To Say Goodbye

This year was marked with great friends, great memories and thankfully, some great pictures to document!

Unfortunately, I am still behind on the whole digi-camera thing, so I do not have any pictures.

Thankfully, I have three photographing friends who love to snap their cameras a lot. Is that what you do, snap photos? Shoot photos? I guess I am also behind on the lingo. Well here goes a photo walk through my senior year of college...



Key contributors (in no particular order because uploading pictures is still not my forte):

Steph
Que
Tina

The first big moment was saying goodbye to our summer home: Stone Harbor. This beautiful sunset over the Yacht Club bay marks an ending to an era. Our cozy cottage era.

Yet, our summer friends were not ready to let it end. Ali and Jake came to visit us in Brooklyn for a surreptitious pre-season sleepover (note: we're wearing newspaper hats to keep away the rain... good idea...)

Then Tina and Ali traveled SIX HOURS to Boston to watch us play in humid humid heat. They even brought me a watermelon :)
Then Ali's Birthday! We got all dressed up to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge :)
And Ali met a dog named Teddy at Barcade in Williamsburg...
And my brother got a new puppy named Daisy- which would prove to be my new job when I came home for winter break. She looks so innocent...


Now they say college is all about drinking, bars and having a good time: we had our share of bars and celebrations. Jeremy's, Floyd's, Tavern, Newgate, BBQ on 8th, Josie Woods and Camp...
Tina and I karyoking to CCR at Village Ma's.
Ryan and Caley getting ready to kick ass in bocce ball at Floyd's
Fish is so excited about this shot, she can't contain herself.
Someone wrote Catie's name on a napkin with BBQ sauce!
Yeah, Gans' downed all of those 32 ozers.



AND YES, throughout the good times, soccer was interspersed. Oregon!
Camera crew, Denise, Meg and Jackie found the big draw of Portland: "Special" Elvis
How many Vdubs did we see? Well, Steph thought this was was pretty rad. Can't you tell by her expression?
And who could forget us stealing fun oregon beach games from nearby little kids. Ahhhh, seaweed skip-it - still fresh in my mind!
This is what happened when Jackie screamed "Turn and pose!" as Caley, Fish, Steph and I were walking toward the Pacific Ocean. Hot models, we are.
And Gans Fish TD Caley and Jackie thought it'd be funny to imitate the Chippery people. (they did not think this mockery was funny, but couldn't express their resent because, well, they are metal.)
And bus/van trips are always a good time. Look at this "candid" photo of Jackie TD and I laughing our asses off.


80's night!
First of all, all 80's photos should be taken at this angle.

Secondly, girls could pose like this in the 80's and not get called lesbians. (Even though she does like chicks)


ANOTHER NIGHT TO DRESS UP: Halloween :)


We got some firefighters hanging from poles, a mummy, the Ninja Turtles, Braveheart and...The naughty Red Baron and Golfer. Well, we weren't "naughty", but there were some fun poses we could do with that plastic club.
And so, an interlude for Miss Tina Prickett- my roommate, best friend and sister from another mister...

She loves to pose, that is for sure. This is Tina doing a photoshoot at the Salmon River waterfalls- less commonly known as, Forbidden Downs.
And she loves her muscles. Looking hot in (half-a)toga.
She's always willing to share the last few shots on a raft in the bay (and then break up incurring fights on the dock)
Rest on a chilly iceblock to make sure we get the perfect picture...
Try and convince an old cowboy to give up his hat for her performance on the bar of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"

And these 5 pictures of Tina cannot even sum up her existence. Everytime anyone hangs out with her, she is the welcomed center of focus.

Tear * tear* miss you bull...

Moving on to another sad moment: THE END of my soccer collegiate year.
Jackie and I as we walk away from ever playing soccer together again...
(we're actually walking to the Brooklyn Library to read to young children)
Oh how I will miss the Hawthorne Inn and its Murphy Bed!
After the Conference Championship- losing one to zero to the Blue Devils - I take out my sadness and anger at the Tavern, in my home Jersey with lots of beer and swamp frog in me.

