poetry scribbled in a journal on the NYC subway a few years ago (mostly unedited).
March 15, 2010 by admin, under Uncategorized.
Uno
The pinstripes on the PATH train
Wall Street boys in overcoats
a scarf’s dash of orange on black
and the sockless men
with scabby feet
curl over subway vents
or in crannies of Penn Station.
I was living on Apple Street when the flowers came and took away all our hope. All our school-age schoolchildren living in the sea climbed from sludge onto the beach
to walk primordially
from the stinking fetid
swamps
and into hearts and homes and stoves.
Dos
His eyes like thunder
rolled to me
his weighty jowls silenced
poetry or silk cascades
of beauty
crystal stemware
sparkle twinkles
light upon their faces
and I think
if you were up here
then this
chandelier’s bath
would warm us in its light.
Tres
I live in silence
until stirred with sugar.
I live with power
until asked to move.
I move to tremble
I speak in whispers
and shout loud enough
for no one to hear.
Quatro
The bearded boy across from me
knows the hurt of sunsets
finds lore in zines he
collects in bookstores
covered in dust, he
covers in dust
his assets, figure, working muscles,
truth of his heart
the truth of his heart
he hides in a cyclone of Thoughts.
Profound urbane shocking
or witty
his thoughts like brussel sprouts
his thoughts like weed
heady, distracting
useless smoke covering
all of his shame
the shame a little boy hides
in his first class
when he learns he’s alone
surrounded by unseeing eyes.
Cinco
The next book has started
the first not yet evoked
I can write laundry lists
of funny silly happenings
like Fruit Loops for a baby’s dinner
different colors flavors reminiscent of reality.
I need to reach inside.
I wish for: someone to love me for reaching inside.
Someone to love
regardless of chaos
regardless of place.
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two old poems.
January 15, 2010 by admin, under Fiction.
The other day, my mom and I visited the storage unit where we keep everything she and my brother moved from Oregon after selling our family’s house last August. We used dustpans to shovel the snow away from the doorway, and filled up the car with boxes of my belongings.
Sorting things I still wanted to keep (a pair of black leather boots with ruffles and spike heels) from things I didn’t (a six inch thick English text book from high school) I discovered a stack of high school papers. I have no idea why I kept my AP history and English essays, handwritten and generality-laden as most such essays are. Unless it was to prove that I’ve always been fond of titling things oddly, such as, “Betty Freidan vs. Martin Luther,” and “The Fascinating Issue of Power as Viewed by Orwell, Plus a Few Frogs.”
A few months after graduating I went on a poetry-writing kick, and two of those poems have remained my favorite pieces of writing, ever. They were also lurking in this pile of old papers. So I thought I’d share.
“a friend I wish I’d had”
You appreciated so much of me, that year,
or tried to. But as April turned to May,
this was one thing you never understood.
… Please listen, children. Just one more sonnet before we are through,
one more month before you can leave…
You never believed my concern: My room is a mess.
So is mine, you’d say.
You’d smile.
Mad with thirst, I’d sneak from class and find you in the hall,
sit next to you on the bench with your books.
We’d talk, your hands punctuating the air.
I would drink and drink and
drink,
drink your conversation until the ashen hallway of that sheetrock warren
warbled away.
I saw only your chin,
jutting upward when you laughed.
Then the halls would fill with students, and we’d stand
(In my dreams, you pass by unnoticing)
… Just one more day, children, and you will be free…
Moving through the revolutions of bells, wishing she was wrong,
wishing I had the chance to talk to you…
always.
But, My bedroom floor is covered, I can’t make it to my bed.
Things I haven’t used in years are floating to the surface.
You listened sympathetically, but did not see the point.
Perhaps your mess was different.
The layers covering your floor, the clothes on your chair, books on your bed,
(I have lost so quickly what was never really there)
didn’t frighten you.
My room’s a mess, too, you said, as we stepped around the curtain.
… Just one more step until you have gone…
Sometimes I wish we were still there, laughing around her as she
read aloud a sonnet.
“Senior Year: Girlfriends”
Stalking hallways in black and curvy shrouds,
you girls taught me how to savor
insanity and pain.
Letters on your rumpled t-shirts;
your madness was a slogan.
(I was crazy before it was cool).
With dark eyes and limpid hair, they/we
ate lunch: a manic coven circle sitting
in a crowded high school hall.
Anger and joy passed through unwelcome:
genuine emotion unbalances woe.
Better sorrow, the clothing fit.
(The mall has a whole store of Misery)
Dismal bedroom, suicidal frustration.
Parents who are Mean.
Sorrow is never your fault.
Stepping briefly from our baths of tears,
we had a good time, sweeties.
Thrift store hunting, Mambo Lattes,
cigarette smoke fogged our nostrils.
Nights spent imagining what life looked like.
Remember, not the anguish, but:
sitting in the grass,
blowing glitter on each other’s faces,
cuddling around a scary movie.
Books of revelation, shared poetry,
coffee and rain and
laughing till I could no longer stand.
The lightness when we pretended we had no homework,
and it would always be spring.
That year, you needed a stranger to your sticky, spider’s web.
I needed the glimpses of genius,
your weeping pasts,
loud music in the car and a cloister to dance within.
The puzzle shifts and people who didn’t fit, now do-
pieces once perfect, now cannot be wedged into place.
Funny how so brief a space
can slay a common language.
I returned and asked:
What do I do now?
You couldn’t tell me.
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passionate and be-furred.
August 24, 2009 by admin, under Fiction.
Cat’s tongue rolls along the curling, velveteen surface of the catnip.
Arms stretch across the sateen-sheathed stuffing of the quilt.
Satisfied, the cat exhales.
It lolls on back, paws curled, in the middle of the room,
for anyone to see its ruffled tum-fur and wide expanse of belly.
Reckless between its out-hung thighs.
The cat can stare for hours, who can tell it not to?
It will watch the bird through glass the sunny afternoon,
if it wants to.
The cat can ask, with meows rehearsed,
for a stroke,
an open lap,
a kiss upon the head.
A scribble of the chin or brushing of the back.
Your hand along the length, from head down to the tail.
The cat could lay beside you,
and even if you sneezed,
the cat could simply turn aside and fall asleep again.
Content to feel itself against you, closer with each breath.
There is nothing you could do about it: it is a cat.
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magic window.
August 4, 2009 by admin, under Fiction.
The rain pours down upon the roof,
and spreads across the floors
through the open windows.
Open,
because she shrugged at dryness and walked away,
walked down the dim-lit stairwell,
and out the frame of sunshine.
Into the sky,
into the sky
she rained down upon herself.
And let the floors buckle full of dark stain-
spread across her back
as she arched over her lover.
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lock the door.
May 30, 2009 by admin, under Fiction.
Best if read aloud.
I have given everything such an earnest try. Filing cabinets, cardboard boxes, suitcases, all full of folded fabric folders full of fantasy. A fantasy of more. Yet I never take what I am given. I have loved so deeply from outside your door, I have lived for others and waved seconds from my plate. Not on my plate, not on my plate, nothing sweet or creamy thank you. Toast my bread and hold the butter, pour the soy milk without sugar, I will sneak the candy when no one else can see. Give me tasteless, give me useful. I’ll wear last year’s sweater, organize your shelves. I will do it all for you and frown if you say “Thank you.” I will walk away before you can learn my name. Silent, steady, disappearing. Never taking, never sharing- not my heart, not my heart. Only will I share my work. No more, no more, do not exist as more than competent. Efficient. Brilliant. That is okay. Okay to be smart. Nothing more. No one more. Than me. Inside, behind this door.
