Daisies

Daisies

“I want to see you.
I don't want to see you.
I want to touch you,
Reach out with both hands and shove.
I want you closer.
I want to be colder.
I want this over.
Somehow I can't get enough.

I want to get free.
I want you beside me.
Just want to leave you,
But you're a half-thought behind.
My heart is hazy,
Half-wishing on daisies,
This talk is crazy,
I must be out of my mind.

It wasn't what I thought I’d say at all.
So unexpected, your voice when I called.
My eyes land on the petals where they fall.
Couldn’t tell if you were listening at all.

What would you think if you knew anything at all?

Just want to be friends.
Want more than "just a friend."
But I can't confess
These words I'm dying to say.
One pluck says "tell you,"
Another, "forget you."
Don't know what I'll do
With all these thoughts in the way.

I want to kiss you.
I want to resist you.
Want to forget you,
But you just won’t be forgot.
You captivate me,
Confuse and frustrate me.
So I muse lately,
You love me, you love me not.

I watch my fortunes change alternately,
Seeing you walk away and then pick me.
And even though I know it might not be,
What's wrong with being willing to believe?

I am full of dreams, and the world is full of daisies.

I am full of dreams, and the whole world’s full of daisies.”


===================
Not a terribly orignal title, but it's not a terribly great "poem" either. I was thinking more that perhaps it would make a decent song if I weren't such a craptastic composer.

O for a tale to tell

O for a tale to tell

your comments leave me feeling cold.
"what's with you and...?"
when, ever, has there been a story?
you haven't known me long enough
to know that never. never yes.
already I am sorry for
the time when you'll stop asking.

The Surgeon

The Surgeon

you’ve staunched the bloodflow of my words
a tourniquet of sour surprise
I know I shouldn’t feel betrayed
but still I feel a twist of steel
that chills the muscles of my spine
here in your operating room
you’ve cut away the flesh and skin
denuded me with glaring lights
discovered secrets murder-deep
and having seen what was to see
my naked form spread wide with pins
you sutured shut with reckless grace
the ragged edges of the seam
I woke to find the brand new scar
incised as by your quick brown eyes
you are a surgeon with your words
with knives as sharp as sweetened lies
and with the mask across your face
that razored edge is in your gaze
your anesthesia clouds my mind
confounding rational command
as one by one the stars shine out
in deepening night behind my eyes
in one last flash of light I see
the sunset glinting in your hand

mcpoem

A revisitation of an earlier poem


McPoem

the whole world’s gone inane
with television infomercials
at its neon banner-head
ob-literate by caffeination
our over-medicated nation
undermines the naïve soul
and sells each half-hour in its stead
direct injection in the veins
its glass-eyed patronage secured
in intravenous, subdued, assent
in sesame street-like sound and feeling
in empty noise somehow appealing
a parody of sentiment
but poetry is so revealing,
a portraiture of dismissed feelings
and, underneath the clichéd phrase,
confessions of an unwashed brain.

this mortal coil

This Mortal Coil

ages after curtain call,
why am I still here?
trapped in slow transition,
life a funhouse mirror;
the unhinged jaws
of this strange limbo,
in a fractured mess
of re-reflections,
it swallows me whole.
so numbed, I've fallen
down the rabbit hole,
or did I leap?
half-anesthetized,
I'm bleary-eyed,
but somehow wide awake,
clinging to ten minutes
of commiseration
between an instant's endless stretch
and the bell tower's
pre-recorded peal.

the waking

The Waking

the everyday is strange
forever changed, my depth perception
one momentary elevation
crash-landed on a plane
an alien in this former life
how could this be mine?

forget-you-not

forget-you-not

everything reminds me,
yellow post-it notes and memos
tacked up everywhere:
“while you were out”s
and “don’t forget”s far
down the rain-wet streets,
enveloping this house
where every
move incurrs a paper cut.

Queen of Spades

Queen of Spades

so many pretty snapshots,
smiling faces, eyes locking in loving glances,
all carefully hidden away, locked
in their pretty little box with the silver key.
but away from the musky dusk light,
from under the attic dust,
a dusty, crumpled old shoebox lies,
full of faded magazine clippings
scattered into the fluorescent lights,
all the pretty secrets spilled
like ash into a burning wind,
an empty breeze to cool
the beads of nervous sweat
that aren't collecting on my ashen face.
I sit, nailed in place with my shadow
to the floor; restless, but
unable to escape the omnipresent light -
it follows to the window, through the door.
I cannot hide, so haunted, daunted
by the shadow of the memory
of your blue, piercing eyes.
I can hardly bear to meet them in the photographs
you must notice how I shun you
face to face. my cards are all laid out
upon the table, yet you hold
your poker face.

misfire

Misfire

One wan smile
should not be enough
to cure you of your worries.

