thoughts cannot be contained...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:11:18 GMT

It's not my fault if I can't breathe you in. Blame it on the birds. Blame it on the gray underbellies of the clouds. It's arbitrary. The road is falling away in ribbons behind us. some unimaginable spool gaining rank and roll. It's not for us.
You were my orange then, long before the earth was green with spring. I plucked you from the overgrown tree. The one in the greenhouse. Your branch was low and inviting, bowed down, and you on the end. Irresistable. It's too late for that now. The tree was cut down and can you guess how many rings.
We've been driving too long now. Missed a turn. The sky is so much blue above us and the desert so dry. Even the cows are tired. But the crater is ahead just waiting. and we must not keep it waiting. For the love of god, could you for one moment hold my hand. Could you try to get what i'm saying.
There are no more flower petals. There are no more cigar bands. We've put them all in the compost heap. There is no ring, it was lost in the Holocaust. It never came back.
It's all up to the wind.

because life is exhausting

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:57:40 GMT

I will find a place all my own,
Clear the brambles,
And build a throne-
Or a bed-
And climb in
To rest my head
To close my eyes
To fold my tired limbs
And finally sleep.
Eternal peace.

apples

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:36:55 GMT

the red skins fall wrinkled and cracked into the grass. eventually browning. becoming part of the dirt which grows the grass. the apple tree. the apples which fall to dirt. I pick one up. sniff it. it smells brown. like cidar and like twigs. and like the open mountains of the berkshire sky. i clench my jaw. my teeth sink into the half-rotted brown flesh. bite down into the sweetly comforting taste of the yellow of sunrise against an open field of grain. I trickle rot into my stomach. lay down in the grass. becoming part of the dirt which grows the grass. the apple tree.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:33:48 GMT

fuck you all.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:32:59 GMT

Johnny and i sat like two old bums on the edge of the pier, staring out into the vast blue ribbon of sea unraveled before us.
The wood of the pier was rubbed smooth by rear ends and comings and goings of tour groups and fishermen. But now was the time of night these docks was unpeopled, and we'd sit and share a butt under the purple evening sky, competitive as children, we puffed our smoke up and out trying to make rings.
"five!," said Johnnie, bragging about his two ring lead. whatever. I win most every night so i guess it's only fair old Johnny gets a turn.

sleeing with you

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:40:03 GMT

they say that new couples sleep,
limbs tangled up. entwined. close.
They say the next phase is spooning.
But still changes while love grows.
After that is back to back, and this
one lasts, until the two are old crows.
but you and i. we started as they said
we would. but it hasn't changed like
they said it should. After years, i
still wake up wrapped around you. arms
and legs akimbo. Hair knotted
with yours. twisted in the sheets
face pressed, tightly to your chest.
you wrap your arms around me. i can
hear your heart. and still, you wake
when i do, if only to prevent me from
trying to get up. you still smile at
me with your warm brown eyes and kiss
my sweaty, wrinkled forehead. You
remain playful, and ever young.
you pin me and tickle me when i attempt
to escape. you can't keep your hands
off me in the morning. and still
after twenty years of
this old game, we tussle between
the linens like when we were fifteen.

Valentine Carnations

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:20:38 GMT

You drove three hours in the snow
just to see me. Your stomach
flip flopped the closer you got.
and when you finally arrived,
i came to greet you.

you clutched the bunch of flowers
in your sweaty fist. Knuckles white
from squeezing too tight. And when
you saw me, you thrust them at me.
i could tell you were nervous.

It was sweet, like the M&Ms you brought.
thought you were going against the grain.
Inedible M&Ms in a glass frame.
you spelled our names in chocolates.
But all i could see was the flowers.

Carnations. Valentine carnations.
I would you had brought any other flower.
but you brought carnations. I don't mean
to sound greedy, the thought was sweet.
But you brought carnations to lay at my feet.

And as i stared at the crumpled bouquet,
i couldn't think of how much i loved you.
i could only think of death. Cliche roses
would have been better. I would have cried
with joy had you brought daisies. Carnations.

