so...a poem i was looking for specifically, dated January 8th 2006. for my swimming buddy.

forging through crisp water
hands slice, sculpt with
quiet pattering -
i'm an underwater thing.
i exhale, taking you
beneath surface.
but you are no fish and
sink without ceremony.



(there's a part 2 to this that's bad and emo.)

please pardon the effusive rambling/beer goggles of this poem

"Off the Map"

He was nowhere to be found,
not even in the [ ] corners
of your head.

He was not he, exactly -
someone else had replaced his absent
stance at the front bar,
closing his face on yours
and mouthing some distraction.

This did not explain
the substitution, you knew it
in the rehearsed moral of the sequence.
He tells you, slowly,
something about unavailability.
He's unavailable for now.
What could that mean?

A message in pieces,
delivered not to you:
how he, the one missing
between episodes of sleep,
found a night to be
alone, couldn't
stand what the world
didn't say to him,
that it couldn't sing.
He leapt from the N train,
the bridge-junction nowhere
close to home.
Gone in metal, or water,
the way he wanted.

Then, you cried.
Then, you wept until it woke you.
The kind of mourning which
stays, bravely, dry.

how hands are important

lifted from a journal:

i never write about that which is close- the old grief of being left now and after-- further away.

i do not have her hands; their long, straight fingers. mine curve like sloths around the branch, like fat fruit. i don't have the nose of her father, passed down to her from some roman.
not the close-set hips or impermissible mouth, her porous way of existing.

the road of our genes is not narrow, not arrow-slim.
i am not like her.

Title is something akin to... "Preparing." The subconscious ritual of preparing for, well, ya know.

When the dream arrives you
are not ready for it -

fitting the blue sashes around
your mother's wrists at the department store

entering the other place distracted,
the white paint chipping as if

there was nothing there
to look at. Entering the place

and the bed, where a slow peel
of shirt told you this was

too real: the skin, no marks, no taste.

p.s.

c'mon hubby, post something! (you know, as a distraction from your thesis)

if i write another greek allusion, i'll go barmy

she sees to the curses of men

i'm finally posting the more solidified versions of "she sees to the curses of men"-- i'm not certain about the format (division into 2 parts, etc...), so suggestions will be immensely helpful. also, the penultimate line is indented, but blogger won't show it, blehh.
_________________________________________________________________

part one

prescient proserpina already knows
every day in the meadow
is a wait. hours wander
but her path is sure. straight
stone, she sinks and
captures his hand
guilty of want
as it pulls her down

(she had been hearing the echoes of
his pacing in the long rooms
for some time)

going crazy hurts the body.

a failure of wills
the failure wills

a thin rust line when
tongue presses tooth

tasting the
merchants of the body as
they seep
neatly snipping the
feeling

the black dog fear

into strips

"Red, I said. Sudden, red."

What does this mean?

I do not mean to say these things.
I do not say these things.

They look at me and try to spoon the answer
out from under my eyelids,
from the gums of my teeth -
finding the kind of red
which does not describe
the curtain, or the bedspread.
A shade, not explained
through poetic calculation.

This logic resists
the logic of falling things.
It climbs into the hidden
orifices of my face,
pressing into darknesses
not found until
their gaze has been shut out.

le revision

so, this time, a little exposition. in japan there exists this idea of Chindōgu (read more here): an invention that really has no practical, everyday purpose. think along the lines of hats designed to help you sleep on the subway--they have suction cups at the back, so you can attach them to the train windows and keep your head straight while you sleep. or, little feather duster socks for your cats, so they can clean the floor as they walk. completely silly, yet oddly functional.

anyway, the mindset is such that inventing or designing these "unuseless" objects is not considered ineffectual; rather, that sort of creativity is encouraged-- and there's something uncanny (and frightening) of hiding behind a sheet painted to look like a vending machine. it sort of brings me back to when i was little: i would enjoy the feeling of being scared, of finding an obvious place to hide (in the shower behind the curtain; in my mother's armoire, past the coats). everyone knew i was there, but it was comforting and scary at once.
_____________________________________________________________________

