Finish your collapse and stay for breakfast

a little late in liking rilke

Thu, 31 May 2007 00:50:52 GMT

Just the other day

I realized that I had the best love, to which nothing could compare,

Not even the sun rising in my palms was as beautiful.

And somehow eventually my highest standard couldn’t even meet itself,

And love was lost- like Daisy, like Allie, like your dick.

Then I got so angry when I learned that lately he’s been reading my books, and

All of a sudden he loves Letters to a Young Poet

Rilke is mine. He’s supposed to be mine.

You don’t even know what he’s saying.

You were supposed to be mine.

You were supposed to keep me,

Even after the prose was dead,

When I’d start to re-use lines from

Old poems in hopes that maybe, just maybe,

They’d mean something the second,

And third,

And fourth time around.

Maybe if I had lived in Belmont,

Or if I had been able to tell you what the fuck was wrong

(Wait, I did.)

If only I had written “Muzzle of Bees” and you were who it was about.

I’m assuming you got my message on your machine

I’m assuming you heard Gray Room and that it made you cry.

Yeah well you should’ve been there.

-Well I’ve been there before

and I’ve still got you to keep me warm

I’ve been warmer than warm.

With the breeze blown through

My head upon your knee

Half of it’s you, half is me.

I’m sorry I didn’t write it, I’m sorry

He didn’t play Cold Water but she wasn’t there

And never will be again because “Don’t you know I love

You and I always have” was a lie

And you lied and you’re not sorry and the awful thing is

That I’m still sorry even though it’s your fault.

I’m sorry it’s your fault.

(one) Why can’t you be closer,

why can’t I be older,

why can’t I have a house in Canada?

And (two) why can’t Sweden be closer?

Why can’t Laura be whole?

(one)

Because had the tides turned that way, we never would have collided and capsized,

Which means we never would have gone under in each other’s sails,

In each other’s breath,

And we never would have drowned together.

To be honest I’m not sure which I would have preferred: never knowing you existed or drowning in love until we both died.

(two)

Because when people are whole they feel hollow.

So yes, prose is dead,

For the fifth time now.

And yes, the only reason I want to see you is so I can have back everything you took from me

And is that okay?

I like it this way.

After all, I’ve got a virgin for a fuckbuddy who’s cheating on me,

An Egyptian with green eyes, and a Turkish love that hasn’t been born yet.

No I’m not drowning, and no I don’t care.

And I’ve still got your mother’s blanket to keep me warm

because I’m still always cold.

I still hate you but take no heed because there will always be a slice of me that’s yours.

I will always die I will always die I will always die

So you can remember me.

Written about a week and a half ago.

Sun, 20 May 2007 02:31:09 GMT

Thirty-five miles an hour

Past an Asian family of four-

Two toddlers playing with sticks,

And two over aged parents who spent four hours in the immigration line and one hundred dollars on canvas bags, all for a commuter city (with no car), shitty housing, a job at a well-respected jewelry store,

And a little bit of progress.

Drink it down with a little saki and let us know what you think of our country:

Dial 1-800-WE-SWEAR-WE-CARE.

They climbed the scoliosis roadway and arrived at the Storm in fifteen minutes.

Within the same time frame I had stepped on a catalyst,

Locked my life in my car and chose a chipped green picnic table to lie down on as I waited for fear and love and the Birth of Venus to fly towards me in a wicker basket modeled after my veins.

But Il Principe failed and realism won and women can’t be born from clam shells so why the fuck would you expect him to appear?

The Asian family appeared walking along the rocks, speaking in Oriental verses that shamefully go unnoticed here.

Still I could’ve sworn one of them screamed my name-

“Give up! Give up! Give up! Give up!”

No, wait. The photographers left the temple and it’s my turn now.

I plead: Isn’t there anything you have to read in the shade of the trees?

Rain check. Rain check.

Checked the sky, checked the drops on my skin. Ah-ha, it’s raining all right.

Checked the pages of my books and saw history running together.

Parade rained on. Scarves ruined.

The Muslim woman’s dyed scarf runs and the fuchsia drips over her modest shoulders like the insulin from the syringe that keeps her son alive.

An attack ensues, but there’s no such thing as an emergency when you spend your evenings calling loved ones from a minaret.

I cave

And step on the catalyst.

Two minutes later, the sun reestablishes control,

But I’m already exiled.

Eight-twenty PM and I’m pretending to forget that I was ever ousted,

That I was ever shaking

(God damnit I can’t stop shaking),

that I ever cared about the way the branches entwine across the blue planes until you can barely tell there is a sky anymore.

Those horror vacui bastards, when will they ever learn?

Where are you? Where are you?

Space is good, even pretty at times.

You seem to be deep in thought.

Wrong impression, sliced earlobe, shared Chapstick,

Dead future. Unscrew the lid of overanalyzing and apprehension.

Let it fizz a little, and enjoy.