Funerals. So many funerals. The stench of
carnations drenching the tight parlor. A
carnation in a suit jacket's pocket. The
dead old man reeks of carnations. That smell
brings me back to that hall of hell, of death.

I shake myself awake again. And look up to
see your nervous smile. I didn't mean to hurt
you. You brought carnations and it was sweet.
i wish i could keep them forever, but i know,
as soon as you go i will throw them out.

thoughts of a dying musician

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:48:42 GMT

There, the bass kick.
Start slowly. crescendo.
heart. ticking. cardiac metronome.
surrounded by sick. coughing.

Breath. Keep beat. Breathing
Shallow. like a soft snare.
Beeping machines. Yes.
Music. rich like life.
nurses. scuffling. tennis shoes
on cold floors.
shouting. Psych ward down
the hall. Screaming. Dying.
Weeping. crying in the waiting room
death rattle from the man
on the bed next to mine.
I only have so much time.
Last song. Last song.
Lyrics fly through my head.
Need to write this down.
No pen near my bed.
I'm feeling numb. too dumb
to write. Can't think. It's all
fog. It's gone. Just one more
song.

philosopher orange

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:07:19 GMT

oh mighty, spherical, orange orange.
you are a genius, orange.
you have traveled the world
and now your thick, dewy rind
carries the story of your adventures.

What did you see on your journey,
oh mystical fruit? What wisdom
do you hide beneath your scarred,
pitted surface? What secrets lurk
within your quiet, perfect navel?

you were kept safe in your rickety,
wooden crate. away from the flies
and monsters which would consume you.
yet you have heard the whispers of
plotters, of fellow pioneers.

you hold the scent of India
in your pungent fragrance.
Grains of sand and silt remain
in your furrowed brow.
Waters from the seven seas
have nourished your round existence.

You are bruised and slightly battered.
a crack here exposing your weaknesses.
What cruelty did this to your delicate,
impervious flesh? Was it an attempt to
denude your enigmatic membrane?

I sit in wonderment, staring at your
sublime, prismatic actuality.
then, i can resist your offer of redemption
no longer. Fingernails rent stiff derma.
Teeth part sweetly bitter flesh. juice drips
over parted lips. I taste your intoxicating
wisdom and your odyssey becomes my own.
i savor your palatable absolution.

clown

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:45:44 GMT

Mother had a glass cabinet
Which reached from ceiling to ground,
And the bottom two shelves
Were devoted to clowns.

A few were dressed as hobos
Awaiting the next train to lead out of misery.
Others were posing, doing tricks, and I thought
As a young girl, that I envied them.

But as I grew, I realized
That these poor creatures
Were masochistic, deferential
Slaves to the public.

They were gladiators, risking life and limb
Dignity, all. to please the crowds
Hungry for blood, for sacrifice.

Poor clown. Couldn’t find a smile to smile.
Them with their painted smiles,
Like corpses at wakes, bared before all.
Oh skeletal, cadaverous grin
Soothing the sorrow of the black-draped mass

The harder you fall and scrape you knees,
The harder we laugh, delirium filling our bellies.

Sad clown, with your slack, patched pants
Billowing around your gangly limbs
Oh lugubrious red shoes, drooping dejectedly
Eager to trip you, bring you low once more

Your tired bowtie, estranged from your insecurities.
A resplendent carmine foam nose
Screaming siren trumpet. The plea for humanity. A cry of defiance.

The irony of your pathetic, incognito boutonniere,
Squirting water in the faces of faceless tyrants
Like the tears streaking down your white cheeks
When you go back into the fecal twilit streets.
Left feeling bleak and disconsolate.

Bitter, alone, cold clown.
I pity you clown, I try to stifle my odium
Because I see me in your dead, bereaved eyes.
I’ve walked miles in your floppy scarlet loafers,
Scuffed and ragged. a toe poking through a gaping hole.

I’ve played the jester too, clown.
Everyone has. But I’m not you, sad clown.
No. At the end of the day I am here.
Smiling ingenuously for none but myself.

