THE UNREASONABLE COLD

and your ghost and you.

it's unreal

the movements forward are masked by the thick heavy right now-

which feels like the devil is blowing on my bones.

making them rattle

alone

but walking through a million particles

that fly in the air.

and did you know that when we shift

we part them?

millions of particles

reflected and changed

through even the smallest of movements.

i think of them constantly.

but here i am,

i have been.

and i believe that i would feel deserted 

if you stopped haunting me.

empty hearted,

empty handed,

i can always take solace

i can find deep appreciation

for all the millions of movements i am creating,

that are born of my own action.

my shiver, my shake, my rattle, my twitch.

even though it is

accompanied by your ghost and you.

image by andrea heimer

ALL THESE THINGS THAT I DO

drink cold coffee and

miss you terribly and

pretend i am not there and

bleed profusely and

cook elaborate feasts and

eat beans straight from the can and

touch you inappropriately and

let him crush me and

him too and

take whimsical photos and

lay in bed too long with the cat and

drink too much whiskey and

suck on lemons and

burn my skin and

sing made up songs and

dream about a bigger picture and

not think about the present and

twirl my hair and

flirt mercilessly and

eat meat three meals a day and

ride my bike cautiously and

draw forced pictures and

write forced poems and

create something beautiful and

cause self harm and

vomit in the toilet and

put mascara on and

not change my sheets and

graduate from university and

listen to the ticking clock and

yell on the telephone and

bite the inside of my mouth and

stare at her on the bus and

forget to bring lunch and

reduce my fragility and

realize i can't and

eat peanut butter off a spoon and

listen to bonnie raitt and

have intellectual conversations and

watch hillary duff movies and

fantasize about running away and

get painfully embarrassed and

think about him too much and

wake up (go to sleep).

image from the drifter and the gypsy

THE SUNDAY MOON

Your subtle sickle moon.

Over the heads of others

we stared,

For longer than is polite.

 

Meet small fox eyes

with a sideways glance.

 

And in one instant a dream was born

warm chestnut cheeks pressed against

hot blushing others.

 

a shadow of a dimple blesses you.

I smile after I’ve turned away.

But you depart

 

and in the next infinite moment my chest constricts and my heart

splinters.

 

Moonless,

it is so dark outside.

22/23

to be on the cusp

of this / dark forever

not to know

or to see

but feel my way.

small earth shattering cries

pierce / caress

unbeknownst to me 

i am recipient of both.

smooth jagged nothings

for these this  it

i can not breathe one last time,

i must

 now.

and this one can be called : when you walk into the luminous, 

do so to trust yourself.

TRAIN POEM/ JUNE 21 2008

I take this molten sun,

Falling west from the sky.

I catch it in my cupped fingers,

It saturates me with its golden hue

Staining my hands,

My arms.

A ritual in finality.

The sky is cooled by a lace of stars,

barely visible,

and I cradle this burnt remnant of yesterday—

and try to absorb it’s smoky stories, to inform

the virgin tomorrow

which lies ahead.

FAMILY

We are madhatters.

Who bicker and shake fists,

Then kiss and make it nice.

Then bicker and shake fists.

 

We do as madhatters do.

and talk all at once,

Then feign silence.

Then talk all at once.

 

in this world made of cells and stardust

we form a small nucleus,

protons and neutrons and

electric pulses bouncing off one another.

 

There is one and she is queen

And her madhatter tea

Is served in bed

Or off with your head.

She has spider hands

That hold, all the worlds comfort in their palms.

 

And also there is a man

Who is dark headed like the earth

And just as grounded.

He is formed of solid gold

And finds his ability to taunt

And tease

Both surprising, and wildly amusing.

 

Together they were

So young

And brought to life the rest

 

 All of who have lashing tongues and giant hearts and too many words and too many tricks and games and glittering eyes and are bound to one another with shackles of love and hate and a walloping amount of pure disbelief.

 

We are the apple of our eyes

And the dagger to our hearts.

we are madhatters!

And we do as madhatters do.

I PREPARE

he is

for soft ears / bovine eyes

and melted butter hearts

dearly departed.

last night

for whispers into dark / eyes tightly shut

i said goodbye.

HALF-HEARTED

I have received,

A scratched tin box, with a worn leather lid.

Inside

Lay mildewed yellowed papers

announcing my call to battle.

 

In the days before

You leave

I reacquaint myself with the city-

See upended graves and

Work to gently

Reform the dirt, pat it. Make crosses out of sticks.

Now I lay my head to rest.

 

I am

So wrecked

Still, bones are splintered, and major muscles are not  functioning

Properly.

