Messages to the VOID

2008-02-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

Words scratched like rust
Corroding a silver silence
Degrading everything
Until all that is left is the image
Words creak like old fences
Clop like patent pumps down a humming hallway
Crescent of yellow-pencil moon
X-rays and plaid make a velveteen forest
Striking some perspective with blind strokes
White and green and blue
Words fold up into little origami boxes
As the locust swarm or honey's viscous spurt
Of paint warms and jello-ifies the brain
Not paint like vinegarmaltedrottingmarshmallow wall paint
But the paint of silver tubes and white containers
Nail polish, plastic, oil, mind glue paint.
Paint me something beautiful.
Write me something beautiful.
Talking to my hands
With my heart
Not giving my head any credit (I love you too, Mr. Cranium ... Miss?)
'Tis how I'd choose to live.
This wonderful way.
Creative and alive.

This feeling

2007-11-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes all I want to do is write nonsense and then make something out of it. There is so much nonsense in this world to be decoded and delivered - so much to think about - that making your own nonsense is like a continuation of normal.

poetic debris

Life is a paradox

2007-11-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Has Mother Nature disowned us?
Everything a squirrel does is natural,
But we - we struggle.
We are human through and through
As cats are cats and bats are bats,
But why can we not eat, drink, sleep, or breathe,
Without the risk of being unnatural?
When did we give up that bond,
With all other life,
For this human truth?
Things only exist with the conceivability that they might not (the imagination of their lacking).
Nature, then, would not exist without us.
Do we bring Nature's crystal streams and downy fields,
To be exalted as they deserve,
With destruction,
With the essence of "unnatural?"
By being human?
Oh, how life is a paradox.

Love

2007-11-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

A single petal,
So mystical,
I must reach out to touch it,
And all at once,
It unfolds in a million directions,
Filling my life with a cascade of petals,
That never land,
But *blink*
And I have swallowed them,
And there they are,
Lying gently on my heart,
Folded so beautifully,
Fluttering gently,
Unfolding in a million directions from within,
With every beat of my heart.

Time

2007-11-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

My life is a past of uncertain futures,
Like everyone else's.
And filled with ignorance of passing time.
What an illusion it is,
To think we can govern our lives,
With such carelessness,
That we are granted.
Time magnifies and curves,
Out of proportion.
It moves like a zipper,
Uniting the sides of cloth as it goes,
Sliding towards a universal future,
Leaving behind a universal past.

Grandpa

2007-11-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

He lies there like he is sleeping,
Grandma sits in the corner like she is dying,
I am sixteen,
But I am a child,
Hand grasped by my father’s,
Unable to grasp anything,
But such a tender pain.

I do not yet understand,
That I will never,
Forever,
See him again.
Hear him again.
Indoor shoes, white cane, tie and hat,
My mother is calm.

I am the only one crying,
Shuddering softly in my stiff, black coat.
Shuddering softly.
My voice comes out shaky,
Like the “wobbly” vibrato
My grandpa objects to.
And when we leave,
I stop outside,
Dark and cold,
And stare at the casement of soft light,
Sharing a second that grabs his hand,
And walks on by.
He lies in a room,
Stacked upon, beside, beneath
So many others.

I know that he is leaving just as I am,
Know he will never be again,
Know I will go on being.
Know he will always be
In the wings of my opera
And every uncertain step my grandmother takes,
Him in the back of my mind,
With his square glasses,
Along with all those other glasses.
Every life says the same thing.

He showed me how make sunshine,
Out of tears,
Like squinting wet lashes in light,
He showed me what I do not yet understand,
What I may not ever understand.

Every life says the same thing,
Yes, he showed me that everything,
Is opera,
And we cannot sing strongly enough.
We cannot sing strongly enough.

Metaphor for Life

2007-06-14T12:46:00.001-07:00

We emerge from an ebbing womb over a shallow beach,
As adults,
And as we walk away from the ocean –
Where we were conceived,
And I speak of conception as our childhood,
A murky past that isn't a part of us –
As adults,

We become younger and younger until we can't walk any further,
And we die.
Some of us die at high tide,
Others make it to the rocks,
Some venture into the woods.
Life is not linear,
Instead we circle about,
Some of us whirling out of control,
Some being dragged to the bottom of the ocean,
Sadly, only some washing to the shore.
And then the illusion of a linear life begins and ends.

