writings and ramblings
by Say
Wanderlust
wanderlust is
an inexplicable need to be perpetually travelling. perhaps it is also a need to be constantly deviating.
Wanderlust is dedicated to Ms. Irick,
because she liked my poetry before anyone else
was willing to read it.
Table of Contents
insomnia. 000
Sigh 000
Paramount 000
tissue 000
Hey hay sandpaper 000
reason nor meaning 000
IXXX 000
[USE OTHER DOOR] 000
withdrawn 000
not so fast… not so bad 000
Re-drafting of the Same Ideas 000
Blank 000
To Come 000
I never knew she was my twin. 000
Swingset 000
[Words Walking In the Wind] 000
Serious Little Things 000
I Decided ‘Maybe’ 000
scissorlace. 000
balancing act 000
F.S.O.C. #4 000
lovely-fresh Spinach Pie ancient bravery recipe I wrote this afternoon 000
Simplistic Boredom 000
F.S.O.C. #3 000
LaNgUaGe BlizZARd 000
traveling toes 000
the everyday artist 000
the ugly master 000
Thirteen ways to look at
a life and a half: 000
FISH JUICE 000
To the mostly beautiful 000
(I hate) Bottled Dinghies 000
Seasonal Madness 000
how does one define oneself? 000
see/sea: 000
Drawing to break life’s rhythms 000
funny. 000
opinion. onion pi. 000
For A New Century… 000
(poor perfect) 000
TRUE STORY: 000
Hoverer. 000
definition: the end of the world 000
Poems/prose/other stuff that was written for/about specific people (or dedicated to them afterwards)… sort of like a thank-you (in order of appearance):
…
insomnia. for Jamie
and Dad
tissue to Claire N.
IXXX for Ron F.
withdrawn to Noemi S.
not so fast… not so bad for Britt
Blank to Kate I.
To Come to Imani
I never knew she was my twin. for Anna
Swingset to Adrienne
I Decided ‘Maybe’ to Mr. Coleman… thank you for recording this and other poems of mine from the chalkboard of your classroom before erasing them. Also thank you for letting me write them there in the first place.
lovely-fresh Spinach Pie ancient bravery recipe I wrote this afternoon for Ingrid
Simplistic Boredom to Marisa B.
the ugly master for Alex Beck
FISH JUICE to Owen J.
Drawing to break life’s rhythms for Justin
definition: the end to Faloshade
Words are just a tool, therefore
if people know what you mean,
it doesn’t particularly matter
which words you choose to use.
But if there is any question…
insomnia.
hush grown child, sleep is a minnow –
hard to catch.
sometimes she’ll swim by your bed, only just
out of reach
ears scalded, buzz within the demons of yestermorrow
insomnia
eyes, cracked wide, assessing the
all-night crew:
between ships playing leapfrog and
trying to avoid the handsome juggler
repetition never failing as an art
– nose, stomach, headache almighty, hayfever, anxiety
overly aware –
Fido undrunk in a chorus of “shut up.” “Hello?”
whir whum machines and boom bang elephants
well, what color do you want to make them?
PRETEND YOU HAVE TO GET UP IN AN HOUR.
pay the mortgage on the roses
slip
slop
slide into sleep
(ships playing leapfrog?)
rather weak.
and sloth dance and whales fly
and camels sing you a lullaby
no, darling-child, was not I
just tea-perfume and smiles
goodbye?
XXIII
Sigh
Unsuccessful
Pink leaves grey flowers
Yellow liquid seeping under the door
Putrid smells come from inside
And a deep voice calls your name
In your head now
I walk with you out the door
The warm
We are not coming back
Sneakers leave dents in the supple sand
Sand in my shoes
The road gets firmer
The silver-dollar moon illuminates an ancient desert
Our way Our path
Growing silence.
Breeze makes minute sandstorms around my ankles
I dance a little
for the trillions of airholes in the indigo abyss
You whisper ~ “That’s what we call ‘sky.’”