"fearing street crime, japanese wear the hiding place"

not useless
the transformation from dress
to machine.
her woman's hair a
mushroom cloud aimed at deflecting
the glance of an eye,
both----

the red skirt folds out to
the shine of cheap plastic
she stands still behind--
and they walk by.
if they walk by they do
not see the shake of her
hand, the shoes poking
underneath the painted sheet
with windows flat and shining as
eyes,
but blind.

no title

all the lines begin this way, at-

a street corner, the want called

up to mouth
but lines of lamplight fall, the color
of his hair
where he is holding with a
kiss another smile
another greed
(not mine)

Speaking of old things

An old journal entry I came upon, dated March 3rd, 2007. Cynical, much?

"Feeling sorry for yourself is never anywhere to start. Upon sitting in a stiff upright chair, wanting a different place. Please, not poetry or talk of men. Slowly to retreat and not to need anything but warmth and air. Talk is something we believe is necessary. There is always ourselves, alone and disappointed in a place not made for us. Geometry surrounds like excess edge.
You begin to think about everything you could be making, every corner inhabiting, every stupid conversation not having. Everywhere there is someone not like me, everywhere things get too twisted and complicated, flaky and infuriating. Everywhere not wanting to hold this sordid banter, figure out the configuration of social nets which should really just burn to cinders. I'll celebrate with the ashes, I'll eat them for better health. There is too much noise among everything, I try not to cringe at such hypocrisy and gilded edges. I'll stop trying. Boredom will make me stop smiling - if the world is inattentive I will be inattentive and present it my droll expression. I want to paint houses and stop talking. Stop writing and waiting for something to overtake my boredom. I'll paint the walls. Or my body. Some kind of transparent color so I'd disappear completely and walk out of these doors raving mad, into the streets, all the way to a place with no cars. Where I don't have to cross streets. I'll drop all my duties as a studious human being and blend in with nothing at some beach. There will be no one, and I'd be quite happy not to deal with the rest of snivelling humanity. Room to breathe, air to eat. Socializing with fish. They have no problems with being fish, no mental frustrations. They aren't freaks like us."

hokay

some more edits. i don't know in which way this thing wants to go. bleeecchhh

after theseus

Do not pity me Catullus.
It was never I--
I who did those things you pity

the sand around me livid,
frozen into shapes like waves
and the black sails hastening
him away,
but no more--
This body was no stranger
and his madness:
born from
too many days kept within.

Immemor
sped across the sea
does not know

But I thank him for the
artifice of sleep
at least

old, mottled things. didn't really have anything new for you. this is from awhile ago, during the cello/house phase. i need to make some sort of collection for those...anyway you should post the immemor one, i really liked it. <3


how could you. she
rises whirling from the
chair. attacking the bed
with eyes,
tired.

the house has stopped
its haunting,
the voluminous pregnancy of the room
has gone.
taking the patterns
of the floor, removing them --
how could you.

a bathtub drains slowly,
the slurp of water and
now the floor is wet,
the floor is
wet.
the chair wishing for a
ghost as guest.

her eyes taking in the
water patterns, the bed --
empty chair,
emptying bathtub.

if she steps the sound
hangs limp in the air
like some kind of testimony.

i've finally done some commenting...please post more!!

i have to stop procrastinating at www.nytimes.com

"fearing street crime, japanese wear the hiding place"

not useless the transformation from
dress to
machine. her woman's hair a
mushroom cloud aimed at deflecting
the slant of an eye,
both----

the red skirt folds out to
the shine of cheap plastic
she stands still enough behind

but they walk by.
if they walk by they do
not see the shake of her
hand, the shoes poking
underneath the painted sheet
with windows flat and shining as
eyes,
but blind.