december thirtieth time

If bugs had skulls, the birds would use them as marbles.

december twenty-ninth time

they were not allowed to give us names.
the morning would somehow
taste like ashes. the sky, a shallow
plate of milk and cloud, bent
downward and chilled our noses.
the act of unbecoming did not
make us afraid; it was a slow
waltz toward the night,
but always, there was music.

december twenty-eighth time

i want my writing to be erinaceous,
but i also want owning it to be legal
in the district of columbia.

setting priorities: extremely challenging.

december twenty-seventh time

the world's most masterful hand puppeteer
could not replicate this shape:
your hand in my hand, my heart in your hand

december twenty-sixth time

sometimes, there would be marbles
in our palms upon waking. sometimes
paper cranes under the pillows and
bookmarks between our toes.
i am not sure how there were children
before children--perhaps our love
spread such a distance that it caught
small flecks of dust; small animals.
that it nourished them to commit
beautiful and unpredictable verbs:
holding, smiling, sewing
one body from two bodies:
one heart from many shades of light.


(unrelated--back from my brief holiday hiatus! woo art time every day!)

december twenty-first and december twenty-second time

*I have been in Manhattan without a computer! But there will be a return to your regularly-scheduled programming on the evening of the twenty-third.*

This was not a poem. :I I direct you to a Google Search of e.e. Cummings or Federico Garcia Lorca.

december nineteenth time

I am not entirely confident that mermaids
know the sensation of wind. I know
that water moves. I know that it
can foam and bellow. But there is this
eerie and impossible stillness of air
that water only knows if it is empty:

The mermaids cannot imagine; will not.
They only breathe in what they can
enchant first. That which listens.

december eighteenth time

these fragile beautiful products
skipping toward the ground as sore
blossoms from the branch.

the ornate, impeccable
exclamation marks of their eyes.

to be famous is to be a husk
that is simmering full and never
ever quite done. it is to be tilted
into the mouths of intimate
strangers like honey.

december seventeenth time

winter is still full of spiders.
winter knows green grass,

and rainbows, and stars
that mock the lights
on the balcony just so.

december sixteenth time

when i am king, there will be a day devoted
to pillow fort making:

the security of the art and the tradition
and the warmth will be enough. there will not
be moats, or dragons tethered to the blanket
roof, but the welcoming glow of a flashlight
moon; murmured stories of a past in which
the fortifications kept out both the bad
and the good.

december fifteenth time

a smile: my mind blinking; forgetting how to be afraid

december fourteenth time

Today, I am reposting my Facebook status here, because I think that it is important.

"I've had a few friends reference this website, and I think it's important to remember how many beautiful things are done every day. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y

Just think of how many things aren't reported, too. Every positive act matters. I will say one specific thing about today's events--regardless of how you feel about gun control, though it is certainly an important conversation, this also needs to be a discussion about how those with mental illness in our country receive treatment and how each and every one of us can discourage acts of violence by serving as a support network for those around us who may need it. A person with feelings, and thoughts, and rationalizations is ultimately the one who pulls the trigger--and that means that it isn't ONLY our responsibility to make sure that gun purchases are appropriately registered, it is Also our responsibility to avoid stigmatizing others, and to serve as a warning network if we think that someone may be a danger to themselves or to others.

This is a conversation about guns, yes. Guns facilitate mass casualties. But there will always be weapons that do that--homemade explosives can certainly do that--and that is why discussing the root of the problem, how the shooter could have become less motivated to commit the crime beforehand, is so important."

Poetry seeks to understand all points of view; a poem has succeeded at being significant if it takes us to a moment that we did not think that we could experience again, or at all. It is moments in our lives such as this that deserve poems: where people cannot understand, or do not want to understand. The shooter was a human being. He was not "evil," he was not "irreparable." He may have felt horribly, horribly alone. He may have become confused regarding what was real and what was not, or who was threatening him and who was not. If he had not had access to guns, he might have used knives. If he hadn't used knives, he might have used poison. He might have used bombs. Pain unravels. People don't generally, as I understand it, want to kill those around them from birth. They spend years--decades--being hated, and thus learning how to hate.