Who could forget Oswald, Kalvin, Dagg and Peck? The only imaginary characters that kept me sane throughout my ankle injury...

Soccer was a great time. LIU kicks ass AND we're cool. Beat that CCSU.


WITH EVERY END COMES ANOTHER BEGINNING
even if it someone else's beginning...
Ali graduates from the Coast Guard!!! (and Chelsea has my BURGUNDARY purse from Kmart)

What a joyful time it was to see Ali again. Sorry, there are no pictures from this upside-down night with me and my mac at this moment. Perhaps this section will be updated later...

ANOTHER NEW BEGINNING:
The marriage of Jerry and Melinda! Also known as Gerald and Miranda. A beautiful Seattle New Year's wedding for a gorgeous couple with an endless future.
This is us at Snoqualmie Falls, stalking Jerry and Melinda on their honeymoon.
Juuuust kidding, they had already left and Steph Jackie and I wanted to check out the place.
But we do look stealth...

Speaking of stealth, here's some legit, hardcore, rated X stealthiness for ya'
Notice: Rainbows are Gay. It's funny cause it's true.
And next to her, with the quote of the year:
"Gay is gay, age is irrelevant" -TD
Mission possible.
Gans and Jackie with their stealthiest faces
I did not attend this mission, but damn I wish I did.

While we're on the subject
some more stealth
you'd understand why this is stealth if you knew the context...
Catie, plotting AGAIN.
Fish as Super Fish, just a part of the stealth squad.

Enough stealth. Man, that word is leaving my mouth dry. On to my roommates!

So this is how I decided we'd spend Valentine's Day. Framboise, cheese and crackers and chocolate covered strawberries. Yum! Oh and wearing green. Instead of Vday, we made it Greenday!
Our family photo. Amy is the baby. Me mom, Tina pops.
Tina cooking us some kind of concoction. I think this one was green bean casserole.
(the onions get to her eyes, so she wears goggles)
Slainte- to a great year in 7M

Speaking of a manless Valentine's Day... I did some math in my head the other night.
Over the past 365 days, I have only seen David 19. Ten of those days were on our cross country trip to San Francisco. Here's my tribute to our travels...
Here we are in Houston at his Grandparents house. I love the bricks in the background
This is me in a tree at the LBJ Museum in Western Texas. Yes, I am wearing the same shirt, because I went the whole week living out of one backpack. I rock (and possibly smell? nooooo)
Carlsbad caverns... staring in to the BATCAVE where all the bats fly out of at some point (that we missed). Damn travel deadlines. So much to do, so little time...

A candid shot of David coming out of the meteor crater. I actually forget where exactly this was, but I do remember the circumstances. Dixie Chicks blaring, sign that says Crater exit! We get off the exit, it's 11 miles to the crater and when we get there it's 10 bucks each.
The crater wasn't worth it.
This picture was.
Me contemplating over the Hoover Dam

To be continued...
Blogging gets tiring

We thought it was Thunder

An implosion of the ear
deep, quick, fat
We had heard one like that
earlier in the week
So we turned off our curiosity
and went back to reading

Outside eyes diverted
toward the street
toward the bridge
Brooklyn bridge
A man walked away, covering
his eyes and crying

I panicked; again...?
No, it wouldn't be so quiet
Ran up the stairs
in my white socks
to Gans
"What are you doing?"
She answered in confusion

We peered out the bathroom
window to see
a carbon colored
cloud of smoke
eroding the blue sky
in a billowing form

The TV is no good.
Only celebrities and
sports.
Our Brooklyn was struck
and nobody knows
how or why
The world doesn't seem to care enough-

It's a wonder the paparazzi didn't catch the fume
and photograph
and photograph
and photograph
to extinguish the plume.

