"reabsorbed" poems
i went into absorption for months...
upon returning to words i found
they had atrophied--like spotting an
ant through a keyhole.
they came so sparely, one by one...
wondering why i wished to violate
the silence that so blessed me.
so they sat next to one another in
lotus position, and poems were emanated.
they became more and more voluminous,
to the point of daily.
as if being summoned by a spell...slowly
poured into a glass and spilled into a pair
of lips.
to be reabsorbed by her mouth.
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 12:11 PM UTC
Darkness has pressed up against our lattice windows. Classes start again in the morning. I’m being reabsorbed by college life. I’m a planner. I’ve been going over my syllabuses, repacking my bookbag, charging my power banks, checking and rechecking the assignments due tomorrow. After watching me prep for hours, Peter said, “You’re not going to the MOON.”
Peter asked me last Friday, “Are you excited for Monday? (I’ll find out if I get my fellowship.)
“I’m more excited about tonight,” I said, “I like going out on the town.”
“Wow,” he said, “you’re so different - not like the other girls at all.”
“No!” I said, laughing, “We’re stuck in a rut, we only go to one or two places, ever - if we go out at all. When people come to New Haven, I need places to take them - places besides pizza. At home, in Athens (Ga), I know twenty places - this is RESEARCH.” I assured him.
Peter settled back into his doctorate-fraternity-house yesterday. Tonight (Sunday), there’s music in the suite, the crazy noises of people and the comfort of returned friends. All the roommates are back, greeted with hugs and kisses, as they dragged in their luggage.
Lisa arrived with dinner, for 10, from Dominick's, in Manhattan. Spaghetti, salads, rolls, extra sauce - in six, small, suitcase-sized insulated bags. It was a logistical marvel. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan to the residence - we didn’t need to rewarm anything. “I KNOW we could have just eaten in the dining hall,” she said, shrugging, “call it zany - one last hurrah.”
Everyone seemed happy to be back. There were travel stories, questions, and laughter. Oh, and Zeppole, little powdered sugar custard desserts that seemed the worst for travel. Everyone seemed to have an eye on the clock though. By 11pm the suite was quiet. Très unusual.
Mar 27, 2023
Mar 27, 2023 at 1:42 AM UTC
In the waste hour
Between to-day and yesterday
We watched, while on my arm--
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone--
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head
Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:
Till the dear face turned dead,
And to a sound of lamentation
The good, heroic soul with all its wealth--
Its sixty years of love and sacrifice,
Suffering and passionate faith--was reabsorbed
In the inexorable Peace,
And life was changed to us for evermore.
Was nothing left of her but tears
Like blood-drops from the heart?
Nought save remorse
For duty unfulfilled, justice undone,
And charity ignored? Nothing but love,
Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth,
But for this passing
Into the unimaginable abyss
These things had never been?
Nay, there were we,
Her five strong sons!
To her Death came--the great Deliverer came!--
As equal comes to equal, throne to throne.
She was a mother of men.
The stars shine as of old. The unchanging River,
Bent on his errand of immortal law,
Works his appointed way
To the immemorial sea.
And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:--
That she in us yet works and shines,
Lives and fulfils herself,
Unending as the river and the stars.
Dearest, live on
In such an immortality
As we thy sons,
Born of thy body and nursed
At those wild, faithful *******
Can give--of generous thoughts,
And honourable words, and deeds
That make men half in love with fate!
Live on, O brave and true,
In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine--
Our best and theirs! What is that best but thee--
Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass
Like light along the infinite of space
To the immitigable end?
Between the river and the stars,
O royal and radiant soul,
Thou dost return, thine influences return
Upon thy children as in life, and death
Turns stingless! What is Death
But Life in act? How should the Unteeming Grave
Be victor over thee,
Mother, a mother of men?
1.2k
A chest of boardwalk
and nails unscrewed,
an arsenal of rusty
marching faceless
graffiti, musty
multi-eyed designs and grinning
tiny men right beside,
with lips rose-pearl, sharp-end.
Right beside small carriages to lend.
Wall art wiping off like a fresh tan
once winter comes, scrubbed
with air-carried sea salt,
reabsorbed into brickish mortar and tin-ringing
structures that overlook sweezshing shoals;
dough-rolled hats kneaded on shake-grain shores.
This is where the wolf pup goes
after it snatches the children of my wide-eyed games,
figments of nativity babies
and their red-cheeked discord.
