mostly untitled

Lungs Filling with Memory

2011-08-19T00:51:00.000-05:00

I have left motes of myself, All
Along the New England coastline.
I have dragged most of myself along unawares.
But in retracing the routes, roots and branches
Of the train lines north,
I find that this spiritual dander
Has clung to the trestles, terminals, and geography.
And it pulls at me until a resonance
Begins the shake the land.
Torrents of time flood with ruptured rest,
And I am awash in breathless longing,
Nurturing hidden meanings in older copies of myself.
As if that is the authentic, and I have been caught
Slipping myself into another's life.

The chronology is easy enough to see,
But my footprints fade quickly.
So I close my eyes and cover my ears
In headphones, hoping that electronic interference
And the percussive movement of the train
Will deaden this solipsistic magnetic field
Flowing through me, at least long enough to sleep.

On Social Currents, and the Weight of Time.

2011-08-08T18:19:00.000-05:00

When do the thrashing arms
Save you from the waves?
When do they merely weaken you?

Or do you already lie below,
Caressed by seaweed,
Sinking into the sands,
And waiting for the filtering light
To be blotted out by some exploratory diver?

An Unfocused Stab

2011-08-07T02:23:00.000-05:00

There are many things I cannot control.
Things which perhaps I ought.
Waves gently lapping, seeping under sand,
Become curling riptides without warning.
Some bright swelling in your chest,
Love redolent with bubbling laughter in your throat.
Or maybe the sudden sharp sadness
That some knowledge can also bring.

But if you can manage to torque yourself
Just right, as you are falling,
You can glace off in new directions
Sliding as a skipping stone
Until the next time you are pulled under.

(untitled)

2011-05-31T22:53:00.003-05:00

We are too etched into our ways.
We can change, but the marks will stay.

Notes Upon Viewing the Perigee Moon, 19 March, 2011

2011-04-01T00:32:00.006-05:00

Satin folds lap,
held clinging toward the moon as it moves
by capillary action,
seeping its quicksilver mass
out of the rumbling band of light stretching
from the ocean to my feet.

And I think this might be better shared with some
close-leaning her...

or captured, I suppose,
but I couldn’t paint the quiet tide thrumming closer,
or photograph the crisp evening or the scent of spent bonfires,
and I could never warm a body absent.

But these gentle, beautiful motes
are the reason why we persevere,
like when the sublime sneaks upon you
and finds a link between your mind and heart
so deep that it quakes your very quiddity.

It is enough for tonight to have been here,
embraced by the still cold evening,
and look into these few silly lines
for the secret smile of a tacit moment.

Turn around, the last hues of dusk dispersing into
the plum western sky, heading home.

Earth Blood

2010-05-22T00:07:00.000-05:00

Petulant soil, soaked in ancient ichor,
Irate, but slow to move.
Behemoth gaining momentum,
Leaving a slug-trail through the waters,
And the feathers of newly-flightless birds.

Congested death, restless spirits
Fed through a clattering chaos engine,
Electric pops, violent combustion
Pushing opulence through the air.
Perhaps it is no surprise that they have grown so bitter,
Spewing vitriol in great black clouds.
Yelling at the sky.

Should the sea turn from green
To a thicker red, with not a life left floating,
I wonder what we will feel when our bodies
Are compressed together into loamy substrates
And whoever comes next finds
New uses for us.

Trapped deep beneath the gulf shore,
Will we seethe, roiling for a chance
To show the world its carbonaceous hubris?

Or will we remain disparate, singing the softness
Of zephyr strides across wind chimes,
And folding our strengths into the gently rotating caresses
Of the slender propeller blades
Nestled just slightly offshore?

Dermatoglyphics: 1) (n) The ridge patterns of skin on the inner surface of the hands or feet. 2) (n) The study of these skin patterns.

2010-02-26T03:32:00.002-05:00

Wander winter coastlines,
Curving snow-capped sandbars,
White-caps and eddies carving
Curling glyphs into the continent.
Shapes with cold resonance,
Meanings I stand too close to see.

From here, the rimey lines reaching
Out to my fingertips feel like traction.
As if they were hooks holding my breath and then
Drawing the air out of me to hang unread
Smoke signals before dissipating like
Whispered words for distant ears.

Where the gray sky disappears into gray seas,
Horizon pours through my eyes,
And the frequencies between the sullen air molecules
Suddenly hum in sympathetic consonance with my lungs.
Some deep hollow reverberates in my chest.
It rattles me until I can no longer tell whether I am inhaling
Some communication sublimating from the frost,
Or slipping into a seasonal apophenia that grips me.

After all, fingerprints are less about friction
Than heightening sensation, creating grooved channels
To convey information more diligently to nerve endings.
Or maybe it is just the chilled air making
My exposed hands raw.

Steady circulation thrums deeper on each pass,
Bringing warming blood back up
To the starved synapses which were misfiring in the cold.
I know I've written this same poem over,
At least once for each year reaching five years past.

But each new telling scopes outward, I hope,
Rotating slightly before repeating its routine,
Encoded mathematical structures, fractal data,
Meaning held in the riven ridges of my fingertips
Flowing into the channels of jack frost,
Drifting from each snowflake on up
Until I can see it blown big down the eastern seaboard
And catch some hidden message
Not entirely evident to me when standing
Up so close to the shoreline.

Unrequited Titles

2010-02-15T03:27:00.002-05:00

The spine is smoothed over,
Softened by my fingers' oils
Applied over and again.
As the ink stains my fingers,
The words seep into my blood
Until I breathe the plot and
The Story's patterns lock prepared
Pathways through my synapses,
Ruts erode into my retinas.

Although I will never touch her,
Never her hear sing,
Nor even talk with her,
My heart has passed through
The porous pages and has become
Structure for her fiction.
It is a broken sort of magic,
Paying real emotion for imaginary worlds.
And with every reading,
I have lost a little of my soul to sustain her
When she dies.

My Silver-backed Mac

2010-02-10T03:59:00.003-05:00

La Espada Minerva toils long into the snow-capped night, as I sully my sleep with dreams unuttered, deep, demure, and warm.

Anomie: (n) Social instability and alienation caused by the erosion of norms and values.

2010-02-03T19:39:00.000-05:00

Being hemmed in by the night
Is not so much the issue
As the blank spaces resting in the shadows,
Absent of warm bodies.
It is when you can feel parts of your brain
Liquefy, and pour out of your ears,
and you begin to forget things.

How you were once taut and tidy,
Which words are your own,
or even how to speak aloud.

You forget why you should wait
For another three hours
Before going to bed at nine
When you’ve been awake,
and doing nothing at all,
for the last thirty hours.

Synapses not quite firing,
Nerves not communicating
Heart’s desires to the brain, the spine, the muscles.