Feet barely touch, a whole forest between us.

Cross divide. Insert embrace.

Insert memory of Asian children and a mosquito bite

Right here.

Thump thump, thump thump.

What’s this? What’s this? A slight caress?

It’s the spine that breaks every time you lay on it,

It’s the tongue that swells at the touch of your tongue,

It’s his hands massaging your flesh every time he wants intimacy,

His insistence on kissing you despite his chapped lips;

The startled face when you realize he reads you like a book.

It’s the two little boys holding each other’s hands as they run down the hill,

The suspended gasping fear their old mother holds in her throat

as they stumble down,

down, down the hill.

What’s this? My front door.

Come inside and let your breath warm to a melted substance.

Somehow we’re supposed to forget time and remember the feeling of each other’s touch,

But your chin rests on my legs and your lips flake off.

I wonder if this means I’m not allowed to hold you,

Whether or not we’ve just found the end,

Or if I’m supposed to make you fall for Fall River towards the end of summer.

Did we just incise a bas-relief, or is this Alexander’s way of telling us that he just razed the fuck out of Persepolis and Darius is finally dead?

Who will stop my nightmares? Who will blow out these flames that climb closer and closer to my voice box and scorch the strings of my free verse?

Who will hold firm the good?

It’s the thoughts that singe your cranium and lace your aorta.

I look eastward and see a gliding silhouette in all her glory.

The aged mother walks barefoot up my driveway and smiles at me a while before

Laying a single grain of rice at my feet.

Hold on my love.

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:50:07 GMT

high. embarrassed for being high. paranoid. terribly lonely, terribly excluded. deliciously high. delicious gold. delicious comfort. sleeplessness. wasteful. forbidden to bring a potted plant into the art museum. disappointed. inspired by chance. found.

Pollock's Procession to a Lovely Thing

We're in a struggle with language
I wish my head would sto spinning beads
or beans, or a thousand other difficult and illicit activities.
Burst into the center, Eureka!
shaking on this blanket, why question anyways?
sway and swank and strut down the staircase
I don't think I can run anymore.
But circulating loving another loored to view
Chicken lookin' and lamped, digital destruction.
black out. Freeze. Be still, be still.
And dictionaries define these dumbells

Towards Crepuscule

A chair leg seems to have had six fingers
Sleeping girl is only five.
Rufino Tamayo hates that the walls are coral
Go away! only if you have anyone else. Do you?
'And voila!" seems to appear from nowhere,
like Gaugin; how do you get your feet to arch like that?
No wait! Her feet blend in with the floor.
Her feet blend in with Rufino Tamayo.
Christ, I'm exhausted from nowhere.
She once was oil on canvas.
What do you hide beneath Rufino Tamayo?
Gaugin's fingers blend with Christ and coral.
Go away.
She is Rufino Tamayo-
Oil on drapery.

The Surrealist movement attracted huge galactic panoramas. He became intrigued with Pennsylvania natives. The color-field shattered the boundaries that secure a soft drape that changes each time. He offered a meditation that straddled a line and rendered a canvas. She looks back to trhe gestural human presence, and richly- and delicately- displays the artists' surface hand palabaility.

who's in love with the world

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:22:58 GMT

Dad, Wig, Judi-
Heyall. As you can see I just saw the world's largest Buddha...in the world. He resides along the 3-rivers delta at Leshan. Afterwords I went to Chengdu & ate some great Sichuan Food- which is like the Cajan food of China. So of course it reminds me of Cajun J & eat at Berk. with you guys. Can't wait to get back.
-Jerome.
Mai rui feng.

p.s. Send me sour patch kidz.

[printed on the postcard] The photo of leshan Buddha in 2003. And the leshan Buddha was founded during 713 and 803. The stature of the leshan Buddha is 71m.

He wrote all of the names of the places in Chinese writing as well. I'm not sure what is said in Chinese at the end. I think 'mai' either means love or sister. I fucking miss him more than anyone right now.

Here's to the boys who hardly know we're beautiful.

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:26:25 GMT

I hadn't even planned on writing tonight.
Right now I should be packing, packing,
Packing for my great migration
to the Space Needle Mountains and the
Pacific Ocean caught in Victoria's eyelids.
I hadn't even planned on wr-

Well, I hadn't planned on a lot if things,
i.e. killing off the sparks between us-
aren't those usually blown into fire?
You know, pursued?
Eh, fuck 'em. There were never any sparks.
What sparks?
Exactly.
So what if they're erased,

so what if right now you're in
Ohio but didn't tell me.
I guess that means you still have the
blue whale, I guess that means I'm
supposed to cry now because I feel
forgotten. I guess it's what I deserve, for
not calling you when I drove past
Lorado's water nymphs and I cried
because I missed you like hell.
I guess two can play this game.

So what if I turned you down once, so
what if you're a better cook than I-
(France lost that day, I was so upset. but oh,
the key lime pie was good)
I'll see you in October and-
how about that ride home?

