Wednesday, December 03, 2003

I know you won't read this
because you appear to have
a horrible yet undiagnosed
poetry allergy.

It's kept me up at night before
wondering if you're read things
and understood them, but now
I realize:

This can be my secret confession
and as long as I keep my line breaks
somewhat consistent you won't know
that I'm lying.

You see, I've cheated. And I don't feel
all that bad about it because
I have the sneaking suspicion
you never really liked me.

And so what if I've technically cheated
more than once with
more than one guy because
technically

I was never really your girlfriend
as you are allergic to all things
"commitment" as well. And
to be quite honest

It's been going on for a while. And
I doubt I'll ever mention it to you
because you'd probably just have
another

dumb ass remark that's designed
to make me feel blonde but really
shows how unfit you are
as a man.




Monday, September 22, 2003

addiction

I know now why I've walked away
it is for the same pain thta all others stem from
It is Sylvia Plath with her "Daddy"
and my own futile attempt to avoid the bell jar
But I have been in the bell jar
And this is the one attempt to escape its clouds
The story has been told so many times
but never to the one that could change it, fix it.
The one most poignant, affecting moment
of my otherwise joyous childhood is a memory
A cracked, rarely black-topped driveway
behind the 1970s rancher that we all lived in
The empty oil-streaked spot of pavement
where his car had been parked for two short days
only to leave again, then again, and again
And that leaving, that simple singular moment is the one
that I've been compelled to recreate
to remind myself that I'm the same little girl
with the same fragile heart
that would break away every Sunday but be strong enough
to love so hard the next weekend
that I'd have the strength to do it all over
And now I've realized, with the phone
continuing its silent tirade against me tonight
That my life goal of self destruction
has been to continue that moment of pain.
It felt then like the thing killing me
Since, it has turned into the trial keeping me alive.
To distance myself from that one
who has the courage to look into my chameleon eyes
and say with some measure of
sincerity and grace a quiet, "I love you, too"
Never knowing that four words
could transform him from my strongest ally
into the target of my fear and wrath
And now I've pushed him away with what I
thought was the silent grace and
discretion of a letter composed with him sleeping
comfortably next to me in a
peaceful oblivion far away from the less than poetic
battle between happiness and routine
continuing in my head at all moments, in all kisses.
It has never been a fact that
he didn't have enough to offer me, keep me happy.
But it has always been the case
that I couldn't stop myself from wanting more.
And it has come to this again
with half-hearted ultimatums and paper-thin threats
That my greedy heart could never
carry out against one who has been stronger than me
from the very beginning, yet
somehow, even after the tenth ring, I expect
to hear his voice on the line
Cooled from the strain of suffering late night letters
ready to accept yet another apology
from the flighty girl he had chosen to be with.
But for once, the big truths are simple.
In all my complaining, I failed to notice
that his honesty is the same as
my daddy's as he left me squealing in the driveway.
When he said I belonged there
that if he wanted me to leave he would say so.
When he said he'd make it safely
and call as soon as he could to whisper comforts
When he said I love you, too
and unknowingly recalled the most sacred ritual
of that childhood bearing
one raised, still gleaming scar; when he said all this
He meant it all in a way
that those who are still playing the game
could never come to know
or understand or appreciate, because all of this
was made into a cycle
to fuel the insecurities I spent so long ignoring
And I don't yet know which moments
I will keep as my medals of another battle
fought and lost with only words
The stomach down head propped position of letter writing
the deep peaceful hum of his sleep
the hours and cups of coffee lost to waiting.



Monday, September 15, 2003

the alarm

A life with you would be things
I never thought I wanted
for myself and for my story

House payments and paired socks
Car ports, dinner, and Howard Stern
The cold side of the bed too early
every morning, without fail, and
then again the next morning
with no thought to goodbye kisses
or what I looked like sleeping
and snoring, drooling, and dreaming

But a life without you would
have no memory of all the
tiny wonderful parts of you
in my day and in your bed

The shape of your mouth
covering less than aristorcatic
teeth, your laugh that surprises
me with unexpectedly found humor
And the same five minutes
every night when you find me
on my side and press against
the concave of my back with
the convex of your stomach
and the shape flexes together
and apart, together and apart
until you turn away, leaving us
butt to butt waiting for the alarm.


