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Joanna Oz Jan 2015
jumping jumbled thoughts
hop-scotch, double-dutch, criss-cross
getting lost in mish-mosh
scratching a vinyl
stuck constant skipping,
unfinished rounds of loop-de-loop spinning
speeding down stream
leaping across time warping lilypads,
memories interrupted by what-if daydreams.

my brain places haphazard bookmarks
when it runs into a lump,
then hops on a new train
ka-clunk ka-clunk-clunk ka-clunk,
tripping over decaying stumps
and mountains of over-processed junk.
always falling back to distraction,
instant satisfaction
was taught to me habitually,
so i look the other way when
my will bends instantaneously
at the mention of insane
raucous romping renegades.

i throw hand grenades
to prevent unfinished fragments
of insight from cementing.
wishing my words would
spit themselves out,
or dive off a cliff to utter calamity
cause effort is lost on me -
passionless revere
and bottomless see-sawing.

just stick me slack-jawed
in front of any cookie-cutter size of
plastic rectangle-god,
they all repeat the same chant
commanding me to stare endlessly at
screen after screen after screen after screen after screen -
my screaming pacified by flashing lights
and buzzing jibber-gabber.
infinite scrolling consumes isolated nights,
meticulously crafting a self-projection
made from inverse other-reflection
to deflect nagging fear of
detection and rejection.

can you really hear my inflection
from this typeface
and condensed pre-packaged mind-space?
i feel like i'm speaking,
but feedback is empty and misplaced
only muttered out by thoughtless mistake.
well once i pin me down
ill stick you beside,
and we can melt into cork board
a collage of disintegrated insides.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
if words could capture
the feeling
of being
with you again,
i would write them all.
scribbled up the sides
of ancient oak trees
secrets engraved onto leaves,
comfort stretching tall
into the night sky.
the cold strips clarity
into clouded eyes -
you are not mine
to hold,
but you are mine to have,
and the love shared
need not be
spoken,
how you have
and have not cared
displayed in token gestures.
i sit in peace
with both
knowing,
you
are exactly who you have always been
and will remain,
and i
am equal parts
your opposite
and reflected same.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
if I am to love you,
I will love without expectation
of return
or reciprocation-
neither acknowledgement
nor honey sweet affection.
I will love despite
brutal response
or dismal absence,
regardless of wounds and abscess,
and with no regret.
I will love every part
radiant and rotten alike,
leaving no portion of you out in the cold of night.

if I am to love you,
I will love with conscious intent,
not based in fleeting emotion,
but grounded
in purposeful action
and ever-evolving
spiritual awareness
of the pure metaphysical essence
of you-
and I-
as One.
I will remember that love is a garden,
and not an avalanche.
I will love in understanding
and trust that
there is nothing that separates us,
transcendent soul
immanent in each bone.

if I am to love you,
I will love in tranquil tracing,
in tender waves -
ascending and
receding.
candid caressing
peacefully pulsing pace of peeling
back layers
of my self-skin
to return to
the egoless origin.

if I am to love you,
I will love in humble gestures,
sacrificing all before me
not for moral glory,
but to recognize
shared sacredness.
surrendering desire and attachment,
equalizing all extensions
of the
you-me matrix.
I will love stepping over
self-interest
and dancing into harmony in singularity,
entire generosity
sharing all the puzzle pieces of me.

and,
if I am to love you,
I will love wild
true
and free.
letting the universe
continuously
wash my eyes in new clarity.
opening further
each golden morning
to share the light it has gifted me.
I wrote this after reading an amazing passage on charity, or pure spiritual love, from The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley. I am finding that I have so much to learn about interpersonal love through the concept of divine love: what it is, how to live in it, share it, embody it, and accept it.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
seconds
     ticking
          tick-tick
    flip-flop
         ti-
             tick-
                  ticking.
poking     at      me,
c o a x i n g me
        to move:
stand up, get out, be, hear, see, do,
everything's right in front of you!

those two
        idle hands
                
should be crafting a cat's cradle of cathartic creation…

but easy comfort
         in apathetic

                                                               ­ nothing,
in slowly
         being e n v e l o p e d
cuddled back into, back into, back into my bed of
                                                                ­                                        blank…
slate, blank mind, blank hands.
blankets covering a blank stare at a blank ceiling.
smothering the murmurs
of the matador
in
     my
          chest,
I  s  l  i  d  e  into a hazy half-dream.
the light slips past,
going home with the sun
and listening to
lunar lullabies,
I
         sigh & hum
              slinking
                            into yawns
excusing myself for d r a g g i n g
        tiredness
                     pulling on   my   strings.

sinking,
       sinking
                   into sulking.
staying
        to sit
                 in sadness,
                                            sinking.
tic­king
       ticking
                   t i c k i n g
TOCK

the blocking of
      my eyes,
             ears,
                 hands,
                      feet,
                          heart
stymied by my own will.
and it will
continue
      for
             e t e r n i t i e s
of absolutely
                   arbitrary
                               nothing.

expect for cookies.
I will pledge my honor to soak up all sweetness so that my bones might
      rot
          faster,
             sinking,
                 weighting,
                       wearing,
                          tearing,
                                        s
                                           i
                                              n
                                                 k
                                                    i
          ­                                            n
                                                         g
                                                              .­

spiraling out faster,
                                              sinking
into another
                                               sinkhole
black void of destruction
                                              *******
the color
the dimension
of
me
into the next bed
                                             dungeon
for sleep,
dreaming of
                                             sinking:
plummeting past plumes of poisoned plum trees
plop perched atop an immobile glass-sealed sea
yet,

I
        sink
                     in –
                                            apathy.
Wrote this a while ago and formatted it for a project.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
does your mind ever wander to me?
flash visions of my face
across the inside of eyelids
movies of slow motion embrace.

