Out of town again

I am going to be out of town for the next nineteen days at a writing program which will take me to exciting locations. This mirrors the month-long trip I took earlier this summer with my family. There are benefits to being financially dependent on your parents after all.

When I get back I hope to be a much better writer. I will maybe blog something that will showcase this.

In the meantime, this is the most recent thing I wrote.


Were I hollow

Were I hollow
inside of me there would be no sun,
just the dusk's leftover light,
lapping on a tranquil bay
lined with soft small grained sand
and not crags.

Inside of me there would be seasons
and they would change in weeks instead of months.

There would be three seasons:
the season of peace
the season of unrest
the season of plagues.

And in the season of plagues (mercifully short) the skies
inside of me would rain rich red
and the rains would nourish the croplands and the peoples.

And in the season of peace there would be eyes
of baby birds, bright, black, filmless,
and the birds would have soft beaks like soft shelled crabs
and the yolks of their eggs would be a pure luminous green
and flawlessly round.

And where in another universe
bone could be
would be solid marble columns
built under the name of some almighty figure
and where my ribs could be
would be a viney jungle
frosty instead of humid
with Christmas wildlife instead of shrieking
toucans and parrots and myna birds
and beyond the atmosphere tarp of my skin
there would be--

impenetrable worlds,
each its own vessel.

Mortality in four parts

One.
When my feet are drenched in sun,
or the luminous mermaid-light of
purringcontent machines, sometimes there is nothing
in my head but that which was placed there,
and the fireworks that go off every hour on the hour
mark no turning points, no mile stones,
but graves like magic, an arrangement of rocks
that your soul might never see. I
don't stop because they, dry and dusty,
weigh me down.

Two.
And when, in Capernaum, I feel your spirit
(claw of cancer singed with the wick of you,
tall strong and filled with light)
is it really you or is it my
memory of you, a subconscious
risen from a part of me
(handful of cells) that has become
an imitation?

Three.
Is a dead body like a chrysalis
wrapped in a white sheet, sleeping for eternities,
eyes shut, mouth shut, blood no longer running?
Entropy worked its way in and stopped your heart's
ticking, stopped your cells'
breathing. Intangible,
what was you is left,
seeped from the holes of the brick your body is become,
not a hollow shell, but solid unmovement.

Four.
Matter for the worms and bugs, a reward
for digging through layers of wood and cloth,
rot.

West Cliff

[this one is for the voice]

Blue eyes, smile like mine and
I'm having a hard time
with words that rhyme
but I bet you'd never guess so many are my type
Long hair, guitar, a bike
I don't gotta be a dyke yet
there are still so many
fish in the Pacific,
swallows in the field they
all fly up when I walk by in my heels from
Manhattan, the black is scraped off from the city streets
I feel fine in Times Square the motherfuckin' place to be
knowin' millions would kill to feel this summertime heat
you don't like the rain well 5 bucks got it beat
say hello to the masses find someone to greet,
hey hey look at me looking fine at 5 feet.
So don't get superior with your 2 inch head start,
at least I show my heart without playing a part,
at least I can pretend I don't still have dreams
obscene with their optimistic sunny hopes & scenes
fucking up but with luck like in a romantic comedy,
when in reality I pray for his eyes to register me.
'Cause when he plays I die and am reborn a different me,
minus some self-confidence plus a desperate ability
to stand at the stop signs and pretend the cars are stopped for me,
to smile with my teeth closed and to pretend it shows sincerity.
But fabrications of strangers and friends-turned-strangers aren't reality,
inadequacies,
a million stories I won't know.
And when I want to point and look who do I have but you to show?