I hang up my dirty, baggy pants and suspenders.
I wash off the mask and remember how to be human.
But you wretched, cheerless clown
Will forever be a clown.

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:22:03 GMT

raindrops. They pound against the dirty panes of glass. gray banks of thick fog cover my world. Figures swirl out of the mist. Students getting lost in the clouds on their way back to their new homes. Im lost in the fog; lost in the cold dark air that surrounds me. This time i'm not suffocating. This time i hold my head high; i breathe in the cold autumn air. The world smells like fallen leaves; like dew clinging to the yellowing blades of grass. It smells like the end of a beginning, and the beginning of an end. It sounds like the whispering wind that will usher in the blankets of snow in just a few weeks time. I smile at the pitter patter of precipitation; my heart finally relaxes in my chest. No, this time i can breathe; this time i can learn. I can learn to lose myself in the fog, i can learn to trust myself again.

the nine world

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:36:43 GMT

well... it's a start. i have no doubt i'll eventually delete it.

Though life was truly waiting at the end of her fingertips; though her mind told her to hold on, her heart told her that she simply had to let go. She let her heart choose her fate.

She looked into the eyes of the man she loved one last time and then she released him. She could only hear his scream for a few seconds before the sound of the air rushing by her as she fell assailed her ears. She fell into the abyss, sacrificing herself that he might live. It was enough.

She thought of him as she plummeted to her certain death. She thought of his smile, of his laughter, of the way their hair looked intertwined as they made love under the moon. She thought of the time that she hoped she had bought him by letting him go. She knew that by taking this fall she was saving his life; but she took with her his heart.

It seemed that time itself was stopping as she fell through the gloom, and her fear lessened. She knew that somewhere above her, there was a war; people were dying and suffering and killing one another. And instead of being up there leading her men or dying on the field beside them, she was falling into a seemingly endless pit.

self realization

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:18:42 GMT

i can never be a Jack Keroak... i'll never even hit the road. I'll never be the author of Rum Diaries -- i can't compare.
i want to write about how this world is going to fail miserably. or how there is some hope left for those who can pull their shit together.
who can sae the world? if i were naive, i would say the artists can; the true ones. But to be honest, these artists are too fucked up to help.
the bad shit always happens t the artists.
they get fucked over.
they end up strung out.
or nobody realizes what they were untilthey die.
the greats only become greats posthumously.
maybe i should write my great American novel an then shoot myself.
no, shooting myself isn't enough.
i should skin myself alive. that would get the attention of the masses.
"man, that girl really suffered. She must have been a true artist."
fine then. How about i do it. How about i get my head out of the fucking clouds and write my Great AMerican Novel?
i won't I never will. The reason is, i'm just too scared.
once i do it... there won't be anything left.

my world

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:48:25 GMT

my world gleams like the shining sea. When the sun shines down on the occupants of my world, it becomes scattered; refracted on the breaking surface above us. The sun lends a soft, distorted glow to our faces; a glow easily misconstrued as happiness. When we speak, the words are caught in bubbles and carried away from us; away to another world. It is silent under here, it is safe. My world moves in slow motion and the water weighs heavily on our limbs, pulling us deeper and deeper toward the creeping abyss. If we are not careful, we can be crushed by the weight of my world. The air can be pushed from our lungs, replaced with water -- water which we could not live without will become what we cannot live with. Sometimes, the unwary inhabitants of my world are swept away by the waves; carried off in the undertow never to be seen again. I know not what happens to them, i forget. I push them from my mind as the wave pushed them from my presence. There is no other world. This world of mine is a dangerous place. Not many venture here for fear of being pulled into the awaiting gloom, or being suffocated by the weight of my words. My world is like the shining sea. At one peaceful and inhospitable. Some may escape, but i never will. i raise my face to the warm scattered light which turns my world silver and beautiful. I watch the bubble containing my words float away from me. I let the weight of the water push my body against the ocean floor and steal the air from my lungs. I gasp for breath, feeling the salt water seer my lungs. I smile as i choke on the weight of my own words. My world gleams...