Sonnet for Stability

2007-06-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Sonnet for Stability

A woman stands tall, stands poised with a scale,
An accord of balance and symmetry,
Not chance is it that fair is dark as well,
Not happenstance that justice is just free.

Covet balance like a covert longing,
To love and be loved, to weigh and be weighed,
Necessitates narcissism, feeds grace,
Life with burning stress is so rashly flayed.

Combat what you need since you are alive,
Rushing here and there, torn between it all,
Because you are human and therefore blind,
For certain if it's stable it won't fall.

Ground me as you would a bulb that cannot,
Define turbid sky from mothering pot.

Lined Paper

2007-05-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

Lined paper is a concept,
As frivolous as a grid,
On a warped topography.

Lines paper deludes,
Of latitude and longitude,
Of first and last, of growing and dying.

Lined paper stands for voicing a thought,
For understanding a feeling,
For remebering a time,
For time itself.
For things that have no right to be defined in existence.

With small margins and nowhere to hide.
Lined paper is blank or it is not.
It does not show the pen hovering above it,
Thoughts poised in a quasar of saran-wrap.
Gently pusling,
With vain promises of transparency.

The Sky is a Paint Chip

2007-05-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

The sky, today, is a paint chip.

How sophisticated Nature is,
To leave the sky simple,
This fine spring day,
To recognise the relationships,
Between depth and breadth,
Austerity and childish simplicity.

How can the entire sky be so solid,
When repetition does not exist below?
How can the entire sky be uninterrupted,
When there are storms to be wrought and confusion below?

We are protected by a baby blanket of blue,
For how could we face day after day,
An infinite universe?
The glares of an infinite number of stars?
The constant reminder that we are but one place,
In an infinity of "somewhere-elses?"

Our trees silhouetted against the universe.
We would lose our ownership of the sun,
For it wouldn't be,
Fixed in our milky sky,
But instead something burning out there,
That we're close enough to marvel at.

Thank goodness, really,
That the sky is blue today.
That sometimes it stays like this for hours at a time.

Because we look at it,
And we look no further.
And then we turn back to looking into our own world.
We live under this opaque sky,
And deal with our own problems,
Painting what we can’t take,
To make it go away.

Thoughts

2007-05-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

To think that it is like the bounce of a football:
Possible to calculate,
Yet so random, so unforeseeable -
To think that,
Is a boring thought.
Leaves a watery aftertaste.
Makes reflection all there is in a world of broken mirrors.
Looking in vain for the angle to the future.
We cannot have a moment,
Because a moment does not exist - it passes and that is all.
The future is: strands of life in chaos,
At the end of a gradually braided,
Tail.
Full of knots and frayed transitions.
The measurer's of time braid the infinite matter.
The jumble of this and that, of life and other stuff.
Comforting, it is, to be part of the macrame of the universe.
Relentless,
Time churns with the passion of life.

Little White Things

2007-05-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Little white things, falling
From a sky so close
I can spread my fingers
Into the marbled universe,
Flutter in a breeze
I can't even feel.

Little Human Brains

2007-05-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

Why is the world so complex
For my little human brain,
Yet my soul exposed to it all?
Why is it:
Yes, always,
Unless …
Why is it:
I think so.
Why does that not have credibility?
Why can’t it be:
I know so.
Or is that even doltish?
Is it wise to say we don’t have an answer?
Is that it:
That we don’t know.
Does wisdom exist?
Is it wise to deem something sagacious?
For surely to do so,
We must be superior in some way,
Because recognition is wise,
I think.
Will it have been worth it in the end?
Why can’t I know now?
Why do I have to wait?
Is that fair?
Did we make a big mistake believing in fairness and order?
To be human is to live a delusion.
A wonderful, horrible, misleading delusion.
To be human is to lose all touch with reality.
To be human is to deny,
That the world is too complex,
For our little human brains.

Some thoughts

2007-04-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have met Evil,
Perverse, cruel Evil,
Wicked,
Inky black, sticky Evil.

I am free,
But Evil cannot be vanquished.
Evil smiles a spiky grin with yellowy slime in between his teeth,
And suddenly my teeth feel so yellow.
And Evil is so angular,
And I am so undefined.

