"tiresias" poems
That unforgiving metal.
Within that unforgiving metal lies all the things you cannot forgive about yourself.
Those freckles on your chin that you wish would expand into a constellation so that you may give them names and so that you may give them meaning,
within that unforgiving metal.
The Greeks threw their hands towards the heavens
and deemed cosmic accidents worthy of the names of gods,
although within them lie no gifts.
Like a bedazzled and jaded Tiresias impostor one stumbles upon
on their way home,
who sees nothing but the tangible
and tells all but the truth.
Still, he is clad in diamonds and gold
and thus has value in trade.
Beauty triumphs over mendacity
and mendacity over reality.
But the freckles that mar your skin,
that you cannot transfigure into the most meaningless of stars or the crudest of answers,
sit there defiantly,
waiting to be acknowledged and waiting to be named.
You lean your forehead forward to rest against the cool smoothness of its idle twin.
You could swear you saw her sneer at you.
The freckles do not budge—they will consume you whole.
Aug 20, 2021
Aug 20, 2021 at 6:41 PM UTC
I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
I will tell you I take the long way to class
in a Chicago January
in the snow
on foot
just to finish dissecting Teenage Dream because you said that song reminds you of me
I will tell you I devote time out of my day solely to thinking about you heart heavily.
Because I am always thinking about you, fair warning.
And if I let myself indulge a week's worth of thinking of you in one minute,
maybe I can study some for my midterm in the morning.
I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
In those blindsiding instances of stark realization,
when I get a knee **** reaction putting on my scarf that still smells like fruit passion
because I made you wear it on the El platform to fend off a wind that round every corner could bend,
I will take out my blackberry, tear off my gloves, and tempt frost bite on the tips of my fingers
to send you a text that reads “I miss you.”
I won't tell you I love you when I don't.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don't.
Baby, I need not be insincere, I am not in love. Yet.
And it’s not you, and it’s not me. It is everyone else here.
Everyone else beating my brain in with cosmic signs
of Matt and Kim playing on the radio when they never play Matt and Kim on the radio.
Every poet pleading with me personally will flip their pages and I will be deemed defenseless against all odds.
I will tell you I love you, and I will mean it so fiercely
my chest will cave in upon itself thumping like a cartoon and creating a gooey mess of pink hearts.
Because you heart pink hearts.
I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
I will tell you embedded in the endless, elusive scenes of whimsy that make up my insides,
that song by The Darkness will play over every loudspeaker in the Student Center
because you paused,
you looked at me,
and you said “I love you. I really love you.”
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 12:32 PM UTC
Divided by the staff lay seven, long years. Touching and experimental moments boggled and wrestled playfully with cognition: systematic and jointed. My left hand still holds the day I changed *** My being, new to my knowing. I was supposedly cursed, but later I confessed to King Zeus the truth: women, be there pleasure rarer, feel the sweetest flowers of ********** I digress, my strike against the serpent lovers did curse me, but trapped for seven years behind soft, shifting ******* were utilized fully as I found myself wrapped in blankets of wheatgrass and sheathed in the starlight permeating ceilings of tree branches. I could be touched in every carved ***** smooth and soft. I could never tire of searching and wondering why, as a man, blind and sensed, I had never seeked true self efficacy. In those moonless nights, I’d moan my old name, sexing myself, “Tiresias, feel this and remember,” I’d say. Some crevices so soft and silent it would take me years to discover, as I found myself shouting and begging for freedom, but then would surrender to the burning that blazed anatomical layers I once conjured in my youth.
Tucked between pangs of hunger and ease of the past, I found rippling serpents that once brought me womanhood and with another strike of my staff, I morphed in regression. I believed the seven year dream, I honorable to him with my experience in this truth. I’ll continue to remember.
My body, an adventure - I discovered with myself for years.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 12:04 PM UTC
How does one climb up a mountain,
that great peak of the lover's self-doubt?
After wandering elsewhere for so long,
am I now found?
How can one convince a lover of her beauty,
nay, of her value?
I, Tiresias, though blind, could answer,
yet one must find thine own, dear worm.
Shall I tell you of that dark valley I love,
the rivulets of touch that reach down in to abandon?
When I speak of her body, she laughs;
when I speak of her heart, she tells me to shut up.
Yet, when she laughs I am overcome,
and those long nights spent speaking...cementing a meaning.
I am one apart, a man not comfortable in
full regalia, finding vulgarity resentful.
(Especially since I think myself ******
Her resentment of her own body,
how shall I convince her otherwise?
She works with children,
yes children full of the need to be heard,
yet felled by genetics and denied
the right and ability to speak.
The connection between beautiful soul,
and wondrous mind,
and body of salvation.
Longing, longing, to be whom she needs.
And yet I know that I never will be a man
with a history or a story; that arrow through family
which she clings to.
