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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Witness


 Everything in this peculiar world                                            
Has a tendency to become 
More and more humanlike. 
Soon store dummies will be 
Needing yearly check-ups, 
And wig head stands 
Will be requiring chiropractic. 
I always had a deep distrust 
Of things that looked human, 
And pretended to be inanimate anyway. 
Why did they have to look so alive, 
If they had no warm flesh or coursing blood- 
Living beings have blood that sings 
To other living beings and it remembers 
The consciousness it nourishes. 
The flowing blood is a fingerprint; 
A time stamp of being 
That permits no perjury.

Because You Were Beautiful



Because you were beautiful
The frost formed fingerprints, on window glass
As if to touch your shoulder, when you pass;
Or write in code, your name upon the leaves
So that it shows, whenever something breathes,
Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful
The storm left grayish teardrops on the sill,
A keepsake of the stillness it must feel
After angry clouds have left the sky,
And the birds and wildlife breathe a sigh:
Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful
This heart has felt the shadow of your grace,
Wherever loveliness has left its trace;
And songs I heard beside you, on the earth
Became the stars above us, giving birth-
Because you were beautiful

Blame Me This Time

This time, to save time                                                
I'm just going to fall in love
With myself: discrete lunches
Alone at the table, with an engrossing book
Candlelight dinners and vintage wine,
Looking up at the stars,
Trying to name all the constellations-
Just me and only me;
Slow dancing in the garden
To a symphony of cicadas
Heart-shaped chocolate boxes,
With a romantic poem tucked under the ribbon
Surprising myself with flowers
And fresh-squeezed orange juice
After an all nighter
Of watching movies by myself
Secret notes slipped into my bag
To meet myself at an undisclosed place
For a romantic interlude:
I can see it's going to get complicated
But at least, I'll have only myself to blame
If things go wrong.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
From drops of peridot scattered at sea,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His father not caring where or with whom,
Or from what rare ocean his being might be-
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

He learnt his letters from a dark winged loon
Who flew where the mountains caress the trees,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.                                                

His speech was a garble of false and truth,
Whistling like a hollow piped reed,
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

His eyes a contagion of waters blue
And brackish trunks of underwater trees
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His normal voice wove a threadless tune,
Brought close the mermaids, hungry to feed;
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

(my first Villanelle- yaaay! lol)

I had two rats to fill my days

I had two rats, to fill my days                                                        
Through spines of books and bed clothes
They chewed their lazy way
And when they saw you, froze

Through spines of books and bed clothes
Released out of their cage
And when they saw you, froze
For chewing was their rage

Released out of their cage
And when they saw you, froze
For chewing was their rage
Their pile of booty grows

And when they saw you, froze
They lurked behind the dresser
Their pile of booty grows
The cage mess is the lesser

They lurked behind the dresser
They chewed their lazy way
The cage mess is the lesser
I had two rats, to fill my days


(a Pantoum poem)

Friday, March 26, 2010

And the Letter Came



And the letter came:
And you thumbed, humbled, over it and over
An hundred times a week, you took it out
Pouring each word over again
As for the first time, it still was
And blotchy it was from tears
And tips, nervous fingers which pulled little rips
Into the off-white paper, where much strong handling bore
Each time's grief bearing need: you read it, nothing more
Seen differently; surely always the same, yet nuances
Came despite instinctual knowledge of before;
Did this sentence- this wording style preferred it
That he might mean only just that- or was it
Imagination's sullied creation? did those words
Sound tired; and if very thought of you
Became fatigue, was it the plague of his precious pen, or brain
Or just the worry of his own entrenchment there?
Even so; sometimes you read familiar words
That joy shouted from, certain as could be.
Times when you felt uneasy, queasy at one word
Or phrase, as if a ringing death-knell must have
Rang: to spell out the end of time's bitter being-
Crossed yourself, three times; and said a beaded prayer.
The letter came to be important to you that this
Could cause everything to cease; a hunt driven
Feverish, once it went missing where from out it's pocket-house
(deeply as when you bent under the trees..
to pick up crying children in their frail need) it leaped.
And when one day unfolding, the letter dropped into your lap
Pieces neat piled into sections; folds perforated through
Because so nearly worn out; stained, thin-souled as grief itself
Heart treasure map woven in lover's lace; bequeathed
And then realized: there no other letter ever was or be;
If never sent, gone missing; you'd pinned all quickened heart beats
Stayed hope's courage upon a single letter's fate, and it
Carried through the fears, saw above the swarming years
Sleepless nights when, no tears left, it swam: you gathered up the limp
Damp, feathered pieces and stowed them safe for keeping
Knowing some day again, when things were not the same
And finding them you would remember, this single letter
By which all hope then was given, your hope that came
As a single letter; came due south, straight down from heaven..

