"poppyseed" poems
"It's just one cut,"
said the sharp lady doctor before language
melted off her clipboard and the operating lamps
grew huge and spilled their bright innards into my eyes.
I lay on the cold tiled floor of the museum.
One monstrous cut -- the white shark suspended
above in a last hungry lunge yawns, belly open.
Around me what a wide-eyed fisherman pulled out:
old tires, whale-oil lamps, Damien Hirst, bones upon bones.
Damien sits on a tire, bored as hell. See the jagged edges,
he says, they pulled him into our cold afterlife
and cut while he suffocated, explosive oxygen flooding
his lungs from the wrong direction.
Later, the doctors showed me
what had for so long kicked and screamed to be out.
Liver-colored, swollen, wrapped in catgut, it was not
as expected. Others had promised ground seaglass,
poppyseed freckles, huge lungs like fibrous balloons
for flying or spouting poetry nonstop in day-long stretches.
Where were my eyes?
It was supposed to have my eyes.
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010 at 7:34 PM UTC
Thirty-two. Adventure.
Exotic was the word we felt. You rode beside me, small as we were on rickety
flippant and injured bikes, but it was so dark dark and your hair
your hair was ***** and the lights that neoned over our heads turned into lines and twists
fists of red and blue and green and the bricks were wet, like the dirt on the bottom of your shoes
shoes that we fled in, shoes that slapped water and collided with the pavement
You were just as cunning kniving knifing strafing dodging as I
and our lips cracked smiles of sharp white teeth and we ran
because we were bad, we were motors of deliberate disobedience
our eyes were glazed with dizzy daffodil poppyseed crushed ice and bottles hidden
and the room that was the city sky was spinning
weightless and confused and sure so sure, we broke window after window with rocks
and danced, out of character and space
I took you home late
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
Inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem Where I am From
I am from cul-de-sacs
From skinned knees and seven speed bikes
I am from the bewitching perfume of the osmanthus bloom mingling with freshly mown grass
I am from the familiar music of the bubbling creek and the cardinals song
the swish of a golf club and the thud of a soccer ball
I am from hot pavement on bare feet, the taste of honeysuckles, and reaching pine tree forests whose invisible trails and clearings became my secret empire
I am from airplanes and home cooking
From Mary and Mark
northern accents and southern hospitality
I am from "use your manners" and "Not enough month left at the end if the money"
I am from sunday school and patent leather shoes that pinch my toes
from a prayer before dinner that is carved into my brain
I am from poland
from poppyseed kuchen and kielbasa
I am from my grandmother forgetting baking soda in the bread
and then... years later, forgetting me too.
I am from my grandfather's sense of humor
and his unwavering stubbornness.
I am from too many cousins to count
from pinched cheeks and "How you've grown!"
I am from piles of unfinished photo albums
brimming with new adventures, frozen faces, and old memories
I am from the path I carved for myself with tools that my parents bestowed upon me.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
Dahlias, little blue fence, the sweet breeze; long grass in the frontyard.
Kisses with intent lips, September; lemon-poppyseed cake.
The big moon.
Dogs howling, a scratch from a bramble on my wrist.
10pm and the rainfall.
9am and a rainbow arcs over our house which resembles a doll house.
Who is the antagonist in this mess of a story?
...
Burning love-notes in the kitchen,
The coffee tastes wrong, WE used to share it.
You take the puppy and leave only flower-petals in the sink as proof you were ever here.
Cigarettes and nightwalks, dawn; waking in the backseat of my car and hangovers hanging over.
Goodbye dahlias and house with little blue fence,
Bye comfort.
The world is a newborn.
I am at my beginning too and I take a breath....
Dec 29, 2016
Dec 29, 2016 at 5:32 PM UTC
They warned me about you.
I read the nutrition facts
and saw the ingredients.
The FDA didn't fail to inform me,
you were no good for me.
Toxic, even.
I knew this all but you...
always smelt better than you looked
or tasted,
Like a lemon poppyseed,
with salt for sugar-
strange and savory,
but I should stop eating.
Ocean muffin
maybe made for a bird flying low,
or some big fish
swimming in shallow waters.
I was the bird flying low,
with no luck in the wild,
searching for scraps,
and saw one in tact.
It held promise.
Swallowed you whole
and lost all of my feathers
expelling you out.
You were for the big fish.
The ones who only bite off
what they can chew.
I cannot consume
you who poisons me.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
Nothing is funny at five
Don't test me I'll find a way to make you cry
The ***** is in the soup but you can only taste the bitter parts
Shush your pretty ******* mouth, I'll mouth you off till your heart beets red
I'll send the green handed money men to rub their juices onto you
They're very rich but will make you poor
Your face is a caked home for all their bacteria which lives comfortably at room temperature like you
I am so very frustrated that I'm depressed into a soggy grey pancake
But I am convinced otherwise, so I say what a fun game this is
I smile and twirl my mustache with my sticky green juice fingers as you feverishly release fluids in a quivering animation
From just looking at me, you can read my mind and you know very well how much I hate your trivial lifestyle with those big, useless idle creatures and how you're "traditional and religious" and how you believe everything is okay
When you die, God will **** you and your life will then end
Your family prays that my words won't **** you but your alienated brother is living on the streets with poppyseed chills running down his crippling spine
It's like he doesn't exist
And it's too late for me because you're calling for bad weather
I'm in your begrudgingly deep **** hole if my landing is safe so let's hope the parachute doesn't open
Just calm down and let me imagine myself rolled into a ball naked, and the room is covered in wires; on the ceiling, on the floor, on the walls, all covered in wires
They can hear me, the room is ******* tapped, they can hear me
Talking to you
You better be thankful
Because no other day you would be
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 10:43 PM UTC