madness

the kick start forgot.

alas; blood on the pillow, the pillow stained through with mold leaked from the wet, cold khaki wall.

december tidings

It turns out that studying literature doesn't actually intersect with having any inspiration or time to actually write anything non-research-y. Too bad.

But I did manage to get my manuscript in for the Whitman Award. I won't hear anything till Spring, so I'm contemplating shopping it around till then - I'm pretty pleased with it, and nearly 1/3 of the poems in it are revisions of poems I first posted to this very blog.

That said, it was incredibly gratifying to go back and edit myself, and really work on the pieces. The problem, as I've said before, with blogging, is that you get a dose of instant gratification - but I'm juuuuust sloppy enough that I'll slap something up and let it represent me, as it were; even knowing it could be better. So, my point being that I really am pleased with my manuscript, and tried very hard to craft it into something I would love. Yeah, I need to look into a publisher.

If only I didn't have so many darned papers to write - I'm in a weird paradox; I get to spend all day writing (8 hours today and still counting), but 7.45 of those hours are devoted to rather dreary literary criticism. Regurgitating things I don't believe in. It's tiresome. Not sure why I'm here. Hoping to get a job offer and walk away. Burned out. School bad. Miss writing. blaaaaaaaah

oh shit!

Damn you, Blogger!

I like the instant gratification of poetry blogging, but it must be duly noted that I usually take these poems - sorry things they are, in their rough draft version - and re-work them properly, eventually. In a Word document.


For two years now, it's been a simple matter of cut and paste, as I'm sure all you plagiarists are aware.

But something is fucked up, and now I'm getting giant black squares as well as the text - it's being so goddamned literal about the "cut and paste" action all of a sudden. I just want the words! Just the words!!!

So, I will have to reverse the production process, I guess. Because it's supremely annoying to deal with the intricacies of re-formatting.

This may again delay my posting.

That, and I'm getting paranoid about plagarism. I clearly have convinced myself of my artistic merit, otherwise intellectual property rights wouldn't menace my fantasies quite so much...

the doctor is sick

my feet scuffed the grey - again!

tired trope: me and my bike and my backpack;
when i was a child i wished to get so far away
for awhile, i did.

grey town. grey town filled with credentialing processes
and power constructs and discourses and Foucaults,
and lacking all balance, and praising alcohol and white men and dead tongues
in suspiciously conservative parlance.

i'm growing impatient with all this glorious decomposition.
"Moi, je n'impose rien!"
Yeah, moi non plus.

Yeah, moi made for education, but by that I mean the real kind -

la more

"La-more"
He pronounced it, tongue rolling,
Head swaying,
a puppy searching for a treat -
- i laughed -
"you must think my french is crap!"
- so i gave him shit.

but today i remembered,
because the word slid out from the lubricated tongue of a fluent,
of a hugeonot, some parisian painter speaking of
l'amour
but i thought he said
la mort

yet in either case i'm right

translation

at once
the night, black and still,
and full of love safely closed behind doors and locks;
i ran it through, i ran it all the way through with my longest
and most wild fight.

i battled the thought, the lisp, the giggle
i picked up my gladius and thought 'bellarum'
my ears licked at the fulsome oink of the night
ein abend geschlossen fur mich

Helas! Helas that he was an adherent of acquisition,
a trader of slaves,
a god dethroned.

We sit in circles and must reduce his feigned greatness, now what with
the exposed, puzzling claims of that human heart.
which shall i believe more?

i think to myself, that the beautiful guerre goes on,
the belle guerillas scramble in the night
for guns and fists and bananas and girls.

und ich, ich liebe das so

the top

he twirled.
a boy
in his feet, dancing

dancing and singing to see me.