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Miscalculation

I envy the cool darkness, now we're apart
And the warmth which wrapped your body:
Cocooned by your breathing,
The secret shadows and angles
Which gradually changed every hour
Like a dark sundial recording
All your limbs tiniest convolutions.

I know there was a sort of                                                            
Kabalistic synchronicity
Some algebraic function
And if only I'd studied more;
If only I'd applied myself better
I wouldn't have gotten all the equations wrong
Lost the notes, failed the exam.

I remember those once acute angles
How they fit so perfectly my body's contours
Our seams vanished together, smooth soldered
In the same molten dream; mouth to mouth
Torso upon torso, moving wave unfurled
Water of twin oceans, mingled-
Now it's only the moonlight that burns.

Be Careful





Be careful of close auditoriums
And thick stanchioned stadiums
Watch out for iron gussetted doorframes
And bar covered windows
For your loneliness will trap you there
Backed up against the steel barriers
And probe your trembling thoughts 
With it's dark truncheon.

Stay away from mirrors
Which can reveal your state of solitude
Automobiles which will show your inertia
Rollercoasters which can skitter you into the past
Without so much as a roll-bar
And arms, perhaps most dangerous of all-
Just before nightfall.


And If Your Sun Should Nightly Shine





And if your sun should nightly shine
To kiss my most fervent need
And if fevered hands should suddenly seek
Upon mine; inviolate, to feed

If, hand to hand, we fuel that hidden mouth
Which, cavernous, can never sleep
Who can say what the ending will be
Of things giving birth from the deep

Once-bound of heaven; loosed upon earth
To the uppermost firmaments, it must always escape
The clouds ferry sandpipers day-swift journeys,
While on beaches beneath, the dead birds gape.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lover of My Soul





You've given me everything
I could have wanted; and also that which
I wouldn't have dreamed I could ever desire so much
You've answered me in your own way-
Everything I've asked of you and more
I never could have imagined how wonderful
You would be, even in your darkest moments
I've enjoyed with you things most people
Only fantasize about, and things nobody could imagine
I've had a special relationship with you
From the first moment, so forgive me
If, at the end of us,
I ask for more time with you-
And I know everyone does that;
It's not that I'm greedy, it's just that
The alternative to you is nothing I can imagine,
Nothing compared to your beauty right now,
O my world- everyone always wants more of you
Even though you're the soul of everything.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Nights Are Too Long




All nights are too long
When your lover's far away-

I chase the trains all night
The ones my thoughts are riding;
Hobos bound for anywhere but home.

Trains full of candle smoke
And down from comforters,
Trains mixing together a combustible dream
In their blurry eyed compartments.

My memory is westbound
My history behind me somewhere;
If I stay behind, I'm nowhere,
If I don't jump soon enough, I'm lost

I can't remember getting on at any station,
I never had a ticket stub
Nobody here seems to knows me-
Why have I always been afraid?

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

The standing fall down on trains,
The sitting see everything swiftly pass them by
Before they can ring the bell-
I can see your eyes, out of a hundred windows

In every window, door and steeple
The faster, the farther I go, the more you keep up with me;
Haunting, like a vision
Soundless, like a dancing flame.

I sleep and wake fitfully,
Feeling the cabin vibrate-
Are the eyes inside or out now?

We can play like ghosts at midnight,
With the past and future;
We can pass through walls
As invisible as wind:

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

Death teases us with the nearness of it's breath
Like when you look into a crowd
And happen to lock eyes with the one staring straight at you-
Even though you never saw them before,
And didn't know they'd be looking your way.

I wander past your outstretched arms
Looking for the other you,
The one outside my head
Who fills out all my waking dreams

When everyone's gone
Who will see the stars falling,
And who can give me absolution?

