"reflexively" poems
They never spoke, but every time she walked into the train
He reflexively slid to the left and made room for her.
And they would travel together sitting one hand width apart.
He drummed his perfectly crooked fingers on his left thigh,
like a horse that galloped towards an unknown destination.
She clasped and unclasped her hands, and
chewed on the dry skin of her bottom lip.
She always switched off her phone before getting on the train.
She assumed he did too because no one ever disturbed their unsaid conversations.
The old man singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand provided the sound track to their journey.
Yet the most endearing sound was that of him sliding his right foot from side to side.
The soft scraping sound soothed her more than any song ever had.
The train ride lasted twenty-five minutes every night,
during which, in her mind they got married,
went to Vienna for their honeymoon,
and had three children: twin boys and a girl,
who grew up to be the perfect balance between the two of them.
His stop came before hers and
She wondered if one day he would miss his stop and
Ride with her to hers.
He knew her beginning and she knew his end.
She may never know any more
But that didn’t matter because for twenty five minutes a day,
all she needed was the soft scraping sound from his right foot sliding from side to side.
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 6:09 AM UTC
I spent Thanksgiving
this year
not in the blue-collar comfort
of my aunt’s house,
nestled somewhere
within a well-buried suburb
of a quaint, but un-noteworthy neighborhood
with walls decorated with Budweiser signs
juxtaposed against portraits of the ****** Mary,
where a football announcer’s voice plays like
conservative talk radio
in the background.
Instead, to save the labor
of my weary immigrant grandmother,
we dressed in Sunday best
and drove ourselves in
three well-packed mini vans
to some elegant hotel restaurant,
ideal for people-watching
from the gaudy, art-deco staircase
while pretending to be in the Great Gatsby.
It didn’t feel natural, though,
that beside a modest turkey breast
with cranberry dressing, sat a beautiful
cut of prime rib, carefully ladled
with truffle au juis–
nor beside a humble dollop
of mashed potatoes and gravy,
should there be salmon to die for,
and berries slathered with brie.
The food I nibbled
with bites of nervous guilt,
as the impeccably dressed waiter
exhaustedly refilled our water glasses,
nodding his head reflexively
to my mouse squeaks of “thank you’s”
What monsters are we,
letting these people work on Thanksgiving Day?
Grandma said, calmly, that some people
are just happy to be paid,
recounting
her impoverished childhood
in war-torn Germany—
that to simply muffle
the aggressive rumbling
of a days-empty stomach,
she and her brother
would ****** a handful of
potatoes from a government farm,
not many, but just enough
as she grimaced
at the ever-so-slight mealiness
of her rosemary-infused pork chop—
the woman who couldn’t afford ham
until she became a citizen.
We nodded quietly and
swallowed our privileged guilt,
washed down with
politely cut bites
of perfectly cooked salmon.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 3:17 PM UTC
My thoughts are merely a tangle of non-conformant
chemicals in an ultra-responsive setting;
echoes of scarcely delayed feelings,
millimetrically placed and ready to be felt;
remnants of cromagnon desires,
keeping me occupied, unassuming and tame,
while life rolls on silently, reflexively and impressively,
with all its humiliating nerve.
Rumination is for cows, guppies, and humans alike,
and saffrons, sapphires and the snow all reason in their own way,
no less conscious than our total unconsciousness.
Like a rock or plant, man is authoritatively ignorant of his ignorance,
and in his metaphysical realism lives and loves and dies,
without a clue that he never lived, never loved and was perpetually dead.
Thought’s true thought is to block awareness
by darkening the place where true awareness lies.
We think therefore we think:
to god (I mean exact-Nature) no other valid reason exists.
We conveniently overrate rationality
in self-serving cycles of chronic urgency and folly,
leaving us continually stuck to our cyclic fate.
Life is Nature’s grunt or roar
(whatever and the same)
all just a sound, faint or not.
We are unsubstantial and chimerical animals by excellence,
and in the circle inside the box we live in, our fancy appears really real.
As a feeling awaits its chemical fate, in the millimetric second that lingers,
whole worlds are imagined, and our universe and all is perceived:
violence, joy, depression, hope, and unbearable pain are unleashed,
cities are wanted, planned and assembled,
while man, impeccably and in turns, plays god, king and beggar,
and true lives, true loves and true deities are born.
