His Royal Highness

we met as strangers do
and in meeting learned our senses
he was acrid and rough
with strange substances strewn about him
antimony and jade
which added nothing to his strangeness
that was in his look
the narrow, spiralling gaze
vertigo vision that saw around my paper frame
his royal highness
grousing and grumbling between meetings
coming up for air
to tell fish how to swim
and each grumble was to me a holy truth
that shone and shivered up my earlobe
until we lay together pacified
knowing the unhappy end
sated in an explosive embrace
and dispersing like shrapnel
across a dusty floor

 

Avoiding my homework by blogging

It almost seems counter-intuitive, but when my homework is creating seminar questions for my 19th Century American Women writers class, the appeal of the blogosphere seems a bit more apparent. Thank Christ it’s for Emily Dickinson and Kate Chopin and not more Alcott.

Okay, so I’m about 30 episodes into the Savage Lovecast and I basically want to be Dan Savage forever. He basically does what I do with my friends except he gets paid for it and has about 30 trillion listeners.

I’m blogging early today so I’m not up until 6am (again) begging for sleep. I dunno what the fuck has happened to me over the past week, but my attempt to correct my sleep schedule has backfired completely and my “in bed by 1am” plan has turned into a “I hope I’m awake by 2pm” plan. I’m not even gonna fucking try to sleep tonight.

Oh, one of the books I got from my birthday, Poetry As Insurgent Art by Ferlinghetti, needs to be read by all. It’s an oldie but a goodie. And it’s friggin’ tiny. I don’t think I ever studied Ferlinghetti in my Modern Poetry classes, but damn, I love his stuff. If you like Ginsberg, you’ll like Ferlinghetti.

 

In times of giving up I’m at my worst
The surface is and therein lies
the serpent tongue and hearty grin
But I can only analyze myself so much
I can only run the numbers until
some semblance of order appears
a set of starsigns plotted out
on sand or surf or sky
These are words I’ve said before
and will say again
and mean every time
and still the surface is

Hideous starsigns
Beacons of hope and
liars of the High Order
lead me into the vacant city
They show me things that could be made here
Sturdy pillars and mighty trees
and hands as coarse as bark

Curse these soft hands that at their tips
give hints to a hopeful glow
Inviting touch but fearing the dark
of a callous nature
A fear that cannot subside when
the glow will dim as sure as the stars will shift
And all that’s left are two hands
clapsed together in a final bid
to bring about the light again

 

where i am

where was i with my wherewithal
when i whispered something to my no-one-at-all
where did i find it and where did it go?

how did i manage to stand so tall
when i said “good night” to my no-one-at-all
how could i say it and how did i know?

i used to stand with my back to the wall
until i was told i was no-one-at-all
i learned i was someone with far to go

no-one-and-someone-and-nothing-at-all
pushed right back against my place on the wall
i am where i am and i know what i know
i’m someone who’s someone with far to go

 

missing nights in the city

Whereabout I was in the cityscape
Is where I was when I breathed your dust
You cautioned me about the taste
Lime-green bitters served on glass
To be chased away with morning dew
But left to sit upon my tongue

It shivered there upon my tongue
in the stillness of the cityscape
before the dawn could bring the dew
I filled my lungs up with your dust
and took in sights beyond the glass
so thinking wouldn’t mar the taste

I couldn’t get beyond the taste
that sat there seething on my tongue
and made me look about the glass
while the twisting of the cityscape
shook off its populace like dust
to mix with morning-after dew

I longed to wash with morning dew
but found the asking in bad taste
I settled in the cracks like dust
and thought it best to hold my tongue
to cancel out the cityscape
that slipped about my eyes like glass

I sighed it out upon the glass
and words formed on the stone like dew
and hardened on the cityscape
I saw you longing for a taste
to have it dance upon your tongue
and settle in your brain like dust

My face is blackened by the dust
and now I cannot see the glass
that moves so gently on your tongue
and rolls about your lips like dew
I try to find you by your taste
and lose you in the cityscape

(My first attempt at a sestina. This form boggles me a bit, but I like the way it twists.)

 

A little bit sentimental

What Love Could Be

In open air three starlings set a course
And of them, two would form a squabbling pair,
Deny affection ’til their throats were hoarse
But in the silence find each other there.
Defenses down, a tenderness takes hold.
A cradle formed that sets two starlings free.
The flicker in my heart that makes me bold
Observes the peace in the periphery.
Their hands entwined, a stunning work of art,
My words, the bramble crawling ’round the frame
Send shooting pains into my lonely heart
Straight to its husk and smoldering remains.
I had abandoned hope of love for me
Until I looked upon what love could be.

(For A&B)

 

hush now
shut out the light
with your heavy lids
and sleep the sleep you’ve earned
sleep the sleep of dreams and nightmares
that cannot hope to stir you
Sleep sepulchred sleep
Of stone or sorrow
or other weighty things
wrap your arms around your lonely frame
warm your cold and lonely frame
and beg for sleep
call for it across starlit expanses
pay it reverence
assert your need
and sleep the sleep of empty caverns
beyond love or hunger
let it come
wind the thread on the spool behind your eyes
let it come
put down your pen and let it come

 

Forever ago I was a sleeping giant
And now forever am the mote of dust
that clings to the lash of the dreamer’s eye
Would that I were the lively one
among the gnawing vermin
I could chew through concrete and spoil my supper
I could flap my wings and spores would fly
and land discretely ‘neath the feet of the cackling legion
I am that which weaves between and touches nothing
The static beneath the sound
The time between heartbeats
I once believed I was the seams
But, afraid, I frayed and pulled apart
My thread already weak for lack of use
And now I rest upon a single hair
To be blinked away in the morning sun

 

Breakroom haiku: Auschwitz edition

Security measures

hardcore corporate commands

hands off my cell phone

 

Breakroom haiku: call and response

David :

Coaches with bad hair

Always try to motivate

Instead scar our eyes

Paul:

David’s first haiku

Truer words never spoken

Bring on the blindness

–

At Intel, we make our own fun.