beliefs and disbeliefs
I believe that the world is primary,
and that God is good
(or a good idea anyway),
and that everyone looks at the sun,
it's just so damn beautiful
I believe you should be honest and open,
because death is inevitable
(which is another thing I know,
but wish I didn't)
and everyone deserves a chance
for you to love them.
I believe in that Girl Scout credo
of leaving a place
better than you found it,
which is to say
that I also believe
there's no reason to eat meat
Maybe because I believe
we're all connected,
(not in some pseudo-Buddhist way)
so I think there has to be something
at least almost as good
as a "free market" sounds
But there are things I understand
yet can't comprehend,
like how the universe is
always e x p a n d i n g,
and how people often like reality TV
much better than reality
And I don't know how you could
marry someone you didn't love,
or abandon the someones you did--
I'd never kill a man
in Reno, or anywhere,
and I'd hate to watch him die.
See I believe in lots of things:
the sensibility of a closed fist
(during rock paper scissors)
smoking cigarettes in the winter
(to keep out the cold),
and avoiding cliches
(like the plague).
Maybe we're all believers.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
From Katie's prompt: "Write a poem which includes the line 'ashtrays go astray.'"
ashtrays go astray
a gutted cell phone splays
cigarette butts and grey dust
over books whose pages
yellow like bruises
of atrophied memory
beer bottles crowd the table
like gravestones
commemorating cathexis
of long-dead nights
and the fan wheezes
weakly through nicotene
clouds of conversation
we swat away, lazily,
like the hum of flies
trailing from the open fridge
whose half-light casts shadows
where none were before.
when we remember
to check the VCR's clock
we'll groan at those ghostly
green digits-- 1:17
and collapse in alcoholic heaps
entwined on twin beds
rubbing thin beads
of sweat between our bodies
until finally the warm
darkness tugs us to sleep.
ashtrays go astray
a gutted cell phone splays
cigarette butts and grey dust
over books whose pages
yellow like bruises
of atrophied memory
beer bottles crowd the table
like gravestones
commemorating cathexis
of long-dead nights
and the fan wheezes
weakly through nicotene
clouds of conversation
we swat away, lazily,
like the hum of flies
trailing from the open fridge
whose half-light casts shadows
where none were before.
when we remember
to check the VCR's clock
we'll groan at those ghostly
green digits-- 1:17
and collapse in alcoholic heaps
entwined on twin beds
rubbing thin beads
of sweat between our bodies
until finally the warm
darkness tugs us to sleep.
the rearview mirror
suspends my spectral
face over receding tree lines,
bifurcates metallic siding
headlights wink above grinning grills
and we freight forwards
for fear, for beauty
for maximum efficiency
the dash becomes my ottomon
and my shoed feet
obscure the flicks of white paint
passing with the seconds
piled like roadside rubble,
the rawest mountain of the landscape
its heaps of grey
unshared moments separate
us like the snake of a line
between one black dot,
me, to one black dot,
you, superimposed over
the sad pastels of
amateur cartography
bridge ices before road
and the speed is limited
to 55,
the sun licks my ankles
and the engine sings me to sleep
I will wake up in the
sepia dim of a tunnel
that slices through a countryside
I didn't miss,
and didn't miss me.
suspends my spectral
face over receding tree lines,
bifurcates metallic siding
headlights wink above grinning grills
and we freight forwards
for fear, for beauty
for maximum efficiency
the dash becomes my ottomon
and my shoed feet
obscure the flicks of white paint
passing with the seconds
piled like roadside rubble,
the rawest mountain of the landscape
its heaps of grey
unshared moments separate
us like the snake of a line
between one black dot,
me, to one black dot,
you, superimposed over
the sad pastels of
amateur cartography
bridge ices before road
and the speed is limited
to 55,
the sun licks my ankles
and the engine sings me to sleep
I will wake up in the
sepia dim of a tunnel
that slices through a countryside
I didn't miss,
and didn't miss me.
Friday, June 25, 2010
citric silence (a pantoum)
With our differences and a jug of orangeade between us
We could feel the world spin.
The engine hummed a Hindu mantra
And we just drank it in.
We could feel the world spin
Perched in the middle of a parking lot
And we just drank it in,
In the citric silence of nighttime
Perched in the middle of a parking lot,
You murmured something meaningful
In the citric silence of nighttime,
But only the moon could hear.
You murmured something meaningful
And the engine and I purred back.
But only the moon could hear
That the silence was most honest.
We could feel the world spin.
The engine hummed a Hindu mantra
And we just drank it in.
We could feel the world spin
Perched in the middle of a parking lot
And we just drank it in,
In the citric silence of nighttime
Perched in the middle of a parking lot,
You murmured something meaningful
In the citric silence of nighttime,
But only the moon could hear.
You murmured something meaningful
And the engine and I purred back.
But only the moon could hear
That the silence was most honest.
tag
I punched your shoulder—
tag, you’re it,
so it was your turn
to be a playful predator
and my turn to pant like it’s life-or-death
when it’s really run-or-rest,
like trick-or-treat,
you-or-me
and never both
because they conflict
and contradict,
playing their own game of tag, you’re it
where “base” is your bed,
the ampersand between our pronouns
and you always chase me there,
but the game’s over on arrival.
so I cover my eyes
and count aloud so you can hide.
And I can wish between the numbers:
“One…I…
two…wish…
three…it didn’t have to be like this,”
and at twenty I’m already hunting again,
and you are being hunted.
at least the rules are clear,
and our roles are clear,
when everything else is muddied like my knees
that prompt parental probing:
“What have you been up to?”
And boy, have I been up to something.
tag, you’re it,
so it was your turn
to be a playful predator
and my turn to pant like it’s life-or-death
when it’s really run-or-rest,
like trick-or-treat,
you-or-me
and never both
because they conflict
and contradict,
playing their own game of tag, you’re it
where “base” is your bed,
the ampersand between our pronouns
and you always chase me there,
but the game’s over on arrival.
so I cover my eyes
and count aloud so you can hide.
