Butter Over Too Much Bread

Walking well-known streets,
but every door is closed;
no more front porch knitting circles and
friendly "oy!"s;
just furtive, hard-eyed stares
and a cold wind that
claws its way around the edges of my coat
as it whips at stray wisps of hair
where it used to gently tease.
Is it perception
that changes things until
memories overlay reality so jarringly?
Hindsight is no clearer
for being farther away,
only colored a different shade
(now, less rose than gray).
Is this an inner global warming?
Even at high emotional tide,
the water marks still show
where years ago, the waves used to pound
with resounding force;
no more mellow, only lower,
as I slowly sink
(and to think, I once believed
there was nowhere to go but up).
Read more!

Dear Stranger

Dear stranger on the corner,
don't mind my uncomfortable silence
as I meet your eyes,
only to too quickly glance away.
It's not personal;
I just find contact,
even that much,
too revealing.
You see, I'm hurting,
but I'd like to die in peace.
I'm tired of explaining
the shadows in my eyes
to people who don't care
beyond a feeling that they should.
If I thought
that I could reach you
with a smile and a handshake,
that we could mutually accept each other's flaws
and better one another,
I'd ask your name
and where you're headed,
what you dream
when you're awake,
and maybe, what you'd make out of forever.
But we're just strangers
on the same street,
and our moment is over.
Best of luck, and I'll see you
when we're neighbors
in some shady little plot
and the flowers overhead
smile and nod, and sigh and know
how good life is,
better than we ever did.
Read more!

[pine]

Inextricably entwined
with our demise:
each other.
One plus another;
do two broken halves
equal more than a hole?
I knew a dream,
a fragile breath
that I foolishly believed
was God, was us, was forever--
big words, for a little mind.
Never growing into my heart,
bound by the smallness
of clutching after
all things not-mine.
Majestic, secretive forest
turned landfill,
shoving myself full of
all the broken bits of humanity,
magic lost to decay,
and no one looks at me
with anything but regret.
[do we ever outgrow our scars?]
Read more!

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

Night dawned, day fell
in an upside-down metaphor of
us and all we stood for, all
we claimed to want for one another.
Mired in echoes of words that meant
all but what they should,
I struggled;
tangled and tripped up by
all the traps I set for you,
I realized how there was never anything
but fog and mirrors and
truths about myself.
Feeling like
day-old smoke and shadows,
I thought about
yesterday, and you, and quitting drinking--
all those shining, unreachable motes
floating in the span of forever--
and about how much I wish
I could live in today.
Humming along with notes linking
fingers and breath and emotion,
I dreamed a more pleasant life,
made all the more appealing
by its nonexistence,
and I wondered why the syllables of "impossible"
taste so much like "desire."
Read more!

[drunk on] Sunshine

It doesn't help to know that it's
all in my head, all in my skull,
just chemicals exploding and
dancing with each other,
like I dance with
you and you and you,
an endless twirl
until we
all fall down
amid the posies and the ashes
of our lives, to start again.
Amazing human machine,
grinding gears on gears until we
fall apart, fall out of ourselves
into a blue, blue sky that
embraces, holds, and hurls us back
to face a gray tomorrow
with masks and lies and guile.
Against my better judgement, I
throw away my smile-and-nod,
my falsity;
I will be ME,
right now and always.
Inappropriate and loud,
senseless and young--
enjoying summer like a bee drunk on sunshine,
like a girl drunk on you,
with your
starshine eyes and danger-daring smile.
But I'm not in love with
you or you or you,
I'm just in love with
life, and love, and pain, and
being human,
with remembering
how to feel at all.
Read more!

A Note

Anonymously recording
nothing--
no pseudonyms here--

sign my name loudly, with a flourish,
graffiti scrawl across the universe,
in neon colors

(I want it there for the world to see,
and to know
it was me):

if I am destruction,
so be it;
I'll twist it to my own ends.

Do you understand this defiance?
Do you grasp the gravity
that pulls me ever closer to the brink?

Explain to me the hunger
that burns the candle at both ends,
pulling in opposite directions;

expound in melting tones,
dripping with smoke in my hands
(ephemeral and everything I wish to hold but can't).

