Tilting Radiator

Because I feel guilty for going to bed early, I am posting some of the poems I'm still editing. Because the radiator is tilting and the floor is sloping in new ways for the first time in 18 months. Because 18 months have actually passed without much incident. These are. Um. Well. Yeah...

Reconnaissance
(For Riley Court)

Oh to be held
In the confines of your loveseat
In that small room undone
By its previous uses—
Forgive me for being flushed here;
I’ll begin again.

Oh, you are afraid!
--You retract from my seat—
that we are attracted by
your attractiveness alone.
But there are three on the loveseat,
A cold confined by heats.

Oh, don’t stuff your arm
In that flannel sleeve,
Shivering in your couched state,
Darkened room reflecting your blood.
You are not that cold,
Though bluely poisoned ink and all

--oh!—your words would make
a whore of me, charmed by
your tongue’s cynical displays.
I’d drink the root beer offered;
I’d sit astride the love seat’s
Arm rest to portend a casual thirst
If conscience thus allowed me.

O, I am weird sisters three
The beaver on your shirt
Lets me in—when I knock
You crack the hinge and I read

Pacifier

She brought her sigh to fruition
Holding her own hands in complement
Above the thick pane.
“Is this what I’ve come to—
the history of windows?”
And still he had the gall,
No, let her amend, the balls
To stare through the clear division
From the other side and demand

“Do you trust your tomatoes?”
No, no! Tensed by the present or future
Simple only…
“Gloria, sugoi, liquid flowers, vivant”
(Love your words. Caress the thin tomato skin)
I will not hurt you. I have no desire
To hurt you, not with fists
Not with words.
Tamped down, the flower dirt clumps
Are how we should define ourselves.

This is what is called a "short short" or "prosetry" or "prose poetry" or any number of things. It's an emerging genre, and it's good to work with. I think Marianne Moore's poetry fits into this better than the line breaks she makes, but I'd never say that to anyone in the academy.

Superhero

When every nothing had been leaned on by ways of so uncommon sleep, she, unlike the relationships and realisms, answered the oracle, which another left her with. It doctored their facts; she became what his sort compiled when their dreams grew too large.

But here is where the doubt turns: If the answer arrives during the cursing of her wide accounts, will she choose to work at night, for the bounty of his narcissism above all else? Will she tag her enthusiasm on the underside, 25¢, in an oily garage thrust into the Saturday sun, in answer to a card left in a drawer?

This is a weird little thing I wrote on (literally) my desk in my office. It's one of those that could work, if I took more than three minutes to think about it.

Unspeakable

Making statements
“Can you save your soul?”
“What do you do when you can’t
Trust the narrator?”
A priori, abducting, advocating
To wink across the shrine
Jewel-like frost on birch branches
To tangent the sphere
That tickle and offer up the dead
Does somehow succeed in
Skiving off the previous moment.
He said “elves” and you know
Who I thought of, all those moments…
J’aime bien ce moment
(le moment quand
il me regardait avec
ses yeux fumant)
quand je souvienne
si bien que le moment
il me mordre,
me mange,
me fait complite.


This one seems to be part of another poem, one I haven't written yet, and probably never will. Written during Robert Frost class. I was freezing, and thinking of InuYasha.


Cold

Please unloose my flesh
To let fly free that which
Aches against my borders
Like frost on a window
Binds sticky, prickles,
The melt of heat and cold creating
Shards, only sharp when it comes inside,
Not to stretch, not to open,
Not with embracing arms.



...and who knows what the hell this came from. Probably some unknown subconscious thing having to do with my father's desire to make me a mathematician.

Odd Numbered Questions are in the Back

You cannot solve this equation x + y = 23, unless I tell you X is, say, positive integer A
or Y is negative integer Z—not that it matters. The teachers never give you an unsolvable problem because they know the human mind hates seeing more than one unknown at a time.

I cannot help but hear Jeff’s silvery tones
Stringing Rumplstiltsken twines that will not be
In that gap between my typing fingers
And the words appearing on the screen
What mistakes might have been made when I couldn’t see?
When he couldn’t draw breath for the change of speed?

Sad Christmas ballads which ask me to come home
Make their biggest plea in the brush strokes
On the tight chained snare that breaks once a month
The hitch in the fortepiano (pianissimo)
The hitch in my brain preventing me from hitting
The hitch in those sentimental voices saying “Come home”

You cannot solve this equation but it can be graphed--It’s raised high y=x+23, evenly moving away up one over one, up one over one, like adjusting the temperature of a tepid shower after an afternoon in the gym, lifting, hitting high notes red-faced in the hitch