For I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry-


Nights are too long
When your lover's far away.

written to Morning Song/Zero 7

Monday, March 22, 2010

A Woman's Just a Padded Cell


A woman's just a padded cell, in situ:
With mirrored tile reflections, of former occupants
Reveals their once desires, like long past feast
That's been viewed only partially, through a narrow hall,
And though her cushions can't stop your fall
They soak up life's effluvium; for she's an island
In the lull; most co-morbidly, antediluvian:
And as it cradles the body's living estate,
Her rocking-horse frame can't navigate
The ground swell of presumptive grace.

Let's pretend, that the dizzy motion ride
Has provided real progress forward, in spite
Of strong waves, that coupled oceans bring;
Jump saddle, on her coiled and double-jointed springs.
Bright enameled eyes might rein you inside
For your brief spate, of the near total ingress: 
Waving haloed hips of plastic'd flesh; her glide
Could stay stationary, until you confess.

Only she knows well, the secret of assuring you
You'll not drown, of her swirling vicissitudes;
And if once you abhorred your childhood name;
Now can use same call sign, for your idling engines 
Of a certain procreatively inspired invasion
As she whispers it; says it loud, clenching need
Of the second's singlemost long duration.

When she finally unlocks your prow from docks
Post haste, of body's self-deceptive clocks
Inside her temples, rising incense of sweat
Mingled with undertows, of past vibrations; and her smell
Itself: a briny distillate, of a pheromone tonic; forensic clue
Of a decidedly amber hue; the body's cyclonic age of man
Keeps travelling it's way, down her plundered mnemonic.

You can feel the straight jacket's razored sleeves,
Beginning to loose your constricted lungs;
And your loins overflowing; becoming a sieve:
If you could keep on riding, you'd be quite sure
That eventually, just a small band-aid could cure
The slight, though badly malformed scar;
From the still flowing toxins; to soon immure-
Hard to believe, how far gone you were.

Forget old self; a newfound confidence;
Makes you forestall the inevitable trip
Down to the corner, second-hand store,
As now is revealed, that her paint's become chipped;
And the horse's eyes are now rolling inward,
As if looking there, for some positive proof,
From the prying, irreverent eyes of the world-
But you know it too well: she's just a padded cell.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Modern Warfare





My tongue's a saber
Inside a false stiletto heel
My hair has barbs, piranha fangs concealed within each strand
It slices your skin if you go along it in the wrong direction
A blowgun sits just inside my throat
With pouches of toxin close by
My eyes are radar slits
With slowly revolving fields
A mollusk shell shields my emotions
A chain mail plexus lies camouflaged along my body
It's impossible being me
And trying to not wound you-
I sometimes lie to myself, and I tell myself
That I do not care that you are wounded,
That you should have known
That any dealings with me would result
In you're being hurt; you should have expected it
On the worst days, I gash you joyously
To hear you howl and
To see the blood run in rivulets.
But I always cry in the dark
When nobody can see it
And wish that I were more normal;
Surrounded on all sides as I am
By the walking wounded.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

To a Rune Stave I Lent My Hot Blood



To a Rune stave I lent my hot blood
To tally up the sum of the hearts affections
The scrawled, agile figures bent to their sultry task

My old blood has been there talking to them
Before, and past lovers linger on in traces,
Once flowing rills, where their shadows stayed behind me

Words that echo in the canyon hollows, above the plains
Where ever I might go, those ones go with me
They are like the dead, never buried once with respect

Watching through haunted eyes, like the wind
That might never move a leaf; still
You can sense it's held breath, hanging there above you.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Day of Your Death



The day of your death
You stuck your head into an oven,
After first closing all the doors, windows;
Sealing yourself off, to the cries of your children,
Shutting out the processes of the entire world;
The good wishes of priests;
The long enduring of wedding presents;
The unexpected bonus of an unknown day.


When the horizon began to shrink away from you,
You did not flinch.
When dark clouds crowded the field of your vision.
You did not falter.
When the brain itself began to unplug from the body,
You did not question if god had forsaken you;
You already knew god was dispassionate
Toward the tribulations or joys of his creatures.


Perhaps you saw yourself as only a crack,
In the mildewed fabric of society;
For they are still looking for cracks today
In all the words you left behind you.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Nothing Here







There's nothing here,
So I can't be freed;
Nothing in the heart and soul of me.

Nothing's thinking,
And nothing breathes;
Nothing's blowing
The rustling leaves.

Nothing all morning
Nothing all night;
Naught between the darkness and the light.

Nothing is flagrant,
In the foaming air;
And when I go away
Nothing's still there.