Sweet Honeysuckles
Around the house, hmm the scent
Oh Honeysuckles

These Honeysuckles
Yellow, Orange, Green Leaves, Brown,
Dead Honeysuckles

No Honeysuckles
Bare leaves, No Stems, Brown Around
Beautiful scenery gone

My youth was short and blurred.
I imagine it felt like the last few moments of Kurt Cobain’s life;
All light and no color.
Though I was born a winter baby,
Summers irrevocably held my heart.
They tasted like the sunscreen that dripped
onto my chlorine-damp lips
And smelled sweet like the honeysuckles
That strangled the Forget-Me-Nots,
Whose roots twisted between the cemeteries
Of our once-pets beneath.

I stir the pool water
with a basket attached
to a stick

little whirlpools form
where I once was,
disturbing the even
distribution of tiny
white particles on
the water’s surface

the whirlpools *****
them in, but does
not drag them down  

I smell chlorine on my hands,
a deadly poison I deal with out
of necessity

I smell the honeysuckles growing
on the chain link fence, a beauty
to every sense

the sky is gray and turning dark
with night

the pool is blue and cold with it’s
lack of sunlight

the trees are green
and their wood is
brown and while I
stir tiny whirlpools
in the pool floating
with tiny particles
I take a deep breath
and decide I will
enjoy all of this

Raw illness rubs up
Against the wet meat of my
Indecisive tongue

and

I am sick with the
Taste of his filthy fingers
Snagging on my jaw

and

Honeysuckles bloom
Around the places that kept
Me from crying out

and

The air was too sweet
To explain why his breath felt
Like death’s brand across
My arched and aching
Spine. He ripped open my soft
Flesh and consumed me.

Suckles at first were curst
     To be the homes of flies,
And smell'd like open tombs
     With putrefying eyes.

But Christ, who saves the worst
    (If so He wills) from death,
Did mercy give the blooms
     By giving them His breath.

I love rain
don't you?
I think it's like a lovely lullaby singing one to sleep at night
rain is a joy not a sorrow
when you hear it on your roof at night pattering a sweet song to help you sleep
in your warm bed
the best thing about is it brings lots of fun
rain
rain on pine needles
rain on trees
rain flowers
rain on grass
rain on bushes and plants
rain everywhere
rain falling from the dull grey sky
kissing my fair cheeks
raindrops
falling from the sky
like Heaven's tears falling from the clouds
rain like dewdrops that fairies drink
rain on honeysuckles in the enchanted forest
sparkling on thick hunter green moss like beads scattered for the fairies to make petals
for flowers
rain inside the fairy ring where at night fairies love to dance and sing
with hearts so carefree
their beauty like that of day
raindrops everywhere
even in Fairyland

*~Marian~

with water color ink
made permanent with a pin
an emerald garden grew
from the surface of her skin
the sight was divine
the branches aligned
& through the cracks
poured sunlight in.
the honeysuckles oozed
the hollyhocks seeped
as chartreuse hummingbirds
dank nectar through their beaks.
by her favorite birthmark
hanging from a tree
was a silver web of silk
gossamer and dazzling.
with each image set,
pressed onto her skin
her flesh turned bright red
like the rosehips near her ribs.

Its a Friday night
And I chose to come relish in my last moments
In this little but yet so big
Room thats fully taken on so much.

I think back on it now
With that sweet nostalgia
I get so deeply caught up in
With earnest masochism
And the innate desire
To keep kicking up my heels
And get my **** together
I seem to echo in tandem
With those that pick and seek
Simplistic but belting desires
From me
And really, the not so little
Or big
I have to give.

This time last year
A great betrayal occurred
I'll never forget my hysteria over the phone
That was not my own
I called you in such a panic
My darling, I didn't mean for that to happen
Pacing in West Avondale
I had to go be on set in a matter of minutes
And I wept, for fear I had ruined
What I thought might be us.

