"paperbacks" poems
There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield, pretty
as you please
She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair
She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves
Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood, going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 7:19 AM UTC
When I was a child, the hallways stretched for miles
Mahogany and ceramic floors, polished bookcases
A mansion for fictional paperbacks
All neatly tucked under fluorescent lighting
The librarian would wait behind her desk
She reigned silent
besides the tapping of her fingertip to her glasses
I can’t remember her ever looking happy
Until the day I noticed the chirping
Sang somewhere between the realistic & historical fiction,
a bird cage sat next to the woman’s desk
It was an unexpected visit
I should have brought a better dressed book to check out
Mine was bound by yellowing pages
But I met the canary and heard her song
As I watched the librarian smile
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 8:32 PM UTC
Her world was golden
her world was sleek
Designed for the brave
Any second minute, day or week.
She waited and she waited
For that special moment to come
She had read in her paperbacks
What thoughts to think overcome.
Petals began to fall on her in disgust
The Magnolia had worked this one out.
Leaves encircled her feet, leaving dust
a lonely image, imprint of her shadow.
Hope began to question itself in her heart
Should she stay or should she go.
I suppose a little longer just to play the part
of an excited young lady, would not matter.
She started to whisper to herself,
words of encouragement, so as not to cry.
The Magnolia shed its tears hours ago.
She could hear footsteps, nearer they came
This could be him, the love of her future life
But she had only got herself to blame.
It was a milkman delivering orange juice
"Not much call for the white stuff nowadays" he said
"I'll soon be out of a job" he chuckled.
His words went in and straight out of her head
She half smiled and looked beyond in hope.
Looking at her watch, at last she saw sense.
The Magnolia had thrown caution to the wind
a long time ago, but sent its emotion to line her path.
If it could hug it would have done I imagine.
She went home, he appeared, late, to a wilted leaf.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 1:24 AM UTC
we are not a fairy tale
and we never were
our hands don't automatically
find one another's
and we don't kiss in the rain
or plan our futures
together under night stars
our kisses are sloppy
and we aren't lip-locked
every two seconds
i don't steal his sweatshirts
and fall asleep in them
or take silly pictures with him
while kissing his face
but we never fail to say
"i love you" each day
and make sure we mean it
every time it's said
we do what we can for
one another and i
always tell him what i
adore about him
whether it be in stanzas
or hushed whispers
against his chest in our
numerous embraces
because love isn't meant to
have a stereotype
and the things you see
bound in paperbacks
are teeming with seemingly
indestructible souls
but we are fragile creatures
and love is a fragile
flower that must be
tended to daily
we are not a fairy tale
and we never were
but we're crafting our
own story to tell
one sloppy kiss and
one "i love you"
at a time.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 8:50 PM UTC
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll probably overanalyze everything
Because she’ll never understand
That people aren’t paperbacks
She’ll search for plot in your veins
And make metaphors of your broken heart
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll fold your corners
And crumple your pages
She’ll make notes in your margins
And she’ll probably bend your spine back
Just a little too far
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll get too excited for the ******
And she’ll skip some words (or pages)
When she’s sleepy she’ll skim
And lose her place
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll fall in love with
Last chapters and final words
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because the ending will always be her favorite part.
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC
I remember the days of raisin boxes and paperbacks,
when it felt like the worst thing in the world to be climbing barefoot up a mound of dirt in the rain because you wanted a friend.
I couldn’t watch movies, talk about cigarettes, or listen to operas,
but I was all right when I saw my mother pouring out my father’s bottles into the bushes.
I looked at the round tummy in the mirror and wondered if it was okay.
It wasn’t. I was eleven years old when I learned how to **** it in.
-
The first came in middle school. I had a dream that I kissed a boy while on an exercise machine.
It was real life when he took my hand in the backseat of his mother’s SUV. I closed my bedroom door and danced.
I still think of him when I hear that stupid song.
The second time, I was fourteen. I met a different boy who peeled away my skin as if he were unwrapping a Christmas present.
And the present? Just another pair of socks. Throw them in the drawer with the others. Shut it tight.
I’m still missing a lot of skin.
And then, there is you.
You know the story. Five, four, three, two, one, happy new year. I kissed you.
Remember when you noticed my wrists? Remember when you didn’t believe my excuses? Remember afterwards, when you pretended to forget all about it because you were scared, scared of the kinds of girls who hid secrets under their sleeves?
