You Played a Show, I Danced with Strangers

The little hairs on your lips
tickle in pink purple kiss
the cold of the car is so taut and numbing
the kiss is the only decent distraction from the terrible slow prog rock on the radio

but I like the way your arms are around me in the 3 a.m. dark
I like the way your face feels underneath my thumb
rough and kind
sinking me further and further into a blue morning
of breathlessness and reckless causing tongue texture

I like your skin.
It's smooth and warm
so unlike my alabaster everything

so unlike me.

Breakfast Fantasy

Good morning, America, you're killing me.
Slowly
but surely with fat baby croissants
steaming with butter
and sumptuous chocolate coffees doused in
cinnaminiman.
But this cafe and surburban housewives
they seem sweet but the topic of conversation is
Laundry and cleaning toilets with Borax for Christmas
and husbands leaving million dollar jobs
for multi-million dollar jobs in the darkest heart
of Wall Street.

I cringe with the German woman behind the counter
these women make me feel somehow constrained
as if I need to tear off my careful brass button vest and
button to the collar chirt
drop trou and run run naked in my Electric Blue lacey underthings
down these quaint suburban streets
delivering a heart attack! massive! to all the persons I can touch
to try perhaps
and free them of the fragile cages holding in all that empassioned fever
love tempered with iron
sing sing they'll sing on cobblestones and fuck on curbs
dance raspberries in the town square fountain
shouting
Who was that girl who was that amazing girl and
woo! did you see the color of that lace
what a dame
what a dame
while I slipped behind back into the cafe with the old German woman
she winks my conspiracy and makes me
another espresso
for free.

You Broke Up With New York For a Reason; This is the Future and it Sucks

You belong where the crows replace the pigeons
and boys in light pants wear flannel to
cover up their scars
and stich wide mouthed seam to sew
their religion on.

Hip stitch, one, two
let me come and dance with you,
Box step, three, four,
no one's gonna love you more
than these overgrown trees dripping with moss
and tangled hedges in the twilight,
breaking onto docks
to wet your feet
and taste the salt we've come from.

And each of us, in time, will return
to this little place,
a third of our souls,
and keep, keep cracking;
I'll be the glue that holds you together,
I'll be your heart,
beat for you one and two once more,
I'll be.

For Kelly, With Beer

You are my beer,
sitting pretty Ruby in my glass
and you and I
and you and I.

You call when the twilight winds down,
winds the clock down,
and on my coat;
I find you a stain I can live with,
sprawled across my sheets
and oh, oh,
how I love each piece of breath
your mouth releases.

Don't change your name tonight,
don't change your face on me.
Let those curls wrap around my digits,
let me have cinnamon moments
kept in giftwrapped cellophane.

Stay through this sunrise
and I'll keep you in espresso
if you promise to wander this peach again,
if you promise the air stays clean.

You Still My Number One

This town is technicolor celluloid
knee-brown boots breaking onto docks
to catch the end of the rainbow
disappearing ts tail into the Sound.
This town is napalm,
but this time is the aftermath
of burning hearts, a bluff
and a peace misunderstood.

My head is full of wine and weary wisdom,
my throat scratched, parched
from screaming across mountain passes,
your name dangling from frostbitten fingers
icicles fallen from my knees.

And this snow is blinding in sunset
for red and purple and gold;
a summit is a summit is a tangle
of rosebushes with thorns out to here,
and a rhyming heart caught in brambles.

And we'll all fall away,
and we'll all fall away.

It's evolution and reconnaissance
a glass touch in the dark,
and your name home beside me,
warm beneath coals and tended
by something easier said than done.

Birthday Poem from 3

You are my apple sweet-baked with cheddar
in the back of the Dutch oven

You are the moon when nothing else
seems relevant or warmy

You are the pulsing soul
in the midst of an irresistable whimsy

You are eight-legged rainbow bandits
on chestnut rollerskates
and I am falling to the colors falling from those eyes

In your birthday wigwam, there are
shoes on the shelf
and all the while,
you shine like new confetti

And we're clutched in the thrust
of this four triangle linoleum
tightly wound and waiting

And all over the floor,
beer stains and crazy paper sleep
under your birthday shoes
and your toes that "meep!" for
your exciting day,
the day that makes all the windows
clench their fists and say
"Goddamnit, shes pretty."

Our girl,
the prettiest under purple light,
under the grey rain
and in the red Spanish dress;
driving home,
driving home.

A Taste No More

I had a dream in the back
of the car that night,
with your head pressed
softly to my breast,
had a dream where
you were something
more than fun
as your sleep wound
down and out of your mouth.

I wore a little white dress,
I had a dream
as your sleep wound down
and out of your mouth,
of daffodils and parasols,
pink in effervescence with
matching champagne and mary-janes,
and your breath a baby's upon my cheek
wound tender out of your mouth.

Of curls on ladies and hats on friends,
of cotton lace gloves, a garter.
and you so well-spent,
three words against my ears
wound caramel out of your mouth.

I had a dream,
awoke as you stirred,
owl-wide eyes anxious to return.
Gazing out the window
my feet on the dash,
I saw my dream echoed
across the Sound,
the stars and city lights indistinguishable.

And my breath leapt to meet
your breath,
steaming in the secrets
winding down and out of your mouth.

The Paper Moon

If ever my vernacular should fail me,
toss me aside like yesterday's garbage, I

want you to remember that every fixed moment I gave
allotted six years of masturbation material, perhaps one
silken pair of panties pressed sweetly to your thigh.

Ordinary girls never did it for you, this was whispered
nightly, a lullaby of falseities, nice in their flattery, but
lingering a taste to remember how many extraordinary
young ladies you knew; you hunted them,

and so did I.