And I find myself standing now
In little bo-peep pink with a glass of white wine in my hand
My soon to not be room mate seems disheartened
That everyone already knows me
And we jest but really we mean it and say
He's clearly
Just so gay.

I had a little tick in the pit of my stomach
Papa and I got so sweaty in the hot sun
A new bright, brave, strong man
Wraps his arm around me amid what we think to be
Honeysuckles and he teaches me a thing or two
About what I know
But he brings a new sense of wisdom
And I cutely tell him
I like your brain.

I decided to stay away tonight
After much debate
Its my last moments here after all
4 different parties to attend
I say no thank you to them all
Tonight
Burn some sage
Make sure I'm ready
But you're never fully ready

But I stare out my new windows
Am greeted in the elevator
Buy some cute bar stools
Mama told me to walk away
And never look back.

I paced in a long blue dress
The night before
Black
Felt so alive to be everyone's ***** on a film set
And now its me who gives the orders.

Ye have been fresh and green,
  Ye have been fill’d with flowers,
And ye the walks have been
  Where maids have spent their hours.

You have beheld how they
  With wicker arks did come
To kiss and bear away
  The richer cowslips home.

You’ve heard them sweetly sing,
  And seen them in a round:
Each ****** like a spring,
  With honeysuckles crown’d.

But now we see none here
  Whose silv’ry feet did tread
And with dishevell’d hair
  Adorn’d this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent
  Your stock and needy grown,
You’re left here to lament
  Your poor estates, alone.

Part I
Meadows of flowers,
Fields full of golden-brown wheat,
Through the countryside.

Poppies, marigolds,
Daisies and honeysuckles,
Very soft and sweet.

Breezes stirring grass,
Softly they caress my face,
With their gentle hands.

In the cool-sweet day,
I sit until the sun sets,
Until the day ends.

*~Marian~

Two o'clock sober
might still be hungover
you're begging for my tongue while I beg for your love.
I never thought I'd love like this,
one-sided and founded on ever unstable lust. I shouldn't even call this love,
I think it's love and I think you're just in it for a ****. Writing
poems about you is "hard" because I can't admit
what I can't bring myself to say out loud. You told me your secrets
and I swallowed the seeds, letting your admissions
bloom inside of me.
How could I have been so stupid? I should have known
you would plant a garden just to leave.
Girls made of gardens wither without affection
I must not be your favorite flower. I don't think I ever was
but you keep coming around just to see my petals unfold
every spring and I let you leave dew drops all over me

We've done this before. Lines and rows of blooming pinks and red,
scratches, finger prints, bruises, hickeys, marks that fade
after a few days. No matter how many days it's been, weeks, months
we find our way back to the patch of wildflowers
where we first decided to make love.
There will always be changes to the scenery and
I can't think of anyone else that I would plant myself anywhere with.
One of us is always leaving but somehow the wind blows us back home.

I'm not religious anymore but the Ten Commandments
seared inside of my psyche flash
before my eyes and I hear myself repeating
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
while I make myself ****** to the pictures you sent me. One night,
I wrote everything about you that I idolized in big letters on lined paper
and ripped it into squares. I twisted the paper bits
into your godly shape and whispered
your name as I dropped you into a floral candle and let the flame
eat your tiny body. Have you ever felt crazy?
Have you ever been so in love that it makes you crazy?
Until you've made a lover into an effigy
and tried to force your passion for them to rest
by cremating their paper remains
I don't know if you understand how close love and crazy really are.

I swear. I swear, I'm done.

But I'm not done. I pretend to forget
the way your name feels for a while, I pretend to idolize
other things but when you appear
uninvited to my dreams I can't forget the things I've seen. You kiss
my forehead as midday sun
settles on my skin and a garden of roses
start to bud where you've planted love. You pick the most precious one
and when you cut the stem I **** awake, facing the candle
where I tried to destroy what I thought of you. I don't know
why I see you everywhere and I don't know why
I keep asking questions that I'll never have the answers to.

