if this is you

if this is you i’d rather be dead.
burnt at the stake and served as toast in a greasy diner full of hangovers.
i’d rather be crisp, fried, served with eggs. fuck the jam, just butter please. jam reminds me of your sister and she was always kind of a bitch.
the one time you took me anywhere was to that diner. there was brie in my omelet, but they forgot to give me a fork and i forgot to bring the part of me that knows how and when and why to say no.
no, if this is you i’d rather be crying.
screaming while my flesh peels away, revealing lungs asphyxiating on smoke from fat logs like fat lies.
i would inhale your fat lies without a filter, desperate for the caustic nicotine of your attention. they haven’t developed a patch or a gum for attention addiction yet, so i had to kick you cold turkey.
somedays i still want to take long drag of lies just to feel the heat in my chest, but then i remember how you made my fingers smell and i choose to light myself instead.

Memories

this is how i memorise things
i stare at them
i read them
i watch them
i look at them
until the things i’m staring at must start to feel uncomfortable
or flattered
at the absolute volume of my attention that they receive

lately i’ve taken to keeping a mirror near me
when i’m at home
when i’m at work
or whenever
not out of vanity
but because the person behind that reflection
is changing so rapidly
and i don’t want to lose sight of myself
i study the curve of my lips
the colour of my eyes
i spend hours in focused meditation
on my own mole
so that i can
at the least
know what i look like when i’m doing things that
another me
would never imagine

or
so i know what i look like
when i’m around you

i have to memorise you too
so i ask and ask and ask the same questions
to make sure that i get every detail
just as i’ll read a poem a dozen times
and each time find something new
each time you tell me where you’re from
what you do
your name
i find something new

and eventually i’ll have enough of you
inside my memory
that i can look in the mirror
and see me
and see you
and not see any difference

Missed Connection #1

dear...
comma
i saw you
at the grocery store
not a super market
a grocery store
small
run by an old couple that moved here from pakistan
from india
from brazil
from vietnam
it mattered where but it
didn’t matter where
i saw you at the grocery store
holding a package of salt
holding a package of kosher salt
your hair was blond
i wanted to point out how
incongruous your hair colour was
to your choice of salt
but decided that it wouldn’t be pc
i saw you in the grocery store
your hair was blond
you were beautiful
and i didn’t say anything to you because
i was confused by your choice of salt
maybe i’m superficial
maybe i couldn’t see past your salt
to the real you who made eye contact with me
in the grocery store
which was as odd as your choice in salt because
really
who cruises in a grocery store?
you
your salt
and i
were locked in a
very brief moment
with me trying to work past my own salt
prejudices
and think of something to say
but prejudice takes longer then a
very brief moment
to be erased from the mind
prejudice is the kind of thing that persists
for generations and i hope that my own children dont share my salt prejudices because
you were beautiful
you are beautiful
so i’m posting this ad
on craigslist
hoping you’ll teach me about your culture
about people with blond hair
who buy kosher salt
in a grocery store

betrayed by a kiss

they say
a kiss on the lips is the sign of betrayal
i wonder
when Judas did his deed if he knew
he was condemning the next thousands of generations of lovers
to betrayal

your betrayal was one of the worst
but your kisses
were the sweetest

jigsaw poem

(http://poetswhoblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/jigsaw-poem-time.html)

choose me. choose this. choose you.
choose the right decanter. something that looks good on the table. you don't know what a decanter is for. doesn't matter. you know you're supposed to have one and it looks so damn good.

remember me when i was five years old. not carefree. because i think you have to know what that means to be it.
remember when flying was as easy as pretending you had wings and standing on a hill with the wind twisting through your hair. remember when fun was chasing someone, shouting their name and chasing them, catching them, then letting them chase you screaming the whole time.

taste this.
just taste this. feel it. taste is one of the most potent sensations. so taste this. taste this like the last thing an ant tasted before it died and became part of the amber was sweet. taste this. taste this life. because trees are more then timber and people are more then accomplishments.

West Coast Winds

i’ve thrown myself
into west coast winds
wet with sea smells and
the cries of white gulls

i know i will fly
i know this like i know the feel of my mother’s hand on my head
like i know the sound of my father’s voice
like i know the taste of clear clean water means Life
i trust this wind to carry me

if it doesn’t
then i welcome the warm embrace of the sand below
because sand is inclusive
it contains traces of every person that ever touched it and
it’s comforting to think that it has room to contain all of me

the sand
will lead me down to the sea
and there
i will gather together my disjointed dreams
this visions i have of my future
and bring them together for the first time
construct a sail from them
and
again
let the west coast wind take me

so in the sky
or in the sea
the west coast winds
will take me

your blood is the prettiest shade of red

sound of two birds crying

still working this one through. need help!

