Category: Poetry

keeper of the bones

they do not
make for
reading chairs;
these piles of bone.
jarring phalanges
too intimate,
nudge and press the skin
of our seats with that night
etched deep into calcium.
the bones are still
and we can not.
left-bum-right-bum
shift and sway.
piles of bones
do not make for
tea-time ottomans
but do brew
things you could never guess to tell
just by looking at her,
those never-never-agains
and silly-lost selves,
found now to ossify,
and dissolve off of our brains
but leave us sitting
foolishly, uncomfortably
on unoriginal secrets.

A big bad block, but there’s always a poem

When I’m feeling particularly useless, I type random words into my Gmail search and read the regurgitated chat archives. It was April 10, 2006 and Sg33k had sent that very first email. I bounced this off of a friend and said, “He seems literate” (ya, Miss-fucking-pretentious was I). That throw-away line was a little piece of flint, and while it’s not going to burn down the house, at least it gave off a bit of smoke today.

—

He seems literate

Famous first words.
Before clever funny words
And what are we words
And I think this is going somewhere words
And when are you going to words
And then I Do words
Into pet words
And silly words
No words
Never angry words
Just grateful words
Just I am so fucking lucky words
Thank God words
And when I have no words
He brings words
To write this story.

blood-relief

It’s not that I
don’t want you.
Almighty Forbid.
May that not be taken for prayer.
It’s just that
I don’t want you
right just now.
If I were having
guests over for lunch,
would I tell them to come
at 10am?
They’d eat their fingers
while I chopped onions.
I want there to be
stories ready
for when you arrive.
Of how we went and got new
tongues in Damascus,
a rich world of words
that would be part of your inheritance,
Before we wrap and bundle you,
I want reams of my written to coddle you.
It’s not that I’m selfish,
but selfless.
I want there to be more of me
to give to you.
It’s not that I
don’t want you.
I even have a name
for you.
“One who guides”
But not right now.

after all these years…

it was a fault of shortsight.

to read chalk
on a blackboard;
the bridge between
seeing and learning,
built another
crooked bridge:
out of malleable bone
and pliable years.
And in the ninth,
heavy coke-bottle glass and names,
gave way to new sight
I could poke into my eyes every morning.
but still the nose
I wasn’t born with,
I said, ruined by spectacles so early on.
Fingers in mirrors trying to undo
the done, see,
this is what I’m meant to look like.
but now I see pictures
of daddy looking away,
profiles of a man
with perfect sight.
and I see a bridge
between him
and I.
Fingers in a mirror,
tapping a line, see,
this is what I look like.

For those who just never got it

This will
pick at the knots
of your years
where stanzas and
rhyme schemas
were the ababa
of babies babble
and old men forgotten.
This will dissolve
the cement
of metaphors
such as like
beyond your mindscape
and things you give a damn about.
I want this to tell
you that
a poem
is a smell.
It is your nostrils
flaring
at the fennel of
tea after the storm
in the mug.
It is you drawing
steel from the safe musk
of your fathers embrace.
It is hospital disinfectant
and the camphor
of bereavement.
It is the stinging talc
of gunpowder
and earth of the rocks thrown
by children who should not
be looking so intently towards death.
This is
a poem.
I want this to tell
you that
a poem
is a taste.
It is strawberry softserve
more on your fingers than tongue.
It is the cardamom of sweetmeats and family
bursting through the roof of the house.
It is the spice of home.
It is the spearmint of that first kiss.
This is
a poem.
I want this to tell
you that
a poem
is a touch.
It is the cotton of his shirt
before he slipped away from you.
It is the bubblewrap of distraction.
It is sandpaper smooth against wood and bruised on your skin.
It is your mothers arm against yours
when all was strange.
This is
a poem.
I want this to tell
you that
a poem
is a sound.
It is the comfort of mantras.
It is the pull of prescribed prayer.
It is the ribbing of gutstrings.
It is the first heartbeat of that which grows inside you.
This is
a poem.
I want this to tell
you that
a poem
is a picture.
Can you see it now?

“Them that takes cakes…”

Sometimes
I kick
geriatrics
in the shins
in the dark
of half-price cinema.

Sometimes
I weave
new birds of paradise
into your pristine
chobi
from gum
my feet bring in off
of the street.

Sometimes
I split
infinitives
and dangle
participles and modifiers
from the
hanging mobile of
my prose.

Sometimes
I forget
the salt
the sugar
remembering instead
the exuberance of
turmeric.

Sometimes
I
just
make
mistakes.