Wailing betrayal
in a swaddling maw,
Vanishing into these walls,
and like that, more pinched-lipped mini-men
lull this predicament into a then-ling
ceased, ignored as the child-pile
rises in the wolf's den.
The umpteenth hour:
i flip through old calendars and
fill in the boxes of dates and
reassemble daily fates
in my head with pink marker
tracing my palmsandpickingupsomethingwhatisthat—
oh.
just child #62
all plump and fat
growing in my throat,
rapidly birthed
with a nasty cough.
spit in my lungs.
and she cries
and then it's novoctuary (or just june)
and the paws claw kindly, schlep-ripping
my featureless form like knocking at a door,
and this is the departure
of my never-was newborn.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 8:53 PM UTC
You pace a room full of forgotten thoughts
And find yourself hanging
Down
From the peeling wallpaper
It is yellowed and crisp
In your hands
A tangled man
Made of Spiderwebs
Asks you why.
“why,” he asks. “Do you always fall parallel to the earth
But perpendicular to everyone else?”
You toss him away on a puff of breath.
You tell him you like falling, thank you very much,
And fall out of a shattered window
And you are reabsorbed into the nighttime.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 11:26 PM UTC
When we die
We sink back
Into that from which
We came
We reconnoiter
Our stuff
With that from which
We were delivered
And it takes
A bit of time
No one
Can be sure
How long
Because
Well
The process
Of reconnoitering
Starts with our rotting away from what we are now
Involves some process
Or another
Of our being reabsorbed into the Earth and her elements
Being redistributed
Here and there
And everywhere
Over that period of time
I am fairly certain
We cannot know
Ourselves as we are now
That is to say
There will certainly
Shortly after we die
Be an ending of neural pathways firing
And a stillness of thoughts
Even those that let us therefore be
And given enough time
Some of those elements
That were
Within us
Will certainly
Be without
What we now
Call us
And all of the elements
That we now
Call
us
Will
have
to
deal
W
i
t
h
t
h
e
p
r
o
c
e
s
s
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f
B
e
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n
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W
i
t
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t
N
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u
r
a
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F
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i
n
g
s
A
n
d
W
h
a
t
W
e
N
o
w
C
a
l
l
u
s
And given
Even more
Time
As much as
random
Dissociated time
Needs
Elements
Of what we now
Call Us
Will be within
What we would now
Call other
Living things
Or, one living thing, viewed not through the lens of time.
As a poem
On an
Infinitely long
And strange
page
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 5:12 AM UTC
It isn't for fun and games anymore.
That excuse wilted away.
In fact them are my very downfall.
Back then, **** was only a refreshment
And chosen were the days on it.
I was on guard and after
each introduction
Every reabsorbed indulgence
I walked it out of calling range
Chose not to be what I am now.
Financially funneling my nonexistent,
To make my way through **** work
**** pay, always broke...
Weak without; Penniless with it.
I need out. Have little lapses.
I am not going to be a great loss.
Just one that couldn't let go
As fast as those that dabbled back then.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 8:02 AM UTC
I’m anticipating the day when I wake up with no eyelashes
or when the four ones of my clock turn into two’s
or when all the stars are reabsorbed into the blackness of the sky
because I’ve used them all up
I’ve tied a wish around every lash, number and star
and sent it off into the space between us
in the hopes that you have done the same
and our wishes will collide and be real;
tangible
on those four ones, I wished that
tonight,
more than any other night,
I could hold you in my arms
in my bed, or a bath, or a fluorescently lit parking lot,
and melt you into me;
grasping at your red t-shirt,
inhaling your scent
tonight, more than any other night,
I wish I could run across the distance that separates us
and just simply touch you,
run my fingers across your skin
and feel you flutter and sharpen when I reach your heart
all the fibers of my lashes;
tiny hairs of my DNA,
are covered with wishes
to see your whole body move in sync with your voice
and all the ones are wrapped with the hope
that I can see the expanse of pink and purple sky sitting next to you
and to no longer look at the same one together
but from afar
and those stars only brighten when I think of
how badly I want to kiss all the words and symbols that cover your body
but
I only have so many lashes
and maybe one day my clock will skip the ones before I can see them
there are only so many stars that remain
so I only have so many thoughts
and hopes
and wishes
to attach them to
before soon enough,
I will only be wishing on blank stares
and ticking stares
and tar-coated skies
I only wish on these because I can feel the memory of your escaping me
some days I can’t remember what your laughter sounds like
or how your fingers felt across my back
or how your voice quivered when you asked to kiss me
those moments are escaping me
and I want to be reminded
I want to expose the film of all the photographs I took in my mind
of our time:
T.O. and B.C.:
you and me
and I want more than anything to take more pictures
and record your laughter
and put paint on your fingers as you drag them across my skin
so I am never apart from you.
and so my lashes and ones and stars are laced with thoughts
and hopes
and moments
with you
to come back
to be near
to envelop me.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 10:56 PM UTC
I was born with curly hair,
a bubbly laugh
and a blue eyed stare.
