| The Slaying |
[23 Dec 2009|01:36pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 sick |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Classical |
] |
1.
Not one full second passed from the flash
of fur to the soft thud, a fist falling on a pillow.
When I reached the cat it was running,
oblivious to the sideways world,
toes clawing air. Not slowing to lick its oozing
nose, or mend its head-skin, peeled back.
Its eyes conjured images, lied to its brain.
Eli sauntered over, focused on the way
his hair fell as he walked, vaguely aware
of the twitching, reddened hair-mass I held.
He stood by, I watched it die, then we went to eat.
I felt the life press down on me, gone.
2.
I thought of that cat as my feet kicked the air
as I fought to rise, body pinned, breath
barred, fists thudding against the pillow.
It felt wrong, that after so much of his
violence, I had been the one to take a life.
It was brutal and unexpected, as my last
second release, as the way it didn’t start
again as soon as I sucked in a breath.
I always thought he’d be the killer, that I would be gone.
And Eli would only cry when someone was watching.
|
|
| Surfing |
[23 Dec 2009|01:32pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 accomplished |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Classical |
] |
So let's make the most of this
beautiful day, Since we're together,
we might as well say,
Look at those teeth! That gazelle
will never see her coming. She’s a
beauty. If we’re quiet we might see
blood, guts and nonstop
horror! So intense, your eyes
will pop out! You’ve never seen
such an amazing kitchen
utensil. It slices, dices, turns
eggs into pearls, Don’t wait
one more second and it would
have fried your brains. Now hold
still. I just hope this is the right
time to tell you about Donna,
that I was your father, and
that Marian is your long lost
Freak show! How could you
stay with him after he slept with
your sister? He cheats, then he
sodomized his dog
and then shot his mother.
police suspect that
You’re moving into a land
of both shadow and substance
you’ve just crossed over into
static
Is America ready for its first
gay idol? You decide. It’s your
vote. But now its time to say
Please won't you be my neighbor?
Hi television neighbor,
I'm glad we're together again....
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|
| Of Quests and Consequences |
[23 Dec 2009|01:31pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 nostalgic |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Classical |
] |
The thin warped tape
with its disjointed sound
has been replaced
with a bright spinning disk.
I watch the familiar
images pass over
the screen, memorized
from childhood. I mull
over the familiar tale
and wonder. . .
How far would I go
to find an answer,
to finally hold the right
kind of poison,
to know the weakness
of a nemesis?
Would I fight a
screeching mechanical
dragon on wheels?
Would I travel
across the ebbing
sand to the shore
of all forgotten,
to the one beam
of light that shines
for only a few moments
each day?
Would I seek
the paint-peeled
Trojan Horse
to gain a fragment
of his knowledge,
tear the cobwebs
and make him shine?
What would happen then,
if I looked
into his wooden eye
and found a woeful history
the evil doer’s story
to accompany the secret
of the armor’s chink?
If I saw both
his malice and his misery
what good then
would the poison be?
If this journey gave me
pause,
If the lamentable
horse-brain images
smoothed anger into mercy;
If the devil was diminished
to a child,
bruised desolate,
If pity stayed my hand,
would I think it all
worth while?
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|
| Losing a Stand-In |
[23 Dec 2009|01:13pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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nostalgic |
] |
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music |
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Classical |
] |
For 7.5 hours, 3 days
of every 7, your real mother
trusts me to keep you
safe. To make sure you’re fed,
dry, well-rested and entertained.
I feed you bananas
off the tip of a knife.
We stack duplos,
read stories, go on
adventures to parks
and libraries.
I fold your hands
into new signs.
I teach you shapes,
colors and the best
ways to get what you want.
I never put you down
when you are sick
despite my muscles. They scream
with you. I soothe your burning
with pink Tylenol and song,
wishing your pain were mine
until it is.
I pull the feverish misery
out of you, keeping you safe
while I shake.
The mothers in the park
love your bulbous, robin’s-egg
eyes. They say you look
like me. They ask so many
questions, but I know
all the answers:
weight, birthday, number
of teeth. . . fastest method
for stopping your tears.
It’s easier to let them say
“your baby,”
hear them say
“your mommy.”
They take my shy smile for pride,
the flush on my cheeks for
a warm day’s play.
It’s often awkward, though I know
I’ll miss this game.
Just a few months left
before head-start, growing
up and forgetting.
But for now I can take you
for walks and wave
to oblivious neighbors.
Those who know you
for what you really are
ask me when I plan
to have my own.
My thoughts rush.
I think of you,
I think of him. . .
the way he stiffens when
I mention needing an extra
bedroom, or what we will
teach them. He says
“Maybe when I’m 100.”
but I don’t think I can
wait that long, especially
once you’re gone.
“I don’t know when,”
I say in honesty.
If ever,
I think in fear.
At least for now,
I can pretend,
until I hear that knock
on the door. 3:15.
Time to go home.
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|
| Priestess |
[23 Dec 2009|01:05pm] |
|
Wherever lightning strikes,
you will find an arrowhead.
The charged fingers crackle
searching for the clay.
It moulds what it touches.
Trees become splinters,
sand stands up as sculpted glass.
and you are changed, charged, electric
When lightning nears the hunter’s feet
He is blessed with means to kill a bear,
but if it chooses him instead,
the gift he bears is greater.
Lightening shares its powers
with the ones who share its touch
leaving healers in the somber silence
of the pulsing boom.
Now he has the power to mend,
to rid the great bear of his limp
and the arrow-head wounds,
left by those who couldn’t
feel the flash.
Like the repentant hunter,
The lightning chose you, mother,
and you chose your path
before you knew.
To lay your hands on the old,
the sick, the dogs, the wolves.
To share your lightning, move their energy
heal the bears gather up arrowheads
to sit and gather dust on your shelf.
No longer weapons, they serve
as talismans. Testaments to the power
that made them, your power.
The cracking sky fire leaves nothing unaltered.
It is the bringer of flashes, singed skin and gifts,
for hunting and healing.
It is far more fleeting than the rain,
But the change will never wash away.
|
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| The Birdcage |
[23 Dec 2009|12:47pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 anxious |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Skillet~A Little More |
] |
I had a name that is now forgotten.
Cecelia Burteau,
the thin skinned girl, bones jutting through
white lace. The one who wore thick black
under her eyes to cover the consumptive purple.
I was a haggard half-beauty in invisible chains,
a bird in a cage in the prosperous west.
The brass bar-tokens gave their testimonies
singing the evidence with each clink.
They fell heavily into my hands, a burden.
The soft impressions left on my palms
reminded me that they were never mine.
Earned, but not gained.
There was little to be gained in that place,
and some lost even more than they had.
We were strangled, stabbed, beaten
and forgotten. I tried to feel nothing.
Near dawn I’d walk stiffly to the bar
to turn in my nights take. The ritual
exchange for a few scraps of food, a small
salary, a bed with stained sheets.
I was resigned to the life of a Fancy Woman
and danced the high kicked dance,
and again and again I gave myself up to men,
in payment for my cage.
You’d think that after my escape
I would have flown to some safe haven
but instead I nested in the wind
soaking up a life of neon and chaos.
I grew from a skinny western whore
to a frisky flapper dazed on moonshine.
I still sang and danced for money,
but the men I did for free.
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| Bloom Belated |
[23 Dec 2009|12:41pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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nostalgic |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Shinedown~Simiple Man |
] |
It was a strange setting, but it felt so routine
as we rode home between classes side by side,
on two rusted hand carts, and two parallel tracks.
Awkward at first, as neighbors who never
spoke much, we conversed some about the weather,
but mostly we traveled in silence.
We rode past the new apartment complex,
its Seussian stripped and trumpeted
chimneys reaching out to us.
You found it atrocious, a mar
on the beautiful desert landscape,
our life-long home. I thought it brave.