I repeat the word with envy awe and love,
I WANT TO SEE THE WORLD.
chap stick
curly hair or
dreadlocks
fairytales
ink
mom, when she isn’t angry
my watch if I’m not running late
Neanderthals
secret notes
raisins
and milk
and cheese
scrap paper
white out
spices
bugs that have eight legs or less
warm weather
disorganization
sitting behind someone who hates you
portfolios
ignorance
old dogs
old people
a sense of direction
words and
understandings without them
strong toothpaste, for after
peanut butter cookies
swings
company
time alone
a sense of doom
more than one answer to a question
and
Anna
I walk down four different dirt streets twisting doorknobs before I find a door that is open. It belongs to a man named Joseph, who really doesn’t own any of it except the bookcase, the bed, the doormat, the hamper. Even before I step inside, I am keenly aware of the fact that the air here belongs to him as well. There are three rooms – the largest being the bedroom, which also serves as a kitchen, then a slightly smaller room, floor and desk surrendered to stacks of paper interrupted by small mounds of thumbtacks. Paper is tacked over every wall and some of the ceiling. The last room, I suppose, is a bathroom. It is locked and fluid seeping under the door has made the beige carpet a steel color in a semicircle before the doorway. In the main room, all of the walls are blue except one. The wall behind the bed is a startling shade of green, as if whoever mixed it had nothing to alter the color with; no grey, no beige, no white paint. No water. I find the fridge after a while, hiding under his bed. There’s nothing edible in it, and when I say this I mean only that I would never willingly eat ketchup or salsa straight. There is nothing at all surprising about the structure of his house, apart from the fact that every house within a mile could swallow it whole without a thought, all the lights are annoyingly dim, and the windows are by the four edges of the house, butting up against the corners of the walls as if there are things they desperately want not to see. I wonder if the architect was depressed. Perhaps it is odd that such a peculiar house has a 'for rent' sign out front.
My head is swollen, and my left eye is blue, but he has no freezer for ice so I choose the container of condiments which seems the least slimy, and try to get it to cover both my eye and the side of my head. After several failed attempts, I realize I don’t want mustard in my eye anyway, so I lie down with the lukewarm tube between my left temple and the drool-stained pillow.
Uncle Joseph is not actually my uncle. He may be something like my mother’s cousin’s wife’s uncle. Whenever I say the word “uncle,” I involuntarily think of some childhood game that I can’t really remember, besides the fact that it is a game somebody taught me when I was a child.
My thoughts have always been somewhat circular, but on this day my thoughts have evolved into something more complex. My depression is intensifying and I have become lost in thoughts of connection and these horrific plunges whenever I disconnect, though losing a train of thought is seldom deadly. I think I am much better when I try to take the position of an outside observer. My eye looks frightening. Uncle Joseph comes home. He does not recognize me.
“Who in –”
“Uncle Joseph.”
Awkward pause, then, “D’I knaw ya?”
“Sarah.”
“Sarah. My nayce?” He smiles on one side of his face. I can barely understand him. “Sorry, din ‘member y’was comin bah. Woulda fixed things a bit.”
I wasn’t really planning on coming by. In fact, I wasn’t supposed to.
I am not looking at him. I am staring at something interesting out the window that does not exist. I say something vague like “Sure, no problem.” I have a lot of trouble talking to people, especially if they are staring at me.
“Whad’ya do t’ya eye?”
“Fell over.” Automatic lie. I am still looking out the window. He sits down next to me, too close. I can smell him, and I shove two fingers under my breastbone like a plug, swallowing as if that might help. He gets up and starts pulling some greasy yellow and green print curtains closed over three of the windows. The fourth window is in the bathroom, and it is painted black. No light escapes outside. I tried to look through this window before I walked in the house. The lock on his door is broken. I couldn’t remember what his house looked like.
I do not move because my head hurts, even sitting up. Uncle Joseph comes and sits beside me again. When I look at him, I see he is pushing his eyebrows together, so that the skin in between them folds and his nose wrinkles a little bit. He is wincing at me. Then he goes into the room with all the paper and shuts the door. I lie down but keep my good eye open, waiting for him to come back out.
Somewhere behind those greasy curtains, the sun is setting. I feel closed in by the lack of light. The dim light bulb beside me seems to be giving its all, and it flickers sometimes. When Uncle Joseph comes out he has a bag. He pulls out a yellow potato and I lift up my feet as he dives under his bed for a knife. When he leans over his shirt slides up to his shoulders and I can see his ribs and his spine through his skin, which is blue and yellow and brown in places. He cuts the potato in half, gives me the bigger side. He does the same with a croissant, which is crushed flat, but when he offers me half of the pat of butter in saran wrap, I wrinkle my nose and say “No, thanks.” I can see finger prints all over it and it has funny red dots on one side.
“Don’t eat it,” I say, “you’ll get an infection.” He laughs at me and rubs the speckled stuff on the torn side of his croissant. “Chalmetian,” he calls me. “Yat from’a Gatorland.”
I ask him where he comes from. He shrugs.
