"jawbones" poems
Are you sound of mind?
Addicted to dandelions
like the ocean is to ice.
Wait outside the blood bank,
learn how to write dialogue
and make saccharin spines.
My journal is a tangle of spines,
keep an open mind
help me box up my ****** dialogue.
I’ve always been a fan of dandelions
etching paths along the river bank,
streams within the winter ice.
Buckets of camphor ice
relax the notches in spines
as we wait in line at the food bank.
Thoughts of jawbones on my mind,
the taste of dandelions
and organized pre-scripted dialogue.
Backhanded blue dialogue,
counting the vanilla crystals of ice
blowing the smell of cinnamon into floating dandelions.
My hands handle happiness spines
with the peace of mind
of money in the piggy bank.
Let's rob a bank
shooting quiet malleable dialogue
through an altered state of mind.
Your ribs are two sheets of ice
ivy wrapping around our intertwined spines
crumbly blowing breaths of dandelions.
Second hand dandelions
build up in the river bank
muddy trenches around spines
whisper outspoken blue green dialogue.
Three pounds of dry ice,
warm water vapour at the back of my mind
Store buy your dandelions, bear in mind
that the West Bank is covered in ice
and that spines speak their own muted dialogue.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.
Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.
Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.
Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.
Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
I am getting older
and my body is in tatters
My Doctor's say, "You're fine, You're fit"
I think they're mad as hatters
Each day a new pain rears it's head
My body falls apart
My Doctor's say, "You're fine, You're fit"
As they listen to my heart
My bladder's my new stop watch
Each night I rise to ***
I get up once at half past ten
And then just after three
I'm cold and then I'm sweating
Sometimes both in one breath
It makes me feel I'm crazy
It's a slow, nervewracking death
My knees ache every morning
And my hips pop as I walk
I have to work my jawbones
Just so I can start to talk
I've had surgeries on my body
Just to help me stay alive
I can't see where I am going
I'm can no longer go and drive
But, my Doctors say I'm healthy
They say I'm healthy as a horse
But isn't "Flicka" served in restaurants?
His flesh is now a new main course
I use a cane when I go walking
I have a seat to go upstairs
I wear a wig when I'm in public
I seem to dress myself in layers
I need a pill to wake myself up
I need another so I sleep
But because my bladder's my new stopwatch
I never go to sleep too deep
Today I'm going to get tested
To check the hearing in one ear
Please excuse me for a moment
What was that you said my dear?
Now my Doctor's keep insisting
That there's nothing wrong with me
Like I said, I think I'm crazy
They're the nuts and I'm the tree.
they've got me tricked out special
I've got orthotics and a cane
My bursititis hurts like crazy
And I think it's gonna rain
My oxygen tank is empty
And my voiding bag is not
But I'm still having those flashes
I still feel cold and hot
With the bag I sleep much better
I don't get up twice to ***
But it wasn't fun last birthday
Having a colostomy
But, my Doctor's say Don't Worry
Your'e as fit as fit can be
But I tell them it's distressing
For I'm not yet thirty three
I'm sick of always hurting
Each day more vigor do I lose
But today I am excited
I'm getting velcro for my shoes
I think some exercise might help me
With all my aches and all my pains
It may help me to feel younger
Feel like thirty two again
But my Doctors, Oh my Doctors
Say there's nothing wrong at all
It's just a natural part of aging
It's mother nature come to call
But I know, I 'm getting older
and it's just a part of life
I'm just glad I have a drug plan
To help me with this strife
Now, my O2 tank is full now
And I've got a buzzing in my head
That means my battery is running low
So...Goodnight...I'm off to bed...
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 7:36 PM UTC
The sadness continues and hilarity ensues:
With a close eye on the test tube, I burn down my venues.