Once you're actually here my laugh bubbles
from my throat and chrysanthemums and lilacs and daisies
fly out. When you kiss me I swear I feel ivy
entwining itself into my hair and my eyelashes grow tuberose.
I bloom with you and when you leave I become winter, waiting for you
to tend me. Every day with you is spring
and I know exactly how fast the seasons change. "Thou shalt not covet"
but god, I want you
I want you to trust me with everything and I want you to sow more seeds.
I can't tell you the last time I read my bible,
I thought it didn't have a hold over me anymore but I want you
to choose me and I don't want
to feel like I'm setting myself up for heartbreak anymore.

I've been thinking
about touching you
for so long
And now that I am
it feels euphoric

Your skin,
as soft as
I remember it

I melt into your words. I catch the flame
flickering on my bookshelf
where I burned your likeness and look into your eyes
flashing my most devilish smile.
You're back in my room and you've covered my body with sticky honeysuckles
and forget-me-nots. You, imperfect as anyone else but I see you
like you're some walking god. You, human as me. Your hands
left prints of hibiscus on my skin and when you leave
I open my diary to the page where I pressed cherry blossoms and maple
leaves and they fall as I write about how happy I am to see you.

"I just don't think that men like you like women like me who have moonstone eyes and crazy day dreams, women who dot their poems with inky pearl tears, pressed poplar leaves and, well, I wanted to write you a poem but I can’t think of any creative words. I want you to read how beautiful you make me, how your eyes drink me in, how I overflow for you. I want you to feel the conflict in my heart... so rarely that I see you but every time we reunite we are even better than the last. I don't know if you want to read it but I want to write you a poem. I want to write you a poem that makes you cringe because I write with honesty. I want you to feel the rhythm of my words the way we feel the rhythm of our bodies. You should be happy to inspire someone’s poetry. You, you don’t love me. And that’s fine, because I’ll always look back at you and see sunshine streams on your skin."

My room is all white and pink, floral print and my African violet.
You look perfect in the rosy glow
of my feminine sanctuary and I feel so appealing,
I trust you enough to show you everything, I say, luxuriating the words in the sunlight.
I want to absorb this moment to keep me warm. When I lay alone
thinking of drifting to sleep in your arms, it is this moment
with you around me,
the way you kiss my face like I mean something to you
and this is the place I go, when I swear
all of this means nothing to you. Doesn't everyone want to feel home?
Maybe I think being with you feels like the kind of home
with a nice garden I want to live in. Maybe you feel it too.

Maybe I'm reading too far into everything
and not saying enough of anything
maybe both of us say nothing hoping the other will
be the one to admit the feeling
but you, as soon as you leave and I tell myself I’m done. Swearing
I've burned up the last of you, I’ll never do it again.

I can't stop thinking about you

And I'm back thinking about you, too.

Honey beads up in its combs
Honey combs his short summer hair
Honey runs thick in heat like this
Honey runs for miles on County Route Eight
Honey-bees cling to our window screens
Honey shut the screen-door when he smelled rain
Honeysuckles grew on the side of our road
Honey had a roadmap open on his knee
Honey-bees know when the summer is ending
Honey will wait out by the car for me

Jumping over the dark mahogany railroad ties that my father laid down as a barrier, I entered my favorite place. Bare toes and rough feet of my 9 year old self burrowed with joy into the wood chips that cushioned my kingdom.

The entire area smelt of damp, rich wood, always freshened by the honeysuckles sweet scent from their lazy seats on their wooden fence in the background.

My castle was wooden as well, 6 carefully and lovingly sanded steps up onto the throne where I could watch all I reigned: my dog, the four railroad ties barricading the wood shavings from spilling into the soft green grass, I could see my family inside, my house not but a quick dash away.

As the sun set, down the wooden slid and back onto the damp ground I would return inside. Smelling of bark, honey, and innocence.

