You sound so beautiful
In the rhythm of your heartbreak

So regal in the words from the mouth
Of a giant trumpeted over the plains
At daybreak

The way the elephant stands
Ivory gnarled and precious
Perfect and rare
Like the words you spin from your ivory teeth

Sometimes only glinting from the
Corner of your coyote snicker
A bitter trickster
Playing the beat

And I am in awe
Expecting there to be thunder
From the pound of your feet

But you manage to muffle the
Roll of the rain clouds
So as not to scare the other animals into hiding
So we can all rejoice at the rain

Then the crack of lightning
As it strikes the temples of those
Who stick around long enough
To appreciate the burn inside

You are the regal sound of
elephant trumpet thunder
And the late night
Howl of coyote’s laughter

Knowing perfectly
That it’s your timing
That keeps all the other animals
Up at night

tundra icicles
cut my heart open wide -

can't pretend
this wasn't what I signed up for
when I ran in here
after you.

i slipped you some matches
when you weren't looking
and watched you light up again,
while I just sat there

in unfamiliar territory
rolling around
on my big girl wheels,
determined to sneak you
a pair of telling eyes
as soon as no one
was watching.

i should've known better

than to bring you
a stolen vision,
as if i hadn't already learned
of the subjective quest -

i'm just trying to
help you see

what the matches were for.

A poem falls short; I'd like, instead
to draw a single line from me to you
and watch it curl into a word
so beautiful it's still unsaid –
or press paper to the window pane
so that the day might saturate
a note that brightly warms your hands,
spills birdsong from imagined trees
and buzzes like fat bumblebees,
but I am bound by language, love; I can't.

We're all human here, right?

Why, then, is my side, most human,
Something bidden I hide?

---

Mockings chant their mocking things,
Swinging from the hinges of reality.
While, sneers and jeers born from,
Overgrown fears,
Leave small ****** in my ripe heart -

Unceasingly.

At the door, my mind assured me, go,
And my feet, those dumb things, did listen.
Went right into havoc,
Wreaked solely by tragic,
Souls, so pathetic, I can't even stand it.

Who's ripping up my soul so darkly,
Save, me and the audience I've made?
Surely, the swift-sounding people,
With valiant battles to battle -
Are too busy to waste time at the gallows.

You dug the hole,
And jumped right on in,
I merely picked up the shovel,
And finished it.

Though, now, my heart aches,
So red and opaque,
Curse you,
For doing you in.

07.2011

Daddy asked me one muggy day,
If I wanted to ride the ell again.

My attention caught the swings, for a bit,
Before turning to him and saying,

“I ain’t goin’ back to the city, Daddy,
To see Jerry or nobody,

‘Cause the city snatches my breath away,
And not in the sweet way neither.

The buildings make me feel so lost,
And, I’m lost ‘nough, as it is.

The people tell me my smile’s too warm,
For a place that eats up chills.

Can’t I stay here in your lap, forever,
And pretend to be unaware?

Listenin’ to talk of crime afar,
Glad that we’re not there?”

Daddy held my hand and stroked my hair,
‘Til it seemed as if hours flew by.

Then, he kissed, so softly, my frizzy hair,
And said, “At some point, you need to fly.”

My phone has been hacked,
I feel gladdened to know, that
Someone's interested,
In what paltry things I say,
To my mother.

I don't want to be a speck in this ocean of humanity.
I don't want my words to be so small and obscure that even the keenest ear, still, cannot hear.
I don't want to be tossed and kicked and shoved about, like the speck I fear I am.
The speck that floats & sweeps and glides & sighs - the speck that will never be examined.

I breathe.
I live.
I mean.
I am.

I don't want to be invisible.

---

The world is one big bustle after another - people pushing and shoving, only to sleep and repeat?

I am the one you bumped into, in a race to catch the nooner to downtown Detroit.
I am the girl you stumbled past, in your rush to catch another cab.

I am the flower ******* McKenzie who sold you more marigolds.
The waitress at PJ's who asked, "More cream?"
The cashier at Aldi's who bagged your Arizona.

I am that ticket taker at Cinemark who gave you your stub and genuinely hoped you would enjoy your movie.

I am the girl you're seated by, right now.
This instant.

So close, you can hear her soft breaths;
So close, you can nearly smell her perfume;
So close, and still...
You stand.

You gather your things, get off the train, and run off to catch another, what?
Bus? Plane? Cab?

You're gone.
And, I'm here.
And, I'm still the girl;

The girl who might have been your soulmate.
But, you traded me for 15 minutes of silence and a bed you'd sleep in alone.

---

I don't want to be a speck in this ocean that is your world.
I want to be a boulder.

I want to mean something,
And be something,
And exist to you.

So, STOP.
I'm here.


"Hello."

There is no light at the tunnel’s end—
Only dented cans and newspapers,
Amid discarded butts of dissatisfaction,
Strewn across broken pieces of gravel.

Empty bottles and empty hearts
Play wrestle games throughout the night—

What am I really doing here?
Who led me down this dark alley?
This alley so deceitfully painted in colours,
That, before, were all so lovely.

I’ve given up the daffodils
For chalkdust and white paper.
I’ve thrown away my careful bag,
But, now I want it back.

I want my heart to smile again.
I want myself to return.
But, this heart and this soul,
So sweet but alone
Are absent and i’ve no clue where they’ve gone.

*06.2011