Parts rusted solid from disuse.

Announcing Mostly Untitled Reviews

2010-01-12T23:55:00.001-05:00

Mostly Untitled Reviews is now live. Currently up is an informal review of some of my favorite games. The forthcoming review topics may range anywhere from games, to cinema, to theater, music, food, or anything else I deem noteworthy.

Please feel free to check it out and give me any feedback you wish.

Written from an iPod touch.

2009-12-25T21:58:00.005-05:00

A little box of future
Streams light into my eyes.
Pattern recognition turns
The shadows to these lines.

Meaning is transferred
Over air, Away from page.
Another year grows past us.
The present is a very odd age.

Prosopagnosia: (n) The inability to recognize familiar faces

2009-11-27T12:09:00.003-05:00

Time, distance, emotion, activity,
are all
A clouded mirror.

Jake: (adj) Satisfactory; all right; okay

2009-11-27T11:55:00.006-05:00

When I succumb to the slow poison,
Consciousness leeched from my ears,
I find another me, waiting for the chance.

And he has a wonderful life,
Or so it seems to me. He knows
All the types of people I would like to know.
He is chasing love, and finding tiny,
Glittering motes of care reflected back at him.

Each time I wake, we go from looking up at stars,
To looking up at a plaster ceiling.
And it is a little disheartening for me,
But for him, it's just a bad dream,
And at least one of us is happy.

The First Tanks

2009-10-09T23:06:00.004-05:00

The first tanks were propelled
By airplane engines.
There were no intermediate steps,
Just in gear and not.

These poems work similarly,
If you feed them solid rock,
They will pull the behemoth
Over thick treads.

But when you leave them be,
They turn over and over still,
Churning punctuation.
They begin to re-digest scrap words,
Anything else they can come into contact with.

All the pieces collide into a
Misshapen conglomerate, loosely cobbled.

Sometimes it is like hedge magic.
Others, it just dulls the blade.

Mathematicaster: (n) A minor or incompetant mathematician

2009-10-09T22:27:00.004-05:00

The careful forms,
Straight descending lines.
Too many years spent sequestered,
Too many dollars frittered away
To see the world as a collection of shapes,
To know the numerical sequence
That defines a physical world when it is
Broken down into pure, descriptive
Analysis.

Dripping information carving
Geometric patterns into the substrate,
Slowly changing the world around
From gleeful chaos
To wondrous, hidden order.

Too late to alter worked grooves
In the mind, when it becomes evident
That the tools available were insufficient
To adequately work the wood
Into usable shape,
But just enough
So that the rest of the world
No longer recognizes
The shapes presented there.

Like Deep Clouds Coming in off the Waters.

2009-07-13T20:09:00.005-05:00

The slow-waking winds,
The long-slumbering summer.
It wraps me in caresses.
It is 49f in a mid-July night,
And my skin has found in it a home.

Still, I miss you Gulf Stream.
Mourn the missing push-back against
The affronting Summer Nor'easter Fronts.
Balance sent teetering, where the spinning
Hemispheres might topple over.

Still, the changes paint evenings
Skies full of textures,
Hues in navy and cobalt.
Such dangerous beauty, and angry weather

Struck in awe at some yet unfathomable
Deep-Change, just now floating at the skin,
But threatening to penetrate further in.

Contra

2009-05-13T15:39:00.003-05:00

Daughter seems to me
Clever, strong,
Fiery, whip-brand,
Cute, and oozing moxie from every pore

He is gentle granite,
Dark, solid, cooled by
Melted glaciers, covered in moss.

She climbs up his face,
Walks atop him,
Stands, looking to distant horizons.

He can not see her up there,
And her heels dig painfully into his side.
He loves every moment.

Contra

He is something like a cannonball,
But sharper. Great blades jutting
From a darkened core.

She has red scratches stretching
Wide networks across her arms.
She says it changes her only
In that it creates a wonderfully
Complicated complexion.

His points glisten pink in the sun
Dripping bits of her, except
Where they drip clear venom.

Some of the triangles of flesh between
The ragged lines she holds, raise up,
And grow tumescent, as an alien liquid
Courses her veins, sickening her heart.

(untitled)

2009-04-09T01:42:00.005-05:00

I was in your dreams, last night
Pulling down the surface.
Tensions held taut the wire faces,
Pressed into the meshes between

And I at once knew what to do
But at second glance, I did not
So I split my tenses into two
And ran a run down to the pier

I grabbed handfuls of mica to bathe your feet
And mark where you were standing.
It would not do as concrete would,
So wooden molds were constructed.

Dog-eared notes to guide you back,
After your eyes fluttered open,
Before the dew lifts off your brow,
And sunlight pours into pupils.

Day pulls you away from the remembering
And the sand and wood begin to float,
Carried to a distant shore,
So you don't know to let me find you.

Sanguine

2009-02-25T00:06:00.004-05:00

It's not that I don't favor the taste
Of tight rhyming lines, of syllable counts
I just don't rhyme inside,
Not in ways that line up with the creases outside.

Not in 4/4, but twenty measures of iambic 5/4,
Measures where feet carry only
To the ends of toes,
But with pulsing heat traveling from core
To the outer limbs.

In deep night, I wonder if my thoughts
Then leak out of the ghost of a hole,
Cauterized stigmata - but less significant,
In the top of my right foot.

If there are plans, or poems,
Or if my future filters out there,
Wafting from exposed flesh and slipping
Between the window sill and the night.

Is there someone tuned to my foot frequency?
Unwittingly eating my rhymes, my potential,
My ambitions along with their nightly nocturnal
Arachnid victuals so that I have none left?

Is that why the smatterings like what you are reading
Glow pale green instead of vibrant red?
Is that why I slip out of the circadian logic,
So easily eschewing heuristic solutions
For tepid reactions to each new sunrise?

Or am I merely composed of lethargy,
And it was more a glamour of rigor
That covered me when I seemed
A more vigorous liver?
Am I more hepatic?
Merely siphoning
The harsher motes
Out of a larger
Body, growing
Numb?

An Overly Emo Day

2009-02-20T22:19:00.002-05:00

I do not feel the rush,No ferrofluids pulling my thoughts
To magnetic desires.

Without a destination,
Movement for its own sake
Is worthless solipsism.

No tides to push me along, just gravity
And steadily desalinating water.

I found this...

2009-01-28T19:15:00.005-05:00

I've discovered that I enjoy freckles
Soft, and splayed across gentle shoulders,
That people exist outside of myself,
That the future doesn't always sear.

The benches in brisk breezes
Aren't cold and empty,
That dead leaves are beautiful
As the wind lays them at my feet.

I've learned that I, too, have life
Burning vibrant from within,
Radiating outward through my body.

I've learned a use for the shape of my chest.

I've found something, indeed.