With pain and loss and
all that should have been,
I'll paint a picture of the worst of myself--

shameless self-destruction,
prideful scars and seething guilt,
sharp edges and nothing of innocence--

if you could accept a monster,
maybe you can love
a shred of humanity that might exist

(wrap me in a comfort
I've only imagined,
help me unfold my wings).

Read more!

signs , signs, sigh-

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


slowly please
i read the signs
each telling me something diffrent.
crushing then jublilant, i will take the latter and start anew.
alone in a unxpected brand new world.

Read more!

escapade

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE

in the midst of lives we didn't sign up for
that have become far too troublesome
escape with me
we'll create our own contierfeit paradise-

Read more!

Just Another Next Time

Quietly melt down,
high on the past and
scars that mean nothing
outside of yesterday;

memory written
on soft lips, whisp'ring
of the end,
giving voice to the void.

Was it you that filled me,
or a falling-star wish
that came true
in every way it shouldn't have?

But that taste of ash
and destruction will pass;
gulp it down with a glass of
silky-smooth next-disaster.
Read more!

Wasted...

Cluttered with
dust and sputtering flames,
tamed, maimed and marred by
aiming for the stars,
scarred by hope and
belief in better things.
Riding on currents of sound,
surrounded by ghosts and
host to too many what-ifs.
Is this living? Giving
so much to the past, love
outlasting and unrequited,
smitten with figments and
idealistic images
that hold almost nothing of truth.
No smooth prince charming here,
just sharp, alarming picture
of bitter cinder-girl,
swirling the ashes of dreams,
gleaming eyes that sparkle
with shards of a soul
that could have saved the world.
Read more!

kidney stone haiku

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


fear anesthesia
saying goodbye to squatters
no more pissing blood Read more!

To Strive

A series of accidents culminates
in a long drop, only stopped
by hitting bottom--

and expelled, gasping,
into a room full of
watchful eyes and closed hearts,
I begin to climb.
Running before I can walk,
singing before I can speak;
through rose-colored glasses,
I can't see the cliffs looming large,
or all those scaly, clawed hands
reaching out from the shadows:
in ignorance, I am fearless.

Slowly, I learn;
childhood flees
in the face of the unspeakable,
comfortable illusions vanish,
everything dank and rotten and wrong
is magnified beyond reason;
I am lost, my purpose misplaced,
crowded out of mind by
bitter regret and clammy apprehension...
but still I advance.

Into the heights, below: the abyss.
Light-headed and feeble,
every precious inch
is an eternity of struggle and pain,
with no predetermined outcome
to comfort or assuage;
there is only me.
And with each crystal shard in my palm,
dizzying seconds paid for in blood
and the stink of terror my constant companion,
I chant to the rhythm of my shallow breath:

somewhere up there, there is freedom,
somewhere up there, there is light.
I will reach the top.
Read more!

Stuck in Time

The clocks speak of
moments, hurried and brittle,
with your voice a whisper in a gale.
These wings were not enough
to keep me aloft,
these lungs not fit
for such high altitudes--
this heart, not as golden
as your hair, nor as brilliant
as I imagined you to be.
Shadowed eyes
and quiet fingertips
that never quite touch
beyond the surface hello;
scant impression, small comfort
through long nights, remembering
all that never came to pass--
too many hours spent wishing
on stars that have already died,
halfway across a galaxy
that never noticed you were missing.
Read more!

Sugar

Syrup-sweet and
edible,
you pose, proposing
in languid prose
feats deserving poetry.

Supple-soft and
craveable,
milk and honey, love,
ungovernable
candy-urges surfacing.

Sticky-wet and
panting,
slantingly romancing,
horizontal dancing,
a melting sugar-tangle.

1.12
Read more!

Smooth

Is it sweet, she asked;
does it flow? Does it
glide across the mind like
honeyed skin, like silk and cream,
like soulful, happy tears?

Angel's song, I told her,
with nothing of
shattered glass or pain,
all sensual grace,
like youth and strength and sin--
ecstasy, love at first taste.

1.7.09

Read more!

mitten

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


.
much love for this state
cherries motown and techno
lest you have forgot?

Read more!

MONEY?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
for those of you in school- i found this under scholarships and such

Betcha never thought you'd find a use for that paper your teacher loved on Ayn Rand
Guess what? Here it is: The Ayn Rand Institute awards $10,000 to the first-prize winner in its annual essay contest . Go to


http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_contests_atlas Read more!

