station
is this on
i can’t
seem to find a signal
you came in so clear
from the start.
tumbled bottles on keyboards
unbuttoned shirts
you and me always
from the start
dialing through frequencies.
this station is on
but damn the phone line
you echo across my arms clearly
your cat eyes
smoothing
the frayed wires under my skin
you are the sound
of a southern rainstorm
the antenna is working
i am listening
to every edge of you.
…yeah, i saw the movie before the book and i watched it three times before reading the book. three times! can you believe it? i always liked michael douglas, we share a name. and toby maguire was good too, remember him doped out with the dead dog? the point is, anyway, i was dealing with stuff then like circa 2000 and i’m like you know dealing with stuff now and THEN i was worried i would be the kind of writer like michael douglas was in the film adaptation of wonder boys. i don’t know what kind of writer that is unless you consider it that sad pathos of masculinity reaching and begging for fixing. but i only have screwdrivers i can’t use and i am only a “dude” per se in bed. anyway so yeah, what was i saying? michael douglas in wonder boys. i liked robert downey, jr better actually. glad it all turned out okay for all of us. including tobey maguire but not the dog.
a discussion of the heart in two years
was his heart discovered,
(at last)
or was it left in its destroyed womb,
a capillary burst
jousting with iron equations?
perhaps it was born too late,
this heart
forever in combat
against some wooly beast
gnawing at arteries.
or maybe it should have been
placed upon
a green-hilled fortune
in awe of
the screaming innocents
below.
they are unaware
of the explosions
in their chests.
our motion has always been constant
these things happen
like thunderstorms in february
you don’t feel them coming
until the shingles are gone
and you’re knocked down
taciturn, tasting your blood
in the gravel
of your past regret.
it is not that we are afraid
of the plane crashing
but instead the final three seconds
before the impact
yet still, everything
will stable into place
you and me
our motion has always been constant
…calm, breathing raindrops through my eyes. what settles will be a deeper silt of forgiveness. i am a dictionary and words sometimes matter and can paired with actions in a quilt woven by tears. no mantles will define me but i will place myself between metallic dirges sung by the harpies of my older age. the years between us can fall away and dissipate like dewdrops and i have no regrets. i feel the grass under my feet as the sun sets and speak only in tongues that i have known but have been renewed by heat lightning.
assassin
let’s undress
you can see me
my bible is open
my white chest
is spilling
my garters are
only held by
the chosen part
of your thighs
let’s undress
your binocular fingers
are all over me
your legs are
scoped on panes
it’s clear now
you came to watch
me with your
gothic veins
let’s undress
did you see me
through the door
it was unlocked.
…in the midst of a drive without peace, i stop for gas and overfill the tank; the gasoline devours my knuckles and it is good. good to feel pain, to not reach for the comfort of salt or oils. i won’t bathe again today i tell myself, not for the fourth time. instead i will examine the silence of numbers. chart these numbers like the angry manager i am. i reach beestung fingers for the gas tank’s cap and the woman in the car in front of me, number seven, says aloud “i’d like to die a little for living.” my neck is twisted, alert and wishing for the median of a piano. where is the chorus, i want to ask but instead i wash my hands. there will one day be a mirror that i can stare into and not feel the urge to shave.
Author’s note–This is still in rough form but very meaningful to me. Revisions may occur later this evening.
letter from charlotte
let me tell you when they say
it gets better
that’s bullshit so let’s
get that out of the way
so now that that’s done i’m
going to talk to you
straight no chaser
(even though the two of us
no longer speak that language)
i’ve dreamed of you
tubes crawling like snakes
from your body and me here
four thousand miles from
your side; you were always second
it’s true
and it’s true that i always wanted to be
second and have you first but
trophies aren’t won by
those of us chasing our tails.
so i’ll keep talking and
what i’m saying here is
that i watched the moon tonight
looming like a gravepost
filled with chalk that flies away
with the slightest breath
and i thought of you
thought of you there
in a care that is hardly intensive
you laying there with
fraudulent family and crooks
with licenses staring you down and
you’re right! the tests are all bullshit
just as that bullshit about it gets better
is bullshit
but let me tell you this:
it won’t get better but
just as the sun appears unexpected
during a storm like the joker
in a card deck in an uneven hand
it will be something
that isn’t this and i will
be there soon, on wings that i’ve grown
for you because blood is blood
that simple
and we can rest in silence
without the millstones of conversation
to drag us down.
diagnosis
viewed on a label the script screaming
against a label bleached by order
five words separated by indignant colons
this is clarity this is not chaos
you have fought sterility been defined
by the denial of your heart’s drum
the soldiers of your solitude screaming
this will be okay this will be peace
those near you lilting in hashmarks
the nightingales in your thoughts
now grounded from flight by rain
this is five words this is five lifetimes
the hallways of your thoughts
have been cleared by paraphrased
static in your footsteps.
afternoon interlude
…watching a beautiful sky with a brisk wind flitting through the trees waving their leaf flags like wands. my daughter chatting to herself, golden hair a parachute of hope and innocent joy. my hands typing, fingers plying a trade of temporary solitude. the phone is silent, harkening and listening for crows. my heart is an owl, cloaked in midnight, basking in the thrum of its hunting wings. a stranger told me today that she admired me and i sat silent, a mirror. “there is peace in war, war in peace,” my mind races. i find myself in awe of rocks, their mute stolidity a testament to time and weathering the rough edges of oxide and tears. staying with the path i am on, walking in ruts sown by both hoarfrost and shade. her scent is still near and i climb through the crags of fear and hold fast to a kite of hope that may yet still set us sailing.
See you at the Rock Show
"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."- Jonathan Safran Foer. || teacher,student, loves travelling and perhaps baking a cake.||
2 Lines each day...
around espace
WITHIN ARE PIECES OF ME
Natalie. Writer. Photographer. Etc.
Our choices define our Experience
Musings of a love struck (stuck?) curly girl
Tales of reckless travel
by Ruann Weidemann
haiku. poetry.
fiction, poetry & stuff
a resource for moving poetry
© M March-Steinman
Through binoculars / I leave my narrow world for / an ocean of stars.
Tidal Waves Don't Beg Forgiveness 