Jackfrost

2009-01-12T15:59:00.004-05:00

All you beautiful people,
I love you,
But you bore me.

You seem nothing like the ice outside
Unless I feel drunk on snow
And too lonely.

True, it takes years to know
The intricate coastline beneath her clothes,
The curving eddies when she emotes,
The tides erupting in hidden coves
Where the phosphorescent mental glows.

But your smoothed surfaces
Cannot even hold jackfrost.

Copemate: (n) 1: An associate or friend, 2: An opponent or adversary (OR: The Insistance on Memory)

2008-12-18T01:09:00.004-05:00

Petals falling, leaves changing hue.
Whiskers growing, weather cooling too.
Shadows aching, stretching into air.
Strong scents fading, following after care.

Asperse: (v, tr) 1: To spread false or malicious charges against someone 2: To sprinkle with holy water (OR: Upon the softening of aging bodies.)

2008-12-18T00:57:00.005-05:00

Is there, somewhere beneath the skin,
A heart still beating flame?
Is there hardened muscle below the fat?

Or is there atrophy in the limbs?
Is there routine pumping through the veins?
Are you choked with degraded meat?

The surgeries are all retrograde motion,
And the sullied portions fade with every
New breeze anyway.

Spreading holy water across the skin
Will purify the tainted flesh, indeed,
But is renewed discipline any less vain?

Roborant: (n) A tonic, (adj) Strenghtening

2008-10-17T02:04:00.003-05:00

Catch whispers of wood fires,
And maybe you too will feel
The hollow pull in the center of your chest
That fills with chilled excitement every fall,
A deep yearning, some primal reaction
Woven through rationalizations,
Because we are a thinking people.

But, perhaps, there is a red string
Running from my ribs to yours,
And the motors just aren't strong enough
To reel us in to each other.

The rest of the year, when the hole is patched up,
We have not stopped searching,
We are convalescing.

Come November, we will again wander through
Nights lit up like blue days by moonlight,
And eventually, we will spool our lines together.

Costive: (adj) Slow to speak or act, stingy, constipated

2008-10-17T01:58:00.003-05:00

Maybe the reticence melts away:
When I sit here beneath the skylight
The heat flows out of me and collides
Into the glass, making a growing
Oval of condensation.

But it does little to stoke lyrical fires:
The moon above is refracted
In the cohesive spots suspended
Like swords above me.

Praetorian: (adj) Corruptible, Fraudulent

2008-10-04T21:07:00.001-05:00

I hate fishing.

I've spent a good amount of time
Sifting mire through my fingers,
Finding my fingernails beneath.

Standing in the cold, wet veil
That smothers the ground, the lake.
Watching him in his rubber waders.

Watching my breath stretch,
Winding itself around bare trees.
He is so much taller than I am.

But he looks nothing like my father.
And I am not that small age anymore.
I would prefer wandering through the fall foliage.

The woods are full of running and games,
Piles of leaves for jumping, light filtering,
Projecting scenes of halcyon youth.

He seems too serious, sedentary,
Motionless, save for a flicking wrist,
Save for the flashing eyes.

He's thin, hungry, determined.
But he doesn't know how to fish.
Neither do I.

He just stands there like Father Time,
Rooted in the rotted lake-bed.
But each time I turn back to the trees

He gives the hook a little pull,
My head jerks upward,
Our eyes meet.

I am somewhere between those two places.
But it is starting to get cold.

And I need to eat.

Gundygut: (n) A voracious eater, a greedy person.

2008-07-15T17:48:00.004-05:00

Oil, Lust, Blood,
Taxes, Profits, Love,
Harvest, Virus, Carbon,
Creation, Development, Birth,
Eulogies, Yard Sales, Recognition,
Happiness, Success, Rhyme Schemes,
Succession, Kingdoms, Gods, Audience,
Parades, Fireworks, Passion, Paints, Diets,
Economics, Game Theory, Hierarchies, Society.

philanthropy, atrophy, endothermics, death, sea salt,
tides, grass, dew, breezes, kittens, whiskers,
wind chimes, contentment, day dreams,
spring air, fall air, snow drifts, purrs,
birdsong, starlight, shadows,
convalescence, hope,
graphite, erasers,
sawdust, time,
milk-teeth,
kerning.

(untitled)

2008-06-27T21:47:00.004-05:00

The walls, they're white
They're soft, they're filled
With feathers or with sleeping pills.
Their embrace holds me close in my sleep.

This jacket's tight,
It fits me well,
Like brimming cups of gold Nyquil,
Like fever dreams, my thoughts shiver and swell.

I don't think they mean to
Clean me out of you
But that's happens each time I come to.

I doubt they see
My clearing eyes,
My mind washed clean of cloying lies,
The world's bright hues dripping from my hands.

I doubt they mean
To see me healed,
Just keep the vapors tightly sealed.
I swear my voices aren't mad as they seem.

The burden of proof lays
On glass straws with thick stays
Tying me to your heart.

Still, fading through weeks
The succor dims.
The thin, clear tubes crack
At the mention of time going bye.

Perhaps I'm not clear as I thought.

Scrannel: (adj) 1: Thin 2: Unmelodious.

2008-06-13T22:09:00.002-05:00

Sometimes words of honey
And at others, those of pitch.
A cold trickle of water,
Or perhaps a rotten abrasion.

Words themselves remain impartial.
Only the candy-coating conveys
The undercurrent.

So that meaning can still be found
In the baying of my rasping throat.
Even when the flow comes jagged
As it does in this faltering poem.

Ween: (v) To think, suppose, believe.

2008-06-13T22:05:00.002-05:00

We've had it wrong for years,
and we should never have
Forced so many children
Into the cold realms
Of philosophy.

Such tiny hands
Only really ever produce
Sophistry and Solipsisms.

Worthless.

Sweven: (n) Dream, vision.

2008-06-13T21:57:00.002-05:00

Umm, excuse me?
I am way too waspy for this.
Boiled potatoes, stewed beef.
That is more me.

I find your headdress tacky and
Outmoded. It reminds me
Too much of smallpox blankets.

And anyway, shouldn't I be seeing
Wings and clouds and Jesus?

This is the third impertinent perversion
Of God's number, you know.
(The first being Lucky Number Sleven,
The second being the name Steven.)

You should just let me sleep.

Point-Device: (adv) completely, perfectly (adj) Perfect, precise, meticulous

2008-05-27T19:26:00.005-05:00

It demurely shakes off the paleo-dust,
A little callipygian, verbal beast.
A coquette of syllable recognition,
And some long interred desire.
A fire I'd grown inured against.

Some arcane tongue sprung up
Between the cracks in our modern language.
It matches a need I have, quite point-device,
Rolling ball, blank ink, point: extra fine.