Saturday, August 16, 2003

The things you learn

Before I was with you
I didn't know
could never have known
the sight of you
pajama pants and cowlicked hair
standing under the carport
smoking your cigarette
and telling me small stories
that to you are mundane
but to me are
something to add to this
collection of images
that you foster in me
that I carry around
like an insanely proud
street peddlar of jewelry that
everyone else believes to be
costume but is actually
worth more than
all the material things
either one of us could ever
accumulate in this lifetime

But your stories are only
some tiny beginning
that starts somewhere near
those brown eyes
and has something to do
with all of the following;
your stolen hotel towels
and two-tone truck
the way you think
to take care of me
in teeny tiny ways that you
would never recognize
as taking care of me
the way you enjoy small things
and seem too aware
to take any of it
for granted.


Monday, April 28, 2003

Yeah, it is.

Is it wrong that I miss
the grocery shopping
now that I know there's only
one other person in the world
that will let me push the cart
and he'll never want in my pants
even if I'm the last woman alive
The operative word being "woman."

And when I roll over and
accidentally whack my wrist
on whatever hard object moves itself
to be beside my bed in the middle
of the night, and I know that if
your body were there to block
the punch I wouldn't ever be
as sore in the morning

And when I ride in cars
that I know can actually
get me places, I shouldn't miss
the anxiety of wondering if we'd
ever get where we were going
even after asking if we had
an extra quart of oil became
just as natural as asking
if we'd locked the door behind us.

I really don't miss the ugly parts
but the parts that were only ugly
from the far away outside
are the parts I miss the most.
The parts that on the inside
meant the difference between
a goodnight kiss and an empty bed
a sounding board and this journal
a cushion and my hardwood floors.




Monday, April 14, 2003

Zelda at Home

It has become a bit monotonous
The who did what to whom of
Morning after poetry

And you weren’t really anything
All that write-home-about special
But at least now

It seems that one of us
might have been the right person
At the right time

And until I hear from you again
In what's sure to be some
Unfortunate midnight
Booty call of fate

I can take pride in knowing
That my car payment is not for naught
Sometimes mid-sized
American-made sedans
Are worth the investement

Somewhere Jimmy Hoffa
And a host of teamsters
Are very happy that their oil stained hands
Took a modicum of time
To install monochromatic
Unexciting
Seats in a car built for professors
And old ladies returning from the grocery



Saturday, January 25, 2003

For some reason this page has attempted to disappear. This is a nothing post just to see if I can make the rest of the page come back.


Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Accidental

I have never in my life been so uncomfortable.
corner of hip bone grinding through six inch
foam padding into long neglected but quaint
hard wood floor.

The air doesn't move around us, not even in
front of my face as I try to breath out from my
body some of the heat that has gotten trapped
here.

And your hand has found mine again, arms wound
under one shared pillow. Your fingers balance in the
air, your elbow a perfect right angle under either my
head or yours.

From there your pinkie finger has dipped to meet the
top of my hand; also attempting to venture from the
cramped meeting of bodies and clothes and one thick
dark comforter.

It is accidental. The fingers the hand the meeting the
event. But it is real.


Thursday, December 12, 2002

exchanges


I watch you when you're too busy to notice that I am
You make me wait for those moments of focus
And when they come I know your silhouette
and I've never seen my own face in a
picturesque, Victorian sort of way. You have.

You have seen me as I cannot see myself.
I am a cynic, rugged and tactless
I am your bark not your leaf, your leather not cotton
But to you I am soft, a rough milled silk
Only you own the thought of my touch on your skin.

And as for you, and how you smile on my soul,
I want to reinvent poetry for you, and love
And let people see how my mind has changed
How the dreams are now too much for me
So I must share them, and you welcome them.
this exchange being only one of many.





this is why


I knew I loved you when I rolled over in bed last night and felt your glasses nestle into my right shoulder.

You finished the crossword puzzle with me and ate ice cream and listened to my fear and fascination with what is yet to come.

Then I got tired. We both got tired.

And in the holiness of the school night, I walked you to the door with my eyes closed, avoiding any and all light.

And when I rolled over, many hours later, and felt the cool of framed and glass on the warm of my skin, I realized.

You left your sight with me.
You left blind and drove blind and parked blind and slept blind alone.

