Proverbs 25:11

It isn't difficult to crawl
back into familiar caves
getting lost in
well worn
paths
through familiar woods.
familiar day dreams
fall like hopeless
leaves
in autumn
crunching under foot
and the air is as
crisp
as an apple
even at dusk
a few strands of gold
fall across the
dying ground
painting familiar pictures
on the
hopeless leaves
that crunch like
apples of gold
in pictures of silver.

I am too many words
and there are too many miles
left
to be silent just yet.
I want to dip my fingers
in every pot of paint
and fall asleep
a mosaic in the sun
dry blues cracking like
deserts on my arms and
emerald green legs peeling like
dragon scales
when I wash off my
orange
violet
red swirled hands
it will be in oceans
far far away.
There is nothing magic
about travelling
except for the dust that
travels with you
and the sun that sets
on every ocean.
I am too many words
and my thoughts are jumbled.
Remembering the old faces and
wide open spaces that didn't want
me to leave.
Imagine a great dome of a sky
and prison bars
made of tall grass.
That was a life of
comfort and little else
and I want more.
Words are spilling and splatting
on this life of a canvas
and I can think of little else to do
besides swirl and make new colors
with my fingers.

Ugh.

I want to be writing every day.
I've got nothing.
I thought it would get easier.
It hasn't.
I don't feel like I'm training for a marathon and getting better with time and constant practice.
Instead I keep tearing ideas out from my heart and head like looseleaf paper from my binder, and I am running out of ideas. Running out of heart and head to tear from.
It doesn't get less daunting.
In fact the white spaces on the screen are starting to haunt me. This computer doesn't give a damn if I ever type on it again. But those white spaces won't let me go.
I've got nothing.
I thought writing would get easier after going through sixteen years of formal education.
Instead my sentences are stopped short by road blocks asking what the hell tense am I supposed to be in, and why do I keep changing lanes without a signal?
Diagrams splitting infinitives and making a science out of an art.
I just want to write.
I've got nothing.

some favorites in new york for $5 or freer

gyros at three a.m.
jazz in the west village, no cover
coffee shops that you can sit in all day
sleeping on the roof in the summer
subway rides from queens to coney island
the brooklyn bridge
beef patties in harlem
dimsum in china town
the little church around the corner
different festivals on 7th avenue
subway performers
walking to the river
free concerts in churches if you know where to go
clubs mansion, home, guest house, gypsy tea room, webster hall
mamoun's falafel
bubble tea
the fifth avenue bus ride from Columbus Circle to St. Mark's place
the Staten Island Ferry
staying home.

I was just looking through some of my old stuff. Stuff that I remembered in shadows and impressionist visions. No concrete memories of what significance any of it really had. One poem in particular I remember submitting in my creative writing class for a poetry assignment. I got an A on the poem, and seeing the title saved on my computer, I opened it expecting to be surprised at how good of a writer I was before college ruined my writing. It was absolutely awful. It was the sappiest, most drawn out poem that reached for intimate detail and overshot by about a country. Shit. The poem was so bad, I imagined what I would do if a friend of mine ever gave it to me and asked me what I thought about it. I couldn't do it. There is not one redeemable line in the poem. And it isn't me being overly critical because it's my work, it is really as awful as all that. Good God, it frightened me. One or two years from now, I could look back on this and think the same. Gulp.

Tender Flesh

Take me to new places where I can
Eat my kill with bare hands
Meat is sweeter when flesh meets flesh
Streets are dark
And eyes are street lamps
Glowing yellow
Dim, persistent.
I will be your tangled barb wire
razor edges, hour glass curves
surrender met with racing pulses
you fight hard
I fight harder
Take me now to brand new places
Hearts are meaty
Eyes are tunnels
Street lamps flashing faster faster
Driving running
Predator prey

Found this envelope I had written on awhile ago.


"What color would you like?" she asked. I looked for blood and smiled sweetly.
Fingernails that shine like desire because justice is a few years ahead of me. I thought about love as they made me a woman. Made me mud masks instead of mud pies and I said, "It's all the same to me." But what is love? Is it the reason fingers and toes are laquered with come hither? Is it why face is rubbed smooth and sealed with cold cream? All for this thing called love? It ends up with barefeet and sweatpants and drinking tea and looking at the paper. But does it start with pharamones and laquered fingers and glowing cheekbones and a few pressing questions?
"What color would you like?" I looked for blood because we might as well start honest.

they put their hands on me and prayed in soothing murmurs.
it made me uncomfortable.
the softness of women usually does.
and people were walking around being kind
to eachother and that
sometimes makes me uncomfortable too.
I reminded myself never to be dragged to the front
again.
I don't much like wasting other people's time because I
don't like when people waste mine.
there were general condolences
and then He walked into the
small space. Filled the shadow
between her full lips and stepped
out into the light.
Unshaven, he took my face in His
large hands
and looked me in the eye.
She, with full lips,
had eyebrows scrunched
and was saying I don't know
why, but He's saying...
She didn't know He was holding my face.
But I bet her lips were tingling.
The softness of women faded into
velvet cushioned pews
and the walls fell away.
There were gentle murmurs
but now it was me
and Him
set on the highest rooftop
breathing steam
and covered in night.
The kind of clean air
that goes down
like menthol and He put His hands in my hair.
Drew me to Him and told me I could trust Him.
He covered my mouth with His and entered
the dark space in my parted lips.
I felt him in the lowest part
of my belly.
Fire poured over me
thick like molasses
and my lips were tingling
when the walls returned.

Words to live by

You can't gain weight if you drink on an empty stomach.

Drunk as Drunk, Pablo Neruda

Read this and died. It's Pablo Neruda.

Translated from the Spanish by Christopher Logue

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Wait

I want the weight of tomorrow.

It's one of those nights
when the fire is cold and still
waiting for rocks
and stirrings
but I'm not feeling up to it

it becomes a necessity after a while.
tell yourself that you must write every day
the way you brush your teeth everyday
even if all you have is shit.
cringe when your writing is shit
but don't stop writing.
learn how to open locks
with the keys under your fingers.
every door leads to somewhere new
and after all this time
you still have an endless amount
of unexplored rooms
caverns
closets.
I don't think that my writing has improved
much over time.
but it gets easier and easier to write.
easier to admit when
my writing is shit.
I would stop but
am addicted to the opium
that seeps out from under
some of the doors.
one door led to the sky
and after falling through
forever, I knew I'd have to write
everyday
until i could get into a
room like that again.
so far I haven't found it.
but I have found doors that lead to
nowhere
and closets filled with
priceless old trinkets and treasure chests.
I've walked into shitty apartments
with naked women packing coke
and onto beaches where there was no one
but me
white sand,
blue ocean.
These keys unlock time and space
and there is plenty unknowable
but nothing
unsearchable.
Write everyday. And take me to places
worth going.
There is no reason not to.
and I am waiting.

Buzz.

woke up wide eyed smiling sideways
stretched four years old again
gotta run gotta play
what's next
static hair and toothpaste smile
soon
soon
there are cardboard castles
and convenient street corners
where magic happens
over
over
it can't grow old
we'll all grow old
but if we are lucky
our eyes will stay shining
and we'll wake up wide eyed
and smiling sideways
until we are swallowed up.