Come here, little darling.
I won't lose you again.
But the world sees only your awkward corners.

Come home with me,
And let me run your hyphen across my lips.
Never be alone again, until I die.

Garboil: (n) Confusion, Turmoil

2008-05-26T22:33:00.003-05:00

Confusion begets amusement
Turmoil is tumult, bemusement

So this discarded word,
This jumble of garbage and earth-blood,
Suits this situation better.

The waves pass from the brain,
They become garbled.
The resultant friction from scraping
Static signals evokes distress in me.

I've grown a spoiled, hard-boiled garboil.

Midgets with Guns

2008-05-17T20:01:00.004-05:00

There is a small cannon in my mouth
That hurls sharp words at you,
But lately it's not been properly calibrated.
The words only crash into my teeth
And crumble into docile poems.

I swear I will.

2008-05-17T19:50:00.008-05:00

I will burn you out of me.
I will find every interstitial pocket of you
and fill it with gasoline and napalm.
If I can get the flames hot enough,
The flesh will cauterize.
I will lose skin, but not my blood.

And if this new scar tissue
Hardens the soft meat of my ventricles,
You can breathe softer.

I will watch as the
Rough, pink claws
Make their mesh across me,
And add texture and complexity
To a once simple joy.

I will let others wonder
At the geometric patterns
Now rising out of my chest.

Today, I am composed.

2008-05-17T19:09:00.006-05:00

Today, I am composed
Of corded muscles, love, and scars.
I feel like an oaken core.

Life starts with an effervescence,
But these oscillations slip wider
Each year and shake loose the taught wires.

The quivering energy
Becomes more of a jiggle, really.
However, here is the most danger.

Minds and emotions remain keen and
Added to the bitterness-honed blades.
The loose jangle will send cuts flying
If momentum seeks to topple the system.

In time, though, the bearings will grow
Over-worn, and the swaying ocean
Will find its tides tied into eddies.

Today is where I am,
But I remain transfixed
As deep-pink tissue roughs my skin.
I can only wonder where it was I acquired
These newer blemishes.

Titian: (n) A reddish or golden auburn color. (AKA The Popular Themes of Life and Love Annotated in Copper Ink.)

2008-03-15T13:03:00.002-05:00

Dawn spreading gentle fingers,
Tickling trees slathered with the colors
Of Autumnal flesh.
The tone of the hair
On a Rust-Curl girl.

The same hue of steel
Being hammered into formed function.
The color of those fireworks
With the second-stage showering sparks.

What has come to me now as
Carnival-glass spheres, reflecting
Distorted images of memories and
Descending slowly into deepening darkness
Like bubbles blown at dusk.

However, I'm trying not to embellish,
So it's simply the titian glory
In a sunset that signals
The loss of another day.

Ragamuffin (n): Someone, esp. a child, in ragged, dirty clothes.

2008-02-24T00:49:00.004-05:00

There is something less charming
In this scene.

Still Oliver Twist,
Artful Dodger,
But less Disney,
More Dickens in London.

Dingy, no...
Dirty.

No mutt dogs
Singing Billy Joel songs
To cute, grey, animated kittens.

No kittens at all,
And you know how sore
That vexes me.

In the Land of Opportunity,
Trickle Down Theory doesn't.

Only one thing trickles down here.

Huddled masses
Were supposed to stop shivering.
Please do.

You're making us look bad.
The system works, damn it.

Bunbury: 1) n: An imaginary person whose name is used to some purpose. 2) v intr: To use such a name as an excuse.

2008-02-23T21:11:00.005-05:00

(For our patron Bunbury)

We lay ourselves full out.
String our souls long like mozzarella
Until they pool on the page.

We rub out fingers into it
Until it loosens.
Add perfumes,
Add tints.

Then we paint with it.

It takes a while,
And with each new sheet,
Every added detail,
We move slower;
Our tanks run lower.

One day the engine will seize,
The gears dry and tight.
Our bodies slumped against the desk,
Amid piles of paper.

After enough time, when we decompose,
And each iota becomes airborne,
It will mix with the faded scents.

If someone stumbles upon it,
We can only hope they understand
The completeness of that moment.

Pinchbeck (n): An alloy of zinc and copper used as imitation gold in jewelry 2) adj: counterfeit or spurious

2008-02-23T21:00:00.003-05:00

I bit it, and I saw the marks
My teeth left. I saw the glitter.
I felt the heat left from my touch.

I wiped away the makeup.
I used astringent against the
Cloying mask to find what was hidden.

I saw the sun come up over the trees.
I breathed open air.
The road was wide, and empty.

The ring was fake.

The freckles were only glitter.

The sun was setting.

The road was closed.

I'll push deeper next time.

In which I write once more.

2008-02-14T13:07:00.002-05:00

Oh, rusted gears,
Rumble far within.
I'll pretend you are purring.

Let the cool liquid
Bathe your teeth in it
Until it becomes hot and thin.
Creak and fight until you move.

Struggle until it turns over
And the motion begins to carry you
Along the circular paths.

I will stand guard outside.
I will breathe the familiar oils,
The lubricants that bring the words out
And wafting up to sinuses and fingertips.

I will stand the shock of electric pain
As synapses fire off in the wrong directions
Before they learn to recalibrate themselves.

Measure the deep-tongue,
Utter the forbidden names.

Macroscian (n): (1) One casting a long shadow. (2) One who inhabits the polar regions.

2008-01-31T01:57:00.001-05:00

Stand outside McMurdo
While there's still sun
About the rim, over land
Over water, over ice.

Your shadow will fall along
The coasts, across abandoned
Shacks where the first men
To cross these expanses
Holed themselves up
And went slightly mad
Waiting for the light to return
Come springtime.
Where amorous Raytheon employees-
and maybe a sailor or two-
Holed up together, away from the rest.

Your shadow will fall along
Emilio Marcos de Palma, Pole Station,
seals bearing the NSF logo, and
Metal javelins with swastikas
Standing up in the ice like needles.

It will fall on awkward penguins,
and ravenous skuas.

It will fall on a crumpled coastline.

It will fall into darkness
As the light fades out for months.

When the sky dawns again,
Your shadow will fall on a different coastline
Somewhat further inland than before,
And across the fitful dreams
Of nations salivating
At the diaspora of frozen souls,
For what might be hidden beneath the ice.

Platitudinarian (n): One who utters platitudes or trite remarks,

2008-01-31T01:46:00.001-05:00

That is to say:

All poets.
All philosophers.
All politicians.
All parents.
All priests.

All latitudinarians,
All theologians whatsoever.

Most penguins.

Recalcitrant (adj): Stubbornly resistant to authority.

2008-01-31T01:21:00.001-05:00

This room is somewhat ramshackle
More a hovel, snuggled beneath
A thicket of dust duvets.
It's been a while,
But you can make out
The small indentations
Flowing from the door
To where I cower now.