And I can wish between the numbers:
“One…I…
two…wish…
three…it didn’t have to be like this,”
and at twenty I’m already hunting again,
and you are being hunted.
at least the rules are clear,
and our roles are clear,
when everything else is muddied like my knees
that prompt parental probing:
“What have you been up to?”
And boy, have I been up to something.
some criminals
The scene could have been written into a short story
or sketched out in a quirky movie,
or misinterpreted in a modernist painting.
It could have been so many things
if we’d let it out of the room,
where it wouldn’t be tethered down by
“that was a funny memory” carpet stains
or, “that’s from the antique market, remember?” side tables
It did so well without us, too.
The lunar dent the couch’s feet made
in the sugar-cookie-with-sprinkles rug
had a winning dialogue with the oft forgotten window pane
embracing no particularly special view.
In fact, it’s more of a one-way window,
inviting passersby to see
the domestic poetry thrumming and stagnating
like the sound of the cat’s purrs
on the nostalgia-soaked floors.
We became pieces of furniture there too,
and our roles made us forget our words
for there were too many others
dangling before us,
like “painted china,”
or, “this is what late evenings in small towns look like”
in case you ever need to identify one
in a mug shot line-up
when a police officer asks you who or what it was
that made you who or what you are,
and nevermind the answer to that question—
Be patient, we’ll get there, some criminals just slip away.
or sketched out in a quirky movie,
or misinterpreted in a modernist painting.
It could have been so many things
if we’d let it out of the room,
where it wouldn’t be tethered down by
“that was a funny memory” carpet stains
or, “that’s from the antique market, remember?” side tables
It did so well without us, too.
The lunar dent the couch’s feet made
in the sugar-cookie-with-sprinkles rug
had a winning dialogue with the oft forgotten window pane
embracing no particularly special view.
In fact, it’s more of a one-way window,
inviting passersby to see
the domestic poetry thrumming and stagnating
like the sound of the cat’s purrs
on the nostalgia-soaked floors.
We became pieces of furniture there too,
and our roles made us forget our words
for there were too many others
dangling before us,
like “painted china,”
or, “this is what late evenings in small towns look like”
in case you ever need to identify one
in a mug shot line-up
when a police officer asks you who or what it was
that made you who or what you are,
and nevermind the answer to that question—
Be patient, we’ll get there, some criminals just slip away.
untitled, in march
Tipped over the watering can
while her voice
through the window screen
tipped over my heart,
spilled its contents
through fire escape floor slats.
And if you were wondering,
the love in a heart
falls like a slinky—
sometimes clumsy,
sometimes pretty,
and always a little lazy
down a staircase
I’m convinced is limitless.
They say the sky is too,
that its interminable blue
goes on forever
in that honest hue,
granting its
auspice to a precious few—
an iris or two
like your orbs that leaked
those tears of you.
And if you were wondering,
the tears in your eyes
fall like melting snowflakes—
sometimes poignant,
sometimes powerful,
and always a little somber
because they don’t want to fade,
and tears would hate
if you forgot why they were made.
So I tipped over the writer’s block
in front of my notebook’s awning.
Now a new day is dawning,
and while I am yawning,
I am ready for its grace:
It begins here in the garden
with the neglected can of tin.
while her voice
through the window screen
tipped over my heart,
spilled its contents
through fire escape floor slats.
And if you were wondering,
the love in a heart
falls like a slinky—
sometimes clumsy,
sometimes pretty,
and always a little lazy
down a staircase
I’m convinced is limitless.
They say the sky is too,
that its interminable blue
goes on forever
in that honest hue,
granting its
auspice to a precious few—
an iris or two
like your orbs that leaked
those tears of you.
And if you were wondering,
the tears in your eyes
fall like melting snowflakes—
sometimes poignant,
sometimes powerful,
and always a little somber
because they don’t want to fade,
and tears would hate
if you forgot why they were made.
So I tipped over the writer’s block
in front of my notebook’s awning.
Now a new day is dawning,
and while I am yawning,
I am ready for its grace:
It begins here in the garden
with the neglected can of tin.
the pen and i
My pen’s a tool of imprecision
complicating blankness with word incisions
that may miss their mark
though that may be the art
of writing down those things
you’re afraid to
Perched on a bench like a bookshelf,
passers-by read my spine
looking for something worth their time,
so even thoughts become capital,
a penny apiece,
and my body camouflages its self
with skin whose opacity
is a delight to touch
but won’t let you in
without that pen,
(as I was saying)
its incisions.
They reveal the real
machinery of humanity
but lack appeal when you learn
exploring might get you bloody,
covered in red ink, black ink,
an indecipherable history
scratching lines in the sand,
or serifs on the page
in the hopes that someone
might understand
the reasons you wish
you were inside-out:
you’d either be lonely, or never without.
complicating blankness with word incisions
that may miss their mark
though that may be the art
of writing down those things
you’re afraid to
Perched on a bench like a bookshelf,
passers-by read my spine
looking for something worth their time,
so even thoughts become capital,
a penny apiece,
and my body camouflages its self
with skin whose opacity
is a delight to touch
but won’t let you in
without that pen,
(as I was saying)
its incisions.
They reveal the real
machinery of humanity
but lack appeal when you learn
exploring might get you bloody,
covered in red ink, black ink,
an indecipherable history
scratching lines in the sand,
or serifs on the page
in the hopes that someone
might understand
the reasons you wish
you were inside-out:
you’d either be lonely, or never without.
the mean
Almost indistinguishable,
like the difference between
snow and sleet,
or the me from yesterday
and the me from today.
Is stagnancy so boring
to revel in the mirror-solid
surface of an undisturbed pond?
But I wear self-induced ripples,
blooming outward like
an atom bomb after it hits.
They leave a mushroom
cloud of dark reminders:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”
And you skip stones across my back,
leave no scars,
just ripples, ripples
--Where you hit, the epicenter:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”
I hear the flat stones in your pockets
jostle against each other
like the thoughts arguing
for more room in my brain.
