365 Poems
March 17, 2011,
We yearn for the serenity of tomorrow
while chasing the absurdities
of today.
Dimentia unleashes
stimulus for
“static kill” - again.
Life ablaze
while Sex rests its case.
Suitors line up
at the designated
finish line.
Indulge in cultural flair.
Smile damn it!
One-of-a-kind star
become a cupcake belly.
Times Square
was a sci-fi fan
once upon a savory time.
The dayship was a racing horse
who felt lucky
while worlds
talked profit.
Say cheese,
with feeling!
I lay braest to breast
with you,
feeling the earth
cradle my hips.
We eskimo kiss,
in awe of each other’s presence.
Passion seethes beneath
our skin.
Feb. 24, 2011,
The black winter fog
rolls over the prarie,
full of that old black magic,
ripped from the witch’s cauldron.
I breathe ice in,
rubbing gloved hands
against my cheek.
I wiggle my nose
to assure myself
it’s still attached.
A few trees stretch
out of the fog.
Their limbed stripped
to the bone,
a few cling to some leaves,
unaware of nature’s cycle.
My van inches
along the pavement,
a small white bug
invading foreign territory,
confident in its metal supremacy.
He whispered benedictions
over bent grass.
He presided over yellow stubble
in sun scorched fields.
There is only the
wide open spaces
to witness his grief.
I am a transient,
born of the sun’s
last embrace of snow clad willows.
I slip through
antipathy’s reality,
my joints stiff with yesterday’s
promises.
Kitty lays on my chest,
his little mouth twitches,
his paws flex.
He looks up at me,
stretches his mouth into a sleepy yawn.
He resumes napping,
purrs I Love You.
I think I need him
more than he needs me.
Deep inside us
lies the ancient instinct
of fight or flight,
live or hide,
love and laugh,
or grow cold
and alone.
Jan. 3, 2010,
The cold seeped
into her bones,
thin tendrils icing
her veins with
sugar free icing,
her fingers clenched around the wheel,
white knuckled body shaking
her face contorted
past grief
or rage
into a place only
the criminally insane
dare tread.
She was on the edge of nowhere
for no good reason.
The house of mirors
revolved around its axis
in full tilt,
running,
reveling in excess.
Oct. 22, 2010,
The canyon held its breathe
the silence was profound and
hollow at the same time,
the trees whispered to themselves,
laughing at the tiny humans
with their little purses and designer shoes,
the wearing tight spandex shorts,
beer guts protruding from too small shirts,
the canyon listened to blue birds and cycadias,
the trees listened to the people
talking about petty things
and wondered if they heard the quiet steps
of past warriors,
or felt the far away vibrations of horses
trotting down dusty paths.
The moment held more than a pang of regret-
the echoes of your laughter
ricocheted off my skin,
inducing waves of nausea,
the remembered warmth of your arms
lingered in my muscles,
until I had to shout,
scream,
chase the ghosts of us away.
Under the tongue lies the coming dawn
of my full-bodies womanhood,
under the tongue
creeps a running tally
of past lovers,
under the tongue
I hide away the sensitive price
of empathy,
the long unsaid secrets
of past lives.
The tongue slides and clicks
forming vowels and consonants
we insist have meaning,
language is a confused partner,
too drunk on sonnets and balads,
strolling the highways of
a bard’s lost inhibitions.
Outside the room, staring
at herself.
Outside her skin, staring
at herself.
Head tilted at a right angle,
hands running through her hair,
spine erect with the quiet look
of quiet authority.
Once can see past acne scars on her cheeks,
she has the bearing of a lady of the court
or an exiled goddess.
Outside her skin, staring
at herself.
She turns to look at herself
and screams
with the onset of insanity.
On my skin,
I engrave
the childhood summers when
crickets played lullabies
and fireflies danced
their love ballads.
On the skin I write
past, present, future.
Past needs I barely uttered,
present joys I feel in my heart,
future child I love.
On my skin I write
with the power of love
oft forgotten.
