This is Not a Poem

Autumn Numb

2007-09-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, I lied. I'm posting a complete poem here...but only in the spirit of autumn and the fact that I may be reading it at St. John's University soon because it was published in the art and literary magazine, Sequoya. I may have just graduated, but you can't get rid of me that easily SJU!

I fell for you
in autumn numb.

My silent opportunist
how I miss your gaze
laconic and taciturn
Noble hammered gesture

My virulent lamb
I lack your embrace
the model of my urn
Golden orange enclosure

Tips of brown fold fade
over pallor of my face
unkempt angel hair
Red with gory ferocity

Puncture pop frail spirit
chosen tool of devastation
Exercise a blunt object
to prove a point

Leading one to the
Other leading one the to
One other leading to the
The one to other leading
To leading the one other

to sylvan burial place.

I watch one waltz away
Ethereal evil
Dancing on concrete cloud.

Having a Coke with Satie (inspired by Frank O’Hara)

2007-09-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

This is inspired by a Frank O'Hara poem and was a fun little exercise about someone I would like to grab a drink with. Since it's Erik Satie, I should probably change "coke" to "absinthe," but whatever. The formatting of this is going to get seriously screwed up on blogger, but you'll get the idea. My real worry is that I didn't maintain the intention throughout!

is even more fun than listening to Rossini, Poulenc, Debussy, Vivaldi, Bach
or being sick to my stomach on the balcony of Avery Fisher Hall
partly because in your velvet suit collection you look like a better happier Willy Wonka
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for eccentricity
partly because of your madcap song titles that dance delicately in my ears
partly because of the secrecy your smiles take on in black and white photographs
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there could be anything still
as solemn and profoundly simple as statuary when right in front of it
in the cold Paris winter lights we are drifting back and forth
between each other like notes breathing through scales

and popular musicians seem to have no faces on them at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever listened to them

I look
at you and I would rather listen to you than all the compositions in the world
except possibly for a Mozart piece occasionally and anyway it’s at Lincoln Center
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that your music moves so honestly more or less takes care of Impressionism
at home I think of you playing a descending staircase of keys
at a rehearsal in your own dwelling of umbrellas and fantastical humor
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do modern composers
when they never get the right intention to whisper longingly in the landscape
or for that matter how they don’t pick up on the truths and confusions and
subtleties as carefully as the arrangement

it seems they are all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

Little Lunes, Big Names

2007-09-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

Some lunes:

Magnetized by God
they wait with folded hands
on bended knee

stiff and still
Jimmy Hoffa in possum costume
in my backyard

pacing in circles
Kant wanders in my bedroom
Am I there?

Cuchulain lacks foresight
sword to kill his son
Blind Man knows

Haiku Fun

2007-09-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Lee Ann Brown (who is awesome) taught me that despite what I learned in grammar school, haiku does not mean 5-7-5...something to do with Japanese words and syllable differences.

day vampires wait
devouring the sunlight
Yes, crimson coffee

These are from an observation day at the park:

Green blades
millions without sheaths
tickle arms

teeth, tongue
Billy barks atop a bench
messy fur

Solar bounce
plunges to his knees
grass stains

Chains rotate
clink, clank crickety
Bike parade

Gnats fuss
Directionally challenged
Floating chaos

watching the world
Old people sit on benches
Time passes

Crickets chirp
hidden between branches
Lulled to sleep

Hitting the Brakes

2007-09-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

(this is one I'm pretty positive I'll never be able to finish)

a boy falls to the ground
if no one sees it, did he ever make a sound?

ten times
two years known

in places where
split-open
moths splayed
on bulletin boards
carried by
blue thumbtacks
held truths

When he waltzed by
I would hold his scent
in my mouth

traipsing on motorcycle
carefree
wind thumping against helmet
audible
was his
unique voice timbre

a boy falls to the ground
if no one sees it, did he ever make a sound?

smack onto
Williamsburg concrete
had it not absorbed
he could've floated to the top

observing electric fiction
as he flies and
Withers on Humboldt

mealy-mouthed consolations
merge with confusions
as mothers mourn
and friends question

ashes, ashes
wet eyelashes

forget?

I'd much rather be
heckled by an old ghost.

linchpin

2007-09-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

this is the linchpin to your image
time for a lynching in the village

?

2007-09-08T10:31:00.001-07:00

with all the screaming mimi's how do you ever get to breathe?

Why can't we live in an insulated world, James?

2007-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

when I fall it's a cold steel thud
and my fingers are unresponsive
my feet care not to care
they zig zag and circle
in a clumsy dodo dance

if I didn't have a heavy soul
I'd run out of this town
and dispose of it all
for a promise
and dozy embrace

but the breaks are stomped on
out of some sort of unnamed fear
that creeps and folds in corners
taps and denies in head-shaking fury

Why can't we live in an insulated world, James?
Here, I thought the answer was obvious.

p.s.-breaks is not a misspelling

This is Not a Poem

2007-09-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know that one of my ingrained characteristics is a fear of sharing my writing with other people. The things I post here won't be complete poems or stories I've written, but rather random thoughts that will either remain random thoughts, or maybe when a light bulb goes off, will be incorporated into stories and poems. The stuff I'll post here will pretty much be unfiltered, so it may not make much sense to you. I'll stop babbling now.

Hugs for everyone.