And I know you’re planning something,
and you know I’m thinking something,
but you’ll never hear what.
--Believe me;
it’s somewhere between
snow and sleet,
me and Me,
a pebble and a bomb.
And I might as well be
the hyphen between
the year of your birth
and the year of your death.
like the difference between
snow and sleet,
or the me from yesterday
and the me from today.
Is stagnancy so boring
to revel in the mirror-solid
surface of an undisturbed pond?
But I wear self-induced ripples,
blooming outward like
an atom bomb after it hits.
They leave a mushroom
cloud of dark reminders:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”
And you skip stones across my back,
leave no scars,
just ripples, ripples
--Where you hit, the epicenter:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”
I hear the flat stones in your pockets
jostle against each other
like the thoughts arguing
for more room in my brain.
And I know you’re planning something,
and you know I’m thinking something,
but you’ll never hear what.
--Believe me;
it’s somewhere between
snow and sleet,
me and Me,
a pebble and a bomb.
And I might as well be
the hyphen between
the year of your birth
and the year of your death.
the exile diner
The Vermeer-veneer of sunlight
has long left,
and the lit cigarette butt
burns like tawdry halogens.
I am behind its flame,
almost three inches back,
so passers-by don’t know
if I’m coming or going—
and neither do I.
Why haunt a place so devoid of people,
built by them for them,
then abandoned?
Only I remain
with the wilted wrappers and broken glass
that pass for wind chimes
when there’s nothing else,
and there isn’t.
It’s a twisted ghost town
populated by shades
who blend with the night,
defy the day,
and never look you
in the eye.
Half-mast heads float
over purposeless feet
that pretend through locomotion
that there’s someplace to be.
(Mine took me here—honest or broken,
you decide.)
But if we’re in exile,
let’s at least call it that.
The run-down diner’s
got a spare neon sign
meant for purgatories like this,
where people convene
between A and B,
without ever knowing what either mean.
has long left,
and the lit cigarette butt
burns like tawdry halogens.
I am behind its flame,
almost three inches back,
so passers-by don’t know
if I’m coming or going—
and neither do I.
Why haunt a place so devoid of people,
built by them for them,
then abandoned?
Only I remain
with the wilted wrappers and broken glass
that pass for wind chimes
when there’s nothing else,
and there isn’t.
It’s a twisted ghost town
populated by shades
who blend with the night,
defy the day,
and never look you
in the eye.
Half-mast heads float
over purposeless feet
that pretend through locomotion
that there’s someplace to be.
(Mine took me here—honest or broken,
you decide.)
But if we’re in exile,
let’s at least call it that.
The run-down diner’s
got a spare neon sign
meant for purgatories like this,
where people convene
between A and B,
without ever knowing what either mean.
the day i never asked for but got
Red blood spatter berries
next to morning spatter dew
on the spindly arms of trees I see
every day, but really only saw today,
Today when I look
at the automata of academia,
I don’t just notice
that the heads-down,
one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-walk
is the same as any other day,
but I think of the disparities
of thoughts in those heads too,
and in mine.
I think about why I follow
these curvilinear paths
rather than the shortest distance
between two points theory
of lawn-traversing.
I think about what I’m thinking about:
what it would be like
if it rained backwards,
how many crumpled cigarette butts
were once mine,
and how many more will be.
I think about measurements of time
and increment
and what are the conversion units
of admiration to adoration?
and if love is even about quality over quantity.
And I write this poem as I walk,
knowing my walk is prose
but the way I walk is poetry.
I think of how I let everyone down
(including myself)
as I walk back to my room,
wrecked from a night of bad decisions.
And I think that as potent as these thoughts are now,
they will dilute with alcohol and time,
So why not say I’m fine? I’m fine.
next to morning spatter dew
on the spindly arms of trees I see
every day, but really only saw today,
Today when I look
at the automata of academia,
I don’t just notice
that the heads-down,
one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-walk
is the same as any other day,
but I think of the disparities
of thoughts in those heads too,
and in mine.
I think about why I follow
these curvilinear paths
rather than the shortest distance
between two points theory
of lawn-traversing.
I think about what I’m thinking about:
what it would be like
if it rained backwards,
how many crumpled cigarette butts
were once mine,
and how many more will be.
I think about measurements of time
and increment
and what are the conversion units
of admiration to adoration?
and if love is even about quality over quantity.
And I write this poem as I walk,
knowing my walk is prose
but the way I walk is poetry.
I think of how I let everyone down
(including myself)
as I walk back to my room,
wrecked from a night of bad decisions.
And I think that as potent as these thoughts are now,
they will dilute with alcohol and time,
So why not say I’m fine? I’m fine.
souvenirs for sale
I tried to find a loophole for loving you
by forwarding your letters
and rewording mine
that I composed only in mind,
oh, and maybe heart,
but no pens were allowed.
With memories the language of emotions
and love the wormhole of the present
I skip dashes on the timeline
like heart-hurdles:
the year we met, the month we kissed,
the week I realized that
a string of pleasant days
wasn’t enough
to steady the splints on our souls
sold to each other with increasing interest rates
our deepening disinterest couldn’t repay
So I look for tauter splints
in the fine print of our covetous covenant—
we said we’d always love
without promises that we’d always
be in love,
And I’m finding it hard to occupy
a place that seems to only exist in rhymes
between images of scintillating suns
and proud crimson tulips
like our two lips
that can’t be parted,
even just to say:
“let’s keep this as a memory.”
by forwarding your letters
and rewording mine
that I composed only in mind,
oh, and maybe heart,
but no pens were allowed.