It couldn’t have been very far
from the university to our community
but it seemed so remote
in the midst of nothing but towering mesas
and orange dust. The houses no more than
a few crumbs left at the bottom of a bowl.
We said goodbye. My invented sister
had left for therapy, and I was alone.
bored. You noticed, and invited me over.
We explored your back yard on bicycle back,
the kind small children ride, with two extra
wheels, rusted like everything else in that world.
It was a garden of your childhood
memories, vast and complex.
You couldn’t have explored it all on your own.
You showed me the swing set, and told me
how it used to look bigger. I wanted to try it
but knew the hollowed metal wouldn’t hold.
At last you brought me to your favorite place,
the shanty plywood fortress, large enough to encompass
many trees and all your childhood fantasies.
You couldn’t stand in it, not anymore,
but we sat in the dirt, and laughed.
I knew you then. Why had it taken so long?
Then you took my hand and asked me
if I was happy with my love. I told you I was
and you sighed, disappointed.
You dropped my hand and eyed the dirt.
We sat in silence as I watched your bloom close.
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| For Something More |
[23 Dec 2009|12:31pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 awake |
] |
| [ |
music |
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The Used~Devil Beside You |
] |
A castle once stood
then, in the old world.
Only a few scattered stones remain
to serve as grave markers.
Then, in the old world,
the white Simbelmynë spread
to serve as grave markers
of those dead, lost to dragons.
The white Simbelmynë spread.
They mark the passing of old,
of those dead, lost to dragons,
and dragons lost to the world.
They mark the passing of old,
here in this forgotten plane,
and dragons lost to the world.
Chivalry went out with the dragons and castles.
Here in this forgotten plane,
a castle once stood.
Chivalry went out with the dragons and castles.
Only a few scattered stones remain.
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| Fragments |
[23 Dec 2009|12:25pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 relaxed |
] |
| [ |
music |
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The Postal Service~Brand New Colony |
] |
A castle once stood
for so much more
than the few scattered stones,
remaining only to serve
as grave markers
for gallant dragon-fighters
and dragons lost to gallantry.
This is the grave site
of Chivalry. It is buried
somewhere beneath the rubble,
with the ringing of chalices
and the minstrel’s song;
the blazing hearth,
the mirth and profusion.
These new castles are built
on stocks. The profusion now
remains only for the undeserving.
These kings no longer ride to war,
leading close comrades to die,
but play their pawns from a distance.
There is no honor left to defend.
Here, in this forgotten plain,
the sounds of revelry
have faded to the slight
rustling of grass.
They’ve disintegrated,
giving way to the grunts
of dissatisfaction and age.
The shining towers stab
the memory of those
who whose bones cracked building them
while the old stones hum for remembrance.
for the honor leeched from their cracks.
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| Sacrifice |
[11 Dec 2007|06:08pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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happy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
BDA ~Live Like We're Alive |
] |
That night it was chilly but not so much thrilling as haunting, like fear that turns snowflakes to red. That night as I peered out my window I feared that the fog was a creature that actually fed. My mother was worried and said to me “Hurry, it’s time for all young ones to be safe in bed.” She kissed me and smiled, I forgot for a while that uneasy feeling, that increasing dread. I didn’t know why but she started to cry and her tears made me shutter as each one was shed. But then she went out and replenished with doubt I lay, insides as heavy as three bricks of lead. I tried to recall the last movie I saw or the colorful pictures in something I’d read. I peered out the window, my grey curtains billowed and then I saw claws and some black and white thread, then next came the paws, the eyes and the jaws, I shook and I wept, terrified as he said, “Now don’t be afraid, you’re the sacrifice made on this glorious night when the snowflakes turn red. They’re all so afraid that to keep me at bay they’ll allow me to eat you until you are dead.”
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| Duplicate |
[11 Dec 2007|05:59pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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cheerful |
] |
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music |
| |
Bleu ~Somebody Else |
] |
In this room of endless days I search for you.