I went to all of your basketball games. I hate basketball. We watched movies that you projected onto your basement wall. Your attempts to disguise your impatience as admiration were poorly executed.
Maybe our first kiss shouldn’t have occurred in a count-down. It made everything else that happened feel that much more inevitable.
-
I take stock of myself. Three hearts, like an octopus, and too much blood. I am saving it, I am saving it for the person who offers me something other than the dusty space under the bed.
I never want to be like my mother, and there is a certain kind of power in this. The power of - of what, turning inward?
I am learning. I am learning to stop looking behind me in fear of pursuit. Let them come and let them drape me in meaningless velvet. I will not be deterred.
Look for me, up in the constellations. I am a passing comet; it’s impossible to predict if I am destined for destruction or for greatness.
I’ll wait at the sunset for the sound of your voice.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
Self,
centered,
watching the world burn.
This calm is maintained by
expelling air in between each blink.
Glass is far in sight,
glasses cracked
and not foreseen,
because I'm not a seer.
Blanketed in ignorance,
wrapped: up tight.
Shelf this selfishness, I'm told.
So I consider this advice.
Rearranging the paperbacks.
Misplacing the first editions.
All the math in the world; variables
do not ease understanding
of long division.
So I'm left not right,
have never been alright,
and that is why being centered
is crucial for survival.
That is why becoming adaptable
isn't laughable
while watching the world burn.
It's having a cold disposition
to withstand the heat.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 12:13 PM UTC
In Waterstones
Sighing at the bestsellers
opaque at the corner of my right
eye two ladies late in life
are centre stage amid the table
paperbacks.
“Are you following me?” the taller bellows
brimmed headscarf towering over her NHS bespectacled
sister of afternoons and shopping mornings
continuing a conversation that has obviously
followed them their entire friendship
seeming the matriarch of the pair, she is circumspect
in her contrariness.
Whatever entitles her to this
Guardianship of self-importance
Her being a lighthouse rising above the mists
condensing off beaten shards of rock
is subdued by her companions’ pithy response
“no-you know I have no interest in Autobiographies.”
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 7:18 AM UTC
Maggie was my mother, my emotional mother.
She came into my life when I was in third grade.
She and her husband, Floyd, lived in the apartment
on the third floor of our house. My biological
mother was too depressed to be my emotional mother.
She spent every afternoon taking a nap from 1 to
4:30 and watched TV by herself in the living room
from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., then went upstairs to her own
bedroom and read detective paperbacks until about
3 a.m. So Maggie always fixed breakfast--two poached
eggs, grits, and two toasted and buttered slices of
wholewheat bread--for me every morning as I grew up.
Maggie also washed my ***** clothes, spanked me
when I need a spanking, and hugged me when I
needed a huge. I have never forgotten the time when
Maggie (I have no memory of my biological mother
ever being in my bedroom when I was in it) brought
me lunch when I was sick in bed with a cold, along with
an ice-cold bottle of Squirt. I remember loving the taste
of Squirt, which, for some unknown reason, I had never
tasted it before, nor was I ever going to taste it again.
Many, many times I would go up to the apartment around
dinner time when Floyd had gotten home from working
at the Santa Fe shops, knock on their door, and invariably
Maggie would say "Come in," even as she was cooking
dinner for Floyd and herself, because she knew it was
Tod. I sat with Floyd at their small kitchen table and
talked to him about, among other things, who we each
thought was the better center fielder, Willie Mays or
Mickey Mantle. I felt at home with Maggie and Floyd.
The two took my two sisters and me on occasion to
the drive-in to see a movie in their old car. What fun!
Maggie, a Black who had grown up in racist southern
Texas, was illiterate, but I was not conscious of it when
I was so young, and when I got older and knew Maggie
couldn't read or write, it didn't matter to me at all.
Maggie could love! That was the important thing.
I always felt loved when I was with Maggie. And Floyd,
even though he thought Mays was better than Mantle,
remained my friend for along time after Maggie had
passed away.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Apr 24, 2023
Apr 24, 2023 at 12:28 AM UTC
palms are masks
that cover nothing
fingers, frustrated fishermen
combing dark waters, searching
for the uninhabited isle.
the tree stump pitifully trying
to grow,
melody of the typewriter,
the letter opener's song,
withered daisy in a plastic display,
hidden bookworm art
carved into dusty paperbacks,
overgrown, abandoned houses:
sleeping animal,
dormant jungle.
wet asphalt puddles of fallen sky
dead butterfly
blind blue eyes;
tragic, difficult, poetic
you are
poetically
(unplayed piano furniture)
useless.
