2001

Sun's Up
The sky is linen over blue stage
It’s that perfect subdued orange and birthing blue
That mixes, yet looks separate
A big upturned bowl of oil and water
In it is an orange tomato that shines in approbation
Of the critic
Who threw it there

Are you sure it’s just psychobabble?
Nature is a struggle for dominance.
With dominance comes power.
With power comes control.
With control comes stability.
With stability comes regularity.
With regularity come patterns.
With patterns come scrutability, understanding, and clarity.
With these come solutions.
With solutions comes an end of problems.
With an end of problems comes utopia.
THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IS THE HOPE FOR MULTILATERAL HAPPINESS.

La esperanza
The wait carries a familiar ambivalence
The future occurrence is necessary and inevitable
But I’d rather not go
This place holds nothing but aches and stiffnesses
The future is direction to a place I’ve almost seen before
In pasts that were as ambivalent as futures
Not knowing is the worst
But what of the thought that waiting and hoping are synonymous?
Surely the same ambivalence…
Certainly the same not knowing…
But this is an empty wait
One where the final outcome isn’t really important
A. will happen, and B. will follow
I wait without hoping, and that doesn’t bother me

I wonder if being a little mentally detached is loneliness
Or if loneliness is mental detachment?
I yearn for an era when rock stars and little people could contemplate reality without getting strange looks
Or perhaps to be taken seriously enough that my thoughts are not looked down upon because I’m a freshman in high school.
One of my classrooms is not real.
Do you believe me?

Almost Haiku
Encouragement to
see a fellow writer reach
quickly and in desperation
for pen and notebook

I am America
I have a cold
My red shirt and blue jacket offset my white, soggy tissues
I should have stayed home, but I still came out here
To remind all of you (that I’m still here).
My nose runs and eyes water
I don’t feel well, but it was important to show up
To remind all of you (that I’m not afraid).
Maybe I should have remained at home until I got well, dealt with it on my own front
But nothing else is diminished in me
And I’m quite determined
To remind all of you (that it won’t bring me down).
And if it took me six months to actually come to terms with incidents in New York
Then fine
I’m still here
To remind all of you (that it happened, and it won’t go away, and you can’t box the news out or your innocence in. There were airplanes, and there were deaths, and an army will rise from the ashes with tears in their eyes, anger in their minds, and guns in their hands. Remember.).

Open Hand(published in Hands on Stanzas, published by the Poetry Center of Chicago)
When he raises his hand,
he reaches up and out.
The uniqueness of the movement attracts the gaze,
and I think he’s grasping for, extending himself toward a bit of something I can’t see.
But of all of them, he’s the one
who’ll collect each little bird of wisdom
by reaching out and lacing long fingers around it;
each scrap of knowledge,
each new perspective
-up and out.
He waits with open hand and expectant eye
for these gifts from his world-weary, disillusioned teachers,
who can’t
always, for whatever reasons,
give him those birds of wisdom.
Don’t shoot him down,
don’t shoot down what he’s after,
or who’s trying to give him what he wants most;
You have no right, and he has no way to recover from the loss.

The senile are an annoying combination
Of breakfast foods
Oatmeal and grits
North and South
New and old
Conflicted- they are outsiders in a world that isn’t their's anymore.
The extremes can’t mix
And segregation tastes better anyway.

Famous phantoms in a hollow building pass in, around, or through me without once focusing their eyes in my direction. They kick me without noticing my mass. They search out other transparent celebrities and trip over me in the process. Maybe in their plane of reality, I’m just a vaguely outlined constant, appearing to be as much of a stock character to them, as they appear to be to me.

What you need, my little pauper, is the motivation to leap into that volcano
With your plump little face squeezed shut so you can’t see or smell. The motivation,
My little vagabond, will shove you roughly off the steamy lip. Then, my cherub, you will open your wings, pray for an updraft, and fly into the sunset (or is it into the sun? I can’t remember, but no matter.) and then you shall see where things go from there.
Alternatively, the mountain
May not breath you up. But you being you, you’ll most likely as not give an Olympian swan dive into the sugary, insatiable, lonely fire jelly, and there be a tribute to those who’ll follow you, and to those whom you followed. Yes, my sad beggar to Cupid, you’ll do fine. You just need that motivation. Now, run along, and don’t forget to wipe your feet on the way out.