“My grandmother calls me that too,” I say. He really grins then, on both sides of his mouth, and looks almost normal. “Sma’ womn,” he says. If half of his teeth weren’t brown, I think, he would have a really nice smile. He whispers, as if anyone could hear him “Don’ ma’uh where you’sa bean.” Then he looks directly in my eyes and says rather loudly “Ma’uhs where you’sa goin!” I realize I am staring when my hurt eye starts weeping. I look away and chew my croissant. It tastes a good deal like a brown paper towel.
“Aw!” he says after a bit, “I gawt’n urnge!”
I ask “What?” as he’s digging an orange out from under his bed. It is wrapped in a white plastic bag with a picture of a smiling face saying “Have a nice day!” on it. He opens the orange with the molars on the right side of his face. Juice squirts on my cheek and it doesn’t smell like orange, but when he gives me more than half of it, it doesn’t taste bad. I actually am not too hungry and I hand the last two pieces back to him.
“Why are you giving me more than half of everything?” I ask him.
He squints at me. “‘Cuz iza grown,” he says. “An I’ad chikn zoup fer lunchn.”
This time I laugh. “Chicken soup?” I enunciate, and then feel really mean.
“Ya. Chikawn shoop.” He frowns and raises one eyebrow at me, and his hairline goes up on that side. Then he gets up and goes to the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” I say, getting up too.
“Battroom,” he says.
“What?” I say again, thinking the locked room has to be a bathroom and wondering why he would go to the bathroom outside. He thinks I don’t understand what he’s saying, and he points his hand at me, frowning again, and says “I go’ uh pee,” moving his hand a bit with every syllable. Then he walks out into the darkness. He shuts the door loudly behind himself.
For all of my “cultured upbringing” and all of the times when people have told me that his “sort of people” have a tendency to become angry for no reason, I want very badly for Uncle Joseph to like me. I don’t very well remember the last time I met him, but I know it was close to my home in
tissue:
fishing for time
timing the rhyme
rhyming for pennies
penny for a fish.
penny for your time
sick of them rhyme
a penny a wish
i wish I was a fish.
Hey hay sandpaper
The trees are blowing the wind away;
the gutters speak of last year's purchases,
and I am truly unable to stay
in this random rocky soda bay.
This morning directions may come in droves
to take me somewhere that tractors can't go
where they and us, in crevices and coves,
forget about following patterns
(and mold.)
The mother sitting under the well
had left through a one-eared forest.
A pity that she couldn't spell
or speak-spit the threads she had for us.
It took her time and a little care
to be blinder than she needed,
but bread is what the people ate there
so she gave them grain and some of her hair.
This sentiment, I am afraid,
comes from those who have two toes
and ten eyes, to see that profit made
depends on where the tractor goes.
Still, sometimes on a picnic day,
when they let us out of jail,
and cut all of our brains away,
we're able, I’m sure, to bale the hay.
Hard to Digest?
Raw?
Impulsive?
But not with no reason nor meaning nor lubrication
…
Dear Deferred,
Tree art is falling through the cosmos of space without knowledge of us… so they leave us all alone… who would
wander
through the depths of time
and space
and imagination
When the world turns back
that’s why I wish you a speedy recovery
and don’t come back
don’t come back to see me
See? See the blossoms in the spring and the leaves are ripe and leathery as you touch them
So let me rest please
Rest-in-please
Peace is the friend to all
The entire friend to
The world
So you are an artist
A caretaker
I wonder why you wander…aimlessly to me
Maybe not so to yourself
So…
Um, where was I?
Toenails are growing where your hair should be and it scares me
(Your fellow lawyers)
That they drum and hum and pick at their guitars
“I do not pick at my food!”
“Eat it now.”
“why should I?”
“because I’m your mother and I said so”
“what will happen when I don’t?”
“then I will eat you.”
Great another denial
The human ethics committee meets at
Does it now?
Teacher – “who wants to share?”
Me – “not me.”
Well, when the others refused to share they didn’t have to
But I did
No one clapped for me either
I smell a ruler down the sidewalk
And so I follow my nose
Follow the scent
Where will it lead me?
So many interesting things along the way
Distracting me…
NO! I will stay on task
And the big hourglass empties itself
Into its lower half
…
That’s what the smell was
In the garbage
Who would have thought?
The world is full of surprises
My mother beats me over the head with a stick
…
I see her
…
and then she kills me
death
data on file
why this crime scene?
I’m glad they pay me well.
So what is this paper anyway?
Is it empathy?
Or misconception?
Or perhaps a little of both?
