Found in an old notebook buried beneath magazines

She blinked her eyes. Once. Twice. There was a moment of comprehension, a moment in which she knew exactly where she was and where she belonged in the world. She blinked a third time and it was gone.

Apartment Cleaning

I hold back the sun again
 as I soap up the windows.
The daylight kept at bay.

Each Sunday brings reprise of
this most mundane ritual:
a regular exercise,
but one in futility.

Yet if not for my efforts
we'd be tsunami victims,
drowned in glossy magazines
and new credit card offers.

Everything was clean once.
Now, I am down on my knees,
sweeping up loose hair and crumbs.

Statistics

Today, 150,000 people died of natural causes

                        because starvation is natural when there isn't enough food to eat

                        and the immune system's natural response to abnormalities is to beat

                                    whatever it is to death, despite damage to the self

                        and fire was discovered, not invented

                        and jealousy is a natural response to wealth.

Poem About Abraham Sutzkever's Child

Mameh is looking at the men with the big black boots

She is not blinking and I,

I am so hungry

I ask for something to eat

Tug at her pant leg

and I win a fish

The fish tastes good and I bite in

It is slimy on my teeth

I begin to chew

But there is a loud sound

Something warm hits me in the head

There is ringing and my fish has no taste

I go into the big hole without Mameh

She is not blinking and I,

I am not hungry anymore

First impressions matter

Swing your best foot forward
into a sewing needle

Under the big toenail it slips,
punctures flesh on the underside.
The needle eye's thread, long and white,
stitching together two red lips

immobilized but all the while
are oh-so-desperate to scream.
Yet instead, the ends of the seam
lift awkwardly
into a smile.

Top 20 Reasons to Do Anything

Top 5 Reasons to Hate Someone
5. Money (a lot)
4. Infidelity
3. Revenge
2. Obligation
1. Musical tastes


Top 5 Reasons to Love Someone
5. Money (a lot)
4. Fidelity
3. Religion
2. Obligation
1. Loneliness


Top 5 Reasons to Murder Someone
5. Money (a lot)
4. Infidelity
3. Revenge
2. Survival
1. Mario Kart


Top 5 Reasons to Marry Someone
5. Money (a lot)
4. Fidelity
3. Revenge
2. Survival
1. Disney movies

No one pays enough attention

He's a grown man with an imaginary slice of cheese

held between his thumb and forefinger,

pinky held high in the air.

"The French savor the flavor of their food," he explains

to a student absently chewing,

laughing behind a book at Odysseus,

ears filled with beeswax,

sailing past the sirens tempting his crew to crash.

As imagination touches his outstretched tongue,

his grip on the table slips and his spine is soon against the floor.

No one ever pays enough attention.

That is why these things happen.

Outside, the alcohol the cotton ball is soaked in

hardly touches the woman's own hands,

no doubt thanks to the delicate nature

with which she dabs it against the child's wounds,

her tiniest finger held as far from it as possible.

This siren's song sure sounds a lot like an ambulance

Morning and Recovery

Finding myself here embracing

   the rim of the bathroom sink:

Eyes fixed on the bowl — on anything other

than the  lashes  covered

in charcoal black mascara

blinking back,  above tongue licking dry lips.

"What a pretty little thing,"

  mouthed smirking lips

  spoke condescending grins

"Just a lovely darling,"

  leered strange faces

  in stranger places I was not supposed to be

& yet to trace the path of tapwater now

would only be to  tease  out  that vague,

  sinking feeling

that the world is passing me by today.

   i could start to be okay

if i should turn the faucet off

exactly the way a victim wouldn't

In the Kitchen Aisle

One stainless steel kitchen knife

and it goes -- sharp side down --

into the crate with the rest of the apartment's dirty silverware.

"Silver," the box  -- now broken down --

in the closet read, but she thought it more of a "grey."

"It's all the same," he had shrugged,

with dry lips pursing to one side

and blue eyes -- rolling down --

turning his head away.

"but it's not," came the protest, in

a volume -- falling down --

that did not turn the head back,

nor the sharp side of the knife up,

nor the shade of the utensils that would lie

              by a smashed bowl against a wall

              to a color more like what the box

              had promised her in that day in July,

"it's not."

(750 stats)

(my turn now)

         i am waiting
                waiting.

what am i waiting for?

(my turn now)

i am waiting for love to fall into my lap.

love

free

from jealousy or pride

unbearable distance

and striped bowls smashed against the wall.

