All of the candles burning down so fast.
My feet are covered in blisters, full and round,
like paper lanterns,
I am sticky with orange salve.
I'll never end up like Lucrezia--
I don't know why I have her portrait on my wall,
the resignation of her face,
simple brush-stroke of a stab wound,
she is hanging on to the curtain,
she will do it again,
her hand on the knife is ready,
bits of pomegranate seeds
stuck in her molars,
a small good sweetness, brief color
in a barren gray life.
Lucrezia lacked, lacking in luck,
lacking in light.
Forgot to crawl beneath the sprawl
of the sun.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Little Egypt
To think of all the times
you saw me laughing,
silent, and crying.
You never saw me dance.
And I’m such a good dancer.
Imagined Conversation
I fear the satyr:
But not as much
as I am terrified of love.
I have watched it lying,
barely moving,
face down on my bed.
I have tried to breathe life
into its stubbornly slack
blue lungs.
(And while it is true
that I am learning
that what is dead,
is not always dead
for good, or ever,
I seem to find
my lovers in their winter.
I trip over their bodies,
covered in the snow
of their pain.)
I fear the satyr,
but not as much as
the tangled horror of loss.
I cannot breathe for the
little catches that stitch
my inhales.
Once love was
natural to me,
coral to an ocean.
I only wanted your warm
skin against mine, and
all the time.
Now solitude is
my ocean.
I think I understand how you felt.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
fairy tale love story 1.0
fuck the semen that you left in my bed to bleach little rivers in the indifferently blue sheets.
fuck you, fuck your haircut, i wish it were mine, i'm keeping this sweatshirt, because I don't hate you.
fuck you for assuming that you know ANYTHING. you have a face i want to punch. you have a voice i want to strangle and a body i want to fuck.
and a mind i want to fuck, so, so bad.
fuck you for staring at me as if i know what you are thinking. i don't. i just want to. and the more you stare, the more i want to, and the black smoke in me spreads like crude on naive waters.
fuck your little black jeans.
fuck you for assuming that i do not Know How It Feels To Be A Writer. i have been writing since i could write. fuck your drawl.
fuck you for wanting to fuck me so much. nothing is ever different. fuck you for perpetuating this.
fuck you for your wide-eyed pursuit, your innocence, your insistence, fuck you for the accompanying guilt injections.
fuck you for assuming that i am speaking about you, for assuming that i am in love with you, sad and unrequited and pathetic. fuck you for enjoying that notion. the funny thing - the astounding thing - is that it isn't even true.
fuck you for being good but not good enough, close but not close enough to what i want.
fuck you for getting what you want. fuck you and your hopeful love affair.
fuck you for witnessing my inarticulate ineptitude, my blind confusion and the bruises that ensue, fuck you for knowing i'm hurt, fuck you for your unusually perceptive way. fuck you for being in the room on the day i want not to exist.
coming home, wanting to sleep.
SURPRISE!!!!!!!!
twenty seven thousand people i want to ignore in my fucking face.
fuck you, fuck your haircut, i wish it were mine, i'm keeping this sweatshirt, because I don't hate you.
fuck you for assuming that you know ANYTHING. you have a face i want to punch. you have a voice i want to strangle and a body i want to fuck.
and a mind i want to fuck, so, so bad.
fuck you for staring at me as if i know what you are thinking. i don't. i just want to. and the more you stare, the more i want to, and the black smoke in me spreads like crude on naive waters.
fuck your little black jeans.
fuck you for assuming that i do not Know How It Feels To Be A Writer. i have been writing since i could write. fuck your drawl.
fuck you for wanting to fuck me so much. nothing is ever different. fuck you for perpetuating this.
fuck you for your wide-eyed pursuit, your innocence, your insistence, fuck you for the accompanying guilt injections.
fuck you for assuming that i am speaking about you, for assuming that i am in love with you, sad and unrequited and pathetic. fuck you for enjoying that notion. the funny thing - the astounding thing - is that it isn't even true.
fuck you for being good but not good enough, close but not close enough to what i want.
fuck you for getting what you want. fuck you and your hopeful love affair.
fuck you for witnessing my inarticulate ineptitude, my blind confusion and the bruises that ensue, fuck you for knowing i'm hurt, fuck you for your unusually perceptive way. fuck you for being in the room on the day i want not to exist.
coming home, wanting to sleep.
