closer

almost there.  just a couple more days and it’ll be winter break – sadly that means two more days of math quizzes, chemistry tests, essays and other such spirit-murdering confections of the education system.  Should I lighten up the mood, then?

—

traffic

i often find with peace of mind
comes windows into worlds
traffic stalls the car and yellow
orbs of light – they – bouncing curl

my artificiality
those walls of private glass
terrain of lovers, long forgot
each in their glassy habitat

content and quiet
left to devices
not their own though
they perceive them so

and i the spectral eye of God
do view them in this
the rawest revelation
of condemning subconscious

—

let’s shine together

I.
30 lines on my page
(still a blank sheet of paper)
my creativity -
stage – whispered.

II.
creamy white
a new invention
of our glittering souls
lit up like holiday windows

III.
do you know?
you are my trimmings

IV.
someone stole your little glass bulbs
and now your coffin is a layer of brown
paper.

V.
but you aren’t useless
to me.

—

perspectives

we all want a little bit of angel in us
but the truth of the matter is
we would not
(in our humanity)
be so content
(as we might think)
to be infinite
and all-knowing
and all-encompassing
and impassively beautiful
for it would bare to us our self-same flaws
and lay waste to our eternity

—

take two

Sad little smile -
For Satan’s sun -
I spent a Decade – end to end -

And thus inside -
The Tale I spun -
Were Those of mice and those of Men.

—

scrap

the impact was like tissue
the most serene of skimming, skinning motions
emotionless

i could not look into the twin eyes
of Death, so bright and cheerful
they blinded me from my Fate

i felt myself suspended
as carriage overturned
in carnage  as we burned
the fire buzzed around me
the fire bees were light

—

blizzard

ice embossed autumn’s
dry husks and brittle corpses
carcasses of fibrous, veiny leaves
that reached their spindly fingers
up through the grown so less than verdant
refusing burial amidst yesterday’s playthings
and the mulch of our memories

Filed under: Life, Poetry

921 – Dickinson Impersonation

My Silence and my Solitude –
Life – daily – takes from me –
By shaking hand or shoe of rice –
Or clockwork iron Key –

As Death has walked His block –
So further will he crawl –
In simple strings of Thought –
More Powerful – He draws!

I marvel – most obscure It is –
That Innocence – so Young –
Is – like the true Oblivion –
The river of His tongue.

Yet stranger still – within –
That Death does Chance to stall –
For but a childish breath –
Is proof enough of God.

The crawling touched my blanchéd bones –
Like tender, loving plea –
Those cold and quiet languages –
That – Empty – speak to me.

Death was quite impartial –
Indifference cast by Age –
His passive movement still –
Unhindered by my passive Rage.

Come near, thou twisted Eloquence –
Permit me give you leave –
And grasp within my fingertips –
Thy ever-stirring Grief –

This I begged to Whisper –
All this I threw at Death –
And he who stops for None –
Did silence when He wept!

He stopped and sank unto the Ground –
And weighed the weight of Words –
Into the Lethe he sunk his cup –
And drank Forgetfulness –

And now my Silence – pouring down –
Over louder pondering Falls –
Has taken up in arms with Death –
My maddened mind it calls!

Filed under: Life, Poetry

how does it feel?

pancakes

they just don’t seem right
they were supposed to be a well-kept secret,
a blossoming tradition, promising;
just for you four

well, now it’s become a group affair
consider it their right

open mic:

who’s next?

Filed under: Life, Poetry

my senses have been stripped

you’ll have to forgive us, it’s our first show

sleepy sorrow seeps into me like some forgotten sonnet,
kindled by keywords but kept quiet,
still a foggy and faintly etched facade

over the strains of the harmonica in my mind
and bob dylan’s voice on repeat
my thoughts come full circle
a year after the inception of what became tradition

it doesn’t seem right anymore

each note was emptier and cleaner in the saddest way
some delicate twists i remember only by the differences from the music
in my mind and on the stage
coming from the amps

they pushed you out

just because of the indifference
you had to fake to take it

full circle
self-fulfilled

Filed under: Life, Poetry

if ever i wanted it

my white whale

unfair as i am,
there is a time when all little girls stop kissing their parents on the lips
if ever they had
and all i can find behind your scarlet letter
is more of a cynosure than ever i could have gleaned
from your glittering eyes and your hourglass figure
or any luring book you ever held out
to the pen in my best friend’s hand
or any april apple
you ever held out
to spell my indirect and complete demise