Sept. 4, 2010,
The night folds in on itself,
the stars swirling into a diamond dust of known
aphrodesiac qualities.
The night folds in on itself,
black damask wrapping itself around the north star.
Aug. 19, 2010,
On my skin is written
chidhood summers when crickets
played me lullabies
and fireflies danced the waltz.
The love ballads embedded under my nails
speak of the past, present, and future-
past needs I barely uttered,
the present search for self
aside from the other half,
future daughter I already love
with my whole heart.
In my skin is written the power of love
so often misplaced.
Aug. 15, 2010,
You bring me breakfast in bed and have my tea leaves read before I am awake. For good luck, you say. The leaves are still wet, clinging to their final memories. The eggs are still soft, bleeding yellow lava. Your chest is bare – the memory of biting your nipples is fresh in my mind – the exploration of your body upon waking – strong thighs, the obvious bulge, soft stomach. I love feeling your hands when they are resting. You bring me breakfast in bed and have my tea leaves read before I am awake. You shake your umbrella out, spraying us with cold water. I want to read your tea leaves but it’s forbidden. YOu took me to bed. Although I couldn’t see, I knew it was you. You always smelled the same, like Dove soap and steak. I couldn’t see but I knew it was you. No one talks about atoms and comupter circuits like you do. I was bound, helpless, reduced to an infant again. You piled blankets on me. Hoping, perhaps, that cotton would shield me. You took me to bed. Although I couldn’t see, I knew it was you.
Aug. 5, 2010,
You read my tea leaves as I lay in bed. Your hand was too big for the fragile cup, your fingers swallowing its tiny blue flowers. You read my tea leaves as I lay in bed, before my eyes opened and the light filtered in, before my hands learned how to grip, before my brain started firing random thoughts in strategic places. I learned your smell by heart. I breathed in your aftershave with the fierceness of an addict looking for her fix. You read my tea leaves as I lay in bed. Your voice was rough at first.
You read my tea leaves as I lay in bed. Your hands shook from caffeine jolts. I could hear the china ringing in my ear. You read my tea leaves as I lay in bed, before my mouth formed vowels. I learned your name before I could define myself. I swear the world held its breathe as you pronounced visions and dreams, as my tea leaves told dark stories.
June 12, 2010,
Coming down, down, down from an imaginary high. Coming down, down, down from the night sky. I flew so far and so high. I felt the rain in my hair, the wind through my skin….I’m coming down, down, down from the promised land. You tried to call me, you tried to save me…from that place way up there. they put me in a box for my own good, said the safest way was always the least inviting….Coming down, down, down from the Oracle’s temple. There’s no rhyme or reason to the visions in my brain, there’s no way of saying when time stopped meaning anything. Coming down, down, down from that sweet amber high, from that place only me and myself can go. Coming down, down, down from that sweet amber high, from the mountain air so full of past life. They said padded walls were all the rage nowadays, that no one was anyone unless they carried “freak” inside their soul. They tried to cleanse me but the whispers never wanted to go away. The place of electric highs way up in the attic of my brain was too inviting to let go. Meltdown was a place to go where silence reigned and no one laughed too loud.
May 28, 2010,
I sit in the doctor’s office, rock back and forth, trying not to see the glass jar holding cottong gauze, trying not to let these memories come flooding back, that day when the doctor ran away like I had the plague and I got a free ride in the back of a police car when the shrink looked at me like I was a lost puppy he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know, that day when my life changed, when I couldn’t keep running from that terrible dead ache in my soul, when the days of non feeling and cold tears became too much. I sit in the doctor’s office and wonder how crazy it would look if I ran away, I wonder as I pay the bill if the cops are on their way to take me away….
May 18, 2010,
I gaze at the canyon,
letting peaks and red rock fill
my vision.
A gray cloud moves across
the land miles away,
its fingers brushing flat scrub land.
As I watch it advances,
engulfing stray crows,
a steel wall.