I am jealous of Evil,
Enthralled by Evil,
Evil makes her sick,
Evil clogs her throat and burns my eyes.

To see my friend hand in hand with the skeleton,
Makes me never want to see her again,
Makes me feel like a traitor,
Makes me almost want to join them,
Makes me hate her,
Makes me hate it.

But does Evil really exist?
Oh yes.

Break every day into its seconds and make each second a pill.
Now swallow a pill for every second.
Without water.
Your lungs start to seize up, expanding in short puffs between popping the pills,
And your tongue is so big in your mouth,
Your saliva so thick.
And panic starts to build because you just can't keep swallowing.
The pills don't do anything,
But you have to take them.

That's what Evil is … just a mild obsession. Just a thought repeated. A thought repeated.

* * *

A little robot has a dream,
Of flowing blood and fleshy seam.
A man of tin,
He cannot sin,
His thoughts computed from within.

A girl of twenty has a gun:
A silver, garish, metal one.
She puts the gun up to her head,
Thoughts of peace and thoughts of dread.

The robot exists because of us.
Of this at least there is no fuss.

We, alas, are but our own,
Masters, makers of our throne,

And this is where the trouble lies,
In loss of self, in teary eyes.

Too human are we,
To think, live, and die,
Only to be,
Never to fly.

Feelings and frustrations and love

2007-02-24T14:47:00.001-08:00

Turn up the music real loud
Strap the bass to my chest
Let the voice press up against my forehead
Spread my ribs so it echoes inside me
Louder and louder until the vibrations make my forearms tingle.
Let the words mean so much they no longer exist
Let me cry alone in my room
With the music around me
Loud
Turn up the music real loud
So it's me in my mind
Turn up the music real loud
So the world dissolves around me
Turn up the music real loud
And just let me be.

I ...

2007-02-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

I saw this "survey" on facebook and I thought I'd give one of these things a try:

I AM: only a human.

I WANT: to be in a beautiful place right now, sitting and talking, listening and mutually enjoying the silence.

I HAVE: too much to do, so much to say, too much passion, so much confusion, too little time.

I WISH: on shooting stars against all of my scientific, sketpical humbug-ness.

I HATE: summing things up and beind decisive ... I hate being narrow-minded.

I MISS: three people intensely right now.

I FEAR: the unknown, but I'm brave.

I LISTEN: to trees.

I SEARCH: for answers.

I WONDER: about things that make me seem small.

I REGRET: nothing because I try to learn from everything.

I ACHE: for simple security.

I ALWAYS: read too much into things.

I AM NOT: alone.

I DANCE: when I'm happy and comfortable and there's music in the air or in my head.

I SING: but no one will catch me.

I CRY: when I am overwhelmed ... I cry at beauty; I cry when I am touched; I cry when I cannot stand an emotion any longer; I cry when I miss someone; I cry when I can't understand; I cry when I lose my way.

I WRITE: about everything and nothing. I write because sometimes that's the only thing I can do. I write because I need to put things into words. I write because that's what it all comes down to and it goes without saying that I love the feel, sound, texture, power, individuality, expressiveness, and melody of words.

I LOSE: hope sometimes, but I always get it back.

I CONFUSE: searching for finding and I don't think I'll ever get it quite straight.

I NEED: to know it's okay.

I SHOULD: rip out my heart, tear out my brain, throw them on a canvas and find my soul and use it as a plaster. Or so I sometimes feel.