So what if I should have kissed you
after the Sigur Ros concert
underneath the marquee?
So what if we both know it's been there before,
(She just doesn't see)
I promise I'll kiss you when I get home.

And who told you I've never met him and that
he probably finds me too forward and too
talkative? Well you know what,
Anything goes in this town- I can't quite say it in
Catalan, but maybe Spanish will do:
Vive la vida y se hablan amor aqui.
Both the Pablos have dreams for me that
take place in the conches of
Gaudi's stomach.
So what if I don't know what they are yet:
Castile de Milas, Sagrada Familia, Battlo House,
Gothic Quarter (wait a minute- that's Moores, not Gaud-

Shh.

I'd rather be surprised.

sorry if this makes no sense to any of you who read this. i wrote this for me.

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:19:49 GMT

"Get your mind off winter time,
you ain't going nowhere."

I’m not sure why I’m writing this to you, after we’ve just spent two hours talking about all of this and you’ll never be able to read this anyway, but I love you. My throat is killing me. After all, I’ve been choking for seven years on all these things I had wanted to say to you for so long. I miss the person you were before you even had the boys or me. Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it, that I love the person inside of you I never even knew? And yet so much of that person lives inside of me. Because of you, I devote myself whole-heartedly to the people I care about. Because you have waited hours upon hours for me to show up just so you could watch me read by your hissing radiator, I have loved the little things that people do. And I have not shown my thankfulness at all. But you must know that I am thankful. And I’m sorry I don’t come over much and that I ridicule you for smoking or that you wear funny socks. Tonight I noticed that you don’t really even smoke your cigarettes. You keep them tucked between your two fingers as the smoke whistles out of the room into the evening clouds, and the white and orange paper burns towards your wrist as embers and ashes fall into the sink. Just holding it is all you need. And that’s what we both need from each other. I’m sorry I tell you how unwelcoming your apartment is, because in all honesty, it has become one of my favorite places to go. Everything’s so peaceful there and I can concentrate on work or let my eyes focus on nothing or listen to the rain as it sighs on the Tudor windows in my bedroom. It has become a haven for me, a place that I keep beneath a heavy lid in my brain that I secretly and slowly open -so the lid won’t make too loud of a popping noise- and I breathe in the smell of the perfume you wear and the seaside-scented candles we got you for Christmas one year. While kept in my jar, I want so badly to share our special place with others- to invite them into our secret world where you make everything beautiful, as you paint your walls with your pride in your children’s artwork and the photographs that reflect the faces of your fifty close relatives. In my heart I know my friends would love it there, but still I am too apprehensive. (It took a lot of getting-over-things inwardly when the man I used to reside in love with wanted to climb the stairwell to 22 D and into my bed to read by my side and watch time go by.) What if they think the empty dining room creates coldness, no matter how much the off-white radiators or the soft glows of the old lamps give off warmth? What if they don’t like the negative space and they expect to see more of your beautiful life spread across the walls but they can’t see it because it’s something they have to search for? What if they never understand what this place means to me? If any of this were the case, it’d be my fault for failing to get across how much I love it here. I’d be the one to blame for keeping it beneath the lid, as I have the mentality that since they weren’t there in the beginning they won’t understand now. Why is that? It probably isn’t so. In fact, it definitely isn’t so- you said it yourself. Why is it that you realize that these people I love mean so much to me, and yet I still quiver and fear that they won’t understand? Why won’t I let them understand? What if-- I love that after writing about our little world, I suddenly move there. “There” becomes “here”, and I feel the breeze coming through the window screens. I love that if you read this, you’d be the only one who knew exactly what I was trying to say because you interpret me so well. I’m glad you’ve decided to stay, even if sometimes I think that you’d be much happier with Opa picking oranges from the tree on the side of his house. I wouldn’t be happier, but I think that you would. But I’m glad you insist that you’d rather stay here with me. I love you for reassuring me that we can both open the lid simultaneously and let our hearts sink into each other’s as we enjoy tea and gourmet pizza and the occasional spanakoepita. Thank you for holding my hand and promising me that we’ll stay close. Thank you for giving me life and thank you for staying in it, regardless of how much shit has gotten in the way. Thank you for calling me when I got home and whispering in you sweet voice, “We’ll stay close.”

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 13:58:43 GMT

“This is the birth that everyone’s always talking about.”

Doesn’t it feel like time has stopped?

Like right now, with the rain coming down,

I would have no idea what time it was, if it

Weren’t for this computer clock.

You’re flat lining. And yet- you’re beautiful.

Hope you found your vanilla pudding, and that you

Didn’t see Casey again.

I still drive past the gazebo and glance

Slightly to my left. The candles are nothing but stringy

Wicks now, but goddamnit they’re still lit, even with the space.

What is space? When is summer?

When does the mustard plant grow?

