The BBQ Tragedy

The night had settled into the bosom of comfortable intent;
As one wall of barriers descended,
another wall, strong and sturdy as ever, was forgotten.
The cement was still warm under the roots of our seats
but a chill floated through the air and about our bodies,
as Apollo died behind the hills of afternoon heat.
The feast fueled on and the guests laughed merrily,
drinking of juices aged in wooden barrels,
liquids that had lived a full lifetime already.
This was the afterlife - a confused limbo,
awaiting the fates of condemnation or exaltation.
As people sang and swayed into lush gardens of the night,
others sat and stewed, unlearning what they knew to be true.
With bursts of noise the friends banded together,
remembering the reasons for their loyal companionship,
while Dionysus smiled upon them.
Among the others, silent as regret,
enemies were secretly pledged;
as guests filtered out and the laughter abruptly died,
demons began to writhe.

I wonder if eternity exists and if fates can be changed,
or if this life is just one long delay.

Magellan's Retirement

Straining to look past the angry shouts of a weathered family,
I spot a resting globe
on the other side of a window's gaping mouth, as it clamors of domestic upset.
In the background of the globe a man is escorting a wheelchair across the room.
It is uncertain if the chair is occupied,
or who exactly is doing the shouting.

But as I wonder what use, in lives past, my neighbors have made of this globe,
what memories are stored in this tiny world,
what places the owners could point to as destinations conquered,
I hear a door slam
and car tires hastily setting out on their own travels,
as a wounded soldier departs for a new destination.

It makes me wonder if that globe is up on a shelf for a reason,
if it's dusty and lonely,
faded and bruised,
and if the solemn household, now void of shouting,
views the globe as anything more than just a dark silhouette,
idly fixed on a shelf in front of a telling window.

A Poem

I wrote this around Halloween, but of what year I am unsure. I often write poems in various notebooks, sandwiched between a chunk of blank pages, only to completely forget about having written them. Then, sometimes years later, I stumble across the content and have no clue what I was writing about. I thought I was pretty diligent about dating my materials, but I guess I thought wrong. As usual, it's vague and cryptic...

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Perhaps it was something about the night of facades
that had everyone masquerading as someone they are not.
Perhaps it was my state of mind,
cluttered with intoxication,
that brought out my anger in it's purest form.
In vino veritas... perhaps I was following my gut,
no matter how juvenile the manifestation.

And now, thinking back on all the accusations,
it occurs to me that they are really just obvious projections of my own internal fears and self-realizations.

Unsure of where to go from here,
I could sink to the bottom of the ocean, cement tugging at my ankles, while this whole storm blows over.
And I'd be perfectly fine with that.
In fact, I wouldn't mind staying there for awhile.

The Nature of Observation

Leaning forward,
he plowed like a freight train
down the sidewalk.
It looked as though
he might have taken off into the air,
had he not been so distracted by the street.

Alone, Together. (not like The Strokes song)

I'm sure there will be several editing processes to this poem, but for now... here a first draft:

It had been years since the once familiar pair
basked in each other’s company.
The seasons crept on as green leaves turned varying shades of yellow and red,
fell to the floor, and fed the earth as soggy brown lumps of compost.
Their hair had grown long,
as it was when they were children,
but their faces hadn't aged.
And their words spoke of vast changes in spirit and soul,
though the voices ultimately sounded the same.

Perhaps it was a familiar scent that made it feel okay
that they were the same people inside as always;
the scent of a memory that reminds you of home,
whether realized or not.
But before long, the stench of cigarettes invaded her clothing
as she smoked as though she had never quit,
and picked up where she left off
with other bad habits she thought she had kicked.

Buried deep in a lifetime of circumstance,
it felt good to give in to those things she had been conditioned for,
and something about denying herself attention made her feel like a better person,
one who was there for another, despite her own interpersonal needs.
But being the skeptic that she is,
she wondered how long the high of self-deprivation would last this time.

It occurred to her that they were both lonely.
To one, the mere presence of another body,
to listen to all her self-involved ramblings,
was exactly what was needed.
To the other, forfeiting the coddling and reciprocation she came to find herself in need of,
in order to feel the comfort of a presence within which she did not feel judged,
was well worth the sacrifice.

And so they sat,
alone, together,
as a whole that had never been halved,
the ties not severed.
And something about the changing weather,
which always caused the same effect,
felt better than contradictory and less like a storm,
as the universe calmed its chaos
so that an imperfect reality may reign again.