The door splinters,
Spewing light and
SWAT teams.

I look like a
Worn-out clockwork mouse
Except that I have grown soft
Around the edges, not the efficiency
Of brass gears. So perhaps I am more
Real mouse than clock.

That is what they are thinking.

They represent
The Synaptic and Neural Development Dept.
And this area has been remapped
From a c19 Art and Inspiration processor
to a c42 Manual Labor processor.

I am obsolete, and non functioning.

I would protest,
But my rebel-core
Has long since rusted out.

When they remove me,
I offer only the weight of my body
As a more tired sort of civil
Disobedience.

Patrician (n): A person of high social rank, good background, etc.; an aristocrat.

2008-01-23T03:03:00.001-05:00

I do appreciate the situation
That you have afforded me,
My dear Emily.

I will be your noble poet laureate.
I will paint your lineage up on the walls
With words of both the austere purple,
And the convivial spirit of a
Proper Sophisticate.

Maybe after we're both dead,
And you in the mausoleum,
One of your descendants will
Linger longer over my last eulogistic commission -
As with your death, so too my contract goes.

Memorial descriptions burst
Out from the ink brighter than prudent.
Too detailed an eye for the rust tone of your hair.
The bobbed shell it makes framing flaming
Wit and vigor.

And pausing, see
That though you could go through
Six cooks in three weeks,
You would always have had me.

Adopted

2008-01-09T17:39:00.003-05:00

She looks up at me
With those beautiful eyes,
With that lustrous hair
So unlike mine,
And being only
Slightly less than five

I open my
Less-than-perfect lips
And shunt aside
Highly polished lies

"You know how your friends all say
That their parents will always
Love them simply because they will
Always be related?

Well, our love is like that, but somewhat more.
For their kinship bears that love,
And our love is what made you kin.

Even if my lips forget to say this,
As time wears the remembrance to tell,
Look within these inky lines.
For I've plumbed these depths
Since the day we met
For something beautiful,
Enough so to suit you well."

Pragmatism

2008-01-07T01:39:00.002-05:00

In order to make art,
One must periodically stop
And confront the very real possibility
That what you are trying to do
Makes absolutely no difference.
That you're doing nothing at all.

Then accept this likelihood,
But reassert that it will all
Be worthwhile if even one
Soul is touched.

Then pray to find one
Before you are forgotten.

Cumulodrop

2008-01-07T01:31:00.001-05:00

What if we've been lied to?
And fog is not water vapor
Rising from the ground or laying low,
Condensed, and filtering through town?

What if they're clouds
Born in the firmament, but now
Long-worn, collapsing?
Making a religious pilgrimage
Like native spirits,
Like grey elephants?

Every wetland, low lying pocket of air:
Burial grounds, all.

Mystagogue (n): One who teaches mystical doctrines, or one who initiates others into a mystery cult.

2008-01-02T01:19:00.002-05:00

Enfolded into a strange
Passion, the taste of graphite on
Your fingertips, ink on wood pulp.
We are now part of an arcane society.
We feverishly scribble runes on any surface,
Before the pitched voices in our hearts
Silence and we lose the message.
The line stretches back as far
As etchings on ancient cave walls.

And we each, in turn, attempt to ensnare
The unsuspecting with our labors.
Implant ideas, experiences directly
Into the synapses, attract followers,
Or rather, subscribers, fans, idolaters.
The line is thin and shifting.

Or maybe you just want to pull
What torments you out from
Your chest and split its belly,
Watch the entrails spread across the table
And thereby divine some meaning.

In any case, it's just glossolalia.
Let it go, child, let it go.

Habile (adj): Having general ability; Skillful

2007-11-14T03:04:00.001-05:00

You disbelieved me initially,
Because the melody was so striking
And effectively invoked.

The sent of the rosin was
Tangy and citrus that evening,
And I was a chamber orchestra
For an entire world of one.

My meter was forward,
And my fingertips plucked the strings
Just so,
Sounds caressing behind your ears.

I found the proper tuning on the neck
And worked gold around my hands,
Pressing into the song,
And drinking nectar in the air.
As each sweep of the bow
Sent the rosin's perfume
Deep into my nose, it was as if an orchard
Hung dripping dew from the blossoms,
And I could lick sweet honeysuckle from
My fingers as the chords echoed in
Between us and wrapped around my hand.

"Bravo," came your soft reply.
"Encore," said I.

Perfervid (adj): Extremely or excessively passionate.

2007-11-14T02:42:00.001-05:00

I am no halfway-human,
So wear gloves to touch me
If you are not yet acclimated.

My muscles glow red-orange
And sizzle through ice and snow
To keep you warm and dry,
To get you hotter than clothes can stand,
Until your tears wisp into steam
And my sauna persona
Releases the strain in your body.
Warm yourself on me.

Take your shelter in me:
My fires keep the dangers at bay.
I will burn brightly each night
So you can make me out on the horizon
When your work takes you out until dark.

I will be your beacon,
I will be your welcoming,
I will be your home.

Contumelious (adj): Rudely contemptuous

2007-11-14T02:27:00.001-05:00

Is there really a way to be
Politely contemptuous?
I imagine that is what sixty
Years of a failed love
Comes to be when trapped
Inside marriage, sealed
Under plastic hermetic panels.

Does it molder? Or merely fall apart,
Giving way to spores, trying
To seat themselves on new bodies?
Does new life hang onto the edges
And run through until
The squirming masses, fatted on the host,
Are all that anchors the constituent
Parts of the union?

Or is it merely the tenacity
And pride that this one will not be
The one to part before death
Nor die before the other has parted?

Aliterate (adj): Capable of reading, but uninterested in it.

2007-11-14T02:13:00.002-05:00

The ice sheets are advancing
Though the day's air, still,
Hangs damp and hot
Upon your breast.

You can see the distant
Nimbostratus feeding parched
Grasslands feeding weary
Quadrupeds feeding young
Quadrupeds feeding predatory
Quadrupeds.

You can feel the rumble in the soil
As life pours over every detail,
And the vibrancy in a series
Of eventualities.

You can decipher all of this
From the runes burned into my
Fiber, the thrum of the blood
Through my veins,
And the sounds whispering
In my ventricles.

You read all this
And know it within your marrow,
But turn back to your tattered tent.

Riant (adj): Smiley, cheerful.

2007-11-06T01:48:00.001-05:00

The day is plump with verjuice
Puckering my lips;
The clouds sit thick above:
Slate and whitewash,
but they don't promise precipitation.
They hold the moisture in the air
And trap the heat between themselves
And the blacktop.

But my lips remain pliant,
and my posture upright and strident,
I am determined to remain riant,
It started with pluck, but
At this point it's pure moxy.