With memories the language of emotions
and love the wormhole of the present
I skip dashes on the timeline
like heart-hurdles:
the year we met, the month we kissed,
the week I realized that
a string of pleasant days
wasn’t enough
to steady the splints on our souls
sold to each other with increasing interest rates
our deepening disinterest couldn’t repay
So I look for tauter splints
in the fine print of our covetous covenant—
we said we’d always love
without promises that we’d always
be in love,
And I’m finding it hard to occupy
a place that seems to only exist in rhymes
between images of scintillating suns
and proud crimson tulips
like our two lips
that can’t be parted,
even just to say:
“let’s keep this as a memory.”
sleepy sibilance
I slipped my hand
over the curves of your body,
listening to the sibilant hiss
my hand’s loving you resounded
and I thought it sounded the way it must
to slip a handwritten secret
under the bedroom door
of the man you love
but are afraid to (and that’s the secret)
or the way rain sounds
when it competes
with speeding tires
tracing the shadowy signature
of highways that slither through landscapes
in a kind of forgery we all fall for,
because it only seems fitting
for raindrops to make exit ramps
to new starts that much more slippery.
My hand took the right turns;
those cars took the wrong ones—
but I suppose we all ended up
under a different set of comforters,
only I didn’t have to visit
a home improvement store
to be afforded this luxury
of loving someone from under them,
thinking about whispered secrets
that were so obvious
from the place I uttered them
while the rest of you think about stapled receipts
from the malls that sputtered them.
And I can wake up and do it again,
whether or not it’s raining.
over the curves of your body,
listening to the sibilant hiss
my hand’s loving you resounded
and I thought it sounded the way it must
to slip a handwritten secret
under the bedroom door
of the man you love
but are afraid to (and that’s the secret)
or the way rain sounds
when it competes
with speeding tires
tracing the shadowy signature
of highways that slither through landscapes
in a kind of forgery we all fall for,
because it only seems fitting
for raindrops to make exit ramps
to new starts that much more slippery.
My hand took the right turns;
those cars took the wrong ones—
but I suppose we all ended up
under a different set of comforters,
only I didn’t have to visit
a home improvement store
to be afforded this luxury
of loving someone from under them,
thinking about whispered secrets
that were so obvious
from the place I uttered them
while the rest of you think about stapled receipts
from the malls that sputtered them.
And I can wake up and do it again,
whether or not it’s raining.
[sic]
orbits perpetually move in ellipses
so for eternity planets will try
to finish the universe’s sentence
for every season there’s a [sic]
as for every question
a problem with hermeneutics
and the Earth has contained
the same amount of energy
from the Big Bang until now
so things can change and trade hands
swap potential for kinetic energy
like scalpers trade cash and tickets
outside the venue
hosting our love’s Big Bang,
and nothing will change.
it makes sense, then.
how I pour my love into you
like it’s sand filling an hourglass
and even when
you’ve sifted all of it
through your delicate fingertips
there’s always someone
to stand you on your other side—
Earth’s unfinished sentence
like your unfinished “I love you."
so for eternity planets will try
to finish the universe’s sentence
for every season there’s a [sic]
as for every question
a problem with hermeneutics
and the Earth has contained
the same amount of energy
from the Big Bang until now
so things can change and trade hands
swap potential for kinetic energy
like scalpers trade cash and tickets
outside the venue
hosting our love’s Big Bang,
and nothing will change.
it makes sense, then.
how I pour my love into you
like it’s sand filling an hourglass
and even when
you’ve sifted all of it
through your delicate fingertips
there’s always someone
to stand you on your other side—
Earth’s unfinished sentence
like your unfinished “I love you."
schism
I can feel the night
through the crack my window makes,
a schism between where I am
and where I could be
like a cool, black horizon—
just as intangible,
yet a little more reachable
like the cracks the sidewalk makes
over which I leap and tiptoe,
careful not to break my mother’s back,
or my own neck.
I could feel the night
when you breathed on my neck,
words that surrounded me
like motes of dust, or lust
tinged with the moon’s syrup coating
and a smell of dampening grass.
We laid your pages out on the floor, next to mine,
like a dealer displays his goods, or words—
thinking carefully about which clauses
we wanted to hurt us
(just a little) not enough.
And we could feel the night
rob us of day’s lucidity
as you injected my elegy,
shoulders slackened,
and I blew this powdery poem
through that opening, blackened—
a schism between where I was
and where I could be.
through the crack my window makes,
a schism between where I am
and where I could be
like a cool, black horizon—
just as intangible,
yet a little more reachable
like the cracks the sidewalk makes
over which I leap and tiptoe,
careful not to break my mother’s back,
or my own neck.
I could feel the night
when you breathed on my neck,
words that surrounded me
like motes of dust, or lust
tinged with the moon’s syrup coating
and a smell of dampening grass.
We laid your pages out on the floor, next to mine,
like a dealer displays his goods, or words—
thinking carefully about which clauses
we wanted to hurt us
(just a little) not enough.
And we could feel the night
rob us of day’s lucidity
as you injected my elegy,
shoulders slackened,
and I blew this powdery poem
through that opening, blackened—
a schism between where I was
and where I could be.
right amounts
The rain sounds like someone
impatiently drumming their fingers
on a countertop,
and I feel like that someone.
I have this book of poetry
that screams it’s made
for nights like these,
but I also have enough money
for the right amount of whiskey.
So I’ll be that someone at a bar
and the rain will be everywhere else.
You’ll be the empty seat next to me,
and I’ll think, “Yeah, home is nowhere else.”
impatiently drumming their fingers
on a countertop,
and I feel like that someone.
I have this book of poetry
that screams it’s made
for nights like these,
but I also have enough money
for the right amount of whiskey.
So I’ll be that someone at a bar
and the rain will be everywhere else.
You’ll be the empty seat next to me,
and I’ll think, “Yeah, home is nowhere else.”
quickly, quietly
The rain came
quickly, quietly, unexpected.
and I had misgivings,
but none so suspect
to think a sky I’d trusted
to be a prototype of blue
would suddenly darken, and break,
letting the world’s tears
out through cloud-sieves
that had hovered like hopeful harbingers
before they threw their harpoons—
those torrents of acid-rain-pain
back at me, like,
“We don’t want your sorrow—see what’s contained in us!”
So I hide
under man’s embarrassing attempts
to defy nature:
a stone awning
with carved portraits of importants
that will crumble
long before the rain
ever stops falling.
