"corneas" poems
A Jersey girl came along
and I started to think about angles of yaw
needed to take flight,
how the force of a kick skirts
the delicate line between winning and losing.
I’ve seen it all before, but not like this. Besides, seeing
has nothing to do with believing.
Corneas can't capture the vibrations of molecules or excitations
of electrons. Champions defy biology,
overcome gravity and I believe what goes up
does not always come down.
I want to know the point where focus takes control
of epinephrine, who’s cascade is initiated by the roar of a crowd,
but negatively regulated by doubt,
when to take a long shot or build up slowly.
I want to live the difference between accuracy and precision,
taste the dirt, become painted with bruises and scorch my heart.
A flag is heaviest when you carry it,
lightest when it’s raised,
worn as a cape and allowed to wave in the wind.
Countries aren't build, they're created created
denying muscles oxygen but allowing them to taste gold.
It's ability to conduct electricity astounds me.
It’s not about alchemy
but transforming sweat into tears,
fixing nitrogen, reducing triglycerides.
Not all reactions need light, some create it.
It’s only over when there’s not enough energy for activation.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 8:35 PM UTC
My Sunglasses
I’ve got all of Tucson trapped behind my sunglasses
I’ve framed mountain ranges in the frames of my Raybands
I’ve got reflections of saguaro’s stranding still in front of my eyes
I have sunny days taking refuge underneath my shades
I’ve domesticated the giant star that rides blues skies into walking the edge of my brow
I use black plastic as onyx shields
So Tucson, I see you.
There’s an art revolution beating at your horizon
I’ve seen it skirting around these wastelands
They tell us we’re wasting our time
Telling the roadrunner to run back home
When its nest was here since the beginning of time
Tucson.
I’ve seen folklorico and mariachi pay tribute to your origins on the hottest of days
I’ve seen in the shadows in underground art forms
Graffetti. There’s a protest in there somewhere.
I’ve even witnessed it in pen to paper
In lips to mics. In cafés in your desert nights for your desert nighttime audiences.
Tucson, your culture and artistic value shines too bright for others to see.
Your artistic worth shines too bright for others to broadcast
They tend to only record your overdoses and murders
Seems like our televised story tellers prefer to paint us in immoral reds
The only time they pay the south side attention is when the south side is aching
It doesn’t help that schools force you to choose business
Give you chance to study law all the while cut out your art programs
Fine art is required by universities but they don’t always expect you to get that far.
Tucson’s fine art is too fine and infinite to be recognized by those undeserving
Society wants to capture our southern brethren as outlaws not poets
We’re called the misfit of the desert. As if every spray can, paint stroke, choreographed twist,
Slam poem wasn’t something to take pride in.
I’m sorry they only pay your schools attention when ambulances are parked in your driveways
And administrators get caught in doing ***** deeds.
I see your talent wasted. Your talent shown.
To remind myself of your artistic significance, I’ve framed you
On walks home I photograph your murals.
Listen to the poets in the hallways.
Observe the dancers compose and the musicians choreograph
I’ve caught your reflection in my corneas’.
I’ve dilated my pupils thoughts behind my sunglasses.
Framed your mountain ranges in my frames.
Took cover in your shades.
Trained the artistic freedom and right to walk on my brow
Tucson
I see you.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
You told me I was a pan of hot water and
sometimes it hurt to touch me
but you never thought to turn the temperature down
you just left me boiling
its april 7th and you are still a joke
but somehow you are the only one laughing anymore
I once told you I saw fire in your eyes
and you said it was just the reflection of the
ever burning in mine
I've only now realized that was nothing but a lie
The devil is not red or pointed with hooves
The devil is of flesh
He arrives as the very thing you want most
His name is Lucifer
And he is tall and handsome
He keeps you blind to the raging hellfire
He does not mention you are floating on the river Styx
When he finally pulls the curtain and
gives you back your corneas and irises
You are like Persephone-
you've already eaten seven pomegranate seeds
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 6:33 AM UTC
There are flowers springing from my bones
in places they were never planted
fracture my skull and call it apathy
I say pain is a better road than dying alone;
can't you see the way my vision is blurred,
squinted too long at the sun now I think I've done damage
burned holes in my corneas before the age of 21, but those are just
surface things, right?
the road feels a lot longer when the cold air hits all my soft spots, like my neck so I cover it up
pooling all my efforts into growing thicker blood that will keep my skin warm
;keep kissing bruises on my arms, thinking that love will heal each new halfhearted attempt at self-sabotage
or manage the leftover evidence;
did somebody forget their brakelights on?