Macaronic (adj): Involving a mixture of languages.

2007-11-06T01:21:00.001-05:00

Polyphonic, different syllabic sets
Music, photos, posture, sex

Love, politics, violence,
Whatever it is that Brando says
Whatever it is you're saying to me
When your eyes glow like that

The touch, the silence,
The long car rides
The wind between the limbs
The grass across your freckles
The sun on your toes.

The power lines stretched out
And the way they crumple under
The weight of ice,

Katakana, Sanskrit,
Jackfrost.

Tongues, all. Strange, and familiar both
The ones tracing your jawline,
and the ones hanging out the side
Of the dog's mouth.

Cibarious (abj): Of or relating to food.

2007-10-31T02:21:00.001-05:00

As it applies to northeastern
Citizens of the United States:

Food marks time.
Sometimes, it is the only way
That I know the day has passed.

There are strict guidelines,
Plans, and counts to what to eat.

For instance, you are to eat only
Waffles/pancakes, cereal, or some form
Of an egg dish if it is before 11am.
Acceptable meats include ham, sausage
(But only a specific variant),
Bacon, Canadian bacon.
Steak is acceptable if it accompanies
an egg dish.

Oatmeal is never an acceptable option,
unless you have formed it into
A bar of some sort
And it is filled with fruit goo.

Toast variants are also acceptable;
Trail mixes fall under cereals.

Other meals are less strict, although
One should shy away from breakfast
Foods, if only to keep yourself from
Getting overly confused with regard to
The time of day.

If you simply must, go to IHOP

Dysania (n): Difficulty getting out of bed in the morning.

2007-10-31T02:10:00.002-05:00

Sleep is the slow poison
Burning through my veins,
The thick pain behind my eyes,
The density of the fog in my brow.
Sleep is the little-death.

Time slips silent through your dreams,
Like a bandit, knave thief,
Knives drawn and catching lunar
Sparks. Blue shadows hang from
Twitching dendritic fingertips.

I will not be made vulnerable.
I will not submit to the cloying call,
The succubus, the temptress.
And though I lay peaceful when I fall,
Know that I do not go quietly.

When the sun returns, find my body,
Return it to my mattress, wrap me
Both in blankets and embraces.
I will rise up in a few hours time
To valiantly hold back the night again.

Jentacular (adj): Relating to Breakfast / Dysania (n): Difficulty getting out of ebd in the morning

2007-10-31T02:07:00.001-05:00

What is the jentacular haven of one
Suffering dysania?

IHOP.
Bringing hope to the masses.

Verjuice (n): The sour juice of unripe grapes, sour apples, etc / (adj.) Of a sour disposition

2007-10-31T02:00:00.001-05:00

The tart thrill of lemons
Makes us salivate.

The damning love of a tart darling
Does likewise.

But we doctor the juice with
Copious quantities of sugar.

As well, the bitter heart
We seek to improve to our standards

But all we are left with in either case,
Is a drink that cannot quench our thirst.

Nosism (n): The use of 'we' in referring to oneself.

2007-10-29T01:51:00.001-05:00

Attn: We demand that
All notices and bills posted
Please refrain from all
Forms of nosism.

This policy excludes: Reagents,
Management, and my cat.

Also: Nepotism is to be discouraged.
Narcolepsy is still allowed, provided
That you rememb... (-.-)~

Dewclaw (n):A small claw not reaching the ground, on the foot of some animals.

2007-10-29T01:41:00.001-05:00

Always seeking purchase,
Something to sink into.
Caked with soil, clots,
Some small moisture-
If the morning is cool.

But otherwise
collecting dust.

Vestigial, but offering
The essential visual balance
To an otherwise offensive
Pause.

Lexiphanes (n): One who uses words pretentiously

2007-10-25T01:41:00.002-05:00

Commercial author, screenwriter,
Made-for-film poet:
You write for the money,
and place your words to a
Strategic map. Story arcs,
Rise and fall to set time counts
And have a specific sine or cosine
Wave, depending on whether it's
Tragedy or Comedy.

Where you have guides,
I only have the structure of roots
Where lines pull the words in
The directions they think
They sense water, nitrogen,
Blood.

Your moods are staccato bursts,
Or languid affairs, or calculatedly
Muddied. Mine eddy in varying degrees.
Tangential, clumsy, but organic.

The words tap out from your fingertips
Precise, Times-New Roman, Ariel things
Placed where the graphs say will be
The highest potential energy.
Mine bud from awkward, wayward branches
Parsing themselves until the only logic left
Is traced through the corners of your periphery.

You are an arbiter of syllable selection
For the same reason.
I am a lexiphanes, to the point of
Being accused of pedantics

Your verses are well-oiled machinery,
Gleaming chrome and iPod Plastics.
They smell of cash.
Mine smell like petrichor, and are
Cobbled from whatever lies at hand.

You write for the payment.
You write as if your life depended on it.
My writing brings me only expenses,
But I do it because mine does.

Famulus: An assistant, especially to a magician or scholar.

2007-10-23T01:08:00.001-05:00

Oh, when?
When the orange, curling sparks
Shrink low beneath the pot,
When the corner-shadows outweigh
The light of the flames,
But still embrace the heat

Oh, when?
When the pointed hat lies upon the desk
When the pointed head lies upon the pillow
When the cloak lies upon the chair
And the tome lies open upon the desk

Oh, when?
When it is sure that even the mouse
Will not give me away in its squeaks
When the spying cat's eyes are closed
And its deep rumbling purr assures
That its ears are likewise shut

Oh, when?
When the air stirs from the tips
Of the forked branch in my hand,
When no blood need be fed to the ground
Before it loosens its hold on reality
And possibility fills the rift
Between what we see and what we know

Oh, but
My mutterings have pitched too high
My chanting too regular...
And I seem to have added the wrong one,
The foul-smelling one, the dark vial
To the mix instead of the opalescent one.

Merlin returns from dreams to the scent, the noise,
and again it's too late to hide my work
and again I'll have to get used to
All that hopping, but
I'll be damned if I eat another fly.

Stare Like a Flower (6-27/07)

2007-06-28T23:04:00.001-05:00

When they were pale green
With retinas like sprouts,
To gaze at the bud and
Wonder what lay within
Was enough.

When the lids released,
Released their tightness
And the petals irised open,
The colors caught your breath,
Dazzling contrasts in soft flesh.

And tender shade was found
In long stalks,
Forest green and thick
With scents filling the cavities
Interstitial to your organs
Where delight collects.

Wonder fills the gaze here-
How does beauty function?
But after the second Spring,
The eyes lose their glimmer,
Repetition breeding a
More tired sort
Of incomprehension.

