Poetry might be a mysticism
but every time I approach it
it flirts away awkwardly
like a bird that can’t fly
and I’m afraid to pounce it
for fear it would confetti
itself like a fucking dodo.

Why am I even talking about poetry
in a poem? My head is empty,
so empty, and really I’m trying
to be cool like an asymmetrical
shirt tuck. But I worry because
asymmetrical wings lead to crooked
flight, and asymmetrical oars lead
to floating in circles, sort of
how your asymmetrical lace

makes me want to drink
my nerves away like they’re sea
sickness, and asymmetrical drinking
has me spinning around
your straight face, just like
an asymmetrical face is risking
ugly, and asymmetrical teeth

are a choking hazard, which is caused
by asymmetrical genes and that could
be a death sentence, but
an asymmetrical noose ain’t
gonna kill me as good
as we did the dodo.

I need this.

Wherever you go, I’ll hold you in my heart
through your journeys in life
To find yourself
To figure out what you’re made of
I’ll be holding your hand
Through the unbearable moments
When you just might fall apart,
I’ll be the force that keeps you together
Every time you reach a fork in the road
And indecision grips you
I’ll be the wind, blowing you towards the right path
Any time you’re scared, and fear becomes you
I’ll be your courage, lighting your way

And when you find yourself falling in love again
And thoughts of me all seem to have faded,
Promise me you’ll never forget
Wherever I go, I’ll always hold you in my heart


Blurry photos of strangers
taken on streets I’ll never return to;
I will remember nothing
but the wind in your hair
and the hollow sound of your footsteps
as you passed without a glance
in my direction.

When I Am Otherwise Unoccupied

Between each poem is a thought
of precision, between each comma
a sneeze. The tilting clutch
of verbs flange into petals unwithered,
awash in the joys of action:

To be bored all the time with people
and books and music; to flush all melodious
dreams into the sink; to wag and
wag and wag for blue-
berries to ripen in January;
to be sick from a quickstore tuna
sandwich and all nouns,
meaningless and proper.

Where is my accuracy when I am bone-
bored with the body, the fleshy mess
to propel about nowhere in particular?

-C.S. Henderson

Sonnets

Speak to me in sonnets
Perfectly crafted for Shakespearean times
Where dresses cling tightly to skin
Carved with silver lace that invites your touch
And aches to be ripped from the seams with your intent.
Bathe me in the flawless tilt and turn
Of unending words that crawl between the strands of my hair
That is plaited with the possibility found
In a glass of wine and a hand to hold.
Write them with the gravity of liquid ink
That flows from the tip of a feather
Seeping secrets of flight and freedom into our souls. 
Breathe forevers onto my skin, that dance with your exhale
and disappear with an inhale, only to return again.
Speak to me in sonnets
And let me be your poem. 

Love Poem for a Leaving Girl

It like most art and teeth breaks
when we look at it dead on

Even considering the subject
and its strategies numerous
as the glints of sun on the open sea
I should have never said it was
possible — is the slap then

Zen or is that receiving it
Life as dumb a form
as dumber a content bursts
into the clouds my face
becoming a rumble of stones.

-C.S. Henderson

This is not a heart.

Clench

Is one of the worst words I have ever heard.

Listen to it –

Clench.

And then there’s pang.

Pang sounds like a trampoline to me.

 

They do not describe what my heart does when you say those things or

When you look over at me and I can see your eyes dancing or

When you’re the first thing I see when I get off the bus or

When your arms tighten around me in your sleep or

When I look at you and my heart pumps poetry along my veins

 

Because

It’s drunker and softer than a clench

Sweeter and sharper than any pang

It bites your lips even as you’re smiling

 

It steals all the air from your lungs and wraps it around your heart

And sends it, tingling, out to your stomach and fingertips and

I always have to run my hand through my hair and bring myself back into my head

But I never want to

 

You completely undo me

Release me, explode me out of myself and into the sky and

Nothing could call me back, not for that perfect heart-clench moment

That is nothing like a clench, nor a pang,

and nothing like a heart.

I know futility is the size
of the bird in my heart
whose wings always celebrate
the arrival of a now

My weakness is that gravity
accumulates in seeds
blowing about the street
until they pile to a paralysis

There is no flutter
a noun can’t mend
into a pile of paralysis

I hear the wide world
spins itself into a pile of paralysis

I also hear you get caught
up in chants til you’re tossing
their corpses, dumb founded

I wonder if each month
approaches like wound clock
Or is that a womb?

Boy, that was sure surreal,
passing around envelopes
full of inconsequential stonings
of love through the sky —

I’ve stepped in it thick —
I think I lost

my breath a few times
and tried to mask it
with whiskey and now
I hiccup up and down
the whole city thinking

but what I really
want to say is
sueño contigo

And the raging head billows
and booms into a half-
blooded lisp, the shuffled booze
of lavender night thrust
into the throat unending.

