sunday's poem

cleaning

he found the nest
of annie's nylons in the back
of the top left hand drawer when he
was clearing out the bedroom.
he sat on a chair, the wad
in his hands. they stopped
his momentum more forcefully
than any of her other things. more than the books
papers sweaters lipsticks shampoos music.
the nylons recalled the intimate shape of her legs.
the way she would walk. sometimes
it had been hard to know where her body
left off and his had begun. it was even harder now
that she wasn't here to remind him
where his skin met the air.

more poetry

she is

you are a poet in the quiet
moments, a whittler of
words, slowly paring down
to the meaning of it. don't

silence your voice with the busy-ness,
errands and agendas of little
consequence that will
or won't get done. breathe
and it is of more importance
than anything else you've ever done.


falling

this is my dream; i'm walking
down a corridor and i'm alone.
truly alone. there's the sound of my
feet padding across the tiled floor
and then nothing. silence like
gravity. it becomes black.
and i think of you.

but i'm not falling in
love with you, you so far away and
perfect in that distance. with
your details blurred like memory or a good
monet. and i keep filling in your
features, or weak spots, as if
i'm dreaming you in to existence.


yesterday morning

i am not a perfect memory, not so tidy you can
squish me in a picture book with a caption
telling everyone that i was once owned
by you. not so easily forgotten that you could
pass me by on the street like a beggar holding
out his hand for whatever it is you won't give.
not so carelessly classified; a good kisser, the best
blow-job, the least demanding. i will refuse to be
tossed out with the morning paper, the coffee grinds, the inevitable
grapefruit rind. you, in your small routine, will want to.

onya

onya

she lives in a small apartment on the top
floor of a squarish ancient building. the paint
on the outside was once white but is crackling
now, as if there was something alive under there,
trying to break free. she does not look at it much.
prefers the flickering lights of rented movies
on her tv screen. there she slips into the stories,
imagines she too has a glossy, proofed life.
the boring parts edited out. she has a job at jake's
grill, serving the customers without seeing them.
jake likes to try to get her on her back but she
floats off, is cleopatra on the banks of the nile
and it's no fun to force himself on someone
who isn't even there. in her apartment she showers,
does not shave. does not cut any hair on her body.
doesn't want anyone to find those little bits of her
so she burns the cut toenails and fingernails, an acrid
horrid smell she suffers through to protect
herself. watches her movies and stays up till
four in the morning. gets up at eleven. to work
at one. drops off videos and rents more on the way
back to her apartment. imagines she
is conan's queen as she crosses a busy street.

christmas day

christmas was great. i got two phone calls from two of my favorite people in the whole world, which pleased me to no end. we ate french dip and opened presents and played pictionary. yay! what a great day, even with all of us sick.

merry christmas!

i have always been a night person; sometimes to the point of staying up 'till everyone else got up. but for the last month or so, i've been waking up around 10:30. very weird. this morning i woke up at 8:30, which i've done several times during this month. i'm not a morning person. really, i'm not. my brain doesn't function as well, i end up dragging half way through the day, wishing i could take a nap. it's a strange thing, this getting up in the morning. i actually get to see daylight, up here where the sun is only up for a few hours during the winter. and then i go to bed *early*, like ten or so. what's up with that? where are my happy nights spent wandering my empty house? and most important, *why* is this happening to me? rrrrrrrrrrr

untitled

this one is a failed experiment. i stretched

several layers of cheesecloth over a mirror in hopes you could see the mirror (and your reflection) as you looked at the painting. no such luck. the two things i like about this one is the way she seems to be floating in space, and the transperency of the image; i painted a poem on the reverse side of the cheesecloth. i also really like the frame of little painted pieces of paper.

false comfort

false comfort

soft cat curl warm against my leg,
a false comfort. moonlight shifting
across your taut body.
purpose whispers like cold memory
holding me just this close,
like a branch of the sky.
air like secret doom.

your love was something perfect forever,
but this distance leaves me behind,
so much wind. distant and hard,
tearing me away.


distance

tonight i bleed
a path to sorrow.
pain through consequence,
dust in my hands.
choice like a lie.
you bewilder me with
your heavy signifigance.
try to fail,
sliding past absolute solitude.
you glow like kindred fire.