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442 · Apr 2016
Ocean bed haiku
Cecelia Francis Apr 2016
The ocean and I
lie in bed awake all day
No bleak place or space
Cecelia Francis Mar 2015
I cough my lungs to splendor
with the simple tchk
of my lighter

Are they standing or
on all fours? Stuck between
two columns of gapped bony thighs
expanding, extracting, contracting

And yet the air
fills and flows until full:
-even throughout the night-
435 · Sep 2016
Time's not real
Cecelia Francis Sep 2016
Time's not real
but our energy is

waning and
unsubstantial

despite the waxy
substance sticking
stringing us together.

A touch of sun,
a lick of flame

melt away,
dissipate
435 · Jan 2015
Can I get a hit?
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
Can I get a hit?
Reverse sniffles, white dragons
flew straight to the head
431 · Feb 2015
To have avenues
Cecelia Francis Feb 2015
To have avenues
nuanced ancient
scientific entities
titrates rationed
rather irrationally
at a rats rate

-do you feel
anything yet?-

To have access
to the Brocas and
Wernicke at all times
-unless compromised-

Nonsensical arrangement
of bits of sounds
mounding to some
amount
430 · Dec 2014
No one to
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
No one to
before
anymore

To think
more than
to do with

The width
of the sun
as remebered
in a memory
-thin as a
road- it
rose in
rows of
somelight

Before us
-around me-
to you, to
no one
429 · Apr 2015
I was shore
Cecelia Francis Apr 2015
I was shore
that could not
leave the sea alone

The waves floating
my way while
I think of how it
flows and the way
my loose sand goes

The sea waves towards
the shore for the
calm in her:

He waves
onto my shore
-incessantly- calming her
428 · Aug 2016
I've not been
Cecelia Francis Aug 2016
I've not been
writing lately.

I've chosen in
its stead to take
up wanting:

I want pastel
waist length curly
wigs, and acrylic length
nails filed not cut, crystals
galore, herbs, flowers, moss

And a poem to write
and publish itself to
earn some money;

at least enough
to afford a wig.
426 · Jan 2015
Music and poetry
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
Music and poetry
are my composite

A glorified nautilus
shell-useless unless
inhabited-

God forbid they
should outgrow me
423 · Jan 2015
Je voudrais
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
Je voudrais
ecrire
un poème
en français

But I've
forgotten
it already

Merde
422 · Mar 2015
Gravity and its enemies
Cecelia Francis Mar 2015
Gravity -and its enemies-
pulling one into the other,
not quite a planet and
its moon, but perhaps
a planet and its men
-dependent on the other-
422 · Jan 2015
Would it be
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
Would it be
too vain
to make love
in a museum?

Pinned to a
wall amongst
Degas dancers
and Pissarro
landscapes
where I'd
dare to be
some work of
arduous work
for you
421 · Mar 2015
La llorona
Cecelia Francis Mar 2015
La llorona
mojado con
sus océanos
se ahogando
2x4
420 · Dec 2014
Aware of
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Aware of
the hot
and cold
sides of
my heart

Remain
in one
place,

homeostate
—erode them
away— into
cardiomy-
apathy

Manage with
a balance of
beta-blockers
and ace-inhibitors

Prognosis:
still to slip
into syncopal
states, tacky
cardiac
elevated rates
417 · Jan 2016
I couldn't help it
Cecelia Francis Jan 2016
I couldn't help it
if you came the same
as you did before

And your weakness
is the only thing
that keeps you talking

Yea, yea, yea
Yadda, yadda, yadda
Realize the same thing

Who's been faking
it the whole time?
416 · May 2015
While I
Cecelia Francis May 2015
While I
try to find
some peace
of mind that
could be mine,

the roots of
weeds tangle and
twist inside;

And time
goes by
413 · Jun 2015
Again I find
Cecelia Francis Jun 2015
Again I find
my heart twisting
instead of pumping,

again with that steady
wrenching *****-****,
****-****, ****-****
412 · Jul 2017
Need a love language
Cecelia Francis Jul 2017
Need a love language
be translated and transcribed
for the masses?

My heart warms
in the same fashion
as when it listens
to music,

From a source of
friction or energy,
not harsh like the sun:

I'm drawn to
the rhythm and space
up or down between
three or four and seven
or eight notes

I don't speak Korean
or Japanese but I
still like the music.

I whistle harmonies
and melodies to
fulfill the satisfaction
of resolved equations,

I can sing along if
given the words.