Pancakes

At night my thoughts
match my movements,
twisting in the sheets
of cerebral insanity
My cheek flips from left
to right- each time
my brain boggles from
its creative side
to technical:
Thirty page thesis paper
-flip-
Tongue turning rhythmic
lines
-flip-
Graph & maps & time too
exact
-flip-
Absorbing, observing, contorting
the simple

I flip halfway
& lie on my back

to frog

They say: "Do what you love"
and so I do-
I write, and at night
I come home to you

Tensegrity

Found dead on the border
in limbo of Nevada and California
Route 190 West, just past the sign
Her hand clasped tight to his
Continued into the night: rigor mortis
And on the upper part of his thigh
a handprint, imprinted in pink
indicating her grip on the curve of his
leg, as he pressed to speed up
then against the break at the curves
She lay smiling, head up against
the niche of his pectoral and bicep
He has, not the look of dying,
but the smooth satisfaction of having just lived
as if
he had just created life there before the sign
Christened the car with a lovely duet
to their own Eulogy

One wonders what they were doing in
Death Valley, in the pitch black of night
what turns they could have missed
curves and swerves not just left
but down and up, through terrain
unknown to the eyes:
Too dark to see
Gripped hands are tense
Tickling ambivalence
in their senses
She probably wondered whether
she should be thrilled or
chilled at the speed, the lack
of perception
Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell
Absent
She became more acutely aware
of the clutching touch
As soon as she realized
the depth of this sense
It was stripped away.

He abruptly snatched his hands
to the wheel, just before the crash.
Just before their bodies bounced forward
then back.
The car hood, where they had loved before,
smashed into their abdomens
The imprint, the hands, the touch
Come together in a consummate
Coda of love

Seven times Seven

I
To teach Tyra,
who couldn't draw stars
because her pencils always twisted
into figure eights and circles
I told her to draw an alligator mouth
It came out backwards sometimes
but at least she drew straight lines

II
I read it on the back
of a nasty bathroom
stall door
that seven in the max
amount of times
one can fold
a piece of paper in half

III
Some celebrities name their children
Apple
or Moon unit
or Rumer
Erykah Badu's chosen
Toddler Tag:
Seven.

IV
The Great Pyramids of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum of Maussollos
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

V
All the Senior women
occupied their
choice cards
and in between whisper gossip
would wait for
Lucky Number
7

VI
The arch always seemed to
just appear,
never formulate before one's eyes
and although the pigments faded
into one another,
each shown distinct
Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

VII
Contradictory, really
when one picks it
apart
Claims to be
even
when really, it's
odd

Affinerty

When he was butting heads
Michael was
with his comments as
triangular and
so bold
to be a child
I never knew

Dismemberment

Each memory forms a wrinkle
a crease we can't unfold
Etched in like an inscription
the truth can't be untold

I hate your poignant memory
fuming stenches from the pungent past
I hate my transient memory
But even more, that yours lasts

Why keep the creepy feelings,
the bitter leach that seeps in deep
Why suck on the sour memories
and leave the good ones left to bleed?

Let’s pretend our brains’ are hydra
and chop off the poisoned limbs

Epiphenomenalism

He asked me Why I missed some spots
on the canvas
I reminded him
not all rooms in the
city building skyline
leave their lights on
at night.
He asked me Why I was trying to be
profound
I replied: "No, just thinking aloud."

