Dirty Tea.

A Room Of Ones Own (thx V. Woolf)

2009-10-04T22:54:07Z

A Room Of Ones Own (thx V. Woolf) (FIRST DRAFT NEEDS WORK, I KNOW)

That place isn’t there anymore
The earth and its good people moved on
The room you were born in
Is now open 24/7
And stoners buy slurpees from a crusted veneer of a man
Standing the bed your mother scorched with her blood

They don’t mean to, they couldn’t know
Singing to the radio, disciplining their children, sighing, shitting
Its not their fault that every corner
Was the somber site of someone’s first steps or last stand
Marked by the momentous grace of thousands
Its not their fault, you can’t get angry
This is the way of things, you take what you can when you can
But when your turn is over, its over.

Pins and Needles

2009-10-04T22:44:07Z

Pins and Needles

She taught herself to drink coffee black,
Hot and thick in the mug she clutches with both hands,
It burned the back of her throat and
she is holding it, holds it still,
Its dark liquid so bitter, unpleasant
Such an ugly taste without the temperate cream and sugar
that permeate it, tarnishing its sheen
She is forcing herself to love it without aid,
To appreciate its true, hideous essence

The phone trills, a clear shrill voice
alone she closes her eyes and one of her feet
Is falling asleep, everything is
Pins and needles.

Rabbit Season

2009-07-14T16:31:02Z

Rabbit Season

In the dark they are hunting rabbits
Their chorus of screams run ahead through the wood

A daughter of eve was left in the well
Sixteen rabbits followed her down
And instantly drowned

There is no law that says that everything that cries must swim
Even Alice almost drowned in her own tears.

In the dark they must hunt the rabbits
Bash them in the head, the throat, grab them by their
long, tall ears, their snowshoe feet kicking

There is no law that says that everything that lives must live forever
Only that an empty belly, a bare back, cannot stand

They are mostly helpless; for defense,
god saw fit to give them fast legs, subtle hearing
And a brittle, childlike voice for screaming

Hoping it would warm our hearts and cull our hunger, steady our hands
But we know too much about too much, and its nobodies fault, that we know of.

The Bad News

2009-07-14T16:24:21Z

The Bad News

this is the bad news.

you're going to need to uncurl
your spider legs and long, tenuous arms
we're going to need you to scuttle on your own
even if its away into the tumultuous ocean

the only part of you that has grown fat is your pupils
they are so huge and shimmering
reflecting the slight luminescant glow of bugs in the darkness.

If your tongue is forked, I don't want to know.

I know you are a fungi human
a spectacular specimen
that doesn't need the light to grow, oh no,
would do just fine without, or just fine enough

what handful of goodies might change your mind about us
I am not above bribes, I am not above trades
and I will crouch at the mouth of this cave forever, if need be.

Ode to the MBTA

2009-05-13T19:50:01Z

Ode To The MBTA (and other beeswax)

I’ve been awake since thine eye beheld the puckered asshole of dawn
I’ve shorn loose the beard of sleep with its technocolor dream brambles
Shaken, small birds and animals scurried to warmer, darker corners
I bed them a tearful fond farewell until such times should pass
That we should meet again in a glorious respite

I rode the sweaty iron horse all the way underground
Where there more, stomping and whinnying, red eyes and coats all ablaze
A blind beggar sang “I Can See Clearly Now” over and over again
The good lord done made him blind, but you, Bill Withers, you made him a liar.

There is the place in which you need to live, a small crawlspace beneath
The dead tree out back, wedged snugly between a comforting memory of wet, dead leaves and the sky.

(I know, that last bit's no good, I'm working on it.)

The Good Stuff

2009-05-13T19:47:09Z

not 100% sure what this puppy is about, but aint that always the way.