The only thing that begets violence is violence. If you want to stop violence, it starts in homes. It starts in schools. It starts with an act of kindness. It starts with avoiding desensitization. It doesn't start with the gun shop--guns may facilitate death, but they don't cause death. Gun control is incredibly important, but focusing on gun control also puts the responsibility for crimes such as this largely in the hands of the legislators and the prosecutors. When violent crime escalates, it is a societal problem, and it means that absolutely everyone is not doing enough. Every positive act matters, and that includes being kind, and observant, and attentive to your word choice, and a role model for those around you who may need one.

december thirteenth time

her artificial constraints

kitsch as band-aid
thrift as box
book as body
tick as tock

december twelfth time

I find it remarkably comforting that my plants know that it is winter even though they are inside. They shed and blossom and grow accordingly. It says something about one's capacity to remain true to oneself even in the most bizarre and unanticipated of conditions.

december eleventh time

i hope that my library books remember me (!)

i hope that library books hope to smell like people as much as i hope to smell like library books. old and full and loved.

december tenth time

the wikipedia page for dinosaurs says that the term,
meaning "terrible lizard," is a misnomer
because dinosaurs are not lizards. i, however,
believe it to be a misnomer because as
some of us learned from The Land Before
Time, and the Smithsonian, and years
of storybooks and puzzles with brilliant
illustrations, dinosaurs
are not terrible at all.

december ninth time

crack bones, crack jokes, crack wise

crack is a fantastically fully word, both in meaning and in sound.

crack a smile

to break open and reveal in beautiful and horrible ways.

crack whore, crack cocaine

to destroy and to create. to expose and to change.

crack up

crack(er)

kracken

(okay, maybe not the last one)

December eighth time

I want to remember everything but I want to carry my world on my back.
I want a careful, contagious aesthetic.
I want to summarize the plot without undermining the twist.

december seventh time

It seems like hope is always nestled in some kind of oddly-shaped puzzle box.

december sixth time

I am a language, and I am a house, and I am a blink.

december fifth time

I like how freshly-harvested turnips have this little row of fuzz that goes from the bottom of the turnip to the middle, like a seam, because it reminds me of a tiny person with belly hair straight up to the button.

december fourth time

i hope, someday, to be entirely made of music.

i know that what i am doing is right
if it is a move toward symphony;
if it hums and beats like a heart
but can be picked up by others--learned--sung.

december third time

Bones full of black stars;
skin full of sap.

december second time

her lack of control had compelled her
to build a tiny cosmos of terrariums:

some with plastic figurines, some lush,
some with a fine layer of carefully
controlled poisons such that
absolutely nothing could grow.

december first time

Of Hades (from the same series as the 30th poem.)

Coaxing the fresh wick of her body
from the wax of cool earth—

her eyes only fluttered. Shoulders
drooped with the still
of dark; nestling toward the heat
of my skin: like the sun. The ruptured
field disappeared behind us; horizon. Hair
coiled as vines; sweet cusp of her lips.

Stubborn as a perennial, she would not
open: only wait. Pale and replete,
shivering through averno—changing
the tide of the river styx—
only outward when her mother’s
cries tore through her throat.

To be buried, finally, both she
and I. To be consumed, a bitter herb
simmered to sweet. She is a light
beneath a door with no handle
that allows me to read and be read.
She wilts with the grace of a rose,

blushes sometimes, softens at the edges.
Everyone Wants Me to Love.
To have a winter more charitable,
a death who is infatuated and warm.

Teasing the soil of the underworld
with possibility, Persephone: a seed
kissing the dirt apart with hushed
derision. Aching toward the light.

            I have heard this called rape.
Like her, the rapeseed is harvested—
it is the most valuable part
of the crop—its delicate yellow
petals stripped
for oil. For nectar.

The rape gives: it seasons and fades.

november thirtieth time

Of Demeter (from a series I am working on based on the Persephone fable, from perspectives that are not that of Persephone.)

Chrysanthemums grew from her pores.
I clipped them with the teeth of faeries caught

by hand. She was a truth gaping out
of my chest; her laughs slashed the sky like a blade.

The elements cried and balked at her coming,
and the moon swayed accordingly.

There were seasons, then. They were like little
deaths that bore eloquent poems of dirt.

The fields turned and rolled as kites do.
They pulsed with sunflowers.