And the split head leaks the fiery
pomegranate of soul into
the board room, business
always handled with a torch
and scythe and march
to the witch’s tomb.

And the soggy head flails
in ecstasy, the slow viscous
thought of morning abound
with teeth lurking between
the bread and eggs.

And the shallow head tips
the strategies of full and
filling into my hands
to wash my face of stubbly
subjectivity, scraped off
with a slivered moon.

And the wobbly head feels
a little nervous that the unity
of its horizon is unfocused,
splashing and adrift and

-C.S. Henderson

Only seeing stars

I’m fading
Disintegrating
Jigsaw separating
And perhaps my particles
Accelerating outward like the
Expanding universally stretching
Until I
           burst
       
      snap

           and fly off

Into all corners a bunch of balloons
With the air let out: Pathetic.

I’m dissolving into the black soda
Of space
Not suitable for stars
For I’d poison light
Perhaps as space waste
I would clutter afloat
Accumulating collateral

Damage as I bump and stumble
Upon the remnants
The debris
Of every (other) body hanging
Feet swaying
Like baby mobiles
From a ceiling of heavens
Above a crib of earth
Where people look up
And only see stars.

Your words are
always of abysmal
depth that I would
never be able
to fathom
them.

the bad artists try so hard

a soul and silence
are the same thing
says the girl
who smokes in her sleep
she writes endless words
but can’t quite make poetry
//
the musician lived on a busy sidewalk
playing the harp with his teeth
his gums bled but he didn’t mind
anyhow
he had no money to eat 
//
the painter smokes and drinks 
not water but beer
slaps on colors and
complains to me
he hasn’t shit solid in years…
(what a joke)
//
i know a dancer who
has no grace
her toenails fall one and two
blood smears the floor like a portrait
in her empty space
//
                                 but you are every kind of artist
                                 no need to try
                                 you could twist galaxies
                                 in a pathetic knot
                                 with just a sigh
                                 //
                                                                                 your fear,
                                                                                 the songs you hear,
                                                                                 the way your lips hum
                                                                                 while you dream,
                                                                                 and when you cry,
                                                                                 how you scream,
                                                                                 the glow of golden
                                                                                 at your feet
                                                                                 as they crack
                                                                                 the sidewalk
                                                                                 and street..
                                                                                 delicate rain
                                                                                 is what you are,
                                                                                 a cup of coffee,
                                                                                 a lit cigar,
                                                                                 the swooping stomach
                                                                                 of life discovered,
                                                                                 the breath in lungs
                                                                                 of love uncovered.
                                                                                 //
the only good artist
you won’t ever leave  




 

 

high priestess

i could flounder all night
trying to describe what she looks like
still none of it would ever matter
you’d forget it all before
you got close enough to remember
the smell of her
presence
     {over
             powers}
paints a thousand
words and pictures
annihilated
in her
aura

she blows pretty
colored smoke
out a soft hot mouth
slides her eyes
wide
smiles
and whispers

everyone is always doing something
illegal
the trick is
to keep looking away accurately
head turning
with perfect timing

i only want you
to tie me up in your rosary
it seems a decent bikini
halter top of shiny
wooden beads
across a chest blessed
entanglement
of androgeny
yin~yang
make a beggar of me

give me reason
to scream

religion fucked up
my sexuality
       {which was once sacred}
it used poor old pornography
to do it
hard

and so
some sex
will forever
remain a weeping

one mood
an occasional afternoon
or an evening between
all of the rest of her
gloriousness

she’s a shifty divinity
my sex

if i were a boy, i'd want my mother to call me beautiful

yesterday I shattered my mother’s floor length mirror
with a rock I found by my grandmother’s grave

we used to gather sea shells
abandoned by rip tides
before she died
we used to make mosaics of their insides

my mother is always together and so
apart from me
I do not think she understands
why I dress like a boy
and still want to be called
beautiful
she thinks I am a fragment

it’s just going to take the write man
to get my grammar together

today I tried so hard to glue those mirror fragments
to my grandmother’s tombstone
she had a driftwood smile that always felt
like a splinter in my side

I think we always understood
without ever having to complete each others’
sentences

Poetry does not kill,
  It is a soul slowly screaming.

Words scratching away
 At the inside of your skull,
Sharp pains
 Like beady lifeless eyes;
Puncturing you into a hiss of submission.

 The poison is taunting, behind
A familiar reflection—
 (The enemy is inside)
Scrawling out shadows
 Of a wilted realm
Something else dwells within.

If you don’t get it out,
It will slowly eat you alive.
Each day is spent dismantling
Countless thoughts-
Beauty can be a mystery,
 When you exist in ruins.

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