Tag: poetry

I am surrounded by men
who are wolfish in detonation
but repenting for a lifetime
of substance abuse
so we nod when they say
things that are aptly
reflected instances in which
they felt a guilt greater
than themselves.
they usually begin with things
 like
I took advantage of her
and I cross my legs.

I am wearing brown tights, brown
heeled boots and a cream turtleneck
sweater dress.  my hair is
short, uncombed and strange
and I am mostly plain.
I wear light blush, mascara and
chapstick but I don’t spend all
day about it.
it is important as a woman
to catalogue what you were wearing
and how you generally look.
also I had gained some weight
first, before I  discovered that
counting beans will gain you
phone bill money.
 when you tell the audience the story
they can gauge reaction better.
were you homely, girl?

I was neither homely nor
exceptional,
merely watching the blue chips
of nail polish flake onto
the floor as I found
my hands to be urgent
suddenly.

“confessions #2”

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the day I arrived in the hotel
in the financial district of New York
to meet a Russian photographer
who promised me a night in an expensive
suite and a binding contract
that has been violated over time
without my awareness,
my nails were painted
blue to match my
bruised knees.

spread more, all the
way.

I thought that was
cute. he gave me a fishnet
black onesie I ripped a hole
in but wear on dates
to remember us by.
 and even though
he took advantage of me
and you felt betrayed
by some unshaved labial
part of me,
I made my half of rent
for once.
in the car from the bus
stop on my smile
spread and the bickering
couldn’t dissaude against
the new confidence.
the way money feels
in an envelope.

ok, chill.
fuck, I got rent.

“doors (#4)”

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my paranoia is up
which helps me to
instruct myself better,
instructing them but
what I tell you is inconsequential.
merely I am pressure of depth
and that I believe it so,
having told you first
with conviction, I begin
to frame it.

legs crossed on the carpet,
hands out in imposition.
the wood mantle lit
and rearranged, objects
of sentimentality removed
so any backhand can’t
sweep it.
it’s important that my personal items
are kept away from the circle,
and maybe once I didn’t believe
but falling victim to your
own enchantment, you begin
to care about which stones
are set and things like that.
hands out:

first, you will be looking
up to notice
the sky dark but glittering
with stars
so the whole place
around you is lit up
and there are friends nearby. 

I say this directly to the
picture jasper draped in the
thread of my necklace,
the glyph of Lilith.
and hopefully,
as in with a little
upward inflection.

1.

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I’m taller than you expected,
yes?
I move the bottom of
my foot down
 your shoulder
and pieces of snow
drop all over your ear.
 you are level
with the dogs yellow
eye, or she has become
level with you.

I’m not here to help,
merely observe.
there are rules to this.
I watch you sink into
the sheath of Earth that begins
to crack beneath you.
I don’t know
if it is surrender
but it is prayer like,
or maybe it is irritation.
I’m here now and I
don’t know where to begin,
which trail to point to so
I just unfurl and
turn into the frozen
lake right there.

 

3.

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“what do you do when something loves
you? do you love it back?

I’m volatile.”

I’ve got nothing,
 I show him,
but notes like this;
each one parched out
later, gutted
by time travel,
tornado worship,
something called “the
myth becomes” and
I get nothing done.

 

they don’t believe me
but I amounted to nothing
and I show them
sweeping my hand over
an obscured history
but no real success
I laugh, undaunted
usually and also
breezy. I like smiling.
composition open
pointing to one sentence
I like watching time.

I’m obsessed with unproducing,
or burning a process as you
 watch it unfurl. it’s like
setting the bottom of each trunk
on slow fire and then you
climb to the top of
the pine watching it
engulf you then eviscerate
whatever you were.
I am up by dawn, or close
to it,  thinking this is what
 true love is doing
and I’ve done this before;
proving habit,
and the deep deep
null of feeling
that I really possess
daily, filled with
plotting and idle time,
a rumination of these
invidious encounters.
something always in my hand.
something always tinctured,
distilling and then
wanting you to see it:
my nullness and
overreaction and courting
 that must be
facade or instinct or
vexing but
mold it into something
better than the ice cold
well I am.
palms open in please.
that’s where people fall.
in the snow bank
in the bottom of the frozen
hole trying to help
the little
girl.

I think a lot,
I say softly.
and I like learning
 words.
point to one:

duplicity


“the act of naming things”

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to seek me, meant
pleasure in ineffability,
already a loss for words
and to remain hidden
from some parts of the depth
of me and from the world with
me; I prefer the furtive
curl against another.
the unutterable and silent
worship
drives this chasm
I keep deeper between us
and the others and
you and me
like rifts adrift
like that, the moment
I turn my head.
I like to live,
eat, sleep alone
and move the country
this way; home
 a solitary war
between impulse and
deep, deep reflection
upon impulse
 control.

I’m so sensitive
that if I settle into
think and spread
the cards like a fan,
I’d feel it out
in five seconds
eyes closed.
show me,
she said.
show me one year
show me two years
show me three years.