Just get it over with already

Today I stumbled upon the following two poems that I wrote almost two years ago. But, as with most all my poetry, I don't think I ever showed them to anyone. Actually that's not true, I showed them to one person, who also writes poetry. But, I've decided: who cares? If you don't like it, well then I don't like YOU! (not really, but sort of) Also, the passing of time since I wrote them makes me less resistant to share...

I give in to flattery
When I'm otherwise content,
Regretting usually
That I've let down my barriers
For someone I barely know.

Millennia live within me,
I see,
When natural thoughts have me revert
To primal necessity;
A simple statement
'I don't want kids'
Makes me wonder,
Why waste my time?

It frustrates me
Because I've worked so hard
To make callous this palate...
But I give in to flattery.

I wonder what I'm missing
And dually, what could be
If I just knew
A little bit more
About me.

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He shot a peace sign behind her back
To the woman sitting in front of me,
As they entered the building tall.

It makes me wonder
if he thinks he has no reflection,
In the window;
In me, sitting small.

Standin on a hill in my mountain of dreams

The past couple weeks have been really stressful. I'm lost at work (which is about as eloquently as I can explain it). I've been really sick. I have to go back to the doctor next week because upon examining X-rays of my chest on Wednesday, I was told that my lung shape is characteristic of someone who has emphysema or has had asthma their entire childhood (which I haven't); they are very long and narrow, relatively speaking, and I have an odd ribcage configuration. He labeled them, "overly inflated". But fingers crossed that it's just attributable to odd anatomy. Every little decision has been stressing me out. I thought last week I just was stressed about throwing Josh a surprise birthday party, but Friday came and went and the surprise went off without a hitch. Yet still, this anxiety lingers.

Well, my friend Lauren shared the poem below with me today. It was written a couple years ago for her great aunt, who past away last Saturday. It's beautiful and helped ease my stress a bit this morning, so I thought I'd share:

Sometimes we get lucky in this life
And friends come bearing large hearts
And say “Have Some”

Sometimes, we get lucky in this life
And glee emerges from old sorrows
And broken hearts are broken wide open,

And we step out of them
And a voice that was once ours
Wonders, “what took you so long?”

Sometimes we get lucky in this life
And step out of ourselves long enough
To love one another

Sometimes we get lucky in this life
And others are stepping out of themselves
At the same time

And we get lucky and hold out our hands
And for a change, there’s more than air
Between our fingers,

When we’re lucky
We get all this and give it away
We’re lucky if its ours to give

And if children leap to catch it
As though our offerings were fireflies
Small nimbi to be snapped into jars

If we’re lucky in this life
The memory of those nighttime flickers
Lightens later years. The on/off switch of miracle

Sometimes we get luck this life
And from grief mercy flows

Lucky life, Virginia
Oh, lucky, lucky life

Poetry, Idle Moments

I wrote this a little over a year ago. It's very suggestive, which is not common in my writing. Yet the image I had in my head while writing it was so peaceful and innocent, which is interesting. My creative writing teacher told me this was "beautifully languid" but then basically deemed it crap because he couldn't tell what was going on in it, that there are too many "he, she, and it's" and no real subject. I didn't know how to explain that the poem was written based on a fleeting feeling of deja vu.

Anyway, I normally don't share this sort of stuff, unless it's anonymous, so if you're reading this blog, tread lightly please...


A whiff of my boundary stood thick in the air
Of a humid night,
Silently writhing within a glaring stare.
Sitting there, her curls stuck to her moistened cheek
And her long layers, softly lingering, fell loosly upon her knee.
Standing air,
That thick wall of separation,
Cut the room in two
And blue, I could barely see you
Witnessing my fascination.
Her image fades from my thoughts at night
As chances of being caught,
Aloof in my mind,
Raise high the roofbeams of exhausted time.
And threaded flowers decorate this desertion of life and vigilance
Rested atop a decrepit pedestal of lofty sentiment,
As the memory of a lost summer day -
Of a rotating metal fan
That does not cool
but gently freshens the glistening speckles on her heat-heavy chest -
Whispers of this sweetly envisaged scene.
Amidst the thick, she sits:
Sticky skin from the beating sun,
thighs and shoulder blades pressed against all that's beneath,
Arms espoused with her weathered wooden chair,
Shiny and slick, basking in the afternoon haze.