Staccato droplets
sprinkle the concrete,
and when I look
I see their flight, frenetic
like neurotransmitters
across the synaptic cleft of sky,
the cerebellum of heaven
halfway between
reflex and rationality.
These r’s are at odds
under the r-rain’s ticklish beating,
and so are rest and relaxation,
but no,
not remorse.
It colors my discourse,
my attempts to fire
across a different damning cleft,
between me / and everyone else
since the minute you left.
And I know I told you to;
I know I told me to…
But, like rain,
it can nurture or squander,
and this pain
forces me to ponder:
if it’s the right thing, why does it hurt?
quickly, quietly, unexpected.
and I had misgivings,
but none so suspect
to think a sky I’d trusted
to be a prototype of blue
would suddenly darken, and break,
letting the world’s tears
out through cloud-sieves
that had hovered like hopeful harbingers
before they threw their harpoons—
those torrents of acid-rain-pain
back at me, like,
“We don’t want your sorrow—see what’s contained in us!”
So I hide
under man’s embarrassing attempts
to defy nature:
a stone awning
with carved portraits of importants
that will crumble
long before the rain
ever stops falling.
Staccato droplets
sprinkle the concrete,
and when I look
I see their flight, frenetic
like neurotransmitters
across the synaptic cleft of sky,
the cerebellum of heaven
halfway between
reflex and rationality.
These r’s are at odds
under the r-rain’s ticklish beating,
and so are rest and relaxation,
but no,
not remorse.
It colors my discourse,
my attempts to fire
across a different damning cleft,
between me / and everyone else
since the minute you left.
And I know I told you to;
I know I told me to…
But, like rain,
it can nurture or squander,
and this pain
forces me to ponder:
if it’s the right thing, why does it hurt?
painting with ash
The painter painted the sky
with a pallid palette
letting the sentient serve their sentence
of living life in color
A darkness hangs in the air
where a glare from the sun
is what usually makes one squint
and trees like silent sentinels
fill with birds who can’t discern
the gravitas of a gravestone sky
Umbrellas lie mangled in trash bins,
gnarled like worried hands
or boughs bowing somberly
in the breath of wind
he exhaled, tobacco-tinged,
taking a break from unpainting
the world’s brightness
Puddles pool with his cigarette butts
bookending the uncreative process
of reinterpreting our beginnings
And the liquid ashtray overflows
with his nicotine neurotics,
but the rain ensures he’ll have more
to fill with ash concerns
beneath his ashen sky.
with a pallid palette
letting the sentient serve their sentence
of living life in color
A darkness hangs in the air
where a glare from the sun
is what usually makes one squint
and trees like silent sentinels
fill with birds who can’t discern
the gravitas of a gravestone sky
Umbrellas lie mangled in trash bins,
gnarled like worried hands
or boughs bowing somberly
in the breath of wind
he exhaled, tobacco-tinged,
taking a break from unpainting
the world’s brightness
Puddles pool with his cigarette butts
bookending the uncreative process
of reinterpreting our beginnings
And the liquid ashtray overflows
with his nicotine neurotics,
but the rain ensures he’ll have more
to fill with ash concerns
beneath his ashen sky.
of tautologies and tragedies
I’ve become Penelope,
my looming loom in front of me
I weave my woes
my worries, my words
calling cohesion into confusion
But at night
I sneak before that harp
whose music muses
in C# tragedies in
this manifold tapestry
that I un-hook,
un-slip,
un-do,
regret
my one step forward
and one step back
—my love stepped forward,
and I stepped back.
So life’s a paravision,
a sad spectator sport
where no one wins
when the yarns are tied
and the game is too
As I undecide
to eschew reason for intuition
or vice versa,
and Telemachus tells me
that’s the point:
my tragedy a tautology,
and love is love,
but what is that?
my looming loom in front of me
I weave my woes
my worries, my words
calling cohesion into confusion
But at night
I sneak before that harp
whose music muses
in C# tragedies in
this manifold tapestry
that I un-hook,
un-slip,
un-do,
regret
my one step forward
and one step back
—my love stepped forward,
and I stepped back.
So life’s a paravision,
a sad spectator sport
where no one wins
when the yarns are tied
and the game is too
As I undecide
to eschew reason for intuition
or vice versa,
and Telemachus tells me
that’s the point:
my tragedy a tautology,
and love is love,
but what is that?
newspaper flower
the
flower unfolding like a newspaper
in a verdant field of grass
cuts
like benign glass, the surface of
a springtime reservoir
you
dip your toe in and slice like a knife
cellophane wrap ripples
until
it stops and you almost don’t notice
as on a subway you routinely ride
it inspires yawns like the morning sky stretching
over that flower, that pool, your body.
flower unfolding like a newspaper
in a verdant field of grass
cuts
like benign glass, the surface of
a springtime reservoir
you
dip your toe in and slice like a knife
cellophane wrap ripples
until
it stops and you almost don’t notice
as on a subway you routinely ride
it inspires yawns like the morning sky stretching
over that flower, that pool, your body.
met a physical river
Words wind down the page
like that metaphysical river
that author said includes words
but not their definitions
like you contain meanings
but not the feelings fielding
beside, in the margins,
for those written rivers
who pool in deltas or deluges
with their word banks
or word blanks debunked
Until they reach the sea
with waves of approval,
sorrow,
or farewell.
An entire spectrum
a ship couldn’t conceive of traversing
even were it searching
for his home,
his Penelope
across a different
sea-I-told-you-so:
rationality always wins,
it never winds.
like that metaphysical river
that author said includes words
but not their definitions
like you contain meanings
but not the feelings fielding
beside, in the margins,
for those written rivers
who pool in deltas or deluges
with their word banks
or word blanks debunked
Until they reach the sea
with waves of approval,
sorrow,
or farewell.
An entire spectrum
a ship couldn’t conceive of traversing
even were it searching
for his home,
his Penelope
across a different
sea-I-told-you-so:
rationality always wins,
it never winds.
jukebox
I watched you from the other side of the equator
you traced, so sloppy,
perpendicular to the bar counter
we’d leaned on together
until you left for warmer climes,
or deeper dives
into dives that’ll have to do
until we’re of age
So, I watched you and I wondered
“Am I of youth?”
as the bourbon burned my tongue,
so I didn’t have to wait for an answer.