           (my turn now)

love trusting
love honest
love love love love                                   i have spent so
                                                               i have spent oh-so long
                                                   chasing you
                                                   chasing your shadow
                                                   even when I can't/don't/won't
                                                   see the sun

Old school stuff

off Insipid

you will never mean anything to me--
my saviour you will never be.

the attempts you made to fix this mess
arose a slow, sickening, self-regress

can't you ever comprehend?

don't reach out again.

Ars Poetica

(c’mon)

muse for hire

uninspired?

when you have an idea, run with it.

(let’s just make a run for it)

take a concept and

(don't look back)

drag it out, carry it along,

coax it with semicolons and em dashes

you hold complete control over language,

bend conventionality and forms to your will

(don't you like the way

you/i/we/they

wrap(s) around

your/my/their

finger?)

make the text convey

what you want it to say

the means justify the ending

so forget what you have been told---

for poetry is not putting

the square block in the circle hole

and although the words should sound from your lips

just as they flow from your pen

a thought is worth more

than the vulgarity of speech.

embellish it, exaggerate

and most of all—create

(750 stats)

ars poetica, first draft: 750 scribbles

(c’mon)


muse for hire
uninspired?

all i need from you, Erato, are your pretty words Thalia, just lend me all your exclamation marks and Melpomene and i will ring like Polyhymnia's verses twirling letters like Terpsichore that shine bright in Urania's sky

when you have an idea, run with it.
(let’s just make a run for it)
take a concept and
(don't look back)
drag it out, carry it along, coax it out with semicolons and em dashes

you hold complete control over language, bend conventionality and forms to your will (don't you like the way they/i/you wrap(s) around your/my/their finger?) make the text convey what you want it to say

the means justify the ending so forget what you have been told—
for poetry is not putting the square block in the circle hole

and although the words should sound from your lips just as they flow from your pen
a thought is worth more than the vulgarity of speech
embellish it, exaggerate and most of all—create

when i write, it's all at once -- it's a deliberate attempt to make something tangible from the abstract

and i like it to be pretty
i like it to be oh-so-pretty.
words, oh, words
will never want to leave the page

they belong there, they're intended, it's all intentional, it's all meant to be you are creating reality, you are creating today you are creating tomorrow, you are creating yesterday

why stop there?
why stop there?
such a simple design
why?

write with a purpose but don't you dare stick to it go with the flow let the current of inspiration carry you carry you to the way the stanzas will cascade down your sheet of paper

be it lined, blank, hotel, recycled, perforated, borrowed

it's your sheet of paper

it's your canvas

hidden in your poem's combination of letters spaces and punctuation is the feeling you have when you write it

be vague, be specific, be whatever it takes to take your idea and run with it be alone with just your thoughts and in the silence, create create

you're making something out of nothing but in all reality, it's everything poetry, to me, is everything. i breathe it, seethe it, bleed it

maybe that's why it's so hard for me to write about my own writing process

it just comes naturally i have a thought i think my thought i write i polish i finish

revising, i hate revising why must art be subjected to this "correcting?" who could tell davinci to put a smile on the Mona Lisa? who could tell picasso there's something wrong with his images?

it seems to me so stuffy, so snobby, so pretentious i can hardly stand it it's just depressing, really. Holden would certainly agree. does everything really need to be improved? i like my poetry the way it is -- that's why i created it this way. i don't do drafts. drafts are just unfinished works to me if i don't like what i have as a "draft," i will scrap it completely and start anew

drafts i don't do drafts. they're an unnecessary step in the process from start to finish and that's what you want to get to, isn't it?

you're just building the bridges to get to where you want to be (you can burn them later if you'd like) so what if one bridge is flimsy, so what if another isn't as pretty

oh but it should all be pretty it's art art is pretty

at least when i create it because i want it that way i like it pretty, so i make it so there's simply no other explanation i have no other reasoning other than the fact that i like pretty words. i want my poetry to be pretty. so i make it pretty. it can deal with ugly images and ugly ideas but them poem itself will be oh-so-pretty it will be the golden child the parents carry along with them and beam with pride whenever others say "what a pretty little thing," what a a pretty little thing.

it is for no other reason than because i want it to be.

and i think—oh fuck it, i know—that's good enough for me

i don't know how to write an ars poetica and i don't know what the hell i'm doing to do for this but it's got me thinking about my writing process more than Crumb's documentary sure did.

i’m ignoring the phone on purpose, you know

whatever it is  you see in me

(I could ask, but I would not dare)

there is no reciprocity.

when you speak and I smile back blankly.

your trivial story I cannot bear,

whatever it is. You see in me—

an  object  of  idolatry,

but I disregard your pitiful prayer.

there is no reciprocity.

the smile I wear is but a courtesy—

you know your voice composes my nightmares?

