I. Am. Very. Awake.

clippity clip clip

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so. awake. going to be one of those nights.

Anyway, reading through some stuff I wrote back in the day.....poems and such from college (freshman year through senior). Some are pretty intense. Makes me realize, yet again, how resilient the human heart and mind are. Remember those times you were so sad or so angry with everything that you literally thought you might die? And then, without even knowing how, you make it through. And life rocks once again. And that's beautiful.

I'll share a few of the pieces I'm sifting through tonight..most will remain unread by any other human...ever. But here are some of the tamer musings...


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The Exquisite Corpse Will Drink the Young Wine

[January 2009]

I re-member the body of my past
trying to compartmentalize the smells,
tastes and souls of my twenty-three
years. 8, 627.5 days and counting,
207,038 hours and tick
tock
tick
tock
to record.

The pulse of time
rocks me to sleep
only to hastily pluck me
from my ensconced unconsciousness.

A Rubik’s Cube of entangled visceral
videos

some embedded, others hanging by a fraying
thread. I have no agency
in their whereabouts.

Recalling the ghosts,
my brother tells me, is a noncore act
of the grappling mind.

But I like to wear them, these memories
of mine. They are pockets, buttons, zippers
and sleeves.

My grandpa’s hand
cupping the nape of my neck. Age
nine.
Cardigan on my right shoulder.

Autumns of my youth reside
within my clavicle. In the winter,
wool sweater on my belly.

Robbers and cops
with the neighborhood kids, the sun
resting crimson sweeps
at eight in the evening.
Towel around my ribcage.

The camel sand dividing
gelid lake and tepid reservoir. Shrieks of delight
racing to the end of the peninsula. Finding a point
continuously eroding.
Paint on my toes.

Bright stage lights
and shiny Marley floor. Sweat crawling
down my spine and chest. Ears picking up
the sound of hard toes carrying graceful bodies.
Shawl across my upper back.

Warrior toxins blazing through
her crepe paper veins. I stare
into the whiteness
of my dorm room. Bloodless fingers clutching
the receiver trying
to touch the voice in my ear.
Scarf hugging my throat.

Eyelashes, tongue, skin,
thighs, knees, organs, and the base
of my spine.

Adorned.

Tick, tock
tick
tock.

I play
with these fossils;

pieces in
a round of Tetris.
Rearranging
these stories I sing
to myself.

*******************

Crunch

[May 2008]

Like brittle nature under man’s foot
but this time it’s live bone snapping
beneath the pressure of it’s own, and relief
blankets the cushy marrow as it throbs
with the terrifyingly charged pain
necessary to live. Nerves break
free, torn asunder in an instant and they cry
with vigor, for they’re wide awake
in their blood-
red feverish birth.


Brain knows, hands grasp, tears flow—
a perfect system. Flawless in its execution,
fluid swells, skin is taut, signals pulsing,
pulsing,
pulsing.
And the heat.
It goes beyond the flesh
and warms the outside air
as nearby molecules respond
by quickening their pace.

*************************

Stream of consciousness writing

[September 2007]


I’d like to say that I woke up to the gentle warmth of sun beaming through the glass and onto my forehead. That the rays sweetly kissed my lids as the scent of a new day filled my lungs. The truth is, I never slept. The truth is, it will be hours until that mysterious flaming ball rises.
I am sitting in bed now. The clock is in the other room but I’d say it’s four o’clock. I tried to sleep, I did. But I think that’s the worst thing I could have done. Now sleep will avoid me. It could be days until we reconcile.
Words like “alas”, “hither”, and “fair” swirl through my mind. The William Blake I read a few hours ago? I wish language were still so romantic. But there’s a bitter falseness to it. The words don’t go down smoothly.
All I want is a cigarette. I’m not a smoker but I can almost feel the distinctly hot, poisonous cloud making it’s way through me. And what’s the difference between emotional and gaseous poison? May as well go all out.
I pull the sheets from my body and slip down the bed. There’s that black leather coat from France. I recall leaving a pack in the pocket. The coat is on the bottom of the pile. Never got around to putting hooks in the wall. There are two cigarettes left and a zebra-striped lighter. I’d like to say it was the only one at the store, but in reality I thought it was perfect. A black leather bombshell and a zebra-striped lighter. Who was I?


******************************


Letters

[September 2008]

They’re all I have
on this freezing cold
night of velvet dark. Alone,
I gather them from the ground,
from mid air and from the nape
of my neck. There are gobs
of them nestled in my throat
and they’ve been there for years,
quivering with fear, begging
not to be spoken.

Now, here,
on this mountain
of wet, sandy memories, I am forced
into a mean game of scrabble


for you.
The letters I need don’t exist,
and the words I crave are lost
in the prose of poets
past.

But I’m not strong, you know.
If I could, I would speak pages,

Books!

about my gaping heart wound
decorated with the corpses
of lovers vanished, friends faded
and journeys truncated.

But those, too,
will lie, forever incomplete,
within this greedy throat
of mine.

*************************


When The Universe Whispers

[June 2008]

Everything comes alive,
waking up
from an involuntary slumber
brought on by stagnant energy,
hesitant breath,
and memories drenched
with ennui.

A blanket of consciousness
dries in the sweet summer
air and as its weight is lifted,
children hear birds
from inside. They run
down the stairs and through the threshold
to join the dulcet chorus.

An old widow reads in the den
as a severed tree branch whips
across her sidelight.

The wind
carries her back to the days
when they would sail the tumultuous seas,
against the warnings
of the red morning sky. She can hear
her beloved saying, “every time
the heavens howl, it’s for you, my dear”.

A classroom crammed with students
pauses to see the natural
commotion beyond the brick
walls. Effortlessly, each set of lungs
matches the rhythm
of the pulsing earth.
For a moment,
they understand
the zephyr’s prose.

And me. I feel
how each leaf, each blade
of grass responds
to the sighs of the atmosphere.
I stand still, in awe
of being engulfed
in sudden vitality
as the debris of my mind
is whisked away
before I can even think
to hang on.

*************************


…

[October 2008]

It was today. I was there,
in my cushioned cocoon of silvers, glosses,
smiles, and errors when it,
it!
marked its presence
within my secret kingdom.

But a mind must go blank
when confronted
with such a force. Spiced
wood, warm
fleece, and amber.
No.
Not enough.

Where the ancient desert sand
kisses the untouched
ocean floor.

The letters trailing behind
Z.

The unbearable pleasure
before the pain. My first
piano recital and the haze
of baited breath as the last key was struck.

My tiny foot, adorned-- white Mary Janes,
pressing so hard upon that tarnished brass
pedal. I wanted it to last forever, that sound.
I knew
the release of my foot signaled the escape
of an ethereal beauty. That G
minor.

And then the silence.

In Paris, too.
Between the hours of three and four
when even the sun didn’t know
it could belong. Chocolate
jewels through dark
windows. Nobody.

The bread rising
as people busy themselves
with other chores. There.

My nose.

Fire embracing icicles,
Icarus in flight, blues fading,
reds and oranges radiating.

...

“heart”

is

still, somehow,
only a five-letter
word.

******************

Much, much more where that business came from....buuuuuuuuuut, that's more than enough. I think I'll try to sleep now.


Biz, mes amis