Nosce te Ipsum
Category: Writing and Poetry

My feet could only lift me inches high,

my thoughts go beyond the trees

to hurtle where the rain began

and all my desires longed to be.

Why does the wind not hollow my bones,

play its woeful symphony?

The melancholy I am to feel

broods mute, swallowed deep.

These hands cannot do much but hold,

still things slip in between;

what is worthwhile grasping

is caught by a net ten fingers cannot weave.

What kind of eyes are these

so easily entranced, enticed, deceived,

rendering a fool of me?

Bar them shut for a blind reprieve.

If this form emulates an image divine,

then it is crude mimicry,

made for entertaining the loftiest of courts,

overseen by the most perverse of kings.

Currently reading : The Year of Magical Thinking By Joan Didion Release date: 13 February, 2007

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White Sails
Current mood: gloomy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Last night, I realized the extent

                of our separation,

once merely a partition out of modesty;

                now a vast channel

comes between the different continents

                we've always inhabited.

Wrath upheaves the waters already frigid---

                from it I won't emerge alive.

You wait for me to take the boat to you,

claiming it is gentler on your side

but surely you recall how nauseous I become,

unable to find an equilibrium on choppy waves.

How can you be so cruel as to expect me to suffer?

Your anger bruises the skies,

the force of the winds cause a thousand

lashes across my face. The uproar

within my ears must be you howling.

I scream back that you are pitiless.

The maps I once followed lead me astray,

the compass spins madness,

each star that might have guided a way

is snuffed by an encompassing darkness.

It's time for me to do the waiting,

for your white sails to appear on the horizon

but if it isn't reconciliation you offer

then let them be black and I too---

                shall take the plunge.

Visit the city I reside, you imagined paved with gold.

See that there are shadows as well as rot;

the riches you claim hoarded, rest at the depths

from each crossing---the burden capsized.

I was doomed to wash ashore alone---

                    you never seemed to mind.

Come to me and I will show you

our laughter stowed within myriad shells from better times;

the gold which speckles only the shore,

as we lay upon the sand--- mending what is torn.

Currently listening : Without You I'm Nothing By Placebo Release date: 03 November, 1998

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Reflection During Dusk
Current mood: Detached
Category: Detached Writing and Poetry

He has permeated my skin,

entered through the pores

and now I smell of him;

wanting, craving, nothing more.


The world spins on its axis twice,

I am undone---

each step a tipsy dance

to the singular lisp of his chant.


So this is what it means to dissolve

in the solute of another's eyes.

This is what it's like to be

at last, fully occupied.


If I was granted one emotion last,

it would be this spark catalyzed

down to an ember spent,

left completely satisfied.

Currently reading : The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Volume 2: Contemporary Poetry By Jahan Ramazani Release date: March, 2003

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Destitute
Current mood: mellow
Category: Writing and Poetry

Strange how blemishes require closer scrutiny

otherwise everything is perfectly oblique.

When I squint because these eyes are dry

always after a good cry, I think, if I were a lizard

eyelids would not be necessary and sitting here

would be a greater pleasure indeed, feeling the heat

as a swooning rhapsody--- I could die.

There is not enough wine to fulfill me

or enough smoke to obscure all the silly things

happening before me, coming towards me,

it's too much to face alone, impossible to ignore.

I've tried to dismiss the knocking on my door,

made myself as derelict as a forgotten grave

but still there is thumping and implores for more

so I give and they take so thorough that there's not a crumb to stake

not a drop left to slake an ant's thirst.

Currently reading : Absurdistan: A Novel By Gary Shteyngart Release date: 03 April, 2007

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Farewells
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry

Tonight we dined with expensive wine,

a flavorful burst to color our words and tighten my grin,

loosened jaws become great devourers,

the waiter amiably accomodates.

How different these streets when toured with you,

they are not endless enough to allow

all we wish to truly say said instead, our gentle bantering

dissuades any seriousness.

.

Our conclusion was forcing close a door

serving only to allow entering through it.

Currently listening : Strength in Numbers By Calla Release date: 20 February, 2007

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The Patient's Rant
Current mood: working
Category: Writing and Poetry

What have you discerned

through those spectacles?

I hope you noted how

flushed I am and prespirant,

the tremors dancing

on my fingertips are havoc.

Did you transcribe all I've

emphasized, each anomaly

of a normally languid mind?

I am in hysterics: wringing hands,

gasping breaths, and the tears

do not relent. Please, believe

the severity of my ailment.

The diagnosis could not

be more explicit,

and the cure requires

the excision of particularly

cancerous bits, such as,

this growth on my heart,

constricting it.

Tell me doctor,

could you send me home

wrapped and stitched?

Currently listening : All Under By Sissy Release date: 18 July, 2006

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Lethargy
Category: Writing and Poetry

I blink---an hour is lost to the rubbish bin,

resignation knocks my head askew; thoughts

bleed ink onto the carpet---pages remain unblemished.

My tongue has thickened, gone limp,

it is useless to me so I've swallowed it,

my mouth grown suddenly cavernous.

I dream in patterns black and lead,

hands without fingers stroke my skin.

They cannot clasp, thus I'm uninhibited,

opening every door, slamming them---

now suddenly falling, the floor evaporated.

The hands cannot clasp--- I am weightless.

I blink---an hour dessimates in my head,

a clock is ticking to the left, though

I cannot turn to register it, it speaks of only

one thing.---Still, I cannot rouse myself from bed.

Currently reading : The Last Song of Dusk: A Novel By Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi Release date: 13 June, 2006

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To the Curious
Category: Writing and Poetry

I am not a vault of secrets,
in my box, nothing is confessed.
I make my own regrets stirring
black pools where creatures
provoked rise to bite.

