December 6, 2010

Ornamented Memory

(photograph by Sally Mann)
The brown bear, her first Christmas gift
was defenseless,
when with beet colored breath
Jane gnawed and shredded his skin.

Her cotton teeth closed over each grainy strand of stuffing
while her lips cracked over the texture of tears.

The December winds kicked noisely outside.
A small bag of rocks sat firm and small inside of her throat.

Lodged, locked, lonesome.

December 1, 2010

First of December

The wind whipped Jane's long hair
till it struck her cheekbones in fury

a thick thud that
drew blood.

November 25, 2010

Simply

Standing in the driveway's loud array of leaves

Jane kissed each callouse
Bashful and pleased.

Eleven

The first time Jane fell in love,
She was eleven years old.

It had been a grey Thanksgiving
and he was a boyfriend meeting sister's parents.

Side by side,
he picked at purpled cranberries
while she scratched distractedly at the slippered bruises on her knees.

"Shyness is nice" he offerred confidentially.
"Like a snowflake" she murmered back.

November 11, 2010

Wednesday's Ramble

(via Style Rookie)
I wonder if you see my eyes eating you up,
peeking over the edge of my green book to get a glimpse.

You are smiling bemusedly, I think you know I'm in love.

You call me 'cutie pie'
and I feel like a child,
but not in the good way.

In the way that begs you to see me the way I want to be seen,
not in the way that I am.

October 16, 2010

Presentation Day

You smiled at me
in your coat and tie
I dropped my coffee.

October 7, 2010

10

(via Sea of Shoes)

October;
even the leaves burn alive.

October 3, 2010

Friday Night (for MK)

We burrowed in tight and locked up all those keys.

I have blurry memories, but most of it is just conjecture.

After all, what are they worth now?

Not the nights of menthol in the back seat,
or the quiet days when I just wished to hear you sing.

Everything seems kissed with finality.

Yearning for more and everything and all at once; can't have it.

Most of all,
watching the light flicker in and out of your horse shoe eyes
begging it to stay.

None of it will be left,
come May
so why not accumalate every bruise?

September 30, 2010

In A Pile of Leaves and Ash


It is early October
too cold
for Summer's light.

Legs crossed Indian in the driveway
I sit
smoking myself warm.

Watching him
flicker;
my own last pocket star.

All the others have died
after three year time allotments
then a last season of glory.

He remains
huddled in my palm.

We have both been left.

After summer
in the cold.

September 23, 2010

Tuesday Night

You hold my hand,
I am counting.

How long till you let go?

September 22, 2010

Mid Week

Even in a moment
I am outside of it
Analzying.

I want to make a map of you
Then follow those lines
To the inside.

September 14, 2010

80s Windbreakers

Child:
slips, trips, skips.

Adult:
Leftover cheerios in a bowl full of sour milk.

September 8, 2010

Clicks, Stutters, Leaks

My bones clatter,
I realize sex is all elbows and ankles.

Love: a bat of eyelashes, a bite of tongue.

August 31, 2010

You Say Rolls, I Say Royce


The shirt you wear is a potato, full of starch

I am bending with my head in your car door window
kissing you a twelve year goodbye

Your corduroy shoes are hesitating o'er the pedal
and I realize that goodbyes are not:

"I'll call you once I get there."
"Be good. I love you."

or even the screech of tires on fading concrete.

Goodbye was the moment I realized you were rolling up the glass with my head still inside your car, feet on tiptoe outside the door.

August 24, 2010

Juiceboxes, Nudist Colonies.


Crush
crunch
lunch (I don't sit with you)

Hush
bunch
punch

Blush
munch
hunch (You won't make eye contact with me)

August 21, 2010

Fight #763

The thunder sounds like another voice
Yelling at me.

August 18, 2010

When God Closes A Door...


What happens if there are no windows?

August 8, 2010

Palingenesis

Jane put her suitcase under the bed.
The Gardenia Dress was still too big.
Her walls were still purple.

The lavinder cat purred,
and Jane addressed him solemnly:

"It is not time for the palingenesis yet, Demiurgus."

July 31, 2010

In Honor


"Oh Fuck
Goodbyes Suck."

-Lyss Gorman

July 19, 2010

Connect The Dots

My body is a connect-the-dot
I draw lines with melting crayons
in a childlike need to see a bigger picture of who I am.

I've been spending most nights staring at my own sliver of sky
between the arches of Columbia University
and the rising smoke of a million cigarettes.

Three things I'm scared of:

"We only have 10 days left here."
"We are out of coffee."

and that all of life, is merely a goodbye.

July 13, 2010

Brooklyn


We drove across the Bridge 2 summers ago.

Michael packed the essentials:
a jar of peanut butter,
a box of hangers,
and my scratched Simon and Garfunkel record.

It got hung on the wall,
we never actually bought a player,
the sound of silence was enough.

Waking up to sunrise skin,
The whirring of the fan,
and eventually,

to self.

June 22, 2010

Night Run

Swallowed a lightening bug yesterday
blink:
daisy colored dusk is on my cheek.