The Good Stuff

How do you get to the good stuff?
Obviously the only stuff worth having, the meaty purposeful flesh of the earth and its
Toils, all the naïve secrets of one or several souls wrapped in sugar paper
Like the fudgey Turkish delight of the unknown, how might I
Sink my canines into such a treat, I wonder

Ill read poem after poem, paragraph after paragraph
Watch act follow act in some sort of procession, I guess,
But little if any of it is the real business
If you’re looking for abstract pollutions of the original texts then
You’re all set and to be honest, sometimes I am

I met a girl once, she thought I was smart but
She just didn’t know about the forces that deliver the letters to a mind
didn’t know about sweet pretensions, hanging like ethereal mosquito net
She came from a different place, emerged from a placid country lake one spring
whereas I fell out of an empty page, took one look at its vacancy and wet myself

4/20/2004

2009-04-13T05:42:37Z

4/20/04

15 minutes before dawn
max
you were finishing up some epic chalk mural beside me
pastel shades beginning to fade on the hot road
you could begin to see the strokes of the colored rock, the points where the dust had gathered in a long fat smear
I was wearing a yellow vest that was too small for me and pulled at the armpits
I was tired, puffy around the eyes
we had been up all night, and I blinked into the sneaking morning grey with a grave and astonishing sobriety

I dusted the easter bunny yellow off of my jeans
The elderly had begun to emerge from the home down the street
and they were glaring with spiteful eyes at us, on our knees and elbows in the middle of the street, bottoms up

We stood up and walked down to the end of the block
the chilly must of morning moldering in the bent fingers of our fists.
I got that sweet revelation knowledge;
I am a single unit in a still lull
I can bend with a force, I can lie in its wake
If I don't know all the secrets of the universe, I must at least be pretty close.

SHIT

2009-03-22T19:32:21Z

Shit.

The woman in the box is long since dead
Even before the life whispered free from her crusted body
Her soul had begun to rot in its fetid, cramped cell and
Now was most likely stretched out in a spot of sunlight or sailing
Through the atlantic where it is still and serene and
Only translucent creatures with reverse eyes can survive

The man in the chair is suitably fucked, now
Having harangued her every dawning day that he had the chance
Asking of her only the legal servitude of marriage, only
The duty that wives are bound to by their husbands with
No benefits or vacations, blessed with only the long shadow
Of a dish sponge, a bottle of antiseptic, a mans fingers bent at the first knuckle

The grown children in the car are crying, still attached by their heartstrings
To their mother. She wasn’t a natural, they knew, her
Holographic image in their minds taking the form of a
Pair of tired, veined lips sucking on a paul mall, getting
Prostitute pink lipstick on its white shaft, her blue eyes,
Heavily hooded, not blinking or moving, not even to punish

The man in the suit is uncomfortably cramped, stooped forward
Bent at the knees and waist as he marches in the procession
Bearing her coffin to the cemetery. Some third cousin of a cousin,
He is the awkward tallest of the family, and he crouches
In his walk to line his pall bearing shoulder up correctly
So she won’t roll and shift around in the dark

The birds on the telephone line are fat and happy
The feathers on their yellow bellies and puffed with the lackadaisical afternoon
They are scavengers, eating the rice that is tossed for the brides, stomachs
Impervious to the rice-induced explosions of legend
All in a line, shadows bold on the sidewalk, they sing tunes into the blue and
Take copious shits on the silly humans below

From her perch, even higher above, she grabs her ankles with uproarious laughter
Every white poo stain on a black satin shoulder a hit, every streak on her black box a bulls eye.

By The River River River

2009-03-04T21:01:29Z

By the River River River

She met him by the river
by the river, by the river
It was cold there by the river
her hair like tendrils in the sea.

An octopuses fingers
gently floating, gently floating
grabbing in the darkness
for the stuff she couldn't see.

He was walking in the woods
in the cold there, in the cold there
he was wearing yellow work boots
(glowed like sunshine through a leaf)

The crows caught his attention
as they circled, as they circled
a murder in the distance
a dark and feathered sheath

Fishes nibbled at her eyelids
in the water, in the water
they opened wide her eyeballs
in that effervescent bog

He was young then, maybe 20
in his work boots, in his work boots
he was walking for his leisure
and to run his spotted dog

when he walked out from the fir trees
with their nettles, their sweet nettles
the sun glint off the water
and it stabbed him in the eyes

He was blinking, he kept walking
he was stumbling, he was stumbling
disrupting all those black birds
distracted by their cries

He walked straight in the water
to his ankles, to his ankles
that was when he saw her
a pale moon in the night

He paused there, socks all soaking
cold as vengeance, cold as vengeance
he held his hand to shade his face
from the looming planet's sight

His movement in the water
made her quiver, made her quiver
his shadow blocked the skyline
where her gaze was firmly set

It was quiet in the woods there by the river
by the river, by the river
two singles made a pair there
by the river where they met.