A Point in which Joy Becomes Pain (6-4/07)

2007-06-28T22:57:00.001-05:00

Like drowning in laughter
until tears make their way
----from duct to mouth
----from mouth to lung

Like the exquisite falling of flight
wind caressing feathers
----Waking from dreams of bird-being
----But not from the sky

Like the dazzling copper-spark hair
curling around your head
----turning your face
----to catch some distant eye.

Pavement Pacer

2007-03-13T18:21:00.001-05:00

Pavement pacer
Why do you roam the streets
When you should be snuggle in,
Counting your sheep?
The shepherd took them, did he?

Is it because the monoliths look down on you?
They threaten
To come crashing, collapsing,
Striking you, snapping your spine?

Don't you have somewhere to return to?
As a prodigal son?
A prodigal husband?
A prodigal father?

Why do you walk now,
When the night is dark and at its coldest,
And the street-lamps' light artificial?
The ground here is hard coarse.

I want to know who you are,
What causes you to methodically
Put each foot down, and then repeat.
I want to know why you're staring at me
Passing through the street-lamps' sidewalked circles.

Our Lives Are Prayer Alone (1-16/07)

2007-01-29T02:40:00.001-05:00

Our lives lie rigid,
Metal lines curling round
The mountain side,
While the snow melts to
The warmth on your track,
It sticks hard to the skin of mine.
Our lives are parallel.

But I rather prefer to meet
To hold your face in my palms
To shelter ourselves in embraces
Long and slow
But we've only a constant distance,
And the ties that bridge.
Our lives are prayer alone

Viewing Sarah Sze's Gallery (1-22/05)

2007-01-03T00:38:00.001-05:00

I don't even know
How to pronounce your name
Where the "S" meets the "z" it

Pulls me apart
It seems phonetically out of sorts
With the visual crispness that comes

Packaged in a dull,
Brown, paper bag, wrapped with
Soft, alliterative sounds: "Sarah."

3 Pigs (4-3/06)

2006-10-12T00:51:00.001-05:00

This little piggy went to the market.
This little piggy was a bad-ass.
This little piggy plays a mean trombone.
This little piggy had a weight-management problem.

This little piggy went on tour in Mexico,
bought some cocaine, sold it to the third little piggy,
got drunk and had sex with the fourth not-so-little piggy.

The last two piggies swapped STD's from their
romp. The fifth piggy's wake is today.

The first three piggies form a jazz band to
play at his funeral. They make it big.

A sixth, unidentified piggy was driving drunk past the
funeral on his way home from a long day's work
and mortally struck the fifth piggy's wife.

Love Pantoum for the Sounds "Cellardoor" (Spring '04)

2006-09-06T00:26:00.001-05:00

As love caressed doth dance a slow and caring pace,
The taste of loving letters wrap softly 'round my tongue,
Pervading every reach, to every darkened place,
The tender word envelopes me in a feathered song.

The taste of loving letters wraps soft 'round my tongue,
And I know its purpose bears no secret ill intent,
For tender words envelope in a feathered song
Defended wounds of old with succor and soft treatments.

I know its purpose bears no secret ill intent,
For pure and ardent be our sensual passionate lay,
Defending our words with succor and soft treatments,
Love, and I'll be sure you're with me every single day.

Pure and ardent be our sensual passionate lay
And as love caressed doth dance a soft and caring pace,
I will be sure you're with me every single day,
Pervading every reach, and to every darkened place.

Winter Wings Wrap Around Me (9-9/04)

2006-08-29T23:10:00.001-05:00

I feel a little uncomfortable telling you this,
As we've not met in such intimate circumstances as these,
But the red and yellow maple leaves
Carpet the ground in designer splendor once more
And somewhere deep inside of me a hole has opened up.

The chills have begun to hug the ground, cling to hard surfaces,
And my bones have begun to search for another set to keep close
In delicately intricate, interweaving patterns.
This happens at the latter half of every year
But it's not body warmth that I've been seeking.

I've met her here, where I now speak to you,
In the twisting, velvet coves of my mind.
She and I, we go to lay ourselves in the soft, fallen canopy
And star at the crisp, crystal sky,
Wrapped in cozy, chill-weather clothes.

We do much together, we go to the MFA, and the science museums,
And the aquarium. We pour over every placard.
We go to small corner-stores-turned-nightclubs
Where dark rooms play smoky music until we cannot help but spin
Each other on the rich burgundy nap between the stained wooden
Dinner tables, dark and round with waxen candles.

She likes to talk about it afterward. So do I.
Our list of favorite places daily extends to include recent travels.
Or sometimes we don't go anywhere at all,
Instead choosing to settle beneath a down blanket by the fireplace,
Shadows dancing in the corners, and read to each other.

I suppose it is quite harmless for a yearning to be so insistent
That it roots in some corner of your heart, and there becomes very real.
Picasso said, "Everything you can imagine is real."
I understand that.

And besides, the need subsides in warmer weather.
The hole has been patched over enough to be ignored
By the time the ground thaws.
The urgency is seasonal,
Or at least my fortitude against it is.

Still, on fall and winter afternoons,
I go and lie down in the park,
Looking up into the crystalline sky.
I go and dream; I go and wait.

(untitled: Ready Read)

2006-08-28T22:54:00.001-05:00

Ready-read the speed of things
And you'll know as much as I,
The depths of every possibility
That is to say, not much at all.

Does it scare you to look deep
Into the gaping night
Or do you feel safe
On the steady mossy ground?

Ready-read the speed of things
Because they move in
exponential fashion.
It is easy to get lost.

I tend to dive into the waters,
and you to shivver your way in.
The water is still here,
But we all hurtle through space.

Ready-read into me,
Find what I cannot.
I'll find the speed at which you spin,
And hold you when you stop.

Upon Walking the Boston MFA

2006-08-23T00:22:00.001-05:00

Paradoxical
The parquet flooring
Gilded frames hold in loving arms
The works, art, of fame

Yet art is love, is life.
The frames so ornate
Bind the life-blood.
The art was created to be observed, yes,
But to box in the movement,
The crest if acryllic waves,
The smoothly worked stone
From which emerges ew life-
Is ludicrous.

And the process...

Surrounded by their brethren,
A sea of life, just so.
Contained in this ugly block building.
Stunted in worked frames,
But at the same time,
Expanding out beyond the walls.

Collected in ways,
Connected in plays of thought.
How ironic the pulses of life,
Through their own need of preservation,
Have wrought lavish coffins for themselves
So they may exist in gilded, wooden cages
For tomorrow's eyes
Like a magnificent bird
Under the taxidermist's careful hand.

A Vocation

2006-08-18T00:29:00.001-05:00

A vocation,Composed only of roses
Meant to carry
The weight of the look in your eyes,
But they're really
Only stems
Settled beneath the snow.

