choose life or death
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Writing and Poetry

today was new,
ive been practicing
for many months,
dragging myself from
the shadows of
insomniac's sleep,
bones aching
each day wondering
what miracle has occurred
that my legs carried
me to the front door,
where the grey used to
be so bright
it was painful to look at,
chest heaving
with each laboured
breath
that pained my sides
while wondering why
i was even still
alive.
the crushing, heaving
weight
on bare bones
is indescribeable
when these little aches
become the only conformation
that i was still living,
other than
that mirror
reflecting, in rare moments
of stark clarity,
a ghost,
haunted white-yellow girl-
applying the many layers
and different colors
in an attempt to emulate
the appearance
of the Living,
attempts to rouge
sunken cheeks
and hollow eyes,
these decisions
the actions of
one condemned to
death,
a bitter laugh at
those who thought life
was even possible.
Today was different, though.
something clicked,
maybe it was the old pictures
of a sweet girl
with rosy cheeks
hair shining,
in clothes that actually fit,
(and not because they were
from the childrens department),
or maybe it was just
i realized what i want
more than anything,
more than any
ridiculous goal,
i can not obtain
in a childlike state.
it was different, though-
choosing life
making the concious descisions
i have pushed aside
for too long,
laughed off
as one very expensive joke
choosing life
rather than relying on life
to save me

12:42 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

chicago poem i've been meaning to post... the train is MISERABLE!
Current mood: bored
Category: Writing and Poetry

through din and dinge,

strained civil servants

press tickets, previous days

muddying the next as hopeful

eyes gaze out the green- tinged

nauseous window, searching

the condemned buildings

and tin signs, rail companies and feed supplies,

the nuances of Old chicago,

images of a pronounced past

play as though projected

from dirty alleys

while Pigeon-people flock

to safer streets and crowded shops,

photographed before bronze markers

like birds before everlasting fire,

Currently playing : The Sims 2: Nightlife Expansion Pack Release date: 13 September, 2005

6:01 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

spindles and imperfections
Current mood: drained
Category: Writing and Poetry

shes halfway out the window

arms waving behind her

afraid of pricking fingers

on a spindle

tripping the light fantastic

to the tune of

halfhearted lies and distortion

music of racing thoughs

and a head full of sound

seeing stars the stage goes dark

shes ready for her closeup

but she doesnt get to see

and its so unfair SO unfair

she looks up to see the flourescent ceiling

turns her head  around,

thanking god that no one

saw her performance

years of practice creates practice

the dance is not yet pefected

1:29 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

this song reminds me of a poem ive been meaning to write
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Writing and Poetry

that summer at Leeanna's house

we climbed a persimmon tree

and hid for endless hours in her hayloft;

i got stung on the palm by a bumblebee

climbing the fence and thought i was

the one in pain....

i nearly brained her sister with a rock

by accident, so i taught her how to

do a backflip to make up for it...

i was having mindless childhood  fun

but she was already one foot

in the grave, living in her grandma's house

her father  in a hovel next door

i never quite understood

what was wrong with him,

something was wrong, that

my 12 year old eyes couldnt see

or didnt want to...

she started sneaking us beer

and we ate ephedrine and grandma's

pain pills like candy,

but when her grandma died

she failed 2 grades dropped out

and i never talked to her again

save for that one night at the

convinience store i saw her

drunk and dressed to show off

her thinness but all i could see

were the stretch marks that proved

she had 2 kids somewhere missing

thier 18 year old mamma

 not like they would 3 years later

when she drank herself to death

6 months pregnant with anoher little girl.

2 names in the paper, one grave,

she had seen more in 21 years

than could ever imagine,

and maybe i should have called when

she gave me that number,

but the phone probably wouldnt be

in service,  and the lack of conversation

would have been worse than a concussion

from errant rocks thrown, or fucking up that

backflip...