As man progresses (i.e. transgresses his own nature)
and as he overcomes thought, word and feeling,
he ceases to be restrictively alive: he is released, he is now free.
Thought stands alongside feeling,
without communication nor vibration,
and gradually and painfully amalgamate into a new corrosive mix,
directly eating into spirit, flesh, and understanding,
until our wholeness wholly disintegrates.
The world as we know it folds upon itself, layer by layer,
in an inner spectacle of perfect annihilation and renewal.
The chasm separating man from himself contracts
(eventually to nil)
and man plunges from the edge of this last plank (4).
As he falls, in mid-flight,
the ultimate metamorphosis occurs,
and an übermensch is born.
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 4:04 PM UTC
another pink little sugar pill
wash it down reflexively
saying maybe don't wake up tomorrow
maybe won't be so bad
but, thinking like you walk,
with lilting gait, and furrowed brow
stumble-fall, only to be
bruised peaches
with fuzzy knees
looked over later
rejected for riper fruit
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 9:14 PM UTC
12/18/24
I choose fingers,
among the array
of many wonderful
parts on offer,
the other sensory emissaries protest,
but the multi-fluency of fingers,
fluent in all Romance languages,
nay, in every dialect, tongue,
tippling the balance in their favor
for the fingers are wonderful conversationlists, trumping the
cooing coyness of sweet wordy
verbs, fingers defy nouns, pronouns
and are fingers the finest conjunction
that was ever conjured ot conjuncted?
the ears hear poorly when upom it
a long slim finger casually traces outlines
slow~sensually and the eyes shut tightly,
reflexively, the tongue froze to the
mouth roof, muted into inaction
even the the sense of smell lies powerless
should we block the nostrils with but
two fingers, and breathe mouth mightily
we do not diminish the orchestration’s
totality, the blending of sound ‘n sensation,
but the blind and deaf all must bow before the power of fingers speaking to
every part of the bodies totality
Dec 30, 2024
Dec 30, 2024 at 2:01 PM UTC
Once fully liberated, she rides her antique, three-speed bike down the small hill from her campsite to the: RESTROOMS – SHOWERS – PAYING CAMPERS ONLY. She dismounts and goes into the well-kept, recreational facilities and takes a hot, 50-cent, seven-minute shower, arching her soapy back against the white tiles, rubbing her soapy front in the same spot, up and down and up, and then, rinsed, she stands, dripping wet in front of the first full-length mirror she's seen in weeks, gyrating her hips, mocking pin-up poses to herself and all god's good-looking men with a sense of the absurd, then she wraps her towel around, tying the knot between her ******* She stands outside in the sweet, Santa Vidian air, finger-drying her hair and imagining, unabashedly imagining, guys in the campsite above, eating fresh-cooked meat and ogling her. Then she takes off down the road, pale green nightgown fluttering against the rear spokes, past Bonnie's trailer where from sundown till 11pm you can hear the best country music: Randi Travis, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Sr. She pulls up to her sweet “Bleu Belle,” shushes the dogs reflexively, hops off the bicycle, and turns, eyes closed, face upraised into a rare shaft of redwood forest sun.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 1:07 PM UTC
let myself just stop halt, just for a second. let myself be myself, surrounded in music & by people I don't know..and some of them that I Do. stop for a moment & let myself just focus on their hands, their lips on me, working mine in the rhythms, those slutty club hypnotics crafted by sound manipulators. wait, Focus. Their soft, demanding lips on mine. not the ones I want but hey. Focus. Those slender fingers reaching up the nape of my neck- my arms give me away with natural goosebumps, my skin hacking up, reflexively, not aggressively, but with fondness & heated chills. those fingers, nails trailing my scalp...damn, I wish he could do this - wait. Focus. her lips still demanding mine, but liquor likes to press the 'play' button when you're not looking, leaving you to stop. look at the mess you've made. children have a funny way of breaking all their favorite toys. stumble to the bathroom you half hoped you'd be tasting danger in about an hour ago. can't even be angry enough to flip off the other girl at the sink, too ashamed to look at yourself. the pressures of hating yourself some days unbearable because you get claustrophobic when the door closes with only you & your Savior inside.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 2:46 PM UTC
i hold a shaky palmful of death
noting that it is surprisingly light
i swallow reflexively
feeling shocks through my hand
i could just do it
i could just do it right now and it would all be over
why don't i do it
my body, fighting to survive
my brain, begging to die
and i am no man's land
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 2:34 PM UTC
I crawl unnoticed
into your bed,
having done so many times before.