Chicken - A Song For Karla Smith

Karla was an amazing, vivacious, wild, and troubled force of nature. She was both beautiful and intelligent, and a truly gifted writer. I met her in Madison, WI in 1998, and we dated and lived together briefly. On January 13, 2003 Karla Smith's light was sadly extinguished by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Although our time together was brief, my time with Karla is one of my most cherished memories. The following is a song I wrote for her just before we parted in 1998. This is how I remember Karla...


CHICKEN (A Song For Karla Smith)

Something in the way you light a pillow,
The way you look, especially when you read.
The way you laugh, or talk when your friends call you—
To know you is to know the joy in me...

I see you in my sleep, and upon waking,
I think of you all day, and I am sad;
I worry 'bout the way our love is shaping,
And worry 'bout my strength to keep you near.

Cause I don't know what you need, or if you need me.
And I don't want to chain you to a lie—
But I am glad we got to know each other,
Oh, cause I'm a better man inside, somehow...

Oh, I have known ten-thousand righteous causes
And I have watched them all burn to the ground.
And I can say they made me none the wiser;
But they were mine—as you are mine right now.

And I love you as I've loved nothing ever,
Ever in my life, that's come before—
But this unpleasantness has come between us;
Is it possible that our love can survive?

And Karla, I don't claim to know the answer
To anything you might be searching for.
And if I could, I'd love you girl, forever—
But will I become a victim of your pride?

'Cause I can't claim that I have all the answers
To anything you might be searching for,
And if you'd ask, I'd go from you forever;
But I'd hope your loving touch would stay right here...

So paint a fractured smile upon my windows,
You're a kind of joy I just can't bear!
I wish I could stay with you forever:
I can't claim to know you, but I care.

There are realms within imbued with such emotion,
And places deep, that no word can describe.
There is peace beyond expressing when I'm with you,
Everything you are, gives depth to life. Read more!

Armageddon

***
twenty twelve looms
watching conspiracy tv
cancel insurance

Read more!

A Poem for Tiffany

Some people enter your life for but a moment, but stoke something magical and mystical within you that gives you hope. Tiffany was such a person.


Touch me unforgettably
In places where I need it most.
Fill me with the confidence that
Freedom is contagious.
Always be authentic in everything you do;
Never doubt your influence, and time will ne'er forget you...
You are just the seed of what someday I hope to have the joy to know:

When you wander, think of me, it makes my footsteps lighter.
Eagerly improve yourself, so you'll have that much more to give.
Always cut yourself some slack, for people sometimes falter...
Tragically, you'll come across some people who
Have troubled lives--who sap away your
Energy, and bind you to their problems.
Remember it is not your job to save them
From their circumstance: beyond some words of wisdom,
Only time can heal their lives...
Revel in the here and now, love yourself always, somehow.
Dream of me, I'll dream of you, and love you till we're stardust.
Read more!

The Dreamer's Lament

Yellow leaves and flower petals
Scarlet footprints in the sand,
Icy winds that chill the body--
My love wonders where I am:

Silly boy, who, born a dreamer
Left the world when love was mine,
Searching for some phantom being
That I know I'll never find...

I've traversed through wooded mountains
And I've forded icy streams
Searching for something I've known,
But only found inside my dreams:
With a heart that often falters
Have I traveled day to day,
Trying to ignore my feelings
For the one who'd make me stay.

But at night, with spirits broken,
I can find no peace of mind
For my travels leave me lonely
For the one I've left behind.
Nevermore shall I encounter
One who loves me as she does,
And I think of her while on the waves
And send to her my love...

Curséd is the life of dreamers
With a heart that's meant to roam;
Meant to ponder all the mysteries,
Meant to travel all alone...
Searching hard, but never finding.
Tired, hungry, and in pain,
Yet I'd rather be a dreamer:

Just a soul, without a name...


Read more!

happy new year

2 wars, 2nd great depression and fireworks


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
smoking on the balcony of newmark theater as midnight hit. breaking the new smoking ban (can't light up within 10 feet of a door) felt good. No smoking in bars now. Sucks. I'll take my habit to the street motherfuckers. Still, 2009, will be the best for all of us personally and for the species. Good luck in SD, Glytch. And please keep writing. Read more!