Thing I wrote during psych last week

2009-02-11T19:28:45Z

And now I'm typing it up and not doing my pysch homework! What are the odds! (pretty good, actually.)

"This truck is all mine." Shale announced proudly to the empty street corner, his dry, worked hands gesturing to the grand horizon. Kate took it in for a moment: its damp, molding bed, its rust-nibbled roof and paint.

"All mine." He repeated, this time quietly and with reverence, as if the statement were a blessing itself.

"Wow Shale." Kate answered. "She's a beaut."

"Ain't she though?"

She nodded, folding her arms and leaning a little further out of the doorway. The brick walkway to her apartment building was still wet from a rain that must have fallen during the night. It glistened otherworldy in the mute grey light; for no reason in particular, she was careful not to step on it.

Shale turned, beaming, his white blonde hair in his eyes. "Wanna go for a ride?" He asked, his teeth chattering from excitement. Kate considered it.

Janus, washer of dishes

2009-02-11T19:23:47Z

Janus, washer of dishes

The first was servile;
The swarthy heart of her hipbones and drum torso
made to bear, to lift
to perform the folding of linens and dusting of items

In this temper
her arms were red and dimpled as they
abused the laundry
one callused hand cupping a child's face
the other, excersizing demons from the foyer carpet.

The alternate was more smoke and mirrors
composed of shadows shifting in the light beneath the doorjamb
a hint of elbow length gloves and mother of pearl.

Part of this damn story ive been writing forever

2008-12-02T16:28:58Z

Seriously forever, I started it in Craft of Writing.

And always, there was more driving. More long stretches of nothing, days and weeks slithering past or flaking off, unnoticed. The road lasts forever and sorrow chases you down it like a hungry dog, snapping at your heels. When you stop he catches up to you and lies across your chest, hot and heavy. As often happens, these periods on the move seem, to Morgan, like vignettes of his life, as veiwed by another person. A tired man driving a red truck; the snap of a plastic lighter; coffee bubbling; cold aisles of a Safeway; a huge woman, bent upside down over a sink, washing her dark hair; cicadas outside the window; dusk; dawn; time, unpunctuated. Cordelia. The tick in her smile. Her wide arms shivering as she claps.
The memory dreams continue, although they are not always bad. Sometimes they are more hazy or insignifcantly incorrect, but mostly they’re moving pictures in an album of Morgan’s lifetime. He dreams of Oregon, in the summer and winter, of that same old house, with stairs that creak when you descend. Morgan dreams Cordelia, a chubby little 5th grader, running down them at full speed in jellies and overalls, with green eyes. He dreams their mother, on the lawn, doing crosswords, crying, laughing, making chili in the kitchen in a sun dress the color of enamel.

He dreams her turning away. Averting her eyes. Closing doors for fear of what goes on behind them. She walks away. She goes upstairs.
Now she is in a thousand microscopic peices in a plastic bag in Arizona, and she can’t go much of anywhere at all.
“I’m afraid your mother has passed...”
Hollow voices on the telephone;
I’m afraid your mother’s
past.
The sun sets; he stays awake. Awake long enough to see the next set of tolls, to hand his change off to the little men and women in their booths. He always smiles and wishes them a nice day; somewhere he read that toll booth operators have the highest rate of suicide in the country. Morgan can’t blame them. It must be torture, everyday, playing sentinal to a weary parade of the indifferent. To feast your eyes, year after year, on the same horizontal world, watching even the foliage change ever so slightly. To never evolve but stay the same, even in the face of the crushing fact that you may not even want to be this in the first place. With a collection of fast food wrappers and chachkis to your name.
“Have a good day.” he says, with a hint of sincerity.
* * * * * * * * * *
The horizon ahead was beginning to pink as Morgan and Cordelia crossed the Nevada border, and darkness had properly fallen when they pulled in between McQueens, a little bar lit by drug store Christmas lights hung in the single pane windows and tacked to the stucco. Neon signs of a martini being poured, a cowboy giving the thumbs up, the word “Budweiser” being spelled letter by letter, b-u-d-w-e-I-s-e-r, going through the motions dazedly while reflecting nefarious multicolored hues on the bar’s stoic patrons inside. These were the kind of long jowled workers that were accustomed to a life that Morgan and Cordelia and Monty were all too familiar with, the blue collar life of work and drink and crushing immobility. Morgan led Cordelia in through the front door, ducking a fake road sign depicting a stick figure doing a keg stand, and glanced at the bar for Monty’s familiar bulk.
At first he was nowhere to be seen, and Morgan was moments away from asking one of the women working the bar where he had gotten too, when a slim, bald man emerged from underneath the bar holding a bottle of grenadine.
“Hallie have you seen that damn book with them fruit drink thingies?” he yelled over the din of the bar, in a voice that could shatter glass. He lifted his head and his eyeline met Morgans, and instantly his pockmarked face split into a discomfiting grin.