You were right to say it.
I'm not okay.

I hid in a bathroom stall,
to hide my red eyes.
You waited.

Silent, you walked beside me,
brown eyes searching my downcast face,
seeking blue eyes,
red eyes,
eyes that couldn't meet yours.

Are you okay?
I'm fine.
Are you okay?
I'm fine!
You're not fine.

One wan smile,
and empty words of release.
One lonely walk home.

Are you the gentleman you say you are?
Or aren't you?

You left too early,
And came back too late.
I waited.

Silent, I stood silhouetted in the window,
blue eyes searching the street,
seeking your familiar figure,
coming back to me;
you didn't come in time.

Are you coming back?
...
Are you coming back?
...
You're not coming back.

I'm fine!
I'm fine...
I'm fine.

Casual Observance

casual observance

I want every moment to be everything.
I want you to know exactly who I am.
This is the same motivation
that causes me to rearrange my sandwiches.


===============

I want every moment to be everything.
I want you to know exactly who I am.
Stemming from this is the same motivation
that causes me to rearrange my sandwiches.
You walked, whistling, down my street
just as I was thinking and not thinking of you.
I watched you from my kitchen window.
Ironic that, even should you chance to read this,
you’d never know I really meant you.
And wouldn’t know what it meant if you did.

Super Savior

super savior

a threeway tie in aisle nine;
(you know the corner that I mean).
where juices meet the bakery shelves,
we would-be savers got ourselves,
bent dairy-bound, stuck in between.

“excuse me,” awkward, mumbled toward
the shape across the sales rack, while
our eyes fix on a single point
above the other’s shoulder joint,
our chapped lips forcing frozen smiles.

but no one sees the faces, as
we mutely pass without a glance;
reversing, turning, rolling on
toward milk and cream and parmesan,
a meaningless, unspoken dance.

and everywhere, the faces stare
with vacant looks from empty eyes
that say, “I’m just trying to get home,
to other numbnesses I know.”
and thoughts start settling in my mind:

perhaps it is that we’ve forgot
the way we dreamed things might have been;
that this is not the life we chose,
but oe’r this revelation rose
the banal noise of life within

this rhythmic racket, ancient carts
off rattling over cracking floors.
I cannot help but simply think,
(betwixt the breads and sugared drinks)
that we were meant for something more.

A Flying Pony

a flying pony

there are quondam memories
few
and far between
I hoard them up like
precious treasures
secrets
hidden away in heavy carved wood chests
gloated over
in the long
watches of the night
but I will show them to you if
you would creep with me up
the creaky attic stairs into
the dusty sunlight of september
afternoons
filtered through grimy windowpanes
show you
the tattered photographs
read you
the fading letters
the timeworn remnants of another life
tell me
tell me it's more
than old magazine clippings
in a disintegrating shoebox
tell me the difference
between a memory
and a dream.

Devotion's Visage

devotion's visage

a camera, too, is but a tool -
a simple box, a clear,
impartial lens that sees
whatever you want it to see.
I saw you.



(and the original:)
devotion's visage

I don’t think you ever realized

my pictures were my devotion to you.

no one ever sees you

like one who loves you.

the greatest and grandest masterpieces of art,

glorified forever in the opulence of their gilt frames,

were still made of paint.

a camera, too, is but a tool -

a simple box, a clear,

impartial lens that sees

whatever you want it to see.


I saw you.

autumn for a moment

Autumn for a Moment

one of those quiet moments in between;
a white green garden place.
a sun’s day morning, an early afternoon.
roomie’s other half and I sit and stand,
philosophizing in the open quiet of a recently vacated room.
one hasn’t progressed in time for nearly half a decade,
the other’s self has lost track of time altogether.
happy meals are American philosophy, we decide.
they depart
I meander barefoot through the apartment,
attentive to my soles’ explorations,
sink slowly back into the white comforter on my bed.
vertical slats of white slice the blued glass of the window,
scatter shadows drifting about the room.
everywhere outside, along the quiet streets,
golden leaves are falling, collecting, rustling, in the drains.

all I want

all I want

give me two arms that are warm, solid, real, comforting.
it’s not an embrace that I’m after.
all that I want is a hug.

give me two eyes that will tell me how much I am wanted.
it’s not a deep gaze that I’m after
all that I want is a look.

give me someone who will hold me in glad times or not-so
it’s not a white knight that I’m after.
all that I want is your love.

Ode to Cynicism

Ode to Cynicism

the whole world’s gone inane
with television infomercials
elected as our head
just drown it in the caffeination
our over-medicated nation
will see no dreams unmake your bed
just feel it in your veins
this apathy somehow appealing
to longings for the sane
whilst poetry is so revealing
a portraiture of unsensed feelings
confessions of an unwashed brain

Washington's Sunday Etude

Washington's Sunday Etude

it’s morning and the calendar
is set a page two days ago
I let the water run and lean
against one gleaming shower wall
still wondering where the evening went

I tend to write of things of which
I’m just peripherally part
as seen beyond a pane of glass
I am the eye behind the lens
and sit backstage to pull the strings

it’s morning and I’m wondering if
in twelve-point font, laid end to end
the poems that start with just "it’s morn-
-ing" would the earth’s circumference stretch
and so redeem this waste of words

I always dread the evenings’ ends
that pass somehow so unfulfilled
and so, from pocket’s depth I fish
one half-dead pen to scratch the tip
of feelings insufficiently expressed

A Friday Night

a friday night

1. magnetized

couchback silhouette,
bent and black
inside the glass.
you sat from me
two cushions away
like we’d been polarized.
can’t you feel
(your uncanny sixth sense)
this magnetic divide
of dissonance?


2. walk-throughs not served

left, right, left; our
shapes make rhythms
predictable on the sidewalk;
two long shadows laid
neatly out before us
like corpses never more
than at a friendly distance.


3. a walk home

leafless trees are speechless trees;
bare branches barely shake, while talk
skitters and slides across the sidewalk;
articulately brittle, autumn’s raspy address
falls desiccate from the frozen air
january, weary, tires of the ado.

Without Title

Without Title

the viscous hardness of glass
is cool against my fevered forehead.
I am calm, ever the pillar of strength,
the image of bull-like serenity,
while red incites riots inside
this quasimodoid body.
I feel my blood-flushed skin connect
and meld into the pane
fingers follow; knuckles, hands,
bleeding wrists and arms, and all.
like stepping through a cobweb,
the window becomes my train.
I always tried to be honest, and now,
made of glass, the matter’s made easy
now no shape matters - mine can’t be seen.
I walk, and like an empty goblet,
the silence and the stillness fill me to the brim.
I gently pluck a flower from the earth,
drift absently through a bench, and think of him.
a sudden breeze gathers shards of glass.
I find I’m falling to pieces.
I see him come. I don’t have a reason.
I take a breath, feel my being expand,
and, like a sigh, evaporate.
the flower falls, the danger passed.
the story’s safe.

A Walk Home

a walk home

leafless trees are speechless trees;
bare branches barely shake, while talk
skitters and slides across the sidewalk;
articulately brittle, autumn’s raspy address
falls desiccate from the frozen air
january, weary, tires of the ado.

Walk-Throughs Not Served

Walk-Throughs Not Served

left, right, left; our
shapes make rhythms
predictable on the sidewalk;
two long shadows laid
neatly out before us
like corpses never more
than at a friendly distance.

Magnetized

magnetized

couchback silhouette,
bent and black
inside the glass.
you sat from me
two cushions away
like we’d been polarized.
can’t you feel
(your uncanny sixth sense)
this magnetic divide
of dissonance?

Lament for Daylight

Lament for Daylight

my roommate likes the indoor lights.
her garishly flourescent noon
makes sick the soul that loves the nights
with starspots climbing down from heights
known only to the moon.

On Hold

On Hold

three years now, and holding;
convincing myself to cancel the order,
that I can do without;

phone pressed to my ear all the while -
patience waning, knuckles white

item is backordered, still delayed;
please stay on the line.