Melrose street had a quaint little house that sat perched on the corner.
The inside was bare and small and plain,
the dust in the air hung still, motes visible in shifting sunlight.
I would bang open the back door with a clatter and run
past the swing-set to the gate dividing my yard from the next.
The girl there had hair the same golden silk as her dog’s.
And I’d scrape my knees on that fence more times than I could count.
There I would play, I would climb her trees and then
drain the sweetness from all the honeysuckles in her yard,
the summer air enveloping me in its heavy embrace.

Heritage was a new housing division,
many houses under construction stood empty, just skeletons.
I’d walk through the layout, a throat coated in dust
and sit on the roof as colors faded from the sky.
It was in those streets that I broke my wrist and
my mom did not believe my pain.
My parents fought hard and often
about big things and about little things
and this skeleton house was no longer any home of mine.
Inside, the walls reverberated with every cry and
the holes punctured the once smooth interior,
and no matter how much **** wall putty was slathered on
you could see the jagged shape of imperfections,
the tearstained cheeks that never dried.
A constant reminder.

“Foreclosure” was a term I was unfamiliar with,
I just knew that the paper taped to our front door
meant we had to leave.
So we grabbed our items and began the trek from one
cramped space to the next, a multitude of changing environments,
never being able to stay in one place for more than a year.
And my parents no longer loved each other and I didn’t know why,
A rumpled love note with a lie, “I love you for always and forever”
the only evidence that hate wasn’t always in their lives.
I began to miss the sunny days of my childhood.
Of scraped knees and honeysuckles when everything,
Including the dust motes, were in place and comprehensible.

Moby ****, geometry, physics.
Study every subject everyday.
Homework is an indicator of future success.
Success is not necessarily happiness but it helps.
Freedom is to formulate your own definition of success.
Happiness is an imaginary tree, its own reward, and a fact.
Facts and fiction may be memorialized in memos or found in dreams.
The story starts thus: Each summer the honeysuckles and the
      huckleberries . . .
The web is that extra brain we've all been dreaming of having.
Like jumping 4 meters or flying without a plane.
To fly like that must one first have homework?
Some say yes, some say don't. It depends on how you vote.
Happiness is what happens when everything that happens
Fits the time perfectly and it's all out of your hands.
Not exactly. You don't let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in
      the passing lane.
You look left and right and check your blind spots.
Homework is an introduction to everything you're not
And all you do not know. It's supposed to help you learn to know where
      you want to go before going where you have to go.
Otherwise you end up on Ulzana's raid
Bleeding, without a bandaid.
All the achievement in the world won't relieve your loneliness
Or satisfy your ****** longing. What girls are like behind their eyes.
Survival, procreation. That's all there is to love.
But the loved one is the one who can be trusted with your life.
Whether Christ or your wife. The Muslim moms.
On my walk in the woods I come to a sitting spot
Above a small gorge cut by a stream through hemlocks.
Here someone has left a statuette of the Buddha and the flags you see
Flapping in the wind at sky funerals.
This is a pretty good place to sit quietly and think about homework.

Crystal moonlight
dancing around my bedroom
all the stars seem
to shine so bright
I look outside and
see you dancing
around the garden
just like you were
those many years ago
lightly treading on the
flowers beneath your feet
breathing out warm breaths
of honeysuckles and chocolate
gazing up to me
with a tender invitation
in your eyes to join
the lovely Flower Dance
under the moon
how I regretted to
this day declining
the sweet offer you
so generously gave me
to be your one
and only love dancing
alongside you amidst
the broken dreams
the shards of tears
the perfume of forbidden love
the tragic romance
between light and day
the stars that crept
toward earth weeping
and alone
and the way you
valiantly called out
my name and I did
not think to reply
but here you are again
dancing amidst the
fallen twinkling stars
lightly treading on the
faded flowers twirling
underneath my bedroom
window with the same
tender invitation twinkling
in your eyes
and I reached for
your hand and replied
this time
and there we
danced together
the dance for the
beaten and fallen
hopeless and
faded wishes
together we danced
the Flower Dance
for ourselves
for the lost ones
in the world
and for eternity.