“Holy shit! My boy!”

Morgan led Cordelia up to the bar, smiling. “Long time, Monty.”

“No fuckin’ way!”

Monty came around the bar, grabbing both of them and crushing them gently to his chest, an embrace that used to be almost unbearable was now temperate and comfortable. When he pulled away he smiled at Morgan, then kissed Cordelia on the forehead.

“Hello my beautiful girl.” he said softly, his voice reverent.

“Hi Monty.” Cordelia said, and when she pulled away Morgan noticed her
eyes were beginning to shimmer.

Monty yelled to one of the women behind the bar to take care of things, and beckoned Morgan and Cordelia into the back. They walked through a few doorways, some strung with brown and tan beads left over from another era. Monty led them up a flight of stairs and they emerged into a small living room, the hum of the jukebox downstairs floating up through the floorboards. Monty noticed Morgan’s expression, and laughed.

“Just you wait till they get going on the Johnny Cash. You thought you couldn’t sleep before.” he chuckled again, brushing aside a tapestry and disappearing into the kitchen.

“What can I get you? Soda? Beer? We had a little wine, I think, somewhere…”

“I’m fine.” Cordelia never liked new places, and was fidgetting around, willing herself to be comfortable.

“I’ll take a beer.” Morgan said.

Monty brought out two tall cans of beer and led them out onto a tiny balcony, on which was two white plastic lawn chairs an a tiny end table. Morgan sat Cordelia down in one of them and offered the other to Monty, but he held up a hand in refusal and brought a tall bar stool out from the house which he perched on with one foot on the lowest rung, his shoulders slanted, like a cowboy. He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a soft pack of Paul Malls, half empty. He put two in his mouth and lit them with a silver zippo, handing one off to Morgan.

“The wife hates them.” he said, exhaling, “but, while the cat’s away.”

“You got married again?” Morgan asked, an edge of surprise in his voice.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, I forget you haven’t met Hallie yet. I shoulda introduced you while we was downstairs. Yeah, fourth times a charm, am I right?” he laughed, and Morgan noticed how easy it was for him, how laughter just flowed out of his body like steam from a kettle. It floated around in the air and eased the days of dust off of Morgan’s clenched knuckles, smoothed the forbidding lines of Cordelia’s moon face.

“Yeah, we tied the knot back last June. She didn’t come cheap, neither, brought a lot of baggage with her. But what woman don’t?” Monty sipped his beer.

“I think this one may be for keeps, though. She’s a different animal, I’ll tell you that. Keeps me in line.”

“I can see that. You’ve lost a lot of weight.” Morgan said.

“Oh well, yeah, that wasn’t her doing though. I had some health problems a while back, really took it out of me. Things is all right now, though. I would’ve called,” he said, resting his hand gently on Cordelia’s black hair, “but I didn’t want you kids to worry.”

“Do your kids know?” she asked.

“Naw. Haven’t seen them in a dogs age. I expect they’ll wander through some time and I’ll catch them up then, like you both.”

“I expect they will.” Morgan said, without meaning it.

“Anyway, though. What have you kids been up to? Jesus, how long has it been, years?…”

“Yeah. Its been a while.”

“So? Whats new?”

“Nothing.” Morgan laughed, another one of his cold, cruel laughs. Suddenly he felt embarrassed. “Work, you know. Same old.”