Not Really Untitled
To be honest, I know the linguistic term for it
For when you ravage your eyes with screens
to try to escape it
I know the real reason
For when you realize how little time you can burn
psychoanalyzing your cat
I know the word
For when you’re almost ready to call the kid
you’ve had a crush on for months
Someone gave this oddity a name
For when you try to make friends with paper and pen
when these poems seem like all you have
There is iteration for this misery
For when the faceless being at the other end
of the chat line isn’t enough
I don’t want to admit to that weakness
That yearning for human contact
That... "lonliness"

“I didn’t realize Ireland was this blurry…”
The wind pinches my eyes shut so that vision comes in happy, patchy fragments
It flies up my nose, so that even if I did want to stop breathing- which I finally don’t- the choice would not be in my hands
The wind hammers in my ears like that street drummer we saw in Dublin
It shoves my hair out of my face with busy importance and impatience
And I want to call to the sheep, and tell them how it feels to be speeding down an Irish back-road with your head out the window at 70 kilometers an hour in a Mitsubishi Galant- even if it is a rental car:
I’M QUEEN OF THE WORLD!
But, really, I don't need to say anything, because of what this feeling tells to me (and tells to me in an Irish accent):
Welcome back to this side of reality, miss. May I take your jacket?

%This is a bit of free association I wrote a while ago in pencil in the back of one of my notebooks. This is written exactly as it came out, so it's not always grammatically correct, nor do I think I spelled "Cambraige" correctly.%
Misery, words, palabras del día, obsession, lust, loneliness, fantasy, again the isolation, flowing pencil, strange utensile for expressing constant feelings which can't be erased, but chased, I'm chased down and bitten at the heels, my raw and bleeding heals, automatic poetry, free association, which should be momentum conservation but the Physics teacher doesn't see, I should focus, I want to kill that bitch who thinks that I don't curse like all the rest, I can't pull comfort to my small breast; it's too slippery, I want him to hold me but there's a gap, in the conversation and relationship but I'd still obsess if I left , and all the more if he left, he doesn't make me laugh, there's nothing sacred, but he lets me be as heady as I want, and he'll never say "Just go to Cambraige and get the fuck out of my face." He's just a little different and I need that but he isn't there, they've never been there, and I'd been up, but now I'm down because my twin soul from el Gram Pomme is down, I need music and an hole to crawl through/in

I’m afraid to write
about tonight,
I’m still nervous that I’ll bug you
My subordination,
Ingratiation,
I’m not generally like this
You’ve a purpose, a life
Am I more than rife
That I have this right to be with you?
I’m releasing the fear
That shouldn’t be here.
God, but you make me feel ignorant.
My sensitivity covered by wit
While the “real me” lives in an emotional pit
I’ll push you away; I won’t hurt.
They’re alien, these first date jitters
But maybe we both have speech that glitters
Thank you for saying you wanted to do this again.

2002

Of Writer Queens and Philosopher Kings
see your childhood flash before your eyes
a wall of books that made you what you are
it’s personal.
they’re all there, with titles you’ve seen, or similar to ones you’ve seen
mages and thieves, dragons and a pantheon of lady warriors
and the authors are the directors in the wings whose names shine with the titles of your mentors
and you have a moment of shock and distance
the greats are now past guides
they brought you to this path
but they cannot come with you
they stay to guide your sisters after you
and the new stuff is about man
and man’s mind, and man’s achievements
and it’s written by man, and provided by man
man, man, man!
you fear to regress on the path
but the she’s, those previous guides
they’re still there.
they are faithful, and if you need to make that pilgrimage to their sanctuary
they will admit you
but only if you leave your pensive old men on the steps of the fantastical shrine

Love Poem to a-boy-i-don't-know
Is it lust or love that draws me to your sculpted face?
The living marble that moves in grace
Emitting words to which my words give chase
In verbal tag with shrieks of jot unmasked
Your shame makes me sympathize, and colors you sweet red
Your knowledge is a savior, that made me, dead, undead
You body is a pillow, if it will hold me head
Your weakness is a blanket (with which) to cover up

The Allies Are Here
The Allies are here
but they are the quiet ones
who love you
and would stand up for you
if they weren’t so afraid.
They don’t want you to feel deflated,
but they are debilitated
when it comes to protecting you.