Foxes and diamonds from the cancer within you
Grace my ****** health with phrases that spin you and
Body-parts scattered beside collapsed ladders with
Hair torn and tattered and dog jawbones shattered,
Deceived by a tarot-card-reading man with a hook hand
Who said the scam was a means to increase public demand
Before walking through sewers to see old friends skewered
On trees made of wire with leaves like computers
From Silicon valley rejects who were top of their classes,
Oblivious to the fact that they're dead to the masses,
Who only want cellphones that tell them their names,
So they can remember who they are and from whence they came
And how old they will be on their final birthdays,
When sunlight and skies will be fluorescence and X-rays
And children will tell all their mothers to die slow,
Because they're looking for something more loving than "I know
How much you hate yourself and the world surrounding
Because the applause at your funeral won't be resounding,
Plus your father loves alcohol more than your sister,
Who you may not have known, had your father not missed her,
Which is why all the walls are covered in blisters
And there are cat's eyes and hands peering out of the ******
To which there is no reply, save for incredulity,
For as we collectively die, you all put on all your jewelry,
Which was made by a child with no concept of labor,
Who gets less respect than sweater-vest wearing men in the paper
Who get there by switching the flow and catching the vapors,
Like sentient parasites or intelligent tapeworms
Who tell me it's unhealthy to meet someone and hate her
Simply because when I look at her all I see is the savior.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:57 PM UTC
caked on makeup, lyrical lash lines, clear
thoughts for the first time; trying so hard to type
out the right words to make the world stop spinning ten
times too fast in the wrong direction. can't you see it's making me ill,
the way you casually can't decide and lean
on calves of glass and card towers of achromatizing dust?
I am a kaleidoscope of many other ashes to ashes to dust;
cut across from rib to rib and leeching out the clear
air you breathe. I am perennial, the one to clean
you up when you fail to break the mold and fall back on type-
casted stereotypes of who everyone else thinks you should be. still,
I am the one who doubts and falters, often
has the idea that we are erased and quick forgotten
the moment our idiosyncrasies peter out and dust
replaces bones we came to know. I am shrill,
and I talk too loud at all the wrong times; I can never clear
the plates I stain with blood and pile high with subtype
after subtype derivatives of things I should do and glean
vivification from carefully, anxiously. you have this lean
skin and enviable, insouciant lilt to your walk towards me at ten
o'clock when I can't see straight anymore, can barely type
the last letters of my poems. your eyes are clear
and you're free of that indestructible and obliterating dust
that clogs my lungs and makes me feel so ill
so often. shallow peaks of your shoulder blades, time at a standstill
when I merge into highways of veins and clean
breaks from responsibility, softly tracing jawbones that clear
my head for just a moment; hands that tremble to fasten
the world back onto my hollow aches and faltering nervous system. I dust
off your window sill and think maybe you're the type
that complements an irrational daydreaming messy busy type-
writer kind of lover. you know, the kind that hates to pay the bill
on time because that's another deadline to miss, who lets dust
fly around because vacuums interrupt abstract art and lean
cuisine, who likes cats and very, very often
misplaces her phone somewhere on your clear
floor nothing like the type she has, like the type I have, like the way I lean
toward your infrastructure to hold me still; darling, you brighten
my mornings of habitual stardust and glass not quite clear.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 6:21 AM UTC
on a slow night
in march- an
oil slick of a night,
the stars are dying quietly,
and the moon is subtly
watching the show.
there are unloved cats,
that once moved like nylon
and smiled into fireplaces,
crawling the perimeters of my thin
walls, as I sit dead center,
in a room that I cannot
call my own; where
the paint sticks to my
creations
and my words are swallowed
by empty wine bottles
and empty smiles set into
gilded jawbones.
and somewhere, somebody
just dropped dead in their kitchen,
while most people are
sleeping, or
chasing sleep, or
making love to their
plastic wives in a cold bed.
and somewhere, is
nowhere
to me.
i am ******* in air
and hoping for zyklon b,
grasping for keys that once
opened doors, but now,
i cannot cross the threshold,
anyways.
i am tripping over old knives
in the floorboards
and scolding my wide eyes
for their blindness.
i resign myself
to my decisions, because
there is nothing else
nothing else I can do.
i will rise in the morning,
cast aside the sun,
and hope that someday,
sutures will take hold
and i will see the ocean again.