Currently listening : Wrecking Ball By Emmylou Harris Release date: 26 September, 1995

5:59 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

entry form

poetswriters2007contestapp..pdf

5:26 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

manuscript for dummies:)
Current mood: accomplished

driving and daily news

Kids set fire to southern churches
and god turned a blind eye
to this spectacle
when he sent flames to ravage
the flatlands.
the dirge of a dying Democrat's
diseased voice strains
through the blown out
crackling speakers in my
car that was shaking apart
as we drove further West
towards the smoke and sirens,
the highway coddling it's median,
black with charred grass.
Sun shone through a cracked window,
while outside, the shimmering
wheatfields and acres of sunflowers
were pushing us farther
into unknown territories,
the many fenceposts passing like hours,
we want them to go quickly...
something better must be hiding
behind the next plateau.
We clung religiously
to our notebooks
and copies of "Being and Nothingness ",
a pen in one hand,
a lighter in the other,
discussing ways to twist the words of others
into our own truths.
The butane flames dance,
igniting the scorched images
of smoldering plains and wooden beams,
angels crucified with the
damning politics of hope.



40-proof promises

Traffic noise and the scent of an approaching thunderstorm
drifts in through the door,
naively left open,
igniting reflections of simpler days spent
smoking cigars behind rusted machinery
and fallen trees in
Grandma's field,
and how we would take picnic lunches
and bottles of booze
to the riverbank, laughing
before the fire smearing silt onto our faces and bodies,
keeping the sun away
as we walk across
the waterfall, wading
in the stagnant flows of August,
when the water was so hot
it felt like the whole world was on holiday,
all bonfires and suntans
laying us in respite from the heartache
of the winter prairie.
Whiskey and pickup- truck beds
yielding sanctuary
from chores and the chaos of family.
The same music I'm listening to now
emanating from the
truck's cab
so new and full to the brim with meaning,
while the dashboard lights
illuminated sweetheart dreams
of the city,
averted eyes revealing the dark
of lies hidden in the soil,
and how we would leave this place
to surrender the anonymity
of shooting tin cans off log fence posts,
grass stains and muddy flip-flops
to brick- tower exhaust fumes,
and a cheap pack of cigarettes
smoked in a dingey bar
over a whiskey sour and a notebook
covered in country flowers,
painted fingerprints writing
homesick sonnets to lovers
abandoned amongst the cornstalks and glass bottles,
40-proof promises
concocted in homemade stills
and disassembled beneath the urban twilight
that obscures the stars
where we pleaded
and wished for
our emancipation.


hope against hope

we waited on the porch, looking
at the gate where the enemy had lined up,
ready to strike,
guns and knives
they were wielding,
all i had was a broken .22
and a razor-blade mind-
- the ability to hide the ones i loved
in martyrdom.
clocks chimed,
we knew it was time ,
the war had started for no reason
that we knew, but it was here
and death was inevitable,
we were closed in
in that lonely field,
gray like so many winter mornings
i wished i had slept through.
we waited weighted
anticipated,
i told you to leave,
you surrendered into a chair,
wanting to die,
she was approaching fast with a
sword in each hand,
barbaric,
screaming for you to get up
GET UP
you looked away
as she cut
your throat bleeding slowly
spit ran from your lips,
saying more than any word
i could scream or scroll,
i just sat
watching the horror
no power to stop,
and was totally ignored
in my own childhood home
laid waste by invaders...
we dragged you miles and miles
on foot, the longest death
it would have taken hours
to walk so far
to the hospital, we knew there was nothing,
no room at the inn,
the hospital was full
from the other wounded and bleeding,
we held you in the lobby
and as life ran from your body
you transformed into a fetus,
the most primal  form of existence,
smeared on a napkin
there would be no funeral.
nothing.
we knew this would happen,
and for all the futile attempts
to materialize hope
we tried, hope against hope
and war against home,
these disguised blessings never unveil
as we mourn life lost,
there is only sorrow and
martyrdom for the sake of sadness



Ms. Taylor, abridged

leatherbound, book-black
what 100 years history
lies behind the paperwhite pages
in her eyes, yellowed
with age, ready to
curl in at the corners?
she tugs at my wrist,
incohesive speech flutters quietly
as shreds of paper
thrown into the wind
lost
pieces torn from the chapters in her book
gone missing,
another burns away daily.
She is reduced
abridged
she now reads like a child..s book
condensed
farm laborer
cook
one child.
She now has some one to dress her,
white girls cutting her meat.