I love you because your glasses have found a new hom beside my bed, atop my air-conditioner.
And you haven't asked for them back.





a dance


Staring at the clouds
twirling in a windswept sky
I am reminded of
the hairs on your chest

I see them while you lay
on your back and I
propped on one elbow
let my fingers swirl while you smile

And the hairs dance
with each other like the clouds
Like you and I before
we became still; before the bliss
Where we could think of nothing
but our own private waltz





mother


My supposed greatest fear

I am turning into my mother
In no small way

I order sweet tea in restaurants
I call to hear people’s voices
I cried at a Hallmark commercial yesterday

My alleged greatest fear
And it flows like ink through water
Not red, but a light casual blue
Spring skies and worn in jeans





on sunday


I’ve wanted to be the kind of girl
That’s too good to know
What everyone else is so wrapped up in.

You watch your own sitcoms
And hum your own lyrics
So you have no obligations to me
Or their networks or BMG,

But my greasy hair isn’t
Politically motivated
And the super-cool T-shirt;
It isn’t mine, but at least it’s clean.

That’s how to get through a day
Read Cosmo for the sex articles
Sing on your own terms
Smoke your candy cigarettes
Write horrible papers and
Talk them up like some
Shakespearean-metaphorical-pseudo-genius

Because after all, it did take time
To make the first letter of each line
Spell out: I bite my thumb
At this ridiculous pretentious world.






ernest

When I wake up tomorrow I might be a great writer
but chances are my gift of trite phrasing
will still be my best selling point
... editors rarely drool for me
or my religious hangups
or my endings that never quite HIT

But when I wipe the drool off my face
and taste my stale salty breath
I'll remember the dream I had
Went a little something like this

Hemingway was fourteen once
and his mom walked in on him masturbating
I know she did
And the first words out of his mouth
could not pass (to any well-trained eye)
as stark
brilliant
dialogue
So the next time, after I've woken up
that someone comes hurling criticism
I'll look them in the eye
and tell them
that to make the sun rise
you need more than a typewriter
and before you can lay there and die
It's best to get some living in.




work

sylvia plath was in my kitchen yesterday
baking this or that and this and that
while I typed away
frittered and corralled line after line
with the smell of chocolate chips flirting with my nose
I could hear her muttering
not once trying to whipser
about this wrong or that wrong
someone somewhere had done her
but we had both found our havens
mine, with broken sentences and hers
nestled
somewhere near a wooden spoon
and my range
and I’m sure my copy of the bell jar is about somewhere
to tell me that this is a dream
but I know it isn’t
because she never came back to my study
to offer me a treat
she is just that kind of woman.







Swirls


Perfect beautiful
Not yet steamy
Is that what we share?
This thing desperate to be
Labeled as something
We know nothing of


And maybe now we do
Someone handed me the cliffnotes
On my way in
But we won’t be led astray
By other people’s
Highlights and underlines


There are too many things
Words on the tip of my tongue
That aren’t yet written
Into our script in progress
Wouldn’t we be fabulous
On Broadway?


So come to New York with me
Bite my tongue
In the backseat of taxis
Let me buzz you up
To my fifteenth floor apartment
So you can warm my sheets


But, shhh, don’t say that word
Perfect beautiful
Not yet steamy
Passionate creeping
Just lay here and hold me
‘cause the next line’s yours
and that’s not what it says.





Your Cinderella


To think it all started so innocently
I suppose everything of the type does
The phone rang and I let you in and it was as simple as that
Katie thought you were cute. Remember that?
And you sang and won me over and I think
I can’t be sure
But I think I loved you from that night on.

But it wouldn’t stay that simple for long
You had demands and wishes
My work could only fill the most meager of your expectations
And you stayed as if god himself had given you the right to be
there
Balled up in my brain and my heart
Knowing which screws and gears made me cry
And how much
That’s where your love came from.

I didn’t know how much I could give to one person.
That’s what you taught me.
Because surely by now you realize I gave everything I had ever had
I gave my grace and my pride and my vocabulary quiz answers
All for you, whatever you asked, because I was so caught up
And didn’t I ask one day to be
Your Cinderella?
I don’t recall you ever giving an answer.

So where was it that you carried all you took from me?
Is it locked away in a trunk somewhere?
Do you keep it stashed next to your grandfather’s Rose Bowl ring?
Just as I stowed away all our notes, the signs you gave me, none real
That you were real, but you couldn’t be
No one ever taught you how
And I can’t believe how long I went on using that as my excuse.

Maybe it was because he hit you or because he drank too much.
Maybe my mother had conditioned me to look for something, anything to save.
We were both in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And I question what we have to show for it.
I can give good head and can cry without making a sound.
I can still lose sleep for no other reason but the realization
that there are things I can’t ever be.
You hear my name one day on the street
Someone speaking it that you’ve never seen, never heard.
Do you know her, they ask
Yeah, curly hair, kinda plain?

