Reading “Poem” While Waiting for her in Peet’s Coffee
Lukewarm coffee with nothing special
in it, and my brain buzzing
with words passed through a phone.
Ah, I’d love to go back to those days
spent singing and seeing colors in cement
questions asked precariously of my life
and yours, your and my possibilities.
But staring into the beyond, I am left
disappearing quick in the cold air like the warmth of coffee left on the table.
Precariously
in love
I was caressed to the point where
my face left itself
impressioned on the pillow
I pressed into every night.
My head was clear
because it was expelled
each night into a cell phone
away from here. It reached
an ear, soft and embracing
swallowing all I pressed into it.
The indentation I left
I saw as me
held precariously
in the head
of another.
Now, head spinning,
ready to be filled with anything
stable or not, I at least remember
being held.
Poem
*Is this love, now that the first love
has finally died, where there were no impossibilities?*
I saw no impossibilities with you
held there in all I wanted. True
there was bliss, but if what they say is true,
what else is that?
I remember more color
pointed out by you,
blues and oranges in shadows on cement
reds in faces and how the sky is the only one
who can blend yellow with blue, but
now all colors are an option
for this palette
though all colors mixed
leave grey
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:49 AM UTC
They’re here again.
That auburn that gold
the occasional surprise burst
of green or blue and purple
sits behind my eyes
and reawakens my heart
in the dark
the rainbow that is your hair in the sun
and that perfect sparkle catches my mind
again:
It’s hard to say
which earring it was
so I take the liberty to consider
each silver crystalline spear
creating harmony between gravity and your body;
I take the chance to notice
each peach, orange, and raspberry
that paint your cheeks and nose on
this sunny day
that isn’t today.
I remember
they prove the Golden Hour’s
potential for prying beauty
out of these few dimensions we can comprehend.
And it’s here again.
Smothering everything with
every most distracting color
only to leave within
an hour or less
leaving me blind
and still struggling for air,
distracted by
memory
by shapes
by your shape
by color.
The warm wispy clouds are your hair
the red and orange are your eyes and face
and the bright setting sliver
disappears behind smoke.
And all there is is color.
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:41 AM UTC
thousand droplets hang
from the tip of each bare branch
of the ginkgo tree.
Each orb holds the world in it
like the ornaments that decorate
a coniferous cousin, they
reflect me and all I see
today, a curious blend of grey.
Each shed leaf
is replaced by a tear
too delicate for me
to decipher all that it carries.
I am too distracted
by what I carry
to grasp what each holds
suspended so perfectly
making everything it reflects
into a single something solar twinkling,
each cosm capturing
all in need of being captured.
Today
I am left with no color.
The sky, the trees, the asphalt,
and the air I breathe,
in their unified beauty
say nothing.
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:39 AM UTC
Before my eyes
(an african woman rising from the ground
crying streams of sand infinite her wailing sound pierces
her son I call to me he bites off his finger and
rubs his blood in my hair and across
my face he cuts me)
open;
it’s tattooed in my mind for a blink.
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:37 AM UTC
It seems that as soon as I forget you’re here
I close my eyes
and you come back
sonnerie Acouphène
you come back
a soft sonar ping
I didn’t realize was still searching
sonnerie
for you
Acouphène
ringing, as in a dream
hanging, silently
suspended, in my subconscious
sonnerie Acouphène
your origin uncertain
and I can’t remember how long you’ve been here
ringing
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:34 AM UTC
On nights like this one
he’s shouted at the empty sky
His good ear has looked upward
for years hearing nothing yet
still he’s howled words that were not his
to a Heaven hidden behind sheets of black
Though solace can be found in the words of others
their sound filling a room like steam
they rise and collect, touching everything
only to disappear, signifying nothing
He’s tried to fill the sky with their words:
heroic stories and constellations
monuments in the stellar void
But these stories drift away
and are forgotten in the turn of a season
He’s bellowed them but each night fallen short of Heaven
their words reaching only the air
between his lungs and the stars
And thus the air has become the only solid thing he knows
From it he can solicit a response
aurally awaking the otherwise dormant
particles into motion
But tonight, the air swirls around him and within him
as he strips his soul
thrusts it naked from his throat
and floods the sky with lyric his own
They ****** and return to the silence of breathing
A sustained exhalation
leaves his body and rises
A walking shadow
drifts into infinity
and dissipates
leaving the hum of electricity
hanging in the air
Sep 17, 2011
Sep 17, 2011 at 6:33 AM UTC
I.
Buy the film
and let it sit.
Buy the film
develop it
in the dark
dark dark box.
Buy the film
just in case
in its case.
Buy the film
and keep it safe
just let it sit
just in case
in case
in case.
II.
Just let it go
you know
you know.
But dollar signs
are on my mind
my mind my mind
mine mine mine mind.
Each click click click
tick tick tick ticks
scratch scratch scratching
at my savings.
So I'm saving saving
though I'm craving craving
just in case
in case
keep it
safe.
III.
But oh! the colours!
They bleed with
the seed of light!
Faded flourish,
show me frequencies
mine lenses cannot
develop!
Switch click crank
and smear
spread chemical beauty
I'd otherwise not hear!
Make me melt
into a world
that is mine but
can't be felt!
Your gleam it seems
is like that of steam:
a dimmer shimmer
it wisps and wafts,
soft evidence that
this all exists.
IV.
So go.
Jul 14, 2010
Jul 14, 2010 at 12:59 PM UTC
But even butterflies of sunset colors
still flutter in the wind.
Despite a heavy metamorphosis
the wind does still support them.
Their orange and yellow do remind
of something that has ended.
But their flickering flutter, too,
rekindles the memory of stars long suspended.
So let us all provide the wind
for one another’s wings.
Let us catch each other’s tears
that fall from cloudy eyes.
Let us help each other
embrace the memories of
cigar smoke, the white whale,
and warm holidays without worry.
Because Father said clocks slay time.
He said time is dead
as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels;
only when the clock stops
does time come to life
And the butterfly knows this is true
for a pocket-watch would weigh her down;
her subtle strength would not allow
for her wings to leave the ground.
That is why the butterfly (accepting change)
releases time
in order for her time to be used
floating via a warm wind’s courtesy.
Without the weight of a timepiece
she is able to welcome the reminders
of warm memories of her butterfly,
now warm wind strong behind her.
May 2, 2010
May 2, 2010 at 2:45 PM UTC
In a desperate hug
we brace our spines
for what feels to me
like one last time,
me and my desperate fingertips
cling to you and plead for grip;
But in vain all ten on fabric slip
forced to settle for a steering wheel.
May 2, 2010
May 2, 2010 at 2:41 PM UTC
In the dark
time shows no sign
forward backward or up
the diligent digital clock
tacitly ticks its tocks
dark recedes to dark and then
only to spare no light again;
But suddenly some scowling scream
("Still survive!" he shouts at me, according to the OED.)
shatters silence, tears the scene,
rips a hole in the dark, serene,
before any morning can be seen;
Some hidden pigeon's cackling
time revives, unshackling,
though the day is yet to come,
as if to offer a reminder to one:
"keep to the fore,
look to the sun."
May 2, 2010
May 2, 2010 at 2:33 PM UTC