dawn brings new light

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:23:34 GMT

she stands on the rocky shore as the ship comes into view.

she sees the figure on the prow, and recognition lights her eyes.

as the ship cuts the water to the beach, she watches and waits.

and when the man's feet finally land on the soft sand, she falls.

the smile disappears from the man's face, as he races to her side.

he props her up in his lap and stares into her pale face with sadness in his eyes.

he brushes her cheek with the palm of his callused hand, and

for the first time in many years, he cries.

the tears run in rivulets down his angular cheek

they fall and pool in the hollow of her neck.

he knows that, though he wishes it weren't so, he has no choice.

he pulls the knife from his boot and cuts her dress down the front.

then he cuts into her firm, rounded belly.

her blood, still warm for her heart only stopped seconds before, pours into the sand.

The man, still crying, cuts deeper into the corpse of the only person he ever loved.

he reaches inside her and pulls out the only person he would ever love again.

her heart still beats. In fact, it races.

She is a bloody new babe, and the silent herald of her mother's death.

The man enfolds the babe in a shirt from his bag.

He wipes the blood from her pink little face.

she is beautiful, but he cannot appreciate her resemblance to her mother.

he can only sit in the sand; torn in half by the loss of his wife

and the new life of his daughter.

Thunderheads appear on the horizon, and the man's tears mingle with sweat, rain, and blood.

A new day has dawned

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 05:53:12 GMT

i sit ~~alone~~ in my room listening to the fat rain drops pattering against my window's pane. I listen to the air filling my lungs, bringing life to my body, and then leaving to make room for new air.

My eyelids are twitching and i feel the blood pounding in my ears. I feel as though i am no more than a hollow vessel, made up of tissue, sustained by air, by water, by my own blood racing in loops throughout my body. What am i? or more importantly, what am i capable of?

Thoughts fill my mind. They seem to brighten the air around me. They dance just outside of my reach, like so many shining pieces of myself caught in the wind. They elude me. As do words.

Then, the numbness subsides. I remember why i am breathing, or if not why, perhaps how. I am alive, and as soon as i realize this, the emotions wash over my, drowning me beneath waves of confusion and recognition. I am hopeful, i am woebegone, i am happy, i am tired, i am he brightest star in the sky, i am... befuddled. I stop to sort it out, only to find that nothing can be sorted, that the chaos is a constant; it is my friend, my lone companion at this late hour. I embrace the confusion.

Looking at myself as if from another's perspective, i try to sort out the pieces of the puzzle. There are few things that i can decipher. Among them, however, i see a repetition of actions; an unfounded tendency to doubt myself. I realize that i do it so much, it is almost as though i have two personalities. I am the cynic and the dreamer. With one eye, i see hope for myself, for those around me. Doubt closes that eye and opens the one of the pessimist; the doomsayer...the eye that sees the "truth" that this world is going nowhere, that we are no better than the dirt we walk on. In fact, this second eye sees that the dirt we walk on will likely be here longer than we.

I am dependent. i am afraid to speak for myself. Afraid to stick my neck out because i know that at the first chance they get, those whom i offend will gladly separate my head from my shoulders. I don't like to hurt people, and so i prefer to take the brunt of the damage myself to save them from the pain. A true hero one might say. Or a true masochist. Or maybe my "sacrifice" isn't helping anyone at all, ecause maybe if i shelter them, they will never learn to shelter themselves; as i have forgotten to shelter myself.

i feel like an enigma, maybe only because i am confused, maybe because not many of my acquaintance remove their mask so that i can see that they feel the same. Though i feel atypical, i know that i must be no more than a humdrum teenage writer, waxing poetic about self-doubt and my inability to trust my instincts.

i close my eyes, and listen as the rain drops fall faster, washing the dust from the corners of my mind as it wases the grime from the streets. It leaves behine a clean surface fr me to muck up with my own confusion. An endless cycle.