I know you.
Familiar is always inviting.
The warm sheets, welcoming pillows
bound reflexively around you.
I am that inch of the bed
you never knew.
Darkness and discomfort rapidly infect
the free-spirited bliss that befriends you daily
Toss left.
Toss right.
Your brain in my hands,
a black slab of clay
Open your eyes,
all that seemed so clear, now
clouded like a stone dropped
into still shallow water.
I decide to unchain you,
for you may manage your physical existence, but
I am the puppeteer of your alternate reality.
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 7:53 PM UTC
in the hot hot hotbox where the
interlude first dug in its feathered heels
(the ************ now, it being
gone with the wind, the wellsprings
reflexively engage because the wind
is hot and here I'm not unused to you yet
and I sure don't miss you but here
I nearly want to
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 4:59 PM UTC
Why is it that
I am held to a standard set in stone
That you are able to treat like a mold
Why is it that
I am punished for not acting “lady-like”
Yet you are excused because “boys will be boys”
Why is it that
When I was a girl, I wasn’t strong enough to lift a chair
Because you, were the “strong boy” my teacher required
Why is it that
I am trained in passivity
While you are praised for being actively inquisitive
Why is it that
As I speak out, I am obnoxiously bossy
But as you speak out, you are a heroic leader
Why is it that
When insulting me, I’m a *****
But when insulting you, you are just a son of that *****
Why is it that
I can’t speak my truth because that would be emasculating
But you are entitled to, because your truth actually has value
Why is it that
—for the same action—
I am spat out, left ruminating in a puddle of self-doubt
While you are uplifted and encouraged
And, why is it that
I've internalized all of these messages, absorbing the ramifications
While you are able to effectively maneuver them, benefiting off of my downfall
Why is it that, now
I reflexively utter “sorry,” coating my rhetoric to please you
Why is it that, now
I instantaneously tell you, “no, it's ok” when
it isn't. ok.
Why is it that, now
When an adult man catcalls me, a teenage girl
I am taught that is my obligation to indulge him, be kind
So I am not further harassed
And, tell me, why is it that
I am taught to compromise my needs
To fulfill yours
Mar 19, 2021
Mar 19, 2021 at 12:12 PM UTC
I do not know you the way a morning glory knows the sunlight: dependent, wilted in its absence.
Nor do I know you the way a vowel knows its predecessor: dependent, indifferent to chance.
Still, I know you. The way a palm knows
Each singular line that runs down the twin fingers of its opposite, independent yet inseparable.
Parallel creases of experience, your hands rewrite language by their subtle movements—
Alluding to a oneness that scatters once it is spoken, a secret dialect that spreads from your fingertips into mine, sending signals up my outstretched arms.
Reflexively, I trace the outline of your presence. I do not know you apart from the way I know myself.
At times, I yearn for the indifferent dependency of the morning glory, the formulaic way a vowel flirts with the past. Yet this can not be. To know you is to
Become you (the contours of your fingerprint contains my very being). To know you is to love you entirely.
Lose my singularity, to take your hands and place them decidedly over my eyes, look out into
Eternity: the world filtered through your presence—our harmony—this is how I know you.
9/25/15
Dec 1, 2015
Dec 1, 2015 at 5:35 PM UTC
who among us
does not whisper
many a daily silent prayer,
unconsciously, or even a thoughtful thought
initiated usually by
guilted conscience
to a deity,
or to just
the god voices of ourselves, or
ha! or anybody within earshot...
these whispers,
sally forth,
direction upwards,
to an unmappable and usually
unresponsive atmosphere,
seeding the sky moment hoping for
a smidgen of warm rain in a life drought,
and
the wanted future with
grains of hope, needy desires and
evil warded, off put
who among us
reflexively,
without marks of hesitation,
hearing the prayers of others
desirous of any bounty's share<
whisk-that-wish a
fare-thee-well, a shout out, a whisper,
thinking our legal rights confirmed
by a participatory, hearty, git-along-little-doggie,
amen,
even a
**hot ****
or an-oh-so subtle, a holy colloquial
yeah baby!
who among us never says,
please,
promise,
need, want?
not me...