My heart sings in
the same fashion as
when it listens to music:

a sway, a pause and lull,
a yearning pulled to the surface,
a smiling utterance of sound.
for hunny
410 · Jul 2015
This is no time
Cecelia Francis Jul 2015
This is no time
for sweet potatoes!

No more pre-digested meals,
or mistaking excess for freedom

Let us grind, like *****
teenage tectonic plates
idk couplets
410 · Nov 2014
I cried
Cecelia Francis Nov 2014
I cried
when I read a small
poem by Zukofsky, and
well here it is:

Wire cage flues
          on
the roofs:

Paper ash —whole
        sheets
  in gusts—

Flawed by winds
           fly
like doves.

At first it seems nothing,
but sing them softly on the lips:
Something quintessential
something I'd not yet encountered within
my twenty years of life. Newness.
And from something writ long before me.
There were others, I know this
there are many amongst us,
yes, I remember

Once, I was not
alone. And yet
suddenly
—all at once—
I am alone.
410 · Dec 2015
I'm some real
Cecelia Francis Dec 2015
I'm some real
thing, but no
real poet.

It's getting awfully
blank in
here.

I don't want
to waste time with
unsatisfied lines.

I need a new, sound
love. No use in chasing
poetic chord progressions.
409 · Sep 2015
What am I doing
Cecelia Francis Sep 2015
What am I doing?
I am washing dishes

I am nowhere else but
where I am now
408 · Jun 2015
The code shook
Cecelia Francis Jun 2015
The code shook
loose from the text
—buried in the text—
compressed with
pressure

poetry is a
pressure cooker:
words thrown in a
*** and condensed
into mush —like potatoes
and curry chicken left in
too long—bit into and
the bones too brittle
breaking, aching

a poem aches,
the code aches
within the poem
407 · Feb 2015
Lokah samastah
Cecelia Francis Feb 2015
Lokah samastah
sukhino bhavantu

Oh Lord that I would
pray to in my youth,
be that you are as active
as when I beleieved in you,
there is still no affirmation
for if faith brings presence

Prayer being to rely
heavily upon ones
own self storage
of resources

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu
407 · Sep 2018
I lost a will
Cecelia Francis Sep 2018
I lost a will:
to write,
to life

it's gone like
an unimportant
memory

misplaced
or erased?

what made
a clean slate?

brain bleached like
whites in laundry
406 · Dec 2014
Small disasters
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Small disasters
are small marvels

Like how a wave
can stretch its
neck and look
around so
effortlessly

Must gaze
in temporary
wonder

An anomaly
amidst the
ordinary

Like gold teeth
405 · Jan 2015
Moon princess
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
Moon princess prism
power -cranky and bloated-
Stars in position
405 · Aug 2015
Memories like things we
Cecelia Francis Aug 2015
Memories—like things we
call stories behind the darkness
of shut eyelids—arranged themselves,

and I'm in choir,
and the song is in a key
too  high for me,

so I mouth
watermelon all the while.

It's years later now, and
I can't remember what brought
on the subject, but

he said he likes to spell
fruit—after a girl caught him
with the alphabet—and

says his favorite is
watermelon and slurps and
I think it's funny
403 · Sep 2016
Who am I naked for?
Cecelia Francis Sep 2016
Who am I naked for?
Truth be cold and so

shrivels the little member
with a whimper and perks up

******* ****** dry in
the night because the benefit
of co-bedding is not having
to wake to feed

a cry-- a simple sing-song slur
trying to write again despite giving up on it
403 · Aug 2015
Cheap
Cecelia Francis Aug 2015
Cheap (adj).

How your mother thinks
you look in that outfit
403 · Mar 2015
Is this disguise
Cecelia Francis Mar 2015
Is this disguise
is this the sky
is this the life that's turned out?

How many lies
how many lives
how many hives to break through?
403 · Nov 2017
A reinforced complex
Cecelia Francis Nov 2017
A reinforced complex:
A ***** might ****
with, but doesn't
necessarily want

Me: a common
denominator that
stirs interest, but

Not much else
401 · Sep 2015
I closed my eyes
Cecelia Francis Sep 2015
I closed my eyes
and let my muscles
go by memory

What sound does
wild emotion take
when transferred?