And thank god—
I’ve heard patience is a virtue
and by virtue of my 80 proof
I’m fresh out tonight,
thinking backwards like a movie plot
told from end to beginning
(and I guess that’s reminiscing)
of you and yours and mine
and bottom shelf booze
for bottomdwellers in the alcoholic sea
of 6pm-got-nothing-to-do
deep sea diving while
the light from the jukebox,
dim as through a lampshade
that shades my eyes from looking
at yours,
invites explorers to search amongst old species—old cds—
for new ones you’ll write home about
and go home without,
bittersweet half-success/half-failure
like the divisor of our dive
tonight
and every other
until we’re of age,
doffing immaturity
for the insecurity
that being in love entails.
you traced, so sloppy,
perpendicular to the bar counter
we’d leaned on together
until you left for warmer climes,
or deeper dives
into dives that’ll have to do
until we’re of age
So, I watched you and I wondered
“Am I of youth?”
as the bourbon burned my tongue,
so I didn’t have to wait for an answer.
And thank god—
I’ve heard patience is a virtue
and by virtue of my 80 proof
I’m fresh out tonight,
thinking backwards like a movie plot
told from end to beginning
(and I guess that’s reminiscing)
of you and yours and mine
and bottom shelf booze
for bottomdwellers in the alcoholic sea
of 6pm-got-nothing-to-do
deep sea diving while
the light from the jukebox,
dim as through a lampshade
that shades my eyes from looking
at yours,
invites explorers to search amongst old species—old cds—
for new ones you’ll write home about
and go home without,
bittersweet half-success/half-failure
like the divisor of our dive
tonight
and every other
until we’re of age,
doffing immaturity
for the insecurity
that being in love entails.
it's april now
The grass is the waving, enthusiastic fanbase
for the theater of the sky
while the benches
swap sly smiles
across the path,
like, “I’ve been expecting you, I’ve been expecting you”
Stillness so present
it has a certain vivaciousness
you wouldn’t anticipate.
It hangs in the air
like winter breath
or regretted words,
and it’s all I can pay attention to
while I play reverse bench:
Not expecting you, and not expecting you.
for the theater of the sky
while the benches
swap sly smiles
across the path,
like, “I’ve been expecting you, I’ve been expecting you”
Stillness so present
it has a certain vivaciousness
you wouldn’t anticipate.
It hangs in the air
like winter breath
or regretted words,
and it’s all I can pay attention to
while I play reverse bench:
Not expecting you, and not expecting you.
for phineas
I pluck your pain in A minor
—no sharps, no flats—
and warn: “Your blood sings, but goes hoarse before mine.”
So we follow a path just because it’s a path, and then stray.
It couldn’t be helped, like our footprints or needle pricks
that make me wince when I forget my thimble
while sewing your thick-skinned mantle
that’ll keep me from getting in,
and you from getting out.
See there’s a motherhood in me
I often don’t recognize
because I’m a shapeshifter;
once undoing your premature funeral,
and next a singing Nachtigall
betraying our last night romance.
Just look in the treetops
where I spy through my notebook lens,
until I change (my mind) again.
Now you take the left arm; I take the right.
We wear the skin I sewed
and keep warm at night
while I sing my staccato emotions
transliterated from the moralistic fictions
we trade by the fire.
Between Jack and Jill and all the king’s men
I say, “Life’s a fairy tale
–or a tearing veil,
revealing my blood-red lips
that taste of snowflakes
kids catch on their tongues.
They swallow, grow up, hiccup—
and now I’m here,
Your fickle fiddle,
your harp (or harpy),
with 47 strings of deceit.
—no sharps, no flats—
and warn: “Your blood sings, but goes hoarse before mine.”
So we follow a path just because it’s a path, and then stray.
It couldn’t be helped, like our footprints or needle pricks
that make me wince when I forget my thimble
while sewing your thick-skinned mantle
that’ll keep me from getting in,
and you from getting out.
See there’s a motherhood in me
I often don’t recognize
because I’m a shapeshifter;
once undoing your premature funeral,
and next a singing Nachtigall
betraying our last night romance.
Just look in the treetops
where I spy through my notebook lens,
until I change (my mind) again.
Now you take the left arm; I take the right.
We wear the skin I sewed
and keep warm at night
while I sing my staccato emotions
transliterated from the moralistic fictions
we trade by the fire.
Between Jack and Jill and all the king’s men
I say, “Life’s a fairy tale
–or a tearing veil,
revealing my blood-red lips
that taste of snowflakes
kids catch on their tongues.
They swallow, grow up, hiccup—
and now I’m here,
Your fickle fiddle,
your harp (or harpy),
with 47 strings of deceit.