When the summer of our youth has passed
and the bane of winter draws near,
we sit alone in opaque rooms
and crack ourselves a beer.

To the north we look with glossy eyes
yet to the south our mind wanders freer
we laugh and smile and grimace and weep
and crack ourselves a beer.

We think of days of wonderlust,
of scenes of timeless cheer
of children playing in the rain
-and then we crack ourselves a beer.

What happened to the upbeat muses?
did they take and destroy their lyre?
we wonder where the bluebird went
as we sit and crack a beer.

We haven't seen him for a time
and because of this we fear.
The gourds of innocence broke and leaked
and so we cracked ourselves a beer.

And with them chipped
we quaffed long and deep and into lands we steered
destined for hate and war and poverty
and so we cracked ourselves a beer.

Instead of honeysuckles and wafers
we feasted on bloodied deer
and watched our parents fight and die
as we cracked ourselves a beer.

Trees of mighty oak that hoisted forts
have fallen in the clear
as have the mounds of Geronimo
while we cracked ourselves a beer.

And so our friends have left us
our lovers are nowhere near
last seen flying away with the bluebird
because we cracked ourselves a beer.

Oh, I can't wait until we can paint clashing colors on our neighbors' doors,
leaving love notes in star-shapes, saying ha ha ha ha, We love you!
It's okay because the paint comes off when you kiss your love
and appreciate the sky and nod to your reflections in the night eyes
and fall in love with someone's mind.

But only then, only then does our message enlighten.
It's our life purpose to brighten your slacking eyes and to inspire you
to smile at the trees, to make eye contact with the homeless, to give flowers to strangers.
Blow bubbles, blow kisses, wink, and embrace!

Oh, I can't wait until we bury each other in sand,
Oh, oh, I can't wait until I can smooth all woes walled into your forehead.
To count your freckles and draw my dreams on our bedroom walls.

Oh I can't to wait to put olives on your fingers, put olives on your fingertips,
Because you have silly tendencies.
Don't let jealousy convince desire to worship ice cream cone gravestones.
When you bite your lip, don't eat pennies for at least a while.

Oh, I can't wait to play hide and seek with our identities and fidelities.
Oh, I can't wait to gather basketfuls of hope and lust.
Oh, I can't wait to hunt for honeysuckles and trust.
Are any sapien sexuals willing to step forward and comfort me?

Because I can't wait to see you again.
But, I can wait, I can wait, because
We blow each other kisses.
MWAH!

Part I
You are so pretty,
I love your fields of flowers,
Nature is the best!!!!

Woodlands green and soft,
Pretty birdsong in the air,
Flowers here and there.

Mountains white and cool,
The mountain stream of water,
Flowers soft and sweet.

The pretty forest,
Of pine trees and hunter furs,
Honeysuckles sweet.

Birdsongs like sweet harps,
Playing in the pretty breeze,
Pretty Spring is here!!!

Lovely butterflies,
Dancing in the cooling breeze,
Falling sweet green leaves.

The mossy pebbles,
Near the sweet bubbling brook,
Makes a lovely song!

*~Marian~

From mountains to rills,
A sweet anthem fills the air,
Sweet birds are flying.

Down the avalanche,
Gallops beautiful horses,
Jumping and running.

The cute squirrel,
Jumping sings from tree to tree,
And chasing it's friends.

In the dark forest,
The smell of honeysuckles,
Makes the forest sweet.

I love Nature dear,
From mountains to meadows,
Fields of sweet flowers!

Down in the valley,
Beautiful flowers will bloom,
In Springtime.

The sweet waterfall,
With it's moss-covered boulders,
Makes things beautiful!

The sweet humming bird,
Flys from flower to flower,
Gathering nectar.

At pretty nighttime,
The owls hoot in the night,
And sweet birds do sleep.

The full moon at night,
Sweetly looks down on houses,
Watching children sleep.

The sound of crickets,
Birds, toads, and katydids,
Make a pretty song!

*~Marian~