Jun 8, 2012
Jun 8, 2012 at 12:05 AM UTC
blue star, single handed
with a *** of gold
I reached out and spoke to the old
I went back to the last one and the last
all the places where my heart was almost sold
and I remember
by you, the split one I was told
you spoke so wise so bold
renered your eyes toward me and said
behold
and I
did
watched intently the love you scold
the fires that drenched our
household
with love
but still I was cold
it was the earth I wanted to hold
the shape of it I wanted to remold
but our thoughts are controlled
and us humans we unfold
to that which glitters
all that which is
gold
I am not a diamond
I am merely flesh and bones
filled with gravestones
and broken jawbones
blistered backbones
for reasons
that will maybe forever be
unknown
my hormones burst
in my in my bones
my thoughts release groans
and I love the sound of the tone
I am here,
alive
happy
and alone
Oct 30, 2010
Oct 30, 2010 at 10:45 PM UTC
1.
A young and spiky boy misheard me over a pile of handcrafted valentines and said "I love you, too"
("I think I broke my tooth")
2.
A pseudo-intellectual boy grabbed at my hand and told me that we are all made of stardust, that the universe is swift and fleeting and our matter will remain etched in the very high and infinite heavens
(But do you know that I myself am made of moon dust and rose petals, laced with arsenic?)
3.
A not-very-lonely boy bought me a grilled cheese sandwich at the witching hour that he paid for with his dead father's inheritance money
(Money that I dipped in ranch dressing and inhaled in the form of a black American Spirit)
4.
A boy with jawbones made of steel called me in the middle of the night to tell me that he was nothing but a very weak and ancient stone foundation and what is the most effective method of destruction
(I told him I'd trade in my metal detector for a plane ticket to Egypt)
5.
A semi-dependent variable of a boy I had known years ago flew a kite for me in a cold and cloudless sky and hit me til I kissed him
("It's because we're getting older", I said)
6.
A boy who I might have loved named our children on the back of a game of hangman and hung up magazine pictures I stole on walls his girlfriend was more familiar with than she was with me
(I switched seats)
7.
A boy of questionable moral fiber said words I spent two years trying to say back
(One-sixteenth of them are buried in a box I'm all too willing to leave at the old house)
8.
A boy with eyes uncovered in countless concentration camps left after filling the gaps in my very sheltered universe with vegan bakeries, baseball tees, leftover curry and one-sock feet
(But I digress)
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 8:38 PM UTC
Watching Homer struggle
to explain how a god wounded by a mortal
cannot die but may hereafter live with minor pain
and the humor when that god
complains to Jove that His supervision of His daughter
is inadequate and His Love too unconditional
while Diomed (or Tydides)
wreaks havoc on the Trojans and Hector
gives it back (in kind)
anatomically correct descriptions
of spears piercing jawbones (and groins)
sons without fathers hunting and fishing thereafter
alone. Written
amazingly presciently!
as a metaphor for Vietnam (our war)
forgotten consensually
as this generation slips lazily away
to Hades (or kayaks to the huckleberries)
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually,
supper's served at 4 and former adversaries
pass the heavy hanging time playing pinochle (and pool).
We're selling the house to pay the taxes.
Pallas Athena wars among the men
from the axle of her chariot
and Venus is injured by Diomed,
standing in the field of battle where she never should have been,
in her adorable hand.
What has this to do with Solomon in jail.
Not the Jewish king, a black American male,
same thing.
Your children can be failed at school and marched to war.
You can be taxed and sent to gaol for the honor of it.
anyone lived in a pretty how town.
We have no obligation
to perform the Iliad or read poems and even Homer
considers Achilles effete (compared to Hector)
and Odysseus is wrong even when he's right.
Therefore, modern man explores
the mathematics of circles in coordinate planes and their tangents
when (sooner or later)
the secret of warp speed is discovered
expansion of the species will be limitless and permanent.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 5:09 PM UTC
i see faces
wrinkled from gossip,
eyes like lightbulbs,
tongues that scribble,
malicious jawbones
gouging across a page.
Suddenly a Christmas card
comes to life on a mantel
and a splendid silken angel
with eyes the color of diamonds
smirks at a mirror
while faces without features
vanish through a fireplace
already cold and white.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 11:49 AM UTC
*I had never heard any remark by anyone in my life
Who stated anything good about such a necessary place.
Therein the stretched miles of eyes and smiles being much
Un-pre-processed on the grounds of an unaccountable nature.
But in the old folks home the goddess of good nature
Seems almost as merry as she is wise.
As I oft do I carried in with me a hand truck loaded down
With doughnuts of every kind – 14 dozen in all.