Half-lidded in a murky shadowed haze,
I find you there, my mirrored tattered blue.
What more can I hope to find here but you?
It’s a simple unobtainable dream I chase.
Yet through these endless days I search for you.
The one thing that I often yearn to do,
is break the mirror so you can be erased.
Yet you’re always here, my mirrored tattered blue.
So I’ll continue doing what I always do.
Stuck here contemplating my lost state of grace
In this room of endless days, while I search for you.
With every box I open I’m lost too,
I’ll never finish looking at this pace.
But everywhere I look you’re here, my mirrored tattered blue.
I’m faced with horror I cannot refuse.
My own reflection I must come to face
In this room of endless days I search for you,
And find you here, my mirrored tattered blue.
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| Forgotten |
[11 Dec 2007|05:56pm] |
She often believed that there was nothing stranger
than the thoughts that trickled through her mind.
She calmed her pulse to a slow deliberate tick,
until unknown faces triggered it to race.
She didn’t want to know her own secrets,
and would have forgotten every shadowed memory in time.
She traced the street with slow steps, and frequently checked the time.
When she realized that at the sidewalk’s end there was a stranger,
a man with a dog and a bag full of secrets,
she could not stop the violence from penetrating her mind.
She walked quickly, then jogged, and then began to race.
After the car door locked she felt each miserable second’s tick.
She breathed, turned the key and felt the engine tick.
The dashboard lights illuminated the time.
She pulled out slowly, then began to race,
away from those memories, and all of the strangers.
With the windows down she screamed to keep her mind
from unbolting the heavy doors that hid those secrets.
She wondered instead about the secrets
of the universe, and what makes it all tick.
The neighborhood was run down, but she paid no mind
to the trash in the street, as she struggled to forget that time,
the broken chain on the door, and the stranger.
Her memories began to revive as she forced the engine to race.
She closed her eyes tightly and perused that fatal race.
Desperate to escape that man, and those secrets
which haunted her from just below the surface, strangers
to her revised memory banks. Her long fingernails ticked
nervously against her leg as she counted the rhythm and time,
trying not to slip into the darker corners of her chambered mind.
But that massive breech was as a crashing seizure within her mind.
Her skull could barely hold her thoughts, her chest the pounding race
of her heart. Then there was the corner, the turn, and not enough time.
She lost control, unable to bear the pressure of her secrets.
They sucked at her concentration and sanity like ticks.
The crash was deafening, though only heard by a single stranger.
It was stranger still, the way her mind ran down the steering wheel,
and her heart struggled through its final ticks, at the end of that deadly race.
After that her thoughts ceased to count the time, and her secrets kept themselves.
|
|
| AEriol |
[11 Dec 2007|05:53pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
full |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Raine Vivian ~In Love With Gravity |
] |
I fall asleep and I don’t get paid,
but it’s hard to lie on this bed,
exhausted and awake,
moving my hips to the rhythm
of the AEriol.
This cigarette cloud is choking me.
In this thrusting dance,
I need to breathe.
I gasp for air, but there is none here,
only sweat, drinks, music.
I’m told to drink whiskey,
To get up and dance,
legs flying over my head,
screams rising up
to the great dome ceiling.
A show between acts,
routine turns routine,
and I scream without thinking,
only wanting to sleep,
alone in a bed
I can’t even call mine.
But time’s not up yet,
five minutes to go.
The whalebones are tight,
and my breasts overflow
as they heave.
My skirt is heavy,
hard to hold up,
but warm like a blanket.
My head drops, then jerks.
Forced noises escape my lips,
I hear the rhythm fade.
I roll over slowly and light up a smoke.
He smiles and pants, I wink as I leave.
Bar tokens in hand,
I slump down the stairs
to meet the new cowboys,
and show them the night.
|
|
| Pressure |
[11 Dec 2007|04:49pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
relieved |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
afi ~Endlessly She Said |
] |
Tell me a funny story.