I have kicked many a foot
forcing my door, surprising
the aggressor with resistance;
how easily the bolt slid into place.
They must wait the polite way.

My darkness does not need
to be illuminated. I know what resides,
besides the light socket is empty.
Eyes must adjust, pupils expand
for what's present will only reveal itself in subtlety.

Currently listening : LP By Landon Pigg Release date: 25 July, 2006

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Trite Vanity
Current mood: aggravated
Category: Writing and Poetry

I do not feel young

or priveleged with shelves of books,

having never starved, I'll never feel nourished,

wasting rather then lack for more;

this mentality has given me bad credit.


There's no room for shame among the glossy pages

perused by varnished nails, c'est tres chic,

emanating eau de toilette,

Paris is not far away.


I have a fund already begun

for a permanently smooth face.

If I could bake my skin to resemble glazed clay

I'd order a kiln the next day.


I know how easily the petal of youth wilts

when not cremed diligently each night;

no man would desire a wrinkled pear

when his teeth might bite into an apple's taunt flesh.

Currently listening : Urban Angel By Natalie Walker Release date: 05 September, 2006

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Bedroom
Current mood: crazy

My bedroom is my loneliness,

Curtained, lamp lit---a rosy hue,

The nightstand lacking a decent, framed photograph,

Ophelia lying in the riverbed pinned to the wall

Over the unmade bed with only one pillow indented,

Clothes astray like flotsam on a beach

And not a single footprint on the whole expanse.

I should open a window, let in some noise

Or invite someone to stay the night



But it doesn't feel right,

Allowing someone into my room.

Currently listening : Turn On the Bright Lights By Interpol Release date: 08 October, 2002

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The Last Time
Current mood: awake
Category: Writing and Poetry

The more quickly I grew, the sooner I could leave you,

Discard my patchwork heart for a stone the size of my fist:

Bare-knuckled and bruised; it won't tear or suffer from unraveling.


I knew how to get to Cote d'Ivoire, to walk the unblemished beach,

Out of the reach from your bamboo stick carving

Grooves into the side of me.


You should not have sent me away before I blew my first candle,

Over bowls of rice and the yapping of ahma's dogs,

On the island you long to return to, I lost my attachment to you.


No more explaining every falling wound,

The door and floor did not inflict it, only claws,

Crimson and sharp as a roosters could tear apart.


Is madness, your torch, ready to set me ablaze?

Rising little phoenix girl up into the air, circling round

All the people who live down there.


I played in the brambles you grew in your garden, mother dear,

They were my fortress nest which some prince must hack through

After poisoning you to free me from despair.


Eventually, it was the window I had to scramble through

Without a clump of hair and eyes swollen shut, blind,

It might have been night when I left the last time.

Currently reading : Never Let Me Go By Kazuo Ishiguro Release date: 14 March, 2006

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The Letter
Current mood: recumbent
Category: Writing and Poetry

It has waited for him from the moment his wife

set it on his desk when she discovered it

weighted with a stone from the driveway

then abandoned on the doorstep, she might have tripped.

Read once, the letter cried as it was torn,

it wailed with each dessication the long fingers

so smoothly ripped then, floated down

down into the bin, settling atop orange peels.

It had been anointed with her signature scent

to convey a sense of her presence in the stilted air of his study,

now her scent malingers with decay, the air of a funeral.

He will not bother to reply.

Currently reading : Interpreter of Maladies By Jhumpa Lahiri Release date: 01 June, 1999

6:13 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Malaise
Current mood: feverish
Category: feverish Writing and Poetry

I am fever bright,

a furnace burning within my eyes,

limbs weighted down by pulleys,

breath of sugar roses, voice as crystalline---

I wheeze, I sneeze, a trembling leaf upon the branch of bed.

Currently reading : Running with Scissors: A Memoir By Augusten Burroughs Release date: 01 June, 2003

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Rash Bravado
Current mood: drunk
Category: Writing and Poetry

The champagne fizzled over our talk of therapies,
who had been prescribed the worst,
not as if it were a prize but who's craziness is mere bravado,
a burden borne with grudging respect,
another chapter closed and finished at the bedside.

She rubs her ear as crickets do to make music,
what she hears goes beyond the clink of glasses.
I call for the grand finale, coffee clears the fog around us,
our ubiquitous host hovers near,
tables clear with each closing hour.

It's decided: a promenade down the street, teetering heels,
we'll topple off the plank, into the waves,
the music has not reached it's peak,
a crescendo, maestro, is called for,
havoc nears but does not disappear.

We have coon eyes, ghoul eyes, burglar stares,
our outfits are in need of repair, there's more then just a few frayed threads,
now, the shades are drawn to ward off dawn,
I'll go without the hustle-bustle,
push all thoughts aside concerning a life of trampled morals.

Currently listening : The Mating Game By Bitter:Sweet Release date: 20 April, 2006

10:55 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A Little About Myself
Current mood: groggy

I am presenting myself, no interpretation allowed,

mystery is so self-gratifying, it dismays the crowd.

The magician pulls the rabbit out, you realize you don't know how,

nonetheless, applaud his efforts to astound.

The moment arrives when I overinflate my distended self,

underneath this veneer of the orient:

dragons snarl and opium rooms compound,

tourists assume I am the jade within the forbidden palace,

one who strums the zither like rain gliding down,

feet bound tighter then drumskins, diurnally

launches a hundred paper cranes to the south,

each containing a missile---get me out!

There is nothing to which I would compare myself,

time does not allow, time does not ameliorate my blunders

such as the slip and fall of yesterday---it still stings keenly,

blossomed from a prune to something unripe,

the flesh does not forgive nor forget the pain dealt.

Currently listening : New Light of Tomorrow By Husky Rescue Release date: 29 March, 2005

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