We toss and we turn
to try and create
we dive in our minds
steal inspiration
from the secondary sparks
the brain bi-products

Why, Why, Why

I answered:
Each lit window is a
thought expressed
The dark, dead offices
are the thoughts repressed

Spread the News, It feel so Good getting Used

What he said:
about the wrinkles- and the sunburn
except, i never find my fingertips
shriveled after a long conversation about nothing with him
the youth on the tips stays pure and everlasting
the youth of our hips is forever replenishable
by a chat about jogging
the high, after running
well worth the non-smokers smoker's cough
we use one another
each word overturns the next word
the other says
about ham
or leftovers
or some junk in our head
that doesn't even need to be said
but we say it anyway
and the chatter goes on
and on and on across the continent

diko

I don't like the way
you probably speak
to the women who make
your coffee
I smile because I'm a happy
person- you seem cynical
and condescending
but you're always smilling
I don't like how I feel
young and nubile
around you
Don't like how you act like
you're younger
Your experience frightens me
more mystery than I can
breath in
You wear a windbreaker from
before I was born
Your eye contact never wavers
Steady, steady stare.
Please, free me from intrigue

The Up-Stairs

These are the up-stairs
Everyone goes up
then out
I've never seen someone come
down
Inconvenient to make one's
travel to the subway
platform from
this angle
this location
Then again, maybe it
has happened
Maybe a man dropped his
hat in the up process, once
Maybe a lady
realized at the top
she got off at the
wrong stop

Maybe.

Bungalow

1.
The city isn't peaceful
like the she-touch of a wave
spilling up onto the shore
then falling back
by moon's effect

2.
The family visits the post office
on Sundays
rationing letters out to the young
children
to drop in the mailbox
like they do at the park:
scatter wood particles for the
termites hiding in the trees

3.
The house down there is naked-
made of pine logs
just cut last year
although new, the floors
creak and each crack
plays a different song
with the radio in the back-
ground

4.
The walls are full of splinters
and the hall light lives at
night, with stamina

5.
One child swears she's swimming
in a lake, not an ocean
because she's scared of sharks
Just like at night, she
swears the hall light is God
because she's scared of the dark

6.
But a lake doesn't crash at the
shorelines like that
Like words on a page,
falling down

Wyoming

Watermelon

Centi-celebration!

That's right folks - 100 posts! I think there are a few submissions that are not mine(and so indicated), so we'll have another centi-celebration when I've hit 100 personal poem posts.

*Why have I not gotten the "quit it with the alliterations" comment yet?
Get on the ball, commenters. Even I notice my own annoyances.

Why I Rhyme

My mind thinks in patterns
Though sometimes scattered,
always subtle configurations
And usually, obvious alliteration
I write poetry because I like
the flow
of language
The way a line rolls off my tongue
and gently onto the subsequent one
Sometimes the rhyme is subdued
by a particular placement
A doggerel rhythm
With my own chosen hues
I wouldn’t paint purple on a yellow
canvas-
Just as my words have a scheme,
I rhyme to avoid syntactical blandness
I rhyme for my reasons; don’t intervene.

(a response to "It's okay to rhyme)

It's okay to rhyme

It’s okay to rhyme
Reminisce of some
Ancient time
When words seemed new
A slow drive down
A backwood
Gravel road
The earth settles beneath the tires
A faultline after
An earthquake
Hands meshing
Heartbeats settling
Like campers at the base
Of a canyon
The rhythm of a first
Night in a new town
Pacific-northwest
We read each others thoughts
Like sonnets
The birth of some old cliché
We rhymed without fear
No embarrassment
Trapped in a fog
Lost
And if we skipped a beat
Here or there
We’d awake
Startled
How the rain begins
Again
On the other side of
The underpass

(submitted by a fellow poet after a poetry convention)
((yeah, we're dweebs))

A Coquette, A Poet

Once I put my pencil to
paper
all mental barriers are
broken.
Words become sentences
then ideas start flowing
like the surge of warmth filling
the body
after a simple kiss.
Ink on paper is
a writer’s foreplay-
Scribbling babble is
my forte.
A peck on the cheek
then skin against skin,
one will never finish what
one doesn’t begin.

It is what it isn't

Brooklyn tumbleweed
Somersaulting down the street
Black clump of hair-weave

These jeans

I wear these jeans almost everyday
I don't care if you notice
Don't care if you complain
They don't smell, they're not muddy
As long as I'm comfy
I wear these jeans everyday

The day the inside of the legs wear out
from the curves of my thighs
or
the button breaks off
or my butt doesn't fit

will mark a day I turn the textiles
into a skirt-
That'll work

Flaw

They say love is seeing an imperfect
person perfectly
But I don't buy in to the cliché
I say
love is caring unconditionally
Hating his bad habits
Despising his tendencies
Not particulary liking
breathing his morning breath stench
but kissing it anyway
It's unspiteful hate
It's getting to that point
The breaking point
crossing the gap
staying on track
until the next test:
Love is a mess.

Bread Dept.

My work is dull- numbs my mind
stare at foods- listen to people
You'd think they'd make for good topic
But dull dull, shapes & sounds

Not that I am profound
but I can think more thoroughly
honestly aloud, when talking it out.

Getting caught in my head
with Turkish symphony soundtrack
to my days
keeps my brain at a
simple stage:
Low observation
Repetition
Monotony
Monotony
Repetition

Your favorite expression

Yes.
My desk is a mess
and I let the pennies collect like
dust on an unattended counter
Yes.
My mind is a mess
It moves left then
right before it turns
it understands and confuses
before it learns
Yes.
My life is a mess
An unorganized spectrum
of the entire rainbow
where Roy meets Biv
before touching G
And sometimes skips the last color
altogether,
for sagacity
Yes.
I hold a grudge
against a color
I’m a mess.

Myokymia

You mentioned ‘convulsion’
and my arm, in its compulsion,
repulsed into spasms.

A chasm of character:
My mind and my fibers
Fought for a fighter.

My mind, in its obstinacy,
told itself to shelve
the tendency to teeter
when the word “convulsion”
was mentioned;
Mind over utterance.

Still my arm, the sputterer
fluttered,
the nerves trumped the brain:
No power of restrain.

A tick, my brain missile
missed its target to switch
from compulsion
to restrain.
The brain loses
the battle of natural
inclination,
a bodily reaction to a
verbal utterance.
A sputter
Convulsion
Sputter
Repulsion
Waver
Revulsion

My mind is disgusted
by its incapacitation.

A karma wallop

The taffeta scarf hung-
no, clung-
to the butt end of the
subway stair rail
as if a bag woman
had used the banister as a slide
and vanished into thin air
at the end of her ride

I've committed myself

I’ve committed myself to real rituals
Less habits
I’ve committed myself to more fiscal
Sensibility
I’ve committed myself to time
To the clock
I’ve committed myself to more green lights
Less stops
Committed myself to less known
More a mystery
I’ve committed myself to the future
Not history
I’ve committed myself to trust
To loyalty
I’ve committed myself to living a little less
Royalty
I’ve committed myself, some say too soon,
To what is love?
I’ve committed myself over distance
Under spun
I’ve committed myself, more to air
Environment
I’ve committed myself, often poor
Never spent
I’m committing myself
To the nearest asylum

Come commit with me
We’ll meet ‘em greet ‘em
Wine ‘em dine ‘em
Then defile them
Come commit
Admit to insanity
I am out of my mind
I have finally realized it

My guess is that gas squiggles

In the Alphabetic labyrinth, the "g" has lost its squiggle
We all have fonts
but the contemporary "g" is a circle with a leftward hook
I like the Georgia lowercase "g"
The Carolingian kind
My pastime doodle is the symbol for
one ten-thousandth of a tesla-
Gravity, too
g

I like g's like she likes stars
I am convinced real stars are not truly penta-pointed shaped

Hydrogen and helium gaseous bodies
Follow me here: stars aren't generic, symmetrical symbols
Stars aren't perfectly pointed shapes
When a star is described in all its glory
It is an equilibrium between
compressional force of gravity
and
outward pressure of radiation
resulting from internal thermonuclear
fusion reactions

Can such a celestial body be summed up
in a child's favorite shape to draw
so simply upon the page?