It’s so hard to tell these days
As things mix in the world
As it gets older
Things mix together more and more
…
Like colors in a glass of water
And eventually the colors are no longer recognizable
This color is entirely new!
That’s how things are with the world
And then the new thing becomes as the old was
And you look at other countries
And they have something new too
With a new name
And a new identity
And they breathe it to me
And I watch each new color slowly mix
The world is a glass of water
Metaphorically speaking
which is surrealist in a way
in a way which you wouldn’t understand
how would I wonder…
Isn’t drawing bones interesting?
pennychaupianist: Hey I g2g okay?
Deadsektion: sure ttyl
Deadsektion: ok…I guess I’ll cya tomorrow
Deadsektion: bye then
Pennychaupianist: ciao!
Pennychaupianist: peace! :-D
Deadsektion: hasta
VIEW
The meaning of life
IXXX
I love
winter in
the springtime.
[USE OTHER DOOR]
neon grey disturbance
silver mail shuddering
unequal pale retarded
strong bright whisper
undermined understated understanding
electric glory, dimly
purple spherical poetry
undimmed dusty machinery
striped newfound universe
trials hyper-cat hearts
dark white-blue entrance:
ridiculous leftovers.
withdrawn
hopeful
heartbreak
smile
toothache
green
monster
vista
sleepless
eggplant.
not so fast… not so bad
what on earth could induce
a dream about a red mongoose
and a chartreuse moose in the blue caboose
of a train that carted toothbrush juice?
Re-drafting of the Same Ideas
The fish and the whales, all with gaping mouths, motion the people, the animals, the hybrids, all, to gather in their bellies. My mother had taught me how not to go, how to resist the temptation. What was forgotten: the simple definition: temptation… what is it? Is it the pull to engage in what is not desirable in outcome, or the attraction to what is not desirable in principle? Or has it nothing to do with desire, only with theoretical disobedience of the habits we have been memorizing?
What is a trend? Is it enviable fleetingly, or is it a modified tradition? While conceivably it could be both, for these purposes it must be a form of tradition only, never as fresh. How complicated, how maddening it would be if temptation focused only on what had once been correct. How could desire be fleeting?
An inclination to inquiry does not mean that I am a polemicist.
Hence I went, dragged, but not against my will. I had no will at the time; I had not inherited any yet. I indistinctly recall being turned inward, perpetually recycling.
She paused, took the pen out of her ear, and put it in her mouth. It tasted like unwritten
How could something as complex as an emotion run away from you? Why keep track of anything but the theoretical?
It tasted like heart balloons, scuffed again and again against the things she writes on… paper, plastic, wood, skin. You can see the mutual appreciation when they write on each others’ skin; you and him, like it’s been for a while.
But rhetorical devices aside, I was drowning until yesterday.
There were three flowers, one was wilted, one was dried, and one was fresh. Oh yes, there was one more, and it was painted. There were four people there too: one was more special than all the others. She got first pick, and she picked the flower painted, lacquered, like her eyes. The others took the three remaining flowers and planted them in little knots in the trees, like they did when they were ten years old. The fresh one wilted, and then his flower and her flower were the same. The dried flower was for the gender-free person made out of water, who alone could have kept the fresh flower or at least revived the wilted one. When the curtains fell the audience stopped clapping. It was time to leave, and now only a few of us clapped to drown out the murmurs of nearby theatergoers who were naïve enough to speak, breaking up the claps that still echoed in our ears. I asked my mother what was going on, and she shushed me, whispering frozen peas, eat them raw.
I save a lot of money to put on my desk. I might have had a hundred dollars by now, except that when people come by they take the ones, the fives, and the quarters. They drive up the price of beef by eating the grass from the pastures where the cows feed, complaining that they can’t afford this, five dollars, ten dollars, twenty. We are then offered an alternative food source by the directors, which is many, many numbers; all ambiguous, irrelevant percentages which we cannot afford but may have some special significance in their heads. Giddy with hunger, we drink each others’
blood is what makes us alive, but we cannot spare any. We are not a collective or anything. We cannot homogenize our masses, and some of us always float to the top.
Yesterday I found out that there were giants, giants that pull the boat along by walking on the bottom of the sea. There heads stick up just a little. You would never guess that they were as tall as the people who live on the islands. And I smiled because they smelled like home… only I am not that tall.