                                                       ­                                    do you hear my voice?
                                                          ­                         moan and giggle and hum,
                                                            ­             whisper profanities into your ear
                                                     and beat the pace of your chest's bass drum.

do your fingers feel my ghosting skin?
brush across those calloused tips
sliding closer, slinking clarity
calamity coincides with conscious choice,
i clutched the corners of certain collapse
clinging to clumsily curtained clues.
crawling cat claws over a carcass.

                                                       ­                  do you remember the very start?
                                         the moment when one of us - i'm still not sure who
                                                             ­     leaned in too close to the other's face
                                                            ­                and sealed the unspoken space
                                                           ­                                       with a deadly kiss
                                                            ­                             which dropped the rain
                                                            ­                                 which broke the dam
                                                             ­                             which released torrents
                                                        ­                            that had been held leaking
                                                         ­                               by tense bones creaking.

and when you gazed into my
melted honey eyes
with you piercing black pupils
and earnestly said:
"they were all mistakes,
but not you -
you
are not
a mistake",
were you lying through your teeth?
did the tumbling
kiss
that followed
seal your deceit?
grasping for my puppet strings
to dance me to your beat,
fog my mind with steam heat
to save your ego from defeat.

                                                        ­                                         i gallantly applaud
                                                         ­                     your flagrant charade darling,
                                                        ­                                                though flawed,
                                                         ­                                    your mask of interest
                                                        ­                             fooled me to blindly trust
                                                           ­                                              and helplessly
                                                                ­                                                            fall
                                                                ­                        into a bed made of rust,
                                                           ­                     glass promises, and folk lore
                                                            ­                              of men who transform
                                                       ­                                       in the womb of love.

does the last night haunt you
stuck on repeat
below the surface?
                                                        ­           do my words float through dreams
                                                                                 ghosting over melting trees
                                                                                       fleeting sinking feeling?
does your running
tug at you,
ripping loose seams?
                                                          ­   and did you feel the weight of my heart
                                                           ­                               as you denied my truth
                                                           ­                      and our harmony fell apart?

i feel i knew from the very start
that this would simply bring
seven layers of pain,
broken nails twisted into my brain.
but hammering down loose memories
and painting over fantasies,
won't cure the disease that sprouted in me.
i crave the impossible,
insanely desire to hold onto those who run.
i surely cursed the sun,
when i turned nocturnal
to answer your cicada phone calls,
because though i have returned to the daylight,
the blight of night-vision
engulfs me,
and i can only see your love's excision
and the remnant debris.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
this will be a year of discovery.
a time of floundering
through seas of uncertainty
until surfacing
somewhere in starry-eyed serenity,
stuttering foreign tongues til they
roll from your lips
like old friends.

this will be a year of courage.
of quivering feet chasing mountaintops
to root themselves in truth
and yell from naked sound booths
what your soul has found you.
of grabbing fear by the *****,
and lassoing stars
so you can swing clear
out of this galaxy and
orbit a solar system of dreams.
of climbing the tallest redwood tree
to glimpse all that you can see,
and taste forbidden fruit -
juicy satisfaction, wild and free.

this will be a year of unfettered hope.
though it began in the shroud
of Hades' darkest days,
this year will unfurl golden lotus light
dripping honeysuckle sweetness
onto dried tongues
so they can speak of fearless love.

this will be a year in which
the cruel reality of returning to the dirt
will sprout freedom,
a time of realizing the worth laden
in this impermanent existence.
of plucking the sweetness
from flowering present moment bliss,
fleeting fractals of forever
wrapped in eternally flying seconds.
tick, tock, tick, tripping through times tendrils
and tackling the tendency of tip-toeing
around taboos and tucking tribes into tailcoats.
trapeze through taxidermied truths
until you find a tangoing tune.

breathe in peace,
breathe out light.
this will be a year of moon gazing nights.
of lazy laughter, and daisy dancing.
of miraculous mistakes, and tiger prancing.
so throw doubt out the door,
baby, this year is all yours.
Joanna Oz Jan 2015
if i know but one truth,
it is that our souls
have met many times before,
various forms
of this flower-fairy friendship:
once as moon,
then as sea,
another as towering oak tree and ancient sun beam,
and again as volcanic rock
sprouting a citrine garden
crystalizing daydreams.
we are but
fractal spirals of concentric consciousness
spinning sapphire, rose quartz, and amethyst
through the infinite sands of time.
place your hand in mine
and find that its been there all along,
we've always been singing the same song.
so when you feel your love is far gone,
just hum your melody
and my harmony will fly along,
land on your shoulder,
and softly remind
that my heart rests in yours,
that our spirits are intertwined,
eternally dancing
to music of laughter
and heartbeats.
and though this moment
is fleeting,
though our path unsure,
the tranquility
of traversing this tome with you
of frolicking through forests
and peeling glue
off of our third eyes
to gaze at glorious
galaxies of possibilities
that lay waiting at our feet,
brings untold peace.
my dear purple sweet,
you are the stars above
and the river below,
a bolt of lightning
the vibration of ohm.
and wherever you may go,
always know
that the light you share
will return tenfold,
and that my love will be with you
to have and to hold.
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