—whatever  it  is  you  see  in  me

and whatever you try to give to me

(I could  ask,  but  I  do  not care)

there is no reciprocity.

it’s all your one-dimensionality

that’s very plainly killing me—I swear

whatever it is you see in me;

there is no reciprocity.

Sestina

I

lost you

somewhere

in the dreaming.

in the stars  and

every constellation  you can(‘t) name.

  oh ,  what’s  in  a  name  ?

a rose by any other name, I

think,      would smell as sweet    (and

probably look the same,too) don’t you

think    that every  weed  is dreaming

there is a garden for her somewhere?

(scribbled on unlined paper in a hotel room)

         It was just as if Erato herself
burst  forth  from this  beating heart
to tug tightly  by  papillary muscles
all  of  my  worn
                        chordae tendineae

—shooting blood past tricuspid 

&blood past the mitral valves— 

she knocked breath from these lungs to shoot
up past my throat, without skipping my voice-

box,   just to tickle my tongue while my teeth
felt  vibrations  from the  rest  of my  skeleton
like she'd plucked at her  lyre's strings  from a
throne  atop my spine  but  my lips  could not
react fast enough  to the tumultuous anatomy
within this heart before my brain caught her spell on the tips of my lips and—

I almost said I love you.

but i              

(& Melpomene: we)

                                     know better.

Silly poet ramblings

The feedback I got when I workshopped my chocolate chip pancakes poem in class last week was interesting—I must admit that I get a kick out of listening to other people's interpretations of my work when my intention or inspiration was something completely different.

They said something about feeling "sin" was too vague, too broad to work in the context of the poem. I can't find any better words to convey what I meant... well, no. That's a lie. I can't find a concise way to convey it. From my WR 213 notebook, scribbled in the margins:

3 in the morning

3AM

and I

have never really ever got along. that's safe to say, isn't it?

and long gone

are the
(days) times (nights) where I could call for you and you would be (waiting) there (smiling)

on and on

I tell myself that

"it's okay," (trembling) "we're it's okay,"
"I'll we'll get through this together, baby."

come lazy
afternoons we will
say hello and exchange pleasantries in these lives
of ours that have grown apart ever-
(so-slowly (and yet so instantaneously))
y single day
and

the irony
of the matter is
that whether or not you say a word to me ever again I still need you to be there to (hope) know (pray) that I have not failed completely (again).

Ladybug, revised, and submitted

To you, my darling,
what am I

—your pretty red insecticide)?

If I become a ladybug,
shall I be your savior, love?

or         your

condemner?

I’m thinking and thinking and overthinking—
an answer for

the aphid plague on your garden—

Well, maybe's it's okay.
  and maybe you'll let me loose
because "it's okay, we’reit's okay,"
though I know you know that I know
damn well it won't be that way,
because I

will taint

the nectar you drink

with my futile attempts

to defend the tiny red—
spotted
—lump that is my heart.

(&whenyouaredonedrinkingiwillripoutyours)

                   This poem, oh, this metaphor,

                   it's really little fucking more
    than a caricature of art

       ( like us to happiness, no? )

and I can't do it

I can't do it
, darling.

I can only dream of being a ladybug,

     that lucky little insect who could never possibly comprehend

     the unending agony of ending day after day after day

     looking around her empty little garden to see everything

you've left behind.

I can only dream.
I can only dream (of you).

Scrapped poem for my writing class

to you,
what
am I?

If I become a ladybug,
do I change you or do you change me?



I'm thinking and thinking and overthinking—
but hey, maybe it's okay if I only live for a few weeks.
Maybe's it's okay.
Maybe you'll let me loose
because "it's okay, it's okay,"
though I know you know that I know
damn well it won't be that way
because I
will taint the nectar you drink
with my futile attempts to defend the tiny red—
spotted
—lump that is my heart.

(&whenyouaredonedrinkingiwilleatyours)

this poem, this metaphor,

it's really little fucking more

than a caricature of art (like us to happiness, no?)

and I can't do it

I can't do it

Lord, I can only dream of being a ladybug, that lucky little insect who could never possibly comprehend the unending torture of ending day after day after day looking around her little garden to see everything you've left behind.
I can only dream.
I can only dream (of you).