I'm trying to figure out how to get these needles out of my head
rocket science, learning to reverse detonate what might be left
in my system
system check, leaving sticky residue
behind me in my heavy concave tracks
softly trailing back
gotta learn to do it right the first time before I backtrack
my ears ringing like a sound clap;
bringing up old war wounds like we've lost gives us some sense of entitlement
things we don't want to lack,
leave the last stack
where I can mull over the aftermath
digging graves for those who are still alive,
burn my skin tonight
burn it right off my bones so I'll know I'm alive
still kicking like the second round
the afterthought that realizes what went down the first time
don't let me out of the house tonight,
god knows what I might find.
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 11:40 PM UTC
You are sitting with your family for lunch. They
Are talking, passing food, laughing and you are watching them
Through the glass of your corneas. You watch them while you are
Busy keeping yourself afloat; you are floating and wondering why
There’s no jellyfish all around your head, and it amazes you that oceans
Are not silent as you thought they’d be. It amazes you that you are able to
Smile and nod and breathe and pretend you are paying attention when all you
Are thinking is how to keep your feet still, your hands from shaking, your legs
From leaving the room, so you cross your arms and smile again.
When you watched Pacific Rim you thought it was about the way you inhabit
Your own body, like wearing a dress you don’t fit in, like having so much room
Inside your empty spaces that you take a lot of time just to say
Hello, because it’s a long way just to reach your mouth and speak up.
You think nobody could ever understand what all of this means.
In fact, for a very long time, nobody will know.
Let me tell you what’s going to happen to you: someone will hold you like you
Mattered; they will hold you like you are precious, and they will kiss your cheek
Firmly. They will press their lips on your cheek and make it last for two seconds.
When you two will part, you will start to shake. Now, listen to me carefully:
You won’t shake because they matter. You will do it because
This is more affection than what you had in a lifetime. You will be
Overwhelmed because you are not used to be held like that
And you are desperately hungry.
You will shake because it hurts.
You will question the extent of your damage
And think it’s worrying but there’s a detail you’ll fail to
Notice: for two whole seconds you haven’t thought of the oceans.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 9:38 AM UTC
Substantial quadrants of hate
Throughout these veins circulate
Spiraling in frenzied states
Adrift an ailing coma
Infinite corruption clawed my corneas
Birthing the erasure of euphoria
Imprinting trademarks of memoria
Leaving in wake vile aromas
All confidence dissolved to solvents
Due to definitive involvement
Susceptible to gaunt installments
Marring my skin with melanoma
Mother Earth serves as a mime
Humanity must be refined
© 2012 (All rights reserved)
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 1:23 AM UTC
The withdrawal is killing me
My cells are longing for the warmth of your body
For the feel of your skin on mine
For the vision of you to be on my corneas
My hands are itching to hold yours
My heart feels like it’s caving in upon itself
I can’t breathe
I need to be near you
I need to feel you
I need you
The withdrawal is killing me
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
You wander down the hallway
Feeling something shiver inside of you
You wonder what this feeling might be
And suddenly an image of his face
Pierce your corneas
A second later
He is there
And when you pass in the hallway
He looks at you sideways
Widens his eyes.
You furrow your brow
Lift the corners of your lips
Tilt your head
You mention how you always see him in this hallway
He considers you. Then.
He says it is God’s will
You get the wind knocked out of you
You know that it shows on your face
He dismisses you
But not before you say that you agree
That it is God’s will
You take your casual leave
Calling him by his nickname
Stepping into the elevator
You remember he calls himself a liberal
You hug yourself
You wonder if he sees his God in you
You remember he was born on Palm Sunday
You chuckle to yourself
You walk past your roommates
You feel their eyes on your back
You sit down and eat your dinner
You stand at the window
You watch the buildings bleed onto the streets
Manhattan swirls underneath you
There are points of light on little moving objects
The cars and the people
The colors and the lights
The smoke and the sky
The city pulsates, the city snarls
Eager for you to take the streets
You gaze out your window
And so, you decide, it is
It is God’s will and just exactly who
Are you
To deny it?
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 1:34 AM UTC
The girl’s corneas expand over the small black abyss of pupil
Tides of blue and hazel rising over onyx isles
An unhinged eyelash balances precariously on its neighbor
It evaporates with her quick blink
Directly beneath her right eye
Below the mottled eggplant shadows
The corpse of a capillary drains among the freckles
Subterranean rivers of vein
Pulse under thin skin
Her nose is spherical
Etched by soft papery scars
Pores round and gazing
Culminating in a uniform valley
Lips are soft and pink and unkissed
A source for a small steady trickle of pride
Her mother’s lips
But behind the outer façade
The seamed surface is rough with nervous nibbles
Ribboned with scars of worries and troubles
She lacks fourteen teeth
Absent since the womb
Those she has are either sickly infants or filled with grainy mystery metallics
Some entirely fabricated with spatulas of amalgam
Yellowed and cracking
Rough and worn
Spongy inner marrow screaming with pain
She hides the stony incisors from view
The hair
Curling and waving
Kissing with reptilian tongues at her cheeks
Neck
Forehead
Framing her face in brambles and cowlicks
Indecisive of its true form
Fuzzy with moisture
Unwilling to obey
The strands of a gorgon
A monstrous tangle of personality
Instantly recognizable
Her hands attempt to soothe the undulating tendrils
But they anger
As stubborn as her
Refuse treatment
She gives up
Rinses her hands
And turns away from the mirror
Sighing
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 11:48 PM UTC
There is nothing we can do at all
to indemnify our weary souls and hearts
against the first love of a reconstructed us.
