Hereford meets Springtime
Hereford meets Springtime, furtively at first,
passing snowdrop-notes in the hallways,
winking green and brushing shoulders with
the yellow-white-purple crocus.
Full infatuation erupts in public
displays of daffodils and forsythia,
the lunch-time dramas of rainfall
amidst nods and smiles from the pansies.
Love takes root dandelion-deep,
despite unpredictable temperature fluctuations,
and explodes in a burst of cherry-pear-plum
fairy-petal blossoms.
Hereford and Springtime hold hands,
their shoes covered in mud and grass,
while the lilacs awaken
and e
Cotton Balls
She hides treasures in the cotton ball jar:
buttons, shells, favorite crayons,
and once, the skull of a bat she found outside the garage.
Mother inevitably finds them,
reaching in the jar for a fluffy squeak of cotton
to remove her nail polish.
She pulls out cerulean blue or red violet,
a piece of purple quartz, and once
her own emerald ring.
That was the worst time,
worse even than the bat skull.
Mother yelled and threatened the removal of all crayons,
shells, rocks, and grocery store machine jewelry.
She tried to stop that time,
kept her hands off the jar for two whole days,
b
Geometry
In high school geometry, we learned
the triangle is the strongest shape,
while Melanie played the turtle,
crawling about the classroom
in a shell of desk.
In college, we learned
human relationships are not geometry.
Not all triangles are isosceles.
Fewer are right,
and even fewer beds
comfortably fit
three moving bodies.
Now I am suspicious of all maths.
You approach, calculating
one and one and one make
I count my fingers.
There are one too many threes in this equation.
Solstice
My baby likes a cold, chocolatety milkshake on the longest night of the year.
Mason-Dixons so close, he says, incisors gleaming.
My baby thinks all the pagan holidays are excuses for sex.
He ignores his cell phone, leaves the lights on,
and always craves fries afterwards.
So my babys scarf-wrapped and smiling tonight,
with January so far away.
The fake leather booth chills his legs,
but hes dreaming about Equinox tonight.
The cookie-making impulse always strikes at night,
the colder and darker the better.
The scent of chocolate-chip mish-mash is irresistible,
licking off the beaters,
filling the house with cookie-warmth.
You might be sitting on the couch,
(in fact, you probably are)
reading, or watching television,
when it hits you upside the tastebuds:
semi-sweet chocolate waiting for you,
in the cabinet, behind the pots and pans,
hiding from Dad.
(Dads not supposed to have sweets;
if you make the cookies, youll have to hide them, too,
and you really ought to have made them before he got home from work.)
The thought of those tiny li
She stirs the milk into her tea,
dreaming of big noses and overalls,
licking honey from a spoon.
Its raining again, the drops
tapping out enchantments
to keep the world quiet and gray.
She remembers muddy feet,
the warmth of hands on her back,
the weight of two bodies in her bed.
The fog huddles against the windows,
dragon-like, and she settles herself in
for another hundred years.
Little bird, youre a god to my girl.
Shes all lap and fingertips to you,
a veritable human playground;
she incites you and excites you,
and you, full of nips and quips,
comfort her dark heavy days.
Comfort me, little bird,
like her, if its so easy
Its as good as golden apples
slipping from a belt
to fast-running girls.
Newspaper Clippings
We are reduced to this:
a newspaper clipping, a photograph,
an old recipe.
What lies they whisper to coffee-dampened ears.
Disguised as history,
hiding their half-truths in yellowed pages
and brittle bits of tape.
These are our lives, outlined:
birth announcements to obituaries,
a collection of bloodless facts.
drought
We look to November rains to save us,
but they only mock our fields
while the banks of the reservoirs widen,
earths own chapped lips.
We are dry: dry hands, dry hair, dry eyes;
we cannot afford tears this year.
We cannot even sweat.
Our lips like earth,
we seek moments of moisture,
tongue to tongue.
Together we can pretend
the drought has passed.
The Liberation of Nick
Nick carves himself into my chair
Pretending that I'm not there
While heavy and still hangs the air
Around my body, in my hair
But Nick, Nick, he does not care
Of me he is unaware
And I as well am unaware
Of every other wooden chair
Angled with excruciating care
Students scattered here and there
Fidgeting with their dirty hair
Breathing in polluted air
But Nick, his solemnizing air
Renders me solely unaware
As I watch his long dark hair
Cover his face, brushing the chair
He concentrates on his carving there
Himself he carves with such care
And I, ignoring any care
Reach forth my hand into the air
An
Last Words - attempted pantoum by amyfae, literature
Literature
Last Words - attempted pantoum
Last words (attempted pantoum)
And this is all I have to say:
The words I speak don't mean to me
The things they meant just yesterday
For here I find discrepancy
The words I speak don't mean to me
The same as what they mean to you
For here I find discrepancy
In what is false and what is true
The same as what they mean to you
Is more or less a jaded jewel
In what is false and what is true
I see that I'm a simple tool
Is more or less a jaded jewel
But everything I've left behind?