“You still on construction?” Monty asked.

“No, not anymore. Just odd jobs.”

“Uh huh. How’s your mom? Shit, I should give her a call.” Monty took a long drag on his cigarette, exhaling the smoke in a long plume from his mouth. “Guess I been out of the loop for a while.”

For a moment, Morgan didn’t blink. Monty’s words had dropped within him and hit water, the splash reverberating now throughout his long, empty body. He had thought, briefly, that his would happen. Now that it had, however, he knew that escape would not be possible. He would not make it out of this chair, off of this porch, out of Nevada, not dragging behind him this burden that was so heavy and so dark. He would just have to wait forever in this moment, suspended, a fly in an ice cube, watching a parade of horrors unfold before his thousand eyes. He took a breath and prepared to plunge.

“She’s dead.” Morgan glanced towards Cordelia, who was shaking slightly but, to her credit, not crying. He knew he shouldn’t put it so bluntly, with such finality, but that was exactly what it was, there was no skirting around it. He couldn’t look at Monty’s face, so instead he turned his gaze away, over the darkened street. The road stretched out in unmovable silence for visible miles, interrupted only by the solemn light of the orange streetlights. They bathed everything in their circumference with an inadequate glow, which for now was nothing, and no one. Morgan heard Monty breathing behind him.

“Fuck.” he said, finally.

Morgan let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, and it made his lungs ache. Morgan looked at Monty for a long moment. He was quiet, with his eyes cast downward. He noticed for the first time since he had arrived just how old Monty truly looked. The thin cotton of his t shirt barely disguised a much gaunter body than Morgan had imagined, and the man’s face and eyes sagged with a raw heaviness.

“I’m sorry son. I’ll miss her.” Monty growled.

They sat on the porch for an hour or so in silence, the only sound between them the feverishly beating wings of various insects attracted to the light. Eventually Cordelia began to yawn and scratch at her empty eyes. Monty took her inside the apartment, tucked weathered sheets between and under the couch cushions without complaint. Morgan watched them in the warm light, watched how it smoothed the lines in Montys face. When he came back out on the porch, they sat and stared off into the darkness for a few companionable hours, before Monty got up and went back into the apartment. This time Morgan followed him, walking behind him through the few dimly lit rooms, heavily furnished with chachkis and other miscellaneous debris from a lifetime of collecting. That was what Monty did, recently; collected things. Hoarding figurines or posters, or china that he felt held some meaning to somebody. He found God in the antiques, in the loud country patterns and needlepoint and the sweet preciousness of junk.

Monty pulled back a curtain separating one half of a larger room from the other, and when Morgan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a crib in the corner. The two men walked over and peered in; inside was a small, sleeping baby girl. Her dark skin looked cool and smooth despite the hot night, her black curly hair done up on around her head like the halo of a stained glass saint. Her tiny chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and Morgan held his breath.

“Monty…”

“She’s Hallie’s. Her Daddy plain up and left them without anything when he found out.” Monty was fell silent, watching the baby intently. “They just moved in a couple months ago.”

“Wow.” Morgan said quietly.

“Yeah.” Monty breathed through his nose. “You know, I been through all the kid stuff with my own little ones…but there was never really any time, not for them, not with all the problems their mom and I had, no time or any money.” he lowered his voice even more, reaching one of his weathered hands down into the crib and hovering it over the sleeping baby, close enough so she could feel the heat from his fingers but not close enough to touch.

“But now,” he continued, “things are moving slower.“ Monty gave a small, honestly lopsided smile.

“I‘m glad.” Morgan said. He turned around and walked back through the curtain and into the kitchen. He moved on the balls of his feet through the apartment and into the living room, where he relaxed into an arm chair and looked sideways over at Cordelia, breathing steadily on the couch. Between his drooping eyelids he watched her dark silhoutette sleep, until he shut his eyes tight and did not open them, not even in the throws of a dream, until morning.

hahahhah whaaaat is this

2008-11-24T21:42:35Z

this is the silliest thing ive written in a long time!

This Poem

Its not that bad but
its not that great

Its not really on time but
its not really late

I didnt exactly plan it but
it ain't exactly fate

Its definitely not about love but
its also not about hate

And I spose its not about you but
I cant say its about me

And I'm not planning on charging for it but
I cant just give it for free

And I sorta know how it happens, but
I sorta fly blindly, ya see

I just kinda string words together and
it kinda makes poetry.