2007-02-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

I love the smell of vanilla. I love greeny-velvety-yellow – the colour of light in a forest. I love Shakespeare comedies and I love dark chocolate. I love wearing lip balm, creamy and soft. I love brown – I love how rich and creamy it is – bold, soft and melted, subtle but wild – I love green. I love potent magenta and vintage turquoise and coral and yellow-orange and inky black. I love cream, maroon, and grey. I love fleece and corduroy and wood. I love the sound of crunching gravel underfoot. I love shiny, knobbly roots that look like dinosaur fossils. I love Dixieland jazz, passionate opera, cellos, trumpets, a yearning, yawning bass, a sultry saxophone. I love – I am wooed by – the clarinet: subtle, gentle, mellow, and teasing. I love tenor and bass voices and pure, sweet sopranos. I love holding hands, I love closing a book after reading the last page. I love crossword puzzles in the morning when no one else is awake. I love cereal, soggy or crunchy. I love sharp pencils. I love my collarbone. I love how people walk. I love trees – I love their silhouettes, how they sway, how tall they are, their grace, their majesty, how humble we must be in comparison, the confidence and passion with which they curve their roots into the ground, the texture of their bark, climbing them. I love doodling and sketching with soft pencils on thick paper, portraits, painting, photography. I love reading. I love dancing. I love jeans, pearls, tulips, magnolias, red roses, pink and orange roses, yellow roses, white roses, full open roses and reserved, elegant, tall deep red roses. I love candles and playing with the wax until I burn my fingers. I love sitting by the fire. I love hiking, lost on a mountain. I love waterfalls, I love effervescent, ever-flowing, effigy-carving streams that burn and boil and bubble and murmur forever and ever and ever. I love impossible concepts, I love thoughts with no answer. I love answers. I love understanding without words. I love descriptions and poetry. I love meaningful nonsense and making my own sense. I love tradition. I love concrete and satin, plaid and tartan. I love smiles, eyes, and the pattern on irises – rich, natural, resonant hazel, tempest blue, grass-textured emerald, coffee-brown. I love how light squeezes into arrows when I'm teary and gathers into rainbow beads on my eyelashes. I love how wind buffs my face. I love medieval-like fall and rustic winter, proud, naïve summer and delicate spring. I love spotlights, illuminating columns of dust in the air, victimising the soloist, beaming from the heavens. I love the ocean and I love the sky. I love golden-white sand, bleached, aged driftwood, myths, stories, legends. I love really good erasers. I love listening to people. I love my room. I love my house. I love silence and old photos and the moon when it’s just a sliver and when it's so big I think it has begun to swell. I love being alone and being alone with someone. I love maps and cultures and everything about travelling. I love light and how it plays with shadow. I love how words can change everything. I love connecting. I love huge comfy pillows with big gold tassels. I love thick wooden beams and high ceilings, red doors and long elegant drapes – like the curtains in a theatre. I love theatres, old and new. I love laughing at myself! I love laughing; I love whistling and humming, and singing when I'm alone. I love learning, I love irony, I love rainy days. I love rainy days because you’re allowed to be sad. I love rainy days because there is no reason to be sad. I love rainy days because they're like a child throwing a temper tantrum to make a point. I don't take them seriously, and they seem to understand. I love beautiful dark and rainy and so do I love brilliant and sunny. I love breezy, sunny, glowing summer days. I love not having a reason. I love the rush of possibility. I love blowing out candles and watching the smoke drift away into nothing – like barely tangible dreams! I love more than I can list.
I don't love everything in my world.
And I love people more than I have words to describe.

Tension and release

2007-02-17T12:47:00.000-08:00

The snorting and sneezing of a hose,
A grumbling lawnmower,
Lazy music from a cool patio,
A gurgling stream,
A man sitting on a roof beside a pile of shingles,
Far in the distance: wind chimes.
The sun peeks out from car windows,
From pieces of foil caught in a bush.
It plays a silly game of hide and seek.
A shrill, staccato bird pipes the sketch of an opera,
The road is dull and dusty,
A woman with a yellow road sign, with wisps of hair the colour of bleached logs on the beach, grey and brown, escaping from under an orange helmet.
A black tattoo on her shoulder.
A youth paints a face with a bare back the colour of caramel.
An old, glossy-red sports car with the top peeled back zips in and out of the shade.
A phone rings and no one answers,
A white butterfly flutters across the path,
A potent blue sky and whipped cream clouds,
A crumbling sidewalk,
A canopy, glazed in silver, hisses in the impish breeze.

Guilt

2007-02-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

Do you remember that evening,
On our summer camping trip?
We went for a walk,
In the dark.
Late at night.
Do you remember,
The sound of the gravel under our feet?
The stars studding the velvet sky?
The seductively noxious smell of extinguished fires?
The fleece against our necks?
Do you remember what we talked about?
I asked you,
And you said you wouldn't.
You said it was stupid.
You said it and the words caught at my heart like a faulty zipper.
It stung.
But I was blissful,
Because it assured me you were safe.
And now, goddamnit,
You might as well have lied.
You laughed at Hell,
And you dove right in,
Even when I told you it wasn't fun.
Why didn't I make you promise me?
Why did I trust your indifference?
Why did I trust the strong character,
I saw in myself,
When I knew how it could wither and die?
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.