I built my daughter a chrysalis of my heart
because my bones could not wield us both.
I did not believe that she could breathe

alone. She will not have the chance.

november twenty-ninth time

I am glad that goosebumps are not made of real geese. Real geese have violent tempers.

november twenty-eighth time

he asks what four-letter
words he should not say.

                loss.

home.
oath.
hope.

mine.
live.

(jinx)

       love--

i cannot answer; my lips
are cracked. they grew swollen
with these grand unspoken
swears, and burst apart

november twenty-seventh time

bodies used to be temples. now
there is the white picket fence
of the rib cage, the golden tint
exterior of tan, the sculpted
idol of arm, leg, hip. the wrinkles
smoothed out like leaves
swept off of the porch. i find myself
lost in a suburb of carefully
mowed lawns (the hair cut just so),
the mailboxes all black and white
(the fingernails with their delicate
tips / flags hailing luxury forward),
and in this Levittown of faces
I am unsure of where the public
space ends and the private begins.

november twenty-sixth time

Is climbing onto roofs becoming less common, or am I just getting old?

Should I have this question about more things?

There is a poem in there, somewhere.

november twenty-fifth time

body as a looking-glass carafe,
body as a sack of nervous doves,
body as dream upon dream holding
hands; as scaffolding, as light

november twenty-fourth time

i call burning leaves
in fireplaces the reverse
butterfly: watch carefully,
the vibrant colors of the
newly shed leaf dull
to brown; it shrivels
into itself, curling
and rolling toward
the central vein
until it can be hung
from its stem and look
tranquil as a fresh
chrysalis: unborn.

november twenty-third time

building a sanctuary for ghosts

i would like my apartment to become
a necropolis that dances and sighs
like lace curtains caught in the wind:
the stories of the dead all brazen
and hymnful shadows kissing
the skin of my sunlit corridors.

november twenty-second time

I am drawing a bath to lure the monsters to drink.
I am stacking a pile of candy bars under the bed.

The impressive sack of money is on the closet floor
to the left of the rare vintage boots and the right
of the complete stamp collection. I am begging. I am
leaving the front, back, and side doors unlocked.

I am building a rope made of blankets, I am leaving
the hallway light off. I am blinking         often, I am
quiet and exposed, I am waiting naively: one ear
pressed to wall and another to pillow.

I need reminding--the hard way--of how
to be afraid of the dark. Of the value
and convenience of being alive.

November twenty-first time

I think of how afraid I am
of dying. How I am
remarkably interested,
notably enthusiastic,
and utterly apprehensive.

It is like the top of a roller coaster,
or like blinking slowly in the dark.

November twentieth time

If I admit to not feeling like writing anything right now, I have this notion that a unicorn will melt or that a fairy will combust or something to that effect.

november nineteenth time

being so pragmatic and so idealistic at the same time will be the end of us.

november eighteenth time

i want to give you my faults;
i am a map of a rough place.

i want to show you where
not to go. the edges of
what hands can build.

warn you of an empire that was.

november seventeenth time

wrap two sets of fingers
together like licking
the cusp of chiaroscuro
animal. bleed into
focus. kiss of foreheads
pressing gently together.
bending the scars
to form a shape.
the violence of intimacy;
this sinewy kind
of unfolding.

november sixteenth time

i'm not sure how i would replace the capacity
to build pillow forts as a nomad.

(but it does seem like an important thing to do.)

november fifteenth time

there is a brick wall in georgetown where someone has spray painted the words

"love is"

and in the space below it, people always seem to be painting over one another--
this week it says "light" and last week it said something else--
and next week it will say something else. and it will all be true, and art, and
the fact that this happens may be my favorite thing about the world.

november fourteenth time

a prayer that I make sometimes:

For a cupid to huddle at her side
and take echoparts of her bones
for safekeeping.

To translate her shade
and have its poetries tattooed
to the inside of my lip.

To dream together.

november thirteenth time

when you get older, there are more spices
and fewer balloons.
more comforters, and fewer forts.
more concerts, and fewer bees.

but i am uncertain as to whether
there are more maps, or fewer maps.
more decorations, or fewer decorations.

more kisses, or fewer kisses.

november twelfth time

It is difficult to breathe here.
There is enough starch on these
button-ups to intoxicate a slew
of minors--starching shirts:
graffiti for white collars.