Ophelia

2008-11-20T20:05:10Z

Ophelia

I cut my breasts.
That sounds awful when you say it out loud but
I only did it to stop the hiccupping heart beneath them
To catch it in its stuttering
All I wanted was to bury it in the dark, sweet earth

You can’t bury just a heart.
Without a ribcage, it rebels
I found it, caked in filth, beating
In my basin, in my bed, at the table
I stabbed it, crushed it and it cried but would not die

So, dark and warm in my hands,
I bore it to the river, palms to the sun
I sent it downstream and whispered wishes to the diamond waters
don’t come back, don’t come back, don’t come back

Old dogs

2008-11-17T14:16:40Z

Old Dogs

Don't let your old dogs die.
Hold on to them forever
long eyes that cry dark ooze don't let those dissapear
bad breath, black gums
and that sound of their metal tags scraping against the floorboards

don't let your old dogs die
there are so few left now
out like a light, in like a draft
they all go to heaven
but don't let them go.

The Hero's Death

2008-10-31T03:03:47Z

The Hero's Death

Without the hero's death
they were just bloated, tired
gangrenous white limbs and hardened veins

Abandoned, Hamlet delivered soliloquies to pigeons
or the neighborhood kids, or alone
dry lips chapping in the breeze

No one wanted to hear about his dad anymore
or Hector's failing body, his liver spots
his inability to dispel waste, when once he dispelled scoundrels

They couldn't even muster a pretend interest
in Achilles' boring war stories
and orthopedic shoes.

Scaffolding

2008-10-17T19:53:20Z

Scaffolding

He passed a building in progress,
its tall exoskeleton of scaffolding
straining at its own angular shoulders
lit by the orange eyes of another monster
dangling haphazardly through smoke and pollen.

he paused for a moment in the polka dotted light
feeling a familiar comraderie
for a thing incomplete.

(this poem is soooooo old and I recently retooled it a little. seriously, like...6 years old. thats old for my poetry.)

This afternoon has turned pear shaped

2008-10-17T19:33:56Z

This Afternoon Has Turned Pear-Shaped

These two are not fat, not just fat, not simply fat
Instead, they share the confusing burden of the misshapen
Stomachs sandwiching over in on themselves
Rolls where rolls ought not to be, not ever, but luckily

Here we have found a pair
A male and a female of the same awkward species
Both in horizontal stripes and ironically worn running shoes
They are exiting the same star bucks,

Paper cups in hand, that I myself am inhabiting.
Powerless to stop them I let them go, but wonder
Do you think they’re brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend?
I hope they’re a couple, having each found a matching mate

Out of all the normally shaped humans in this world
Perhaps they look down on us, call us “samies”
Scoff when we buy products they are unfamiliar with
And believe are the cause of our commonness. I watch as

They exit and dissappear, leaving me with
An empty paper cup of my own, an aged speckled woman
Asleep in a chair, and a small Japanese girl
Taking a picture of her frappuchino with a digital camera.

mantra to the earth and all the things in it

2008-09-18T20:35:07Z

Friend, if it comes that I have an ear, then you may have that ear and you may speak into that ear and I shall hear you.

Mother, if it comes that I have an hour, then you may have that hour and I shall listen to you quietly.

Father, if it comes that I have a hand, then you may have that hand and I will work beside you so we might sit in the sun.

Sister, if it comes that I have a story, then you may have that story and know things that have come before you.

Brother, if it comes that I have a dream, then you may have that dream and you may escape into it whenever you'd like.

Earth, if it comes that I have a body then you may have that body, and turn it like butter until it molds back into your flesh.

To all these things I give of myself
This is the only currency I have known or could ever know

What A Beaut

2008-09-16T01:44:37Z

What a Beaut

Down and across this gentle hillock we are picking yellow roses
Through the wire mesh of our new bed room, six walls in all

What a beaut, the neighbors would say, as we wind the delicate stalks through the holes
(our long fingers are nimble, quite perfect for that sort of thing)

When the ground goes asleep underneath a grandmother’s heavy arm
Or the heavens open, or the earth moves, these are somewhat less than ideal

Food is not difficult; we eat the small bugs and critters that dare too close
Our teeths go unbrushed, and the bent legs of insects sometimes protrude (but we don’t mind)

But we remain rapturous, chins abrupt, eyes all over
Awake in the wind, in the clouds, finally awake

We are safe in our many hexagonal worlds
We are beginning to feel good, paired with this quiet unknown.