I could have saved you.

If I had made you promise,
We might not be like this.

Hands

2007-01-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

Purple knuckles,
Grey fingers,
Green veins,
Blue nails,
Orange spots,
White cracks,
Pink lines,
Black blood,
Brown freckles,
Silver calluses,

Gorgeous hands.

Hands that move,
Hands that hurt,
Small,
Thin,
Warped like driftwood,
Aged and immature,
Elegant but old,
Fragile but strong,
Capable, stiff, gentle,
Weak, but tough,
Unafraid, unprotected,
Cold hands,
Ever-moving, clapping, touching, moving things,
Steady, shaking, sure,
Unabashedly ugly,
Smooth and rough and soft satin snagging and fraying,
Hands that bleed and weep and crush themselves together,
Hands that hide and hands that wave,
Welcoming hands,
Experienced hands,
Hands that know how to be hands,
Hands that are proud to be hands,
Hands that shake other hands,
Hands everybody should have,
Hands that I never take for granted,
Hands I can't always use.

Anything is possible with these hands.
These hands with willing fingers restrained by tendons of pain.
These hands that will not hurt anyone.
These are naive hands,
They do not know how to betray themselves,
They cannot understand what it means to lie.

My hands tell a story,
My hands want to write a story,
My hands want to be part of a story.
They work together.
Right writes, left holds down the page.
My hands are more me than anything – other than my mind.
I haven't made them anything – they just are.
And always will be.
They are immortal.
They know everything I know.
Look at my hands.
Hold my hands.
Touch my hands.
They feel.

Disjointed Thoughts

2006-11-15T19:47:00.000-08:00

Life is full of turns
Dance through life,
Turning into different people.
Turn to face fears,
To bow before an audience.
Turn to explore the unknown,
Turn to run back home.
Time turns everything into something else:
Destroying,
Decaying,
Renewing,
Creating,
Aging,
Combining.
Turn good, turn bad, turn evil.
Turn over rocks,
Squeal at crabs or treasures,
Lost on the beach.
Things turn gradually,
Or quickly.
Turns lead to dead-ends,
Or corners,
Or more turns.
Infinite possibilities.
Leaves turn colours,
And seasons turn.
Turns are proof,
Of ever-ticking time.

I am a fruit bat –
The runt of the camp:
Angular, peculiar, tranquil, and shy,
With chocolate fur and golden-red, leathery wings.Huge, elegant wings too big for my body.

I'm fond of venturing far away,
From the dense forests and deep caves,
Into the attic of an aging house.
Dusty records, Old, torn fabrics, Ancient instruments,
Relishing the past.

Watching the twinkling lights of a busy town sparkle on the horizon,
I delight in the unexpected find of fruit.
I glide and swoop over lakes,Lap at the cool water,
And draw the light of the moon into rings beneath me.
Screeching and waiting.
Waiting for the sound to bounce back off the moon.

I fly but I can’t land.
My fragility is coloured by clumsy, twig-snapping dives.
Then suddenly the trees far into the magical forest explode with bats,
A pillow fight at midnight.
My secret flight is over,
My comrade, darkness, and I fly back to the group.
No one notices me melt into the swarm,

No one noticed me leave.

I wish I wasn't so darn awkward...

Severed

2006-11-15T18:59:00.000-08:00

Another hot, ruthless day in China, the same yellowed sidewalk, the same distant couples with their minds remote from the lives of the beggars, and vendors, and death and despair of the lower class. As a teenager, I lost my arm in a factory, condemned to join the horrors of Shanghai. My parents beat me. They burn my legs and bruise my back so I will evoke more pity – more money. I know this is unnecessary for I have already been reduced to nothing.

A young girl – American? Canadian? – scuttles past, knuckles white, face flushed. A normal day in my life frightens her. She is like a fish picked out of the ocean and forced to grow human lungs and breathe the filthy air. I see the street from her perspective: the sun diminished to an orange blob in the thick pollution, so many bobbing black heads, vendors with sticky, yellow teeth and pale, cracked lips, like rotting fish with itching hands and threatening eyes, grouse, beg, chant, lure.

“Watch! For pretty lady?” He winks, she squirms, he smiles. A man throws an apple core at my bare feet.