Blank
the world it’s uncommon colors
my life it’s distinctive failures
I walk around in circles
Unemployed
…
my hair it just turned purple
I meditate on happy moments
brown again
…
the leaves they fall I play
they’re dry they crackle
…
smile it’s extraordinary
beauty lost it’s golden
Carrie Fisher
…
“ADHD” interests wander
go explore the
part the vines and stare
it’s older than I thought
…
great it’s fuchsia.
Exotic.
…
time it won’t stop moving
gorgeous shiny fourth dimension
demented?
…
glory laugh it rains silver pearls
twirl around and step in puddles
mother makes me put on my socks when I get home
there’s a meditative fire to sit by
…
shine the sun is beaming
look up it warms my face too
happy moments of our lives
…
finally haiku
eerie moon glowing
now world turns plastic colors
deepens into sleep
To Come
…
She sits in the doorway, her rocking chair
somewhere beneath the dim porch light
She is older than rain and she doesn’t see
but she sits there rocking all night
She sometimes makes lemonade, using her hands
as eyes, she offers it to children who happen by
Afraid of her sagging skin, they recoil
So she drinks it alone with a sigh
She knows the world’s changing, so perhaps
she doesn’t want to see anymore
Her face is not one she would recognize
And her body is stiff and sore
Then every so often, a little breeze
comes to lift her pain away, the sun
Warms her a little, and so she is patient
Waiting for her time to come
…
I never knew she was my twin. While I was ugly, she was beautiful. When I was dirty, she was clean. Since my hands were rough, hers were smooth. While my eyes were brown, hers were gold.
I never knew she was my twin. She was early and I was late. I told her to take care of people, and she told me to take care of myself. I shouted and she responded in whispers.
I never knew she was my twin. I wouldn't have guessed in pajamas, with a nightlight. I never knew she was my twin until she took my life off my back and tried it on. It fit her perfectly, and she carried it for me down the road. I had only packed it too full of nonsense.
XXVII
Swingset
Plagued by tragedy and incessant nonsense
the incandescent rain makes me melt through the sidewalk
like kitchen butter on teary eyelashes
of acorn coconut who lives in the drippy trees
she infected my door with her listening lips
(hence my imperfect obsession with red glass)
thru fluid torrents of grass dancing in the hyper wind
with the bird flying into extinction
you have a license to know what they’re talking
about in a surf of mellow art
a book of unfinished sketches, the
result of my life
I swing from thought to thought, in a way
I dart
to paint the beginningless end with a lunatic
scythe
and I dream of the ground where our food comes
from
we grow from the ground
we live off the ground
when we die we are laid in the ground
or scattered across it like primordial dust
but the Solemn Truth and Irony of grounding
is that we’ve nO cluE! what’s down there
[Words Walking In the Wind]
The direction of analysis has changed because
we cannot conceive what we once believed,
and life marches in definite directions.
XXXI
Serious Little Things
When Finn was born, the soothsayer of
The people of the city did not recognize him, and his face and his eyes burned red and then brown under the alien sun, which may have been the seed of the whispers that he was from hell. He tried to speak as others did but his tongue was thick and clumsy from misuse. The poke[4] was welcoming, with its cold cells and damp stones to sleep on, and he licked the bitter water from the walls to ease his cracked lips and throat. Eventually, however, he grew bored and lonely and his stomach roared (for gnawing on the bones of a previous inmate was dissatisfying at best), so he built a mound of bones and dirt at the bottom of the cell and wedged one of his hands into a large gap between two slabs of rock. He hoisted himself up in this manner until he reached the top, and removed the heavy iron grate covering the mouth of the cell with his teeth. The poke was guarded by no more than a cross over a doorway to an empty barracks, so Finn found his way once again into the fiery sunlight.
