jessica-drake-thomas - Hello Poetry

it’s been a long time coming like eliot, I too am winter’s forced friend like eliot, round my head the swallows also fly always wandering always wondering when will my spring come?

0

Jul 27, 2010

Jul 27, 2010 at 10:57 AM UTC

contemplation on prufrock

it’s been a long time coming like eliot, I too am winter’s forced friend like eliot, round my head the swallows also fly always wandering always wondering when will my spring come?

6

we were the bomb squad a tribe of children in plastic crash helmets pillows tied on to protect our insides holding hands to keep from feeling lost and alone we were the bomb squad living like thieves in cardboard caves beside the mine fields hidden beneath beds of poppies decoy explosions in cadmium red ***** tender tongues like kittens licking the insides of trembling thighs we were the bomb squad mucous membranes and bones tick tock throats and veins popped in the pyre stomach bile and marrow all up in the same smoke as something that was once smooth and sentient we were the bomb squad we found no time for any flag nothing to do with kings or foreign countries just the knowledge of not having known anything before

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Jul 26, 2010

Jul 26, 2010 at 10:59 AM UTC

we were the bomb squad

we were the bomb squad a tribe of children in plastic crash helmets pillows tied on to protect our insides holding hands to keep from feeling lost and alone we were the bomb squad living like thieves in cardboard caves beside the mine fields hidden beneath beds of poppies decoy explosions in cadmium red ***** tender tongues like kittens licking the insides of trembling thighs we were the bomb squad mucous membranes and bones tick tock throats and veins popped in the pyre stomach bile and marrow all up in the same smoke as something that was once smooth and sentient we were the bomb squad we found no time for any flag nothing to do with kings or foreign countries just the knowledge of not having known anything before

31

this is the city that my daddy built inside of me between my guts where my heart should be. what isn’t rusted or burnt out or tired is barbed-wire and wary. this is the city that my daddy built with his anger. it’s set up high on a hill of scissors and blood oranges and blood oranges with scissors inside of them, red juice stains in sticky pools and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built in our house. in our home. where the people are shadows, speaking in whispers tiptoeing behind closed doors so as not to rouse the beast. this is the city that my daddy built here we pay tithes in blood oranges to humor his desires warding off uncalled for bloodshed like the time that I finally stood up for myself and he broke the kitchen table with his fists. it was an antique that traveled with my great-grandmother from Sweden, now just another broken thing in the landslide of scissors and blood oranges and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built, scarring my skeleton, following me everywhere like a spilled bottle of India ink blacking out the finely drawn sun, like past transgressions follow the guilty, like the golden touch of Midas, turning everything into a mountain of scissors and blood oranges and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built, making my concept of home a depiction of ruins; the vestiges of what could have been if we hadn’t lived too close to his minefield, before causing my mother to take my sisters and leave like a snowbird at the arrival of spring, at last realizing that her spine consisted of wings. this is the city that my daddy built. this is the city that scarred and weary, shadows of skeletons of birds, we will move on, leaving behind brick by ***** brick until it’s nothing but a memory of a pile of blood oranges and scissors and dirt.

0

Jul 26, 2010

Jul 26, 2010 at 10:58 AM UTC

this is the city

this is the city that my daddy built inside of me between my guts where my heart should be. what isn’t rusted or burnt out or tired is barbed-wire and wary. this is the city that my daddy built with his anger. it’s set up high on a hill of scissors and blood oranges and blood oranges with scissors inside of them, red juice stains in sticky pools and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built in our house. in our home. where the people are shadows, speaking in whispers tiptoeing behind closed doors so as not to rouse the beast. this is the city that my daddy built here we pay tithes in blood oranges to humor his desires warding off uncalled for bloodshed like the time that I finally stood up for myself and he broke the kitchen table with his fists. it was an antique that traveled with my great-grandmother from Sweden, now just another broken thing in the landslide of scissors and blood oranges and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built, scarring my skeleton, following me everywhere like a spilled bottle of India ink blacking out the finely drawn sun, like past transgressions follow the guilty, like the golden touch of Midas, turning everything into a mountain of scissors and blood oranges and dirt. this is the city that my daddy built, making my concept of home a depiction of ruins; the vestiges of what could have been if we hadn’t lived too close to his minefield, before causing my mother to take my sisters and leave like a snowbird at the arrival of spring, at last realizing that her spine consisted of wings. this is the city that my daddy built. this is the city that scarred and weary, shadows of skeletons of birds, we will move on, leaving behind brick by ***** brick until it’s nothing but a memory of a pile of blood oranges and scissors and dirt.