“King of Cups”

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don’t you ever take away my joys,
my labor organizing or autonomy.
i’m speaking liberally,
predictive and
coded with demands.
I haven’t shaved in days,
developed musk and am
running fingers down my legs
to watch them in the mirror
creep like Daddy Longlegs.
calling ghosts, I say
but like a broken record
and starting with
don’t you take away
my joys, make me
deferential.
I’ll cut my hair clean off,
you’ll see

but there’s only three feet
between us and I’m leaning.
 wait for me
to throw my locks all over
your kitchen table.
rest my skinned skull
on your knee, Venus is
obsessed but well,
I begin to get up fast
 just as happily.
it always starts with a well.

walk by the little girl
in the well.
don’t fall down the well.
watch out for the well.

“the well” (for Pluto in my third house)

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normally
I just open the door
and walk right in
but this time I decide
I should be invited.
founded on repetition as the old adage
of classical conditioning,
some things work best in saturation,
a vacuum
and unrevealed to the participants.
this is an examination of ethics.
no, an examination of motive.
same thing, the query being:
is it stronger when stated?
as the querant believes,
it is stronger with want
regardless of
palpable confirmation.
want is hope in modern language
and the most consensual
exchange of felt.

either way,  it is
best to have some controls.
I arrive, same fashion,
dramatically.
you have been out in
the snow with your friends
and enjoying the view
of the constellations above
when you hear the twig snap.
you will see their yellow eyes to
your right as you react
and you will be alone
suddenly like that compelled
to walk right in
before you see me cloaked,
walk right out.
you say I am the coldest, darkest
thing you’ve ever met but
my two dogs are
licking your frozen cheek
as you lie beneath my feet,
a sturdy boot on top
of your face, me baring down
without much weight but
pressure of depth.
but you seem colder than that.

you are face down
becoming the tracks.
I am taller than you expected,
yes?

2.

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I can go forever:
have been, have gone
without, truly starved.
no period of separation
or isolation
has scurried me along.
 suffering long episodes of
 devotion, then a swift
disaffiliation
from the practice,
whatever bondage I wear,
I wear loosely.
even the devil’s arms
don’t fit me
and I was molded intricately
and set to last,
a stone sarcophagus to contain her.
a product of thinking too much
 is obsession. 

 it is best if
 you have a moving target
or several
 so you don’t fixate on one tree
 for too long;
 inevitably,
 the squirrel running up
or the dog running beside
 will shake you.
today it is two robins
dancing in a pool of dust.
my eyes are adjusting to the
brightness of the bush behind
them, and the basketball hoop glinting
past that to the grass as they
kick up dirt.
 I think of all the signs I missed
in life. how many times I thought
the word God then a robin
would meet me,
or to be so uncertain of something
to have an opposum walk out
and stop you in your tracks.
it’s the perseverative ring
it is pertinent,
I am both feared
and adored.

i’m sitting on a park bench
 trying to prove I can do this
 having done this before.
 sitting for as long as I can
and I am also
watching the construction
men in front of my house.
from this angle, I can see them.
not wanting to walk by the  hole
or the giant crane. or exchange a
hello,
not wanting to be around them,
move past them again.
see how long I can do this.
watch them.
sit. I get up to move to a different
bench.
see how long I can wait for.
I am doing this for practice.
even if I have to get up and move
to another bench.
sit and move to another bench.
how long can I do it.

I am doing this for practice.
a park outside of my house
this whole
time.
grass,
unmuzzled terriers,
the nods and my inquisition
face wrapped in mask
so my mouth can rest a more
natural slack-jawed state
as I watch the two labradors
lick each other and give
the owner a wave.
I’ve always tucked my neck in
turtlenecks and coats.

I turn and look at the trucks
pulling forward. two large
open-bed ones for the concrete they
are ripping up. my entire
street unearthed
to relay pipes and
they are lining the inside with wooden
planks and I know they are
working through lunch
because I saw one
 grab their cooler and walk towards
my place and yesterday
they worked through lunch too.
not leaving. from seven am,
the chainsaw woke me,
to three when they bid their
toodle–oos to each other
and quite bellowing.
one even singing on and off
all day. 
I said on Tuesday
to the new moon and my altar,
an ace:
 I want this done as fast
as possible.

It is thursday.
they have not taken a lunch
since and
I’m gonna sit here and watch
them.

“the bench”

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I am up by dawn, or close
to it, again.
thinking this is what true love
is doing; proving habit,
demanding morning study.
this has happened before and
every time it happens,
it is strengthened so much so
that what has woken me is
an old phrase you said to me.
I could hear you fumbling with it;
an act of reflection while in stalemate.
how long can obstinacy maintain the
buoyancy of flight?
I am learning to stay fresh and put
and you are summarizing yourself
with an inaccuracy that doesn’t
need me yet.

I heard you rereading it one morning
to yourself, no doubt
questioning your word choice
as I stretch, be careful what you
say.
but I know what you meant.
and I know what you like.

there are rules to this though.

“the act of naming things”

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