I don’t have one.
Come on tell me.
My mind is a chasm.
I’ve already told you two…
I sit in concentration
amongst the laughter and smoke.
Nothing comes.
I was laughing,
just a moment before,
overcome by the humor of his tales.
I can still feel the tension
in the small muscles in my jaw and cheeks.
This jolly stranger is inviting me to share
the laugher in my life,
But I only feel frustration,
as I sit in concentration.
Nothing comes.
Tell me a funny story he repeats.
I don’t have one.
I can’t find them.
I can’t figure out why they’ve all gone away.
I remember laughing
hysterically
uncontrollably
until tears dampened my face
and pain split my sides.
I remember laughing
I don’t remember why.
Come on, I’ve already told you two.
My mind is a chasm.
One moment.
I’m reaching for just one moment.
Trying to harden,
to make real,
those inexplicably intangible memories.
I fail.
I don't know why.
I can’t find them.
|
|
| Cathartic Addiction |
[24 Oct 2007|09:54pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 frustrated |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Emery "By All Accounts (This Day Was a Disaster)" |
] |
I never said sorrow was something I hate
A broken bone feeling but something I taste
like an orange candy liquor, that’s burning and sweet,
Or the ashes of flowers that lay at my feet.
I know that you’ll leave me in pain on the ground,
But I take in a mouthful and swallow you down.
It feels like consuming a flaming red coal
as you pass through my insides and mar me with holes.
I allow you to fill me but realize my fears
when I begin to lose you through my pours and tears.
My hatred flows outward, a hot steady stream.
You drip through my fingers, I catch you and scream.
I close my eyes tightly and feel it exude
The mercury droplets, that sear as they soothe.
I start to get empty, that’s when I begin
to fill up a needle, inject it back in.
I lie in confusion, entirely torn
between hating and loving, compassion and scorn.
I miss you and curse you, as I start to fill
with the sorrow of loosing, the snow and the chill.
I can’t quit this anger, releasing in waves
the self-produced pictures that haunt me for days
I never said hurting was something I hate
This cycled catharsis is something I crave.
|
|
| Bipolar |
[24 Oct 2007|09:48pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
stressed |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Action Action, "Smoke and Mirrors" |
] |
Fond soft fluffy memories of you. . .
I think of you always,
Especially when I look into the snow.
Speak to me
Draw me in.
Touch me
Open me up
Draw me out, a straight thin chord.
Touch me and make me sing.
Beautiful notes that sing out for you.
Touch me
Hold me
Grasp me
Snap me
Strip me to threads so I can no longer sing
I would have found my voice again
if you hadn’t held on to the pieces.
I miss you
I love you
I’m empty
Fuck you.
All of this poison is siring through my skin.
I writhe and I see your face.
I breathe and the sun floods in.
Leave me
I hate you
You ass-hole
How dare you?
If you knew how much I’d given up
How completely I was gone
given over to you when you had already left.
I’m screaming
It’s torture
I’m empty
It’s quiet.
Standing here alone I search for scraps of you
But you have taken everything and given nothing back
Taken all your promises, affection and pieces of me.
There’s no more
I’ve crumbled
Still burning
Not snowing.
I want to run to you every day
and hold you, and push you
and take back what I need to live.
Go
Leave me
Restore me
Forget.
|
|
| Shaken |
[08 Sep 2007|04:49pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
melancholy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
none |
] |
Run run run run run run fly!
Take all of my emotions and hide
them deep down where the hot tar bubbles
and will burn them away,
or solidify them into to hard heavy
stone stomach aches.
I can't stand to see your face.
I don't want to see your hands,
soft on a small shoulder.
I don't want to see your hair,
longer than it was before.
These memories of you,
They're not who you are.
There is no more snow.
Now, there is no more snow.
Now it's hot and i'm sick.
There is no more sleeping with you
between classes.
Now you're gone and i'm sick.
I'm whole but i'm hollow.
My hands shake and i miss you.