But I have received

The call to action

 

You sent it.

You knew, I could never be a deserter,

I could never just watch this battle

This fight

These swords clash

And cannons fire.

I believe too fully in the cause. I may lose every limb in this war,

But I believe in it.

 

The summer is dwindling.

My respite has come to end.

You have sent me

A letter of  orders

And I see your power,

Still has a firm grasp on me.

Even through this impenetrable distance.

Soon.

Soon.

Soon I will prepare to leave.

I will head out to battle.

 

After you leave.

But you, have taken a small, velvet souvenir of me.

Perhaps unwittingly.

 

Even so,  as a result,

I will be fighting

Only half-heartedly.

9:53

there have been very few times

when I have felt each minute quite as sharply.

Filling and forgetting—half drunk cups of mineral water

and orange peels puckered with age.

 

Things feel too dirty, the daffodils bought last week on special

hang loosly, Sticking their crepe paper petals to the glass

makeshifting as a vase.

The water pipes click.

The refrigerator hums.

 

I wait, the kettle is on the stove.

On edge listening to the pitch

 

Racing to turn it off before it’s a full-blown whistle.

GAËL

In the morning. I am quiet.

My voice has not risen from where it settled in the bottom of my lungs

Motions dusty

And still slumbering.

 

Outside is a pale green and when I look past the window

Sometimes

your roman-cut face swells in my mind.

Deep sunken eyes,

Of the lightest color,

Reflecting the sea,

Burdened by lashes.

 

I think now that maybe the whole time I was in love with you.

 

Your island is unreachable

Located somewhere beneath the stars and above the clouds

I find myself always looking up when I think about you.

Looking for your dream world

Walking circles on the moon

And touching white hot stars

 

These days you have fallen.

Corkscrewing to the bottom of the earth

Swallowed by the same sea

Which you once controlled, riding the waves

With the salty air lashing your lungs.

These days you have fallen.

 

You are always sinking.

 

Little prince. Little bird.

That way you walk

A ghostly saunter

The way you glide along the ground, as if you aren’t touching it at all

I don’t think I have ever heard your footsteps.

 

I spent so long being scared of your affection

Don’t you realize that I was protecting you?

And it was the most gallant thing I have ever done.

 

I wonder if it would comfort you,

Heal your bruised heart,

If you knew that mine was bruised too-

That with each pump

I feel the blood

Rushing to those tiny blue veins

And that it burns. so badly.

Swollen by beatings and brittle to the touch.

 

I want to grab you and explain that I was trying to save you,

Not break you into a thousand shattered pieces.

I never knew I had that power

And I hate it

Nobody can be complete, destined to float on.

a human shell. Zombie.

the jackles which haunt us tearing apart the little that is left

howling in satisfaction.

 

Little prince. Little bird.

I want so much to be healed by your gentle touch

J’suis maso

Choosing this pain

Which wakes me up at night gasping to breathe

So that you don’t have to.

Do you not understand?

 

Oh you,

I want to brush the length of your nose

And kiss you so soft and so sweet

And put my head in the crook of your neck

To be cradled.

 I want to kiss you.

So soft.

and so sweet.

So that honey will fall from your lips.

 

 

To never be repeated again.

LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS ON FAME AND GLORY age:19

Sometimes I wonder if by waking up in the morning-- am I ruining my chances? There is something so romantic about all the tortured artists who remained tortured by never living in their time of fame and glory. It’s not that I desire to be so rich and famous and ensconced in glory—I desire only what others desire (or what I believe others desire) to live in the fantasy of the world knowing your name.

It is my belief that everyone is terrified of sinking to the abyss of a death unknown.

AUGUST

The sun,

Kicking heat off cement

Has amplified the smell of the blackberries.

 

Blackberries that mean,

The end of the summer is near.

 

Similar

 

To when

Our neighbour Toshi hands over warm paper bags

Brimming with ripe tomatoes

Of irregular shapes from her garden

 

How many times did I not sit on my roof at dusk?

How many bike rides did I not go on?

I only swam in the lake once or twice.

 

I can walk around and see that the mornings are darker.

Already.

Shivering washes of pink and blue,

Barely visible through the purple of dawn.

I notice the swollen scent of the air,

Eight months pregnant with fall.

 

Anxiety bleaches out all other emotions

School sales start

And I think,

Soon I would have noticed the buses practicing their routes,

If I was not, fortunately,

Going to be gone by then.

 

I think I can put the fan back in the attic,

The window screen under my bed.

The middle of august is a betrayal.

You are meant to think that summer could never end.