No -
- not singing -
singe-ing - he turns to flame
before my eyes.

i see it all; nothing is lost
on the attentive poet.

my ear lays always against the track,
i never move it; particularly when it hurts.

his feet betrayed him, he danced
as if to swear me off -
a ghost dance
for a white woman

fearsome, prescient, lost

sapentiae

ghost hunting
with mother and father

like the moment was trapped
in an air pocket of brain -

out sighs the rush and smell of Wyoming dirt on the wind,
of nightmare pits carved into ribs of earth,
of lonely decay behind false-fronts;
communal memories dying
in the lonely folk museum.

for a moment, this moment recedes
and my eyes fixedly recall
that sign swinging on its rusting hinge -
or was that in France,
on that cobbled quaint alley in Bretagne,
but oh no back again
to dust and death
in the american west -

grit in my hair


trees, and more trees, and hills and nothings and roads
and nothing is what i conclude

not a moment too soon

Rejoice, o internet,
for you are back inside my laptop!

- however -


my energies are somewhat diverted -

- working on the whitman prize

- nonsensical academia bullshit

- pregnant with ideas / if only i didn't have "homework" in the way...

- an argument for a return to real life

- seems like a long year ahead, with only a weary heart to face it

July breakytime

Just in case any of my friends have an RSS feed --

Um, I'm a little busy with Criticial Theory and German at the moment. If I attempted to edit my work/ maintain the blog / enjoy summer all at once == well, heck! Ich will keine angestrande!!!

I'm keepin' the poetry on paper for now, and aim to free up my August for a poem-ma-marathon. Which I probably won't post much, since I'll be focused on editing.

It's going to be published, I tell you.

#258

quieter things.

things,
things in the morning,
of feet skimming cool tiles
and water rushing dimly behind walls - in hidden sanctuaries -
of white and yellow like cotton left on counters,
trembling as the trees dance

morning - again
to greet
with anticipation

gone is the gray,
the swaddled in their beds,
the resigned to silence

#257

the recent yesterdays
are gone in a mud haze:

feather; feather memory
light and soft
and busy in the wind -

i rest in meadows, i rest above roads with friends at hand
and sigh, and sigh a bit louder, and sigh to myself again.

she needs a good shaking, she herself could say
while unattached, while free and spiraling;
the supposed times of transparency
but times of work, and work within, and work again

blights and blunders past rear themselves up like stallions,
fiercely oppositional to cold and logic and the best intentions.

things go so very cold in such shadows. but warmth comes, creeps in, creeps so slowly in

how grim, to love a poet!

how maddening: the cold, the heat.

the grey-thick cotton gods above,
like skin to protect my sweet earth from burning blaze.

from burning tongue, agitated heart -
only a brief candle when first your eyes met mine,
and out leapt sparks to build bonfire hearts.

let me not consume you, you cold-water thing;
you laughing devil, you iron-boned angel:
let me cool my head in your arctic breast

having missed today, i give him a present notwithstanding:

rumination
on face landscapes -
stones woven into the earth -
curves like ports keep
his mouth a safe harbour

his sweet eyes shut fast in their pillows,
framed with tickling feathers
that sing my bare shoulders awake at dawn.

here a bone below,
the steady under-of-you
marrow under running warm with who knows what -

beautiful bound up in private currents,
stitched in to skin too tightly
we come together to shake ourselves free; vain and in vain

hungry, rain, birthday.

my gems held warm in winter:
winter sticks around in sympathy for me.
reminds me of
little fireplace;
he lit it and i left it
forgot it
garden trampled
clumsy feet, clumsy lovers.

i like child smudged in chocolate,
smudged and wide-eyed open,
all so marvelous to my cantaloupe eyes -
ginger tongues and cotton candy;
sweet little words imported in, like contraband,
like little signpost miracles
that also strangely hurt and crashed
upon arrival
rocks before the sea;
stumbled fins, torn-up flippers.

his'gee whiz' persona
fed up, departs
overfed;
stuffed with processed cheese and take-out Thai

january

the most extase, she said
and we fluttered both
inside and out
within secret tiger parts

commemoration

the rain howled out
brains and brawn all shattered on the sidewalk:
here we sit, crones with clove cigarettes,
a purple taste under the bruised sky.

there goes the machismo swinging by;
there it goes -
head held high,
do no wrong;
out of key, can't sing.

my knuckles scraped in the muck too long,
became too gored with caking liquids,
slick poisons, white stained cocaine tread outpaced heart.