I am one of those compliant customers
who amiably agrees to wait;

and so I wait,
phone receiver clammy cold
against cartilage and skin,

waiting
for the order to come in.
I haven’t been pissed off at you this way
since first we met.

still nothing so much as a beep -
silence and silent anger on the line.

you always were obvlivious,
never suspecting it felt like this.

still waiting.
please hold, miss.

Social Note

Social Note

"You're funky,"
he says.

"Yes..."
reply I, "funky.

Like something
that's been sitting
on the back shelf
of the refrigerator
for three months."

He replies with a sigh;
the kind of sigh that says,
"You're impossible."

Funny how quickly
men change
their minds.

September Light

september light

my brain’s a rainy walk,
a cool September night
and when it deigns to talk,
devours the autumn light.

waiting in the darkness,
marvelling at this feeling,
cold in all its starkness,
sober head unreeling.

unbend the bonds that bind
my guileless ankle soaked
stray, feet, from paths behind;
their miseries uncloaked.

Twenty-Three

twenty-three

her last september never came;
the august sickness took its toll.
in solid stone, they carved her name:
a soundless word on grassy knoll.

as leaves turn colors of her laugh,
red-orange and gold on autumn’s breath,
the bells mourn one so young to pass -
she, even beautiful in death.


-------------------

Elegy for a teacher.


08 23 19 94 42 9 11

Memory's Wheel

Memory's Wheel

the new days are here;
find them finely ground:
dust on the wheel of the old;
new journey begins without
memory’s remembrance:
old tale relived never told;
leagues of dust on its curve,
from time beyond memory:
memory’s forgot the new road.



-------------------

The title on this one is tentative. I've been reading like a fiend (even for me) the past week or so. Finished reading the seventh Dark Tower book earlier today (long'un - took me the better part of two or three days). This poem is at least semi-inspired by thoughts DT7 left bouncing about in my brain. Ka is a wheel.

Summer's Evening

Summer's Evening

There are pink elephants playing in the cornflowers. And under their green sentinels, Apollo painted all the houses gold. Pink tails chase through the fields, dark-cloaked Nyx riding out of the East in swift pursuit, as one by one Apollo gilds them, and they blush at Nyx's approach and flee.

--------------------


For the record, I never actually meant for this to be a poem. A friend of mine called it such, and I guess I don't completely disagree. You be the judge. Either way, it was a lovely evening.

Oktobre

Oktobre

hello october
crisp wind and leaves
the smooth roundness
of pumpkins at walmart
everything is going back to the beginning
thicker socks
and a heavier jacket
wind-ruffled hair
people and leaves
tumbling hither and thither
to escape the cold
that creeps between cracks
sets toes numb
grass withered
and in the air
the tang of october
an october sky
an october sun

--------------------



Found this in an old LJ entry - thought it may be worth posting.

Summertime

Summertime

days hiccup and skip
the jumbled structure
that kept them ordered
and orderly stretched
like so much canvas on a frame
collapsed in splintered fragments
of sunlight on the floor
town left the circus
left the acrobats unsuspended
in the middle of the air
and with no one to catch them
no one to count them
the days slide by unbroken
unmindful of the undertow
like sunlight on the placid face
of a muddy brown river

Revelanguor

Revelanguor

drugged up
by my own desire
for something to be wrong,
something to be different.
I write when I feel like this.
but the truth is
truth doesn't need explaining;
the truth is
I sometimes forget it.
somehow,
the face in the mirror
isn't the one
I expected to see.

____________________




I'm not sure whether I like this one; and I don't really have an explanation to offer for this thought. The truth is that some things need no explanation, that some things cannot be explained, and that, for some things, an explanation simply doesn't exist.

The Dandelion

the dandelion

No. Untie the strings. Withdraw your nets. Try to snare me, and all you will catch is sand, which slides swiftly through your fingers.

I am not here to be caught. And I never meant to catch you.

These wings are unclipped, made restless by the sight of horizons not yet crossed, worlds not yet seen.

You are a kind, sweet, thoughtful sandbag. I am an ascending hot air balloon. I don't want your weight. I'm bailing ballast as quickly as I can. The last thing I want is another sandbag.

I don't want to hurt you. But I don't want to keep you, either. Less still do I want to be kept.

I am a fairy tale, a pipe dream. As beautiful and as constant as a bouquet of dandelions on a windy day.