It's like missing hell,
Or heaven and hell split in two.
The paradise was never real.
The happiness was always acid coated.
Always eating away at itself,
But i never let you fade.
You begged me to remember,
I remember every day.
It's you who shut me out of your mind.
I can read the letters, see the pictures,
And breathe life back into a time
that will never really live again,
but you stay.
I needed to bury you along with those beads
Underneath the peach tree.
The stars still sparkled.
It seemed a pitty to dull them under so much dirt,
but they are dead now.
We are both dead now.
Yet you still burn in the pit of my stomach.
I see you and i know it's not who you are.
You are dead.
The belt, the shoes, the posters and the songs,
the houses rings, cats and snow,
they are all dead now.
But these memories, they wont die.
The person you were then,
He won't die, because i can't let you.
I won't ever let you fade away.
|
|
| Negative |
[25 Jun 2007|10:06pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
accomplished |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Reunion, Cynthia |
] |
It was not too cold to keep us from enjoying the sun. It was warm for November, but we both wore long coats as we lay side by side in the dry grass. I could feel your heat. We spent a long time hinting, hiding meaning in meaninglessness. I heard I love you embedded somewhere deep inside a soft mumble. I pretended not to hear. It was only the third time we’d seen each other, and it was wrong. For a while, we stared in silence. I looked away and said shit much louder than what had passed before. You asked me what was wrong, and the stare that followed was deeper and more terrible than the first. I said I love you, the words passed clearly between us for the first time, and I was damned.
There were noticeably less flowers, cards and candy that February. I pocketed a total of two pieces of chocolate that day. I didn’t get to see you until nighttime, but darkness came and there you were. It was the third month we had been together. I was sitting on top of you laughing and somewhere, quietly, hidden in a mumble, I heard you say I love you. I pretended not to hear. After we made love, we lay panting on the sweat dampened sheets. I could not see you, but I could still feel your heat. After I had had enough of silence, I said honey? In the dark, you found my mouth and kissed me, pulled away and asked yes? I love you I replied, and as the words passed clearly between us for the first time, I was safe.
|
|
| In the Company of Raindrops |
[25 Jun 2007|10:01pm] |
The thunder clouds are creeping up the sky,
And soon will swallow up the yellow light.
The rain will wash away what once was dry.
The gloom and dusk will mock and mimic night.
Yet I find solace in the darkened day.
The silent rush, crazed calm, I don’t resent.
Instead of running in I think I’ll stay,
To breathe the rare, life-giving desert scent.
When drops fall off my hair and drench my skin,
Form puddles, streams, or seep into the ground,
With arms outstretched I wholly take it in.
Filled to the brim, I breathe and I am drowned.
My eyes are open now, and I remain,
Shutting out life while standing in the rain.
|
|
| The Stubbornness of Fish |
[25 Jun 2007|09:57pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
complacent |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Homesick, The Cure |
] |
One fish munching on the legs of another.
Jesus and Darwin,
Soaking their fins in pools of blood.
A war is raging
But always at a distance
As slurs are shouted over thick brick
To avoid looking the enemy in the eye.
Jesus and Darwin,
Soaking their fins in pools of blood.
The teeth open wide in anger,
Misunderstanding
Ignorance.
On opposite sides of an impenetrable wall,
Separating two vast seas of ideology.
The fish cannot look each other in the eye.
They cannot see that they are all just fish
And they never try to break through.
Jesus and Darwin,
Soaking their fins in pools of blood.
Their teeth are sharpened and they’re poised to fight.
They’re ready, they want it.
Perhaps it’s boredom, or want of status
That drives them to carnage.
Motivation is murky
They just like the feeling of being on fire.
They avoid the wall.
They leave deep pockets of bitter salt water
Between their cold scales and the dense concrete.
The fish will not look each other in the eye.
They will not see that they are all just fish
They are all afraid that their fire will smolder
Should they take a moment to understand
Or a single second to see,
We are all fish.
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silverblue_fox's journal