holding my tongue, lest
curses drop like spittle,
inelegant words for lady mouths -
has honey-man gone to bile?
tragedy, tragedy, unwilled comic tragedy.

honey-heart gone to bile - that's closer,
that's it,
the chairs scrape and shiver,
the air is jabbed for emphasis -
i feel it melting, macerating inside -
yes, exactly,
it's like the strawberries have gone all to melt;
the tongue is fooled by memory,
it slips through fingers -
the skeleton gone

ode to firepit

thank god for the worming warm flames
inching around the split, sacrificed wood:
the theme is pondered with increased gravity, directly in relation to the number of dimming beverages, the quanitity of rich foods in belly.

faces hover round,
more eager to share honest stories,
or at least the honester version of stories
that will persist for a great number of years.

stories that define whatever, quality X, except too subjectively - rare and special indeed are the conscious among us.

behind, the hammock swings, filled with lazy lovers engaged in their own talk
and out comes the chiding host, and the constant threat of unseen neighbours,
the damned killjoys who always fail to manifest. suburban goblins slither up the trees.

we turn back to fire without a second thought.
we'd rather burn it down than stop this train of tongues and ears,
of smoke billowing smoothly up to the hungry gods,
of eager eyes glittering in the flame.

yuppies with guns

yUppies with gUns grin!
their asses be SO bAd
yes, they've had black friends (10 points)
yes, they've smoked It (5 points)
giggles go around.
giggles tinkle in the very clean living room,
its lovely scents and egg-white walls;
pillows chosen by mother
lives driven by mother fear

oh, sweet yUppies!
aching to be breaking,
rolling round in corked up playrooms:
microfiber furniture, dvd, washing machines,
whatnots.

guns giggle in the backs of closets,
wrapped in garbage bags,
hidden till show-and-tell times: holiday parties, new girlfriends,
et ergo sum.

pereat mundus - fiat puerii
we grasp the gun in our head, we can't sort out why it's there,
we just know it look good.

we wake up in the night, deeper than deep
we too hear screams!
yes, yes we do!!!

could this may be so naked?

brimmed up with obligements
many too over-many to do's
which i enjoy in their little ways.

my teeth grit otherwise; grind of boredom
gritty dull of idle hands
hands put to good use
to good use so obliging.

in rings polite-isms
and phone tag, and careful meetings,
carefully extended friendships which sunder and flop,
so sadly.

the pine trees bend and sigh with me,
their spines wiggle and wave, salute my upward gaze
salute the clean nose
of woman living clean life;
woman grazing knuckles in the bike lane, the forever helmet locking in the blood

rainstorms in may

the day split into halves
wearing thick coats of rain on sluggish backs;
pale palen and sweet
the dimly milked tea
upon which lips supped by the windowpane.
my eyes sweep the courtyard for
whatever answer
others find so easily.
tap tap goes the rain,
traces its way from sky to crack against the rough of dirt

spring, sublimation

life being good: consistent, paid up, a few drinks.
the sun shines,
my thighs come out,
the old men spy up my white thighs
whistling by

the books get read on the porch.
tea will be iced
my hair will grow long
i will remember last summer and laugh -

all those fireflies and marble statues,
in bigger cities, bigger price tags;
where life was seemingly headed.

to my surprise
i am still here -
no new moniker, not a wife, not a beloved, lots of nots that the neighbours prod my mother about

to which my ears have closed;
i remove the nots.
i like the ams.
i like the me that's left, even when alone - awake, burrowed, paid up and well-fed.
paint stained fingertips,
sharp eyes
red heart
am in love with everyone, everyone.

cheer up, you

Darling,
do you remember that time in Toulouse,
the au lait, pigeons with stump legs and murals arching over our heads?

proper black european jackets then; and you were beautiful and laughing at everything.

or ireland; I remember looking over at you on the train ride to Galway, and I've never seen you so sad / so wanting not to be sad

but i took care of you, and we drank that night and ate spaghetti bolognese, and you fell asleep so peaceful.

do you remember getting off the train in Spain; irritable that you couldn't follow the conversation, despite the cost of your degree? you drank coke and ate a churro, and i know you longed for bed and were impatient with the world.

or: running on that track in the thunderstorm; the rain soaked you through and I peered at the sky, anxious about Zeus and his thunderbolts - you impervious and doubled over with glee

or: today, my breath stopped as you walked so blase into traffic; your big black glasses and seething attitude. you've never looked so sexy.

or: last night, crying because you heard your sick father say "i love you," and he never does, and I know that.