Perhaps this is why perfection blossomed, perhaps
ancestry had something else to do with it, or
perhaps it was only the flash of an ankle,
entrancing that dance, but please dear, don't
rip apart looking for

meaning, you simply won't find it here.
opening mouths hungry for life, yes
or a head tilted towards a favored star but
not enough to a build a heart from scratch.

Emulsion

There are dreams in here
among the dust
that hiss like secrets,
quiet and ashamed,
ginger colored ashes
spread across the floor.

I remember we had
plans
for these spaces
a darkroom, a studio
and I clear electronics
from the stained ancient wood.
Airplane skeletons
and ghosts in the dark of the basement.

They said the storms would come
at night
they said the rain
would fall angelic
and grace the autumn blossoms.
And I hear the thunder rolling
long past midnight
from my wild haunted home.

Lugh

Gunfire on the rooftops,
the great oak of my childhood,
well climbed and growing old,
pours acorns as if this
will be her last season for children

Autumn falls from a
Northeastern summer that barely existed,
more storms than sun this year.

Far and away,
the seconds dragging
85 degree beach days
all into October until
the rain day comes
and 8 months begins

and I wait in harvest moonlight
for you to pour yourself
molasses over me,
thick and sweet,
something more tangible
than these 3 hours
and 3000 miles,

I wait in harvest moonlight
for your boots on the leaves
your laughter and the sound
of chopping wood,

each autumnal season
from now until the end,
but you already know,
darling boy,
you already know.

S'en Aller

You creep up on me,
late August,
creep into the corners
of the rooms I walk in
in cities no belonging to me.
You show up in flashes:
a young man's sweater,
a girl's eyes
in wine so sweet it is almost unbearable.
You pop my peripheral,
and I'm dreaming of this
in the house of my lover,
in a house made of you.

Three years is a dream decieved;
you're horrid and I only miss you
when you appear suddenly and go just as soon.
I don't miss you at night anymore,
and I don't wake up startled
from a 'mareish kiss.
I don't dream of Iran,
or Muslim weddings.

But you creep up on me,
in late August,
every year,
with physical reminders as if God is saying,
'don't forget this.
don't forget him.'
as if I could when your memory
is still the ink of a thousand pens
and the paint on my brush in winter.

A thousand pieces are still missing
but my heart has stopped tearing
when you pop my peripheral
in blue.

4751

4.751 is a long number,
it is many days of laughter
and more days of tears.

It is an achievement,
sometimes celebrated by grandeur---but
you don't just run out and marry
your friends

It is a number stumbled on in childhood--
pre-adolescent, bag lunch
in the library or behind the school

It is a number clung to as umbrellas,
the storm of hormones and
girlfriends and
pomegranates
in regroup some years later.
It whispers, "everything will be all right."

In the night,
"everything will be all right."

I remember we said now,
we wished we could go
back and tell those girls
tell those girls
"you'll get laid"
"you'll be somebody, someday."

yeah, someday.

4,751 is a long number.
An unexpected frame of mind,
thirteen years a slice of time--
a big one.

It is an exhaustion number.
It's a bleeding number.
It's a shut-the-door-before-you-could-get-the-last-word number.
It's a selfish number, an adult number,
a no-holds-barred-fuck-you-I'm-tired number.

4.751 is four days past the storm and
five past the battle cry.

It was a silent war,
in respect to tongue-holding and
held back tears.

It's an Indian number in the land of cowboys bangbangbang.

Bang.

It's a hollow shout,
a burn out,
an end.

Domestic Violence

There's a good woman hiding somewhere
deep beneath this skin
Beneath the twilight and between the sharp edges,
beyond the little prickles and between the fight
there is a good woman here.

She stands with a backbone of fretboards and her hips
are made of f-holes.
Her hair of silver strings, softly swishing a lullaby,
coaxing a song from the still summer air.

There's a good woman in here,
she's the mother of your children,
the wife cooking dinner and fetching your slippers;
There's a good woman in here,
waiting for the crescendo of rifle fire and rock salt,
pacing the steps of the guillotine for freedom.

Eternal Resident

We avoid toll roads,
not just for blue collar pretension,
but for the extra time
between Newark and my house
10 minutes to 25 to I love you
and you are sober
but you kiss goodnight
with heat and hunger
with 5 years of pent up
you and I
never fulfilled
but for 10 minutes
the bathroom in neither of our houses---
as if we were 17.

but you're a homebody now,
and I will undomesticate you
in the sand of the Mediterranean
on the shores of the Nordsee,
I will breathe you life
where you have lost.
I will breathe air
where you have concrete lungs,
flow water where you have dammed,
sow seeds where you have tilled,
an empty field, sought for nothing--
I will flame--
far and away--
my signal fire infinite in a sea of vacuummous darkness
in a place where silence shatters souls and shoulders
in a home
we will build brick by brick

The Summerland Fairytale -- 060709, 10:35 p.m.

Liebe, tell me a story. I cannot sleep, though my body is wretched and little me can't wait to drift away.

Tell me a story of your wild Moroccan men, with sand in their hair and eyes like the evening sun.

Tell me a story -- you're so close I can almost hear you humming in the kitchen, making breakfast with Turkish yogurt and honey, Greek coffee and popeyes the way Steve makes them because we both miss him today. The white walls are shining in mid-morning sun, it's Tuesday... today I will work at the bar, serving drinks and blowing kisses to tourists, and you will lounge in the hammock next to the beach. Your favorite boy of the hour will bring you cool beers with lemon. You can read Proust. Or maybe today, you will not read, you say and laugh s the bread crisps and yum takes over the kitchen. "Maybe today, I will a get a little dog for company."

