"stonewashed" poems
I have on a pearl necklace, the beads like cabbage
stonewashed by sun
and sitting upon this veranda I
watch wind feather a hilltop where your sister
lost her virginity to a man while she was but a girl –
the sort that marries nothing besides memories.
She would wear what I do if I remember correctly.
Your sister had taped posters on her wall
of which she would stay up late to kiss goodnight –
I heard their rustle
through the plaster, through your hair covering my
neck when you hid me next door
pouring my secretions onto your mattress.
Somehow, she was younger and older than you:
chopsticks in her whiskers twice your age
**** a scalp whose hardly brushed one’s headboard.
You and I, on hiatus
and she and I were always clean –
skimming our knees together while you had another
girl in the shower-stall, who cried when
she ate a sandwich
or abbreviated the name I wished never would end.
In the valley, the willows cut a dress your sister would
wear with my pearl necklace, and
I think I will marry my memories, too, if not you.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 8:06 PM UTC
how many emptied cups of coffee?
how many crumpled papers littering around?
how many broken bottles of beer?
how many cigarette stubs flattened on the ground?
how many stonewashed mornings?
how many sleepless nights, empty and dull?
how many will it take to forget you?
tell me, how many?
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 2:22 AM UTC
Buddha was the broken hourglass
that spilled seconds across my backyard.
Mother Earth scolded him for his slipup,
so I smoothed her over with my minute hands.
She told me that he who skips an interval
needs to double back his ticks
so, grain by grain, tick by tock.
She rewound my hands to round out
the stonewashed garden that was being fabricated.
So I steadily swept shards of seconds
under the rugged rug of ill will.
I riddled ripples within her granular skin,
skidded stones across her carved clock
face fitting ****** features together like cogs.
Buddha shook the soil off
and fixed his gaze on my clockwork.
He explained that patience is key
if one wants to harvest his feast.
Before the goods go about,
pivots and rivets need to tie together.
Mother Earth collected her thoughts
and agreed with his concept.
I finished my work, stepped back,
admiring the hourglass I rebuilt.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 9:24 PM UTC
They all smoked in the garden
that night. Inhaling the chemicals,
the manic whirr in the lungs
of something toxic. Everybody there
wanted a piece. Their own segment
of you to cup in their hands,
taste whenever they pleased
as if you were red wine.
They wore woolly shirts
and stonewashed jeans. Bare feet.
Looking at you, a valuable gift
up for grabs. Voice like liquid gold.
Wishing you’d pick them
over the others, point a finger,
claim your prize. You had a hold
on their heartstrings and didn’t know it.
They said you were unattainable,
that you were hidden behind glass
and couldn’t be touched. Anger bubbled
between them, red kettle-hot.
Raised voices papercut the air.
I could understand.
You were glorious, untarnished.
A cleaner mind and cleaner arteries.
It was a rare and confusing thing
for them. Blonde hair, blue eyes
made their thoughts turn to flour.
You were sweet when all
they knew was acidic,
like a chunk of lemon
under the tongue.
As they squabbled in silence
we spoke. And still
they continued to smoke.
Nov 4, 2016
Nov 4, 2016 at 7:19 PM UTC
I am under a rusting fountain smoldering
Smoldering, mold, brownish residue
That felt your casual heartbreak yesterday
And last week
And every year
You used to climb the tree over there and look up into a stonewashed autumn sky
When there were no more books to read
You lost your first tooth in his neighbor
All the trees you named after characters from an epic story
That you left behind when you turned 12
Along with your hopes of success as a lone wolf or warrior
You called me into your thoughts just again this morning
I wriggled inside the room trying to get you to notice me
But your body was still and focused, no longer lacking
There was a timeout and a fear of rabid animals
There were ideas about how to deal with terrorists on your home turf
There was a dead snake in the woodpile
There were tiny embroidered cherry blossoms in heaps of laundry for your dolls
There were ugly apples falling onto the deck in September
I can’t help you anymore
Despite my admiration for how you’ve changed
Drop the dead leaves back onto the undergrowth for someone else to pick up
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
True Freedom - is not caring, then you can be yourself.. perfect homeostasis and then you meet yourself. Once the pain and healing has commenced and you can just be... but not lazy be, rather be progressively wanting and thirsting for more knowledge and hungering for the type of profound human spirit connection that is simply praised and written about amongst the ions of time... be the illusion that continues to protrude as an immovable and unstoppable being..
Being you for who you are now, being here now and allowing somehow the alternative and negative particles to deflect off of you like a magnetic field of holy grail.
To where the greatest pain would not Be, rather Not to Be.... that is the one and only question for the beyond that I ponder and abscond and venture away from thee until that almighty question of eternity comes upon me...
Lying at my feet right up until the day we meet is and obtusely arranged calligraphy of three
And it reads like the dough that it kneads so roughly and obscene like non-stonewashed jeans until they gleam and beam like a ufo stream up into outer space please take me away from this place.
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 1:56 AM UTC
where are all of these women
who wear stonewashed jeans
and buy air plants
for their Scandinavian apartments
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 11:30 PM UTC