for good or for worse
Smoke spirals out my mouth
--the perfect shape—
and evanesces beyond the curtain of night
dangling between too late and too early
like I waver between to stay or to go
its viscous crawl defies gravity, and time
becoming a nebulous pendulum
twitching in my clenched fist
as I breathe out more suspended smoke
wondering should I stay or should I go
and I go where the spiral takes me
brimming outwards beyond the margins
only to swoop back in, afraid of
the distance I stretch between origin and end
like the stretching stars, twinkling (or twitching)
in the night’s clenched fist
and they do not stay, and they do not go
and in fact—I won’t know what
became of them for years,
but I don’t have as long
to decide to yield to this supernova
of love staying or love going for good
--or for worse--
--the perfect shape—
and evanesces beyond the curtain of night
dangling between too late and too early
like I waver between to stay or to go
its viscous crawl defies gravity, and time
becoming a nebulous pendulum
twitching in my clenched fist
as I breathe out more suspended smoke
wondering should I stay or should I go
and I go where the spiral takes me
brimming outwards beyond the margins
only to swoop back in, afraid of
the distance I stretch between origin and end
like the stretching stars, twinkling (or twitching)
in the night’s clenched fist
and they do not stay, and they do not go
and in fact—I won’t know what
became of them for years,
but I don’t have as long
to decide to yield to this supernova
of love staying or love going for good
--or for worse--
breathed-on window
I wish there were a word or phrase
I instantly thought of
whenever my fingers
met a frosted glass
on an autumn evening
--the wet blank canvass reminds me of
curlicue cursive Mrs. “Blanks”
in the margins
of school girl notebooks
we couldn’t wait to burn
under the bonfire of a summer sun
smiling that school is done
and that we’ve won
against an onslaught
of rote memorization of
remote preparation
for even more degrees…
but forgive me for digressing
so far from the topic,
Holden’s classroom
better scold me
for not being as myopic
it just so happens that idealists get lost
in those idea(ls)
and wish there were
just one
they could scrape through window dew
and say to all of you
“listen! even when no one speaks”…
I instantly thought of
whenever my fingers
met a frosted glass
on an autumn evening
--the wet blank canvass reminds me of
curlicue cursive Mrs. “Blanks”
in the margins
of school girl notebooks
we couldn’t wait to burn
under the bonfire of a summer sun
smiling that school is done
and that we’ve won
against an onslaught
of rote memorization of
remote preparation
for even more degrees…
but forgive me for digressing
so far from the topic,
Holden’s classroom
better scold me
for not being as myopic
it just so happens that idealists get lost
in those idea(ls)
and wish there were
just one
they could scrape through window dew
and say to all of you
“listen! even when no one speaks”…
beyond walls
With ruddy arms and “sharp elbows”
locked in a steering wheel death grip,
we tear down the holy highway,
weaving lanes, in and out,
and dreams, in and out.
The road’s meridian is like the
ridged backs of dragons, or the wall
between ancient history and mythology
trapped in a modern asphalt façade.
Back in a land of the hot breeze
and palm trees silvered by white sand,
it’s like I’ve entered a gelatin print
or am seeing light cast by an eclipse.
There the mount where Elijah
blacklisted false prophets,
there the church of Mary’s natal miracle,
there the glimmering mystery
of the Mediterranean,
viewed from the other side
of militarized Lebanon.
And I’m torn from my reverie
by the question:
“Is this your spiritual journey?”
and I wait like the grotto
for the sea to carve its caverns,
or the gossamer veil of dust motes
to draw ‘round Jesus’ tomb
before I answer that this landscape
is more than a backdrop
to pressing human concerns
In this ideological desert drought
we weave lanes and dreams, in and out,
and for once experience the world
in its felt immediacy.
locked in a steering wheel death grip,
we tear down the holy highway,
weaving lanes, in and out,
and dreams, in and out.
The road’s meridian is like the
ridged backs of dragons, or the wall
between ancient history and mythology
trapped in a modern asphalt façade.
Back in a land of the hot breeze
and palm trees silvered by white sand,
it’s like I’ve entered a gelatin print
or am seeing light cast by an eclipse.
There the mount where Elijah
blacklisted false prophets,
there the church of Mary’s natal miracle,
there the glimmering mystery
of the Mediterranean,
viewed from the other side
of militarized Lebanon.
And I’m torn from my reverie
by the question:
“Is this your spiritual journey?”
and I wait like the grotto
for the sea to carve its caverns,
or the gossamer veil of dust motes
to draw ‘round Jesus’ tomb
before I answer that this landscape
is more than a backdrop
to pressing human concerns
In this ideological desert drought
we weave lanes and dreams, in and out,
and for once experience the world
in its felt immediacy.
as long as we have to
hypnosis; cirrhosis
dreams of cicada shells
and the baseball bats
we hit them with
that cracked like
the brittle leaves
under our feet
or the sidewalk’s demarcations
that threatened to break
our mother’s backs
if we were to tread on them
like we tread in the pool
that’s been empty
since summer gave up on us
as the sun does every day
but begrudgingly rises again
to give us another shot
at glowing in valor,
and not the pallor
of indoor existence
compromised by sign-on-the-lines
and that boring bureaucracy
looming in that post-grad world
we drink to forget about
in crowded bars and halter tops,
our arms around someone
we’ll love as long as we have to.
dreams of cicada shells
and the baseball bats
we hit them with
that cracked like
the brittle leaves
under our feet
or the sidewalk’s demarcations
that threatened to break
our mother’s backs
if we were to tread on them
like we tread in the pool
that’s been empty
since summer gave up on us
as the sun does every day
but begrudgingly rises again
to give us another shot
at glowing in valor,
and not the pallor
of indoor existence
compromised by sign-on-the-lines
and that boring bureaucracy
looming in that post-grad world
we drink to forget about
in crowded bars and halter tops,
our arms around someone
we’ll love as long as we have to.
And Only Mine
And Only Mine
I used to feel
a misplaced sense of accomplishment
when I’d catch the clock
right as the minute switched—
like I’d witnessed a special moment
never to be repeated,
and only mine.
But when I started catching minutes
all the time, like backwards glances,
and thought about time as a construct
and the discrepancies between
your wall clock and my wind-up,
the feeling struck
twelve post meridiem
—a paradox in itself, as at 12
the sun’s not before or after—
it’s being here now,
the peak before
the falling action
or setting sun
from which I now derive such comfort
when I catch it
rose-bud-blooming
in the distance,
and I pinch its soft circle
between thumb and index
of my minute hand,
and catch myself sliding
one notch past now—
never to be repeated,
and only mine.
I used to feel
a misplaced sense of accomplishment
when I’d catch the clock
right as the minute switched—
like I’d witnessed a special moment
never to be repeated,
and only mine.