79

here is the tablet take two round yellow yum yum pearl delicious always home to take my fix swallow it down with water spit ***** lethal anyway I’d shoot it up if I could the sound of the orange sea almost two years are measured pill bottles collected in the drawer mama said mama says mama will say another habit she wants me to kick I wouldn’t take it if I could my lines are broken my hands shake my blood doesn’t coagulate all to stop Kitty from coming around again her cycles my cycles our cycles of overjoy and despair fire and brimstone and eat me up so tired of being tired whatever is left of me only me is there fits in a tiny bottle like ashes like pills like lethal overspent energy like fission Kitty the mushroom cloud monster elements which don’t mix well on the orange sea daddy said that its my brain biochemical broken reception spinning and spiraling into oblivion

0

Jul 26, 2010

Jul 26, 2010 at 10:56 AM UTC

here is the tablet take two

here is the tablet take two round yellow yum yum pearl delicious always home to take my fix swallow it down with water spit ***** lethal anyway I’d shoot it up if I could the sound of the orange sea almost two years are measured pill bottles collected in the drawer mama said mama says mama will say another habit she wants me to kick I wouldn’t take it if I could my lines are broken my hands shake my blood doesn’t coagulate all to stop Kitty from coming around again her cycles my cycles our cycles of overjoy and despair fire and brimstone and eat me up so tired of being tired whatever is left of me only me is there fits in a tiny bottle like ashes like pills like lethal overspent energy like fission Kitty the mushroom cloud monster elements which don’t mix well on the orange sea daddy said that its my brain biochemical broken reception spinning and spiraling into oblivion

26

when I dream I dream in the colors of the being yet unformed wide eyes shut a pseudo-dormant parasite feeding off of my mother, still. I dream of oily ashes, still staining the arms- ulna, radius reaching towards the empty sky. For what did they burn? black on white. shades of gray. the man in the turban stepping from my closet— the bees swarming from his mouth. Before my body was ten years old I knew sadness— it seeped into my soul and I could not speak. For what did I ache?

0

Jun 24, 2010

Jun 24, 2010 at 4:21 PM UTC

blindness

when I dream I dream in the colors of the being yet unformed wide eyes shut a pseudo-dormant parasite feeding off of my mother, still. I dream of oily ashes, still staining the arms- ulna, radius reaching towards the empty sky. For what did they burn? black on white. shades of gray. the man in the turban stepping from my closet— the bees swarming from his mouth. Before my body was ten years old I knew sadness— it seeped into my soul and I could not speak. For what did I ache?

19

i was drinking orange ****** ***** with Kitty the mushroom cloud destroyer, my compatriot, my downfall the sky was purple and the grass was red and we plotted the end of the world we fought for dominance i lost sat on my street corner stealing kisses from passersby like a magpie, plucking the shiny buttons off coats. when I became the queen of sheba, decked to the nines in brass buttons confiscated corroded combustible i rode an elephant called shiva the destroyer and sliced long cuts with a sword into my legs and the white scars were like hope. i played backgammon and chess with multiple lovers and they all lost because i was an impenetrable fortress. I wore the red crown and stabbed out their hearts with my pointed teeth. then i sat upon the edge of the world alone, tore out the cores of a million and four sunflowers and watched all of the people riding trains and walking in the parks holding the hand of someone else someone who isn’t cold Kitty as the violet sun began to set i dreamed of what someone else’s hand bones skin muscle corpulent sinew warmth and I slept like an obsidian stone.

