Untitled 1

Remaining unwritten, a memory.

lunita

luna
thegali
lune
moon
sits beside me
on a green satin pillow
wouldn't mind lying on antique handmade lace
now climbs onto my back
perks up her ears
simply cannot wait for her mother to come home
simply cannot understand, ever, why any of us ever part

handwritten

i have this habit of practicing my handwriting.
i like to test the shape of the a's,
the loops (or lack of loops) of my l's,
the sharpness or slackness of my y's.

sometimes, as i watch the letters marching off the page,
i feel like they have minds of their own
and i am merely following them,
dropping them into place.

OH NO

OH NO

Good thing we're on average taller.

It's not how much you win, it's who you lie to.

This is one of those poems that's an inside joke.

Honestly, I'm not gonna lie, I like poems that rhyme.

"Only dreams will become actual" said the guy that beat me.

I just wish I won my pool game.

So shall you

amidst a furious waiting, it dawns
that i have asked without precedent,
see--

i have friends who always
offer me juice.
even though there is never
juice to be had.

see i am used to those
who would undermine their pantries
just for the sake of us.

Dreaming of what I'd do to the Cheetah (from the zoo calendar picture)

I am grabbing at the face of a wild animal

Mashing and scratching and mushing up it's face

I can't tell whether i'm being affectionate

or retaliatory

Eyes closed mashing and scratching

My hands are cut from the mouth of a wild animal

it has run off and my hands are clenched

I wanted so badly to feel that wild animal's face

6 and 7 / scraps

#6

the kind of safety that is not restraining. blanket piles of sisterhood and a midnight candle lighting, to invoke what we like to want. the ocean, the young person's kitchen, just a little too cold.

#7

susan loves mermaids. and so do i! so do i, i love mermaids. i love mermaids, and my blood. the buddha is telling me, stay in this sunny long grass. the buddha is telling me, get back in the subaru. my blood is telling me, i am bleeding all over the map.

Idealist blues

Farming is hard
and water is cold
new england is cold
and melons, awful melons
the melons are cold

the philosophically non-exploitative melons. The militant melons.

we demand individualism of each other
and rosy cheeks
and it's so cold
water is cold
new england is cold
and melons, the melons, the melons

And so for seven months, and so for one hundred seventy years
and so for seven months and one hundred seventy years I've been thinking about
how nice it would be
if we could all just live together

in a new house with holes
with all of us in it
the corner a dead end; a fork
an overpass of gentle vines

To the right: an ocean of burning rafts
To the left: gas station and great snacks

I was once an Astronaut

I was once an astronaut.

I wore an odd outfit

and sought out another world

beyond here.

There are many ways

a mortal may feel

they are defying gravity.

I made a cocktail from a few of them

and blasted off

as the familiar things

fell very very very far

out of view.

Outer space was dark, cold and

weightless

the aliens I met reminded me

of wolves as they smiled and told me to

take in the view.

Maybe I blacked out.

Maybe I woke up.

But I continued to float

out, out, out of orbit.

I was an astronaut without a crew.

Floating through some wasteland

A space man without a clue.

I saw explosions and supernovas

in my brain

volcanoes and dormant oceans

new territories to claim.

I floated past dinosaurs and meteors

balls of light and sharp knives

with blades that grazed me.

Danger felt lovely

because pain was

light years away.

I awoke in a violent sweat

next morning

on a day without a date

and then dined with little green men

as the sun rose and it's black hand wiped

away the myriad of stars

like gnats.

Gravity had waited

patiently for my return.

And how heavy I felt once I returned

and found all the stars had fallen

into a smoking heap around me.

for they look much different

from down here.

two-eight-seven

"They will peck out your eyes," the Doctor said aloud, thinking of her, and Lorenzo Daza turned around to ask him what he had said.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

floods on the east tuna creek
bank
the water marks up to the ceiling on the
first floor
and thank god for whiskey, and thank god
for the rolling stones
and he comes in talking
about architecture
some three letter word
that would take out the stains
from the flood
when the water came up to the top
of the stairs of the
first floor.
cobwebbed cover and heading to dinner
hyped up from twobyfours and
talk of angles
and get paid to talk of angles?
it was like in the college days
but i liked it more then.
and i woke up
and i was covered in bruises
on my shoulder.

Lucia against a blue wall in the Yucatan

It's a wall so vividly and completely blue
it's almost as if there is no history
just Lucia, in stark relief
looking over her right shoulder
the light spreading on her cheek
and forehead, smooth except for
one worried wrinkle
she's always ironing some idea
from the pile of crumpled laundry
of letters in her illegible journals
but history lives there in the wall
and in the long blond hair, falling
in waves over Lucia's left shoulder.

self

lately i've become more self-aware

of how mired i am in self-criticism

it's snowballed into bona fide self-hatred

my self esteem, needless to say, has suffered

being the self-reliant sort

i've been paging through the self-help books

it appears i need to make self-care a higher priority

not to sound self obsessed

but i just want to feel more self assured

and escape this self-imposed hell

i've realized that my daily routines and values are self restricting

at parties i'm totally self-conscious

self-deprecating jokes my primary means of making a connection

it's just that everyone is so selfish

self-important

self-centered

it's a good thing i'm so self-disciplined

danny warned me about the dangers of self-medicating

but i can take care of myself

i can do this all by myself

my self

go to bed angry

he made me so angry today
i felt it through my whole body
shaking with rage,
spitting mad

he left the room
the rest of us sat in an uncomfortable silence

i tried to do what fitness magazine told me
sit and think about something else
don't let it stew
cool off
clear my head

when he came back
i was calm and collected
and we had a productive conversation

maybe i should read fitness magazine more often.

Walking in New York

Walking along long stretches of pavement

trained horses wrap around the park.

They feed

while pigeons hover.

We take photos

and by we I mean those who live outside

this city.

As we stroll

there are world events occurring around us

rumbling under our feet.

You are walking

we are walking

in unions and out of step

at the same -

Different

distant

but in the same city block.