“Real tiger!” coos a man, stroking a large orange rug. She escapes into a building – to her, a looming cathedral – a sanctuary.

This is how it will always be: vendors, like vultures, air pungent and heavy, cold fear, squawks and curses. And I sit cross-legged against the grimy wall, following the tourists – whose origin I ponder – with my sunken eyes.

2006-11-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

How can I do more?

How can I possibly do more?
How can they?
You’re Jealous.
How can I do more?
Innovation.
But I lack it.
Organization.
But it means nothing.
Love.
And I have it.
Love.
And I need it.
Love.
But I can’t do more,
How can I do more?
Resign myself to this?
Wait a sec.
Is this okay?
Enough?
Enough.
Is it ever enough?
No,
Really, truly.
No.
It will never be enough,No matter what I do or how much more I do.
Sad?
Maybe.
Are you going to try and beat it anyway?
Maybe.
That’s called naivety.
Is it?
Maybe. That’s called vacillation.
Why?
You hesitated.
Did I waste it?
What?
That-which-shall- not- be- named.
Time?
Shh.
Well?Yes.
So? Did I?
You bet.
Huh,
I think I get it.

Love and life ... oh

2006-11-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

I sigh a tear of pain and love seeps through my pores. I sigh a sigh so strong and salty, clear, true, heavy, and wet; I sigh a tear. A tear so beautiful. A tear so pure. I sigh and sigh and sigh. And sigh ...

* * *

Eating yoghurt...
Then I am aware of the spoon.
I see my face upside down, stretched, elongated.
Moving it in my graceful grasp, light bounces off it, streaks across it, and jumps off the tip.
The hollow reflects a world behind a dark grey screen, the colours and shapes distorted.
I sit there bending the world out and further out of reality and suddenly I don’t feel so grounded.

* * *

Still life: She leads a lonely, translucent life, the glass does. She stands tall, she is tall, she fears only being dropped, shattering. She knows everyone’s hands, she feels the thumbs like salamander suckers, and she sees the patterns of fingerprints. She judges the consistency of lipstick, lip-gloss, Chap Stick, detests the cruel scraping of chapped lips, or sick, slimy lips. She sings when caressed over her rim, she tinkles with cheer, she frosts with ice, and sweats in the heat. She leads a still life. She is a still life. When I drink from her, I wish I could make her live. Make her move. So cold, so warm, so unpersonified. Still life. Harsh life. No life. Good life. Life. Are we even to judge it? Life. Does it deserve a description? Life. Life. File. Live. Live life. Life golden and don't live glass. Don't live like a glass. But can we choose to live life any particular way? What we do means nothing. I can't believe that. We might as well be glasses, unable to choose what we are filled with. We do not choose exposure. We cannot beat being vulnerable. We are filled with what we will be filled with and not what we fill ourselves with. Who pours the milk here? We are never able to lift the jug. So naive. So child-like. So pathetic. But we choose anyway. And we aren't embarassed. In fact, we don't even think about it. That's life. What it is to us. What is always was. That it can't be changed. A truth. I think. For now. A temporary truth. If ever there was such a thing it was now. Was now. is now. Can never be now. Because now's gone and here and gone and over there. And we can't ever think about life because it's one layer of liquid below us always forever. One layer of liquid that we never chose.

* * *

It’s heavier than I expected,
Dusty and scratched,
Faint engravings encircle the bronze base,
The handle is dull and the sides shiny from many hands,
Many wishes.
I pause just once more and then rub, circling my hand over its swollen stomach.
A purple mist drifts out of the mouth and I close my eyes tight.
I clench the handle.
And staring at the lid, its jewels seem to glow.
Opportunity.
I wish for opportunity.
I understand the risk.
It could come and go,
A tragedy could result from a wish.
But I’m determined.
I will see it.
I have to.
For this is not a world that I would choose to command so easily.

This is a world I would choose to accept.

This is a world in which I would choose to love.

Poetic Rumination

2006-11-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

Vanity:
Are we all so vain,
That we are so old,
And cannot be blinded with beauty anymore,
Because our eyes are so aged and dim,
That we have made beauty so frightened of envy,
That it flickers in the shadows of,
A cloud, a leaf, an eyelash,
Are we all so vain?

