I cannot begin to comprehend
Why, when they were thinking up words,
They chose to use ”suicide”
To stand for the act of
Staring into space
With no desire
To even
Try to
Dream.
Sorry, my computer temporarily broke a few weeks ago, so I haven’t had a whole lot of time for writing poetry. I’ll try to make up for it.
Also, ooh, I used the word suicide. Real edgy. Get off my back, it’s just a poem.
Quiet. It’s always quiet now.
As the flood of the sink flows up
Dishes are the only arks
To be scrubbed down
Spotless. You stand there, washing the sheen
Off. I try to talk to you
But the right words flail around,
Splashing dishwater
In a rainy, wet bowl.
The music gets louder, blazing
Out a hard sound track,
Hot jazz out of Styrofoam speakers.
I want to laugh, or anything, really,
But you just stand there.
And there is quiet.
It strains the bands and expands the empty space
Contorting the corners, gliding across the face
Of the faded wall clock, ticking down its circle round
Waves of heat and color crashing without sound
And you stand there. And I stand here.
And a barrier keeps between
A tsunami wave rising
Almost surmising
The silence settling unseen
Like snowflakes, but redder
Decorating your dark hair
In a glorified haze
Over numerous days
Lying amid Asphodel, fair.
And the quiet, it rises higher
As each minute tocks
On the round, square clock.
And I try to say something
But I lost the words a week ago
A torrent spilled out, stepping over twisted ankles
Without even enough energy to apologize
They lack conviction.
Now I know what it means to be hurricane subtle
I wish I could help you, but I can’t
My words don’t work anymore
And I ask you: are you okay.
You look at me, smile shortly,
And shake your head
In my head.
But you don’t say anything
You don’t even hear me
My lips make no sound
I’ve already done enough damage
I can’t risk doing anymore
Why won’t you—
Why won’t you—
Break the silence
And I’m sorry, and I’m sorry, and I’m sorry
And I wish I could take everything back
But I can’t
And you hate me
And I hate me
So at least we have that in common.
And I’m reeling when I shouldn’t be
There’s really no reason
No justification
For me to feel this way
We are on a boat that is sinking
Into dishwater and rainwater and tears
And I don’t think I can swim.
But you just stand there
In an empty sink
Thinking thoughts I couldn’t touch
In a million years.
Thus begins Season 2. I know a real explanation for my absence is warranted, but it is not for now. See you soon.
Black and white photographs
Color the paragraphs,
Touching the faces and
Edges of sight
Old blood and ink stains,
It’s always the ink stains that
Keep all the fragments from
Fading to night
They leak from the photos
And cover the railroads left
Under the gaze of a
Decadent sky
Snapshots of sea sides
That blur when you touch them,
Portraits of shadows left
Wondering why
My fingers are covered in
Street corners, street walkers
Huddled in masses and
Spangled in snow
One thousand lighthouses
Blinking goodbye and all
Taken in turbulence
Ages ago
Before I was anything
But a faint scar
Painting the face of
Whoever you are
I am the Dean Martin of writing.
I realized this yesterday afternoon
Washing dishes at work while
Discussing the virtues of
Subtle denouements, the best nom de plume,
And how zeugmas demean a serious style
To my disinterested friends.
But I go home to write each night
And my three drafts are dusty
And my poetry is like autumn leaves, crinkled and rusty.
I’m alone in a sea of words I sometimes fear
I’ll never see or even hear.
I drink and I drink
Till I’m so sober that I start to sink
Beneath the arch of my living room foyer.
I don’t think I could write any worse or slower
Than if I slurred my words like a sot-weed sower.
But Frankie wants another performance tomorrow
So I puff up my pride to swallow my sorrow.
NaNoWriMo Word Count: 1933. I’m getting there. That’s one full chapter, by the way. We’ll see how far I am after the weekend.
the quality of
her journeys
glory and orange scales
end with
her blood
ghosts of old industry
above woodsmoke fog
shudder in the haze
bounded on all sides
sun storm afternoon
checked red shotguns
white on fingers,
snowing shadow,
painted skin
of blood
she hears each
shrunken
cloud
a woman
motionless,
each is made of
the folding
in the stormclouds
time claims
each dawn
old and broken down
jungle
moon, the centre
above the street signs
oasis
above sky
thin,
white flesh
The way I formed this poem is interesting, and I think deserves a bit of explanation. This poetry is of a genre called found poetry. It involves looking through various random forms of media, anything from an article on the internet to a piece of graffiti on a street wall. Poets then have the liberty of
In this case, I found a website (here) that generated poems, specifically nonnets. As I mentioned the last time I wrote one, a nonnet is a form of poetry where the first line is nine syllables, the second line is eight syllables, the third line is seven syllables, etc. through the ninth line. I used this website to create nine nonnets (or nonets, as the site spells them). The website isn’t very distinct in lines of poetry, so a few of the lines (particularly the ones with few syllables) were repeated between these nine nonnets.
I pasted them all, in order of poem generation, into a Word document and then crossed out anything I didn’t want. In fact, many of the lines in the above poem corresponds to an individual line from one of the nine nonnets. However, I did change the lineation and spacing in some of the earlier stanzas. My goal was to take at least one part of a line from each nonnet, while not taking any direct phrases from the poems. That way, I could give the poem a voice unique from any of the nonnets it came from.