0

Jun 6, 2010

Jun 6, 2010 at 6:58 PM UTC

last night

i was drinking orange ****** ***** with Kitty the mushroom cloud destroyer, my compatriot, my downfall the sky was purple and the grass was red and we plotted the end of the world we fought for dominance i lost sat on my street corner stealing kisses from passersby like a magpie, plucking the shiny buttons off coats. when I became the queen of sheba, decked to the nines in brass buttons confiscated corroded combustible i rode an elephant called shiva the destroyer and sliced long cuts with a sword into my legs and the white scars were like hope. i played backgammon and chess with multiple lovers and they all lost because i was an impenetrable fortress. I wore the red crown and stabbed out their hearts with my pointed teeth. then i sat upon the edge of the world alone, tore out the cores of a million and four sunflowers and watched all of the people riding trains and walking in the parks holding the hand of someone else someone who isn’t cold Kitty as the violet sun began to set i dreamed of what someone else’s hand bones skin muscle corpulent sinew warmth and I slept like an obsidian stone.

28

i wanted to fill your elegy with light of all kinds like your life. light where there is now nothing. loss is only the discovery of the weight of nothing. someone stomping my sternum into my spine the weight of knowing that there is nothing where once there was you.

0

Jun 6, 2010

Jun 6, 2010 at 6:57 PM UTC

Loss

i wanted to fill your elegy with light of all kinds like your life. light where there is now nothing. loss is only the discovery of the weight of nothing. someone stomping my sternum into my spine the weight of knowing that there is nothing where once there was you.

15

The twenty-one gun jury’s been hung, my assumed verdict, overthrown. Acquitted by the left hand, condemned by the right, a last request— Think not of me as an aberration, although perhaps I am, Do not know where I shall go nor care if there is anything after. let me be absolved -- For all that remains is the weight of thought that rages through me, the rapid pendulum. I am not innocent. There is no recourse. In this solitude, the only existence is being alone and depressed and the tearing of my skin Sweet Steel, slip silently in.

0

Jun 3, 2010

Jun 3, 2010 at 8:28 AM UTC

The Suicide

The twenty-one gun jury’s been hung, my assumed verdict, overthrown. Acquitted by the left hand, condemned by the right, a last request— Think not of me as an aberration, although perhaps I am, Do not know where I shall go nor care if there is anything after. let me be absolved -- For all that remains is the weight of thought that rages through me, the rapid pendulum. I am not innocent. There is no recourse. In this solitude, the only existence is being alone and depressed and the tearing of my skin Sweet Steel, slip silently in.

19

according to my mother happiness was a choice religion country then family a fortress and why was I so sad and cold According to daddy at least I wasn’t in Karachi where rats and corpses littered the streets jesus bled a ******* lot in the streets of another city and was my redemption but how was he different from another corpse? how was his blood and dissolution different, besides a better eulogizer? He seemed to me simply a man a philosopher betrayed by supposed friends I did not find redemption in confirmation of the knowledge of gold rimmed pages and biased text. Where I found divinity was in the flesh and blood arms of people that I vaguely knew they held me together while biochemicals tore me apart from my moorings and there were no lies about salvation through death they said only, once you go, you can’t come back.

0

Jun 3, 2010

Jun 3, 2010 at 8:25 AM UTC

another corpse

according to my mother happiness was a choice religion country then family a fortress and why was I so sad and cold According to daddy at least I wasn’t in Karachi where rats and corpses littered the streets jesus bled a ******* lot in the streets of another city and was my redemption but how was he different from another corpse? how was his blood and dissolution different, besides a better eulogizer? He seemed to me simply a man a philosopher betrayed by supposed friends I did not find redemption in confirmation of the knowledge of gold rimmed pages and biased text. Where I found divinity was in the flesh and blood arms of people that I vaguely knew they held me together while biochemicals tore me apart from my moorings and there were no lies about salvation through death they said only, once you go, you can’t come back.

31