I hope later this evening we meet in some

Glow and maybe hold each other’s hands.

Here’s for wanting the boys who can hardly tell we’re beautiful.

Here’s to crying out of laughter.

Here’s for holding out for the men we know we’re supposed to love.

They’ll be around next year, right?

And you, you’ll be around all years. True,

I think of you and blush like a magnolia, but I do believe

You and I will touch hands-to-faces again some day,

Even if it won’t mean a thing to either of us.

I never had a life to live. I am the cherry orchard.

You know, I often dreamt that you and I laid in the

Beach grass, reading Rilke in the dunes.

Above- a Baroque sky. Below- Mesaccio’s bones.

Marysue, you’re a queer one, but my god you’re darling.

Please don’t be afraid of me. For a second there it

Seemed like you almost held me but-

No, I must have been dreaming. I seem to live in my dreams.

The teal ocean in the movie theatre in Montreal was just so fitting a

Place for us to kiss.

Are you a sundial? Have I seen you before?

No, you’re a steamroller. I’m the peace flags falling back to the earth.

I’m still figuring out how to connect with you.

It’d be so much easier if I knew your thoughts or

You’d let me hold your hand.

Let me hold your fucking hand.

Swim with me through El Arco or Christina’s world.

“Then he first felt delight in all his feathers

and verily became swan in her lap.”

Oh kairos letter. Hm. Interesting.

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:33:56 GMT

November 22, 2006

"Set my love in order, o thou who lovest me."

I will keep the keys to the Chapter House. I will re-read my leters over and over until I know that I am able to love these people fully- these people who set my love in order. I must remember they also set my entire world in order. And I know these very same people will when this letter is received later on. A great part of me hopes they will years later. How beautiful to think that in 2 years from now Eric's smile will still be the thing that floods my memory and my present state of mind. And Laura's cackle, and maggie's puppy face, and Caroline's bedroom, and talks with Ryan at Sitwells and phonecalls with Bruns. How am I to ever forget the beauty these people have given me? It won't be difficult. Fuck, what a lie, of course it will. But I will stamp these loves into my heart, because it does not matter where I am. As long as I have them, I will always be.

i'm not entirely sure what the hell this is. but here goes it.

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 01:01:27 GMT

"I am honored to be your father."
Skip school. End up in the corner of a cold coffee house and hot chai and a bahtroom whose aqua walls you scribbled on first. (no one can read it anymore) Yesterday I drove down Telford Street to Blenheim- thought I was rowing in the sky above the castle. A car nearly hitme. Such places don't exist.
You don't cry as prettily as you think. Us ends now. This is it.
(I live more beautifully in my dreams, anyways)
Not even a second-thought phone call or a letter to say you screwed up. Well, you did.   You screw. You drill your voice into the hole in my chest and brand tire tracks into my thighs. "I never noticed how strong your legs are."
Yeah, well you also probably never noticed how heavily I breathed or how perfect the nights looked or how miserable my sleep was after you kissed my forehead and pulled the blinds up so I could see the golden lights of your volvo as you drove down my driveway. You probably didn't notice my sleep in the front seat of your car that night.
Oh, and let's not forget the woman who spotted us holding each other in the street, exchanging a smile because she remembered the first time she felt that. Oh, you never noticed her?
Well then, let me ask- did you notice that I'm dying and that I'm perfectly okay with it? I've grown so numb after you stripped me of your favorite clothes of mine and I've accepted that you don't want our voices tethered together any longer. You're just dying to get the hell away. Perhaps you haven't noticed that I'm already gone. Yes, gone. Rotting away as viking ships often do and waiting to be taken to the Olson House or, if I end up in Baja, drifting through El Arco just off the shore. Either way, someone will find me and ask me if I feel any pain and I will reply, "Not that I've noticed."
Please, won't you untie me from your rope entwined with frayed words about how much you strive to make people happy and how you've found everything in me? Haven't you noticed I want to sink and freeze and be found months later by some celestial navigator who screams out "At last, I have found her!"
Don't you notice my eyes in the wind have closed shut and yet they still cry tears that hit your forehead and make you wince uncomfortably? And sometimes all I want is for you to cry with me and tell me how much of a coward you are for giving up on what you began. Haven't you figured out that you can't throw people away onto the rocks of Lake Michigan, no matter how much you say you're moving on? Haven't you noticed that I still linger on, with no desire to encompass you, but rather a want for you to still linger in my life? Don't you know that I will continue shivering until you place me in your kneecaps so that I can warm the ice for you like any friend would? Yes, I am shivering, haven't you noticed?
Haven't you noticed me standing in your doorway in my fucking underwear with nothing left to say?

yeah i'll read that later and ponder on its origins. i hate him- i don't want to be with him- i just want a place in his life kept especially for me.

come to think of it, i guess i'm still a wreck.

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:11:09 GMT

“Well, it’s pouring down here.”

Heart regurgitated onto Martin Luther King.