There had been whispers of his father since he had quitted the city in a sudden and mysterious way. Therefore the people of
The arrival of another giant changed life from that out, for this one had no name and no place and was larger than Finn by two heads and wider by two feet with a row of sharp filed teeth and hard, claw-like hands. The people of
Sean set one end of a heavy branch on fire to light the way east for the coast is not far from
[1]
[2] soothsayer – oracle, one who tells the future
[3] deck – knock over, fell
[4] poke – jail
XXII I Decided ‘Maybe’ Smile it’s a wedding But its raining so my hair is wet So I mumble around and sit in the parking lot & people wonder why I’m strange but just peaceful and loving. So this dude asked my why the sky is blue And I was wondering how to answer Because it’s such a theoretical question With a metaphysical reply But surrealism? I’m maybe not so sure it gives me visions of war… I guess it’s like why lime green nail polish tastes funny… scissorlace. won’tya tie’m skissors t’ye shoolayce dahling tha horriffik comedie won staht 'tilya do an’ (hah) she laaves to wayt foreva so please tie’m skissors t’yer shoo sheyull daynce eround an laght a ceegah en if you aks ‘er ta put it out sheyull smahl a’yoo witm brokayn teet wayel ‘er broosd ahys sas’leh pout she stahl and stahl like'ss en aaht 's wha eym a’sure sheyull do t's not so hahd, do whah i sai kumwid skissors tahd t'your shoo
balancing act
my chartreuse veil is weathered
my emotions feel tethered
to everlasting sincerity
or hope of endless quality
congenial construction
mutual disappointment
seeing dots and dashes
ink construct infix
sub-dimensional universe
crying universal tears
random rabid points of conversation
try to cope with imagination
creatively lacking, you are
misunderstanding which has gone too far
oddly divided… I’m less than true
decide decisions, incise you
miscreant child crying blood
hopeful youth
comprehensive mud
under-emotional tales try to scream
sun. amazing light-rays beam
on the cold unheated earth
swirls and clouds lack elemental mirth
sadness; bruised, not all is lost
looking back upon the frost
covering where I used to live
try to understand
forgive?
Music
and it strikes me like hatred
or superficial blinding pain
we staggered through the pouring rain
behind gorgeous words is a story
under-told
poorly created
what?
Contemplating the incomprehensible
so seems all when painted hopeless
lost and maimed and coatless
dark red back hair, scratches
reader distances… detaches?
trying life away in segments
people beg and children etch
stories into unwanted rock
(uninvented sidewalk chalk)
so when you find yourself alone
in anyworld, away from home
try to understand and see
hope and trust and will and be
misunderstood
again
my breath
distress
will I ever connect?
F.S.O.C. # 4: Why I Hate Myself (And Probably You for That Matter)
Sometimes I fancy I am punishing myself, not wearing shoes. I have two pieces of glass embedded in the bottom of my left foot right now. My calluses must have dissolved while my feet were on vacation, during the winter and endless schooling (which discourages personal autonomy). I hate winter. And I hate school… or just all of society. I am not yet decided as to whether or not I hate human nature; but anyone with this much hatred must have been ridiculously debauched at birth. Virtue and hatred do not really coincide, for it is up to virtue to determine hatred, and not the other way around. Pragmatism and idealism do not fit together. I therefore feel it is appropriate for me to record the following from my degenerate standpoint:
Some people tell me I think too much. What I think of them is that they do not think enough. If they thought enough they would surely see themselves and be ashamed. I am not, of course, making reference solely to those who know me. In fact, I have hardly any idea specifically who I am making reference to. Even as an over-thinker, there is only so much I can come up with on my own, not knowing anyone else except in passing. It is my experience that many people do not usually talk, per se. They publicize their exoskeleton as one would brandish a shield. They worry about others: will they get in the way, and what is the best way to shoot them down if they do? These worries are synonymous with self-concern. But it is hard to blame anyone for being confused, distracted. People publish noise sometimes. People feed off distractions as if they were bread. Items are organized so that they scream louder when it is their turn. Men and women look only to the effect. Nothing ever really stops. It does not slow. We accelerate. Is this about death? Having a good life? Not wanting to put forth more than you get back? Wanting to get back more than you put forth? Not being able to see the happiness of others as a benefit?
Humans are lonely creatures. For as much as people cling to each other, we think (more than anyone cares to admit) of a relationship with a fellow human being as a tool – perhaps a means to happiness or figurative immortality. Sometimes pretenses are so convincing and so common that we believe the semblance is the entire body. But how could we, especially when other people are constantly trying to write our thoughts? If we cannot think for ourselves, then we could live with the illusion that we really are thinking despite all of these distractions. Here I go, telling people to think for themselves. Did you catch the irony before I told you about it? If nobody wore shoes, hardly anyone would litter or spit on the ground. If nobody wore clothes, hardly anyone would be overweight. If everybody gave birth to their own opinions, perhaps fewer opinions would become skewed, confounded. Murderers. I feel obliged to punish myself in case I have successfully convinced you of anything; in case society wants me tried for high crimes, independence, and unpopular opinion.
lovely-fresh Spinach Pie ancient bravery recipe I wrote this afternoon
for Ingrid
Bray: olé! barely a bear
more of a large dog or small cat
a stick for the challenge!
a wig for the paper
then stir in some pockets, pretzels, talent.
sing-smile, in Calfarizexico
we can hardly keep time straight
as a (momentous) momentum moment.
beating drums to piping pans
(knees up to your neck in sand)
gritty lies & truths lie
in lye soap, lydee dee.
squared! the dancing,
perhaps the knitting-ish (here
I don’t know what I’m talking about).