The traffic bows and weaves
like a terrific ivy vine
not sensitive to wind.

I wake up earlier than God.

Something quivers by
the paper shredder. An old
young self that nods and wearies
and frets. Too afraid to speak.

My prison is full of doors.

november eleventh time

in credible


that we do not choose our own names.

November tenth time

i do not understand the birthday wish to fly.
rarely do I see people skipping, or prancing, or lollygagging

there are plenty of neglected verbs sitting on the sidelines
of our day-to-day routines--just waiting to be picked--

November ninth time

on many large trees there are
these certain strawthin
spindlethick branches
that grow straight up into the sun's
terrible and brilliant nose.

And yet, I somehow find myself
believing that the forest should be
reaching out to me--
that to grow truant
from the trunk (which i can
touch and tear with both hands)
is obscene and strange.

all of the other limbs feel
that my inner light is enough:
enough to grow a fairy in,
some ladybugs,
and other natural predators.
(I feel it.)

but not these young branches
with such vigor; such hopeless ambition.

november eighth time

trapped in the jagged fingernail of greatness--
that clings and cuts and waits to be trimmed to a size
approachable for handshakes with acquaintances
and sometimes back rubs
and often playing the guitar.

november seventh time

i often think of moving things.
of picking them up. of opening
them, of closing them,
of catching them. but rarely
of how i am touching them
each and every time--of their
textures and pores--of their delicate
bodies. this is a fantastic travesty,
and probably how humans
are made and unmade.

november sixth time

I want to bottle the essence of monsters
and sprinkle it onto my soup at dinner.

I want to grind the fangs of vampires
into a delicate pulp that I can distribute
into all hand sanitizers.

When I was small, I used to pray for the worst
because I wanted to know that I had actually
felt it. That I was justified
in feeling the way that everyone feels.
It didn't occur to me how pointless
that was. That I would never know
if the prayer had been answered.

november 5th time

the light dims from her eyes like flipping through a book of paint swatches.
there is not really choice. she is grasping at pangs of the heart as they amble
past slowly; presenting themselves as not limited, but luxurious--
extensive / fathomless /
exhaustive.

november fourth time

This is the way that vodka feels as all of the flavor is filtered out of it.

november third time

after halloween,
each jack-o-lantern deflates.

this is remarkably similar
to the human aging process:

first the gray spots, and then
the crows' feet, and then the lips sag
downward like abandoned
hammocks in winter.

november second time

wind nestling into its satisfied nooks like
the hum of a familiar song in the throat

november first time

when i touch you, i imagine drawing intricate pictures
in the velvet cushions of grand auditoriums.

halloween time

of widows

you do not need to shudder
your wings against my cheek.
nor should you kiss the bud
of my neck with a whisper
of memory like needle lace.
i know that i am not alone, because
when i close my eyes,
your breath fills my lungs
like honey--i am unable
to breathe; do not want
    to breathe.

you do not need to show
yourself--you are my eyes,
you are the light that causes
eyes to see, you are the light
that blinds slowly, patiently,
after decades and decades
of seeing.

october thirtieth time

Yawns of light rattle out
like princes among a tense
citizenry of leaves. Every morning
is an opportunity to justify a natural
hierarchy. Does the black soil stew
in its own dankness when a brilliant,
delicate son does not grace it with
a silver sliver of tongue? No. The land
grows. It mosses and mushrooms
and flourishes---it learns to dance
in the dark.

october twenty-ninth time

tender atlas of admiration
painted onto your cheeks
and walls and windows

by a self that knows how to love
in a language i wish i spoke

october twenty-eighth time

idiophone

that night, when the words
were afraid and healing,
i held you like a bell.

i braced your waist
with the palm of my hand,
hesitatingly brushed your lips;
noted the elegant rust
of your shoulder.

i was so anxious that you would hear
your own brilliance rattle
accidentally through your bones.
realize the cumbersome weight
of the yoke. that you would shake
free and forward and out like a thousand
impossible thunder songs.

i promise, i will learn
the nuances of your anatomy.
the bell is a delicate body
and i may only ring
you once, but you will resonate

and chime, and sing.

please, let me catch your tongue
awhile. you signify so many
exquisite and affected moments.