being with you
reminds me
of the sound of two birds crying
they sit on a telephone wire
and watch all the other birds
in perfect pairs
trace the arc of the sky

i dunno. there's a bit in my head about one bird unable to fly fast enough, the other unable to fly high enough, but i don't know if this says enough on it's own, or if it needs more.

disacticulate

i've become disarticulate
coming apart at my joints
my ability to move
falls
when you aren't touching
my hand
my heart
and i just lay in a pitiful pile
waiting to be swept up
and dumped

(this is just a thought.)

and i knew it was time when
you dropped your pencil and said you
would never pick it up

to touch

so we walk into his apartment and he
flicks on the light and he
puts his hand on my hip and he
asks
do you want a drink
i don't need another but
that hand
feels so good there
and i
am so
fucking sick
of being by myself
that i say yes
this is the fifth time this month i
have been inside the home of a stranger and tonight
i'm not even particularly horny
i don't have that dick drive that
doitdoitdoitohyes!nowsleep
drive
but tonight
i wanna draw this man so deep inside of me and
cry holy so fuckin loud that
god himself
will come down through his dick and
touch that part of my soul that
at only twenty years old
already needs to be healed
the man
our drinks finished
grabs me and
without another word exchanged
kisses me
the taste of his tongue takes me back
to my first kiss
to the first man
who was the first to make me feel
yes
not oh yes
but yes. yes. this.
who made me feel like i was really
really
connected to something other then
my own chaotic confusing consciousness that
there is good in the world and that some of it
is in me
and in you
and if we can just find some way to connect
to touch
maybe
we can heal each other's broken parts

grade 6

you used to hit your hand on your desk and
laugh until the bell rang and
your laughter rang right on through it and
with it and became a part of it and
a part of my memory
imprinted
with that bell

searches

i'm looking for a little bit of something
a little bit of someone
and a little bit of some sun
it's cloudy today

eight

it takes approximately
eight minutes for the sun's light
to reach the earth

how long is it gonna take
for you to realise that
all my light is
shining at you

Love Like Lemonade

i have not given up on
saturday afternoons on
backyard decks on
poscicles and sprinklers and
freshly squeezed lemonade that took an
hour to make because it never occurred to me that
we actually had a juicer somewhere and
i squeezed the lemons by hand

i have not given up on
making things myself on
friends that live next door on
bicycles on
wading pools see
there’s something so perfect about
just getting your ankles wet

i have not given up on
you on
me on
freshly mowed grass in june on
sand between your toes your fingers your hair in your clothes in your shoes
i haven’t even given up on love
love
real love
the love that you ache inside over and
love like the most beautiful woman i’ve ever seen
who was also the saddest i had ever seen and
who makes me feel like i can never cry again because
it would seem silly next to hers
clumsy
like my tears are elephants and hers are
perfect pearls
diamonds

love like i remember when
you and i were just kids and
you were the friend next door and
we had popsicles and bicycles and
on a saturday afternoon we
made that lemonade together

i have not given up on
that love like
and old friend coming back and
everything being just right
just right
just right

just for a bit

forget to eat

this
what happens when i forget to eat
hands
red from longing to find you in paint
you
who not so very long ago said
i
was the only writer you had read

this
what comes when i forget to forget
hands
touching my face like the leaves touch sky
you
just as green just as delicate as
i
hold you just to keep you from speaking

love love

i love
love
i stay up late into the night
listening to whispered breath
barely audible above the stirring in my head
i listen to clippings caught in the wind
small samples of love poems from
a million loves and a million more losses
they sigh and give voice to their aching and their contentment
and i sigh with them adding my voice
i love love
because love will never tell me I’m not good enough
will never stand and say
that i can’t
i shouldn’t
love doesn’t believe in can’t
love didn’t even ask for an audition
but i love love and want love to love me so
i give my best and my hardest for love
so terrified of love saying
that was fine or okay
that i piss myself right there
while love just stares
not stares but
is there
and i turn to leave but i can’t because i love love too much and
i sit there with my piss and my shame and i look at love and
love looks at me and
love doesn’t say anything
doesn’t say anything
doesn’t say anything
and the piss is gone and
it’s love and i
and love loves me

meandyou

it was only recently that i realised what
expressing myself really meant
when someone who said they’d never been able
to express themselves
told me how brave i was to do so

i didn’t think it was brave it was just what did
do
but i thought
and yes
we are brave
we are brave
we are braaaaaaaaave!