Stars are shapeless, saggy gaseous
I see stars as squiggly g's
A sky sea of g-stars

Giorgios Qure-lacroix Retsinas

Wears an invisible pocket watch
gold- clashing bulky
fake locket rings
He's bleeding teeth with a shot
of whiskey to wash it down
Compulsion and all the leaves
that leave the tree too early
jumping down, not to land
but to float along the
gravel path, between the
shadowalleys and over
roadblockades
A carved tree, sewn back together by a
chinese artist
A tryst - a kiss - an untouchable
miss
He's dissonance and rhythm
dance and rhyme
He only wakes early
when he doesn't know the time.

Used to be night to me

People say I'm crazed, deranged
to wake before the sun
sheds it's rays
but I think it's fun
you'd be amazed
how many conversations
commence, develop and deliberate
inside your mind at such a time
6 am or earlier
nothing to do
but unfurl ideas- conjugate

You two

I sense tension
The room’s a crowded two dimension apartment kitchen
In which we have no choice but to
Slide by
One another
Sometimes knocking the gas stove in the on postion

Stood out on the porch

I’ve got this idea
Brewing
Tell me, what are you
doing for the next millennium?
Would you want to choose a better
life, the right life
for a liver
Would you embrace it
or would you quiver
and stay right where you're at
Join me on a journey
come Explore
Want more
Let’s get a car
wait, no
a bike
instead of leather
we’ll use eachother’s skin
to protect us from the wind
I’ll clutch my hand against
your hand
pressing
on the clutch
and I can be your kickstand

Would you do it?
uproot and choose it
Say yes to my request
follow through?
Look past what they expect
don’t become that old man
with regret

If we get out there
and you decide
that the timing
the rhyme is just not right
That the chorus and verse clash
and I drive much too fast
then you can go
Slow, or leave
me
But at least you ventured
Just to see

Steal This Poem

Steal this poem
Touch it twerk it
Negate, reverse it
Bit and piece it, abduct
Release it

Dissect or
Cure it, kiss it
Invade, infect
Try it, deny it
Skim, delve in
Purloin it praise
Destroy it blaze it
Add, subtract
Clarify, refract
Sip or gulp it
Toss it back

Rummage through it
Discard debris
Stare and see it
Poke some holes
Patch it up
Throw it catch it
Fasten or Unlatch
Quick it slow it
Come it, go it

Con it pro it
Yes it, no it
Adjust it, keep it
Hide, reveal it
Use it, own it
Kill, condone it
Remind, forget it
Love, regret it
Pretty it, destroy it
Learn it listen
A choice you’re given
To absorb and live it
Like it or fake it
You can have it
Go on-
Take it.

The Tiramisu Solution

Today hurt
I steamed up some soy milk
Cappuccino, frothy
closed my eyes to sip delicious
but upper crater of mouth rejects
tongue does not taste what it expects
a flow of lava smoldered inside
Sucked it up and swallowed
Because John is watching from across the counter

Later, sat on a sideways milk-crate
and painted the back of my jeans
with raspberry juice- mixed with cranberry,
I believe

Slammed my pointer finger
in the pastry car door: display case slider
Striped a cake unintentionally
with my two longest fingers
and shook the phalanges
as if it would shake away the pain
I paced the 32 tiles of my coffee station
searching for a solution
to my pounding fingernail
Found a tiny Tiramisu, unworthy
of display case frame
So I stick my finger
straight down into the soothing
mousse-y treat:
A new remedy

We're mostly made of hair

I like myself smooth, or unshaven relaxed
I like myself skinny, six-packed, even fat
Well fat for me, at least
I can’t say I’ve ever been obese
I like myself mascara-ed
I like myself pure
I like when my hair’s up
but also the tussled allure
I like when it’s straight
or curly or messed
but really I like it
when I’m with you the best.