Oh the smiles that permeate from the long faces each
Time I travel down the long hall.
Bertha, Martha Sue, Betty and Clare to mention a few.
Old Tom, Billy, Bob and Jacob too.
Like the pied piper they follow me all smelling the air.
“Ummm they smell hot and fresh,” Jacob whispers to Clare.
Pushing the double doors all the way back to lock open
I place one box of 12 on each table with 6 chairs.
Each box marked with a table number as I know
Who ordered what, and where tis they sit where.
Bertha always gets powdered with strawberry crème,
Martha Sue is the true classic with her original glazed dreams.
Old Tom decided it was time for a change with cinnamon and sugar
While Billy, wild Bill ordered chocolate ice with crème filling.
Betty, Bob, Clare and Jacob said simply to make of them a surprise.
Eighty four people in all get two each as it's the golden rule.
Oh there’s many more people to talk about but
That’s not what I’m here to do.
What good is life is if you have nothing to measure it or do?
The old folks home can be melancholy with lonely walls.
All that’s needed is a smile and something to look forward to.
Especially when oft the size of a gift is so extremely small.
I watch the room as they eat, smile, laugh and talk.
Life’s more about the connection we make and not about much else.
Dark faces full of light, quick eyes smiling with delight.
Long noses turned up on the end.
Teeth no longer white now sugar coated with a childish grin.
Prominent jawbones chewing away remembering where happiness begins.*
Jun 14, 2017
Jun 14, 2017 at 8:08 AM UTC
in the piano room
stained glass windows
fragment the oaks
i read poetry and made art
the moon was full, i let go
and you held me
before we ever did more
evening sunlight tilted on tapestries
the bedsheets
the edge of your shadow
i felt the earth spin
or i became the moon
don’t sleep,
just stay
my lingering dark
pull me under the warmth
under the warmth
under warmth
borrowed clothes
scatter the room
silhouettes with open mouth
light passing through
dance in familiar rooms
sleeping like strangers
your ghost
is holding gently
you’re from warmer places
darker memories
not in my dreams
it rained in my bed,
the sunlight was golden after.
different tongues
same rooms
my walls around your hand
a ceiling full of stitches
hands grip warm plates
because you forgot the english word for mug
silence resonates under the earth
I don’t want to be there while I’m here
feel the presence
a cadence of heartbeats
ear to the dirt
fingertips digging
until the song’s end
it rained down the hallway
the tea kettle is whistling
music in quiet
art untamed
blurred vision,
stunning delight
straight lines,
smokey light
unaltered creation
or halves of you
a rhythm of you
in pattern, texture, light;
a feeling
in shape, form, stories
unspoken in me
canvases of bedsheets
a softness of mind
places you’ve loved
and your little sisters I wish to have met
and oh,
the stars…
they’ve started talking to each other…
then,
i remembered myself. because i didn’t love you, either.
blanket of music
clouds fill the meadow
softening the line of trees
forests extend to fingers
tracing jawbones and teeth
it was music, truly
echoing aimlessly in evening light
or the pitch black night
musica de manta
les estrellas brillen para ti
the piano is gone now,
the window open to birds
Dec 26, 2018
Dec 26, 2018 at 3:58 AM UTC
two in love, a picture found
hair as dark as midnight brushed up
against olive skin carelessly their strands
strayed in a lovely mess feather light
jawbones grazing the scalp
of this lost, doe eyed girl
straight, long eyelashes batted
against the eyebags you never had
somehow still those eyes were
never truly asleep in a facade
without the guilt of a lie
a gentle smirk painted across
that beautiful face you had
lighted treaded freckles
the softest of brown eyes
that always held cunning
mysterious how those eyes
asleep against her waved strands
managed to pretend for care
a yellow collar you had
a woman under your spell
and i had too, those brown eyes
beneath the thinnest lies
stood betrayal beyond lust
unimagined sin
without regret
in this picture
we slept
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 2:58 AM UTC
The project goes on.
A few stout beams arrived yesterday:
two boxes of nails, heavy as milk,
two pallets of mud from a swallow’s beak,
three incised jawbones,
a woodpecker’s red tilting cap and the dentine
edge of a falcon’s wing — all ready —
but for the plan — the plan balled up
some time ago on the eighth day
when the crew, weary of the foreman’s flap
gathered at the edge of darkness and light
and lounged: well-oiled, unjudged and striking
— so very striking.