Maybe today.

Tell me a story. You're so close I can smell you. You're so close.

050709

I'll sleep in sunlight
go to bed with the moon humming
low in my ear sky
with blue scratches and wee babes waking
thier parents before the sun.
I am an in-between moment --
I am promises popping like
fireworks in fog,
holding color, dripping light
across a thousand scattered faces

Liebe, how do you fall asleep writing
with the pen in your hand

the cat's purring

I want Wednesday off. I want to go to the beach with a stack of books and sandwiches and beer.
I like all of these things.

I am cactus shade in the desert
to cool your feet;
chewed upon to quench thirst,
never mind the spines.

Death's a Friend

Delirious atrocities, delicous in its intricacies
emanating from focused candle meditation an
awning under which we fall to sleep, drawn swiftly
towards the spectre of adolescent love and
hidden jewels meant to remain so

in another world, he took a shell to his eat,
softly murmuring the lack of passion for his

art of war.

Fresh among newborn hags, frizzled and haggard
romping in arbors of wine grapes and
in amongst the angels, towards an
effect unknown to cause and weeping weeping to
never land and the broken promises Peter made, as
destined he was to only leave us angry with our siblings

while simultaneously holding out for true love's kiss.
Awakened by dreams of hands legs elbows
in between soft lips and tongues so
torn affronted with decision, we flee
initiated into unhappy cults of marriage
nary lying tiger soft at pit's bottom, seeming
gregarious in nature, eve, but hiding heart's true purpose

nearly eons later, we'll emerge, suckled by
enemies of what our truth stood for, reaching
amicably for friends, groping roughly in the dark,
realising no one is left but our own emptiness
by way of who we forced ourselves to love,
young and reckless and careless with each other.

Bedtime Memories

Indispensable, I wake along radio, craving

nabisco sweets and crumbs to treat my low
efforts and starry mornings, coffee cold
ever as I drive into heat and the misunderstood
deed that comes with being a woman, though

now is not a time falter in my
endless quest for a partner ready to take this
wheel when I am wet with dreams,

moreso when I am wracked with need,
emoting something softer than grace. You
map the choices, make the turns, find
overprice diners, greasy spoon chrome covered
red dives, a place for communists and
ingrates to gather and humour brilliant
effervescence among broken girl
soldiers and the pieces of our childhood

hearts forever entwined by Charming princes
eager to eat and leave a ragged
run of girl pieces where a princess used to
eat so daintily and sweet

without cause of care we run to each other
imitating the lives we thought our mothers
took bleeding from the heart of all thier
heated spats and fluorescent beyond

youth.
Own that fear, whatever it came from &
understand the puzzle wasn't meant to stay the same.

230609

Silent as you speak
mute, my words cut off
a failed conversation and yet
you call me a dream,
a silent film in color
a retro pin-up girl
1970s somewhere in the woods
with my flannel
and megawatt smile

I beg you to to tell me
what the desert smells of;
no answer.
You do not think of smells in terms
of place --
let me tell you a story:

Once upon a new Year's eve
when I was young, just seventeen
my plane stopped in Arizona.

In the causeway,
twixt machine & machine
came a smell of jasmine,
gardenia, oleander, prickly pear,
sweeter than grandmother pudding,
and mixed generously with

expanse.

ten feet I almost dropped
to run into the sand
and live a wild coyote life.
Ten years a desert queen
with no rain,
but these are the choices we make.

210609

The desert calls high
canyons and tree lilies
the Joshua---
King of sweet sight
and never ending star 'splay

The desert calls loud
but pines beat my heart
a drum too distinct to miss
a drum abandoned for a kiss

the men cried out and tore
flags of peace to shreds for rags
to wrap her war wounds in
and planced their hearts on plates
presented spinning
in a microcosm cosmonaut's blissful eyes
searching lurking and ever-perching
as if the wind
could take her away
as if the wind could weep
and make the decision

The desert calls high
the coyotes cry peace nevermore
tired of waiting
falling back to war
on suburban encroachment
towards their ancestral moon

and someone will pay
for all the scars on her heart
somebody will suture up
that nonsense tongue
someday
someday

Shades of Gray

Someone is growing her nails
long and lily-white
putting on her father's boots
and glaring
straight past the looking glass

Someone is archaic
without form tricking
dictionary tropes alight
a lie
a keen against soft midnights
and twilight's standard kiss

Someone is a long discovered virtue
spent and discarded
hiding in shroud's moonlight
a grave dancer picking over cemeteries
for a bone

Someone is taking
the overseas call
with the grandiose overtone of a symphony
slightly out of tune

And someone is a rooftop sunrise picnic
dropping strawberries
untouched
over your head.

Someone is laughing.
Someone is laughing.

The New Revolution: Part Three

I will come
with extra arms
from beyond the sea

arriving by air
arriving by beach
arriving with water balloons
and suited platoons

I will gather
along my march
soldiers for battle
those who have
a long lost child
a forgotten childhood

We will come
cross the land
and arrive brazen
cupcake smeared on our faces
laces dragging in the mud

We will come
we're going to war.

-Jessie Allison

The New Revolution: Part Two

Long pale fingertips and
extra-large keys wind-up soldier toys
soldier boys and the girl in pink from down the block
soldier solder anywhere you want it
that's the way we need
you.

Lace up your everything
put away your inside voice
hide that old halloween candy
from your parents
in your pockets
Summer is here
and

we're going to war.