But please don’t ever go away
to
or any other sunny place
where everyone says their supper-grace
in between the floors and
ceiling, generally.
I’d even like to go with you.
What makes anyone afraid of forward?
Bills? Loneliness? Time?
Awkward Reality?
Evermore! Unnecessarily.
if your guitar is not too hairy,
straighten the tag, zip pleats,
tuck in the fly, you’re off!
and never look back to dreaming
sky of the forever was.
however life, its internal ember
soontimes whispers… “we remember”
Simplistic Boredom
rain it won’t stop raining
it pounds on the roof above my head
Loud, blue glass
and Melodic, like a tin drum
the rain makes it hard to see
when I walk out the door
so I fall down the stairs
and into the parking lot
and somewhere, someone is always laughing
¿at me?
does it make me Smile
and paint an odd picture?
rain splashes make my colors drip
making them abstract
making them real
as real as I am to you
but in my dreams, I am never there
Unless I am someone else
so in my waking
would I be gone too?
RAIN it makes my hair wet
HAIR it feels so knotted
I dance around in circles
unemployed
aware of my grammatical errors
i wonder about Purple flowers
beaded with raindrops.
the rain is getting in my eyes
i cannot see
should go inside
but can’t won’t let it stop
stop the crystal rain
rain that is razors in my eyes
eyes that start to rain
RAIN it won’t stop raining
sweet delicious RAIN
F.S.O.C. #3: Details on the Difference between Intelligence and Arrogance (An Overview for the Less Informed and Potentially Confused)
Intelligence, the Backstage and So On:
Intelligence is invisible, while being an integral part of all that acknowledges it, it is not a theatrical production and it need never be. It is fluid, and its fluidity lends only to content solitude; it would be completely self-sufficient were it ever pure, allowing adaptation to every potential scenario. Another of its complicated, albeit predictable properties is that it seems not to be something that can be created or learned. It can only be enhanced or discovered, and yet is not readily expendable, likening to a mineral. Being so complexly general, intelligence is more of a concept than anything; perhaps an explanation for an array of inconsistent traits within the brain that seem to cooperate as a single item. Intelligence cannot conceivably be pure, and thus tracking it is, at best, problematic. Rather it is commonly tainted and co-dominant, featuring both enviable traits and detestable ones incorporated into its convoluted existence.
Arrogance, the Flustered Excuse for an Argumentum:
Arrogance is almost the exact antithesis of intelligence. It is simple and obvious when in abundance, and can almost always be detected within some element of a person’s existence. It could stem from intelligence, but is, itself, devoid of intelligence; its growth from intelligence as a cancer of sorts, fed by positive results of intelligence (or of any cause). It is different than intelligence in that it can rule actions, whereas intelligence is only a vehicle to determine possible actions; where intelligence is a tool, arrogance is a force. Arrogance hardly ever results in good, and if it does, it can be divined that the results were accidental. It is stagnant yet constantly appealing to reason, as if its emotionality could be rationalized; a silly little piece of life that overestimates intelligence and ability.
The Frightening Amalgam:
Cause and effect are intrinsically connected, thus arrogance and intelligence always come together, in varying degrees. A small amount of intelligence can spur a great deal of arrogance, and it is hard to use intelligence without running into arrogance. But being that arrogance is not the only result of intelligence, it can be very moderate. In conclusion, this is a good thing. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention.
LaNgUaGe BlizZARd
Winter makes me wither
As if withering were harmful
As if speaking were a mouthful
So what? language blizzard.
Summer'd make me simmer
if I weren't that much thinner
But, as enjoyment leads to regret,
I hibernate like a lizard.
Autumn’s at the bottom
of the pail, but it matters
that pitter-patters
of rain aren't yet hail.
Spring is just too busy
And it makes my hair get frizzy
with humidity, as if it weren't
good for me, a relief
if we use more time and use less grief
No seasons become problems, whenever driven
to cry over time we're given.
Drawing to break life’s rhythms
It was just a sketch, but
there was a line
that stretched between
your house and mine.
There was the balcony
and the pecan tree
where I sat so mama
wouldn’t spot me.
My life was here, my home
was distant, you used
an orange colored pencil.
Sometimes Mark would play the banjo
if Galla was sobbing, his fingers
were faster than fire, his smile
was cooler than milk.