So that’s what you took with you.
That is what you claim to have to show for it.
When your wife asks, you’ll never admit to remembering what those kisses tasted like
And when you see my face on a book jacket
And the words true love cross your mind
You’ll never admit it to anyone
Not even yourself.
Because it was all a game
And the prize was simply to see
Who could hurt the least.
So take that with you. Plant it in your garden.
See if anything grows.





Yes mom


Yes mom, I’ve been sleeping enough
and I’ll have plenty of dirty clothes with me on Friday
Yes mom, I think it’s really over this time
and I wasn’t the one that slammed the door
No mom, it wasn’t my fault this time
and I promise it wasn’t something I said.
No mom, that was really his only reason
guess I just don’t do it for him like he wants it done.
Yes mom, I promise I’m really trying not to cry
and you need not remind me to just let it out.
Yes mom, I will cry with you when I walk through the door
We lost something big this week, we both know that.
And yes mom, I’ll move on and I’ll let you help me.
Know you don’t wanna see your baby girl lose
Four more years.





Nativity


Indian summer
in December
with forsythia forcing out
bursting yellow buds
throwing pollen
into the air
into my nose.
And we sleep
with windows open
promising ourselves the will-power
to not turn on the
air-conditioning.
shoving the down
back into the closet
and recovering
our thin quilts with
grandmother stitching

But sometimes
we still wake up
drenched in sweat
with our hair clinging
to the backs of our necks
and a line of
dampness across
my waist where
your arm
finally came to rest
last night.
and through the
spring morning fog
you notice
we always wake up
before the neighbors
across the street
with dark windows
and faintly gleaming
plastic religion
on the front lawn.

"Look baby. . . "
you begin, knowing
I do well to hear
half your words
in my own
spring morning fog,
but I flicker
my eyelids. movement
like a faint breath
on a candle flame
and you take the cue
to continue.
"Their savior ;
he has dew on
his little molded forehead"
And I mutter
I've always preferred
my salvation
covered in frost





road

sixty miles an hour
reflectors perched atop
concrete barriers
one two three four
i let it go
mind swirl and tumble
sixty miles an hour
seeing pictures
other than the road
hands lips eyes
i could die now
sixty miles an hour
if it weren't for
kisses passions
that still await
sixty miles an hour
no brakes





DRIFT

Drift
from thinking you are a dream
to knowing you could be nothing less
until you show up
at my door
when I didn't expect you there.






When You Know

Slow, creeping pain
won't admit it to yourself, though.
You give it all the poetic imagery it deserves.
Dark gathering clouds
Unmailed letters
apologize
beg
Candles lit in attic windows at midnight

And you can't sleep, not ever
Because that part of you,
that revealed everything in the first place
is an insomniac
and has pitched a tent
with poles beneath your eyelids.






ICE


We should stop this here
Let the water drip from both our fingers
And forget it ever happenned

I should find my bra
Lost somewhere under your roommate's sheets
And stop letting you touch me.

You should know better.
Leading on a hungry girl with those eyes, hands
And admitting to your soul you enjoy it

God should change the things
Leave behind the laws of Chemistry for us
And remove the "drip, drip" from our pleasures

or maybe we could just let it m-e-l-t






Unwritten Yesterday

I realize I don't know how to make decisions
follow anything through to its conclusion
set up a dream, an original thought
and leave it long enough to become
part of me

So when I saw two guys, digging in the dumpster
I couldn't help but wonder why
I never take the time to go through other people's trash
and find something to bring home
put on the mantle

And when the boy stopped me for my concert t-shirt
asked me if I liked the show, I'm left,
to wonder why I didn't buy more CDs
I should have known more lyrics
sang louder

Sit down with some homework. Nothing in particular
Flip pages and read every other word
because I'm too busy thinking of a way
to establish myself as the "one and only"
damn it, paper cut

Eat dinner with the one person who knows me
Sees me as the torch and not just as
one finger of the flame. We talk
with food in our mouths and settle
into ourselves






This is going to be the home of my new poetry website. I'm transfering all of my old poetry into the site, so what shows up with today's date will range in age from four years old to a year old. None of it is the least bit new, but it needed a new home. And now that I have a poetry page, hopefully I'll feel that little poetic tug a bit more often.