october twenty-seventh time

maggots move like accordions! maggots are nature's way of playing the accordion and disposing of rotting flesh simultaneously

october twenty-sixth time

paper multicolored snowflakes (!) redyelloworange like
the horizon is laced with kite-eating trees

october twenty-fifth time

for those situations that make us
heroic, that remind us to
know our religions and our salves,
i beg of you to kiss
your elbows, pour over
your atlas, and breathe
in a greedy lake of air--
                   to not apologize
for wanting to live--it is a warm
crush of heat before the flame's pinched
out and it spans the blink
of an eyelid. i have learned that the body
softens at death as though it is not
afraid. It is only rigid later
when the Self has eked out
between each pore like something
gently pollinating the earth

october twenty-fourth time

I will know I am content when I find myself both stargazing and cloudgazing

and watergazing

and dirtgazing

and find everything to be whole, even in breathtaking impermanence

october twenty-third time

as an environmentalist, i am glad of artificial sea glass--but the artist in me feels extremely disquieted.

october twenty-second

medusa cannot comb her hair because she would cut the throats of all of the snakes

october twenty-first time

happiness made of glass meringue,
and autumn before it is decided,
and pen ink with a dry sheen.

october twentieth time

On Zombies

Zombies have a lot of crust.
Zombies ooze like pizza.
They might have feelings
if it weren't so draining
ambling and munching all day.
Zombies are like cattle.
They are very aggressive
because their name is actually zonbi
and has been regularly misspelled
from its native Haitian creole
for the past century or so.
Zombies are a prime example
of inattention to detail.
On zombies, there are a lot of brains.

october nineteenth time

despire--to desire desperately


(I refuse to acknowledge that some asshole on urbandictionary.com thought of it first)

(I thought of it myself and I am taking it and running)

october eighteenth time

To ankles!

I see you there--the saddest part

of the body
who spent so many years in comfortable
conservative knits; your curves alluded to
at most. Always dressed in black or white
like pall-bearers and ring-bearers,

Now

I watch you twist and lust about; a
sprawling whoring place. All skin and bone:
no decadence or warmth. Your décolletage--
offensive in all seasons--perverting suspenders
and garters with each

seductive

thrust of ligament. Your

cracks and mutterings; your
persistent and unglamorous

footsies.

Look where you've come.

october seventeenth time

Of all of the things to keep in one's stomach, I love that the majority consensus was that butterflies would be the most appropriate.

october sixteenth time

There once was a frog prince who enjoyed being a frog. He was actually a frog--he was born a frog, and would die a frog. There were frog goldsmiths that crafted his magnificent crown just so because they enjoyed being frogs, and serving frogs, and wanted to support the preservation of their kingdoms through frog rituals like the queen croaking ten times on the night of succession into the king's scepter so that he would evenly distribute material as well as philosophical bounties across the land. Or swamp. Depending upon the breed of frog.


I would like to write a book of contemporary "just so" poems, a la Kipling's stories, but ideally far less politically incorrect. I wish that animals could give me oral histories in a tongue that I could fully appreciate. I worry that, someday, I will come to an impasse in which the ways of translating a cricket chirp will appear to be woefully limited.

(I don't think that I will, really! But I do worry about it.)

october fifteenth time

ways of healing:

freedom to be loud and
building a museum of feathers and
planting a tiny crop
of roses on the head of a nail.

creating movement within
your containment. fracturing
the glass bottom. glomping and
seeping out like a scab
as it grows and hardens.

october fourteenth time

A spider's web grasps at everything
and gorges on its own tendrils.

Its fly husks wave and shimmer
like food particles in a swollen mustache. (!)

It bobs and weaves in wind
like something whistled.

,

Still, its human implications :

To catch a loved one with.
Of formidable strength
and design.

Temporal. Spiritual.

One would think that we
were in the practice of sapping dry
the ones we keep for company.

Of pausing where we fit
easy. Of lying snug
in our illusions as we wait
and wait
and wait for gravity
to pull us down

october thirteenth time

I did not post yesterday--bad news bears! I will fix it, somehow. The below is missing a lot of things, but it is a schematic in my head.

- - -


The most famous song of all circuses
is called "Entrance of the Gladiators".