It takes GUTS to
pick out a piece of ourselves
because our emotions
our stories
our memories
are ourselves
and lay them out and say
Here Is Me
Take It And Do What You Will
And Step Away
And Watch As They Take Us
And Make Us
Part Of Them

making art really
is not about me
i mean it’s all about me but it’s not about
me
you know?
it’s about you

me

you
and
me

youandme

we
are brave
it takes GUTS
to take someone else and make them a part of ourselves
to take them in
their stories
their memories
them
take ourselves aside
and put someone else in there
listen
hear
watch
move
touch
see
taste
drink in someone else and
replace me
with you
to be

meandyou
us

Absence

i need to tell you something
it is a story
it is a story i have told before
it is a story i have never told well i need too

picture a man
then picture me
sometimes i still see the man but it's never actually
picture the man loving me
picture the man loving me while i am loving him

he was my first
man
love
the first
kiss the first
trem-bull-ing in my stomach the first
arms around me since my mothersfathers stop
ped being the best armor protection

he saw me and
was the first to show
the good and beautiful could grow
in me
the first to kiss the first kiss the first lips the first me lips his the kiss

happened in my birthday present

See he
for my 18th birthday
uh
got us a room at the westin
it was a huge surprise and
when he told me

no pressure of course
nothing will you don't want to happen

the trem bull in hap pened in my sto mach like this and i
said yes i'd like
i'd like that

we walked not holding hands and i was scared his
arms held me turned me his lips

kissed me

next morning i bought breakfast for me
he
had a hearing or something owned a business didn't explain but okay cause

i gli ded home

saw him once af
ter for just hal
an hour then

the uh of him
no calls no text no
visitinhimatwork no
meals out dreams in no
eyes no nose no arms no lips no
him

the absence of him crept in lik
a slow crescendo of broken horns and
a sync o pat ic percussion of cryin kids and
the conductor'ss passed out and the choir's strung out on
someshit and they're wailin n wailin n wailin n wailin n

the absence of him
stole the tremor of
my stomach n
turned to stone only it was glass n broken n
it broke my heart in like
no more met aph or si mi le in me til
i didn't feel the absence of him

I'm gonna follow up with a recording of me reading this!

Sparrow Version 2

Sparrow Sings
Not quite
sweetly or softly
but simply
sparrow sings on her branch
of place she has known and people she has seen
of the homes that keep their bird baths clean
and of the girl bird he met last week
She already has a sparrow of her own
and
they’ve built a nest together.
She says they can be friends.
A blackbird caws, listens for an answer.
Sparrow sings one last note
A quick statcatto blip
Then bursts into the wind
Not a leap
No graceful falling, spreading of the wings, waiting for the right moment to push
up
And be taken away
No
Sparrow
Though small
Is an explosion
bend the legs beat the wings crane the neck
Jump
and explode
The wind is strong
but Sparrow is small and quick.
He cuts through it easily enough
Only a little off course
He lands without hesitation on a branch in the tree across the way
Rustles his wings
Looks around
To see you are listening
then sings
and overhead
the black bird flies

Morning Light

Kiss me in the morning light
Before you go to work
Take my hand behind your back
and kiss me in the morning light
coming in your window and
draping the room in light refracted by the air we breath
the air you blow in my eyes
the air you blow in my face
the air you blow that pushes my hair out of my eyes
You comment on them
I blush
and you leave

More WIP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQj4zr9YdzU
I'm only posting that link for the line, "I wanna hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply metaphors get jealous." His delivery leaves something wanting, but that's an awesome line.

Anyway. Here's two works in progress that I'm posting to try to make some sense of.

Untitled

warbled songs of repentance
the occupation of the ancient choir
until the can break for
mrs b's cookies             for the body
gossip about the minister's queer son       for the soul

just a dozen feet away
the choir director's wife
leads a mother/newborn yoga class while focus on the family plays on the radio
pilfered from the nursery

travel down the hall
with the hideous rusted pink runner
and cheap carpeting
in the administrative office you will find a woman
crying
because she wore jeans today
her supervisor implied she had lax morals

this is a big city church
with Concerns and Worries
and a new youth pastor every five years
keeping disenchanted youth entertained really burns you out after a while

Untitled Two

when there is nothing in my heart
that wants to let itself be written
i go for a walk
to a place with people

last saturday i went to Whyte ave and
bought a bagel
and a cup of tea
you know, oil of bergamot is a natural antidepressive

pay for said bagel and tea
hand the few coins i pilfered from
my jar of change
the woman behind the counter smiles but there's something wrong with her smile
it's not all there
it's a smile that lost something
or maybe her eyes?
yes her eyes have lost something

i stare while she is uncomfortable

sir
here's your change

she says as i realise

you saw someone die

she asks me to sit

i was twelve
how do you know?

I don't know
I just guessed

oh

i was twelve
it was a homeless man

she says, and i get the feeling this is her confession
i am the priest, and i feel i should avert my eyes or ask her questions but she just goes on

i watched some kids beat the shit out of him
i didn't get help
and i watched him die

she didn't say anything more
i handed her my tea

you know,
oil of bergamot is a natural antidepressive



That last one really needs work. It has potential though. Ah, well. Life moves on, and I have ale.