But the back of your mind is panicking,

Prickly, Already thinking

About summers wasted.

 

And one day, too soon,

I will feel a light chill, hear a honking goose.

The sun will glint on tops of leaves,

Spotlighting

The flames of orange, just beginning to lap at their tips.

And I will notice something go dormant inside of me.

 

Feel

Perhaps

A lumbering sigh.

Which will,

 of course be the sounds 

of summers wasted.

ON JUNE 29TH

Damn that wretched muscle

Bound by strings, ligaments,

Of such elasticity

As to confine the beast

To writhe and contort

Glistening with sticky,

Viscous clotted blood.

 

OH! How it pounds

Swollen and bruised

And yet it goes

Creating such an immense

A racket impossible to ignore

A feeling.

So nauseating.

 

You turn to the skies

Neck stretched

With that wild animal pulsing so,

It nearly cracks open your throat

To the skies you scream

A scream

Which curdles

which allows that Heart,

dripping froth

to spill blood in such a foul cacophony.

 

And curse the creator

the mother

inventor

who gifted you with that heart

battered and spitting

throbbing in agony against your ribs,

fighting against restraint

so that it may,

at any moment,

explode from your chest

with a shriek

 

so decadent

and thick.

and tiny drops of spoilt blood

may shower upon

your butchered hollow shell.

PHASE TWO

I'm constantly remembering

that i have forgotten what i want to say.

while looking to a future

sharp and thrilling and pulsing-

i am sewing on animal tails,

and putting my ear to the ground.

in this time of everyone around me growing up,

i am growing down.

burying myself in the soil and humus,

blinding my eyes and losing thoughts

of little importance.

and brilliance.

a resurrection of nature is blooming inside

of my body.

i want to be filled with a sense of belonging;

and the whole wide world

and the big blue sky

these things make you feel important,

they need nothing

except for you to listen.

to them to you to understanding that it is the same thing.

i can not stop running

away from myself;

into these ideas made of seeds and dirt

and still dormant. 

even though i know that everyone else has learned, 

that,

this is impossible.

i am letting this small revolution

swallow me,

silently,

spitting out feathers.

image from the drifter and the gypsy

THE FIRST TRY SINCE MAYBE NOVEMBER

In those faintly lit moments when

I barely open my eyes and

the thin transparent eyelid

mapped with wispy veins

barely reveals the gray shapes of reality which loom behind it.

When I finally sit up and arch my back

Stretching taught muscles

Willing my spine to start breathing again.

 

When I lay on my back with my knees carelessly laid open

and look at the pictures covering my walls.

In the hours spent walking around this city

thinking about slipping and falling

Wishing for more coffee

noticing that no one else is trying so desperately to make eye contact.

 

After brushing my hair with my fingers

catching the dead loose strands

taking slight pleasure in seeing how many there are

And once I finally lay down to fall asleep and

 

sort of  pretend like I can feel the weight of his body

 

 

regardless of how fleeting they may be--

in these moments, I am finally whole.

I HAVE FOUND YOU

This fragile heart beats

Small sounds of blue blood like tin

It fits in your palm

image by plrds

INVERTEBRATE

You rip me unwhole

a fractured person

wet spine, can’t hold straight

deep deep velvet silence suffocating,

 

My spine can’t hold itself up.

 

Pressure on the vertebrae,

for each disc, you have, carefully compressed

splayed, crooked, adjacent

small movements cause spiked pain

straight shots reverberating through,

deepening cracks and crevasses.

 

Unwhole, two halves

nameless small pieces missing

all is soaked and soft

up and down spinal nerves crackle and fizz

electric and suffering

they have no boundaries, shoot straight to the brain.

 

I take what’s offered

hollow sounds, empty drumming

your voice

ever weakening what was once strong thick bone

once proud, now,

my spine can’t hold itself up.

image from the drifter and the gypsy

BlOODLINE

We are all here,

The women.

Making comments sundry and all,

Our conversations bleeding and blending

Reforming each other, midway in the air.

 

We are all us,

The women.

We come from each other leading back,

And back out of this kitchen

Across oceans and soils

Leading to one life, our hearts can beat collectively.

 

We are all strong,

The women.

Thick hands pressing on backs,

We are warriors together

When one splinters, everyone is there to aide and support.

 

We are all lunar,

The women.

Our laughs and shrieks,

A cacophony of pitches

Sounds parallel, to the waxing and waning of the moon outside.

 

We are all here,

We are all us,

We are all strong,

We are all lunar,

The women.

 

We are all here.

 

We are all, our history.

image from ffffound