"cardstock" poems
I’m always falling
and I often end up drained.
I wish instead of tumbling that
I could fly on my paper cranes.
On my paper cranes
I’d fly over cardstock trees,
to land inside an origami garden
and sit on folded peonies.
I’d go on a newspaper sailboat
and float over the tissue sea
to visit cardboard whales
and foam board manatees
I wish that all my troubles,
were made of paper too,
and that I could solve them
by folding a world for you.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:34 PM UTC
Some kind of craftsman is working at his bench
Peeling ribbons of soft wood under a dim lamp
He watches the growing pile of discarded strips.
The timecard is now an electronic monitor
An old woman at the factory wishes
That it were instead a thick piece of yellowing cardstock
So that she could use a hole punch.
Somebody’s daughter is dancing naked in the yard
A business man drives by and hopes that somebody will photograph her.
He is remembering the blush on his lover’s face
When he first saw the photo of her and her sisters
Flat chested, unclothed, and splashing together in the bath.
The waitress from town has left for school.
Somebody there is brushing the hair away from her eyes
And wondering whether or not it is a good moment to kiss her.
Meanwhile there is a young man sitting in his regular spot in her diner
Wondering if her eyes really were the color of the winter grass
He is contemplating joining the army.
A wiry beggar is sitting outside of a convenience store
He asks for a cigarette and gets not even a sideward glance
Later he asks a thin, young thing for a few dollars
Once she is gone he goes inside to buy a pack
And smokes them immediately.
There is a funeral processional going through town.
There is a woman at the end driving with clenched hands
She feels guilty because of her anger
But the traffic is making her late for work.
You may now kiss the bride.
And he does.
The older women are crying.
Without any of these things
It seems we would be left with nothing,
but an insatiable thirst for punctuation.
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 2:31 PM UTC
On the bus, on the plane,
a child kicks the seat,
Loudly sings a half-song
on repeat.
Watch the adults wince,
the parents hiss under their breath,
their patience thinned to wire.
They stare harder at their safety cards,
at crossword clues,
at the blue glow of movies
they won’t remember.
This is the invitation-
Not the kind printed on cardstock,
but the kind that comes with grape jelly fingerprints,
with questions about the clouds,
with shoelaces that won’t stay tied.
Tell me more about that dragon.
That’s not a shadow, it’s a mountain.
What would you name the ocean
“ocean” was taken?
When they cry,
que the jokes,
make a peanut packet talk-
and the aisle is lighter for it.
How could this not be better
than folding yourself into a seat,
guarding your stiff silence?
Soon they’re gone,
dragging backpacks like spare limbs,
wet-cheeked or grinning.
I sit in the quiet,
watching the passengers
already back to their closed faces.
The question stays:
how could that human response
not be better
when the world hands us
small, loud,
unrepeatable gifts-
and we hand them back unopened?
Aug 15, 2025
Aug 15, 2025 at 10:12 AM UTC
He was larger than life
even shriveled
even the size of a
septuagenarian
even at 85
even growing smaller in mind
and spirit
the last year I saw him
he was larger than life and
I still looked up . . . .
He was 59 and I
was a child with
arms and legs dangling
as though they were made of
purple and orange pipe cleaners
and when he said to hang on
I thought of Forefathers
of Revolutionaries
hanging on to their ideals
and my arms wrapped tight
like the rubber band on his bread . . . .
The long-ago far-away again and
again of the
Last Year I Saw Him
seems to come around
like Fruit Stripe on a bicycle wheel
seems to come around
like a broken holiday of
can/can't come because/without
and you drop
like a barbell weight
like a drop of blood
like a ream of cardstock printed with maps
to find you and
to find you and
to find you had just received a thick file from
the Feds.
Again.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 4:43 PM UTC
Inspiration often manifests itself
in a female form
poetry, prose, pretty girls
igniting creativity.
7th grade
heart smitten
hand clenched
scrawling, attempting
to formulate the essence
of the oak tree where we met.
Charcoal pencil
cardstock paper
smudged hands
furrowed brow
stealing glances at her face
(call it "motivation")
increasing heartbeat
blood flowing to my
fingertips
through the wood and onto paper.
It's cyclical...
tree trunk felled
for pencil and paper, reincarnated
as an oak
in a marriage of the two.
Wood reformulated,
oak leaves reaching to the sun--
the glowing aura of her.
The oak tree picture
its likeness
and she--
all left behind
in time
distance
memory.
Years later, I feel it again:
the siren song of a muse.
But long abandoned charcoal,
cardstock paper gone.
Now,
I am a painter
I decorate my canvases with words
of you, for you
the one who makes
my fingertips prolific
they fumble
searching for the path
to a Masterpiece.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 12:43 PM UTC
my little blue boy
In the cardstock full moon
Don't you know you always go away too soon?
It's like looking through glasses too strong of a prescription
The lines are all hung up tangled and torn
Mismatched worn
right down to the umbilical cord
From a dusk morning
To a dawn night
Ugly ducklings not too ready for flight
And I'm singing a song to you
(Not that you can hear it
But I'm singing)
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 10:09 AM UTC
Behind the double oak doors at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, there’s a pink striped hallway with a checkerboard floor. Up the stairs to the right there’s a corner bathroom with a drip in the whitewashed stucco ceiling that will start when you take a long shower upstairs. The window has rusty bars over it and looks out over a backyard made of brick, with potted plants. Past the corner bathroom there’s an apartment with long rooms and creamy walls. This was my house,, but across the apartment, past the corner bathroom, through the striped hallway, and down the stairs to the left was the entrance to my home.