I never expected for it to be that perfect.

But it was. Your voice--

“Yeah, it’s terrible here, too.”

In my head I wondered what the lake looked like.

Frozen over, just like El Lago Raphael

Beneath the star-moon shutters.

“… Terrible here.”

“Oh, I finally saw The English Patient.”

(shit, fuck- should I have said that?)

What did I think? Beautiful things.

Dark green and folded, asleep in the

Corner of your closet.

(“Look darling, a blue whale! Did you see it?

Just wait, it will come again.”)

Before laying to rest,
I was hoping to show you Tummy Haha and the

Elephant staircase- all that remains after the hurricane of ‘38

Wrote the death of the waterfront.

And the way you said goodbye- softly

(Insert my name here. Make it sound poetic, won’t you?)

Surprised to find my heart still in my ribs.

It’s because I’m better. Or maybe I’m just comatose.

“Your winter snows, your gusty blow.”

Prose is dead, but it has not given up on you.

Hoped you would’ve remembered.

I thought I said that “distance left gingerly”?

Damn, I could've sworn….

There is still Everything More, lying in your room inside the box that tells you to breathe.

let's hope we get published

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:31:30 GMT

I fall asleep.

The catcher breaks my nightmares that

Often come on the wings of moths.

Heavily breathing his voice into the basin

Between my collar bones,

I take flight. My eyes close

And my heart opens to our

Pumpkin stories, corner-folded and book-marked

in our fleshless hands.

We are not flesh, we are an open heart.

I fall asleep. Yet eyes open and

Remember the world-

Journalists are killed, the birds collide.

A wind-chill arctics me.

Poets cower, even though

There is much welding to be done.

But there you are, Dream Catcher,

Beneath the dirty streets,

Walking in the garden where an iron sundial whispers,

“May you be as true to each other

as I am to the sun.”

Though you cry in disbelief,

I catch the words in my palms and

Kiss your dry knuckles, smear the letters on your hand

And the soleil on your face-

I drink all the butterflies until you know.

Feb. 13th (A una Estatua de Proa- Naruda)

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 05:01:16 GMT

Five nights ago my hands snapped off of my wrists at the same time a car rolled backwards off the edge of an ugly roof and crashed right into a blue jay’s borogrove-ish wings and burned away the feathers. On Sunday night I regurgitated my lungs because I felt there was no need for them anymore, now that there would be no dream catcher or breath box to capture my nightmares and supplant them with dreams that molded into the form of ships that anchored into the basin between my collarbones- your Almasy Bosphorus, as you liked to call it. For five nights I have glanced at this stupid telephone wondering if a red light would flash to let me know you still wanted this kept in a jar stored far away from all the upside down and inside-out buildings and movie theatres with broken light fixtures. At least, that’s what I wanted. I will not lie, you caught me off guard and dropped me from 7.81 stories into the dry gravel that I was never supposed to touch. Dreaming of you this morning woke me, and I opened my eyes with an ache in my forehead that promptly pounded and pounded at my skull with no other intention but to split it in two. I made sure I was twitching uncontrollably last night so that I could be a shipwreck today.

(“te recogimos cansada navegante.”)

After all, it was eight months ago that you laid your pretty head so close to my palms and asked, “so what do you think of us?” (it was at this point that I noticed the noon sun was burning a hole in each leaf of the magnolia trees as more seconds passed by) “Us sounds perfect” (a light shade kissed the petals and they drooped towards the fountain) Before I could lean in even closer to your glowing face your palm painted with two love lines was melted with mine beneath the burning star of daylight.

(“Dulzura delicada que irỉa conquistando la luz con sus caderas.”)

About eight months and 20 minutes ago we stood on the steps in front of my door, with the only light coming from the homes the fireflies made in the trees and from the windows that were stenciled out of endless skies solely for the purpose of the stars showing through, and you told me “don’t be afraid of anything.”

(“la luz te recibiỏ temblando en los pouertos.”)

Fool you were! I was already remiss of fears from the moment the netting of your palms clasped mine earlier that day. With that you grinned and locked your arms around my shoulder blades and kissed my lips with every pulse of circulation you had in you. It would be four months after this when we would be lying at the foot of your bed looking up at the clouds and you whisper, “do you remember our first kiss? It was so sunny.” And I chuckled. It was sunny for me, too, fuck if it was late at night.

(“vive la vida.”)

The night we slept in the polygonal room at Ryan’s I built a chapter house to store the scrolls of my memories and as we stayed the entire night locked in each other’s sleep I dreamt that we owned a house in Cuttyhunk right on the cliffs of Gayhead with a balcony that looked down on our catamaran dragged upon the shore, its stern barely bobbing in the shallow sea. So no wonder I awoke today with no lungs and my ribs broken, because you took away my seascape and drained my suprasternal notch from every safe place. Now outside has been ripped out of the earth and thrown into some foreign sky as the snow looks at me despairingly because it has nothing to be laid on. I close my eyes to be taken back to Cuttyhunk, embarcadero Cuttyhunk, and the white dunes by the ocean.