Let me relish the pleasure of holding you tight,
of witnessing your darks, your scintillations, your delightful crinkled eye.
you of good heart, and good womb; a good woman beloved

song lyrics (from, like, 2008)

in october black
the nights fall fast;
never minded it till now

but lately someone's on to you
and she wants to be your home

baby i need
on nights like these a steady hand to hold
not piles of sand and tsunami winds
rattling through my soul

but even stones grow smooth with time
and every fire slows
i guess that even your nights with her
will eventually turn cold

hope Someone Else is ready
to clean up your broken home
that she'll have all those answer
that you wanted me to know

chilly now
but winter frost
may freeze out all the aches
the whitest stars
are staring back
they whisper of my strength

ritual

i've thrice gone mad, mad, mad
(though once was just for show).

secretly, it's darling.
i take pictures, even.

i don't believe in quiet lips, polite outsides
i scream and the universe shifts to hold me close

occassion #3:
i transcend in my own puddle of red, of
wine-soaked vomit, tears, nose snot running -
clots on my face, cursing god

my eyes bulge and the red is like blood around me;
i know i have his attention,
like isaac on the mountain
soaked in my humanity - my gore,
a thread i grasp.

we rest together in its paltry consolation.
i get no apologies, but i get it now.
i get the joke.

bathtub baptism tout de suite
wash it away, away, away
time to transcend
again, again, again.

we need you to endure.
we need your eyes and throat
and washed belly.

we need you.

the next day, save the ringing head
and dim memory of muck, trapped in hair,
eyes too fat to open,
i am aware.

all the sense of this world falls together,
a simple thing,
so simple and sad.

i reclaim my mortal coil.
i look at the pictures and shudder

vision

swollen eyes again.
to see, to see, to see

they are relentless to me.
i saw, and he saw, and she blissfully unaware did not

i a cassandra
a rooted prophet
jaw agape, prescient,
the brain blood laced with god words.

oh but how i had hoped for better.

their eyes stop up; remain without,
magpies and wheel ruts
the familiar, the familiar, the familiar

they do not look behind to see ahead

oh god i hoped so hard for better

i a cassandra
a rooted prophet
jaw agape, prescient
unheeded.

away goes beloved, beyond return

disappointment

child takes the stranger's hand
and i presume her
lap full of candy

a blown about; fickle,
giving 'aw shucks' eyes,
defiance and curiosity too;
child owes nothing
when the world is his honey box

brave little man with the puffed up chest

a matter of time
before mother's manners
ill imparted
repeat themselves:

candy smashed flat
by little king fists

friends are awesome.

bodies housed in spirits
collected here, lit up inside,
twin fireflies.

my heart, held in secure hands
and fed words that serve:

pointing words,
signpost words,
nourished, watered, whetted, resting

they dazzle me completely

un-title

heart of honey
quietly scribes
to the night -
rest

rest head upon
pillow and breast

from the skin of his temple
warm honey exudes

rest and breathe

oh as far as the stars

oh as far as the stars!
as far as the stars I will stretch my neck
to the uppermost colds of space.

geneology

the natural feeling takes us naturally awry

i can see only
two generations bearing down;
ciphers:
mother / sex / beat down / nothing left

let's project

rosary beads, thick glasses, thick ankles.
quiet iowan farms with white houses;
outliving the bastards -

no, outlasting.