SURPRISE!!!!!!!!
twenty seven thousand people i want to ignore in my fucking face.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Little Slav Comes of Age
The first time
Little Slav
contorted with the force
of the Stranger, and bled,
she was eleven years old.
The blood did not look
bright and fresh, the way she thought
that it ought to,
having come from such a young body.
It was almost black, a mud,
decomposed mosses and fossils,
all over her underwear, and she
was not ready.
Very pale she did not tell her mother.
Little Slav willed the Stranger to stay away,
and She did for three tenuous moonmonths.
Then returned,
rattling Her cruel
corset of bones, nodding at Little Slav
appraisingly and mouthing the word
"Breasts," and squeezing Little Slav's womb
with Her long white fingers again.
Little Slav climbed into the bathtub
screaming.
The Stranger loves those screams.
They speak of Her generative magic
in Her only fluent language.
Little Slav screamed for her mama.
Mom, mom.
When she climbed out of the bathtub she fainted.
Mama toweled Little Slav off and gave her a blanket.
She showed Little Slav the contracting womb
by weaving her hands into a single fist and squeezing it.
Mama walked to the high cupboard, gave Little Slav
a big shot of slivovitz.
She told her not to think about it or smell it--
Just drink it, Little Slav.
When Little Slav drank it she fell into a dream.
In the dream there was not pain.
For a time she did not fear.
And when she woke up, the Stranger had
sunk into the tender of her bones,
stared out of her own eyes,
was caught dripping by a wad of padding,
and Little Slav knew for the first time
how it feels to be made of more than one.
Little Slav
contorted with the force
of the Stranger, and bled,
she was eleven years old.
The blood did not look
bright and fresh, the way she thought
that it ought to,
having come from such a young body.
It was almost black, a mud,
decomposed mosses and fossils,
all over her underwear, and she
was not ready.
Very pale she did not tell her mother.
Little Slav willed the Stranger to stay away,
and She did for three tenuous moonmonths.
Then returned,
rattling Her cruel
corset of bones, nodding at Little Slav
appraisingly and mouthing the word
"Breasts," and squeezing Little Slav's womb
with Her long white fingers again.
Little Slav climbed into the bathtub
screaming.
The Stranger loves those screams.
They speak of Her generative magic
in Her only fluent language.
Little Slav screamed for her mama.
Mom, mom.
When she climbed out of the bathtub she fainted.
Mama toweled Little Slav off and gave her a blanket.
She showed Little Slav the contracting womb
by weaving her hands into a single fist and squeezing it.
Mama walked to the high cupboard, gave Little Slav
a big shot of slivovitz.
She told her not to think about it or smell it--
Just drink it, Little Slav.
When Little Slav drank it she fell into a dream.
In the dream there was not pain.
For a time she did not fear.
And when she woke up, the Stranger had
sunk into the tender of her bones,
stared out of her own eyes,
was caught dripping by a wad of padding,
and Little Slav knew for the first time
how it feels to be made of more than one.
Ole
Ole was born on a day which
the sun chose.
Born on the cusp of shy and
very,
the cusp of sleep
and waking.
More deserving than anyone
of all good things:
fat velvet bumblebees,
onyx black nights,
the translucence of new
maple leaves in mid
daylight,
white butterfly caught
in a gaze,
as if by an eyelash;
a day which
the sun chose a day which--
inarticulate gratitude,
face against worn pillow.
the sun chose.
Born on the cusp of shy and
very,
the cusp of sleep
and waking.
More deserving than anyone
of all good things:
fat velvet bumblebees,
onyx black nights,
the translucence of new
maple leaves in mid
daylight,
white butterfly caught
in a gaze,
as if by an eyelash;
a day which
the sun chose a day which--
inarticulate gratitude,
face against worn pillow.
The Matryoshka's Husband
The Matryoshka’s Husband
The matryshoka’s husband is dying.
He has lived such a long time.
What he has seen has tired him.