That one speck in trillions becomes the universe
and we can ignore the burning warning
in our scared skin and strained corneas.
Shelters built for bruised bodies
refuge for split, shattered souls
tires in its use like veins sick of medicine.
Still we are falling again and again
into ragging red and yellow fury
into endless gaping oblivion.
Until deepest depths no longer crush
and sky haven heights no longer suffocate
we shall risk the ravages of hope.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 3:04 AM UTC
unwrap my ribs. carefully,
like a present you've been waiting for
since october.
smooth out the wrinkles
along my forehead, sip
the lines from my palms.
write letters to constellations
along my marked calves, and
stain my upraised mouth with
new words that don't
belong to me. sketch
characters inside my
elbows and draw their faces
down my stomach.
take a microscope to the pores
between my vertebrae, set
original sentiments and
grow them carefully. look through
my corneas like window-panes
shattered by heat from
a church fire. clean
the bridge of my nose of
headaches and bottles and bottles
of asprin, vicodin and something
nameless and strong.
snap my tibiae over your knee,
assemble a tired face,
put it over a mask, tie the
words to my lips and send
me out into the world a refreshed,
taken individual.
Nov 16, 2010
Nov 16, 2010 at 11:20 AM UTC
Aborigines in the Australian outback
Among starving dingoes
A drug deal going on behind the bowling alley
And a butterfly knife waiting to be put into someones gut
Show some skin
Then maybe you will get somewhere at the customer service desk
Buyer beware, consumer keep cautious
Lay waste to that place and get your money back
They sold you an amphibian and told you it was a marsupial
The clerk wrote your inconvenience off as null
Off in Puerto Rico there's a cockfight
Pass the bug replant
Dos cervezas por favor
It's a steel cage grudge match
Brought to you by the courtesy of some man who's name I cannot pronounce
I got my invitation to this thing in a basket of tropical fruit
Someplace near substructure homes
I see a man in a bandanna looking at me
He turned out to be a free lance astronomer who has a thesis on starry quadrilaterals in the sky
He thought by betting on the bigger rooster he would hit pay dirt
But it was I who met pay day when I bet on the smaller, faster one
The astronomer had so much hate in his eyes I thought his corneas were going to burst
Be pulled out a blade and chased after me and all my winnings with the intent to puncture my torso and pillage my pockets
But had to go see a man about a horse named "Nunya"
Luckily I got away clean to tall the tale
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 2:44 PM UTC
You're a strange breed.
You look out past my street
(when I'm fast asleep)
With the moon reflecting in the puddles
in the corner of the street,
Or, the corners of your corneas.
(tear puddles)
Until your vision is mottled and
your sobs muffled. Continue
to stare out your window (forever)
Keep looking until you find something
better.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 10:45 PM UTC
Early hours; the
parts of sleep
recalled;
a fly opening
it's silk cocoon,
a foetus moving
in a jelly womb,
irises and corneas
assembling into eyes
eager to explore
a world outside;
those first times
when regrets are
abstract concepts
not feelings
growing roots
in subconscious pools;
all the things I'd redo,
my deepest desire
to be anew
Feb 11, 2016
Feb 11, 2016 at 8:15 AM UTC
Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.
Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
lovelifedeath
grip.
And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.
I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.
Ah perfectionism, my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.
Phosphenes
those bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
make it out
fix it all
come out from under
breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
in short
has my bright patch of colour had its day?
I can't
face it.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 3:57 AM UTC
Is that a frown I put upon your face child?
As I tried to soothe the sadness that smiled on your inside
That festered like pathogens inside your heart
Is that your index finger?
Sitting inquisitively on your lip?
I see the distraction in your whirlpools of corneas
Your hair lays insecurely on your shoulder blades
Let me console you with a joke
Pacify your placidity with these sad bars
You pick up your phone.
You read your texts.
Oh?
Is that a smile I put upon your face, child?
-zaba
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 6:10 PM UTC
Patterns form across convex corneas
Geometric portraits of tangram animals
Hexagonal-faced lions
Triangular-trunked elephants
etc.
Tessellations of
anagrams
Draped over rods like Batik fabric smoothed over king-sized beds
Calculating Bayesian probability on fingertips
rote
styles
Whispering, "Carry the 1!" to columns of 100s
with a remainder? Try again.