Jun 19, 2012
Jun 19, 2012 at 9:57 AM UTC
Through the coffee steam your eyes were so clear they almost broke me in half.
I took a long selfish look as I told the side of your head about my mother.
You holding your gaze on my windshield
watching the wet lights blur one mile at a time.
Through the curls of your hair I heard you whisper that you didn’t want to leave.
Didn’t want to add your shoe size
to the prints leading away from the kid who’d see the inside of a coffin
long before he ever saw his family again.
I pulled over to force your hand through my sternum, pierced
each finger with a ragged heart tendril
built in the image of winter trees seeded far from the water line.
In this way, information is filtered.
Even with a cup tied to another cup by taut string,
you still don’t get a clear sound.
I shook my head, thinking of reasons to say your name. A taste like dusty paperbacks
flecked in cane sugar.
You got the boring name because your parents birthed you full of splendor,
knew you would never need the extra flourish of a conversation starting nametag.
The kind of person who deserves someone that will die of malnourishment if your plane ever goes down.
You’ve gotten soft old man,
You are no conqueror.
Will never drown out the roar in her 5 a.m. mind,
can do nothing to comfort the black eyes
and longneck bottles left wandering her past,
with your piecemeal shards of charm and wit.
Part of your winter still clings to my dashboard and frosts my knuckles
each time my eyes close driving home, dreaming about painting red flags green.
Even after I watched the last drag curl out of your lungs,
you never tasted like smoke,
so I filled my lacerations with your nicotine
to hide inside your numbness,
while our bare skin rolled across sheets
looking for new cold
knowing this is not true sacrifice,
but perhaps my final squander.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 4:04 AM UTC
I feel my heart
pressed in my stomach,
a tiny pebble
wishing to be big.
I count my shins,
apple caught in my throat.
A great wall of
early morning
covers my ears,
ties my hands over my eyes,
makes my ribs shrug.
The place between your lips,
a wandering perch for
emaciated sounds.
A fingerprint under your nose
shapely and styled,
too purposeful.
I can draw
stories on my thighs
under rusty Wednesdays
and paperbacks.
A misunderstanding of eyelids,
overly trusting,
a turquoise thunder.
None of my fingers match,
making a path from my heels
to the crease behind your knee.
I’ve forgotten how to make tea.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 1:40 AM UTC
what am I supposed to do?
I’m high on ativan
but that’s a secret
and it’s not the kind of person
I am anyway;
I promise, sometimes in life, there are acceptable exceptions --
a big fat scary monster has swallowed me up
whole
and I feel like Pinocchio
in the musky dark,
in the stomach of terror;
did you know
I bought 3 books today,
they’re classics
and were on sale,
"how perfect," I thought, "something to read on the plane; something to read over and over again for a whole year abroad."
but my suitcase is empty
apart from the three paperbacks,
intimidating me
and I’d honestly rather die and never hear anyone talk ever again than pack for a whole year
this is a poem of fear
but that’s a secret, though I’m sure
the consumed ativan
clearly gave that away;
— I’m moving
to the complete opposite end of
the world —
Sep 13, 2013
Sep 13, 2013 at 3:10 AM UTC
Through wooded fog
fades the day, abandoned to the grey,
lost road, lost home - belonging to no one
Pictures found upon a mantle, dust and charcoal,
photos framed in rusty metal,
sepia shadows, a broken mirror
Collections of rocks and bones,
letters and sealing wax,
china cups, stained and cracked
Musty pages of paperbacks,
remnants of a life long ago.
Memories, pressed flowers of fading bells,
little relics, loved
so well
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
*2002
Dearest Klara,
hope you enjoy
the poems as you dream to write
one poem
happy birthday*
There are still many books as though
parliament. A miscalculation based on coordinates
in a wry scene.
Two bookshelves creating a labyrinth, enough that you
are alike. Juxtaposed to scent are many words
and the day is almost done. Ignore fragments once,
but never overdo. I can outlast moonlight’s procession
into a dark cathedral by the window.
On this side – reason; the other, hesitance.
This is no heist. This is what belongingness refutes.