What I Wanted to Say

2006-08-17T00:55:00.001-05:00

There are turns of phrases
That run through my mind
And stick out my ears like the cattails that grow by the sound.
I need to get them out,
To set them on the table,
To pull their roots from my heart.

But I can't. They concern things
That I aught not be concerned with,
And it isn't fair if I consider them.

Tender things, raw things.
A fragrance, a moment, an instance, a life.
They pull at my heart, but
They must remain inside.

I creep down the staircase,
The house is bigger, darker in the small hours.

I steal away further into the inky depths
To write this, my only tension breaker,
By the furtive light of an old wood-burner.

(untitled)

2006-08-17T00:46:00.001-05:00

A broken hand
A smoking gun
A thousand decibels turned to one
One moment
One empty prayer

The Graphite Kiss

2006-07-31T23:09:00.001-05:00

It feels like ages since I've held a real pencil
in my hands. I remember the rich
fibrous smell, the lovely and rough
texture of the finely sharpened wooden skin
that peels back to reveal a slender cone
of satiny, midnight fog. The velvet undercoat
that give form like an ethereal and primordial
body, a shadowy skeleton, to my whimsical
and impossible meanderings. They would
later be strengthened by ink or type, but this
sinewy, sexy, gray creature lies here,
underscored by a vague sense of movement,
of future tenses. Both creator and destroyer,
this pencil is. One end ever ready to breath
life into word or image, the other ready at
a mind's breadth to sweep it away in a blaze
of rubbery friction. So peculiar, too, that
these polar entities seen intent on joining
each other again. Perhaps they are lovers,
separated by this smooth, yellowish, painted sea.
Alas, for as they near, so too the time of burial.
For once they become too intertwined I must
discard them, as my clumsy hand is too large.
My clumsy hand breaks these two hearts.

I'm sorry.

(untitled)

2006-07-29T17:34:00.001-05:00

The world tastes empty,No carbs, no sugar
The taste is plenty
Just not what I look for

The colors are different
Faded and fake
Vapor trails for movements
That I'll never make

5am is too late on one end, too early on the other.

2006-07-28T03:53:00.001-05:00

There's nothing I can do at nightTo stop the mind from creeping
To stop the insecurity from peeking in at me
Well, there's sleep
But sleep has always been the enemy
The manxome tendrils sinking into my spine
And rooting me, rotting

What if I just simply am not?
Would it be better to be non-extant?
Wouldn't things remain the same?

I need more reason than you,
Because if I put it all in you
And something shiny steals your attention
Where am I?

Bending Reed

2006-07-25T22:52:00.001-05:00

Wit of fire, but strength of gold
Always doing what you're told

You say, "Strongest wood," but bending reed
Is really what you ought to be

But enough! The story's growing old
Wit of embers, growing cold.

The Pines of Long Island

2006-07-19T20:40:00.001-05:00

Every time I pass the Pine Barrens
I see the new growth stained in burred green,
But the charred death still stands above them,
Stroking the sky, leaving ashy clouds where they touch.

The woods were engulfed in flames
The time I was away, in New England.
When you drove down the highway,
You saw where the flames had stopped,
The pavement becoming a line of demarcation
Between life on one side, and death on the other.

Between life on one side, and rebirth on the other.
Rapidly returning, in beach-glass colors, gentle furs, soft-focus,
But the death still stands taller,
In sharp silhouette against the sky.
From the road, the death remains.

(untitled)

2006-07-02T18:34:00.001-05:00

What is it that rests
Interstitial in the feathers of my
Pillow at night?

Have my dreams and thoughts leaked,
Black and sticky?

What lives in the spaces between
The furniture and the walls?
Is it the same?

Could this be why
My life, of late,
Has grown the pale green
Of sun-starved stalks?

Sober

2006-06-30T23:14:00.001-05:00

It's been so long since I've written to you
That nothing is coming coherently
And it's been so long since I've cared...
This brain is out of practice.

(untitled)

2006-05-06T22:46:00.001-05:00

Why is it I stand on no precipice? Why is it that everything is louder and more metallic than is necessary? That the air takes on a tin flavor when recycled, a taste not unlike a 9v tracing my tastebuds, or a snakebite coursing through capillaries.

Let the rain be soft, and the grasses long and warm. I want to nestle, to slumber, basking. Remove me from my chitinous shell, I want to be fuzzy. I want to be something that can gao. I want the world to turn off, just for one day.

Just for one day.

Apostrophe

2006-02-19T12:36:00.001-05:00

I've been trying to restrict
The flow of images into my pages
Before they get
Blood-fatted, fit to burst,
Leaking black-red ichor

But it seems that I'm brimming with them
They form even the muscles
Of my tongue

Like the rosy dawn stretching
Her golden fingers across the land
("Tickle me gentle," the soil says),
I can't think another mind's thoughts.
I'm filled up full.

It is nine a.m.

2005-11-16T09:00:00.004-05:00

It is nine A.M. for the moment as I sit here. I slept well last night, and it is surprising to me. Sleep has so long been a foe that I am not sure what to make of this new development. It makes me wary, but nothing too bad has occurred yet.

It is nine A.M. as I sit here, but two minutes have passed already. It is nine A.M. because the light is a silky fog outside my window, and the light source is reversed from the location of the sun, making my room a dreamy, bluish revocation of the day. It is nine A.M. because at nine-thirty I'll have to shower and get dressed.

Why is it that I can find some small, strange, truncated rhythm only when I am at the least possible place to make use of it? Like this day, these words, and I are all settled together in an orb of morning.

Things always seem to settle nicely into the appropriate, gentle tides when I can least use them. There is nothing tangible in the way that the little letters tick off in front of me, but their assumed textures and tastes turn bitter around the bend of my tongue after the tip deems them delightful. And even though I sit here at command of them, the words work themselves in mysterious clicking motions. Their assonance, and alliterations, et al, come of their own will and I am not aware until the sentence has been made manifest, and separated itself from my fingertips.

This all sounds massively self-indulgent, and I apologize. I wonder if that is what the entire edifice of this has become. Am I writing to you for my own benefit? Am I writing to myself? I force myself through it, that is sure.

So I wonder, when did my writing here become less of a message, less of a way to expose the fragile, underdeveloped lines, and when did it transform into a steady pushing of meta-cognitive, self-centered flotsam?

I am embarrassed that I snore, I am embarrassed that my body has hair, I am embarrassed that I only have hackneyed clauses to try to entertain you, and I fear that you will see through the curtain one day, and note the broken levers, cracked gauges, and weathered knobs that control the dilapidated visage of Oz. No, not Oz. Not even Ozymandias.

Just a speck of thought. Just a morning's momentary missive in your eyes for a few brief seconds before you move on, as you must; the waters are swift today, as always.

It is nine-thirty A.M.