(“Al final, a mis ojos estabas destinada.”)

Only, today the mile marker sunk and there was a trail of gasps eight feet apart from each other leading up onto the shore. Today we picked up your form from the sand.

(“Dejen caer lo que soy en la espuma.” )

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:56:59 GMT

Something I just wrote.

If you listen closely, you can hear it rust.

My father’s eyes never looked bluer

Than the day he told me I will be okay.

Ted Hughes left. I’ve never felt warmer.

Lakeshore- I sing-

Eden

Belleview

And a sailboat still tied up to the cleat on the dock

The wind never came to Loyola.

I have eyes in the wind- they used to smile at you

Through the stars that froze your lips until I came down

From my celestial bliss to kiss you by the fountain and

Bring you life.

For eight months my hands were fucking frostbitten because I gave

Everything to you.

Adieu, Ted Hughes.

My feet are still bare and lovely, and I will step on

Lakeshore stones with someone else’s pockets in mind.

The aquas will clink and brush

Against a different cloth and I will think of you at first-

But only as a montage-

Blue pleats and a red door with green eyes on

My nervous lips (fireflies’ reflections)

Lanterns of “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” and an

Envelope enclosed with a compass that ended somewhere else.

Faeries flying through my walls; full moons at 7:44.

When you get your pilot’s license, if you’re not afraid to fly,

We can still flicker to Greece and back to Iceland to

Sleep beneath the verge.

Can there ever be anyone else?

Life tries.

The treelight will try. Donne will try.

In the distance, through the concrete cutouts

You can still see the little girl in her yellow dress,

Waving to us from her broken side-screened door.

We sat on the precipice and felt fused.

The slate rain washed the coral sun away

Life is gray but I love the rivulets.

You hate to get wet. I won your dream-

Distance did not mar me.

Rain never tires and neither will I

Somewhere the Day sings “Que Sera” and

A Landscape cries a melon sky.

And you realize that you’ve never hated the lake so much,

Now that you have no one

To sing its song.

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 21:39:20 GMT

Meet me in the Chapter House,

The lake just outside our window.

We stay asleep- locked.

Dreaming of you awoke me-

I knew this reverie deemed true,

For I found your arms around me-

Locked.

Meet me in the Chapter House,

To frame the glow from the glass.

I want to be the only one,

Please, don’t you ever let this rust.

In my rear-view I saw a man and

Smelled your scent,

But only for a second because

You weren’t really there.

It never seems that way though.

I only have to roll my eyes in back of my head

Like a fucking corpse unable to love what she sees-

And there you’ll be, only completely alive,

Walking in the garden where an iron sundial whispers,

“let us be as true to each other as this dial is to the sun,”

And I’ll kiss your dry knuckles,

smear this on your hand,

Pour some soleil on your face,

and drink all the butterflies until you know.

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:44:23 GMT

Verses from a Ouija Board

Verse I- You Have Your Mother’s Smile

I’m sorry I was never there,

But always swaying from point to point-

East, west, northeast,

But never towards you.

Walk a mile in Nantucket

I swear that I will find you there.

Verse II- Untitled

We will meet in our laughs

And in our dreams imprinted on the mattress

Where we’ve molded and folded into one.

We stamp the beach with our smiles.

Verse III- Untitled

Hawaiian music at my funeral.

I want the cherry blossoms along the lake-

In full bloom and gray, as in my favorite picture of us.

And he will be there

To tell me I’m still beautiful.

At those words, I want to wake up and climb into that picture,

Feel the frost and see him smile as he says,

“Come, stay a while,

We have nothing left but to grow young.”

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 21:24:13 GMT

Lady Tomato

The Tomato lady-

I still remember

When I began to love.

My emphysema reminds

Me every day.

Things like this will

Always repaint your breath

And re-teach to you how to

Respire.

It hurts at first

But you eventually

Get used to it.

I spent 15 years

Bitingly growing accustom

And I got used to loving.

I don’t want any other tomato.

Just lend me your steak knife

So I can shred this meaty Purple

Passion and let the taste sink in because

This is the only thing I should feel.

You are frozen. You’ve lost your flavor.

I’d rather taste the ground and dirt

Than taste you.

Tonight, let’s run.

I’ll bring a two-person and

We can take the wagon

Through the mossy cities

And we’ll end up in Arizona

Lying on the edge of the Grand Canyon

Hoping we never forget how to respire.

I don’t think I will.

I’m so orange I’m almost blue.

Let the canyon rocks scrape me

As I eat my calabash breakfast and love you.

I don’t want any other tomato.

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 04:05:27 GMT

I fall asleep

Still to be

As the catcher breaks my nightmares

That often come to me on the wings of moths

“Nothing will ever hurt you,” I hear him say.