All that I am is held in these insignificant flames,
a soul meeting another
and flowering.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 5:12 PM UTC
I must have separated serpents
Somewhere along the way
Cause there I was, transformed
And I remain to this day
And how I wish
I would have felt the venom in my veins
Yeah I wish
I wasn’t the horse stuck in these reins
So I’m counting down seven years
Yeah I’m counting down seven years
Till I can reverse, or become whole
Reverse all that they stole
My situation as pariah
Became known to the body police
They came to strip me of my powers
Make me crawl on my knees
And how I wish
I would have felt the venom in my veins
Yeah I wish
I could feel both the sun and the rain
So I’m counting down seven years
Yeah I’m counting down seven years
Jun 25, 2012
Jun 25, 2012 at 9:53 PM UTC
If the Bacchae couldve dreamt of our wrecking wracking lust, it would have destroyed them with jealousy.
Tiresias could never have entwined; could never have BECOME and transformed and engulfed and devour as we.
Down with the false idols of sensuality and passion.
Aphrodite is a roadside ****
Cupid: a fat, sickened child
Mother Hera is nothing but a jealous *****
I lay down my cigarette fire sacrifice. I lay down my vanity and gladly offer a blood sacrifice of myself. All for me. To worship your body. Your lips. Your holy flame.
Hey, I've got an idea.
Let's wrap ourselves around a staff. Naked and entangled. Let me give praise to our passion.
Worship me
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 10:26 PM UTC
What could come next on this life-or-death quest;
femmefatales around every corner & turn;
‘Delicious,’ thinks Medea, staying below
in the hold; only one Hero need be
willing to offer himself for sacrifice. . . .
but which; Asclepius, Heracles, Orpheus,
Argus, Tiresias, Theseus or perhaps
even Jason himself
Medusa, a ravenous wild thing, smells invasion
‘This spoils my plans & it stops here and now,’
Ever the rebel she'd been planning a new temple,
Unknown & in secret to be dedicated to nature;
for so long viperous and royally maddened,
now at midnight she hears the mystical lyre,
one string or one thousand, playing near;
Medusa feeling molten, suddenly must stop
gyrating on drunken satyrs’ laps as they throw
Leaves & make it rain on every nymph
throughout her dripping wet forest playground
lying down, she calls for her helpful maidens
Who sweetly rub her from temples to toes
With Nectar of Tiger’s **** and Librium,
which causes true disaster, her legs shuddering,
Her body quakes; the earth itself erupting
with quivering pulsations; the heroes knowing
Well what this all means as all has been
foretold on the ancient stone tablet;
For now though, the heroes of the Argo have
yet to encounter Calliope & the other
nefarious goddesses of her retinue; Muses,
fairies, furies, harpies, nymphs, queens, witches, etc....
by Medusa & Johnny Noir
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 8:03 PM UTC
I love you like Zeus loves his cow-eyed wife
As Cronos, scared and jealous, loved his young
Like Agamemnon cherished afterlife
And Creon prized his niece’s nimble tongue
My love is like an ocean full of sharks
Where mortals fly too high upon wax wings
My love is Oedipus kept in the dark
The Minotaur to Theseus’ string
I see you with Tiresias’ eyes
A play with no deus ex machina
Hephaestus’ lust to wise Athena’s thigh
My heart as blessed as mother Hecuba
Though from your mythic love I’m left irate
I cannot use a word so strong as ‘hate’
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
Alguien recorre los senderos de Ítaca
y no se acuerda de su rey, que fue a Troya
hace ya tantos años;
alguien piensa en las tierras heredadas
y en el arado nuevo y el hijo
y es acaso feliz.
En el confín del orbe yo, Ulises,
descendí a la Casa de Hades
y vi la sombra del tebano Tiresias
que desligó el amor de las serpientes,
Y la sombra de Heracles
que mata sombras de leones en la pradera
y así mismo está en el Olimpo.
Alguien hoy anda por Bolívar y Chile
y puede ser feliz o no serlo.
Quién me diera ser él.
450
**** and fire. The smells of food and drink:
desire. Small handprints on the rocky womb
mark where we began to want — to think —
before we left our ignorant stone tombs,
tossing rocks behind us, where thoughts arose.
Memories awoke to chide us. Confide
in me: who was the third, the thornless rose,
you held between your teeth? Don’t try to hide
from me. There are some things the blind can see,
and I have known them all — and told them all.
Flowers grows where tears flow like a stream,
and soon, if you don’t speak, these vines will fall
across your eyes. I recall a stolen kiss:
tasting the words before you could confess.
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 9:12 AM UTC
A dozen hooded faces:
red.
Plain-blooded assertion:
"I am only self-assured for
checkout".
Chorus
or Operator:
neither under registry.
Feb 8, 2019
Feb 8, 2019 at 12:04 AM UTC
Where have you gone
My thin trans friend
Internet companion
Daily confidant
Whose conversations
I enjoyed
Beautiful and dark
I miss your art
I miss the part
Of early mornings
Wondering and hoping
That you sent me
A message to read
Two times you left abruptly
Scared the **** out of me
But you came back online
How I tracked such times
Glad to find you alive
But your third departure
Seemed to be permanent
So I stalked your facebook
Just to take a one last look
And make sure you were still breathing
Make sure you were just leaving
Me and not life
Now knowing all is alright
I say goodbye to a memory
Of someone dear to me
Heartbroken but relieved
That you are alive
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 9:13 AM UTC