Blizzard, Oh Six

She’s got snow dreads, bangs dangling like melted comb teeth
A disastrous combination: one with passivity and one without plans
A woman slips on the hidden decline from the sidewalk, with a shriek
Touches the street with her leather gloved hand
Her petticoat man wrapped in scarves and mittens kneels
Eye-level and looks to see
If she is okay.
She is okay. We are all “okay”.

Us two, we too are okay. We made it this far, Bleeker and 3rd
Lost in this swirling, snowy world- signs hide behind
thick white sheets of powder
We didn't check the other side
And thus, got lost on the Lower East side
What once was a square-grid of city streets was
now a full circle, circumferentially scanned by us

Upon arrival, long-hairs and hunched pocket boys
line the Mercury Lounge pane of glass
lionizing Dax Riggs and Tessie Brunet
a guy with a stolen grocery basket, rides
alongside the line
crying "Sold Out, too late, let's go"
Our shoulders hump, hands slip into our pockets in
complete depletion
Turn solemnly, newfound hollowness, cold
and search for Indian for Samosas

Across the street a microwave heated curry
with chicken bones and mango juice
soothes our chilly skin
The woman pounds out a fresh nan
too late to eat with our food
so we take it to go
to distract our heads from the wet snow

Hop a train, think of lines to take to not walk from Jay
The J, to Canal then transfer to Q, we'll wait
but underground away from slush
Steph touches her head against the tile wall
and seems to think it's warmer than the air
Her surrogate fireplace

Canal was up, not down and we're crossing a bridge
and crossing our thoughts and crossing our eyes
and lost
Bridge to Brooklyn, but wrong about both
Williamsburg bridge to Marcy Ave
Our souls are cold, our minds are numb
Whatever happened next was zombie but fun

A night that didn't end
because it never began
A trip to go see Deadboy & the Elephantmen

In Milan

Why when we try
We’re nothing we push
against the current

When you were
Yesterday, here
things were great
Because I wasn’t aware

While you were away
I would stay
close to heart because
I felt we’d win
Make it through

But while you were weaving
I curved, stirred
fell in love
with my life

Lettre Subliminale a Vous

This surge of warmth
quickly develops in my throat up
to the back of my eyes
and a response of passionate
attention suddenly
cramps my mind
into a little corner
where all my thoughts are
disagreeably focused
on a sweeping past, overwhelming
despondency which I felt
I had conquered and killed already
but I am poignantly reminded
that it’s still hear
and it’s real and I’m weak
and I want to scream out a lie
to make you feel bad
to make you feel as I do, to put you on my
level and lie that I don’t need you
lie that you have lost me
lie that I am gone and you missed you’re chance
with the best thing that would ever
happen to you.
But I can’t, just like
I can’t
have you.

Maria Gabriella

"Darling, how arrre you?" she
stresses the are like a haughty pirate,
slightly bowing her head and unbuckling
her knees ambiguously
Connection explodes between her
twinkling blinking chestnut eyes
and Fab's high eyes
We placate with awkward half smiles
Fab stares in resistance
refusing to put on her lab coat
and assist in strapping up Gab's
straight jacket.
"She has the touch of a mother"
but Fab caresses her arm, around, up
twisting toward her shoulder
Gabriella's eyes flutter into spasm
and her entire body twitches back
into her seat- defeated
I nibble my litchi from
my vodka vermouth martini
"We'll take another asparagus"
I tell the Garden State waiter
Brazil is flailing, wincing at
her scotch sip
She's old money
She's 54
She is painted on the face, splashed brain
and withering inside.
"Do you know who I yam??"
I just keep hearing Yam, as I
wait for my sweet potatoe blackened
catfish and
stare into her wet eyes, trying to get
her mask to crack
Nothing.
She just curses me out more
"Well, fuck you then- fuhhh Q!
How old zar you?
Do you know who I yam?"
Mmm yams...

