Elliptical

Elliptical

where did the day go?
I walked in an anesthetizing circle
a r o u n d,
a r o u n d,
and then was
interrupted
by the clock,
by the sidewalk,
by concerning friends,
by the flame,
blazing riotously behind me,
disbelieving as
it devoured the guideposts back
and now there is me,
with fire raging rampantly inside.
now, doused and scorched
beginning again,
walking in a numbing circle
coiling around the ashes.
nearing the end.

september's son

Seeping into me every year
as the September sun fades
seductively subtle dancing around me,
like a shop girl,
persisting, insisting
but I'm resisting her pleas to change
I become me
the wilted withering wallflower that doesn't quite blend...
amongst the Lilies, a real tumbleweed
pulled from my roots by the harsh audacity of
f.......... a........ l....... l...... .....
driven-
rolled about by the w i n d
aimlessly wandering,
wondering
while that pop.you.liar
stream of consciousness drifts past every October ...
November
halts
with the refracted reflections
in store windows toting the invitations
of preciousness and precocious precariousness,
that wears like vintage fashion on the minds of the hopelessly ordinary who've never
felt
anything
beneath the surface.
I don’t need your under.standing
or pieces of your kindness, sacked,
like brittle glass beads.
I’ve got my protean-self to reinvent;
like last decades jeans.

Labels

Labels

I am labeled a
little girl
seen and not heard, dressed in pink and pretty smiles
emotions veiled so I cannot rant the truth
and the seething bitch in me is curtailed.

and when you failed to be a parent,
I was labeled CASE #125774

reduced to a number-
the little girl doesn't exist anymore-
the rooms are overflowing
so he fixed me a bed on the floor,
slithered inside me and made me his whore
and when I played nice with wifey, I settled the score
only to be labeled abandoned...
it's printed on every inch of me
as I am passed from one home
to the next
one bed
to the next...

a pivot girl at your request.

Label my body
too this, or not enough that.
I will not be dressed and objectified,
like some paper doll.
Label me Angry… Damaged… Dirty…

I will peel them off, pick at the residue
and dangle them adjacent to the snapping, licking flame
and watch your insecurities and ignorance,
your pride and your prejudices, curl into smoky spider webs

and I will tear through them every time.

unraveled

I laughed when you tore
the Sun’s astrology pages
into strips of confetti,
and flung their false sentiments
from the balcony,
where they settled in muddy puddles
like marooned white petals
soaking up filth.

Delighted by your encyclopaedic
recall for facts, dates, explanations –
I would lean over your shoulder,
a vague toddler;
asking and finger-jabbing
as you doodled diagrams
on beer mats.

We’d switch off the History Channel
half-way through documentaries,
knowing you had already gone
beyond their bite-size range
and could expand upon it all
with greater finesse.
The television became
a discarded object
towards which all our furniture
had mysteriously gravitated…

It was unnerving, to be this sudden
symbol of exposed ignorance;
a precarious flamingo
with no leg to stand on
as knowledge stampeded through
each one of my barren gorges.
Even the admitted-to gaps in your wisdom
offered little hope for a future
in which we erected bridges across them;

I was too far behind,
could only gather
the dust and olive branches
marking your trail
whilst you galloped ahead
in search of bigger and better materials.
I took refuge, “as-per-fucking-always”
in shelves of fiction – something you,
lacking imagination,
continued to dismiss
as a complete waste of time.

It wasn’t just a need to be
sucked into alternative dimensions;
it was to convince myself
that aspirations of becoming a literary intellectual,
if nothing else, were within reach. Worlds where
you couldn’t follow – refused to – I revelled,
and filed their titles for later use.

It was my little scrap of dignity:
to reign supreme
in an exclusive corner of academia;
to know I could
bowl over your bluster
with a litany of classics and writers
and linguistic terminology.

I exercised restraint
with your grammar, reserving
red ink underlines
for internal triumph and emergencies.
Over-brimming with science,
you ruined rainbows for the kids;
sneered at my love affair with the sky.

Fucker.


“Pets do not love their owners.
The illusion is merely a result
of operant conditioning.”

Quite.