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 8:59 AM UTC
Carefully crafted or reflexively cast
An exhibition of nonchalance,
He retreats
An unapologetic unbecoming,
The rooted waver in his wake.
Arid dust plumes as cliffs cleave and crumble
An avalanche of treachery,
A sandstorm of his consequence
The air thick with echoes of this final opus
Arrest his casual scream
The unseen bedevils fiercely and hovers victoriously,
A muted death knell, he weeps.
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 11:08 AM UTC
A great Orb is held aloft
by the boughs of a giant Oak tree.
~
Sighing with the wind, the Oak
shifts his branches and catches
a wandering butterfly.
Holding the butterfly
carefully closely up high,
the Oak can hear her song
of beauty and of brevity and
a million moments in the sun.
The Oak stretches and responds
with ages and acorns long gone,
whilst above them the Orb
glistens with glee.
Tickled by the wind the Oak laughs and
shudders his boughs reflexively
- the butterfly launches
herself back into the bright sky
- the Orb softly pulses
goodbye.
~
A great Orb is held aloft
by the boughs of a giant Oak tree.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 2:32 AM UTC
Laying awake at ungodly hours,
I've often stared into a ceiling that I reflexively believed to be present.
But, whenever I did find myself at leisure from sweating and sleeping,
it was always too dark to make sure that the roof was still there. And this invoked a primal fear within me.
If you need to ask why I felt afraid, you've never been a father.
A father closer to the grave than any of the naive goals he'd set for himself as a child.
A father who had traded his breath and blood for bread and a burrow.
This uncertain roof, often made me ask, "Has it been worth it?"
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 2:25 PM UTC
I'm a unique creation,
The only precious one in the universe;
Stardust coalesced and quickened by mysterious Life;
A product of a billion generations on this celestial sphere;
A result of myriad mating rituals conducted by a thousand species,
Each contesting an evolutionary battle for survival;
Each coupling succeeding in its primal urge
To replicate the life-giving source and reproduce;
Knowing, instinctively, that eternal existence is a stepwise process;
Knowing, too, the diversity of individuals propagates the One.
And now, four and a half billion years after conception,
Gaia's offspring can contemplate her glorious existence,
While speculating - reflexively, lethally - about the Sire.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
Reflexively, i shut down
as trauma floods my mind.
What a ridiculous reason to cry,
what a childish fault.
One word.
Just
"Yep."
and my world crashes around me.
**** you, Lucy.
You'll never know what a decade old sentence can do.
My psyche shatters
and i fold inside myself
and my words are silenced
(but my Thoughts are not)
and my eyes are wet
and i am torn to pieces
as rough hands work to fit me back into my mold.
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 6:11 PM UTC
She observed herself
Standing fast in clouds of steam
This felt so unreal.
Remote perspective
Would make survivable the
Dreaded encounter.
The necessities:
Tickets, porter, clock,
Time creeping along.
Maintained a distance
And staunch objectivity
‘Til the last moment.
Final words spoken,
All defenses splintering
She paused, one last look.
One last chance to stay,
Vanquished, punished, forbidden
The wide world’s pageant.
.
Point of inflexion.
The tug of the familiar
The pull of the known
Would invert the arc,
Intended trajectory,
Retrogressively.
And then, there it was:
Unctuous, demeaning smile,
Withering and cruel.
Pierced by well-honed fleer,
She reflexively shuddered
Like fly-stung horseflesh.
Ears roaring; face flushed
She felt foolish, faint-hearted,
humiliated.
One breath, and one more,
Forcing herself to stare down
Scorn and ridicule.
Then chin uplifted
And breath becalmed, she nodded
And scant smiled Adieu.
Thus the poetess
Righted her millinery,
Spun on her bootheel,
Snapped her parasol,
gave her bustle a barely
Perceptible shake,
And with solemn mien,
But mirthful eyes, she set forth
For better morrow.