I was born with freckles on my nose,
always a need to know
and a reason to share.
I was born as part of a vanishing twin,
always preferring to be by myself
and always knowing I wasn't alone.
I reabsorbed my other twin, the
chromosomal abnormality, a blighted ****
if you will.
I put my duality down to this abnormality,
yet, always wanting to know,
my curiosity always on show.
I wonder why I came to be?
With the other me fading away.
I look for others with my freckles, blue eyes and grin.
I've never found her or him.
I was born a half of a whole,
maybe it's why sometimes I'm light, other times dark.
My twin left its mark, but, I think I'm the dark half.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 7:14 PM UTC
Three-quarters past six! Im expelled from the redemptive eden of the dream, because the sobering, dawn robot must begin: mechanical action! Your visions will force you back into your half-hibernated waking dreams! Your clothes are patiently waiting to be pounded and chased into the pounding drum of your washing machine; your body is suddenly saturated with expired consciousness: The Sun began without you!
You would keep waiting for his word to see if you can still hear it, but the outside world is listening outside and hardly answering! In the universe of your skull, the Moon Stars are dizzy before morning coffee; deepening cavities for a smoother future! Wordlessly shade around you the shadows of your ruined possibilities, what couldn’t you grasp?
Many times you sniff yourself more because the insidious lie contained in the uttered sentence is unbearable; organists are raging more and more wildly, hyena-throated pathetic minute-blue people! He who has always persevered, trembled and feared would always like to hide! In the primeval forest of your blood vessels, the channels of throbbing blood streams would be reabsorbed! Your true wisdom is what you keep silent in yourself!
Your things, your overworked organs, are still tired and exhausted, until your metabolism calls for a natural thing! "Who has learned to recognize the moods of his selfish body so that he can no longer snuggle into lying words!" He's still listening to you Whole! The Calculating Parts are listening to you! Do you want to calm down in an even more predictable motion and you can't even know when the Light is shining on the petals of your wounded Soul?
Jan 19, 2021
Jan 19, 2021 at 2:22 AM UTC
I sometimes speak
words I don't comprehend,
throw the names
into the wind as
tears
make their way
into my eyes
I remind myself
of the phrases
I keep holding on to
and the fears
start creeping in
I swallow them
with my saliva
only after then,
in my intestines,
they'd be reabsorbed
into my blood
they travel
through my arteries
and veins
and settle in my brain
control my heartbeat
and my nervous system
and I shiver
with self-doubt
On days
I want to stay in
I don't wash my hair
I never mind
how I look like
because I love my soul
and I love my body
and I love my face
But tell me why
I wash my hair when
I go out
tell me why,
when I do that,
my body screams
in uncertainty,
demanding to know
what my
plan
is
I don't have a plan
on most days,
I wallow in self-pity
and sleep amongst regrets
and I wake up happy
they tell me to never sleep
when I'm sad
but it soothes my soul
I want to be loved
but I assure you
I will reject love
when it comes
knocking in my door
I will recognize love
through the peep hole
put my fingers in my ears
and go to the other room
and when love
calls me
my body will shiver
because I don't know
what to do
I'm not used to love
I'm not used to being given attention
and wanting it is not the same
as seeking it
And wanting it,
never harmed anyone
Contradicting myself
is my biggest talent
and I sometimes
wonder
if I have ten brains
fused into one
Vulnerability
is my greatest treasure
and it will one day
eat me alive
I promise you,
I will learn from my mistakes
Being aware of the effect
is not the same
as causing it
and on days like this,
I blame my hormones,
I blame things I cannot control
so that I allow myself
moments
of weakness
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
Sea of
uncertainty.
Quantum
verse.
All options,
possibilities
play out.
Universes
floating on
fluctuations.
Quantum
vibrations.
Fluctuations
of mathematical
probability.
Multiverse
never ending.
Adrift on
nothingness.
Phasing
in then
out.
Creating
then
reabsorbed.
Endless
variations
on a
theme.
Let
Schrödinger's
cat
decide!
Aug 16, 2022
Aug 16, 2022 at 10:25 AM UTC