I see that I'm a simple tool
Manipulated by your mind
But everything I've left behind
I still remember clutching near;
Manipulated by your mind
I d
Corners
She smears lotion on her legs and tries to
relax, lies back and considers all the Latin
words for death. This gives her a headache
and she washes her face with oatmeal soap
cold water kiss ssik sick ckis. She almost
vomits, her shoulders tense, her stomach knots
her eyes water and it is over. The mirror chases
her out with cool wet hands on sweaty neck.
You fevered beside me and I would have given
common dollars and cents to see your delusions
hidden behind closed lids. deluge shuns
day loose sons but you kept to yourself and
turned a bright burning back to my back
my to back burning bright so I caught yo
Eros' Madness
This is my analysis:
I am hurt.
I am confused.
And if I could blame this pain
this madness and disease
upon a mere petty-god ~
Oh, if only I suffered from Eros' cruel arrows.
I am hiding, me and mine,
in myths of the past, where I
assume superiority. I giggle
at you, poor afflicted Habrocomes
and Anthia (she too, in a bad way).
If Eros only bestowed his jealousies upon me.
I know something of love,
something of lust,
and little of life.
I can fill a page with trite euphemisms
imagine myself intellectual, philosophical
end up (soph)moronical.
I solve nothing, needs
Latin:
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Modern Translation:
Let us live, Lesbia, let us love
Let\'s ignore the vicious old men
with their vicious rumors!
The sun sets and rises again
bu
Latin:
Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
pectat et audit
dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
eripit sensus mihi; nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
………
lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
lumina nocte.
[Otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est;
otio exsultas nimiumque gestis;
otium et reges prius et beatas
perdidit urbes.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Modern Translation:
He, that dream-shadow of me
sits across from you again and
like a god he sees and hears all
that you are
Swee
Realizations:
there becomes a time, late,
a weekend at the end of February
when a girl knows that she is has broken.
she has been breaking
since the turn of the year but she now
feels the fissure when a boy's hand
rests on her stomach.
the texture of red velvet cake
or black velvet shoes cannot
enhance a romantic relationship and
even the sweetest icing leaves sugar trails
on sweatshirts and in hair.
an understanding of poetry is not required
in a poet, or often desired.
what is desired to lock one's words
uptight in small wooden boxes with diary keys
found centuries later, centiens
that contemporary translators might
piec
Couch
He had a couch like no-other-man
wide-like (that couch) long-like (that couch)
facing front-and-center
200 - channels - television (with weather
starring Jeanetta Jones, the infallible
Jeanetta Jones, all-weather girl) after girl
on that couch crouching
beneath Mom and Dad's nevermind
(the perfect cheerleader-meets-football-player
marriage) that couch met his match every
time every month every arched-back
bare-legged soft-lipped girl (and some)
over (again) and through (again)
right in back-yard glass-door view so
that younger (not so much) brother too (not
For Lesbia
Pulchra puella, who are you really?
When you were Clodia, could others see you separate
from a pining poet, a slave of inspiration
what words did he ever whisper to you
He stands tongue-tied and blushing, too nervous to speak
and you counting your gems
your lines of suitors, unaware of the frantic scratchings
of a fevered pen.
His was a touch amongst many
and she gave him no less no more
than any other
She learned to be her own sun
and drowned her thoughts in rippling laughter rippling
she shone for herself never
she never intended to outshine anyone.
He raises her on clouds of wor
Version 1
Let's be fair about this – if she's got my
heart, I should get hers.
Or at least at least
give me a real reason to love her.
None of this love-at-first-site first-bite new-light
nonsense. There's gotta be
a better reason than that.
I know, I know:
I'm asking too much again – just let her let me
love her – how about that, Venus?
even that even that would be so much
Take me – I'll be your slave.
Take me – I know how to love.
you. Faith – full – ly you'll love it.
You're worried about my family?
Alright, so I'm not top-of-the-line,
but – but: I've got the gods behind me,
Phoebus
Narcissus, or Please Follow Me by catching, literature
Literature
Narcissus, or Please Follow Me
And this?
This is asking:
. Oh great thought!
Great mirror!
Mine is no more a body than
? I thought, and thought
I was asking between
two unmarked worlds, like roads.
I could take you, too.
I could carry you through two lives:
one which builds, and so bursts
godly open and ruins at last.
One which was ruined (all along),
I suppose.
Thinner
Every time they see her
looking thinner: there is
less to hug
until she's transparent to
herself: until she's
thick as paper and
better
blanker
for writing upon
Current Residence: out yonder Favourite genre of music: stuff I can dance or sing to Favourite photographer: echo-si Personal Quote: All these shapes are the problem. I need to break out of this geometry.
Favourite Visual Artist
momentarily matisse
Favourite Writers
e. e. cummings, catullus, ovid, Lewis Carroll, Neil Gaiman, etc, etc...
Baby write something, anything. Write about shadows on dirty snow, or due dates, or rain that doesn't stop for weeks on end and ruins the best part of summer....