What willingness bandages. The absence of sentries
made for easy rapture. You slid your hand into the dusty
fort and in between them, the paperbacks ached.
“I will do it.” and after that, cursed at the farce.
Slid into your bag – you, surrounded by the tense air
of silence. A dilettante at being a fugitive. What is it that
you stole?
Your body, elsewhere. Flailing. Failing. There are still
many marvels in the scene, but says precision is key.
Cuts as if contravention. This was as calm as painting a child
in his early years, the hue of anomaly.
Quiet in amplitudes doles out a mystified sense of completion.
I can hear an ajar mouth unwind a soft humming.
It was time to go – tomorrow when we rise with no memory,
it will be all but one and the same fault together with many others,
as if your face that day and your image now
compels me the cold of a foreign city. Riddance.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 9:12 PM UTC
Your childhood plaything
Became your clone
You traded crayons for
Your mother’s lipstick
Children’s fairy tales for
****** romance paperbacks
Your room’s rose wallpaper is
Canopied with Audrey Hepburn posters
At night, you braided your hair
For those sophisticated waves
You ****** on lemons
To perfect your pout, and
Brushed with baking soda
To bleach your teeth
Your envy: the doll’s porcelain skin—
Not too unlike the seat cover
You clutched after meals,
To keep the spirit clean.
Jul 14, 2010
Jul 14, 2010 at 6:43 PM UTC
Melting to my seat
Staring at a screen
Brain cells exploding in misery
Prefer to set this building of articles on fire
Are actual paperbacks even read?
Obsolete weapon in the war of cyber knowledge
Forced to memorize words,
Lines of straight and curved little designs
That are supposedly the key
To intellectual increase.
So, please gently place the grenade
Upon my head,
As to not alter their silence.
Dec 11, 2011
Dec 11, 2011 at 11:09 AM UTC
What if I was waldo?
You would search page after page
Studying a painted picture
To find where I stand
Who would notice my stripes?
And trace their finger to meet bones
Or would you be that intolerable Attention Deficit Disordered kid
Who threw the paperbacks towards the wall
Because you couldn’t find me?
Do I still bother you, long after the freedoms of childhood are over?
If you found me on one page, who would quit
Who would keep searching?
Would you find my red shaggy cap
And throw in the towel
End that game of monopoly
Because it has already taken up much too much of your week
And your time
Who would stare.
Let the people and places blend into one
As if we were all waldo
Trying to be found
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 5:48 PM UTC
Lovely thoughts are shackles.
They invoke what even the microscope
omits from the commentary
Well-prepared cups of tea on Sunday afternoons
The dragging of fountain pens retracing ornate loops.
Each a relief from the threat of whatever crisis interred
by the quiet of a room
The practical, the indulgent, without progression.
The contemporary pastoral
is to be found
Amongst old boxes
of boy's adventure paperbacks
and girl's glitterworn and broken hairbrushes
Shooting the mind off to tragedies
whirring still away at even further distances.
Memories, like sentiments
when copacetic
Provoking always the invasive link
the dependent, the pathetic.
A picture of a doomed ship in storm
Hung on the red carpeted wall of a restaurant
A jar of olives
left untouched
for decorative purposes
in the old grain store
which now serves unfiltered coffee
and plays loud but pleasing music
'til 6 p.m.
What I have spoken of are McGuffins.
The mind distracts.
Yes, the mind encounters,
we discover, we make lists.
But if you can remember
minutiae, try then to remember
History is the repetition of revelations.
The reel does not cut off.
In short,
don't congratulate
Yourself about life
until you've at least seen the nursing home.
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 12:53 PM UTC
I am coerced into loathsome desperation
Unable to elicit a feeling of existence
All because my dreams violently clash with reality
I cannot prevail
I will not survive
I am weak
Failing to hunt down a sufficient supply of motivation
Buried beneath the world of paperbacks
Scrambling to bump into an emotion that will jump start my heart
An adrenaline ****** suffering withdrawal
Tormenting this flaccid ***** in my chest
Please, someone tackle me into relapse
Every attempt to ascend from darkness
Annihilated
With each crash and burn
Extracts the impossible truth
I cannot feel
I do not care
I am dead
Where is the spark that I used to lust for?
Am I Blind or Broken?!
I need to feel
I need to want
I need to prosper
Taunting a pair of keen eyes to electrify my neurons
Demanding a bitten lip to punch a hole in my gut
Slamming bodies against bodies into doorways
Grabbing confidently
Kissing forcefully
Unbuttoning frantically
But...