The New Revolution: Part One

Who will be a part of my revolution?
We will strike the work-a-day-world at dawn
after cartoons of course
We will move out in teams
Four Power Wheels per convoy
With drivers rotating every fifteen minutes so it is fare
They will be no match for our arsenel of Nerf guns and water balloons
Our wooden swords will cut them to the quick
Their souls will shudder at the glint of water from the muzzle of our squirt guns
Troops on tricycles will approach from the west
Pots and pans to protect their heads
Look outs will be posted on the top of every slide and play structure
Cootie shots will be provided in the medical tent
It'll be a long war
Lasting possibly past snack time
Your brows will sweat
Hands will get dirty
Mouths will be sticky from Root Beer flavored popsicles
Not all of us will make it
I expect many of you to get Owies, Ouchies or Booboos
Knee's will be skinned or scraped
But those who fall will not be forgotten
Every pop gun that pops
Every firecracker that cracks
Every hula that hoops
Will cry out your name
TO ARMS
Man your G.I. Joe battle stations men
First an air strike from paper airplane squadrons
Followed quickly by a sea battle
with all manner of splashing and cannon balls
The action figures and micromachines should report directly to the sandbox
All Ninjas, mutant or otherwise, should report to the basement
for a slumber party and further instructions
All pirates should report to the park
Use the picnic tables as planks to walk
All Jedi's and knights should report to the woods
In order to find suitable sticks for lightsabers and swords
All kids old enough will stationed at the mall
Milling and loitering is encouraged
All safety equipment (IE shin guards, bike helmets, knee pads) can be found somewhere in the garage behind the bikes
But be warned
you will look like a dork wearing them
Make sure your glow in the dark laces are tied tight
put on your game face
WE ARE GOING TO WAR

-Eli Piatt, May 2009

Starved

I thirst for the sweat
that trickles slick
down the small of your back

hunger for the meat
lying sweet
between your thighs

draw a conclusion
of transcontinental railways
affixed to your shoulder blades

and hum a song electric
slipping between sugar teeth
a candy floss seductive
in its confection kiss

Manifesto, Part the Second: In Which We Say No.

If my whole life is going wrong
I'm going strong
I'm going wrong with it

there is no used to be
now there is only me
forcin' and fightin'
a break in the line
a peace over time
but I'm fine,
I'm on fire.
Oh no, it's come to blows
can't stop it, can't force it
oh no, you're---
Break.



congratulate the overtake
I'm underweight, up to fate
to reignite our overture
fuels and cellphone wars
consumer globe, give in
be the whore
you've come to know
in nightmare;
she's right there
breathing heavy on the overpass
throat full of glass
just stop for a second
and push

I was never the angry girl
coolin' down an overheated
word's world of discussion,
elation and population?
that was not me,
upset in society until today.
put your boots on
dig those roots in
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
we're going to war.

I can't breathe no more
this whole place's fucked to bore
an incision a question
of morals and ethics
how do you
live to be electric
in a place so undone
a place with no guns
you hear me, Lenore?
I have rise, I am comin
I am comin for
your Angels.

I have yet to wreck this savage beast
with these lines from underneath
for I wake in a pace
that demands a silent compensation
a new, forgiving nation
of nuclear physic and cold mnenotic
an understanding of heat
a lineback beat
by all odds and under sedation
that requires further contemplation
Break---




you want the world
I'll give you en fuego
sick of playing with lego
when's a girl of my intellect
even learn to reflect
and pass on?

I tell you never,
the day we surrender our souls to your machines
the day my wife becomes unclean
the day your future is unseen
the day invincible
becomes invisible
and think on it
because I'm not tired,
I'm wired,
I been fired from every job I ever had
my mind refuses to commit
my body remains unfit
they just look for a trick
to get rid of me
Break---




I'm riled up, boiled over
you'll see my body lyin' on clover
the day I go down
peace will never be found
my voice is a riot
the one piece you cannot quiet
on overload
O overlord
I'm fit to be tied
dancing with knives,
poking holes everywhere I go
you cannot stop this flow
it's me and her
him and them
all places you see are houses to mend

No man is a fool to give up what he cannot to keep
to gain
what he cannot lose.
Think on this.

THINK ON THIS.

Library Memories

can't chase you far away
enough
in my white pick-up
you and me and I miss -----

OUR TRUCK! big green truck
and bench seats

where we made love
four or five times
in the parking lot
of the University

the height was always too much
but for you
I'd do
and did
everything.

Excerpt: In Transit

The ceaseless alchemical permutation, gold into history,
rain into strawberries, strawberries into my bloodstream,
my blood into flowering dreams

the dream into absolute perception, into coruscating
visions of
THIS IS WHERE IT IS BA-BY into
infinity

-Lenore Kandel

Definitions

Maiden's Peak Syndrome: The tendency for one to wait around for someone and receiving little to no results.

This is a very deadly disease. Often it's victims include many women and very romantic men. Symptoms may include panic, annoyance, loneliness,denial and in often but extreme cases, a completely wasted life. Maiden's Peak syndrome can be diagnosed for something so large as waiting for someone to return to you in a relationship or something as small as planning to hang out with someone and 80% of the time it not happening. Maiden's Peak Syndrome refers to the term, Maiden's or Widow's Peak, a very common story where a woman waits for her husband or lover on a cliff as he goes off to war. The end result: the woman waits so long she turns into to stone waiting for centuries, even millennia for her lover to come back.

