"bellybuttons" poems
i love you when we're alone
because you eviscerate me in front of your friends
but alone you kiss the veins in my arms
press your small hips into my hips & sigh into my neck
& blink so slowly that i can hear your eyelids whispering
you won't hold my hand in public
because you blatantly want to seem available to other men
but when it's only you & it's only me
we lie on our backs letting the summer rain collect in puddles
in our bellybuttons & you swear to god
there's only one way this can end
you say i can't meet your parents
but everything i do reminds you of your father
that tall strong man of your childhood
singing sinatra to your mother in the kitchen
just like i do when i sneak behind you &
tickle your neck with my tongue you're
giggling as i carry you like a bride
into your bedroom for naptime or playtime
you only miss me when you're by yourself
like a flower hidden in a fenced-in backyard
but you ignore my texts most days
because when your friends are around you're busy
dancing toward the sun & lying to them
about where you spent last night &
the blueberry pancakes you ate for breakfast
you don't mention the ticklish new rib spot i found
or the quiet music we make together at night
or the stars we wished on with our pinky fingers tied together
i love you most when we're sticky asleep alone
you humming in turquoise ******* snuggled into my armpit
with your warm hand melting into my chest
& me in the pinstripe boxer briefs you bought with
my arm under and reaching for your exposed breast
Jun 28, 2015
Jun 28, 2015 at 8:38 AM UTC
I miss you from my toes
painted bright red
red that reminds me of you
since you always looked better than I did in red
I miss you from my knees
the ones we'd compare
and all the bumps and bruises
from playing each other in basketball
I miss you from my waist
the waist you insisted was smaller than yours
at least you had hips
and attracted all the boys
I miss you from my stomach
and the bellybuttons we promised we'd pierce
together once we left home
I miss you from my shoulders
and feeling your arms rest on them as we'd hug
the weight on my shoulders more than that
as I miss you too much
I miss you from my head
and all the memories
As everything I look at
reminds me more of you
I miss you from everything
and just want you here
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 12:05 AM UTC
There’s a clumsiness
to the way I unbutton my shirt,
hoist it over my head
and let it snuffle to the floor.
I stand there, *******
and unkempt armpit hair on display
but you’ve already almost
totally disrobed,
the light from outside
licking your spine,
dribbling down a leg
like melted sunflower petals.
We catch each other’s eyes,
except you don’t catch eyes,
you see the other person
looking at you
and you know what’s next,
the standing ****
dry skin and bellybuttons
viewed only by a fortunate few,
a bunch of names
like grapes squashed
into bed sheets
we won’t touch again.
I think this is supposed to be sexier,
my underwear flinging off,
boxer shorts champagne cork
towards the window,
your bra sunny side up
by the foot of the door.
Rather I watch you
peer at the skin I’m in
waiting for a shrill buzzer sound,
a number out of ten
and a spatter of applause
from a conjured-up crowd.
I think you look glorious.
I go to say this but my brain feels
as though it’s been whisked.
You walk over, slink your hands
towards my face,
put an icicle finger to my lips.
I’ve no idea what I’m doing
but you’ll show me the way.
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 11:34 AM UTC
cherubs chuckle
bellybuttons tingle
fearsome fangs sink into speedy intuitive youths
brainwaves command bodies
advertisements command brainwaves
they quickly capture the attentive child
melancholy *******
thinking deeply
and eating mcdonalds
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 7:42 PM UTC
The sun rose pink over Lancaster;
Its frozen rains came quick in tow—
Here, we sense the passive and the active:
To take the drag or pull:
He is dragged by the way of the automatic hand-to-mouth;
The Other, is my command—
But that, even, impelled snowfully toward
A closed fist, a locked grasp, an unwilling departure.
I suggest a dislocation somewhere in parallax:
Take paper dimensions and fold them 104 times
And everything flattens out—
The ocular inversion becomes like-real; I’ll swim in that!
Puddles are dragged by the wind, whilst the pull thinks in spite
Of I, its strange corpus of author, and opus
Drags to the creature of appetite deign to call to order.
But a power powerless to its name given it:
Destined desiring of sunnier metaphors—
The alcoves of the thread, brought to just us
Caesuras of what satisfies, in food, in just us
The depth of image holds true: one cannot live on bread alone.
Thus, I muse and mull back to locks of hair and bellybuttons
Waiting, in time—the deepening of time’s cloth
Where my hand caresses her thigh—
One can feel the gravity pressing on the heart,
All the love that self-reflects, combs out the wrinkles,
And has faith in the good inertia.
By this secular host consubstantiate
And Other (surely a pleasing affair) is but moments away.
And she and I look so pretty together,
Our is of whom and what and the third conditional.
That which presses upon itself, the one dimension,
Cannot disentangle from name or alliance, nor faith,
Greedily picking at the oily ruptures, effulging in transparence,
Contradictions care not for astrology,
And whether you are poetry
Is not important here.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
i had a cut on my shin that day, and i could feel the salt digging into it with sharp fingers as the whole of the ocean licked at my kneecaps. there were goosebumps up my thighs,
down my shoulders
my winter skin fell against the ash of the horizon near-seamlessly. his was no different. we
huddled together in the blues and the greys, saltwater in our bellybuttons, cold wet hands grasping cold wet backs and shoulders, the heat of his breath threaded around my curls and dove
down into the cavity between our chests.
he was skinny and shivering, and i and i and
i was trying to steam clean him with my loving palms, smooth the wrinkles out of his deflated heart and open him up and climb inside.
Feb 5, 2010
Feb 5, 2010 at 9:18 PM UTC
The streets were not as mean as history
said they would be,
especially after a night out
at the bier haus,
where we filled our grosse steins
with litres of hops
& barley
& natural carbonation.
It really wasn't a nation full of crazies,
but rather
one full of serious frunken fun
& frolicking amoungst the bauchnabels
with liebe.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 10:39 PM UTC
O baby doll,
let's
experiment,
from our bellybuttons
around to our backs,
crawl in each other's mire.
We'll create an amazing-fire,
a fire that will burn,
burn for all eternity.
Shhhhh....don't make a sound,
I've found your treasure.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 7:12 AM UTC
Her hair was a thousand tiny ballet dancers
with eyes like the rings of Saturn
Her gaze was eternity unfolding
Biting teeth like a box of rusty nails
A mouth as wide as an empty cashiers till
Her tongue was a hangman’s noose
Her neck as long as an angry goose
She had shoulders as high as a wave
and her arms were old bunting in knots
With wrists that held patterns of scars
Long fingers were lost catching stars
Grey fingernails like stained window glass
Her chest was an overcrowded tent
and her ******* were upended top hats
Her stomach was a beached whale about to burst
With a bellybuttons descent into madness
An *** that is clenched fists wrapped in leather
Her thighs were slapped orangutan cheeks
She had knees that cracked like bad lightbulbs
And her shins were nomadic spears
Her feet were deflated blowfish
And her toes were fish heads,
Peeping out from an open can
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 4:10 AM UTC