The master of ceremonies wears
the enormous pelt of an extraordinary
and woe-begotten Elmo. Glockenspiels pant
and jump in droves, hum with
syncopation at the knees of clowns
and babies, but the audience does not
ever take notice. The instruments are a pack
of wild dogs and are not satisfied
with only popcorn and chocolate.

The ladies
shuffle in like playing cards and tier
the seating like a wedding cake.
They wear six rings:
their fidelity changing with the
height of the seasons and width
of the surrounding top hats. The men
bet on their favorite tigers and
press the toenails of an elephant with
their heavy wooden canes.

[There are many necessary deaths
in a circus--some of the anticipated
self; some of the reals
and unreals that die with us.]

october eleventh time

This is an image by Diane Arbus. William Gedney referred to her as "a small being, physically, always weighted down by her equipment, the necessary burden".

George Szirtes describes her (in a poem) as a girl who  …seems to trust everyone and is just a little crazy,  just enough to be charming, who walks between fantasy  and betrayal, and makes of this a kind of profession.  It takes courage to destroy the ledge you stand on,  to sit on the branch you saw through.

And there are all kinds of line breaks in there, of course.

This, and the narratives of other artists that are (and who were) similar, make me unbearably happy and unbearably sad at the same time. I can't rightfully explain it, but at some point, I would like to try harder. It is the most knotted, sinewy... bizarre feeling in the world.

october tenth time

I have decided to continuously edit my entries as I think about them! For instance, I changed the one from yesterday around a bit. So, if you pay attention, you can catch my thought process in real time!

HMMM. Okay. Creative thoughts.

If you Google "Operation," the first entry that comes up is the Wikipedia website for the Milton Bradley game. This game is one of my favorites, because it disguises itself as a highly technical and science-oriented endeavor, but it is actually one of the most poetic amusements in the world.

See "writer's cramp," a pencil in the forearm. "Charley Horse," a small horse resting near the hip joint.




Amazing.


That's all I've got!

october ninth time

I would like to create an edible book because I feel as though nothing could be as satisfying as seeing people become enamored with art to the point of physically devouring it. The words would literally grow with this group--they would act as a catalyst for my audience to become taller, or fatter, or more wrinkly. These people would be forced by their bodies to use my words as energy, and when each reader would die, my words would seep back into the ground.

BUT, the words would then(!) be rich with experience and new minerals and things from the bodies of the people who ate them, and eventually the words would make it back to me because I would also be in the ground, and I would never be lonely again because there would always be this slew of migrant poems and phrases and stories approaching home.

october eighth time

on holidays

skin is like wrapping paper: its design indicates its denomination.
yes, the important thing is what is inside,
but sometimes we break that by shaking the box too hard--

there is so much aggression in the unknowing, especially when
you are a child. when the morning seems so far. it is a tradition
that sticks, and lingers, and burns with us.

october seventh time

This is a poem-a-day blog.

Each day, I am going to write some lines or thoughts or poem-like things (I am hesitant to call them poems... they might be prose-y, or lists, or something along those lines) that have gone through my head. I am not making this public for feedback (though you are welcome to comment, of course! because it is a blog) so much as to provide a space for me to be forced via routine into organizing the words bouncing around. So clearly, if you participate in any type of art at all, you know that the concept of throwing your drafts and bits and pieces of things into the public sphere is a bit horrifying. But! I think that it will be an interesting experiment, and that I will mull stuff over a lot, and I haven't done it before.

So, to summarize--the stuff here won't be even remotely polished, or complete, or particularly well thought-out. But: maybe that uncertainty will make it more interesting, and hopefully it will inspire at least one person. Somewhere! You? Maybe.

So, here is today. (The bottom two things are not related to one another.)

---

Tide Me Over, Moon

balks a shy earth
at her own bareness. Waits
to be dressed in flame, in forest: her
evening epochs. The
attempts at apocalypse every
several thousand years are no
surprise:

it is hard to be alive so long,

to be an edible machine that runs,
that dances, that shudders; knows
loss.

---

she / wet and sullen and waiting /
clicks her fat-gem-heels like a prayer,
mews and brays at herself,
claws up-the-end-street
is desperate and delectable and
runs on oil and slime and
boy, don't act like you expected
a face--you got her
palms with no lines and /
dear,
nothing else grows /
here.