Roark

under dim pink lighting
one can spelunk the caverns
of his mouth
caricature feature - his back
throat punching bag
vibrating, rocking
and rolling to the tones
of his own
He's a black Banana Republic sweater
blue-eyed package with
dirty jeans and
surreptitious seduction
He's ten saffron words working
down the page
Thirty-seven on a good day
witty, knows his humor
Caterpillars through but
always ends in aviation

Subway Scrawl

"How late the daylight edges
toward the northern night
as though journeying
in a blue bat, gilded in mussel shell
with, slung from a mast, a lantern
like our old idea of the soul"

KJ62

Caroline

Caroline
I’ve seen her lift that ton
bucket of sugar that I can
barely slide

I’ve tried to unlatch the
cappuccino cap after
she brewed a double shot
always caught so tight, I
try and fight
left, loose
but still- it’s stuck

I’ve noticed her teeth,
their grinding features,
snarl when she smiles

The style of her
thong, so wrong to be showing
Pulled so tight up her back, must
be why she’s uptight and
cracks when the crumbs collect
on the fridge’s ledge- she
needs to relax

I’m scared to scoot by her
belly or butt
with only tiles
length space

When she’s cutting
lemons or cake
the knife mocks,
stares at me
as it rocks back and forth
across the cutting board-
teetering in her hand, far away
from my face
but the mirage
makes the movement
fast

I cast a glance
toward her
eyes, catch a devising grin
on the lower rim
of her brown
pupils
She is stupid but
skilled at scaring
the wits out of
me.
I hope she doesn’t cut me.

Coffee Sleeve

Caution! Brown warning
A stop before you sip sign
hugging the mug
for customer convenience

Milkcrate

standing on a milkcrate
staring at the boxed cake
baskets hang the ceilings
sporadic misdealings
angry old man fights
Semolina Twist- not sliced!
"Last one, sir"
Grunt, scoffs "Failure"
Gone, back Nora's on
singin' me my soothing song
"sunrise, sunrise looks like
morning in your eyes."
I'm back atop my milkcrate

Plasma Orgasm

Is nothing natural anymore-
what can we look forward to?
The foragers woke up to beams
of fresh sunrise
We, to fake rooster calls
and trucks backing up
They retrieved their
berries, captured their
protein
We dial out for delivery
They fell asleep to timber howls
green leaf-bed
We never fall asleep
We fake or force it

Ornamental Serviette

Today I surreptitiously
pecked the sunflower seeds
off a lonely loaf
I peeled apart doilies
for the entire shift
Except the last seven hours

Separating doilies reminds
me of you
A person I am constantly
writing subconscious poems to
To tell you of my days
the time spent
or wasted away
from you
and your films
and your musicality
and your touch
that I mentally caress so much

Yet back to the bread
the customers’ call
and leave me back here without you
with withdrawal

juncture

Sitting on a crowded Q
in a stolen subway chair
(acquired by beating the frumpy man
to the chinese woman's
vacant seat)
on the east, furthest from
the city -
the horde of heads
all turn in reverie toward
the 5 o'clock skyline
creating their own curved
and crooked line of sky
with their tall squat short
thin figures blocking
the sunset backdrop.

I bob my head
to catch a glimpse but the people
structures barely blink long enough
to wince or shrink for me to see
they're packed too densely, immensley
blocking my view
A man moves left
just enough to leave me
a keyhole peek -
the tail end of the
Brooklyn Bridge slithers
into sight with the Watchtower
sitting still behind it.

I hunch my shoulders in
despondance and scribble down
this internal correspondence.

C.O.

Some confessions are meant to be kept
slipped snuggly in the back pocket
scribbled on Ivex pastry paper.

The thought could not escape you,
but the words to capture, could.
The mood might nearly rape you
from all you’ve understood.
He’s not acquainted with your secret,
you’d tell him but the truth:
you cannot disclose this emotion
in an explicitly expressive fashion.
It’s un-revealable
because it’s inconceivable
to the common mind.

You continue to keep the secret
because you want to conceal the conundrum
that his mind might also be frequent.