He sat on a barrel that was
narrower than his shoulders but
a bit wider than
the brim of his hat.
We only stayed out when
the evening was warm
and a chill whispered warning
of a
Life could not be ordinary…
Dana made dinner
she lay fresh flowers
on the dish with the trout.
[The balcony ran between
our houses, to skewer the lamppost.
It was always
the crushing divide.]
The balcony was mine,
as were the windows
because, without within,
I would be nothing.
The tree was yours
but, alas,
the pecans were mine, too,
if they fell on the grass.
What was it called
when you drew
this beautiful place
in the bayou?
Funny how you can understand
so perfectly not at all,
but it was something In The Air
that made the leaves fall,
the something in this line
which changes over time...
Nothing I was fit to meet
within this rotten mind.
opinion.
how could you be, moody merchant?
you, who have roses growing out of your neck
speaking of which, there is a house
i would like to buy.
it is the one across the way with
gables the color of blisters
that looks like a trailer.
it is where we might finally
meet halfway.
i only pretend to like
settling for less.
how could you be moody, merchant?
you, who could have anything you wanted.
i wish you would stick around
every once in a while.
but i am not attatched.
in fact i tell you so every day.
met with spaciness which i would like
to buy from you.
there is also something i would like
to tell you about my family.
there is only so much noise
i can take.
i do like, whenever possible
to avoid confrontation
so i am writing you a letter
which you may have noticed by now.
i mean to say goodbye, moody merchant
and don't expect me to
stop here again.
i am tired of prepaid answers.
For A New Century…
It's dark but it isn't late
It's cold but I don't feel it
Everything's blank and I'm reading
We cannot leave but there is no quarantine
I just had dinner without washing up
I'm rather sick and I don't feel bad
It's almost the end of this time but I'm in no rush
The world is lonely but I'm with my family
Inside a house we never built.
(poor perfect)
details like “her dress is dirty” and how she was sitting on the stool across from yours and how was the weather or was it early in the morning and March? or April? you’d never know if it was may. I felt like an insignificant detail compared to that. so you first met between the fountain and the sidewalk, first kiss at Kimpo airport (already on your honeymoon). Only the moon was not made of honey or sweet cheese, only cold rock without a symptom save the reflectionists’ glow. Only I forgot to capitalize the first letters on purpose, wrote it in pen, see?only my sentences run on. And there were no flowers that May.
TRUE STORY:
I had a camel once. It spit on me, so I woke up and remembered I hadn’t washed my face. I also drank some milk. Then I had to brush my teeth, and I went outside to do it, and got lost. A mosquito the size of my thumb then went for my posterior (couldn’t sit for days) and, in my surprise at how fast the situation was becoming unbearable, I tried to throw a fit, tripped, and fell into the swamp. My sleep-retarded state of being hampered my judgment, so I figured I had floated a good distance from Dina’s house, and screamed as loud as I could for someone to come find me, so my mama came outside and smacked me with a broom for being so loud in the middle of the night. I suppose, thinking back, that was the most calamitous night of my life, but every day or so for the past year has been my worst day. Isn’t that peculiar?
Hoverer.
very speckled various goosebumps
measles, blossom battalion of mumps
rubella, dull, fever forever
can change you
(as if anybody could have saved you.)
I empathize... I really do
but still, I do not like you
even if I used to.
my nose is a shoe without many tonsils to guide it
on a quest for four faster, wild aster
which i put in my pretty hair, not
Big dimples, slippery plaster caster.
blue to my palms. browned my eyes. speckled his neck.
less beat-less between the sounds that amuse
dancing and singing
kicking off your shoes
we were dancing in the dark
soul pig, off the dismal mark
you made inside, inside a mind
insane, infantile
gorgeous eyes.
taste high-pitched noises
definition: the end destiny sweeps blotchily thru her mind is incoherent pastels a mental swing thru the body’s fossils a complete diamond curtsey thru the raindrops to bleed the silver dirt from her eyes we plunge thru the endless imagination of hidden, wild and miserable dreams of a horizon kneaded with dew, cinders and reeds of a mind that disobeys clearer emotions, and means to peek at a misty pearl of a kingdom filled with sunshine here she weeps dull goals beneath a holy dogwood and reptilic people produce spiritual peaches and cream and paint designs of straw angels and cherry blossoms over her door in the end, she sleeps on the outside floor by the intricate misty milkweed to descend like a comet thru the cloudy corn a cubic droplet of thin faces on the wall both rustic and simple and ending it all of the world in the end, I guess, it all comes down to love.