Smoke from the teapot rises through the candlelight-

The very same, you remember, that never ceased to flicker

Amidst the porcelain and the spray.

I still need you here. I still need Robert Redford.

I still need the lake- its cold sandy murals.

I still need you to cry as you tell me not to cry.

My eyes are heavyset when I cry.

Flight.

I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and open my heart

To the stories of pumpkins corner-folded and book marked,

Still residing in our fleshless hands

We are not flesh,

We are an open heart.

I close my eyes.

A basin. A British hat.

I close my eyes-

Fancy a Thursday night

That draws you nearer.

Surprise me at work.

I close my Belgian waffled eyes.

My Beloved is found.

Heavy breather.

I fall asleep. Eyes open.

And I remember the world,

Its tight seams and its sickness,

To which no one is immune.

Journalists are killed

Pretty birds collide;

They all drop one by one.

There is a wind-chill that arctics me.

Poets cower, even though

There is much welding to be done.

But there you are,

Dream catcher.

I close my eyes

You take my hand

I fall asleep.

Heart

I fly.

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:24:41 GMT

Creased Time

We weren’t always here,

Perched upon dry petals,

Which fall delicately into the folds

Of my linen and your skin. Complementary

And fusing, like man to woman

As we get lost in time.

Your skin feels like marble petals,

And mine is dry and brown, complementary

To your pastel cheeks, rouge like the womb

Of love- the heart. A timer who tries to lose track of time.

If we hadn’t both been here,

I’m sure my hands would have creased at their veins, alone, and folded.

I found you in blue, a lost, cold woman,

With the scent of stale petals

Dusted over time, this trivial time.

I’d give the world for you to realize that you are here

In my arms that fold

Abound you. No need for words. Unspoken. Complete.

Petals fold as sweet autumn waxes and transcends time to bring us together. Completed. And at last, here.

Airplane, Airplane

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:29:51 GMT

How does it feel, to know you’re not the fastest?

To know that you are not as swift and you cannot fly pass the clouds?

He is on a jet plane

Nonstop to more work,

More age,

More distance.

And you are nothing but a bird.

Nine minutes left, before it will be weeks until

You see him again.

Hopefully turbulence won’t interfere.

I’ll try to not let these crows,

Who are remiss of flight and

Clinging to the barbwire-

I’ll try to not let them get to me.

I believe my feathers can slice clouds, too.

Fuck it all. I will get to you, my love.

I will see you above the grey and we will hang

Beneath the stars,

Where we fated to lie together.

I see you looking out the windows, as your plane reverses.

Back to looking forward to seeing me again.

I’m not giving this up.

Engines are naught but temporary.

Brakes.

I see your soliloquy unwind from the windows.

The statuesque may not hear you, but I do.

You’re telling me how much you love me.

You’d stop the world to tell me that.

Turns.

Back to looking forward.

I’ll see you in the pale midnight, where we’re fireflies,

Flickering and fusing and

Falling in love.

This is everything, aside I say.

We are falling in love

In gazeboes,

In candlelit tea rooms,

On Lake Michigan,

Where we are fireflies.

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 01:16:43 GMT

Breath.
Breathe.
And all of a sudden, we're in love.
And so we fly,
With sun-squinting eyes,
Still able to see everything,
Because everything is complete
In an impressionist's perfect view.

We are allowed tears for a little while,
Because we are such pretty cryers,
But let's not dwell on absence.
You cannot justify absence,
Saying it makes the heart grow fonder.
It does not.
It makes for space, room for dry sadness
And seething evenings,
Though however difficult,
As lovers, we endure.

Remember the earlier hours,
When you were so engaging
And I wanted to roll over my
Right shoulder and into your arms
Remember that weeks from now,
When it all seems so bitter and impossible,
Don't stop, don't you dare stop breathing.
Love will not give up on you,
Even though prose is dead,
And it seems like there's nothing more.
It will not give up.
And our hearts are fond of that.

You are nothing but everything.
You were right, when you
Clenched my hand and told
Me that you'll always be here.
You will.
You are.
Distance, to bed,
Prose, to dead.
Absence leaves gingerly,
And there is everything more.

