Is it my counter-counterclockwise
mind wasting time? Elbows
on the dining table pulling my angel
hair into grid-like times tables.
I’m invested in this non-conversation
table. Ich liebe dich, mein Freund.
I’ve got commitment issues and four-ply
tissues for when my eye lashes start
peeling apart. My grandpa died in 2005
and I’m all but over it. I’m holding
his kite string, but the reel is almost done,
like VHS tapes rewound then fast-forwarded
to the good times. Power Ranger birthday
and everyone’s wearing dunce caps
with elastic chin straps ‘til they snap.
Snap! Snap! Snap me back to three-years-old,
and I’m singing in a Robin costume
‘cause I knew I’d always be second best.
I had an identity crisis around fourteen,
so I stopped buying sunglasses
because I found myself in other
peoples’ shadows. But now the only shadows
they’re casting are the ones from their headstones
and from the fields of flowers cradling
them like they once cradled me.

Fast-forward, I’m genuflecting in gym shorts
before myself in a mirror smudged with plum
felt. And I seem small compared to my life
spelled out in Expo marker markings.

It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever

To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to

These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming

Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense

Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white

Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.

I fell in love with Lust
with his beady greedy eyes
those wandering hands
such a haughty smirk
each scratch and bite, inviting
as he stole each selfish kiss
I fell deeper into his arms
the lack of emotion, and superficial charm.
I was twisted around callous fingers
Each meeting an adventure.
Each encounter so exciting.
The perfect romance.

But when Lust fell in love with me…
it was boring, he was too sweet
Too kind, too predictable.
I craved something else,
You might say, I became  Lust
and then found myself another love.

hacking the cloud
to paint the sky

- code in words
gets the color
down between the lines -

beneath the verse -
perfectly - poetically

- subversive.

r ~ 10/19/14

When my years are
stretched thin like elastic

that is at breaking point
or just past it

I'll be glad that I keep
my best memories deep

in the grooves
of a black slab of plastic.

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

it gets old - the news
of war - no more glory

-  the dead are dying
old and young

- we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

living in our rooms
above the fray -

we turn away
like yesterday -

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

another day.

r ~ 10/17/14

i still spell gray
with an a

not an e
in my po-etry

does it matter
to the grammar?

hoo's to say

says the owl
to the vowel

it's a gray area.

r  ~ 10/17/14