Games:
Is suicide a game?
Well, then what is a game?
Checkers, chess, dominoes?
Eliminate, checkmate, dominate,
Win or lose, love or hate,
Black and white, a grid-like fate,
If life ain't joy it's second-rate,
Can love be shunned, can love be late?
Is hell or heaven merely bait?
Locked away beneath a grate,
A plastic piece, a candidate,
For which hope can never permeate,
Who yells Just wait, please just wait!
But a clock ticks and a dice rolls on a glossy plate,
A warped reflecting, scratched-up plate,
And you walk with all but a steady gait,
And your death is merely a determined date,
Your power's gone. Exterminate.

Questions:
A question mark is a coily thing,
That makes a sentence weak and thin,
It throws the words up in the air,
And leaves the speaker standing there,
Wide-eyed, trembling, cold and bare.
A question mark looks better in pencil,
Sounds like a rising scale,
Tastes like … a whistle?
Can be a treacherous hook,
Sharp and pointy with a sinister look,
Or could be made of a malleable wire,
Passive or even red-hot with fire,
Or a question mark can look more like an arrow,
A path to the answer, more straight than narrow,
Than if we had avoided it,
Because of its shape, its feel, its grit.
A question mark makes you think,
It makes you stop, pause, swallow, and blink,
A question mark is the very beginning,
And the very end when the light it dinning,
Of everything.
A question mark is more than the digestion,
That the statement was in the form of a question.
It is the diving board.

Lost:
When I see you,
I see a shrivelled heart,
But still as potent and steady,
Fiery and vibrant,
As ever,
In a copper wire frame,
That is bending in on itself.
A much too delicate work of art.
I see a lampshade of fine wispy hair,
I try to see the ever-glowing light behind it.
When I see you,
It is magnified and blurred with pearly tears.
I see a fossil,
Caked in compressed, dusty, dirty, strangling Earth.
When I see you,
I am hopeful, thankful, frantic.
I see a gorgeous metallic dragonfly with mirrored wings,
But they have bent in on themselves,
And you are reflecting your pain,
Into that swelling heart,
That just can't take anymore,
But needs so much more.
When I see you, I can’t bear to see you,
Because your appearance has betrayed you,And when I see you,
I know that when I leave,
I will cry.

Musings

2006-10-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Crazy, losing your mind; Crazy, aging. Crazy licks the chocolate from the fondue pot, Loony Lucy jokes. Youthful, they don’t know where they’re heading. To lick fondue from under their nails, from the rims of mugs, drooling for still-smooth, liquid chocolate. Watching the cocoa film harden on plump strawberries, watching and waiting, can’t touch the forbidden glaze until it’s hard enough, and waiting and all is waning, glossy to matte. Minds sharp and wit, shining with use, turn matte and smooth, carved away, the block of soapstone full of edges that could cut diamonds, could outwit their brilliance, could make soft hard and tight and lethal, minds that could be anything, have finally been ground down; like Michelangelo, cruel time sees a shape, an angel, a stupid angel, in a block of cold, beautiful, unyielding marble, and flays at it with that which is as gentle and harsh as water. Time like an ocean wears away at its treasures, grinding away memories. At first with a child-like indulgence, her tough, graceful fingers wipe at the slippery chocolate; a naughty, joking gesture, she licks it off her finger, but her finger returns to the pot instead of cleaning itself on a napkin, the napkin that fell to the floor. It’s obscene now; her lips are lined with inky brown that seeps into the cracks around her mouth. Her hair looks less like a glamorous whip of silver and more like brittle, grey cotton candy, tugged this way and that by children, wind. Angry mom stands spiky with the ladle.

In my head are many facts of which I wish I was more certain I was sure. ~The king of Siam

Sing sweet things

2006-09-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

Red

2006-08-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Red is an exclamation mark!
A vibrant, volcanic explosion in a dull drab world.
Red is a shape shifter,
At first a vampire with bloody fangs,
Then a clown, thick gooey painted on lips and cheeks,
Exciting, scary, showy, insecure. Red
A haze of anger, murder, death, traitor.
Confident and noticeable yet inconsistent: a fleeting flame.
Fiery red nails chip, volcanoes cool, spicy chillies are soothed with icy water, and blood doesn’t always flow.
Red sizzles, red burns, red hurts, but Red ... ends up dancing straight off the stage.