Butterflies seem to fragile,
as though their wings will
rip apart,
the wind seems violently needy,
searching for a raw managerie of animal trophies.
March 27, 2010
I’m tangled up, tangled up in you,
I’ve been climbing the walls,
maybe if I saw myself, saw all my flaws,
maybe being alone wouldn’t scare me so much.
I’m tangled up, tangled up in you,
I keep closing my eyes but your face never left.
I’ve been climbing the walls,
spent too many nights running away.
You were the refuge I needed,
I couldn’t have asked for anyone better,
couldn’t have had a better friend.
But it’s time to say goodbye,
time to close the door.
March 5, 2010
We all want a thrill, a spill,
one last chance to be a star.
We all want a thrill, a spill,
one more night of reckless living.
We all want a thrill, a spill,
the final adrenaline rush.
She said to herself in those final hours, I don’t know what went wrong. When I turned left when I should have turned right. She jumped into the void and never looked back.
Everybody else isn’t me and everybody else doesn’t feel my pain.
I begged my shrink to sell me love in a bottle but he said it was against the rules. And the looking glass never felt so lonely or so dark as it does now. And the looking glass refuses to speak.
Everybody else isn’t me and everybody else will never save me.
Feb. 1, 2010,
Transgression’s End stands between the made-up shadows of yesterday’s regrets, between heaven and hell of today’s last fleeting thoughts, the many days we never sat through because our nerves wanted to sing and dance before descending into that black hole called medicine where white coats poke and prod whispering to themselves, pointing at you then miming saneness with their status and vacation homes. Transgression’s End never came so close to sliding off the cliff as my own intemperate thoughts, all wild and caught between third gear and first but still sticking in a tar pit of inconsolable despair, the kind of blubbering, sobbing mess guaranteed because no one wanted to see, to feel the madness creeping, sliding through the doors, trickling down the walls. Madness is the unwelcome dinner guest, given the cold shoulder and put in a corner until it starts to howl in the night. the mad – no, PEOPLE, are muzzled and caged, given pills and told they have to be normal again, have to because there is no place for delusional, maniac, bonkers, coku, or nuts in our drab world of straight streets and long check-out lines. No room for skating stars or playing galaxy pinball. Who mourns the demise of grand delusion? Who looks upon the fairies when the shrink has put them to sleep? Transgression’s End is filled with the ghosts of our Nevermore thought creations who crowded our young minds and lived a few childhood summers.
Jan. 29, 2010
Anywhere, anytime, any place. Who cares. Who knows. Just run until your legs are pools of rubber. Run until the sun melts the ground and his is far behind. Far behind at the place of evil; the home of shame. Run towards transgression’s end and freedom. She said he couldn’t date her because she was too old for him. He never believed. But he had never run away from his own head. She had. She buried it all at transgression’s end, where the sun opened a gate for the lucky few. Crowned the ones who can because it had to be done.
He persisted, leaving flowers and candies, cards with pretty hearts. She stayed beyond his reach. She was beyond him, beyond most humans, to the place where only the secret-keepers and survivors went. “If you want me,” she told him. “Run to transgression’s end. Walk through the sun’s core and feel clean again.” He never found transgression’s end. She smiled and nodded, “that is good. I hope you never have to run to transgression’s end. You never stop running and you never stop remembering.” He finally dismissed it as mumbo jumbo, helter skelter bullshit. She was cracked, loony, off her rockers, whatever you wanted to call it. But he could almost see transgression’s end right before sleep took over.
Jan. 10, 2010
Untitled (after Kelly Cherry)
You could die and be eaten, here
in a roundabout way
piece by piece because
all at once is too sudden -
there is no feeling.
You could die and be eaten, here
with clean linens and rusty forks.
You could die and be eaten, here
among the dusty words
of forgotten academics,
the little pieces of dry mouthed angst
held on to and passed on through
your mother’s hands.
It’s not the dying you hate
the leaving is its own reward,
a long-sought final conclusion.
It’s the time passing,
your heart beating in your ears,
the look in your lover’s eyes
you want to escape.
Happiness. What was happiness? It was something that came and went. I just figured the awful, dull sadness would go away. Just fucking go away. There would be some magical moment when I would be normal. Whatever cosmic switch had been flipped would reset itself. I always thought adults were the most normal. They didn’t worry about bullies or cliques. They didn’t walk into a room and feel trapped in their own skin. Fitting in takes years off your soul. None of that is true of course. Adults are still struggling to find themselves in the murky waters of social dysfunction. But to a kid – to me at least – adults were complete people who had figured themselves out. Even the grown-up bullies had their own niche. Maybe it’s why teenagers hate being teenagers. They want desperately to find their place, the little piece of happiness that is theirs alone. Even the emo kids.
Jan. 2, 2010
Our bodies personalized with the scent of long past victories marching in discordant chaos a park a sing-song of summer ducks the brief warmth of mother or maybe daddy who was it that held my hand when I reached for imagined relief a savior any savior to end that pain our bodies personalized with hidden yesterdays we stuffed underground the gun’s handle hot in our hands while the music the caterwauling rebellious punk rock crashed into our already scorched brains psychedelic man so heavy the bum said to you while he coughed up smog our bodies personalized with the scream that never quite left our lips because we were much too polite
What’s absurd is life gets back to normal. After the sleepless nights when your mind runs in circles, chasing every stray thought imaginable. After the days spent in a dull, cold building for mental cases. The halfway point between a doctor’s office and the loony bin. After feeling your skin crawl because the door is locked and you can see the snow outside but a large black man stands in your way. And there is a woman yelling at everybody, telling everyone her brother raped her. She’s rocking back and forth with a crazy look in her eyes. You think of the panther you saw at the zoo when you were a child; pacing back and forth, its muscles tense with fear. Somewhere inside you feel pain for her, feel something break because you can see yourself behind her eyes. And now you want to scream until your lungs are dry, want to claw your way through the walls. You wonder if the world has left you behind. They bring you food but you can’t eat, can’t settle down inside. You want to latch onto someone and never let go. This is where the damned go, the lost souls living in the dark. And you keep thinking to yourself, I’m not like them. But then you see your face and it looks scared, defeated, a crazy caged animal. Your muscles are tired of fighting gravity.
The horse stands perfectly still-
his blinders projecting from his head
like rear view mirrors.
He shifts his back leg -
standing on the tip of his hoof.
I can see the tension in his legs.
If he had a human voice he’d be shouting-
no screaming-
let me run!
Let me fly through the wind,
let me run naked and wild.
But he has no voice-
the tourists go around, past
their fat legs carrying mouths hungry
for dull pleasure.
The driver throws a dirty look at his horses,
his body a grotesque lump
with eyes resembling a pig’s.
He sang not of oceans
or grand balls
or knights riding into the sunset.
His voice barely whispered along telephone
wires.
His songs were lullabies heard only
in pre-dawn hours,
when our thoughts are young
with promises we can taste.
He sang of quiet strength in dark hours,
of love denied because scars can be too deep,
of childhood lost to the monsters under our beds.
We are here
in this house.
Its decrepit shadows playing tricks
on us.
We are here
in this house,
the ghosts of our childhood crowding around us,
clawing at us -
we ran from them long ago -
when
shadows
were our
playmates.
We stand here
in this house
waiting to pull away our skin
because our pores can’t contain
the fire burning within us.
We stand here
in this house
trying our best
to REALLY see each other -
to feel the weight we bore
in defense of others,
the secret wounds adult eyes never saw.
The memories we hid
in nail studs and dusty stairs -
the ugly pain we buried
in cracked plaster and
flung wide
through cold floorboards.
We face each other
across an empty room -
both unsure what our duty
is to past regrets.
I – the little girl I -
have carried your pain for far too long
and you – the adult you -
hid your true self
for want of human warmth.
You – the adult you -
longed to set your child self free -
yearned to build castles in the clouds
and fly beyond the sun
but you had a grown-up role to play.