Jagged
Ice-olated
Cold ANd vaST
Howling wIND, SCrEamIng pAsT
timE to thinK
Is TIme tO Sink
And cry ‘MERcy’ aT laST

Song of Sampson
Between two poles
Of wood I stand
The buttress rolls
Up in my hand
I push, they give
I give, they push
A way to live
Birds in the bush

For the one whose pain I both ache for and share
I want to hand you the world,
cupped in my two hands
I want to suck the joy from
the fruit of disillusionment
and share it between us
I want to teach you how to let
your fingers scrape the border of the lifted sky
If I teach you to reach, will you learn me to discern?
But no one is good enough to help you
I don’t resent it, I
regret it

nothin’ like those summer nights
know the season; become reacquainted
by letting summer remind you
on your skin
the thermometer needle rotates several degrees to the right
and you become a sponge
filled to porous fullness with you own salty solvent
wring yourself out on your shirt
your pillow
your mother
then bake at night, unblanketed, on the living room couch

Little Greek Boys Cannot Compare
Offer me Adonis
Narcissus
Apollo
or martial Ares in tight leather pants
And I’ll remain the eternal Artemis
and shun them all!
Just for one look into your muddy eyes
One ruffle of your mousy hair
All I want is one word from your cracking voice
And I’ll send Adonis packing

The Sable Rivulet
Bitter black ink builds
Boiling, bursting, held back
Bubbling, banging, jet black
Breaking, breathing, not broken
Slimy, soothing, still unspoken
Simmering, swilling, stirring, flowing
Sweet, sticky, sugar knowing
Soaring sideways, snaking, thrashing
Burning, bleeding, pounding, bashing
Boisterous, boxed, passions brought
Beating, blazing, dearly bought
Biding, binding, worsen, blinding
Waiting
           Waxing
                      Hating
                                 Taxing
People-plighting
           Spirit-smiting
Where a slight slighting causes sore spiting
Ink pounds through my veins, awaiting release
I pound through life’s veins, giving up on peace

Aque’s Nearest Exit (because it isn’t mine)
Go on: swallow
You won’t
ingest what you want
The life growing in you isn’t yours
It’s theirs
You never
had any claim to it _ get rid of it
Do it when NO ONE’S looking
unless you’re doing it for them
They’re breaking my neck in

Ode
She wears the long dress that is smoldering red
And bold, russet shrines seems to sprout where she’s tread
Her dress flows and ripples; it contrasts the wall
Unpainting it as she sashays through my hall
A sprinkling of gems pass for blood at her throat
She tosses brown curls; fingers- sanguine- her coat
The moon through my window can’t pale her rose hue
But we hide a stain whose emergence is due
Though try I to blot it, we prize it too much
The birthright of lady, her favorite crutch
Oh, all through our exploits she’s darkened what’s clear
Surprises me, strikes in me awe, praise, and fear
I need her consistency, number the days
The depths of her coloring bind there my gaze
And though she entrances me more than I’ll say
I wrap her up tightly and throw her away

2003

Emily Dickinson Poem
The truth of Worth is bad acid
The pride for pride is Eight
Pretentiousness- and slow- and tipped-
And done at Outside rates
Expressway from the actual
A coiled retreat from path
That jumbles up your Slated plans
In life and love and math
Superiority can stew
And- bubbling over- stain
But if I stop list’ning to you
You’ll soak up like the rain

Risk-ous Hibiscus
My rose-colored glasses
(those crushed, useless masses)
Weren’t honest like you, when my youth raced molasses
And graphite & ink & water & blood
(and the solvents that wash out the gunk and the mud)
Are only just splendid enough for me now
To be telling the which & the why & the how
The sweat & the grass & the dirt & the sand
(and the solutes the living find oft on their hand)
Are seasons away while an icicle drips
But I’ve got your eyes & your vows & your lips
And I’m finding that people prefer me to lie
To assure then, appease them- I’m still not sure why
But you’re calling me, “Clamber up high in this tree,
Where there’s only the view & the you & the me,
We’ll be lovers in flight and children at play
And I’ll know what you mean, whatever you say
As long as you mean whatever you say
Because stretching the truth is a deed I inveigh.”
I don’t think you noticed the way that you doffed
My assumptions about you, which were none too soft
Your love is permissible, missable, miscible
Everyone else is just vicious or viscous
Though my ambit feels like an unpairable parable
I can pause to admire this risk-ous hibiscus Ω