Springtime in Japan

springtime in Japan
had found us, cherry blossoms
floated on the breeze
you found a tree
to call your own
plucked its fruit
sucked the juice right out...
a sweetness not tasted
from such a tenuous body
of life...
rending the bark, exposing green wood
you forged a canoe
to float idly
a placid patient ocean.
savoring the sweet taste
left ashore,
sap and bruised fruit
regenerating rent bark
for the homeless to build their homes
of your cherry tree



beginning of the end

the cottonwood tufts fell like Snow
from heights unknown,
gathering on rooftops
and around 100 years of history,
treetrunks and Victorian idealism.
We sat on the roof
displaced as snow in may
and cars in carriage driveways
whose owners have never
pricked a finger on the aged rosebushes
in front of their
sighing elderly homes.
Sun splayed across the sidewalk
and stone fences,
on the people passing underneath my rooftop
perch, known only to nesting birds
and bits of fluff,
and longed for in the eyes
of neighboring dogs,
each of them advertising and boasting,
a Claim
of some existence.
they Are.
Unaware that they
Are.



Running at 3 a.m.

always alabaster hands shake
to write
graphite-gruff words
to someone not there,
though the same moon
shines bright above both.
the grass is green and dewy
under running feet,
no time or care
-just air-
and dust in eyes and nostrils,
the cool of air absorbing
into pores on the face--
dewy
not like the grass,
but as a swimming pool
before its yearly full...
Just dewy
with the sweat,
the rain in a
wilderness of a mind
full of trees to obstruct
a path and
animals hungry
for answers to unanswerable
questions,
fires burning bright in eyes wild
gazing on fate
tempting always
with intuition that is felt but not known
-- the feeling worth more than certainty
in reality,
but in the mind,
worthless.
Water under the bridge,
rocks under the feet
of a body
rapt in the air
surrounding and enveloped
in that same air breathed by all
-no air to own-
-its universal-
the air is a hysterics whore
but the feeling of love
felt when enveloped
as a celestial body
-- in the air.
orbiting.
nothing.
--lounge on the moon--
and Jupiter is always blue
portending much depth,
but there is no friend
when you forsake ruby slippers
to pretense
and no pillar to support
the weight of a soul
heavy with burgeoning insanity,
to lift you.
Trade ruby for white,
no canvas contains
the austerity
that the moons glow on bare shoulders
of those fleeing
toward the trees
and craving the air-flow onto the
underside of an arm
or shoulder reveals.
Once more,
the minds chicanery
wells to a boil
-- all breaks loose
in the grand celestial chaos that we thrive on-
hunger and starvation
beads onto the face,
not in tears,
but is beat from a person
in sweat
--the sweet cool of a summer night--
lying in moonlight,
lying in wait.

Moving Picture

A moving picture it is the rejection i can't stomach ,
scratching ,
gnawing pain
only reflected
the empty projection
from my heart onto the bed ,
while the Diagram of How to Kill Feeling
shot through my head .
Words bled
from my mouth and ears
and in my eyes, tears
to choke back
and to hold while they died.
With the most soulless gaze,
I stared straight
into his face
and i lied
when i said it was my pride
that was hurt,
but i was weighing the cost
of love gained
then lost
and it would have been easier
to disengage
and to hide my affection,
instead i gave it away.
So at the end of the day
when i'm lying in bed
twisting in my sheets,
i look back and can be glad
that I..m the only one who can see
that I..ve admitted defeat.