the life left when they said "we do"
and followed suite with needys, little shitting needys
who sustained the 18 year minimum -

back to black
but hair going grey, the once-craved stomach/breasts melting into mother-flesh
another question mark once the bed's gone cold
and the growl punctuates Big Daddy's disappointment -
"bitch let herself go"
as if some beligerant God betrayed him
.
let's raise children
and let them see
that love means endurance, silence, bodies, distance, crude remarks, regret

yes let's

.
and now you
you think
you think it's easy
your patience runs short
when i fail to perform

so easy it should be
"bitch bores me"
cuts short the rope
and turn away



never mind.
your type i've known.
my mother's known, my grandmother's known, my everymother in my blood has known and
groveled before.
this blood is accustomed
but going to fucking break its heart
before it settles, acquieses, agrees

to pitiful complaints;
this conceit of "love"
complacent
and
(hollow)
cocksure

31 days stronger

that

stupid utterance / reckless mouth and hissing ego
the ugly peeled back slowly

upper cut
blocked out eyes
for a dazzled 31 days post-haste

"oh love"
no, just another idea / what love wants to be
just another coward withdrawing / words as weapons
to skirt his




fuck
that

"she finally said"

alt:vision

pursuit: choked off
feet knotted firmly

a little hysterical, little relieved

played played played out
by poor poor players
in shoddy huts which
the audience left in unease.

i stand
i collect the dimes left behind in dozens
i keep them as memories
which emerge only to hold me in the morning:
phantom arms, warmth of promises,
for a moment i remember
the warm.

but days slide by.
backs must turn to this shit.
to this empty everything behind me, sealed and sorry
the meat and bones of man
wrapped around child

logic smoothes the disentangled unjust hurts
but rarely heals them

lies begin
so that we may move on

spring, slowly

the rain falls, lacking relent -
fat coiled ropes of silver -

toes stiffen in the cold seep -
i curl hands into thin pockets.

the trees drain today; i glance out the window

"bright star were i as steadfast as you"

titters the back of neck; as the head above
lets
go -

- not -
wanted

by that
constellation;
sweet
universe

cold, gone, deaf.
i
haven't the heart
to hold but grace

as i walk
to the
north

quiet quite

slip fingers slip
we sway
1, 2, 3

the evening's hush
1, 2, 3

stone colden without
under star's white frost

yet spring arises
peeks its head
slap slap
i laugh
you in bed

night
so quiet
we walked
we walked 1,2,3

deepish feelings of swamp
within;
inexorable
leave their bruises

spiting the sun
and bright light
of star

Our similarities are superficial

Dido hovers over sword, overcome with grief -
though a Leader; loved by her people.
Twice loved by great, kind men.

Need always knew
he'd leave;
lovesick, neglected and raging - Need, not the gods.

She ended on a pyre,
foolishly melodramatic.

Enough, Dido.
Enough of the wronged queen!

I know
your situation sucks

But I will not confuse your story,
its pretty self-pity
its emotional O

With my own;
I refuse what is expected of grieving girls.

Aeneas?
Swell guy, emotionally unavailable, a daddy's boy.
Fooled himself quite a lot
Gave grieving boys the stoic excuse;
also tiresome to behold.

Myself,
I have my people to tend,
and future paths to take.

No thank you, Virgil, for your windswept vistas
and aggrandized, fucked up love.
Western civilization learned the wrong lesson.

the focus must remain here

body marking / marked by time
vessel
i treasure

mind so ocean-deep
too long letting sailors skim along
too long

golden arms gleam
as ships wrecked so long ago
rot
and finally melt

my shovel, a brute come to dig
and disrupt
the ancient sites,

handed to me
abruptly, by mistake

oxygen thin i swim

Lacking for 13 days

Today's narrative:
little things that feel good,
like new earrings dangling against the neck
and laughing; a solid laugh
in the parking lot, with a friend.

remembered you at 3:30, fondly.
had a cup of tea.

looked at pictures of other men, other prospects,
and sighed; 'none can explain the epinician ode.'
felt rather rankled
with you,
for your ill-timed theft of my heart.

anyway.
next on the agenda:
i'll dive back into bursting words
with my warmest blanket,
smelling of vanilla -

i think there's a wine-tasting tonight.

but.
still
miss you

the list of future pastimes

We will go to the beach
and I will feed you whisky,
while wrapped in a blanket and singing to the stars.