We stand here
in this house
shedding our bruised travellers’ skin -
and we are children again
and we can trust again.
October 22, 2009
“Not forgetting” doesn’t even begin to come close. It’s the word that’s wrong – forgetting. It’s too final, too important sounding. “Not forgetting” sounds like some kind of penance, an ordeal of cleansing by fire. I am not forgetting my uncle’s death. I am not forgetting the schoolyard bully. I am not forgetting the fight with my lover.
Not forgetting doesn’t even begin to come close. There is a sort of fakeness about it; the tragedy masquerading as comedy. One thinks of a small ant believing his pile of sand won’t fall. When you tell me to simply forget – pull the lever and let the flood cleanse – it’s almost more than my heart can take. The essence of you is too deeply ingrained – an accidental smell of cologne, the absence of your snoring, the last can of spaghettios destined to stay unopened, the books you never reclaimed – they are all part of my world now. Like the sun rising every morning.
To simply forget isn’t human. My mind rebels against it. We may wake one morning and believe all traces of the other are gone from our consciousness. It may even be true for a few happy days. But then something will resurect the other. A stranger will have the same lips, a song will bring back a ghost of a past memory, a candy bar – his favorite – will stare up from the check-out line. So when you tell me to forget you I will smile through the tears and nod. I may even say “I’ll try” but that will be a lie.
Fragile
I hold myself delicately apart
because there are fractures underneath
my skin,
foreign objects jammed, embedded in my organs,
the debris of waking nightmares.
I hold myself delicately apart
because the dams burst so easily.
I feel myself shaking when voices
are too loud -
boots too heavy.
I hold myself delicately apart
so the stitches stay intact.
The Tongue (inspired by Lin Dinh)
Meaty words shaped and rolled
by a meaty tongue
for instant consumption
by pedestrians on the run
or mighty beasts ruling the jungle.
Meaty words shaped and rolled
by a meaty tongue
dripping with spicy juices
flung out wide with uncensored intentions.
Meaty words shaped and rolled
by a meaty tongue
with overdue expectations
based on role-playing D&D.
The Prozac Conendrum
What’s it like? What’s it like taking antidepressants? It’s my lifeline. It’s learning to love myself again. It’s excavating years of self-hatred and blame. It’s waking up to a bright day. It’s a lifetime of complicated feelings. It’s wondering if I can have children. Would it even be right to put a child at risk? Because you know the daytime monsters intimately.
You’ve been down so low the light disappeared. To expose a child to that seems criminal. What’s it like? It’s impossible to know second-hand. I always hate it when people talk about a Paxil or Prozac to deal with their life. I feel a surge of anger. Because underneath these words is ignorance. They are discounting real pain. They think their life is hard. They think their problems are monumental. To them depression isn’t really serious. It’s like the flu or cold. Just take a pill.
What they don’t understand is how difficult treating depression really is. I had to go through three anti-depressants. Finding an anti-depressant that works is trial and error. It’s not an overnight solution. I was lucky enough not to experience any side effects. But many people do.
The wrong antidepressant can cause insomnia, weight gain or emotional numbness. Another by-product of depression is emotional scars – the kind we hide deep underground. Years of depression means labels – hysterical, emotional, thin -skinned. It meant years of feeling defective, sometimes useless. It felt as though there was a glass wall between me and the world. No matter how hard you bang your fists – the glass never cracks.
Dancing at High Noon
Dancing in the dark at high noon catching fireflies during a dusty commute I see the ghosts of yesterday’s ambitions. Do you? Dancing in the dusk at high noon is something everyone does but never remembers in the clear thinking light of midnight. Dancing in the dark at high noon is never done alone but in twos and threes, sometimes foursomes. Dancing in the dark at high noon is frowned upon by sanctified church martyrs. They will flog you for less. Dancing in the dark at high noon is a worrisome activity to work driven individuals.
Sex Jungle
penis enhancement pumps discounted end of world doom signs half off triple sized breasts stand hard no longer soft curves but mounds of flesh Playboy accepted is is me or is it you standing outside the window looking in on half-naked strippers with prepubescent bodies bordering on regressed adolescence penis enhancement pumps discounted blowout sale of second-hand fantasies is it me or is it you standing outside the window looking in on forbidden desires running a muck because of modern schizophrenia
August 24, 2009
Untitled
Flat and put away –
Put out, pissed off
In short a self-raging cancer.
Flat and put away –
Deflated with an air
Of unease,
Bits of linen stuck to a
Rattletrap brain.
Flat and put away –
Like a broken back
Horse with too much baggage.
Flat and put away –
Pressed up, strung out,
Frazzeled and frail
And not entirely sane
Or was it vain?
Topped off with brandy
Just like you like it,
With a little note saying
“out to lunch”
Flat and put away –
With just enough air
To breathe for
½ a second because
That’s just enough time to say
“I miss you.”
Pornography U.S.A.
Inspired by Linh Dinh
But my country’s an illusion, a type
Of pornography
With painted faces
Who sigh a breathy sigh
Cause they love you
Or maybe it’s excess they love.
The vultures in suits ignoring
Contorted faces of poorer than poor
Because they’re getting an
Orgasmic thrill from their
Leather bags and
Blackberries and
Jumbo jets – all five of them.
My country’s an illusion, a type
Of pornography
Full of flashy stores
And bodies on the brink of
Plastic surgery self-discovery.
July 27, 2009
Neptune’s drydocked daughters
waiting in the night for
secret lovers
to rehearse past playdates
and longed for letters
of thoughts hiden within
their swollen cliteris
and tingling fingers.
Neptune’s drydocked daughters
praise their bodies.
Waiting, waiting
for a soft kiss.
Waiting, waiting
for daddy’s approval.
They display their sexuality
with boldness.
Needing, wanting
their lover’s mouthed benedictions.
Needing, wanting
daddy’s final acceptance.
Little girls grow up,
their bodies a sexual mass.
Close distances become uncomfortable,
hugs are filled with
Fruedian subtexts.
The daughter-turned-woman is no longer
a sexless little girl in pigtails.
June 24, 2009
Inspired by Linh Dinh
This poem was inspired by a line from Linh Dinh’s book Borderless Bodies. The line was, “And, finally, your favorite fairy tale painted on your new plastic limbs…”
Untitled
The tatoos inked on your back
say they are disturbed.
The new, sparkly tank top is
slowly adhering to your bones.
The bright-red fire engine circling your
living room floor.
The tatoos inked on your back
say they are disturbed…
Skinny jeans are twisting your muscles
into knots.
Your limbs, once so shiny
are dry sticks lacking cohesion.
And the barbie dolls have formed a picket line
across your bedroom door.
The tatoos inked on your back
say they are disturbed
because skin is too porous,
sweat no longer matters.
You spit pretty words out of your mouth
while your gums bleed acid.
And the slouching shadows
no longer know your name.
June 18, 2009
Remembered Hands (after Linh Dinh)
In that spot where you’re sitting, sir, 800 years ago -
A prostitute raised her face
towards the divine,
her hands holding a shattered
heart.
A young boy held a sword
and tried to be brave,
his hands were too soft
for cold steel.
A hunter sat,
his hands held the residue
of a deer’s fleeting life energy,
his body knew the value
of Mother Earth’s nourishing breathe.
June 15, 2009
I wrote this poem using a line from one of Nicole Brossard’s poems; Our bodies personalized like perfumes. I find the exercise is useful in breaking writer’s block.
Perfume
Our bodies personalized like perfumes,
with the scent of long past victories
and walks with daddy in the park,
who was it that held my hand?
Our bodies personalized like perfumes,
with hidden yesterdays
crashing into skyscrapers
while our bodies sway
to the rhythm of punk rock.
Our bodies personalized like perfumes
with the scream that never quite left
because our mouths were much too polite.