Moonlight Path

We walk and converse
in the anticipation
that moonlight spills like blood
onto the sidewalk.
frozen breath hangs as fog
-a question mark-
...so what's the answer?
Hold it in your pocket like a flask
with it comes warmth and relaxation
resurrecting the feeling we've
been trained to kill,
emotional militants,
we must be on guard always protecting
our frozen fortress.

Astrology

the stars aligned that night
i was alive again
through the words of others
about those others
whose words i have lived through before,
reborn like Lady Lazarus,
"a smile of accomplishment"
"I did it. I."
"you like?"
he kissed and i bit...
i watch this story unravel,
knowing full well
the Ending,
bleak and wintry like a
February morning,
an early awakening,
tending to others when
comfort meant a piece of
cloth folded under a dieing brow,
last breaths puffing out the flame,
the light in my heart
snuffed out,
but a matchstrike
could set the whole house
ablaze,
like her cold parted eyelid revealing
a "brown-bright",
an incendiary raising hells Inferno
straight into
heaven.

Into Winter

that season of unbearable sadness
of half dark, half light
approaches, portended by
the yellow-brown of
maple and oak.
cicada chirping
funeral dirges for this
summer heat and
the passion of new love,
turning gray as a motionless heart
from Exposure to the
cold shoulder of winter pestilence,
feeling the coming snow like
an Arthritic,
the ice and phosphorescence
leaving us
snowblind.

Currently reading : Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia By Marya Hornbacher Release date: 15 January, 1999

5:19 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

hands
Current mood: loved
Category: Writing and Poetry

he lies

asleep in our bed

a small smile curls at his lips and has no

idea that his strong hand

has picked me up so many times,

and just how bruised and scraped

my unsteady knees are

from falling too many times

down the hill

that ive lived halfway up

and half down

my whole life.

they say the way out

is through

but sometimes there is simply

not enough energy

to tunnel with my

bare hands, dirty

and cut

broken nails.

not like his

his are strong and

all knowing

never shaking with cloudy

uncertainty, he always knows where

to find me

and where ive been

and never says a word

unless i ask

what he knows and i wish i didnt.

Currently reading : Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too By Jenni Schaefer Release date: 26 December, 2003

5:39 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

chinese dragons
Current mood: uncomfortable

a handwritten letter sat in her
typewriter, alien and archaic
as the chinese dragon on the wall
who has never seen a proper New Year
displaced as every thought
scratching the surface of conciousness
with a broken fingernail
or dry paintbrush
he wants to Hold me
for a year and nine months
as though that could
erase these photographs
these letters and dresses
i could never wear,
and how i simply could not
Stomach sleepng in that bed
that she didnt make
my mothers afgan
languishes on the foot

Currently reading : The Fasting Girl: A True Victorian Medical Mystery By Michelle Stacey Release date: 28 March, 2002

5:25 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

the zen of the elderly(pay it forward and shit...)
Current mood: thankful
Category: Life

today at work, this old woman came back from the crazy hospital. she is a gorgeous old woman who is absolutely insane sometimes... she wouldnt let me leave her side, which most people find annoying, i found it flattering... so she layed in bed while i held her hand until she fell asleep. thats when i took my lunch and found that,uh-oh, my tire was low... so i got out my change and went to air it up. it was occupied by a weird white man in an african style hat. so i pulled up to wait for air, but he came over and offered to check my tire and air it up... which was free for me since he had already deposited his change and had not yet aired up his own tire. I was inspired by his small gesture of kindness and when i went to mcdonalds to eat i put my change i had set aside for my in the collection dealy at the drive- thru window. always return kindness with kindness, and never let the small happinesses of life pass you by. the world is full of generosity, love and kindness if you can see past the fog of theft, hatred and greed. sometimes life is beatiful in its simplicity.

Currently reading : Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers By Mary Roach Release date: April, 2003

3:01 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

mysterious dissapearance... spooky
Current mood: thirsty
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

i attempted to post some things, but they never showed up... it boggles the mind.... im just writing this to see if it will post...

1:33 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment