the brilliant flowers
spiraling their colors onto our impressionable minds with a power I don’t understand.
I find that the more time
I sit and wonder how this will end
or what to say
something’s in the way:
amazement, saving it for later
not knowing what to put together to paint the picture clearly
weary eyed, watching the rays blaze together,
sitting in my car,
wishing I could list the ways I look up to you;
noting traffic patterns and the way light glints
dashing back home to see you.
The metaphor comes to me now with such great ease:
Tire rubber transforming to a raven on the highway
The car a silver salmon, sliding up behind me.
The things I could never say
never do
never be
All now a reflection of you and me
And of our writing,
The three sitting in the room
For hours and wondering what comes next.
Is it time to break this line down?
You are a poet alone
Yet I long to hear our names as an us, or an in between
to grow to your shadow
a Peter Pan glimmering across the wall
tights and a golden dress
glowing hair and eyelashes alike
And will they say you were me, once?
an older image of myself
in a man’s body
with a hand to hold in a moment of weakness
confusion,
were you fooled by the illusion
or did you make it real with your photographs and scribbled notes falling onto the floor
a chronology of all the things I want to be
to reconcile the growth without being afraid
If there is one thing, I know I can, B
I can B.
I can be as hopeful as you.
Never giving up in a world where
girls have gloating walks
and I am just a Lost Boy.
Us lost together perhaps
on this path
of infinite desire
and sin
and love
for the one who makes us feel whole inside,
like God is letting us look in on a little miracle
of creation
Every time he smiles.
If I cry each time I read the song
to a boy from a boy about my own love that cannot be seeded
or grow
without your wiser wisdom annexed to the end
crawling from your mouth in staccato bullet notes,
my tears will not be but half as much
as the pain of losing you dripping from my soul,
shining ink, a rainbow trout, all the colors of your words reflected in my eyes,
Awestruck still.
Life is a palette,
you take all the
golds and
greens and
purples
and mix them into words and emotions.
I stand amazed in the way you take flashes of life
and turn them into poetry
one swift motion;
them spilling onto the page
like overturned liquor—
smelling like candy with a burn
like you
sweet Brendan with an evil streak
The light at the end of the tunnel.
The picture of glory that keeps me
walking
down the cluttered path of poetry,
between the androgenous trees
crowding us down onto our stomachs.
civil servants burning our draft cards
flaming
the two of us
Every pace takes me further into the shining canyon of depth
where beautiful things fall to be reborn
under the Parthenon
where the Greek goddesses go for shade
from the fear of Friday’s wrath.
my grandmother tree tells me it is covered by your strength
If souls could combine
Yours and mine
our tadpoles would be laced with purple imagery,
oblivious to conformity
and normality
black beady eyes dotted with hearts
seeking through the water towards the shore
to grow
and grow
and grow.
our condensation would be smoky
stones of pure emotion clouded with hidden meaning
If souls could combine
ours would find the time in between classes and bong hits
to soar into the sky, a supernova of rhyme
falling back down
in the form of a novel
or poem to beat them all
a great epic from the heartstrings of heaven and high water.
a tornado of fashion and passion
artifacts and deer tracks
or a stream of consciousness running through an impressionistic paradise.
You,
my teacher
preach me the ways
of line
after
line
after
line of verse
worthy of your Tuesday night approval.
Show me what it takes to wake up in the morning and not be ashamed.
I need nothing more than your hand
and a can of Budweiser
to tackle an evening of pain.
You’re there with the bucket,
Or the bowl
Or the goldfish and jester hat.
The sadness is that not matter how much we try,
the both of us with our words
can’t say “I love you” enough
or the right way
But
I have found you
And me in you
And the beauty of truth
Proof.
Evidential proof.
So, that has to be enough.
Yet I never know whether to thank fate
or instead fall to my knees and beg for his mercy
his kindness of you yet hatred in your quick departure
a plane on the runway
wheels rolling up
even as the rhythm of your lines overwhelms the droning engine
Take my hand.
And my pen
Use it to open the walls in our minds
To the styles and kinds of things the other knows.
And if tomorrow holds no promise of you
Each time I scribble on a page,
I will remember your words of love, of rage
My sage in a confused year of turmoil
I know when blood boiled,
you calmed it
And when my name was soiled,
you washed it.
But I can’t put my finger on the word
To tell you that I know
Without you,
Without our shared muse
The show couldn’t go on
In the third act.
As a matter of fact,
It wouldn’t have gone on at all.
I call you a friend, because there is no other word.
And I tell you I love you,
For it means Je t’adore in French.
But the heart wrenching part
Is that we were at the start
When it had to end.
I wish I had more time to understand.
So take my hand,
Even as the rhythm of your lines overwhelms the droning engine.
No poem.
No rhyme.
No time spent in your room together,
me falling all over my words
while you watch the smoke curls
floating above the ceiling.
Nothing I can say
While I listen in awe
Wondering if I’ll ever get there
to be with you
and where
to join you tomorrow
to trudge across the sand
and over the brilliant flowers
spiraling their colors onto our impressionable minds with a power I don’t understand.
I find that the more time
I sit and wonder how this will end
or what to say
something’s in the way:
amazement, saving it for later
not knowing what to put together to paint the picture clearly
weary eyed, watching the rays blaze together,
sitting in my car,
wishing I could list the ways I look up to you;
noting traffic patterns and the way light glints
dashing back home to see you.
The metaphor comes to me now with such great ease:
Tire rubber transforming to a raven on the highway
The car a silver salmon, sliding up behind me.
The things I could never say
never do
never be
All now a reflection of you and me
And of our writing,
The three sitting in the room
For hours and wondering what comes next.
Is it time to break this line down?
You are a poet alone
Yet I long to hear our names as an us, or an in between
to grow to your shadow
a Peter Pan glimmering across the wall
tights and a golden dress
glowing hair and eyelashes alike
And will they say you were me, once?
an older image of myself
in a man’s body
with a hand to hold in a moment of weakness
confusion,
were you fooled by the illusion
or did you make it real with your photographs and scribbled notes falling onto the floor
a chronology of all the things I want to be
to reconcile the growth without being afraid
If there is one thing, I know I can, B
I can B.
I can be as hopeful as you.
Never giving up in a world where
girls have gloating walks
and I am just a Lost Boy.
Us lost together perhaps
on this path
of infinite desire
and sin
and love
for the one who makes us feel whole inside,
like God is letting us look in on a little miracle
of creation
Every time he smiles.
If I cry each time I read the song
to a boy from a boy about my own love that cannot be seeded
or grow
without your wiser wisdom annexed to the end
crawling from your mouth in staccato bullet notes,
my tears will not be but half as much
as the pain of losing you dripping from my soul,
shining ink, a rainbow trout, all the colors of your words reflected in my eyes,
Awestruck still.
Life is a palette,
you take all the
golds and
greens and
purples
and mix them into words and emotions.
I stand amazed in the way you take flashes of life
and turn them into poetry
one swift motion;
them spilling onto the page
like overturned liquor—
smelling like candy with a burn
like you
sweet Brendan with an evil streak
The light at the end of the tunnel.
The picture of glory that keeps me
walking
down the cluttered path of poetry,
between the androgenous trees
crowding us down onto our stomachs.
civil servants burning our draft cards
flaming
the two of us
Every pace takes me further into the shining canyon of depth
where beautiful things fall to be reborn
under the Parthenon
where the Greek goddesses go for shade
from the fear of Friday’s wrath.
my grandmother tree tells me it is covered by your strength
If souls could combine
Yours and mine
our tadpoles would be laced with purple imagery,
oblivious to conformity
and normality
black beady eyes dotted with hearts
seeking through the water towards the shore
to grow
and grow
and grow.
our condensation would be smoky
stones of pure emotion clouded with hidden meaning
If souls could combine
ours would find the time in between classes and bong hits
to soar into the sky, a supernova of rhyme
falling back down
in the form of a novel
or poem to beat them all
a great epic from the heartstrings of heaven and high water.
a tornado of fashion and passion
artifacts and deer tracks
or a stream of consciousness running through an impressionistic paradise.
You,
my teacher
preach me the ways
of line
after
line
after
line of verse
worthy of your Tuesday night approval.
Show me what it takes to wake up in the morning and not be ashamed.
I need nothing more than your hand
and a can of Budweiser
to tackle an evening of pain.
You’re there with the bucket,
Or the bowl
Or the goldfish and jester hat.
The sadness is that not matter how much we try,
the both of us with our words
can’t say “I love you” enough
or the right way
But
I have found you
And me in you
And the beauty of truth
Proof.
Evidential proof.
So, that has to be enough.
Yet I never know whether to thank fate
or instead fall to my knees and beg for his mercy
his kindness of you yet hatred in your quick departure
a plane on the runway
wheels rolling up
even as the rhythm of your lines overwhelms the droning engine
Take my hand.
And my pen
Use it to open the walls in our minds
To the styles and kinds of things the other knows.
And if tomorrow holds no promise of you
Each time I scribble on a page,
I will remember your words of love, of rage
My sage in a confused year of turmoil
I know when blood boiled,
you calmed it
And when my name was soiled,
you washed it.
But I can’t put my finger on the word
To tell you that I know
Without you,
Without our shared muse
The show couldn’t go on
In the third act.
As a matter of fact,
It wouldn’t have gone on at all.
I call you a friend, because there is no other word.
And I tell you I love you,
For it means Je t’adore in French.
But the heart wrenching part
Is that we were at the start
When it had to end.
I wish I had more time to understand.
So take my hand,
Even as the rhythm of your lines overwhelms the droning engine.
5.06.2004
a senior sianora or ode to a sisterhood
Monday afternoon the green glow rises from the tips of birdless wings
soaring over the giant rifting river
gulls flapping, fishing the incessant ripples
reaching their breaks in the water
for hope.
If a red tide rises up, will you roll around in it,
paint yourself and the town red with cherry vodka?
Shotglass sequins sprinkled onto table tops
soaked up by hair and houndouts
replaced by upside-down empty glasses,
the pink cheeks and nipples flashing against
a sea of everyday brine
like a game of musical chairs
where sunshine means sitting on the floor
as goblets are filled to the brin with the best of the kingdom's gold.
Viking hats--alcoholic helments--rise over the kingdom as the light of luck smashes to the floor,
covered with the shame of a brown paper bag.
Why so much gladness and glee when the warriors are to venture out to battle the toughest demon of all?
Why rejoice and sing victory praises when those left behind are certain to lose.
Tears could not quench the spirit of this sisterhood
Ditto the the war cry's call
And happy fucking birthday to all!
soaring over the giant rifting river
gulls flapping, fishing the incessant ripples
reaching their breaks in the water
for hope.
If a red tide rises up, will you roll around in it,
paint yourself and the town red with cherry vodka?
Shotglass sequins sprinkled onto table tops
soaked up by hair and houndouts
replaced by upside-down empty glasses,
the pink cheeks and nipples flashing against
a sea of everyday brine
like a game of musical chairs
where sunshine means sitting on the floor
as goblets are filled to the brin with the best of the kingdom's gold.
Viking hats--alcoholic helments--rise over the kingdom as the light of luck smashes to the floor,
covered with the shame of a brown paper bag.
Why so much gladness and glee when the warriors are to venture out to battle the toughest demon of all?
Why rejoice and sing victory praises when those left behind are certain to lose.
Tears could not quench the spirit of this sisterhood
Ditto the the war cry's call
And happy fucking birthday to all!
4.27.2004
temple building
Flat top treetop
Broken down river
I shiver
cause that cloud of smoke pouring from your lips is cold
or is that the broken quartz on this path poking into the arch of my foot?
Slow down boy.
Your pledge pin is shining too brightly on your black t-shirt.
Your legs are like scissors, but you’re cutting crooked in your haste.
I wonder where you’re running to
with your mind sprinting so fast that your face stays still
even when I smile.
Drip drip drop down the slope of the mountain,
should we pray for freezing rain to dry up the spring,
hurry it along for the burning fire of a summer sunset?
Two eyes piercing through the branches,
barreling towards me like a raging metallic beast:
A furnace to tear down these woods and turn them all into
heat pouring sweat pacing down my body,
worker ants forming a string from my mouth to the navel of the orange resting in the
palm of my hand.
Where is mercury rising to, and is Venus around the corner with her sulfurous yellow
clouds masking the seashell as it shatters on the surface of the lake?
Come my kelp friends,
shake your bubbles up to the surface while the turtle parades down below
dodging to and fro like an alpine skier
skittering off to the side as the goose submerges her head.
Fluffy white teddy bear tail rounding and bouncing sending ripples lapping at my curled
toes.
Still, still.
Hold them still. The pollen will wrap back around. You will be one with this world. Natural, normal.
Just keep telling yourself.
And here! Hear!
The trout arches out of the water, fins flashing between the stretching rays of light sliding
down the particle highways, bounding off debris and into my eyes.
Victory! The championship! You have defeated nature at the quiet mouse game,
startling it from stillness into the vibrant array of reality you fail to notice bounding through and picking up flowers and stick to build your temple fortress under the willow sobbing beside the dock.
You win a morning and an evening and an eye for beauty programmed into your halfway
hard heart.
Here’s to your tangled thistle hair,
Your porcupine skin slicing into the brick wall.
Here’s to your naked limbs angled on top of the grass like passing driftwood.
To your head full of lyrics and fears as it leans up against the golden bark of the
grandmother tree.
And she tells you that you are at peace.
Broken down river
I shiver
cause that cloud of smoke pouring from your lips is cold
or is that the broken quartz on this path poking into the arch of my foot?
Slow down boy.
Your pledge pin is shining too brightly on your black t-shirt.
Your legs are like scissors, but you’re cutting crooked in your haste.
I wonder where you’re running to
with your mind sprinting so fast that your face stays still
even when I smile.
Drip drip drop down the slope of the mountain,
should we pray for freezing rain to dry up the spring,
hurry it along for the burning fire of a summer sunset?
Two eyes piercing through the branches,
barreling towards me like a raging metallic beast:
A furnace to tear down these woods and turn them all into
heat pouring sweat pacing down my body,
worker ants forming a string from my mouth to the navel of the orange resting in the
palm of my hand.
Where is mercury rising to, and is Venus around the corner with her sulfurous yellow
clouds masking the seashell as it shatters on the surface of the lake?
Come my kelp friends,
shake your bubbles up to the surface while the turtle parades down below
dodging to and fro like an alpine skier
skittering off to the side as the goose submerges her head.
Fluffy white teddy bear tail rounding and bouncing sending ripples lapping at my curled
toes.
Still, still.
Hold them still. The pollen will wrap back around. You will be one with this world. Natural, normal.
Just keep telling yourself.
And here! Hear!
The trout arches out of the water, fins flashing between the stretching rays of light sliding
down the particle highways, bounding off debris and into my eyes.
Victory! The championship! You have defeated nature at the quiet mouse game,
startling it from stillness into the vibrant array of reality you fail to notice bounding through and picking up flowers and stick to build your temple fortress under the willow sobbing beside the dock.
You win a morning and an evening and an eye for beauty programmed into your halfway
hard heart.
Here’s to your tangled thistle hair,
Your porcupine skin slicing into the brick wall.
Here’s to your naked limbs angled on top of the grass like passing driftwood.
To your head full of lyrics and fears as it leans up against the golden bark of the
grandmother tree.
And she tells you that you are at peace.
4.22.2004
of the moment
You're freshly cut grass beneath my feet, staining my soul green with your infinite tounges.
4.21.2004
fagaliscious
There's a topless girl in the light in front of the library. If I could touch her breasts would be like shining pink blossoms. I wonder if I should walk up, shake the guy's hand, and say "I want to fuck your girlfriend."
I wonder what it means to walk around all night talking beat poetry to myself in someone else's tone of voice.
I wonder what it's like to have a crush on the girl your ex-boyfriend wants to sleep with.
I wonder what it's like to be you with your pointy elbows and big lopey lashes that dangle on my face.
I wonder what it's like to know how to stop.
The woods are a nice place, when you're little. The woods are a great place if you don't have someone's name tatooed across your chest announcing your race, gender, heritage, and anything else I couldn't already see from looking at your face.
I wonder what it's like to play footsy in the library computer lab with the person sitting in the cubicle across from you.
Write that down, it's a date.
William and Mary is the place where they send people who know how to give themselves detention.
William and Mary is the place where people lock themselves into tiny rooms in enormous buildings on a Wednesday night where there are more books then there are faces and they starve themselves on the knowledge their teachers have ordered them not to remember. This is William and Mary, after all.
Can you screw your life up with the click of a button? If anyone can, I assure you it's the kid sitting next to me in the computer lab. His acne is sweating as he frantically copies and pastes as if the bouncy curls in his head might disappear if he forgets the last little hyphen before the period.
I guarantee you, the smart people already know what you're going to say, so that's your cue to be silent.
I love boys in suits and baseball caps.
I love boys with pokey bellies and their hands on their hips.
Or ferocious girls in their pleated skirts with big sticks carrying off their masculinity in the baskets.
I love all of these things.
I guarantee you, that band-aid won't solve all of your problems. It will leak out, whether you tie it with nylon roping or let the sorority girl with the bleach blonde hair and the mulched roots sit on it like it's a big pile of compassion and passion and protection. Honey, penises don't come with condoms attached, so get off it.
I love the big black men with the flattened noses and the gold and green and purple eyelashes that I saw in a movie one time.
Or maybe it was another life. But I'll write that movie later.
Hey boys, if you've been looking for a real man, one to write you a hip new story, one to make all of your dreams become fiction, one to be known by every who's who on the front cover, well you're looking at him.
In fifteen years, the girl sitting before you right now, well you better watch out, because without a doubt she'll be the biggest thing since Charlton Heston's penis to hit the scene or the wall or the floor.
Can you push that plug in a little further, honey, looks like I might loose my electricity if your static can't bring me some new strand of hope. Can you push that pen down a little harder because if I don't learn how to read now then some day I'll be a football player taking my spelling tests in the corner of the college library from the offensive lineman coach.
Life's one of those things, you know, it always tells you when time's expired or when you have to leave or when coming is the right idea.
And trust me.
Coming is always the right idea.
I should be the librarian pushing the cart.
And instead I'm bolting like fabric, because I can't handle the truth of rejection, injection, and infection.
I'm a big spiraling puddle of protozoa.
Chalk one up to evolution.
I wonder what it means to walk around all night talking beat poetry to myself in someone else's tone of voice.
I wonder what it's like to have a crush on the girl your ex-boyfriend wants to sleep with.
I wonder what it's like to be you with your pointy elbows and big lopey lashes that dangle on my face.
I wonder what it's like to know how to stop.
The woods are a nice place, when you're little. The woods are a great place if you don't have someone's name tatooed across your chest announcing your race, gender, heritage, and anything else I couldn't already see from looking at your face.
I wonder what it's like to play footsy in the library computer lab with the person sitting in the cubicle across from you.
Write that down, it's a date.
William and Mary is the place where they send people who know how to give themselves detention.
William and Mary is the place where people lock themselves into tiny rooms in enormous buildings on a Wednesday night where there are more books then there are faces and they starve themselves on the knowledge their teachers have ordered them not to remember. This is William and Mary, after all.
Can you screw your life up with the click of a button? If anyone can, I assure you it's the kid sitting next to me in the computer lab. His acne is sweating as he frantically copies and pastes as if the bouncy curls in his head might disappear if he forgets the last little hyphen before the period.
I guarantee you, the smart people already know what you're going to say, so that's your cue to be silent.
I love boys in suits and baseball caps.
I love boys with pokey bellies and their hands on their hips.
Or ferocious girls in their pleated skirts with big sticks carrying off their masculinity in the baskets.
I love all of these things.
I guarantee you, that band-aid won't solve all of your problems. It will leak out, whether you tie it with nylon roping or let the sorority girl with the bleach blonde hair and the mulched roots sit on it like it's a big pile of compassion and passion and protection. Honey, penises don't come with condoms attached, so get off it.
I love the big black men with the flattened noses and the gold and green and purple eyelashes that I saw in a movie one time.
Or maybe it was another life. But I'll write that movie later.
Hey boys, if you've been looking for a real man, one to write you a hip new story, one to make all of your dreams become fiction, one to be known by every who's who on the front cover, well you're looking at him.
In fifteen years, the girl sitting before you right now, well you better watch out, because without a doubt she'll be the biggest thing since Charlton Heston's penis to hit the scene or the wall or the floor.
Can you push that plug in a little further, honey, looks like I might loose my electricity if your static can't bring me some new strand of hope. Can you push that pen down a little harder because if I don't learn how to read now then some day I'll be a football player taking my spelling tests in the corner of the college library from the offensive lineman coach.
Life's one of those things, you know, it always tells you when time's expired or when you have to leave or when coming is the right idea.
And trust me.
Coming is always the right idea.
I should be the librarian pushing the cart.
And instead I'm bolting like fabric, because I can't handle the truth of rejection, injection, and infection.
I'm a big spiraling puddle of protozoa.
Chalk one up to evolution.
4.19.2004
letter to bryan jones
Tonight when I was walking home, I wanted the trees to rub together
They make me feel like you are still with me, our bodies pressed closely against one another.
Tonight as I was walking home, I stood and listened to the frogs chirping.
I could still hear your voice singing our goodnight song
As the verses get longer
And the chorus remains:
"see you tomorrow"
I never know why all of these outdoor things remind me of you: the small buds growing from the overshadowed tree beside the path, the small plops of life falling from leaves and shuffling on the ground, the fresh scent of springtime breathing through my hair.
You are what it feels like to curl up next to a creek on a warm spring day.
A bottle of water and a book in hand.
You are as new as a green pasture yet as wise as the firmly fallen tree.
As refreshing as daytime and as still as the night.
Your quiet soul babbles nearby,
Never so loud that I have to run away.
And each tear that falls to my skin from your cheek is like lightning
As we stare up at the night sky from Matoka.
I'm not afraid of the thunder to follow
I'm too busy watching the stars fall down and into your eyes.
Come cross bridges with me.
I've been waiting for a night like tonight when I can sweep you away
And hold you
Until the redwood tree cradles us, slowly lulling our words into a steady hum.
Come walk with me in Eden
Take my hand and spurn a new race of tomorrows.
Find the middle ground
Between always being around
And breaking my heart.
If that ground is shaky,
We can fill it in with sand
Squishing it in between our toes,
Two kids on the beach
Flowing in and out with the tide
Until the wave crests
And we come to rest within
The crescent of the moon we have created.
Tonight as I was floating home
The joy of your forehead on my lips,
And tucking you into my heart,
The trees were silent
And you were not beside me.
There was a layer of dust coating the clear path before me
And I ran over myself and onto the floor
With the things I hoped to do tomorrow,
Yet as I crawled into my bed
Your head was on my pillow
And I squeezed it close
Knowing that was the only place
I would ever lose
You again.
I hope you are there,
With my head on your pillow,
Wondering how to keep me from exploding,
Taping me together the best way you know how.
Singing me lullabies with your strings pulled taut
And your lips curling around the weak spot on my neck.
I hope that you are shining
As I am glowing
And that our light will wrap each other up in Ohm
This is a story that starts in the sky and ends in the heart.
It is our path to walk
Though it may stray off course and the markers may be worn.
This is our hope to find
In a world of nonbelievers.
This is our secret to hold
Until it unfolds itself.
If I could tell you, it would be now
But you've always known.
They make me feel like you are still with me, our bodies pressed closely against one another.
Tonight as I was walking home, I stood and listened to the frogs chirping.
I could still hear your voice singing our goodnight song
As the verses get longer
And the chorus remains:
"see you tomorrow"
I never know why all of these outdoor things remind me of you: the small buds growing from the overshadowed tree beside the path, the small plops of life falling from leaves and shuffling on the ground, the fresh scent of springtime breathing through my hair.
You are what it feels like to curl up next to a creek on a warm spring day.
A bottle of water and a book in hand.
You are as new as a green pasture yet as wise as the firmly fallen tree.
As refreshing as daytime and as still as the night.
Your quiet soul babbles nearby,
Never so loud that I have to run away.
And each tear that falls to my skin from your cheek is like lightning
As we stare up at the night sky from Matoka.
I'm not afraid of the thunder to follow
I'm too busy watching the stars fall down and into your eyes.
Come cross bridges with me.
I've been waiting for a night like tonight when I can sweep you away
And hold you
Until the redwood tree cradles us, slowly lulling our words into a steady hum.
Come walk with me in Eden
Take my hand and spurn a new race of tomorrows.
Find the middle ground
Between always being around
And breaking my heart.
If that ground is shaky,
We can fill it in with sand
Squishing it in between our toes,
Two kids on the beach
Flowing in and out with the tide
Until the wave crests
And we come to rest within
The crescent of the moon we have created.
Tonight as I was floating home
The joy of your forehead on my lips,
And tucking you into my heart,
The trees were silent
And you were not beside me.
There was a layer of dust coating the clear path before me
And I ran over myself and onto the floor
With the things I hoped to do tomorrow,
Yet as I crawled into my bed
Your head was on my pillow
And I squeezed it close
Knowing that was the only place
I would ever lose
You again.
I hope you are there,
With my head on your pillow,
Wondering how to keep me from exploding,
Taping me together the best way you know how.
Singing me lullabies with your strings pulled taut
And your lips curling around the weak spot on my neck.
I hope that you are shining
As I am glowing
And that our light will wrap each other up in Ohm
This is a story that starts in the sky and ends in the heart.
It is our path to walk
Though it may stray off course and the markers may be worn.
This is our hope to find
In a world of nonbelievers.
This is our secret to hold
Until it unfolds itself.
If I could tell you, it would be now
But you've always known.
4.09.2004
in the summer's when you really know
you're the only summer that I've ever known
sometimes things can be lovely:
a chewy summer's day in the park underneath an umbrella
frogs chirping in the dewy grass
the lace on a frilly elderly woman's straw hat
the glow of a monitor light glaring against my eyelashes
the wisps of clouds as they float across the iris of your eye
the twitch of my skin as it adjusts to your touch
the way your lips close tight to mine as we seek out the first embrace of time
sometimes things can be lovely:
a 1940s day
a wicker chair
a towel
tall straw in the breeze
a cold earthen stair
I believe you are lovely when I see you standing there.
sometimes things can be lovely:
a chewy summer's day in the park underneath an umbrella
frogs chirping in the dewy grass
the lace on a frilly elderly woman's straw hat
the glow of a monitor light glaring against my eyelashes
the wisps of clouds as they float across the iris of your eye
the twitch of my skin as it adjusts to your touch
the way your lips close tight to mine as we seek out the first embrace of time
sometimes things can be lovely:
a 1940s day
a wicker chair
a towel
tall straw in the breeze
a cold earthen stair
I believe you are lovely when I see you standing there.
3.23.2004
march 23, me
Two hands now,
Stretching
Fetching the food
Pulling it towards the hanger.
The mother sings the song of the airport,
Smiling at me or herself,
I am too young to see.
And by see I mean with the inner eye
Past the lie
Unconditional love means "except"
If you find the right dictionary.
But college isn't a time for looking things up
It's about hooking up
Drinking up
Thinking up the things you will always believe in
Until then.
Then is the time we haven't gotten to
But think about until our minds go numb
And our tongue rolls around
Dumb found
Additionally stopped from moving
By the gluing to the face
The race
For the finish across the line.
It's words read in a room
A boom of education
In moderation
An exploration of how feminism relates to life.
And they're right.
We sit here and shove it down their throats,
Like they shove it in us
Right before we come.
And we moan and we cry,
And they only imagine out of pleasure
They treasure every moment they feel in charge
Large,
Bigger than I can handle
A word in a crossword puzzle
That bosses me around
Is found underneath the language
Two letters.
Today I ran across the land
Feeling the earth pulse underneath my feet
The beat driving me to roll around
The grass vibrating like the trees
And the bees,
Buzzing in the pistil of the flower
Distilling the sexuality
Vitality
Of another form of life.
And it's a book
Mistook for a sign
A rhyme misplaced on someone else's page
Laden with the rage of someone else's story
blatant with the sage of your mothers cooking
Not yours at all
But you fall
And take the blame
Because you know no better
And choose not to
For knowing
Is growing
And you're standing still
Blending in.
A real testimony to my mothers warning
The burning
The learning
Unlearning
Taking the words from the mouth
And tearing them out
And taking them for nothing,
When they're something to brag about.
Unmuff the ears and hear about the years of someone else's life
And life comes again to you,
As you listen and glisten in your eyes of wonder.
Eyes reflect the world,
It's when they stop reflecting there's a problem.
Glassy eyes show more shine,
And they're mine
Watching the trees rub
Like this.
I miss your caress of my ear as you tuck my hair
Behind there
Where you can see the purse of my lips
The curse of my gaze
As we raze all that was good
And understood
Between you and everyone else.
The shelf life of milk doubled with pasturization
Like you do with masturbation
But where comes education
And our nation,
One of the three we must pledge to
Dredge through on our way to freedom.
And is it because we took it
Or look it
Or book it in a casino
Or from luck
From a buck
That we invented the theory to earn.
We churn the problems up that make us winners.
We crush the beginners
We make the spinners a necessary part of our existence
The resistance dies in the parking lot
A blot of insanity in a small town
You look around
And lose yourself in the call of the TV
And the radio
And the stereo
And all you know
Turns to mush.
You're a lush, just like your mother
Just like your brother,
And the sister you would have had.
Don't get mad, you've lost that right
You fight the ones in charge
Until you barge into everything you don't understand.
You're a student,
Not a prudent genius,
A Venus for my de Milo
A penis for my Nile
A river for my high
A win for my bye
A rhyme for the time I waste getting warm
In your arms
And in the harm
Of your way.
That was today,
But still I stay.
Arms stretching
Reaching for the food
That preaches in my soul
The lewd reasons for my role.
My hear, my now
My how
My you
My truth.
Stretching
Fetching the food
Pulling it towards the hanger.
The mother sings the song of the airport,
Smiling at me or herself,
I am too young to see.
And by see I mean with the inner eye
Past the lie
Unconditional love means "except"
If you find the right dictionary.
But college isn't a time for looking things up
It's about hooking up
Drinking up
Thinking up the things you will always believe in
Until then.
Then is the time we haven't gotten to
But think about until our minds go numb
And our tongue rolls around
Dumb found
Additionally stopped from moving
By the gluing to the face
The race
For the finish across the line.
It's words read in a room
A boom of education
In moderation
An exploration of how feminism relates to life.
And they're right.
We sit here and shove it down their throats,
Like they shove it in us
Right before we come.
And we moan and we cry,
And they only imagine out of pleasure
They treasure every moment they feel in charge
Large,
Bigger than I can handle
A word in a crossword puzzle
That bosses me around
Is found underneath the language
Two letters.
Today I ran across the land
Feeling the earth pulse underneath my feet
The beat driving me to roll around
The grass vibrating like the trees
And the bees,
Buzzing in the pistil of the flower
Distilling the sexuality
Vitality
Of another form of life.
And it's a book
Mistook for a sign
A rhyme misplaced on someone else's page
Laden with the rage of someone else's story
blatant with the sage of your mothers cooking
Not yours at all
But you fall
And take the blame
Because you know no better
And choose not to
For knowing
Is growing
And you're standing still
Blending in.
A real testimony to my mothers warning
The burning
The learning
Unlearning
Taking the words from the mouth
And tearing them out
And taking them for nothing,
When they're something to brag about.
Unmuff the ears and hear about the years of someone else's life
And life comes again to you,
As you listen and glisten in your eyes of wonder.
Eyes reflect the world,
It's when they stop reflecting there's a problem.
Glassy eyes show more shine,
And they're mine
Watching the trees rub
Like this.
I miss your caress of my ear as you tuck my hair
Behind there
Where you can see the purse of my lips
The curse of my gaze
As we raze all that was good
And understood
Between you and everyone else.
The shelf life of milk doubled with pasturization
Like you do with masturbation
But where comes education
And our nation,
One of the three we must pledge to
Dredge through on our way to freedom.
And is it because we took it
Or look it
Or book it in a casino
Or from luck
From a buck
That we invented the theory to earn.
We churn the problems up that make us winners.
We crush the beginners
We make the spinners a necessary part of our existence
The resistance dies in the parking lot
A blot of insanity in a small town
You look around
And lose yourself in the call of the TV
And the radio
And the stereo
And all you know
Turns to mush.
You're a lush, just like your mother
Just like your brother,
And the sister you would have had.
Don't get mad, you've lost that right
You fight the ones in charge
Until you barge into everything you don't understand.
You're a student,
Not a prudent genius,
A Venus for my de Milo
A penis for my Nile
A river for my high
A win for my bye
A rhyme for the time I waste getting warm
In your arms
And in the harm
Of your way.
That was today,
But still I stay.
Arms stretching
Reaching for the food
That preaches in my soul
The lewd reasons for my role.
My hear, my now
My how
My you
My truth.
3.18.2004
directions
Philosophy of Religion
Why do you mock me so?
Oh you Rand McNally
You explanation, revelation
Desecration of the holy
Or the anti-holy
(Or) the whole.
The sugar pill at the front of the class
In the pages of the book
The numbers at the bottom
Holding it in place
Can you speak from the south,
The yellow and purple
Tumbling over
Turmoil turning them to brown.
I want to paint a picture.
Soft watery base,
Grounding flowers in freedom
Placing arcrylic petals
Popping off of stems,
Falling forward from the frame,
Great oily shadows bleeding out on the canvas.
My brush is my pen turning in circles.
by the by
By the way,
p.s., can I tell you more?
It’s like we’re out on the floor
but it’s not, because we’re
here
and there,
Across the room
but aware
Of my eyes
on your lips,
lips on neck,
on hips,
on lips.
Next.
The wall,
the segregation.
Not just of a sound booth.
Of a sound proof existence.
Can you hear me now?
Good.
Because I’m still listening.
We can drive forever,
two pieces of graphite
shrouded in the cloud of breath
Freezing to death on our bed of feathers.
Are you burning?
Stoking me with your eyes through the hall
burning a hole in the wall just above my head.
Instead, can you kumbya,
Singing camp songs beside the creek,
the stones the only things sturdy around here
And even they tumble.
Slippery surfaces lie beneath the clear water,
Waiting for prey
to pray on.
Do you hear the humming,
humming—
droning in the background,
The black dog sitting on our stoop.
Our.
our hour.
Never long enough for me to say it.
By the way,
p.s., there’s too much to tell.
So I stay silent in my commitment to the absurd.
Just friends?
Of course not.
No one will believe,
When not speaking leads to hours of philosophy.
Our belief in our nothing,
Or at least mine,
Dragging the ore out, the hour out.
Our out in the open niceties tugging at the hair on the back of your neck,
Going to our heads,
Suspending us in the moment
But taking days to bring us back down.
The hushed, hidden words renewing our little secret.
So hush.
I hear a new day dawning.
p.s., can I tell you more?
It’s like we’re out on the floor
but it’s not, because we’re
here
and there,
Across the room
but aware
Of my eyes
on your lips,
lips on neck,
on hips,
on lips.