A Thought

A Thought

too dark for you?
perhaps.
I wear her face,
a birthmark,
a death mask.
who are you
to see past it?

eyes, it's said
are the windows
of the soul;
and believe
when I say:
these blue windows
are closed.

you are a stranger
and I am stranger
than you know.

--------------------



Not meant to be quite as emo/angsty as it sounds.

Many people, one in particular, got a glimpse of my "dark" side today.
Perhaps the perpetual tinge of strangeness about me was further explained.
Perhaps further mystified.
Who knows.

The addressee of the poem is a generalization.

The Coffee Vigilante

The Coffee Vigilante


1. candlelit

gleam of glass
fades into black
flickered light in windchimes
echoing, silent, from the blinds
swinging forward
swinging back
a night owl's vigil
knowledge seeking
stormwaiting
pencil-reaching, hesitating
ever restless
never sleeping
at the window,
watching, waiting


2. the insomniac

an alien resides inside this body
it stays up late drinking coffee
and writing poetry
sometimes restlessness overcomes it
and it leaves the apartment
and wanders around,
meandering through shadows
and pools of light
some cool, rainy sunday nights,
it leans against the balcony rail
and watches the weekend wayfarers
wend their ways through car lots
with arms full of laundry
and slowly exhales
breaths of cool, dark, dewy air
sometimes it stands and stares
at its glass reflection
as though trying to convince itself
a little alien is normal
unknown who named the word
or how it corresponds
to hyper-caffeinated consciousness
and an alien's insomnia


3. into the dark

I did not watch the candle die
one moment it shimmered,
flickering merrily
on the ghost of a wick
the flick of an instant
the bat of an eye
and there was only glass
reflecting longingly
the extinguished light
of an ebony wick
a wisp of smoke in the dark
into the night like a sigh


4. empty glass

a drop runs dry,
fleeing the black depth
of one empty vessel
for another

--------------------



I am often restless at night, a longtime insomniac - and I have a habit of compounding the problem by staying up and consuming excessive amounts of coffee.

Nimbostratus

Nimbostratus

giants in the sky
I saw your picture yesterday
in silver and in humid air
I knew you were coming
this morning I woke
to the sound of your footsteps
through water and dawnlight
to my open window
I was awake and waiting
in the windchimed stillness
hello, good morning
I've missed you

--------------------



I woke one morning to the scents of rain, ozone, and laundry-fresh blankets. T'was lovely.

No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached

left followed right
in a day made of April
thoughts flowed
as sunshine
on magnolia blossoms
river in the bed
so nice
just to talk
like escapees far
from backwards
worlds tied up in strings

Unswept

Unswept

waiting
pointless
time frozen
in motionless brick
waiting for what?
something that won’t come
garbage in gutters,
by buildings,
in corners of the night,
waiting like me
to be swept up
and forgotten
the eternal sweeper sleeps
we rot, molding
in our filthy corners
putrid shadows
filth and human waste
blithering drunkenness
wander the streets midst
clattering heels
and black-jacketed
mini-skirted couples
sucking face
this fucking place
smoke-choked light
mirrored back
in stagnant puddles
against the black
ancient stains
unpainted
dried beads
of nervous sweat
brain clenches
stomach wrenches
sleep will not come easily tonight
broken, tainted
if it comes at all

Golden Arches

Golden Arches

empty cans
empty bottles
stale air
the stench of
human perspiration
party’s over
guests lie prostrate
lifeless
beer bellies peek
between buttons
one-hole sock
snores on the couch
our gracious host
is downstairs
fucking his sober girlfriend
cotton mouth
sweating
clammy
cold
molding in crevices
and dark corners
where night
sleeps tonight
I can’t
car keys jingle
get away
just want to escape it
can’t fight it
can’t outrun it
it pulses and shakes
the apartment walls
dirty
sickening
unclean
we are rolling in it
the saints
are masturbating
in the back room
semen stains
on reputations
leering eyes
in smoke-filled
alleyways and
entrances to buildings
we are rolling in it
fucking rolling in it
bits of leaves
and trash
and cigarette butts
clinging
to sweaty bodies
as they grind together
garbage
molding
rotten
filthy
garish flourescent lights
the empires unite
over their trash kingdom



--------------------

Too much to explain. If you want to know, ask.

Testing

Testing

a two-person dance
'round a long, metal sink;
he needs this jug,
I need that bottle;
paths intersect,
arms cross,
hands collide;
agitation forgotten
in an awkward,
unspoken,
unmeant tango;
the body reacts,
a half-hearted,
automated reply;
but it's as though
I'm not at home;
perhaps because
I am.

