19 jan

He is the opening cords of every song.
He is the sound "sh."
He is the tree held up by stakes,
  He is the stakes being whittled down to size.
He is inside the rough, back-and-forth motions of the pocketknife as it scratches off the bark.
He is the red, callous hands of the blade-wielding woodsman.
He is the brown,
     the deer,
          the drowning,
                the dirt.
He never leaves footprints,
but he always leaves early--
He is the soft light of dawn,
                              never here for very long.
We remember him but we do not
  yearn for him, we do not live for him.

He is the dead, brown shrubbery pushing through the melting snow,
                         all bent, no direction,
                                  no preconceived intent.
Oh, but he's reawakening, it's almost spring,
                   he's growing above everything.
We take out the stakes and he does just fine.

I had a dream last night that you read my poetry out loud to me,
and at the word "mask" you used a low,
                                   definitive tone.
                              It was your voice.
It resonated within me as I realized that
I knew you well enough to construct
        the exact frequencies of your vocal range
while I was asleep.
It was your face, too.
                        Grinning, but holding back,
                             half afraid,
                                   half elated.
That's all I remember from that dream.
When I woke up I remembered the basic framework
but not the voice, or the face,
                           just the words.

There have been tears and laughter and
                                       screams and chatter,
     but nothing is going to be worse
                                      than the inevitable silence.

when shuttle feeds show the earth on fire
and unprovened ashes stray from the pyre
  ammonium nitrate will still be there
   to keep us unvitiated, cold, and bare.
    not that we'll need it, the sun can warm
     with its dying light it is no longer "aurum"
      but "ater."
     lying next to me, a body in destitution
    rags and bones and circumlocution
   no medicine can fix you, no analeptic drug
  only the attraction of the gravitational tug
for when we are done with cosmic consorts,
we will be only sedimentary quartz.

tight silk ******* with the lilac bra to match,
cream coloured knee high socks.
a collection of classic rock on vinyl and a compliments jar covered in news articles.

too many celebrity perfumes, but a versace collection that makes her think of the beach;
peach smelling deoderant.

chapter books on the floor accompanied by hair ribbons of baby blue and cotton candy pink,
****** by Vladimir Nabokov laying near the juvinile pale legs of beautiful sixteen,
as she paints each toe nail red, pink, white.

almost naked body, remember her tight, fresh lace set
hair perfectly auburn, lips perfectly light coral
mouth slightly open
Led Zepplin playing.
hairspray and rose powder,
unlit vanilla candles and twilight scented creams
she smells faintly of Modern by Banana Repulic and her daddy's cigarettes.

silently waving, a flag of patriotism
the beautiful, elegant sixteen.

-part 1

conceptcollection

I. Knowing you,
it's like a dream.
I'm not referring to perfection or
personal desire,
because both are insufficient excuses
for lack of motivation, lack of action.
No, I'm talking about the way in which you remind me of the dreams I scramble to write down when I wake up from them.
The ones I'm able to put into complete sentences,
not that they'd make any sense.
Usually it's just words and images separated by hyphens, commas, space--
                             but not this time.
  It still doesn't make sense.
This whole story, it's incomprehensible, it's between a nightmare and a daydream. The fuzzy edges, the tilt-shift,
        the vibrant colors that I can't remember, the way in which we never touch each other.
Can you recall ever running your fingers over,
embracing,
biting, scratching,
feeling a tangible object within a dream?
Maybe it's a personal experience.
But this disconnection, this feeling like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, it's too outlandish, too surreal.
There's too much periphrasis.
I'm not an interface.

II. There's a windowpane, freshly scrubbed--
Through it I can see everything, comprehend
everything. the smallest details proffered in high contrast and high saturation.
But I reach out and my fingers bump and bend awkwardly as they come into contact with it, minimally smudging it.
Sorry about that.
When I walk into the room you look at me with such bewilderment,
as if I've come back from the dead,
but you're too scared to touch me--
               I'm a ghost, I'm a mirage, a phantasm,
I'm a stone sculpture erected in memory
   of who I used to be.
Who did I used to be?
I've been resurrected,
but do you want me revitalized?
It concerns me that I need verification,
but even more that I'm concerned
with the fact that I can't get it, it's too hard to read, it's in another language, or it's too blurry.
I told you this doesn't make any sense.
"You think about death a lot"--
I'm sorry about that too.
I've been trying to be more unapologetic.
I don't quite think it's working.

III. So, about this:
I'm not quite sure of the direction
it needs to go in;
it would benefit from a clean dissection--
we should talk about this.
And we have.
But nothing seems to work;
I don't know how to get through to you,
I don't know how to break the glass.
          What would I tell you? I don't know.
  I've already told you so much,
and you me.
Why did you tell me all of that?
These ulterior motives in an ulterior dimension, they differ so profusely from the world where I write dreams down; the real one.
You inquired once about the differences between who I was in voice and in action.
I didn't have a good answer,
but I wanted to ask the same of you.
Stop looking at me like that,
         you know what I'm talking about.
Say something. Please.
It doesn't have to be like this,
I could wake up from this dream and everything could be almost the same,
if you'd agree to it.

i'm in love with words,
but afraid of voices.
silence is both beautiful
and terrifying,
because thoughts just
never seem to sleep.
no one seems
to really understand,
because although
these voices
never stop talking,
the words themselves
are often too
quiet to speak.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

10/27/14
say it once more, out loud, or as many times as you want:
"I did not think it would happen like this."
there are seven billion people on the earth right now, and that means about seven billion god complexes, each above my own.
there are things that aren't supposed to be said, and things that are crafted to be left behind. I always compared myself to one of the latter, but now I realize I am the suitcase. I am the hotel shampoo that you leave in your bag only to carry it to the next hotel.
those little bottles have seen a lot.
so have I -- well, enough to know that when people say "don't look down," they mean it. I compiled a list of the ways that I could have said goodbye, and then tore it up, letting the little pieces go one by one from my hand out your car window as it speeded down the thruway.
there are good lights and bad lights and lights in between -- warning lights. if there are no sirens, how can you tell the difference? red is not a color to mess around with. and please, whatever you do, please don't get it on the walls. people will get the wrong idea.