A little poem penned at work today. Mostly a recollection.
–
The gravelly odor of diesel
and the blunt pungency of rubber upholstery;
The rise and fall of the gear-sound
and a hissing exhale.
This great yellow creature rumbles toward my home.
I enter its belly, step aboard and ride
Until we arrive, fall in a line out its ear
And into the castle.
So long(.)
Since I’ve tried courting(,/;)
I’ll leave(.)
The decision(’)s for you(./,)
To make the best choice(./,)
You must know about the fishes and birds.
I am a bird(.)
Who says(?/,)
“I fly close to heaven(”)
(“)And hunt you,
(“)But don’t(.”)
Think I’m a bird(?/;)
I am a fish(.)
Who drowns in his doubts(?/.)
I do(.)
Your beauty(:)
Injustice.
I am whichever one of these(;)
That you are not(.)
A bird or a fish should not matter.
Dammit.
27 November 2003
punc·tu·ate (pŭngk’chōō-āt’) v. -at·ed, -at·ing, -ates. 1. To provide (a text) with punctuation marks. 2. To interrupt periodically. 3. To emphasize or stress.*
So long
Since I’ve tried courting
I’ll leave
The decisions for you
To make the best choice
You must know about the fishes and birds.
I am a bird
Who says
“I fly close to heaven
And hunt you,”
But don’t
Think I’m a bird
I am a fish
Who drowns in his doubts
I do
Your beauty
Injustice.
I am whichever one of these
That you are not
A bird or a fish should not matter.
Dammit.
27 November 2003
in·ter·weave (ĭn’tәr-wēv’) v. –wove (wōv’), -wo·ven (wō’vĕn), -weav·ing, -weaves. –vt. 1. to weave together. 2. To blend together: intermix. –vi. To intertwine.*
–
*Source: Webster’s II New Riverside Dictionary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
A tiny ruby ball upon my skin
Reminds me of the flood I hold within
My frail and flailing, fleeting, fragile corps
Which someday will be invalid no more.
The living liquid wraps itself around
The wound, and starts in perfection to bind
My skin to skin; my body mends itself
In finely-spun linen from He who dwells
Outside of corporeal things—of pain and death,
Of pride, of want, orgasm, sin, or breath;
For when this vessel is devoid of blood
His own He’ll give, and bring me home for good.
(30 October 2000,
7 May 2004,
16 November 2008)
They feed me with hunger.
Too much salt, chased with just enough sugar
that my tastebuds rave and are sick
in the same thick instant.
Color and spiky sound wrestle on my tongue,
Trying not to be swallowed,
wanting to linger in their power
over the yawning mind, stretched
in fatigue and want,
despite itself.
When will I be full?
Bite by byte I gnosh and scarf
and comb my tongue, my brain
with its senses;
I stage plays with ASCII characters,
I play symphonies from system errors,
I paint and unpaint with Ctrl+Z.
Will I ever swallow my meal,
or will it swallow me?
To trip a trap, to spring a crook,
to follow life through all its nooks
and holes and caverns, loopholes through
which we say, and elsewise do.
I grew a lad with rules to heed.
I grew, a lad without a need,
’til worldly travails herded me in
and taught me a new way to grin.
As shrewd as snakes, as mild as sheep,
we pray the Lord our souls to keep;
that as we wend our way through winds
and navigate with furtive grins
We not forget our spotless kid,
who protests while we keep him hid,
and nags and kicks us in the shins
lest our loopholes knot into sins.
We scuff the line, we scoff at waste,
we season our lifestyles to taste;
Long as our conscience is not seared,
we keep our heads, and fend off fear,
we’ll slip and slide through caves and through
the things we say, and elsewise do.
Tenderness rages within me,
searching out a mouth for its voice, a weak-
ness of lip, to split a seam into a fountain.
That I were a spring, to
drench you in my life—
but that role is not mine.
I must be only the vein, the space
within the rock that living water
may smooth and shape into
a vessel, formed by and of the flow.
My would-be love, my hope for more,
expectation seeps from my pores.
I know that this was not our deal:
we said we’d wait, take time to feel
in chemistry’s good time, and time
has incubated my sublime
feelings, which I admit are young.
I’m relearning this tricky tongue–
the one that lets me speak to you
without interpretation’s skew
of the true self I’d have you see;
but all this time you’re changing me.
The man you might learn to adore,
because of doubt, may be no more.
I’m overthinking you.
I think and think, try to recall
your story about that guy Paul.
If I know your stories, I know you,
and any love is only true
through knowing–so I study hard,
yet my overthinking retards
the knowing, so I emerge void.
I clung too well: the thing’s destroyed.
Yet there you are again, after
a few days, a few weeks. Laughter
again bounces between us and
deflects my overthinking. Strands
of your hair now brush fear away,
time drains itself out of the day,
and I love without checking first.
My thoughts lose their immortal thirst.
2008-08-02
We check tickets and tick checkboxes.
A millimeter move of the index,
a few centimeters slides the wrist.
A hard day’s work?
Thousands of miles of neurons
have been traveled today,
But this is far from the ax-swing
of our fathers,
The fall of the maul in their ancestors’ hands.
The only sun we know builds the machines
we now call our farms.
Are we atrophying?
Or are we stronger than we know?
I can pass a test,
But could I win in a barfight?
2007-04-13