-Tasha Richardson, 5/20/2009

Chin up, girl.

skinny skinny berry suck
meat off my thighs
skinny skinny drink a juice
to miracle cleanse your everything
skinny skinny blonde women
act and never age
wonder wonder wonder drug
what exactly are you implying?

consider this missing link:
I find bones uncomfortable
and mothers strangle smother toddlers
and bury them in playground sand.

where are our weapons?
fatties fight back!
from lumbar supported
desk chairs
obesity rampant and
you're only fat because you're lazy
or you have a thyroid problem
you wanna be well then stay that way
no one's forcing you to change.

but have you tried
skinny skinny perfect plan?
everyone knows you can't change alone.
be young young, skinny skinny
and never give up your face
who wants
graceful laugh lines
and fat from birthing angels
anyway?
who wants
warm grandma hugs
when granny can be a supermodel?
after all,

love is only
love is only skin deep.

break-up senryu

late spring sunrise --
steady oak.
were i a leaf upon her.

The Lovers Never Lied

she breaks again
and everything is changing fast --
in her life, it's only ever been extremes.
something's hit, something sticks
and exposes her exposition
with convoluted sentences
and bright underwater lights.

she breaks again,
open and her yolk is spilling
all over your fresh linen hands
(air your dirty laundry in public while it's safe),
but it's too late
for all of you.

the first kiss that created the universe
was passed freely
between two laughing girls
on Capitol Avenue
sometime in two thousand and seven.

she breaks again
and leans to topple
but even across the world,
at the first cracking clap,
hands catch her peace rendered frame
and carry her slowly
to the finish line.
to the finished line.

because it's too late for all of you now.
the kiss that sparked creation
was a well-executed accident
neither gods nor monsters
could have foreseen.

...Run.
~~

It's fitting that this is post two hundred.
I miss you.
and oh, oh, oh, I'm on fire.

I love you, my hipster-headed angel.
-M.

Still Life

age twenty-two
and this is what my life has come to.

Memory:
the grocery in late May,
refrigerated section,
staring at hot dog packages.
I love the ones with cheese;
Ballparks plump
oozing saturated fats
and oily goodness
burns your mouth on the first bite,
always and always,
but honey, it's so good.

The first bite always reminds me of our first kiss.

And I'm standing with tears
hot as thunder,
waterfalling down my cheeks.

Decision:
imminent
because the store is going to close
and we need hot dogs.
I heft packs in opposite hands
I love that burn
but you gave me my first taste
and I'm supposed to move,
move on now.
The stockboy is staring.

One with cheese,
one without.
Thump and thump into my basket.
We'll see if I'm ever brave enough
to grill that miracle of
injected beef pieces
and burn hot again.

wise things said #3

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
-Anais Nin

You Suck at Tennis

the phone doesn't ring as often as it did.

I and I getting used to
you and you
three thousand miles
is not a damn thing anymore
and three hours--
in the space of Spain
I could find Seattle.

but my Jersey summer cigarette
lights as fireworks
against a four a.m. sky
an itch in my knees
and I like the morning moon--

you and I
sea and sky
if I could leave you,
I wouldn't anyway;
I don't know where your
eyes are
but I hope they're on me.

and if Kerouac's a never-ending essay
I am haiku on pre-war walls
a metaphor in taste
longing to give just
the smallest mark more
to leave you breathless
and helpless helpless
in the wake of stronger silences
than conversation makes.

and someone tells me
I could sleep it off
but a hundred thousand sunrise daydreams
touch further
than a hundred thousand nightmares
painting realities I can't reach.

so pin me with your nothings;
I am in your head,
ruining everything,
until the last call Northwest kiss
brushes gentle goodbyes,
and sculpts me into something firmer,
more willing to lose,
than what I've become.

I'll Keep You

because anger is exhausting
but apathy too slow
and numbness leads to sadness
leads to wanting
leads to no,
I like joy best.

and here.
and here is where the walls
break
down.

put your boots on, little sister,
you've come through worse than this.
There've been larger storms,
harder forms
more rocks among the breaks.

pick your pen up, little sister,
hold on to it tight.
we're going farther,
deeper down,
away against the light.

for caves, my darling little lover,
hold more than they can share
and here.
and here is where you can stay
huddled wretched slick with tears
y a comer furia
is to soothe your angry eyes.

pick up your papers, little lover,
and scream as loud as you can
for my heart
is big enough to shield the world
from the pieces of your breaking heart.

and here
and here
and here we leave our walls
behind
and march into the sun,
hand in hand over land
over sea,

porque no hay una mesa para joy,
only one for sorrow
and we do not sup
amongst unbroken dreams
for nothing.

This is the world:
you will dazzle them
as I perform sleight of hand,
hide our hearts
and let us begin again.

Manifesto to a Movement

Little poetic child slumber

What been woken

By midnights in summer?

Curling gray around somber faces

Remembering free, far-off places

Where always a fire meant one heart

Where now we all rub sticks for whatever to start

I’ve looked once around,

And lately I’ve found,

All these options are in my head

Unless you’re feeding it life

Whatever will end up dead

And I’m not talking about who in who’s bed

Cuz I could be

But it’s about who in whos heart, as it should be

Because it’s each other and ourselves that we can free

Because it’s a question to an answer we left empty

What I’m sayin is

The world is lost on me

I freed it all with poetry

But I’m not lost on the world, you see

Pure vision and action is the belief you can be

So now please,

Put your thumbs together

And write something

Make it free

Read it to me

Make my cum think!

We all need rhythms

That jar us from our numb sink

Into twice laid plans

That don’t work,

Yet we repeat

Here’s a dream of community

Poetry in our veins as immunity

So what fires we will start, we are soon to see

In a movement we can embody, but not assume to be

Open hands can hold, without robbery

Closed minds only leading to snobbery

And these aren’t rules,

But assertions if you’re gonna be free,

Ditch the lie and catch a ride into honesty

Cuz I need it blunt if you’re talking to me

No time to hide in the words you speak

It won’t all feel good indefinitely

It gives way, life and pain,

Inseparably.

And here’s the key

Moving on, with integrity

Rising and spreading

Like bedding down the friends you need

I’m so in love

And so heated

Bear in mind this needs repeated

But I won’t wait cuz it’s ripe

As these minds are meetin

Trying to mouth all these pregnant words they feedin’

Your welcome to cum,

let’s give birth this season

To a movement in our minds

And some playful teasin’

With the way we rhyme

And our minds of reason

I lack design

& my breath ain’t ceasin’

Brother, I need some time

With you

Sister, I need to find

With you

Lover, it’s all in kind

With you

Father & Mother, here’s what I find to do

Drop pre-tense

And find a life that’s true

I’m only as good as the love I use

The only thing I’m missing,

is You.

-Kendra Obom, OG Sandflea

August 2007

My Other Lover

my other lover claws at my backside
demanding resuscitation and older memories
begging grief for alice danced slowly
beyond summer sweetness
one night in candles
many nights in flame

my other lover claws at my breast
demanding bitter suck of vile
mourning good winter's passing
beyond white wheats silently sipped
one afternoon in corpses
many days in graves

my other lover claws at my heart
and I lay hands to its throat
growing ever wetter in crass places
gritting my teeth and tossing off
a care or two for the piano
which has been drunk since we discovered gin

my other lover claws and shreds
my other lover angers and fumes
my other lover rages
my other lover roars back at the sea
my other lover devours grapes sour as they come
my other lover believes in the bloody taste of iron
and searches midnights for poles to suck
my other lover believes sex is for violence
and seeks to tear all me open
my other lover,
my other lover loves you better
than loves me

my other lover claws at cunts
and fucks til dry and slick with blood
licks and licks and leaves trails
of sick sweet lip marks on virgin thighs
demanding recitation of spring
deep in autumn's bowels

my other lover is destruction undone
and bloated ghosts move past unseen
my other lover rapes
burns with necessitated need
my other lover
loves you better
than loves me

And Selfishly So

I'm tired so tired
of the guitar on your side of the bed
the cat's sweet purr
next to my head
I am weary of distances
far and in between
the wall to wall spaces
left in my hardest heart
and when i close my fist
as the sixty mile an hour wind
whips by me
out the car window
its your hand i'm holding
when our apocalypse descends

o sweet mercy
give me a tale i can believe in
of you and me and sweet california sun
give me your lips and a taste
of the never ending kiss
give me back
my saturday nights
give me back
the ten minute to takeoff call
whereupon you opened my door
i leapt upon that hard body
and stayed thus until we had to breathe again
give me back
my clean shower
and snowy sunrise
give me back
sister rosetta in the middle of the woods
give me back
all those beats of beasts
and the way we used to dance
give me back
all my romance
give me
give me
o lend mercy sweet shelter
a place for my heartache to die
and my lips to live ever after

The Greatest

I flee yellow handed
leaving sun drenched footprints
in the riverbed built by you
for me
with great apathy in mind.

I conquer love like sorrow,
with Italian peppers and
one too many Tom Collins'.
Feet sure between envelopes
of surrender and parchments
of war, I have
stripped naked and wearing
nothing but the white flag
I run
through pools of
purple left by bodies
and
around the outside
of sinking sandpits
filled to the brim with prrudish protestations.
Spy briefly in the House of Love
on Ladies pulled rigid and painted quiet,
spy softly on men,
as they hold their heads and think
of what to say next.

Dirt-faced and river worn,
I seek solace form this and these
and I love once more
running over pumpkin patches
and brush away all the stings American Hollywood
has so graciously given,
the white flag clinging as
saran wrap to itself and to me and
---I reach the rain.
I reach my pinnacle
all stripes and lies fall way and I am,
I am the luckier,
I am the luckiest alone.

On my own

she says,
"if you don't have the money, honey
the honey money
to fly back three or four times a year
you get isolated
up here---its like another world:
and I laugh because
its perfect.
I'm so in between worlds
just one would be nice.
And you can go to
San Franfuckingcisco
and its
fifty-three years of progress
fifty-three years of yuppies and capitalism
fifty-three years away from the San Franfuckingrevolution
and all I love.
I and I will go isolated islanding on the Bering sea
with the wolves
and the silence of heaven
breathe deep in a snowbank
and never come home.

afternoon showers

the thunder hits so loud the glass is shaking in its panels;
rat-ratt-rattling with the shiver of my heartbeat
to go higher and higher
away

i lie.

i lie down to nap and the cat hair gets in my nose.

i wish.

i wish i was burying my nose in white sand ocean wind
and not itchy black cat fur
but the earth smell has to come in somewhere
and the sun refuses to help a sister out.

i wake.

i wake hours later, amidst the empty bag of chips
chips i don't remember eating.

i eat.

i eat to fill an organ where i think my stomach
used to be.

i breathe.

i breathe turning away from the cat and into the sweater
you left behind, the white one under the pumps
and next to the canister of condoms.

i know.

i know i should've left it alone, but it had fallen.
i was afraid the cat would pee on it.
he won't stop peeing on things.
he's such a jerk.

and in the night
there is no one to calm my shakes
and in the night
it is empty and dark
and in the night
it smells like rain i want to give to you
and in the night
i wake frightened
not remembering why
with the ghost of your hair's smell
on the pillow next to mine.

eleventh hour tanka

late night
early spring
we roast marshmallows
over zippos
and pray through the burns

Vintage, baby.