Plot Cartesian coordinates with mechanical pencils
click! click! click!
Crying, "Awwwww.....
you
sunk
my
battleship!"
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
Glance in,
peer out
Not even sufficient for a thought
to be worked out
another day, another damage
Acrylic may as well be water color
for all the gravity held
the mark, made by stroke
good intentions turned poor attempts
Corneas, retinas, pupils
eyes referred to as windows to the soul
while the body isn't treated
like a temple
not just anyone can attend mass
Stained glass into a ruined mirror
stared at
as unhinging as
seen through
if only the reflection
left the pane
to the window
Memories past
displayed in a museum
populace none
a b r o k e n exhibit,
for blinded eyes
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 5:41 PM UTC
The day we fell in love, the world stood still for the first time.
No movement other than the midsummer air humming electric,
the warmth of our words rising up into dense clouds
and gray atmospheres of sticky potential.
I remember thinking, as our dewy skin melted into the grass,
how strange it was that the world kept turning constantly.
Cars speeding on hazy interstates, babies being born in porcelain bathtubs.
Screen doors slamming in distant houses, ivy crawling across
the windowpanes of writers who will never see their name sprawled
across musky paper spines. Houses torched, brakes cut, hair trimmed.
Somewhere, an arthritic old man sets his newspaper down. It is raining.
He dances, flood water cascading around his ankles. He only thinks of her.
City lights paint taxi exhaust bright green. It is nighttime in the city
and teenagers drive recklessly through underground tunnels,
hands raised through the sunroof of their father’s cars
as the yellow light bleeds into their corneas.
Everything is set in motion, the day’s suffocating inertia of color,
a spinning top cacophony of mindless rebirth.
It is different today. You kiss me softly, velvet-lipped and eager,
and the world stops turning. The streets of Mumbai are silent.
There are no babies screeching in the quiet rooms
of church services, no hearts in the midst of being shattered.
The old man stops dancing.
His eyes are closed, her face still sketched on the backs of his eyelids.
The sky sees nothing but us.
Nov 15, 2016
Nov 15, 2016 at 8:05 AM UTC
Darling, I am not here to write about your eyes and the stars in them. I tried to count too many times and I got too lost in the dreams imbedded in your corneas. I'm not here to talk about how the sun only rises because you give it a reason to, because it still sets every evening so it doesn't have to hear your steady breathing while you sleep. I'm here to tell you about how you have words that cut me like a saw cuts bone and how my ribs are held together with cheap twine and my spine is duct taped together. Here to say that you make my heart race at a pace that my body cannot keep up with. I didn't come to tell you that the tides are kissing the shore every time you laugh, because that's not what your laugh is like. No, if the rusting of iron made a sound, it would be your laugh. There are no flowers woven in your hair - instead, there are hornets and their nests lay settled in your throat and your intention is to sting me every time you open your mouth to say something that isn't my name. This isn't about poetry I've read about the moon and the sun and the cosmic loneliness of every star despite the presence trillions of them in the same sky. This is about how some stars find your presence so alluring that they begin to tumble from the sky and this is what we wish upon. This is about bruised lips mumbling words carved into coffee tables and ****** fingers tracing the rim of your favorite coffee cup. This isn't about love. This is about you.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
A swarm of horses sailed toward the sky
half in reverse of the ocean,
a heart that questioned the reflection of seaside.
Back in the south she melted bicycle gears to liquor
Quenching a million budding buoys becoming boys.
Inside her smile, a compartment of spit
beside the blinds sealed off to the color red.
In a room full of eardrums
a name like a knife,
rooting and sewing the ground of your yearning.
The moon shook you
As fast as headache turns to dust.
It hits harder then your hands,
softer then tears of antelope sliding down sails;
A reminder how you looked
when you first caught my eye
Plastered on the tree of a chandelier
Hanging as high as suicide pastries
Under emerald flavored corneas.
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
I've noticed that I've stopped noticing;
The way I look at the forbidden face
And the way it looks at me
No longer stirs the heavens.
No sailboat turns on its heaving sea
When our corneas connect in a brazen
Fire, nor do any fidgeting mourners
Swallow graves over our crashing pink hands.
The tin-suited band piece has long ago
Replaced any emotion that could inflame
My cheek with a khaki cigarette smoke
And spun out days like empty bags.
Still for the rainwater of his laugh alone
Might I swim the Earth's crooked orbit.
Mar 5, 2011
Mar 5, 2011 at 8:19 AM UTC
between the marrow
of your bones,
in the depth of
your shoulder blades,
beneath the ligaments
of your heavy hands,
maybe even underneath
the corneas of your seas,
you have to be in there somewhere.
the you that i used to know.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC