Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
Hooting at the reach of your lungs, stationary in the floodlight -
Who are you, really?
You smile as you open doors for strangers,
And glare as you saunter past friends -
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
You unpack your heart like a whore one day,
The next, stand silent like a stone -
Who are you, really?
You let your barbs fly free, snap and twist,
Without regard for where or how they may land -
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
How can you bubble over and curtsy in the streets
On your way home to sit still and blank in the dark?
Who are you, really?
Finding no resolution in your contradictions,
I'm not sure which version to believe.
Don't you be that kind of barn owl!
Who are you, really?
7/1/12
To Delilah, From Samson
I never see you anymore.
I look for you in doorways off the main drag,
Thinking I've spied the press of your hip
Against the frame,
But the shadows mock your attitude
too well.
On Friday afternoons,
I stare out my window,
Ignoring my phone's insistent buzz
Informing me much less dangerous people
Want my attentions.
Instead of answering,
I search the muddy tides passing in the street,
Praying for eyes inked on bared shoulder blades
to surface.
Sometimes, at one in the morning,
When the world is coming loose
From its moorings,
I'll turn too abruptly and fall.
As the bricks abrade my palms,
The distant clatter of high heels
I mistook for your savage laugh
fades.
I remember you took me dancing.
Your fishnets were ripped,
Your lace miniskirt flashing red silk
At every turn -
You told a slavering man
It was purposeful.
We exchanged smirks over his shoulder
As you nibbled his neck.
I did not recognize the edgy emotion I pushed down
as jealousy.
No, I never see you anymore.
It makes me nervous,
Like a crocodile in a river,
So busy eyeing horses along the banks,
He has only just realized
He has lost sight of the hippopotamus.
I look for you in doorways off the main drag,
Thinking I've spied the press of your hip
Against the frame,
But the shadows mock your attitude
too well.
On Friday afternoons,
I stare out my window,
Ignoring my phone's insistent buzz
Informing me much less dangerous people
Want my attentions.
Instead of answering,
I search the muddy tides passing in the street,
Praying for eyes inked on bared shoulder blades
to surface.
Sometimes, at one in the morning,
When the world is coming loose
From its moorings,
I'll turn too abruptly and fall.
As the bricks abrade my palms,
The distant clatter of high heels
I mistook for your savage laugh
fades.
I remember you took me dancing.
Your fishnets were ripped,
Your lace miniskirt flashing red silk
At every turn -
You told a slavering man
It was purposeful.
We exchanged smirks over his shoulder
As you nibbled his neck.
I did not recognize the edgy emotion I pushed down
as jealousy.
No, I never see you anymore.
It makes me nervous,
Like a crocodile in a river,
So busy eyeing horses along the banks,
He has only just realized
He has lost sight of the hippopotamus.
Salvation
This is a burning city.
Spires stretch for the sky,
gilded and ornate,
bells clanging to call in crowds,
boasting the architecture of "forever":
The people must be saved!
The steeples reach for an uncertain resurrection
as the floorboards dissipate into ash.
The city is consumed.
Evading the reek of charring flesh,
small secret spaces -
pockets of greenery hidden among
dusty carriage houses,
proudly molding mansions,
and crooked row houses -
quietly collect water:
Bloom, wither,
and bloom again.
Spires stretch for the sky,
gilded and ornate,
bells clanging to call in crowds,
boasting the architecture of "forever":
The people must be saved!
The steeples reach for an uncertain resurrection
as the floorboards dissipate into ash.
The city is consumed.
Evading the reek of charring flesh,
small secret spaces -
pockets of greenery hidden among
dusty carriage houses,
proudly molding mansions,
and crooked row houses -
quietly collect water:
Bloom, wither,
and bloom again.
Reflections
I feel you like I feel myself;
You are caught in me.
Touch your heart and you touch mine,
Reaching through a mirror.
Half my heart is on my sleeve;
You are missing half of yours.
Draw the line ---
Or simply break it.
Either stay or leave.
You feel me like you feel yourself;
I am caught in you.
Stop my heart and I stop yours,
Shattering a mirror.
You are caught in me.
Touch your heart and you touch mine,
Reaching through a mirror.
Half my heart is on my sleeve;
You are missing half of yours.
Draw the line ---
Or simply break it.
Either stay or leave.
You feel me like you feel yourself;
I am caught in you.
Stop my heart and I stop yours,
Shattering a mirror.
Maybe
Maybe you know me -
Maybe you don't.
Maybe this could be something -
Maybe it won't.
Do I want this?
I'm not sure yet.
But let's not pretend
That patterns aren't ever-present
And play like the past
Can lose its resonance.
But for sure,
This experience is something
I can't forget -
The past was once the present.
6/30/12
Infinite Recursion
Sine curves weave through calculus books,
Deriving into cosine arcs
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is a circle over time."
The same swirling doodle stamps my notebooks,
Curling about the margins,
Inviting the tails of my g's and y's
To engage with it -
"Be a part of the circle."
Déjà vu imprints each day,
Whispering a litany of familiarity,
Noting down to even the barest
Trace of irony -
"Infinite recursion states life is a circle."
The same people wander through my life,
Demanding uncomfortable answers,
Sometimes receiving little more
Than passing acknowledgement -
"I want out of this circle."
Sine curves weave through calculus books,
Deriving into cosine arcs,
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is the circle over time."
Deriving into cosine arcs
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is a circle over time."
The same swirling doodle stamps my notebooks,
Curling about the margins,
Inviting the tails of my g's and y's
To engage with it -
"Be a part of the circle."
Déjà vu imprints each day,
Whispering a litany of familiarity,
Noting down to even the barest
Trace of irony -
"Infinite recursion states life is a circle."
The same people wander through my life,
Demanding uncomfortable answers,
Sometimes receiving little more
Than passing acknowledgement -
"I want out of this circle."
Sine curves weave through calculus books,
Deriving into cosine arcs,
Only to become sine curves
Once again -
"The sine curve is the circle over time."
In the Darkness
The sun barrages the asphalt,
brightness hazing the black and greasy
stove-top parking lot.
The heat kills the breeze -
the collage of leaves in the distance
is still.
The students swarm between a line of buses,
laughing familiarly,
leaning on instrument cases
as they knock back huge jugs of water.
They sweat in the sunshine,
bared legs shiny with moisture,
salt and asphalt grime.
The girl hunches tight to herself,
heels pressed to thighs under long navy skirt,
back against a bus,
her thin slice of darkness
slowly receding.
She balances a notebook on her knee,
tongue caught between her teeth
as she slashes a pen across the gut of the page,
making it bleed with green ink,
and the hard possibility
of coming to light.
brightness hazing the black and greasy
stove-top parking lot.
The heat kills the breeze -
the collage of leaves in the distance
is still.
The students swarm between a line of buses,
laughing familiarly,
leaning on instrument cases
as they knock back huge jugs of water.
They sweat in the sunshine,
bared legs shiny with moisture,
salt and asphalt grime.
The girl hunches tight to herself,
heels pressed to thighs under long navy skirt,
back against a bus,
her thin slice of darkness
slowly receding.
She balances a notebook on her knee,
tongue caught between her teeth
as she slashes a pen across the gut of the page,
making it bleed with green ink,
and the hard possibility
of coming to light.
Birth of a Poem
Standing on the lip of a canyon -
The sunset spilling blood on the sand,
The bright, floating drops hot,
Like glitter fresh off a dancer's breasts -
Fortune caught my eye.
She winked,
Touched the tip of her tongue to the sharp edge of one fang,
Glided closer,
Pressed shivers into my neck
With a soft palm.
I felt her teeth graze my ear,
Her breath condensing on my skin
As she commanded in a whisper:
"Watch this."
She flitted away,
Bowed theatrically -
Laughing,
Kicked a drum set and a cymbal off a cliff.
Numbly, I pressed 'record,'
And listened to the air whistle
Before the punchline.
The sunset spilling blood on the sand,
The bright, floating drops hot,
Like glitter fresh off a dancer's breasts -
Fortune caught my eye.
She winked,
Touched the tip of her tongue to the sharp edge of one fang,
Glided closer,
Pressed shivers into my neck
With a soft palm.
I felt her teeth graze my ear,
Her breath condensing on my skin
As she commanded in a whisper:
"Watch this."
She flitted away,
Bowed theatrically -
Laughing,
Kicked a drum set and a cymbal off a cliff.
Numbly, I pressed 'record,'
And listened to the air whistle
Before the punchline.
Poetry... HERE
I am going to start posting some of my more recent poetry here. None of the old stuff - just stuff I'm working on now or have written in the past year.
There are several reasons for this change in content policy: 1) AllPoetry, the site I've been using to host my poetry, has changed its posting policy in a way that is not conducive to how I wish to use the website. 2) Most of what I've been writing lately is poetry. 3) I've decided it doesn't really make any sense to make you go visit extra pages to see my poetry.
So, voila. Poems. There's going to be a whole glut of them posted after this point.
Enjoy. :)
There are several reasons for this change in content policy: 1) AllPoetry, the site I've been using to host my poetry, has changed its posting policy in a way that is not conducive to how I wish to use the website. 2) Most of what I've been writing lately is poetry. 3) I've decided it doesn't really make any sense to make you go visit extra pages to see my poetry.
So, voila. Poems. There's going to be a whole glut of them posted after this point.
Enjoy. :)
5/13/12
Self-Destructive Musings Interrupted by a Phone Call
I wish I was lonely without you here. It'd be easier if I needed you that way. Instead, I'm sitting on my bed, hair sweat-soaked from dancing, one heel broken off, fearing my lack of attention span.
I try to convince myself that a week is just a really long day, and that if you called, we'd find plenty to say, and that not a word would be a lie, or even a half-truth. But I know that even though I didn't mean to, from the start I've been dishonest with you.
I warned you that first night we stayed up and talked that I was dangerous, but I don't think you believed me. You turned the hour glass over, and I sprawled on the couch as the sand rained down, counting the seconds before I pushed my identity underground. I became complacent, soft, a cat begging at your feet, only wanting your affection.
I stayed in when I'd normally go out, wore long skirts and boots instead of lace miniskirts and fuck-me heels. For you, I let my lingerie gather dust in a drawer, and forgot what it meant to walk into a room and glow. Uncharacteristically, I let you be the only man in my life, became a peninsula anchored to land only through you.
But that's not who I am. I've never been good at sitting still, and now that you're gone, I'm clawing my way out of the sand, gasping for breath and remembering. I play with hearts as if they're stuffed with catnip. I am a new Delilah, clad in lace with a taste for variety. I go out dancing, glow in the dark and capture gazes with my hips, and then come home with sweat-soaked hair and one heel broken off my shoes, drunk off the power and the strobe lights. This person doesn't need you, even as she wants you. As she tugs off her shoes, she muses that it would be easier to hold on if she were lonely without you.
I try to convince myself that a week is just a really long day, and that if you called, we'd find plenty to say, and that not a word would be a lie, or even a half-truth. But I know that even though I didn't mean to, from the start I've been dishonest with you.
I warned you that first night we stayed up and talked that I was dangerous, but I don't think you believed me. You turned the hour glass over, and I sprawled on the couch as the sand rained down, counting the seconds before I pushed my identity underground. I became complacent, soft, a cat begging at your feet, only wanting your affection.
I stayed in when I'd normally go out, wore long skirts and boots instead of lace miniskirts and fuck-me heels. For you, I let my lingerie gather dust in a drawer, and forgot what it meant to walk into a room and glow. Uncharacteristically, I let you be the only man in my life, became a peninsula anchored to land only through you.
But that's not who I am. I've never been good at sitting still, and now that you're gone, I'm clawing my way out of the sand, gasping for breath and remembering. I play with hearts as if they're stuffed with catnip. I am a new Delilah, clad in lace with a taste for variety. I go out dancing, glow in the dark and capture gazes with my hips, and then come home with sweat-soaked hair and one heel broken off my shoes, drunk off the power and the strobe lights. This person doesn't need you, even as she wants you. As she tugs off her shoes, she muses that it would be easier to hold on if she were lonely without you.
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