Keys blindly pressed fall
as leaves in the fingers
like fission in autumn
I need to play piano more often
399 · Dec 2014
A poetical set
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
A poetical set
of two clauses

or something
-I've never been
good at math-

(speech as
is before it
implies any
poetry)

(the indeterminate,
aleatory
in nature fully
rid of all
things prose)

do they
intersect?
at which point
does X differ
from Y and
does the
M ***** upwards
or down?

checks and
reworking

I've never
been good
at math
399 · Feb 2016
A body wants some
Cecelia Francis Feb 2016
A body wants some
body, some more than others
And some none at all
399 · Aug 2017
The weed is
Cecelia Francis Aug 2017
The **** is
more expensive
here.

In conservation
I bathed in the sun
and danced around
a mushroom

to **** some time.

Well, what now?
What else is
there to do?

I could **** my
self, but then
I might die
397 · Dec 2014
Nice thoughts
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Nice thoughts
of thawed nights
sustaining
slowly culminating
-and therefore
ending- in
Emily's goblin
bee stinging
finally; French
Humbert finding
his tertiary Annabel:
American trash
397 · Dec 2014
Que
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Que
Que
he perdido?
Tú -claro-
pero que mas?

Ojala que
no es nada
mucho o
importante

Como
nosotros
fuimos
395 · Jan 2015
To be the
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
To be the
unlocked door
before you

Jimmie in with
bobbi pins and
credit cards
or
Knock politely and
wait, ring if left
unanswered

Maybe I'm still
in the shower
395 · Jul 2015
I feel the heat
Cecelia Francis Jul 2015
I feel the heat
combining and
multiplying to
achieve no higher
purpose:

Like that virus episode
of Jimmy Neutron

or

Like your furnace
abdomen and its
other appendages
broiling my back
small room and no ac help i'm dying
394 · Dec 2014
Like the
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Like the
music
I listen
to:
sounds
sou
nds
wh
wha
t at ht
rhy
rhythm
thm to
follow ow
rep
eat rep
rep eating
loops like
hoops
oops
Experiment
394 · Mar 2015
Upon a Jewel's Clothes
Cecelia Francis Mar 2015
When in thin sheets my sweet Jewel lays
within that ocean-cloth soft and its waves
my limbs can then search, search, stretch, and stay

Where I cast my arms out, a net flung to sea
with currents to wriggle you closest to me
O how floating drifts us to glittering sleep
A 'translation' of Herrick's Upon Julia's Clothes
393 · Aug 2015
I keep having
Cecelia Francis Aug 2015
I keep having
dreams of Okie
coming back, like
he was never gone
and I just didn't look
close enough, and I
wake up like maybe
he'll be there,

but I
don't bother checking
I miss my snake
392 · Mar 2016
My script or
Cecelia Francis Mar 2016
My script or
My scriptor

The spectator sport of
reading and representing
present in the temporal
sense that is constant

Confined to its binding
in one setting up the
dictionary of texts

For the scriptor to arrange
For the ****** to graze
Chord progression
392 · Sep 2018
I've heard
Cecelia Francis Sep 2018
I've heard
words

that herd
words:

a shepherd's dog and
his sheep--

"I love you"
corrals an
"I love you too"

with a few frantic barks,
and fast feet
390 · Dec 2014
Entities, raise
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
Entities, raise
your thoughts
from the ground
before the flood
rises, and
they drown

Empty them
out atop the
surface tension
-buoyant enough-
to float on their
own as a final
sacrifice
387 · Jan 2015
The moment
Cecelia Francis Jan 2015
The moment
-meek-
minced by words
mumbled under
breaths too
preoccupied
with breathing
387 · Jun 2017
You said you had
Cecelia Francis Jun 2017
You said you had
some choice words
for me, even though

I said we wouldn't
speak again.

You asked what if
you gave up on your
hopes and dreams
and aspirations or

What if I gave
up mine or what
if we could compromise?

But I've let you
go already. We cycled
too many times:

I needed all of your
love, and you only
wanted some of mine.

"Still... I wonder," you said.
But for me days and nights of
wondering had long been dead

I want you to be happy,
but it's not with me.

As time goes by,
I find myself content
with the leftover love for you:

It doesn't mind at all
that I'm happy with another
386 · Dec 2014
I hear
Cecelia Francis Dec 2014
I hear
the rain
so finely

Soothing
like a chord
progression
in harmonic
-then melodic-
in a minor
key

Drops not
waiting for
permission
to fall recklessly
-jettisoned in
the wind-
to the
ground
386 · Apr 2016
Dubliners
Cecelia Francis Apr 2016
There was
no longer
hope for
them at
this time
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