Thanks for the enlightenment, dear.

divorce

inversions and metric conversions and numbers
slipping back and forth
undulating through time
in a third
a second-
time to burn, to breathe,
chanting. searching. for a...repose,
define me
in the darkest of landings
flat-bottomed boats traversing the catacombs
and I need you
to need me
to need this to all
end.

over.
over and out.
like a walkie talkie game

the sweetest sin

You pray that jesus will visit me,
and help me to save myself
from abomination


I laugh...

my bed covers are tossed like confetti
a naked woman lay asleep in my bed,
spent
empty beer bottles, an exhausted bag of weed
and a myriad of clothing
artistically adorn the room
like an interior designer
who makes their living
stuffing silk flowers
in "genuine" crystal vases

is there really enough of my
sex-starved body left for Him to pull
from the pool of indulgence?
what, with it being so overfed with sin
binging on the touch of a
woman's hand, fingers...
lips
and the sweet taste that lingers on my tongue...


breasts touch breasts
the shape of a heart
draws itself in the space separating
racing organ from
racing organ
blue veins, red arteries
bursting like over-ripened
strawberries at the mercy
of her fingertips

necks arching elegantly
from cotton clouds of
sweat and estrogen

we were both as beautiful
as Cleopatra when our eyes
met those opposite

snow

free write challenge comparing a person to snow.


He is snow. Much loved, yet ice.
A trembling touch
He fits the palm of my red hand.

But he, is snow - and he crumbles
Under reckless weight
Of those who feel snow is a game

He is snow. Hardened, hollow
From a dark, cruel night
Quaking under a fragile moon.

He is snow, with a desire to be melted.
He couldn't be held
Long enough to be understood.

Fire and Ice could never co-exist
Yet how they loved
And longed to be more permanent.

framed.

I see you
Framed in every window
Of those houses
Stretched in front of me;
As their curtains ache
For a tender brush of your skin.
Your smile aimed only at me
Turns to that smirk,
And I shrink
To dust,
Like the ashes
Of the joint-
Inhaled deeply,
The way only you do...

Breathe me in.

lucky girl

Check your smile
in the blemished mirror
And give your pride a rest.
Lucky girl.
Swinging hair
Yearbook smile
All the while, she’s drifting inside
like tissue papers in the wind.
( Swirling, twirling, lost and gone.)
Lucky girl.
Hides her pain
with a sweetly glossed grin
to cover the bruised lips.
Always on the fringe,
beyond the outskirts.
Lucky girl.
There's have-nots and haves.
courses in naivity, envy and how to jaded 101,
where witty come-backs play like a soundtrack
Popularity is roulette for a
Lucky Girl.
There are those who know and those
who'll never learn.
The residue of everything she’s always wanted,
but that somehow slid right past her,
concealed under her too sugary
cotton candy fingernails.
Confidence borrowed from
a denim coat and poet’s lace.
A vision of togetherness
(falling all apart)
Her face, she doesn’t want you to recall.
Her laugh, you won’t forget.
Lucky girl wears sadness like a Homecoming
corsage.

fear

Punishing each tear with
the back of my hand
each tear that falls,
avoiding eye contact
afraid
of the words that will spill
from my lips
holding my breath
at each set of approaching footsteps
and
expecting to find him
on my front step
or behind the shower curtain
and at the end of every dream
I fight to escape
but cannot.

mountaintop

Let me wake the stars
with a song
from a mountaintop retreat
let me meet my Master, my tao in
the wise hills
When the moon is a sliver of silver
let me pen my wishes in the earth’s soul.
Strength from the smallest wave
ripples into my prayer
making me one with Yaweh.
The wind is breath, I live.
The echoes in the valleys are my courage, I dance.
The whisper of leaves are my peace, I’m free.
When the last star yawns its waking
I will have found my will
Here.

beneath the dust

Beneath the dust,
the cast off faces and places are exposed,
memories surface like trinkets
and sink.
snippets of a grin, a game, of youth
indolent grace.
a locket of recollections, resolutions, reinventions
[of rage, to escape, to survive]
generations of photographs
generations of unspeakable abuse.
I see myself,
among their faces and places
now cast off ‘neath the dust,

though sometimes I wish I didn't.

peeling an orange

I love to peel oranges, especially navel ones, because the skin is so thick and it makes that gratifying little sound, like...pffttt when you first pierce the skin and the orange mist spray gets all in your face. I had to study it for a while. Anyway, back to my point...
So, I decided I was going to peel my orange and try to keep the whole skin intact, not pulling off any pieces, just making a little opening, just enough to pull the orange out in a whole ball, but all the skin still intact. The skin is this perfect ball, just sitting there, like a husk. I can see the stamen sticking up through the center, it’s so beautiful.
The process was so meticulous in and of itself. I rolled the orange in my hand to loosen up the juices, I could feel them all pressing into the orange. Then I pierced the skin with my fingernail. I worked my finger into the orange and loosened all around the skin, breaking the little white veins that hold the fruit like a net. Then I just worked to move it out of the space I had created.
And now I'm admiring my orange peel ball. It feels a bit like a basketball, round, of course, but the surface is slightly bumpy and sorta...hmmm...smooth? Can something be both bumpy and smooth at once? The top of the bumps sorta feels smooth perhaps, making it feel like a second surface beneath my fingertips, which by the way have that sharply sweet tangy smell to them.