His hands feel heavy and swollen,
each time he paints her sarafan,
he notices
his fingers turning to wood.
The matryoshka is dying.
With no one to feed her
and with such a great need
for her,
she dies the way god died.
Slack in the haze
of exhaustion,
her husband cannot tell his son:
This is how you make matryoshka.
Cannot say, you must save matryoshka.
And matryoshka
cannot speak,
at last her progeny
have run out,
a river gone to chalky lichen
and dust
beneath the sun.
The matryshoka’s husband is dying.
He has lived such a long time.
What he has seen has tired him.
His hands feel heavy and swollen,
each time he paints her sarafan,
he notices
his fingers turning to wood.
The matryoshka is dying.
With no one to feed her
and with such a great need
for her,
she dies the way god died.
Slack in the haze
of exhaustion,
her husband cannot tell his son:
This is how you make matryoshka.
Cannot say, you must save matryoshka.
And matryoshka
cannot speak,
at last her progeny
have run out,
a river gone to chalky lichen
and dust
beneath the sun.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Robin the Hood
Even Robin the Hood
could love his luve,
and well he did
as I recall.
Even Robin bereft
of his blood and land
could love his luve
and walk, run,
set an arrow in flight,
attempt a spirit
of goodness,
and find that it was alive,
have you forgotten
all
that you have known.
could love his luve,
and well he did
as I recall.
Even Robin bereft
of his blood and land
could love his luve
and walk, run,
set an arrow in flight,
attempt a spirit
of goodness,
and find that it was alive,
have you forgotten
all
that you have known.
Anna Alma Allison
"Depression is a cultural tradition.
Emotional distance is a family trait."
- a friend.
Here are the blinks
composed of darkness
and stifled light
which are illustrative
of you and me:
the shadows of our hands entwined
against the light of a yellow wall
at four in the morning
forming the shapes of benign animals
and monsters
interpreting the swell and pulse
of a red candle
incinerating the flotsam of a past
late at night, at the cemetary
fueled by lamp oil and sage
walking home from your apartment
with all of yesterday's clothes
and a can of Coke in my hand
and smiling
the pink rashness of my nakedness
your glowing looming nakedness
an instant free of sadness
and sadness, its lightning quick and imminent
return to your heavy head and bones
you are in the thick wool socks which i gave you for your birthday,
along with stormproof matches and a match-tin
as if to outfit you for a war
without knowing it was already raging
and you were losing
chess games and a needle sewing sumi ink
into my arm, the flesh of my tender bare,
rubbing noses,
several decades of kisses,
ruined daydreams,
your slack body on my bed,
your face buried in the mattress,
you cannot move, i cannot make you better.
the nightmare of alma.
the hour of the wolf.
still i wear your soft grey sweater
every day
until i move away
and bring only the broken parts with me,
because all the parts are broken.
what was happy within me
was shattered by you.
And what was young grew old.
As if overnight.
Emotional distance is a family trait."
- a friend.
Here are the blinks
composed of darkness
and stifled light
which are illustrative
of you and me:
the shadows of our hands entwined
against the light of a yellow wall
at four in the morning
forming the shapes of benign animals
and monsters
interpreting the swell and pulse
of a red candle
incinerating the flotsam of a past
late at night, at the cemetary
fueled by lamp oil and sage
walking home from your apartment
with all of yesterday's clothes
and a can of Coke in my hand
and smiling
the pink rashness of my nakedness
your glowing looming nakedness
an instant free of sadness
and sadness, its lightning quick and imminent
return to your heavy head and bones
you are in the thick wool socks which i gave you for your birthday,
along with stormproof matches and a match-tin
as if to outfit you for a war
without knowing it was already raging
and you were losing
chess games and a needle sewing sumi ink
into my arm, the flesh of my tender bare,
rubbing noses,
several decades of kisses,
ruined daydreams,
your slack body on my bed,
your face buried in the mattress,
you cannot move, i cannot make you better.
the nightmare of alma.
the hour of the wolf.
still i wear your soft grey sweater
every day
until i move away
and bring only the broken parts with me,
because all the parts are broken.
what was happy within me
was shattered by you.
And what was young grew old.
As if overnight.
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