--------------------



The flint was struck, but the wood was green.

Lemoncide

Lemoncide

I’ve gotten sharper since we went our ways;
perhaps someone put a contrast filter on me.
I speak, half to shock you,
half to make you realize you never knew me
half as well as you thought you did.
Nor I you.
I expect your reactions to the sharpened statements;
the lemon sting of a more foreign-seeming tongue,
but when your lips proverbially pucker
at the sound-taste of unbarbed words,
I sometimes find myself stung.

Mad Avenue

Mad Avenue

caught in the mindless rush of 9 a.m. traffic
feet, like herds of cattle, trample the daily roads
lambs to slaughter. destiny? pretentiousness.
someone shut off color. shattered glass. the world went gray.
from human cattle and ugly rooftops rise
clouds of smoke and curling steam
nicotine-rich, to join the gray.
apartment steps of aging wood
groan as though they share this morning’s hangover
under their festive litter of bottle caps and cigarette butts.
doors seem to lean one against another
weary, yawning in the morning gray.
number eight is gathering dust; it has a lovely collection.
last door, second floor, the porch light waits for no one
its eye has been put out.
mis amigas se van
I envy a stable life, a social life
mine is work and class, confusion and uncertainty
and the empty gaps that lie between
like city silence in an emptying apartment

Reminiscence

Reminiscence

comfortable shadows
disturbed, eaten
by cold, accusing flourescent light
far from guitar-strummed,
lamp-lit silence
how I miss the evening quiet
of foreign mountains,
like fingers reaching up to touch
the face of a star-strewn sky

--------------------



I miss the Alps.

Soledad

Soledad

Reclusive figure spinning on the outskirts of stars, flung from orbit to orbit. ¿A dónde vas? The stars grow brighter, moving out and away towards their gleaming metropoli. The entity cannot follow, cannot keep up. It is not on the inside, has never really been. Solo, solo. Hay todo. Soon, it seems, the nebulae will have forgotten it altogether, save for midnight phone calls to keep intact a thread of touch. Hay nadie. Desperately it needs; not a binary star, but a binary entity. Hay nadie. Solo. Siempre solo.

Sand and Stone

Sand and Stone

There is nothing of me in the grains of sand held in a grasping, albeit gentle, hand. An unspoken bid on a well-hidden stone; a mere pipe dream of words, cannot alone lay claim to its heart, whose secrets drew you in. The lead is not the pencil. The ink is not the pen. The illusion, though alluring, is neither all nor enough. For it is that, not the truth, that you are enamored of. The truth, the stone, claims nothing, which in turn claims the stone. Ever-rolling, moss-free, and, by nature, alone.

The Doppler Effect

The Doppler Effect

the sound of footsteps falls away,
but they follow where I go.
you're the one they've left behind.
not me.
not this time.

A-Z

A-Z

Z has lost sight of the music
All he seeks is glory

I hadn’t seen it before
I was a glory-seeker myself

I am A and earning it
Doing my best to live

Always in the music
Let no one, nothing, draw me out

Be drawn in
Let no one, nothing, draw me out

Always in the music
Doing my best to live

I am A and earning it
I was a glory-seeker myself

I hadn’t seen it before

--------------------



This poem isn't super great, but it's conception was kind of interesting. Initially, it was about "Z" - someone in the music department where I go to school who I had felt had lost sight of his priorities - his aim was glory, not music, beauty, or truth. I began writing this poem in my Spanish class - I am left-handed and Leonardo da Vinci is one of my heroes, so I often write my poetry backwards - and this particular day, I decided that I'd write my poem upside down as well. I read it back, inverted from the way it had sort of spun from my mind - and ended up kind of having a revelation about myself.

So the first part of the poem is as written what more or less spun from my mind, and with the pivoting line "Be drawn in," the poem flips over and inverts itself.

Homecry

Homecry

I want to become
the green grass,
lying, resting, beneath the night
I want to become
one with the moonlight,
the grass, the air
I don't want this human shape,
crushing the grass,
creating monstrous shadows
and frightening the rabbits
I want to become
the cool dew
hanging in the dark air
constant, changeless,
emotionless
I want to take the road
back to all these,
back to the power that is in these
I am weary of
human artifice
and of my part in it
please take my hand
lead me home.

Untitled

Untitled

sarah sarah good
dependable, expendable
angels apprehendable
demons reprehensible
say hi diddley diddle
sarah good is in the middle
condescension's angel
scorns your lot loved little
hidden back surprises
sweetest nel
white in worldly
the bastard child
nineteen



-------------------

This poem is kind of old, but still conveys the uncertainty of nineteen.

The Gardener

The Gardener

I confessed to you sweet secrets, blossoming in the darkness of my soul, where such blooms were thought never able to grow again. And I told you that you were the seed, the sun, the rain, the flower, and the vine. In secret, this hesitant, shadowed garden grew, spreading sweetly, discreetly, like ivy in a silent wood - beautiful, alive, and green; but also stifling that which it oerspreads. So I came to you, ivy running wild, to show you the sequestered garden that you had planted and nurtured into life. I told you how often I had tried to prune the vines, but that, alas, it continued to grow with vigor more renewed each time. You did not wish to enter or to claim the garden you had planted. But still your sun shone upon it and your rain came down. And the lovely flowers budded, blossomed, bore fruit, and withered on the vine, wasted, untasted, and unwanted, like the thousand other gardens that have lain barren within my soul. And now, I fear, you have forgotten altogether this painfully flourishing garden, now producing thorns. The gates lie open, my soul lies bared, I sit in the garden swing and wait. I’ve long forsaken the hope that you will change your mind, or that time will change your heart. But the garden will not die, and it is just as well. For the twisting vines and unforgiving thorns of this abhorrent garden are better by far than the aching emptiness of barren lands and a barren heart.

Pearls

Pearls

my hands are clammy,
but they hold no pearls;
your hand holds hers,
but does hers hold back?
I am an extra
in your life’s grand sort of play:
valued some,
for conversation,
a stand-in, even,
when the leading lady
is occupied
with her leading man,
but as easily expunged
from memory
as she strings you on.
pearls on pearls,
your hands hold nothing -
encased in a milky shell.

Fruity

Fruity

time with you is like a ripe fruit
pluck it from the vine
savor the flavor
don’t sour it, don’t let it fall
or taste before its time
it may not be your favorite
but it is one of mine
I savor the sweet glucose of its memory
long after I’ve licked the last juices
from my fingertips
delectable and dear
catch it falling from the vine
no five-second rule here

Käj

Käj

today, I caught a glimpse into your world
and now find myself intrigued
by your life's internal poetry;
the words are as familiar as your face,
thoughts I know, but cannot place.

--------------------



I wrote this last year as well, for a friend of mine. I'd met him for the first time, but felt strongly for some reason that I'd met him before.

Evening

Evening

evening falls
the kingdom of Morpheus
descends in scenes
painted in colors
from Artemis' palette
silver and shadow
beauty and peace
within a sphere
dreams slowly unfolding
like gossamer spun
upon a continent of shadow
in a sea of moonlight
beautified now,
the world of the weary
slumber and dream,
dear mortals,
slumber and dream

The Gulf

The Gulf

looking back
across this abysmal gulf
at the self I used to be
looking back at me
breathing the ashes
of the bridge I burned
wishing memory
and self-reflection
weren't too tenuous a bridge
to hold my soul's weight
trying to recapture
those things I've lost
I'm not that person anymore
in losing, I have gained,
but in gaining, I have lost.

ready, set, write

Here goes nothing - hopefully I can get these all posted pretty quickly.

a purpose?

I had intended to use this blog as a place to put some of my photographs online - a photog-blog, if you will - but for reasons of formatting difficulties, am finding this to not work out as nicely as I'd hoped. So I think I will use my Xanga account, which is currently my poetry blog, for photo posting, and begin the long, somewhat tedious task of transferring all of my poetry to this account. This could be interesting.

entry the first

Well well, I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of the creation of yet another blog is, but that's okay. I guess one can never have too many. If you are sincerely interested in what I have to say (and I couldn't imagine why you would be, as I've just begun saying stuff here), then I suggest you check out my LJ - which is central to pretty much all of my online stuff. Here 'tis:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/lute_of_jubal

I also have a Xanga account, but I just use that to post and talk about my poetry. But here's that as well:

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=lute_of_jubal

Anyhoo, that's all for now.

unremarkably yours,
me