You can be Cookie Monster,
I will be Oscar the Grouch,
In my garbage can,
I will rummage,
Sorting through all the treasure,
People just toss in here,
Food, magazines, electronics,
I haven’t bought anything,
Since 1988,
The thing to be careful of,
Is making sure the food,
Has not already been,
Partially ingested.
* Thank you martiantents for the suggestion “Write on something totally absurd. Or Cookies”.
I had a boyfriend once. He was overweight and reeked of dollar store cologne. His skin was stained soot from the corrosion of flea market jewelry, cracked in corners of the neck like burnt unused pages. He lived in a trailer park with his mom but that didn’t matter. He held my heart in his hands like a peach between the fingers of a blind hobo. I remember when I came home without my soul once. Mom noticed and called me a whore for having skin that bruised easily. I could never be touched without the possibility of bleeding from the eyes, I told her but she never believed me. I am nothing to hearts and even less to lightning. I burned the rice again and the milk in the fridge has expired. I put my breath in a mason jar under the bed just in case.
“it’s times like these the universe could be a waterdroplet on a leaf on a tree all linen cloth, hospital beds compound eyes, brilliant lakes and redwood bark oh, all atoms it’s times like these i can close my tired eyelids and be anywhere and everywhere in complete silence a south texas border town, caves in cliffs over misted glades near a green lagoon water maze anywhere and anywhere it’s times like today which dampen emotion to calm and complete inner peace on a mountain’s peak the meditative state of ancient woodland in clearwater and have you ever seen a mountain forming in autumn? or stars splashing over the equatorial ridge, on iapetus it’s times like these i feel smaller than an atom suspended in liquid on the skin of an apple it’s times like these the universe could be a waterdroplet on a leaf of a tree”
—untitled 3 by moon tzu, from his ebook ‘A Very Mild Light’
i am red on blue on copper.
i spark when you speak and travel
from window to wall and door
to carpet and carpet to kitchen sink.
your view is of the city from behind.
you think about me when the backs
of cars glow red, or when you taste
exhaust in the early evening.
i think of you when i turn blue. i spark
when you speak and die when you don’t.
4/19/13 what serpent??
you are greater than the faults of your bones
like perhaps
the broken fragments of your body are still
clinging together, shaking and ready to explode,
but inside the cracks and caves created
they leave kisses, like our kisses,
kissing shut the fold of an envelope
hot wax and stamp insuring, a prayer maybe,
that it will never unfurl open to spill
the staining words of truth, grace,
the scent of gardenia drowned in the rain:
the first flower of the season, layered in frost,
frozen in perfect, almost-there strewn with forever,
a few petals just barely opened, like sleepy eyes,
and as it falls away, thorns and all,
our hands intertwine and in melodic rhythm,
(like waves, the tide crashing and retreating,
no matter if it’s guns are drawn or put away,)
smoke hides the captivating detail of your face,
and our bejeweled, starry limbs align
like the brightest, purest celestial bodies
'notifications'
please don’t smile like that;
it makes me want to do something really awful
like write a poem with words like
‘light’, ‘moment’, ‘ache’, ‘life’, ‘wow (great)’, etcetera
in some typefaces ‘1 am’ and ‘i am’ are identical;
this is something that i would tell you right now
if you were available on: skype/facebook/tumblr/
twitter/msn/your phone/available just in a v. general sense
everything is so far away and that’s okay,
that’s okay;
sometimes my poetry rhymes but mostly it does not
can we be my next poem
(please)
i have always been infatuated with willow trees
the way they droop like a basset-hound’s eyes and
their branches weep, sometimes collapsing on the ground,
in a heap,
waiting for someone to care for them, i think
they are the most selfless tree, providing
so much shade for
anyone who slides through those
long fingers reaching down.
(i think i would like to live under a weeping willow, to
dry it’s tears
maybe the trees need support sometimes too)
Fools.
I’m gonna write you a letter, hun.
And in that letter I won’t talk about
those days when we used to laugh
a lot by the lake together, then run
indoors when the rain poured down
on our fragile heads like we were
made of that sugar that we
bought together from down the street
every Friday when everything in
the corner store was half off, just
another sale to make some cash for
this broken town with the cash
stuck between the hollow walls
and the boney animals adorned with
extra skin, livin’ on that barn that we met at
that one day right after we graduated from
university, hoping to get away from
the world but still bein’ so young
that all we could do was watch the
clouds go by as our hearts grew
larger and larger, threatening
to explode like the bombs that showered
the town that night after we made
dents in the wall, memories on
white sheets, and letters to our pasts.
Oh, how foolish love can be.
I’m gonna write you a letter, hun.
I’m gonna write you a letter and
pray for the day that your sugar-sweet
existence comes back from the sewer
that your life drained into that night.
I’m gonna write you a letter, hun.
I’m gonna write you a letter and
tell you how you made my heart
explode, but broke yourself in
the process.