**** and Liz Merryman to this day live in the bottom apartment at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side. Between each spindle on the carpeted staircase down is a wind up toy from ***** antique collection. They still work, but my sister and I may be the only kids that he’s ever let touch them. Beneath the staircase is a jar of butterscotch that magically refills whenever someone takes one, or five, or sometimes even ten.. The living room in their house is where all the living goes on. The kitchen is in the living room, recipe’s hanging from the ceiling on bit’s of faded cardstock or stationary. The dining area is tucked between the spice jar and the bookcase, a glass coffee table from which **** and Liz have eaten their way through thirty years of marriage. Out the sliding door is the brick backyard. If you sit on the faded stones and watch the unrestricted ivy wrapping around the potted fruit trees you can almost imagine you are in London, and that under the brick there is real soil not a subway station. I paddled my way through childhood in that backyard on 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, and if I cried when I left New York City, I cried for **** and Liz, and the apartment at the bottom of the stairs.
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
I've been writing this novel
For a long time
As long
As I have
Been alive
Centered in lead
Scratching on paper
Cursively engaging
Building in plot
Filling in the margins
With side machinations
Occasionally
Pausing
Lingering on a particular line
While taking the care to design
A bookmark
(Bookmarks
Those crafty place keepers
Designed in paint and pen ink
Thicker than page
Indenting the chapter
Permanently altering
The binding)
Ornanate slips of cardstock
Decorated
In delicate flourish
Complex mandellas
Sacred geometric design
This novel I am writing
It's leafs dogtoothed
Still awaiting it's leather
Porcupined and thickened throughout
Promises
To be the intrigue of a lifetime
If only for the art itself
(JL)
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 11:32 PM UTC
There is a quilt on the bed in Shea's room,
Pink, red, blue, green, and violet,
Lace and stripes and polka dots,
White pillowcases with crisp corners.
There are books on the shelves, different genres,
Stuffed in sideways and upways and frontways,
old fantasy, thrillers, adventure,
Smudged ink in their yellowed margins.
There are papers on the desk by the wall,
Poems and Post-its and signatures,
Cardstock cut into star-shapes
Journal entries and unfinished sentences.
The closet is empty in Shea's room
Cobwebs and dead ladybugs lie still
A lamp has a cord around its middle
No breeze stirs the air; the curtains are closed.
There should be music in Shea's room.
There are songbooks, yes, but no hum of the heater
No branch scrapes the window outside
When a storm comes, the raindrops fall without rhythm
No longer are things made in Shea's room.
The colors are faded in Shea's room.
They say that there's something in Shea's room
Memories and fragments and pleasant dreams
They say stories came alive and still linger
Seeping through the cracks of the wooden floorboards
Horses graze in green pastures in Shea's room.
But I know what's really in Shea's room.
There's a year's worth of dust coating Shea's room
Not a thing has been touched for months
There's no Shea to be seen in Shea's room
Since she headed for the hills and never came back
There's no life and no soul in Shea's room
Shea's room is an abalone shell
The inner shine scrubbed away by disuse
Only shadows survive in Shea's room.
There is nothing alive in Shea's room.
Just an empty closet
And books
And Post-Its
And ladybugs
And remnants
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 6:11 PM UTC
you wanna take a guess? you wanna take a guess at this? guess nice long and hard. take a second guess if you need one. it’s ok to second guess. in fact, i insist you take another and keep guessing because guessing is smoke. in this tight circle, we’re taking guesses.
i am an educated guesser.
bummed guesses for awhile. bought my first guessing glass one July. play the guessing game all my days and guess my days away. they make guesses into the same thing as candles and its spiritual. it feels like taking an infinite number of guesses in one breath.
your guess is as good as mine.
drop to the next level. it is the doctor’s thesis of guessing. It is conjecture and formality, but with the fractal reasoning of a true American pack of guesses. they’re the guesses at the end of something replete. the last guess you have left.
out of guesses.
There is a string of panic tied to the last guess, which we tuck, flip, hide in the bottoms of cardstock caverns. when the time comes to draw the last straw,
B. there is nothing to guess at but a missing paycheck. These are the only answers we ever get.
A. she is there, all smiles and fresh questions with a bunch of guesses. she is my best guess yet.
Jul 18, 2020
Jul 18, 2020 at 5:50 PM UTC
I spend my days
thinking in poetry-
perfection never penned,
perpetually falling upon
my own deaf ears
and disintegrating into
the great nothingness,
only to be recycled
into bits and pieces
of other poems
never to be read
with each night
the words vanish,
one by one,
as I repeat them
incessantly, hoping
that I just might
recite a stanza
upon waking
I wish that my
mouth would open
and out they would
come, perfectly pressed
upon cardstock, fresh
with that inky smell
I swear still lingers
on my finger tips and
pillowcases
instead, I lay still
and silent, and watch
hopelessly as
they drift into dreams
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 12:54 AM UTC