But when I started catching minutes
all the time, like backwards glances,
and thought about time as a construct
and the discrepancies between
your wall clock and my wind-up,
the feeling struck
twelve post meridiem
—a paradox in itself, as at 12
the sun’s not before or after—
it’s being here now,
the peak before
the falling action
or setting sun
from which I now derive such comfort
when I catch it
rose-bud-blooming
in the distance,
and I pinch its soft circle
between thumb and index
of my minute hand,
and catch myself sliding
one notch past now—
never to be repeated,
and only mine.
ode to who i will be
let me be the palpable love-tension
stringing our eyes together
like a kite
attached to a finger,
tenuous but trusted
as I sit on an unthrone
and you burn
all your love into me,
my palm, our hearts,
nervous pumping.
let me be as pure and exotic
as the powder blue dust sky,
a blanket over the poverty
that still has
the vitality to sing,
and to sing all night
with primal screams
and lugubrious beats
that mirror the acid energy
of the fires they burn.
let me be warm and wet
like the back
of my cotton T-shirt,
a relic of grade school,
when I could never have envisioned
a kind of keening
so deep and so raw,
nor a sister so sincere
as to cry into it,
only because
its wearer is too.
but most of all,
let me be as selfless
as the wrinkled angel of Poland,
generous grandmother
bestowing gift
upon gift, until,
dying and spent,
the most she could offer us
was a mint
and a tissue
we later used at her funeral—
those items,
and her watery love gaze,
her last gifts given.
stringing our eyes together
like a kite
attached to a finger,
tenuous but trusted
as I sit on an unthrone
and you burn
all your love into me,
my palm, our hearts,
nervous pumping.
let me be as pure and exotic
as the powder blue dust sky,
a blanket over the poverty
that still has
the vitality to sing,
and to sing all night
with primal screams
and lugubrious beats
that mirror the acid energy
of the fires they burn.
let me be warm and wet
like the back
of my cotton T-shirt,
a relic of grade school,
when I could never have envisioned
a kind of keening
so deep and so raw,
nor a sister so sincere
as to cry into it,
only because
its wearer is too.
but most of all,
let me be as selfless
as the wrinkled angel of Poland,
generous grandmother
bestowing gift
upon gift, until,
dying and spent,
the most she could offer us
was a mint
and a tissue
we later used at her funeral—
those items,
and her watery love gaze,
her last gifts given.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
all black
once the menus are taken away
we have nothing to talk about.
withered lemon slices float like corpses
in glasses of ice water that never
recede past half-full or half-empty,
there's always a waiter waiting to refill
and a straw to nervously chew until the food comes.
a leathery woman has bloody lipstick on her teeth
and a vampiric tendency to pin you into small talk,
positively pallid in the burger joint's dimness.
but we have nothing to talk about
because the menus were taken away
and god forbid we mention the dead guy
who brought us anonymouses all together anyway.
it's apparently in bad taste these days
to wear all black to funerals.
I stab uncomfortably at the levitating lemons
and slurp until icy pinwheels crowd my mouth,
shooting up into my brain like intravenous chemicals.
watching my extended family,
I feel more than once-or-twice-removed.
metallic laughter ricochets off the walls like bullets
and condensation pools around my glass,
the crumpled napkin leeches the liquid.
the minute hand already twitched twenty times
and no one has even said his name.
although I've heard a lot about Bible camp and the recession,
because the menus are gone
and we have nothing to talk about.
but the food arrives, the plates are passed,
and more is put in our mouths than let out.
when the chatter falls you can hear the soft rock radio
and the scraping of forks; I'm still slurping my drink.
finally I overhear:
"he's in a better place,"
and think:
"than Hanky's Diner? Impossible."
The summer sun outside beats down unforgivingly.
Maybe they were right.
I shouldn't have worn all black.
we have nothing to talk about.
withered lemon slices float like corpses
in glasses of ice water that never
recede past half-full or half-empty,
there's always a waiter waiting to refill
and a straw to nervously chew until the food comes.
a leathery woman has bloody lipstick on her teeth
and a vampiric tendency to pin you into small talk,
positively pallid in the burger joint's dimness.
but we have nothing to talk about
because the menus were taken away
and god forbid we mention the dead guy
who brought us anonymouses all together anyway.
it's apparently in bad taste these days
to wear all black to funerals.
I stab uncomfortably at the levitating lemons
and slurp until icy pinwheels crowd my mouth,
shooting up into my brain like intravenous chemicals.
watching my extended family,
I feel more than once-or-twice-removed.
metallic laughter ricochets off the walls like bullets
and condensation pools around my glass,
the crumpled napkin leeches the liquid.
the minute hand already twitched twenty times
and no one has even said his name.
although I've heard a lot about Bible camp and the recession,
because the menus are gone
and we have nothing to talk about.
but the food arrives, the plates are passed,
and more is put in our mouths than let out.
when the chatter falls you can hear the soft rock radio
and the scraping of forks; I'm still slurping my drink.
finally I overhear:
"he's in a better place,"
and think:
"than Hanky's Diner? Impossible."
The summer sun outside beats down unforgivingly.
Maybe they were right.
I shouldn't have worn all black.
Monday, June 14, 2010
"Perhaps I couldn't even have wanted more than that, couldn't have accepted less, who even at nineteen must have known that living is one constant and perpetual instant when the arras-veil before what-is-to-be hangs docile and even glad to the lightest naked thrust if we had dared, were brave enough (not wise enough: no wisdom needed here) to make the rending gash. Or perhaps it is no lack of courage either: not cowardice which will not face that sickness somewhere at the prime foundation of this factual scheme from which the prisoner-soul, miasmal-distillant, wroils ever upward sunward, tugs its tenuous prisoner arteries and veins and prisoning in its turn that spark, that dream which, as the globy and complete instant of its freedom mirrors and repeats (repeats? creates, reduces to a fragile evanescent iridescent sphere) all of space and time and massy earth, relicts the seething and anonymous miasmal mass which in all the years of time has taught itself no boon of death but only how to recreate, renew, and dies, is gone, vanished: nothing--but is that true wisdom which can comprehend that there is a might-have-been which is more true than truth, from which the dreamer, waking says not 'Did I but dream?' but rather says, indicts high heaven's very self with: 'Why did I wake since waking I shall never sleep again?'"
--Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (142-143)
--Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (142-143)
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