Nov 12, 2018
Nov 12, 2018 at 12:05 AM UTC
i yearn to change
the world
but i can't seem
to change myself
i fear the gears have ground to a halt
and i've been left to gather rust
between the teeth of tired cogs
in the jaws of this dysfunctional mess
am i nothing more
than a bent tool
a broken fool trapped
in self-detesting testament
piece
me together
with anger anguish
and mistrustful lust
the aspects of a psyche
peeled back
like flayed fingernails
exposing fresh flesh
i've resolved
to be a nightly victim
of my own failing
mental health
i may be pointing fingers
and smashing mirrors
but i haven't been avoiding
the abject reality
a reflection
i know reflexively is inexorably
responsible for this current
catastrophe
i
am my own
sworn
enemy
a contagion
jealously infecting
everyone and everything
i've tried to love
though i dream of death
every evening
i continually awaken
disappointed
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 12:00 AM UTC
—How are you?
—Gettin' by
—Good
—Yep
She was on her third bourbon as they exchanged texts. The smell of it wafted in her face as she held the snifter up to her nose. The sweet syrupy smell of cheap bourbon. She dangled a cat toy in her free hand while the black and white and tabby thing watched the feather sway back and forth in the air. Head turning with each pass like the cat wall clock they used to have when she was little. The clock's eyes glowed in the dark. And it was really dark at night back then when they lived out in the middle of a farming settlement in western Pennsylvania. The interior of the single-story ranch house was decorated in classic fifties kitsch: braided rag rugs clashing with the Oriental lamps, green leaf wallpapering, and glow-in-the-dark cat wall clocks. She took a sip of the room temp bourbon then set the glass down. The cat had lost interest in the dangling feather cat toy so she set that down as well. She got up and walked down the hall to the bathroom. She peed, washed her hands in the sink, then steeled herself for the obligatory glance in the mirror. What she saw: an image of a woman that didn't immediately plummet her into an abyss of self-loathing. She would settle for that. She reflexively opened the cabinet door: hair clips, tweezers, baby oil, alcohol, cotton swabs, dental floss, Zoloft, Estradiol, acetaminophen, double-edge razor blades, no razor. She closed the door then said to her reflection: "We should get out of here. Dontcha think?" She looked away, then back again, flounced her hair, and said: "Or dontcha?"
Jan 29, 2022
Jan 29, 2022 at 7:21 PM UTC
Generating a ring
of bright waters, which
currently meanders, ponders,
and then streams - twitch
ching reflexively as flora
and fauna lap rich
text chard liquid
timelessly streaming, rippling,
and quivering pitch
sure risk gully confidently
babbling, bobbing, bubbling,
burbling loch a king
dominating his rill small niche
wade ding in the wings,
one doth espy, (sans oxbow lake)
analogous to an err
river rent sea sunned bay sic
wide whirled, whetted, webbed itch
perhaps berthed as a ******* creek,
and/or survivor of a ****
ling, which ordinary
happenstance attempts
to anthropomorphize
life giving resource hitch
ching various synonyms for water,
where sustenance to biosphere
can become flushed out
vis a vis via an ecological glitch
which dry dystopian scenario,
within the realm
of human activities circumstance
leaving most animals plants awash
bay sic lee lurching,
gasping, and choking
within an immense oceanic ditch
availing an alien landscape
awash with post apocalyptic
desiccated global cribbage
match, where the losing hand
would be a real *****
thus summarily, punctiliously, and merrily
describes the edifying whirlpool
life sike ****
where countless marine species will flounder
(literally like a fish out of water)
viz deadened ghyll.
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 7:39 PM UTC
I wait all day hoping for a smile
When you finally arrive, you look away
Do you hear my heart break?
I understand that look in your eyes
When you try your best to sneak a look
Do you know that I get what you feel?
Those mixed emotions on your face
When I am around your beautiful grace
Do you see how I can read them all?
The way you smile at me reflexively
Then turn around and almost slap yourself
For taking it a step closer to my dream
Do you know what that ever means to me?
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 10:25 AM UTC
A restless burning
Like acid, eats
Away at my soul
Sizzling, disintegrating
Bits and parts
Of my self, fading
At the edges
I wait, watching
Poised in the center
Of the madness
As the walls
Close in
The air growing thick
Choking me, the smoke
Suffocates, I gasp
Reflexively, but no
I won’t struggle
No
I won’t resist
With arms open
I wait
Let it come
Let the fire
Consume me
Dec 12, 2017
Dec 12, 2017 at 2:57 AM UTC