Next.
The wall,
the segregation.
Not just of a sound booth.
Of a sound proof existence.
Can you hear me now?
Good.
Because I’m still listening.
We can drive forever,
two pieces of graphite
shrouded in the cloud of breath
Freezing to death on our bed of feathers.
Are you burning?
Stoking me with your eyes through the hall
burning a hole in the wall just above my head.
Instead, can you kumbya,
Singing camp songs beside the creek,
the stones the only things sturdy around here
And even they tumble.
Slippery surfaces lie beneath the clear water,
Waiting for prey
to pray on.
Do you hear the humming,
humming—
droning in the background,
The black dog sitting on our stoop.
Our.
our hour.
Never long enough for me to say it.
By the way,
p.s., there’s too much to tell.
So I stay silent in my commitment to the absurd.
Just friends?
Of course not.
No one will believe,
When not speaking leads to hours of philosophy.
Our belief in our nothing,
Or at least mine,
Dragging the ore out, the hour out.
Our out in the open niceties tugging at the hair on the back of your neck,
Going to our heads,
Suspending us in the moment
But taking days to bring us back down.
The hushed, hidden words renewing our little secret.
So hush.
I hear a new day dawning.
2.07.2004
death of a happy ending, parts I & II
Part I.
The sun is glinting off of the cars on the street, casting stars with a thousand prongs, not just four. The tree branches hang down, breaking the panes into a thousand pieces, a hundred layers. There's so much out there to see: the colors the pickets, the blades of grass. The constant change, the growth, the decay; a new vision each time my eye raises to the window. So much to see out of this one piece of glass. And then, when you step outside! This hole in the world becomes surrounded with life. The action attracting the ears and nose, no longer engaging only the eye. And as these senses hit hard, the wonder in a crushed blade of grass is lost to the sound of chatter. The glorious swoop of the raven is lost to the smell of exhaust. The roar of traffic drowns out the fragile dew sticking to the flowers. How much I love to exhale and hear my breath, drifting with the clouds, creating my own soundtrack to the world. The question of reality is one created. Truth is beauty, maybe, but never heightens a romantic scene in the Sunken Gardens. The truth is that the glory days of Virginia are over, and Williamsburg is full of traffic, and sirens, and tourists, and pollution.
So much for the glory of the window pane.
So much for the struggle of each blade of grass.
So much for lines jotted down by my unaffected hand.
Part II.
The chorus from this morning's first song pounds in my head. There is only one lyric. "There's only one." With all the bantering and battering going on this week, how am I to know? There's the kiss, the slap, the blow, the know, and that makes more than one. So, if there is one, what's the test, what's the catch, what's the worth? Here I am, sitting here with this vague description of a specific situation. Am I afraid that on paper everything will fall into place? Hardly. Logically, it's all a bad decision, but that's the beauty of women-- we're emotionally driven. So where is this decision coming from? I'd say the heart, but there's so much more to it than that: the head, the lungs, the skin, the liver. I guess it comes down to my very pen. I need challenge, pain, struggle, and suffering to write, but I need intellectual stimulation thrown into the mix to write well. Here I am, and I'd say that I have love, security, and all those warm fuzzy feelings that come with a relationship that's not going anywhere, but I'm not content with being grounded; I want to soar, even if it means I have to fall. There's nothing wrong with falling. It's a chance to see the world from a different point of view. So I guess it's my wings that are making the decision to seek out the sun, even if it means being scorched. So I'll start with anything but the love, because I'm still going up, while the love's going down, and with our equal imperfection, it doesn't sit higher than anything else, but it's what I already know. I came to college to learn--about history, about psychology, about beauty, about life, and yes, even about all the forms of love which I have yet to learn. College is pleasure, freedom, haze, and clarity all at the same time. And love? Love is the presence and absence of these things, all at the same time. Or maybe simply the elusive power that controls all of the rest from overhead, brilliantly dominant, but hard to grasp. And is love in the hand really worth more than two in the bush? Well, I'll let you know.
1.12.2004
in agreement
You’re deliciously trashy.
I want you under cover.
Under my covers to solve all my dreams.
A sneaky sketchy guy in the woods.
Offer me your flask again,
And I will drink the ambrosia
Off of your lips
Rolls a biting quip.
Teasing or true, I shudder.
And what of me, as I play my games?
Oh, just smile reluctantly.
You know I’m all drama
No determination.
You’re safe in my book.
It’s reality you have to worry about.
But isn’t it always?
Be glad I’m a talker,
Not a stalker.
I’m really a walker,
And here I go.
Let these words worry you not
For if they were pot,
I would burn it.
To see the smoke curl up from your lips.
Everything curling, like a joke from hell.
Smiling because it’s satirical really,
Or ironic,
Or one of those big words I could use to impress,
When to undress
Is what at least one of us wants.
We are human after all.
I see that serious look arise,
In your eyes,
The ones that sparkle.
Now don’t worry, I don’t mean it.
People like me never do.
We’re just in love with what we write down.
Don’t let it frown.
It’s just a joke,
A poke at a ridiculous situation.
A look at a new television station.
And amusement for you
Arising from my boredom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)