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:42:34 GMT

You can't do this. You shouldn't do this. It's horrible out there, where I won't be with you. I hate it when the lights go out, because I know that once the last siwtch is flicked off, I'll be surrounded by a transparent presence of other pieces, but nothing tangible and I'll be alone. And I hate being alone. It's damp and uncomfortable, and I know that as you walk away I'll ask my self, "Holy fuck, is this really how I'm supposed to feel?" Lingering in self-pity and remorse, all the while thinking of things I could have said or done to make you stay with me. Perhaps if I had kissed your perfect lips with my stone cold mouth you would have realized how much I could mean to you. You would like to be here with me, as everyone else passes nonchalantly, with the mentality simlar to, "eh, another sculpture." But I know that you're different, please don't fucking tell me otherwise. (Sigh) Maybe you wouldn't like my kiss. Maybe you'd find it so impersonal, because I have no life in me. Life is limited, which is why it's so valued. On the contrary, I am lacking, I have no lifetime. Years have gone and will go on and on, with a purring drone, and I will watch (as I have no other purpose) and wish they meant something to me. I could go with you. I could fall delicately into your pocket, and the pace of your steps as you walked out of the doorway would give me life. And I could be a breathing spectator, just like you, and I'd know how much it means to be free of permanence. You have know idea how trapped I feel, unable to leave history and unable to be a part of it. You could save me, I wish you would. I want to be impermanent. I want someone to value me. Your footsteps turning towards the exit. Wait. The ever-furthering space between us. Please wait. The snap of the last light switch. And my non-life drags fucking on.

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:33:20 GMT

stars, shooting out of space,
into place,
crestfallen and gruesome
unlike a pretty thing.

but they love and they lead,
almost arrogantly,
as if they were unbreakable,
as if they were the reason
that we are all here.

light, beaming from the sky,
wetted and dried,
upon the rooftops of the ones we love.

among pale shadows, we look like stars,
as if we could be such pretty things.

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:07:56 GMT

Girl: Come on, just speak to me. Reach out to me so I can pass Art History and then go home. Make me feel something.

Statue: I miss my fucking beauty. I'm almost a thousand years old, and I feel like nothing anymore. I used to be pure and rich, resting in the halls of bejeweled pyramids and halls of the powerful. I grew comfortable in those spaces. I felt so loved when the rulers caressed me with their copper hands, trying to fit their fingers in the intricate folds of my linen. My hard, metal linen. You probably can't tell, but I used to have three emerald stones set in my crown. But those cheap pebbles fell ou twhen I was shipped from France to America 85 years ago. Or was it 86? Even my memory has aged to sand, but still stuck to this beautiful hour glass. That's one thing I'm still proud of: my figure. But who would admire such a shape when it is tainted by weatherworn, dusty gold that hasn't shined in over 800 years? I miss Egypt. I was a woman there. A real woman, with men who adored me. However, I was nothing like the pompous queen who I'm modeled after. Notice I hold no snake, and I am much younger. No, I'm adorned more, because I'm an art. The men all wanted wives who looked like me, with bright eyes that reflected light into a myriad of soft silver lines. They wanted wives who were aloof like me; they wanted to have to work to be appreciated by such incredible grace. Call me elitist, but this room is nothing like Egypt. Sure, there are other old pieces of Egyptian art, but this is nothing like the real place. Egypt isn't cold and clamy, it's vibrant and breezy. Oh, I miss the warm breezes of the Nile. I felt so safe in those towers that looked onto one of the wealthiest places in the world. But here, no I do not fit. I've tried to weld myself to the cornerstones of this building, to see if I couldn't find a new safe space. Just is not the same. Though, I am quite comfortable on this pedastal, just talking to you. This is the most at home I've felt in four hundr... well, a long long time, let's leave it at that. People need to speak to artwork more often, we have a lot to say. Besides, when the two worlds converse like this, when they reach each other, that is when they become one. You're just as young and beautiful as I was. Make sure you remember these times. In 50 years from now, I want you to come to me and reminisce to me all the spaces where you've felt safe. I hope you'll feel as nostalgic as I do about the spaces where I moulded to the air the best. But farewell now, the room is growing dark, and I am not bright enough to illuminate it by myself anymore. Oh, and if you see my scultpor, son of a bitch who left me to return to Rome, tell him I still love him.

Thu, 11 May 2006 02:14:49 GMT

http://www.buttonsofthecause.com/index.html

^^ that would be a cool present or something, if anyone is ever wondering what to get me for christmas or my birthday or for sometime soon day.

Thu, 04 May 2006 03:11:11 GMT

I envy the historian
Who knows me better than I know myself.
He sees past my spontaneous thoughts,
That seem to make sense at the time.
As I sulk over the things I have lost
Through war, love, apathy, and conceit,
He interprets my past, with his
Would-have, could-have, and should-have insights
I wish I could remember the last time I blinked at her face
She was so pretty, like a printed linen that makes the sun opaque
But now so aloof, like the view of the lake from my window,
That I wish I could glide my hand upon.
It’s hard for me to justify what I did wrong,
When simply put, I should have loved her more.
But I chose machinery, with nothing left but an image of her
Crying and telling me that I’ve lost my chance to live
But I thought my risks would define life better,
I would look heroic and that would have been nice
Perhaps I’ll see her through my sun-squinting eyes one day
And I’ll say to her, “maybe one day we can meet on stilts.
That would be nice.”
Maybe it would be different then, with no chances for mistakes
Maybe one day we can look back on it all,
With a chuckle and a breath and a “maybe if I had…”

We are all such fools, to think we know ourselves
More than those who watch our past in years to come.