But this orange is...just like a woman, strong...full of mystery and wonder and complication; complete with a little baby, clinging to her side. Peeling oranges is an art, a celebration of citrus and of the wonder of life, the mysteries of womanhood, and of beauty in the oddest and most simple places.

earth

They were right about this planet, you know:
it's a flat-screen
and we droop across its landscape
like the dregs of a 3am house party
[cans, cups and trash strewn about, bodies slumped
in euphoric bliss];
exhausted but triumphant to be awake
in unnatural light.
Dim glow buzzes
through the ashtrays and grease
and our stares are those of zombies
or babies,
unable to support our own skulls
or do anything constructive without being prodded.
Disaster strikes and
we swap it for the more digestible
colors of cartoon energy;
continents could crumble and we would merely
change the channel.
Don't we all [secretly]
wish for an international remote control,
so that we could point – zap – and
silence the constant violence;
the senseless;
the too-complex;
the it’s-all-our-fault-I-guess;
ourselves…overall,
this big global mess?

photograph of lies

Self Loathing topped
With false confidence
An ice cream sundae
Of deceit and doubt

Perfection projected
from photoshoped images
a portrait of family
Conceals a nightmare of reality

Ironed on expressions
Forced smiles not meant
A flash of supposed to be
Placed on the wall for the world to see

Photograph of Lies...

they ask about my religion...

I sit underneath
a dirty fluorescent light,
that hums with a vibrato
I can feel in my throat,
speechless.

I'd like to tell them
I saw Darwin and Jesus
sitting at the bar
arguing about
what the meaning of life should be
until they got drunk
and went home,
together,
to work on creation.

I'd like to tell them
it doesn't matter
because we will all die
in hope of peace
broken in pieces...
because most wars are fought
over religion.

I'd like to tell them
we'll die
under the heat of the moon
and the pall of the coffin
will be our midnight sky,
that our sins will remain unwashed;
that there's a beauty in
revealing to ourselves and the seas
that we have been unclean.

I'd like to tell them
there's strength
in knowing that you alone
are responsible for your life,
no one to blame
or pray to
and that forgiveness
isn't always granted.

It would be easier to tell them
about my lord and savior

except I don't have one
or want one.

74

All around us
Lights stream
Blazing trails of sovereignty.
Along the darkened forests edge
Women wander
In the wonders of
This Eden

On the seventh day
They'll all spin out-
The beauty will recede
Innocuous and nimble
And we'll each fade into
Our alternate existence...

But for now, there is this...

If I could still this moonlit moment
Between clean sheets of mime and melancholy,
slumbered by creeping shadows,
The night would hold itself
Like untouched inertia;
No breath, but a star-stained sky.

Big Top

2 minute "Michael Jackson" free verse challenge.



When he
touched-down
on the moon

madness rotated
some distance
beyond

& the media glare
from telescopic
spyware
singed a hole
in the sun’s
stellar core

it was distracting -
and disheartening
and sickening,
but the boy danced
his way through

interrogative flashes
paparazzi surging
upon doorsteps

like wasps
colonizing
a secluded picnic

much more absorbing
than the current
state of the world

so stick fingers in ears
& gawp

at the shiny-shiny
neon lights

the circus has come to town.

porch swing

I see my mother.
But only in puzzle pieces:
the cotton blue shirt with its threebrown-eyed buttons,
a barrette or stiff loafers worn to softness.
Within this interlude,
she swings alone
offering her weary arms and legs
a rest, liberated from
handicap's titanium
so that she
is now gliding on the breeze
the slow "c are I t c hhh- c are I t c hhhh"
of the glider's squeak
creating a rhythm to her anecdotes
and song.
She created that rhythm two-fold
one for each of us, a soundtrack from adolescence
to adulthood
just as she perfected it
summers and springs before.
With each day that passed we
became the only trophies
she longed to win.
And as I recall her countenance
behind my reverant eyes
and her song fighting for its
freedom in my closed mouth,
she is re-incarnated as
the bulb's annual blossom
or the ceaseless chant of the locust.
I search my face and yours,
for those things misplaced
and forgotten.
Sure as days that passed on the calendar
and as real as the idleness in my cupped hands,
as cumbersome as the basin in my soul,
I know.
There are ten lifetime's ways to live and love within each of us.

sunflower

I coil heavily,
just as a sunflower
bows her head
into the sun.
rising still
to a farther light,
beyond which
my eyes witness-
my roots dive deeply
into the abundant bluegrass below me
seeking my origin
my source
my strength...

even the wildest flowers
need to know from which they blossom...