Anyway, as for NaNoWriMo… well, I’ll just go ahead and say it. My word count is 151. All of that was written in the last hour, too. I never really get a good start in NaNoWriMo, so I’m not very worried (especially since I’ve been too busy with school and work to care much). I’m hoping to have a very good weekend, though. Perhaps… 15,000 word good? We’ll see.
Crossing from State Street to Plymouth
I near collapsed when I saw you
You hummed to the sound of a shadow song
Like the too-soon pangs spinning through my head
(I didn’t want to just wait around) (well,
I did) and you hadn’t seen me yet
(Being near you is a well) and I wouldn’t
Let you see me (filled with fire burning
At my lungs; it’s like jumping into an unspun
Top) so I hid (a metaphor, for we are going
In the same direction) and ran. (but, as
Always to different stops)
(And maybe that’s a metaphor too)
I should stay away from you.
I get on the bus and we’re roaring
It’s late, so late that it’s morning
Thursdays are always filled with
drunks and regret
But you wouldn’t
Know it, all laughing and talking over the speakers
Tucked beneath my ears, a set
Of tiny eyes squinting in the overhead
Lights. It’s going to be like this all night
I can’t hear my own thoughts
And everyone is lively and asleep
They won’t stop being happy, it’s
Sickening. Why can’t we have sad drunks,
My people? But it doesn’t matter
We hit two stops and everyone departs
Except me and two others
One kid not nineteen, wasted, but tries to pay
Thanks to the bus driver, gives him a little prayer-like
Symbol, a plastor (sic)
Blessing the nightly Charon
And he is nearly run over as the ship roars on
Lost in Styx
The bus driver at the helm, concerned over these kids
Like a father tucking to bed a child
Who has had one too many drinks and snores
Our king of nighttime revelries,
The patron saint of 3 am bus stop
Binging, wide awake
He’s the guardian angel of all of us.
We’ve passed the freshman houses
And it’s all jazz now, as we head to
Quiet town, so much quiet I could
Fill my cup in it and forget
Everything. I can hear the sky moving.
I exit the bus, toss two coins to the boatman
And walk home.
I guess it’s sometimes nice to be alone.
In the dark like this, the way I live
On a night so perfect it’s superlative
Doesn’t seem so small anymore
A part of the pitchblack sky light
Music so haunting it only plays
When you’re not all right
On a Thursday night
It’s so clear and bright in the dark
The bus leaves to pick up more patrons—asleep
While I walk away to my streetlamp sanctuary
Both alive and dying in the deep
As soon as the actors take their places,
We’ll begin. For is not love an act?
Like nighttime deep in forest spaces,
It’s the difference between hope and fact.
And Cupid is a knavish lad
To hit a target and pretend
It’s time. This all is very sad
Without even a flower to amend
The shadow between truth and lies.
In a way, it builds a cage
To trap the freedom of all skies
And brings to birth a second stage.
Oh, what fools we lovers be!
To look for what we cannot see
There once was a man whose fingers were stained
With anger and hatred and dark in his veins
He couldn’t quite keep his good will at the reins
And happy was subtle as breathing
Knowing the burdens and what was at stake
He hid in the shadows for everyone’s sake
Not pausing to ponder, ’cause what’s a mistake?
A tissue for people left grieving
He ran away, thought he could build a new face
And find a new name in an uncertain place
Hoping he’d disappear without a trace
Fallen alone with eyes beaming
Always afraid that he’d lose his control
He kept to the quiet and wrapped up his soul
But breaking reflections can take quite a toll
More than most others are seeing
The outcome, he should have seen from the start
As even the best masks will shatter apart
At the touch of some pity from a few bleeding hearts
He knew it was time for the leaving
Soon he would find it was too late for that
As some nights he’d jump at the drop of a hat
And some days he’d wonder just where he was at
What all this contempt was achieving
All the while fighting the feel from the past:
A girl in the rain even now unsurpassed
Can emotion beat out his will at the last?
I’m not sure whom to believe in.
But there is no reason for thinking that deft
His image of her is just all that is left
Or ever appeared of this imagined theft
Distractions he can’t help conceiving
It’s funny how quiet our secrets can keep
When they’re shaking, all torn up, and near half-asleep
The price of revealing can be rather steep
But I’m tired of all this deceiving
I won’t say that it’s right, who can say that it’s wrong?
Regretting’s just trading a tear for a song
I’ve got worries much worse than: but will it last long?
And they’re much better uses for dreaming
Poetry
. always rhymes except
. when it doesn’t
. walks with even feet aside from
. dactyls
. anapests
. non-metered verse
. constantly changes
. is written on the page if we ignore
. slam
. rap
. hip-hop
. all poetry
. constantly stays the same
. composes itself out of
. words
. numbers
. sounds
. symbols
. mouth-movements
. unless it doesn’t
. is breathing
. without lungs
. is the line between this point and that point
. except backwards
. and in a language no one remembers
. But without a line
. And without a point.
Nimbus in a Bottle 