—

‘eternity bores me; i never wanted it’ -sylvia plath

Filed under: Poetry

ancient empty streets too dead for dreaming

let me forget about today until tomorrow

the first time we visited mother’s grave
my heels stamped tiny crescents into the dirt

the ship sighed into its momentary reprieve of ballast
and wood everywhere groaned in some sorry lament

and i lay there
all in my coughing and crying
and the camel paced and the sun glittered and the dawn came
and he was gone from my side

Filed under: Poetry

closer to the ground

i have finally seen

o
to be witness
object
of ‘i love you’ upon a stage
no matter the sentiment in its shadow
for it seems i have so oft
heard it whispered
but never proclaimed

indeed you had never
done as much for me
inasmuch as it was so
i should find it simply born
that you might do so otherwise

and for her to walk past me
her and your nose in the air
assuming that she knows
me
and who i am
and what i am

wherefore is it her right
who bestowed upon her the gift of judgment
and wherefore have you inherited it?

it is the cross of those who know
the homeless wanderer’s plight
for song of summer touched his lips
would it were for delight

it should be all the better for my health
never could this take a pretty toll
for naught!
would that i had sinned before my heart thy unfounded bitterness found – for naught!

thy judging days are done
for never will i take the inflictions you so heartily wield
for crime not committed, never thought

thy bitterness
thy conniving
preemptive measure
feigned ignorance
thine anticipation, thy foresight
thy brooding
thine apologies
my forgiveness
no longer

we have finished

i see through it all
were it that your arrow be not found

Filed under: Life, Poetry

all the stars are laughing at our wonder

Calm is the night, O Lord, as we wait for you.
All the stars are laughing at our wonder.
Wait not in vain, for the Lord shall come.
You will feel within you God’s ever-stirring presence.

-David Graybill*

—

you get a good rest, too

tall is the ivory tree
sentinel to your cottage
like Pluto’s ghost
cast in calcium carbonate
I am beside myself
but it’s okay
at least I’m not lonely
that way
the moon is awfully good company
don’t you think?

—

miraculous
nostalgia defies the laws of the universe
the more i have
the emptier i am

—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

-Edgar Allan Poe

—

*quoting the Benedictine Brothers, Weston Priory, Weston, Vermont

Filed under: Poetry

half their lives they say goodnight to wives they’ll never know

i’ll find my way, i’m sure

it’s just a matter of time, really
but sometimes in my wandering
i wish you’d let well enough alone
it’s gone as quickly as it comes
or quicker
but i can’t help but wonder what it would be like
if we were ever really friends again

and i know, i know
i’ve got to learn, too, but

i wish you wouldn’t
snap so quickly
talk down to me
twist my words
make false promises
assume i can just forget it
expect me to follow you when you storm off
demand explanations because
i suppose i owe you

who knows, maybe i’m guilty of all of it too

but then again
you’re the one who doesn’t accept my decisions

respect me.

please?

Filed under: Life, Music, Poetry

It does not take long to realize that this is a writer whose relation to words is not so much mastery as it is a kind of hot intimacy in which the language will do anything he asks of it. He accosts you; he bends close to you to share a confidence; he wanders away from the point, distracted by a new half-formed idea; he falls away into silence as if stunned by the cost of his own discoveries.

-Andrew Delbanco [on Herman Melville]

—

cañonazo

what i would not give to be canon
accepted vernacular of the soul
literary in all its definitions

give me the silence of a hyphen
give me the quaint deliberacy of invention
give me eloquence

but anaphora never suited me

i am me, it is i
you are you, yet we do not agree
drown me in the infinity
of the soul

i force the lock and the zeugma

and the sailor
he runs light blue lines
thirty two of them
across the creamy expanse
leaping like foamy milk in the wind

Filed under: Life, Poetry