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 6:12 PM UTC
Its cold, they say
as the wind caresses their cheeks
dances along their jawbones
and teases the tip of their nose
Its cold, they say
as the snow lightly coats their eyelashes
blanketing their bodies
in a layer of shimmery white
Its cold, I say
as the wind rushes through
drying up my words
freezing the blood in my veins
Its cold, I say
as the snow dissolves my skin
blanketing my heart
hiding the warmth within
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 3:36 PM UTC
can you feel the hooves that break
the ground of the alone?
that pounding pace strong enough
for freedom, can you feel it?
growing wild with the promise only
it can keep unto itself--held too close
for betrayal.
the manifest cut of the blackest stallion--
flanked with ocher by the sun it sets.
dearer than the life he runs for, and the
warring legs that lose their place in
manic motion.
their moment multitude plummets the
black stallion into his Heart--as the lay
of the land surrenders.
in the unblinking glass of his eyes,
passing by and thru with clearest of
reflection--uncontainable bliss wets
down his jawbones.
his unbreakable neck refusing to allow
a head to turn that's cocked forth.
Aug 29, 2019
Aug 29, 2019 at 12:00 PM UTC
A slight draw
With jawbones peaked
Another day revealed
Revealed to be cold
And cold with cold
On this mountaintop
Yet no wind remains
To appeal to me
I will not yield
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC
in my poetic attire
these combat boots worth the ciggarete im holding,
these braids spun to make myself approachable, to fill my face in, to frame it as alluring
im watching the rain fill the crevices of the pathway, one drop hits, one wave away from drowning.
my hands glide on jawbones, neck, shoulders to conjure up enough warmth for another day
to simulate company.
you see the echoes of solitude, when heard, turn into ache and i can only take...
when i ask around the house "don't you feel lonely?" im met with appearances
yet they never really occupy the lack, they encouraged pretenses around this hollowness
i've been feeling myself in frills and pleats
beaten by this hungry wind outside
of course im self soothing
it's the only thing I'm doing
who else could if not me?
Jan 15, 2023
Jan 15, 2023 at 6:39 PM UTC
1. When asked to write about how I feel,
I was honestly terrified of writing it,
So I told myself that what I was afraid to write
Was exactly what needed to be written.
2. Sometimes, I forget to smile when I’m “supposed to;”
I suppose that’s my apathetic facade trying to cover up
My social anxiety like a security blanket.
3. I let those that I care about walk over me like I’m the red carpet,
Their high heels digging into my soul, gouging my eyes,
And breaking my bones, but I still manage to say, “It’s okay,”
Even with my shattered jawbones.
4. This world makes me feel crazy, but there are a few people
That make me feel complete, make me feel like the girl I was
Long before I understood the grievances
That life sends in our directions.
5. I’ve decided to try to forgive when others dig their daggers
Deep into my spine, but to never forget what they did to me,
As if I ever could.
6. Anxiety is the ocean I often find myself drowning in,
And I usually only really find two hands extended
In my desperate attempt to find air— One being human,
The one to keep my thoughts at bay and my heart secure,
And the other being a monster,
The very thoughts that drown me.
7. My mind is the very monster that I fear deep down in my core,
The serpent that poisons my sacred garden,
That haunting voice whispering for me to reach for the stars,
And to chase after my dreams,
Just to turn around and clip my tattered wings.
8. Even now, I’m shaking in my socks, and my semi-colon tattooed heart
Is beating against every rib in my body
In a game of pinball that I don’t remembering paying to play.
9. Sometimes, I worry that I’ll never stop this worrying.
Everywhere I look, there’s heartbreak and fear,
But even if my heart breaks into a million irreparable pieces,
I’ll collect the dust of my remnants and turn it into something
Even more beautiful than it once was.
10. It takes so much more time to heal than it does to break,
But I have faith in the idea that if you cut down a tree and leave it be,
Eventually, it will spring forth once more,
With sunlight, support, and just a little bit of courage.
Feb 10, 2020
Feb 10, 2020 at 3:06 PM UTC