May 26, 2010

Tire Swing Romance

A solitary freckle on his nose
becomes the focal point of face

Marshmallow kisses that melt
sticky in the sun

That thawing of limbs
intertwining of tawny branches

A palpatation
a frantic need, a slow

Michael, rubber kisses, and a two month withdrawl.

May 20, 2010

Incisors

When you smiled all your teeth fell out into my palm.

I tucked 28 under your pillow. Good for a small fairy fortune.

Kept the 4 full of wisdom.

Sewed them into my cheeks, stole your judgement.

Later, watched you fall in love with me.

May 16, 2010

Gertrude Stein, "Tender Buttons"

Challenging, mindblowing poetry.



These are 2 of my favorite lines taken from the collection "Tender Buttons"


"A light white, a disgrace, an ink spot, a rosy charm"
-A Petticoat

"A star glide, a single frantic sullenness, a single financial grass greediness."
-A Waist

May 8, 2010

Innocence

There are blisters on my feet from walking away.

The summer lasted 40 days and 40 nights
Then it rained.

Whenever he approaches I quiver
Like the pink velvet of a rabbit's nose.

Run away from everything
Guns especially.

Smoke too.

Rain puts out fire
Never smoke.

Steam is good.

Harmless and vaporizing
Vicks, Irons, and Showers.

I call this innocence.

April 21, 2010

Jane's Potential Former Existence

Jane often wondered:
"Was I dead before I was alive?"
Usually, this idea would come to her at odd moments

Not in idyllic bright orange and blue mornings
but in the everyday melding of the kaleidoscope-
which made purple

Filling out tax returns or while absently feeding the cat:
"Did I exist before I existed?"
Of course, the idea of never existing is unfathomable to all

Because, to be God is the human aspiration
nevertheless, Jane had to have been something before

Some island under stained seas
or perhaps a time warp-
through which the polychromatous traveled

April 20, 2010

Study In Purple/Jane

Jane collected jewelry,

never buttons

which were only good for mending.

Jane had: a mother

an iris flower

a cat with a gem color.

In the purple promise of a Thursday

Jane found an amethyst band

and said she was committed.

In a fictional elopement

enveloped in lavender cigarette haze

Jane fled.

Driving toward a city

with gelatin skylines

and plum pavement,

Jane called her mother

who had been worried,

asleep.

Over the lilac receiver

she promised to be unhappy

and quietly resentful.

Mauve-streaked veins

pulsed wine

And Jane put on her purple coat.

April 18, 2010

Childhood Home

There was a sloping yard

a pine tree

a front door—

no mat.

The purple room was mine

and had a window to the porch.

If I had stayed longer

it would have been perfect for sneaking out.

A kitchen with slanting windows

a piano salvaged

with splinter keys

and aging ivory.

Two twin beds

with truck-covered comforters

one fiercely rumpled,

the other gentle, smooth.

Another room:

a low mattress beneath a crack of light

a bathroom

with a toilet.

I used to find her there

on the garage sale table

knees high

crying.

Another yard

this time behind

with blueberry bushes

and corn we used to shuck on stools.




Squash and broccoli

that they took such sad pride in,

the sunflowers

which were all my own.

Long stems that grew in iron soil

whose seeds were only good for eating

but as a child I was allowed to choose—

I donated them to the winged.

April 14, 2010

Shiny Happy Fits of Rage

Anger anger anger.
"Shiny happy fits of rage."
Green
Growing taller
Did you get smaller?
Yellow: bananas. sunflower seeds. vomit.
the color of desperation?
Anticipation?
pencils-
lead-
guns-
the ones that killed your brother.
Competition:
Who is better here?
Well, me.
I'm taller.

March 25, 2010

Untitled #11

Button Your Eyes
Safety Pin Your Ears
Stitch Your Nose Closed
and then,
Unzip Your Lips.

March 23, 2010

Good Intentions

I rifled through your drawers
Tossed paper and clothing,

Once-dear-but-now-forgotten photographs all around
Reached into the pockets of my grandfather’s coat

Pulled out fistfuls of dirt
I sprinkled your floors with earth.
Next came a vial of the waterfall's drops.
I christened your mattress with cleansing
Leaves. The brightest colors against the most lucid blue
I bedecked your walls with ornaments
Scraps of newspaper, shards of glass
Bits, pieces of traced maps
I presented to you The World
I kicked out your windows and let the creatures in
Exploded your stereo with the frantic beat of drums
I filled to the brim your doors with the sounds of freedom
I tied ribbons to the mirror and flags to the molding
Let glitter fall from the spinning fan
Set loose the winds of joy!
But you came home from another urgent call
And saw a mess.

March 22, 2010

Seashell



Oh seashell, you are empty
Beauty is your trademark
With colors bright as day
But you are empty
The owner that you protected
Crawled out
Or maybe they just died
But they left you here
To be collected
As if you are of value
But how are you worth a thing without life?

March 13, 2010

Found Poetry, "Once More To The Lake"

You remember one thing
and that
suddenly
reminds you of another thing.

A camp on a lake
in Maine
the vacation that was a success-
remote and primeval.

Over the years
there had been
change
a middle alternative missed.

But there was a choice of pie
for dessert
and pretty girls
with clean hair.