You will see me dance,
the one i've kept quiet so long,
at a proper recital with hundreds of eyes watching
but yours will be the only ones I seek,
and then we will have a nice dinner,
and then we will go to our bed.

I will tell you stories
by the firelight, if you'd like.
I've so many to tell,
when i know you're ready to hear

we will ride bikes by rivers when the world turns green
and make new friends
and teach each other interesting things, and remember to daily say silly things.

i was planning to be your best friend
before any of the rest occurred;

so greedy. we too eagerly demanded everything of each other
before we even knew
favorite colors

the silence now rattles with rain

longing to be filled

bedtime stories of bears, trees, and Spaniards

he is a myth-maker
a startling tongue,
a constant surprise.

i take delight
like a child awed
by her mirror

hold him closer

my singing tongue has, for once, stopped to listen
yet stopped itself too cold
he cannot hear
this song

he holds back

i understand

reverie, reverie

at night
the slipping up on wet staircases,
the moss green and wet and tapping on the window -
they benevolently hold to the ground,

the trees, black skeletons that sway against the ash sky...
city lights below, a carpet of diamonds
inverting heaven;
and we eat, and feel peace,
and hold hands as the heater clicks on.

the pleasant is good
yet
i tap at his head,
i quietly observe the flesh before me,
and marvel
at its likeness
and its distance
all together at once.

i am in no hurry.
i wait, waiting for my trembling tongue
to catch up -
to capture the heave of heart
to savour the path
to wait until i can emerge - out of this dim cave, where i keep myself with care

and the dark falls,
and fall we into bed,
and in the dark hearts race with the answers our mouths are too slow to speak

love.

to break from poetry for just a moment -

Today, it is sunny. I'm exhausted; my body aches, my heart is dragging. But I still believe in love. I believe in it, because I've seen it in action, among and between my friends, my family. It takes work, it isn't easy. It's a strange combination of head and heart, uplifting and exchanging, listening and speaking, valuing and acting.

Lifetime partners do not operate according to deadlines. Lifetime partners can lie in your arms quietly, or can pour out their dreams, and can sketch out a lifetime together with you. They can tell jokes, philosophize, be an idiot, be brilliant. They are courageous, because they trust themselves to question or challenge their beloved -- just as the best of friends gently push us to be our best, a true lover is proactive. They dance, sing, and make love to the person they have chosen to honor with their full presence, the commitment of being themselves as openly and honestly as possible - honesty and awareness breed loving energy. This kind of love recognizes that life is nothing but brief moment, both a collection of memories and the nether of future - that in between the two, it is best to gently treasure the beloved's hand. Some of those moments will be bad - bad days, weeks, months or minutes - but we get through them so that we can treasure the wonderful, incredible, amazing, ridiculous and beautiful moments, too. Soul mates can make mistakes.

Lots of people have this kind of love, but many more do not. Looking at the world in 2010, I see that so many people my age confuse love with drama, sex, or even torture - many people live their whole lives thinking that love is tied to some grotesquely beautiful need to suffer, or that enduring suffering makes them a better person - a Christ complex in the bedroom. We only think we need Romantic ideals, but they only mislead us to believe that the ideal once existed, has vanished, but may be retrieved through a mystical, magical moment of grace. Even aetheists seek a personal Paradise Lost.

I've never seen that version, that fake love, work out. I've seen it be convincing enough for people to marry and stay married; I've seen it justify the most terrible ways people can treat each other. I've seen it in movies and plays; I've heard it in songs, but its reality cancer. One partner's ideals are crushed - they punish their partner. They try to 'fix' their partner - the poison spreads. An utterly internal belief system lashes out and hurts the people we claim to love; we dessicate ourselves. Unless we become aware of ourselves, our habits, and the power of unexamined expectations - we carry them with us as a burden, a time-bomb, and repeat them all again with someone new.

He's the first one I couldn't fool. I really can't blame him for not falling in love with a series of defenses. I knew it as the weeks went on; I was scared and slipped them on - the Perfect Girlfriend, the Happy Woman, the Cheerful Partner. Maybe I don't love myself throughly yet; at least, not all the time. I have a collected lifetime of joy, travel, family, friends, learning, and beauty - but nothing is worse than allowing someone see to that its also riddled with imperfections, humiliations, disappointments, depression. I even occasionally fart. Better to keep myself special by virtue of being alone - the incomprehensible artist... it always seemed like a safe role to play in a postmodern world. I'm an equally misguided Romantic.

He can't fix me. I can't fix him. But: is there someone who can 'fix' us at all? Is there really someone out there for whom all my neuroses will suddenly heal over --someone who I'll just subconsciously "let in" and forever end the act of second-guessing myself? He seems to think so, but I think he's wrong. I think that's too convenient, and misses the point of what genuine love is. Love takes energy, but it creates it, too. It dies when the energy consists of nothing but bodies, because sex without intimacy is just a series of motions.

Intimacy is built on the words we exchange, the moments that take quality time to build, the events we share together and the hopes we have for ourselves and for each other... isn't it? A lack of words - or an overabundance of the accidentally dishonest variety - provide no fuel needed for the heart to properly burn. Therefore, is he right to believe that love needs no words - no work? I can't accept that.

Which means maybe I'm better off, being let go. He didn't fall for my act, but he also never gave me a fair shot - his worldview doesn't seem to allow for me, or anyone else, to live up to his expectations, anyway. It aches today. I was beginning to know him, and I have always admired, respected and adored him. Yet there was something lurking in the background, and I couldn't name it before last week - ironically, it has been the End that best illustrated his character, his values, his actions. He's a good person who was reckless with both his heart and mine - but I'm nonetheless honored that he did. I'm a good person who needs to voice her legitimate needs, project her beautiful voice. I let myself down, but it was the best I could be, and I'll be a stronger person for it in the end - a mis-step in the right direction, I have to believe. I'll be ready, one day, to be someone's lifetime partner. Somewhere out in the world, someone is preparing himself.

summary

i want, crave;
i tumble over rocks in my dash
i close my eyes
to his averted eyes
and also his fear

he pulls me in
and i want to love him
"right";
consequently
i vanish before our eyes.

so, now
forced to awake from that dream of pursuits attained...
the peace we had:
real yet
the ideal we tried to be:
was not (sustainable)



My life without his hidden struggles was/is too alone; vibrates with loss
the face i watched
as he left was not a mask - he too wore grief.

so, now
all i can do
is fight the battle in which he's left me -
to be a better person,
whether for him or the next

with whomever i will love again
that i can try to be a lucid, gleaming, Hector.

good day

i've held off on the black till just now
when a waiter made me sigh
because he was proud of his baby
and wanted to show me her picture -- Mae Rose.

it unwound me,
despite an otherwise very good day.

i wonder if
i had some other face
i'd be a mother by now;
the same brain
but less temptation.

less to woo.

that would trim down the insincere suitors
and their devastating insinuations - I begin to think:

dumped, duped, dammit.
despite the depth of trenches,
something about it pierces me.

already my skin is thickening up, nonchalant, unsurprised
and somewhat relieved

daily aphorisms...

Recovered from diary, this morning:

"All we are are people with a lifetime of experience behind us, and a lifetime of experience ahead of us. So, it's best, between the two, to enjoy the present as much as you can, and try your best, and do what you love. Preferably, with who you love, and surrounded by those who love you."

Valerie Egan copyright 2010, bitches!

time and wounds

a frightened, fickle person
is still a person

and so i am, relentlessly in love with my little weaknesses

whatsoever proof they give him
that i do not deserve
a place
by his
side

henceforth all disingenuous invaders
with their Scantron responses,
their background questionnaires,
their black and white brains,

can go to hell.

i'll keep my beautiful self
and all this mess of blood, emotion, fear and love
broiling
for the mad man unafraid
of me

for my part

I've constructed my dream
and believed its illusion

I myself wove the skein and tangled myself within
so that you might see
something beautiful
instead of just me

and my cherished/ugly fears:
that which little white girls don't learn to show.

i know my part.
i'll admit the role i've played.

i loved you the more for rejecting it all.

trenches

to writhe in anger gives me no joy.

i'd rather we used real words,
to name the walls
which have so suddenly sprung from your feet;