No Trace Left

Ever since I was young, I have shared beds on sleepovers. The feeling of companionship, the errant limb occasionally finding itself wrapped around your waist, and the warm body next to you. That's love.

Now that I'm older, my mother thinks I am doing illicit things with everybody who shares my bed. I don't know why she seems to think that. I only did illicit things with one girl. And now, there's no trace left.

One thing about sleepovers, the morning is sad. The end of the companion for a night, it's back to a cold, lonely bed. Especially after your sleepover friend leaves.

You go about your room, picking up the clothes thrown around the room, carefully placing them in a hamper by the door. Remember how she said, in a low voice, "Fair is fair." and she made you take off your shirt, too. Now, you move to the bed, removing pillows from the pillowcases, thinking of her hair. Brown hair, falling in the way until she asks you for a hair tie, which you give gladly. The pillow cases, too, go in the hamper.

Before touching the bedsheets, you remember her body, smooth as velvet, soft as silk. You remove them, balling the sheets up, tossing them over your shoulder. All that is left is the fold-up futon, disguised so carefully as a couch against the far left wall. She pushed you against it and kissed you in the red light of your lava lamps.

You fold the futon, and put it against said wall. The floor is bare. There is no trace left of the beautiful girl who shared your bed She has gone home, back to her boyfriend.

You both must pretend it never happened. The only ones you will ever tell are each other. Every time it happens... if it ever happens again. The secret smiles, the too-long, but too-short-to-bed-suspicious hugs of congratulations, and the way you look at each other and laugh whenever somebody mentions sex. Finally, the note she wrote on your wall in a secret place that no one will ever see.

There are no traces of her, except in the darkest of your secret places.

-October 2003

the littlest wrecking ball

you're a disaster unfounded
by love and light
a wrecking ball
of felonic misdemeanors
overthrown by manners
and the cruel secret smiles of children
lying in the sun

you're a disaster unknown
a devastation of
proportions and quantities
and lovers left behind

a disaster of physical mind-melds and
science fiction easily unraveled
a technobabble princess
unfounded
lost in galactic override
a beautiful disaster -
you.

Tar, tar a rún

Tar, tar a rún
come and sit in the smoky bar of my childhood
let me spell love in the dust
of melody and microphone
of harmony and heat
sweetly o'er-reached by soft drums
in a distant, dark melting night

Tar, tar a rún
come and speak through your eyes
over skin and into blood
spell love for my feet
in a beat I will always dance to
knowing the shaking behind my nightmares
is sweetly o'er-perched by steady breath
in a distant, dawn condemning night

Tar, tar a rún
come and let lips close
come and let hair entangle
come and banish sundays 'yond early afternoon
Tar, tar a rún
come, come, my darling
come, come, my love
Tar, tar

To-do list

1. Grocery list
1. Pudding
2. Tuna fish

2. Work
1. Find some
2. Rewrite resume
3. Figure out humorous, non-pretentious, beautiful cover letter

3. Reading/Fun
1. Memory Keeper's Daughter
2. War Is A Force, again and again until I can haiku it
3. Buy a gun. Learn to shoot it.
4. Avoid murderous rampage

4. IMPORTANT
1. Breathe
2. Let Go.
3,. Pet bunny
4. Play guitar
5. Kiss everyone

5. Clean room/house
1. Reorganize
2. Unpack
3. Wash walls
4. Fall the frack asleep
5. Wake up
6. Make dinner

6. Poetry
1. write it
2. share it
3. over-analyze
4. under-analyze over-analysation
5. Hyperventilate
6. Post
7. Wait.

7. Living
1. Return heart/exchange it??
2. Send Matt his shirt
3. Send Matt my undies???
4. Find new curtains
5. Don't panic
6. Panic
7. Quit smoking again
8. Steal mom's cigarettes

8. Other
1. Write to Jessie
2. Write to Eli
3. Call Brittany
4. Do not get seduced!
5. Seriously, I mean it
6. No, really.
7. Call Dan
8. Rinse, repeat
9. Call Matt
10. Say I love you
Say I love you
Say I love you

Eve

She speaks of orchards as if
she has seen many
She sucks slurping sections
Spanish oranges as if
style is superfluous to
all the smoke she's made from
candied cigarettes under groves of leathered wood
She tends fruit as if
tending fruit and making love in springtime
were her only duties to the crown

I wait, first to admit
I'm an apple girl nectar doesn't
interest me and I like
words that rhyme better
though I too
tend
to fruits
yellow red green and gold
richly deeply dark in the February night

She'll not return even when
she's run out of Catalina Clementines
and things to suffer for.

And I wait,
crimson fruit round in hand
on top of walls
in corners
under beds
for a fraction section of attention as if
I need to say something in more than words.

cross-country move, part 2

by the time I am done
organizing
packing
cleaning
the only thing left of you
in my possession
will be two photographs
a postcard
and the squeaky cube rabbit dog toy
which was the first present
you ever gave me

and I don't miss you
anymore
but the rabbit gives me comfort
to know that once
someone loved me that much

dear daddy

dear daddy, we used to walk
on Tuesdays
your young father laughter
rang and rang
over the park swings,
thirty to thirty-five and
sometimes you woul take me out of school
to swing and slide and read.

dear daddy, all the pieces
of me
that are secretly you
I can't put my finger on but
I sure wish
I had your eyes,
even though mine are
forest clearing wild sunshine
and fields of gold.
I look in the mirror
I wonder where you are in me
as I touch belly thigh foot shoulder
nose ear cheek eyelash.
You must be in my face,
because mom is in my feet.

I curl back my lips
you in my teeth, daddy?
my tongue, pink and red
and gilded silver?
my smile, easy and shy?
Yes. In my cheeks, too,
I can see you, apple round
full of unrelenting pursuit of the
perfect
rock star sneer.
(I don't know who we're kidding with that, daddy,
we're too full of joy for music to be condescending)

dear daddy, the untouchable parts
of me
are you,
the restless tap-tap-tapping rhythm
on tables and legs
bending of book pages
and how my hands
clench
or curl naturally.
Mom always tries
to straighten my fingers but
I like to think they started doing that
in the womb
from all your years of music,
like hands for an instrument
was a star-wish you made for me in California,
a secret wish,
like my gender.

dear daddy, I think
you always trusted me with myself
better than I did
because of all those untouchable parts,
kept me being secretly you.

Modern Spaces

I am made of subspace
and each moment is a now moment--
when you feel 10--act 7
when you feel 7--act 5
and so on down the line.

when you feel 1--act 10
and emulate the overcast,
the topography of bloodspeech
was lost in kinetic translation.

she can drag her toe across the hardwood floor;
she cannot peek through.
You are a heart problem.
she can drag her toe across all the spanish rugs;
she can't see you.

I am made of subspace;
the Atlantic was not made for me to swim.

Every moment is a now moment
when you feel 1-- act 10
and scream as loud as you can;
take it from the top,
start over,
begin again.

vaguely edited SOC

your dreams
and I am stagnant with mud walls the smallest pool of water waiting the noon sun to be sucked to the sky and exist anew in a community of cloud vapor white fluffy boring except in angles and prism reflection -- a symbol of calm and relaxation. dull. sucked to the sky to become dull. where is my holy ascent? my machinal doves my crucifixtion my clarity my believers? why does the machine gun's rattle sound like the harsh terrored flapping of dove's wings? why do I dream the daughter of the man who no long inhabits my bed and

your dreams
I never meant to call you fool but where is my desert bollywood romance and you want me to be your naive admirer whom you drown in drugs and break her heart and don't you know that clouds cannot be drowned? and don't you know that I've lost my train of thought again and why can't I stay on track I hate this stupid book I bought in vanity and as such nothing good has come from it. Look at me I can't even write a stream of consciousness without pausing to think how absurd and I hate how down on myself I get when you aren't here I am sorry I need you to believe in me so badly, no I am not sorry

your dreams
you said my body was big enough
strong enough to shield
the world from the shattering pieces of my broken heart
but
shrapnel still makes holes in the barricades

and the barricade still bleeds and
eventually someone has to come out and rebuild or
come out and bury the dead.
the dead don't bury themselves
and yet--andyet--
I become the barefoot mother in the dirty, glass-strewn street
the mother who having no children, tends to all of them.
who carries dead bodies to the foot of the temple steps one by one

and yet and yet becomes the priestess who blesses and
prays for their white prism souls
becomes the janitor who interns their husks in the pauper's pyre
becomes the daughter who stands chained by her will to the city,
to stand against injustice and shelter the mothers
from the air strikes a broken heart in vanity makes

Your dreams
but I am stagnant cesspools of blocked ways and clogged drains.
I am exercising my right to fail and be miserable and i have been doing it far too long; I have become sick.

You dream
but I am unchaining myself from the gates;
the mothers can fend for themselves;
the temples can crumble with the priestesses inside;
the janitors can burn in their own furnaces--

you dream

but I will be sucked the sky, be a thundercloud
I will rain down my soul to flood the world with My dreams
and your dreams
will envy my broken heart

For Nora VI

Nora,
today I am not myself.
Today I am contemplating
the sale of my guitar
to line my pockets with silver
to make a film star's getaway
into Canada.
Nora,
today I am eschewing the physical Stranger
for the virtual.
Even my handwriting isn't mine.
I keep losing my train of thought like
she's not and
I'm not
quite where we meant to be.
Like lead in my blood, Nora,
just sitting at the bottom of my veins
slowly stopping a trickle
until I've simply gone blue.

And I keep losing my train
of thought like
she's not and I'm not
even gone yet.

Like she's someone I should still
be blanking for.
Nora
I think I'm realizing
that I am much happier
when I am alone.
But I keep losing my memories
like I am a drifter
and I don't feel like myself today
but I don't remember me anymore
because

I'm not like
she is
or she's not like
I am
and rising from it
hurts,
Nora.
I can't write myself out of me.

I am not myself today.
I keep losing my train of thought.

death tanka

time follows.
my father dies;
I, the stone-eyed daughter,
found grieving
behind closed doors

Let's Go Back to Church

the sky opened
forgiveness poured down
soft, wet, and virginal
no fire, no breath
our souls rose translucent
caught in webs of neon and city smog
"rise
we rise
we rise together"
the chant of mankind
"ascend and believe"
I closed my ears and denied them

"doubting thomas
will you doubt in eternity
when the sea swallows the land
when the flaming desert consumes
and the rain pours pours down?"

I opened my eyes to glance darting
at their thin lanky frames
streetlight angels preaching the rapture
upon our beds.
I opened my eyes and lifted my heart
for I thought
of this cold grey
beneath the Sound and
Chicago overtaken by the Michigan and
sand sand sand
blown into every crevice.
I saw the fish and the scorpion,
the crab and the fox
and my laughter, nature's bell on the wind,
my answer to their second coming.

I would find greater comfort for my land-weary toes at
the bottom of the ocean
flesh to nourish further,
and my soul free to swim
amongst the reef.
Greater comfort there than ever
a harp or angels risen in song.

I bade them go without me.

They balked as if incomplete,
stuttered and watched in fierce protest
as I dropped from the dock
and melted
into the first wave that kissed me.