Too Much Horse

2008-08-21T19:00:54Z

Too Much Horse

He had that mare for 12 days before she died
inexplicably, one cold morning, the steam still escaping from her engorged and still nostrils
Hoofs not shivering, long eyelashes refusing to shoo the critters that had begun to drink
the sweet fluid from her eyes
shot by a disease, maybe, right through the heart

We should've known, I guess
shiny flanks and an impressive trot, gallop, whinny
tossing her mane and pawing at the ground;
Too much horse for this earth.

Eulogy for a Machine

2008-08-16T18:39:10Z

Eulogy for a machine

Do not cry for robot.
He would not have wanted it that way.
Even though his
eyes were paperclips and his
arms and legs discarded bits of pipe
even though his soul was
electric
Robot was the best damn man
I ever knew.

He liked everyone and everything, but
more then anything else
(as I'm sure you all know)
Robot loved gardening.
Vegetables, herbs, flowers
even a few fruit trees
He'd wheel in after a long day, his receptor plugs
caked in dirt.

That was why
when he took the job at the orphanage
we all told him it'd get in the way of his free time.
But you know Robot; he didn't listen.
He just helped those kids.
That was Robot. Just selfless.

He liked everyone of those kids.
Not that he couldn't,
he wasn't programmed to dislike.

I wish I could stand here and say
that in the end he was loved
so much that he
sprouted emotions and
grew a humanity and
lived happily ever after
and will be remembered as a
great compassionate man amongst men
and not just as a microwave.

I can say with complete assurance, robot
you where much more man than microwave.

Revelations

2008-08-13T19:20:19Z

Revelations

If before I have waited out the storm
It certaintly must not have been to
twiddle my thumbs in the drawing room
Waiting for the next wave.

I seriously doubt I reinforced the creek
Hauling sand bag after sand bag into that fetid mire,
And herded the sheep, rabid, back into the arms of safety
Only to tremble again at the crack of thunder.

I talked the villagers down from the cliffs
When they wept and said it was God’s will
Gnashed their teeth and ripped their clothes
It was I that nursed their good sense back to fighting force.

I didn’t do it just to lie down again
For the chance to stain my pants with urine
In the presence of tragedy, once more
Surely.

Function

2008-08-13T19:06:45Z

Function

Be careful not to be seen or heard
When you tiptoe down to the shore at the edge of the world
And dip your ashen ankles into its dreary banks.

Hold your breath
So the sweet steam won’t break your mouth
That lopsided smile that you learn to miss
Amidst these feverous distempers

Ill while away the hours
Sitting by the wolverine pool
Watching their sharp figures uncurl beneath the surface
(of the water or my skin, who knows for sure)

How strange, that I scribble nonsense
Imagine the stuff I won’t let you read…

A good woman is hard to find
A good tale is hard to wind
And thank goodness.

the easy machinations of my sick pickle love

2008-06-09T18:08:30Z

the easy machinations of my sick pickle love

(this is the same ingredient in that ridiculous way of loving without compromise, the same instinct that makes you sleep in solitude on the same side of your bed for years. Instead of sharing the middle, you cannot let go of the boundaries set in place, the roles set in motion. You stick to your guns and to your own side, the dark outline of your sleeping shadow never wandering too far to the left or right. How is it my thoughts are still so patient for you, suspended coldly in their rotating orbits until the gears begin to turn again, finally. Its definitely your sunshine that warms the machine, causing the complicated cogs to meet in voids and protrusions, in growing potential energy the power of which I probably cannot even fathom. This is the character I find myself in, never out of fear but out of a preference for the awakening rather then the long echoing corridors of sleep. I would rather wait at the cold door or window, poised on the precipice and promise of your prescence, rather then return to the standing water of those empty nights.)

(They said mix drinks, not metaphors, Zoe Hyde.)