1,000 clay warriors named Doubt and Fear and Excuse
Have clawed from you
so early
so mercilessly
such a waste.

thus, ever the pacifist,
i doubt your compassion.

mouth bleeds out; this time in anger

so, finally - some truth.
the awkward fit of pleasant inside my mouth
it never has suited me.

i have tried to wear the mantle of happy girlfriend girl
but he is too clever
and sensed it fit ill

his ever-constant pleasant
abruptly turned three-dimensional
yesterday morning

i'm sorry i've lied
and tried to be better than i am
i can't really blame him
for feeling so gypped

though i can now at least account for
his pre-conditioned timelines and templates
and otherwise anal-retentive need to neatly fit

no wonder; my blood is a sweet mess
that i've bottled too lightly

tragedy of the 8th week

whatisincomprehensibleISwhether he means
whathesaid as he said it; no returns:
a convenientlylackingselectionofwords
"Feelings have not developed"
andirealizediwas a failedtesttube

andinterallyi SPLITmy heart in two
onehalfformyself; the particanlovelovelove
and cannotblameblameblame
but feel onlysuchsad, suchloss, sosudden
mymouthfrozeinobedience
(force of habit)
as mysweetness FEEBLYjustifiedhisdoubts,
drank a glass of water,
andpatientlyallowedmydesolateembrace

insomnia

the wretched thud
awoke me,
and very next the thought
of unlucky, of alone

of wanting you here tonight
of wanting you here tonight

of wanting to amend, to hope, to hear
words with less sad meaning -

but can i do anything now,
before an inflexible fate

my brightest star
aloft in his cold sky

does not permit souls to make their mistakes

alcyone, briefly

good morning, hours
good morning to me
good mourning i've born
since the edge of the sea

aloft in the wind
the streaking white gull
circles and cries
for the capsized hull

within my beloved
within my heart
within were the seeds
now never to start

oh gods! that delight to burst
stones of the sea
grant me your mercy
and dissipate me

In order to feel better one must:

Avoid liquor
Write extensively
Sing
Take showers
Dye hair red
Consider eating again
Take aspirin
Watch cheerful movies
Consider and list one's natural charms
Take another shower
Remember better times
Call a friend
Articulate the connection between heartbreak and nausea
Wait for nightfall and think not at all about tomorrow, or beautiful faces, or the overwhelming sense of loss
Recall one's ability to love and be loved in return (proven, even if not this time)
Avoid cigarettes

The Pill

alliance between the knit of bones
within this meat-locker

they only know to rut, rut, rut.

one bitter revolution per pill
per night
a sacrifice of heaving hormones,
the tidal waves that once cascaded down;
the clear silver waves holding my hair, like seaweed, down

now, no feelings to speak of.
no babies either, but
sighs of relief.

nothing to create or feel or speak of,
until even i lose interest in myself.
no one's to blame for that.

with time i myself distill

with time i myself distill
through the filter of now, yesterday,
and every sacred moment
in which bodies did blend.

the observer is the last to see
how accumulation breeds the banal;
days become just days.
tiny narratives shared over dinner
so boring
our tiny north american rituals

not enough, i know.
my head too steeped in stars
and could not see

could not but feel
the accumulation of lifeblood
in an otherwise useless heart
since revived, sweetly tested,
found wanting

the accumulation lacked substance
he said, or seems to say
or meant, were he a poet

today

uprooted
dirt clings
to slipping veins

the heart admits defeat
within its meager beating

nights of silence come again

lately...

a head full of swimming pool
(smooth, soft, extraordinary clear and thick)
as the heart quiets down
with long awaited peace

On second thought...

All of these poems are so dark and sad! I'm not in a poetical mood at the moment, due to multiple obligations to Serious Work that I cannot dismiss, but I'll see if I can produce something lighter of heart for the new year.

January, January!

I've fallen asleep at the wheel, it would seem...

2010 is upon me, and I am astonished to see that I've not posted since July. An entire season without any digital ejaculations; imagine that!

So, to make it up to myself, I will grease the mental wheels a bit by transcribing in some old poems that I dug up this morning...