I can't
Feel
Anything
Love and Lust are one in the same
I can't coddle one without the other
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 11:36 PM UTC
The Author's space consisted of lavender walls.
Hardwood Floors.
A stack of books for the night stand.
Coffee stained mugs on the dining table.
It had paintings of all sorts.
Not yet bloomed plants scattered here and there.
An orange Afghan lay across the leather couch.
Muddied boots by the door.
Now the author's house.
A whole other story.
Blank white walls.
White carpeted floors.
Clean tables.
Glass nightstands.
But as the Author wrote in his notebook.
The white velvet couch changed to worn leather.
His Styrofoam cup turned to stained ceramic.
His glass nightstand now old paperbacks.
His imagination now working wonders.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
In case you haven't noticed, I am dull, dull
though tempting still
to men who follow close behind their pointy bits
Yes, I, glory and glamour, unattractive isolated child,
great adventurer, efficient traveler, queen of my enameled laundry *** and tiny oar,
fearless reader of uncomfortable old books about Africa and paperbacks,
seer of mirrors for the first time, knower of a few obscure things,
have been diminished, trapped
in a cage of my own making
hardly gilded
$775 a month with torn floors and bruises, still a good deal,
rent gradually rising
I could strip my skin away to the milk inside
or I could build a great, if dubious ship
and float along the river of fate, unguided now, see how far I get,
bailing myself out for as long as I can
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 4:56 PM UTC
*You are a mystery novel
I read over and over
You put up such a strong front
Yes, you're a hardcover
I am a good listener
Your stories make up for what I lack
Fragile and easily ripped apart
I am but a paperback*
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 9:01 AM UTC
Sleek dark hair
Highlights of auburn, color of fall
Stern lips
A look of austerity in the dark russet eye
Skin lighter than my own
The smaller wrist
Large eyes
Faint deepening crow's feet
Nursing knowledge
Small, short, slight, petite, and strong
Maternal vanguard
Matriarchal
Beautiful and earthly
Scorpionic elusiveness
Her unused canvas
Frequent Homegoods purchased
Shifts decor in the livingroom like a Feng Shui practitioner
Laughs at the absurdity of modern horror movies
Smells like bath wash and too much perfume
Smells of my childhood
Smells of my innocence
Paperbacks of Hugo and Austen in boxes in the basement
Paperbacks of The Symposium and a biography of Marx in the basement
Secretly likes to cook
Culinary explorer
Gastronomically open
Culinary door opener
Very little circle of friends
Outspoken
Austerity on the small mouth
Austerity in the small mouth
Conviction in her voice
Soft graphite in her voice
Has a lisp sometimes
The slight overbite(?)
Immigrant parent
Unnaturalized citizen
Reminds me of fall
Reminds me of everything
Reminds me of very little at once
Life-teacher, one of many
Protective
Over-protective
Pushy
The way her hand moves on her tablet
The way her voice sounded during a lecture when I was a child
The way she used to hug
Closet full of shoes and clothes she rummages through when she's going out
Meticulous cleaner
The way her voice sounded when she tried to make sense of me
The way her voice sounds
...
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 5:23 AM UTC
Every now and then,
I'll pop two quarters into *Lucky
Lucky Me!* for a plastic ring
and a cheap laugh
on my way out of Giant, juggling
cream cartons in both arms.
And I love
them beside me in the passenger
seat, sharing it like two children
that sit up straight just to marvel
in the maple branches washing
the windshield in green.
But then slouch back when law
firms and Wells Fargo flood
the forest floor, trapping
blue birds and black owls
in one-way glass cages,
so all they can do is look forward
back in on themselves slowly
splintering into subsidiaries.
Commuters and Armani suits
bounce their Starbucks cups
off each set of cell bars.
"Can you hear me now,"
2002 asks us, but no reply.
'Cause it's no good.
There's no use in communicating
with social butterflies
when their wings are folded
like the cardboard boxes
we're packing with paperbacks,
'cause we'd rather stack tabs
than physical photo albums.
The one on top with the burgundy
felt cover. Yeah, that one. Flip
three pages back to that picture
of us at prom in '96 with that faux
sapphire glistening on your hand
from the heat lamps overhead
and the disposable photo flash
we couldn't turn off.
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 3:52 PM UTC