These are nine things I had saved in the same word document so I added numbers and well, now it is one long ass poem. I think most of these were written on the nod which is why they ended up in the same file.
1.
to shed a skin of sentiment, a shell of sleeves, her name creates a steeple in my mind, a name, a word, a narrow gulf of numbers, letters subtracted and assembled from nothing, trust is an easy disappointment, never let your guards lie sleeping, this house is full of secrets, mass my legions at the boarders of my feelings, her weapons worn like eyes.
a bruised melody makes writing scarcely possible, a broken book, a page that lies, the face and shoulders of another painted and hung on the wall of where I work, until I come face to face with so much wasted time.
my shattered brilliance makes mice of me, my will is stronger than my body, I despise anything short of the truth in you, I EXPECT more from my friends, I will now always refuse anything less from myself, I can thank you for that
I can climb buildings in my sleep, in my sleep I can drown, I can transmit impossible messages, I can drink myself lucid, I can pretend away a feeling, I wake and start over
you can not see me there, with my eyes closed, commanding dreams like mental infantry, tossing off electric orders, transmitting, transmitting
you see me at these keys everyday, with my snarl for you, chewing on my tongue, wanting sleep to come, these keys now, inviting sleep, keeping me,
my spirit is a harp to pluck, a prayer that never leaves the lips, the angels dip there wings in ink, for these words, they agree to subject themselves to our laws, mortal laws, do not fool yourself with sentiment, sentiment is for fools
I am busy with words, they instruct my daily ritual, they are books behind my eyes, and my eyes never darken, never water, will never be worn again, if you see me smiling you can be sure I am content, I am not above, a little shedding of my own blood, I mean that quite figuratively, of course, the mouse, transmits, and in my eyes you will never see it, what it is your groping for, beyond a wall of words hidden between songs trapped in the mind a memory of a funeral of a feeling miscalculated, there is nothing left to fear or follow, I will never let it hurt again, it only hurts when I wince.
2.
i have limited our conversations to one hundred words or less. i saw a horse die last week. it was standing chewing grass, then just fell on it's side. my dad assured me it was only sleeping. but it seemed like a door slammed. a door in this house. the doors that i slam and blame on the wind. i am the wind. i am sure you know that. at two a.m. i am here at this keyboard, my posture is ruined. i have drank enough to kill a horse, which has little to do with you of course. the Sandoval where i work is beautiful though caught up in something i left behind a long time ago. you are sleeping on the couch reminding me how much i despise television. and my contempt for sleep. they are the same thing, though i would rather know my dreams are my own. how would you feel if you woke to a commercial? you have no idea what that would do to me...
3.
God,
please,
the traffic through my sleep is deafening
their collisions obliterate my dreams
clean the cinders from my eyes
collapse my will
my veins, my spine
make them light again
make me the wings that fly from pages
build me a heart that never aches
fill her form with riddles
mine with answers
hers with wonder
mine with wisdom
fill me with her rainy Sunday way of life
bleach the blood from my sleeves
and return us to a shelter of beaches…
Soon the sun will paint the sky blue again
and the day will take us in our separate directions
to mimic the motions
of a mother
and a man.
I’ll carry your riddles
concealed in my meditations
mimic the motions
brush strange shoulders
play my prerecorded tapes
and hide beneath the surface
until I return to you.
with you
I am a box of letters
blown by the wind
end over end
somersaulting to be read.
I am the beaches who shelter sleepers
you are a
a climb of hearts that multiplies
and crashes
with a thunder
that startles
these words
from my mind.
4.
Send the seasons to her window
where sleeping armies surround her body
pound her dreams
into fragments and flakes
the ghost of softer memories
bleed transparent visions
leave trails of leaves
that autumn atrophied
from summer trees
clearly marking the season’s seams
those leaves I remember turning
to flame before falling
with summers heat still in my bones
though it is hard to find today
with the wind being so cold
Euphoria folded like a blanket
over my shoulders
under my ribs
stretches idle release
expanding my blood
the universe complete
with me
beneath a blanket folded like Euphoria
behind her eyes
hearts climb too high
and falter
falling miles
wingless flocks
returning weighted
unannounced until
like lead
a heavy thunder crashes
startling her from sleep
to find codeine caked in the
corners of her eyes
5.
no flowers, nor music for the victors,
no.
the losers shadows still stalk the earth with rifles
Cain is at an ancient stove
making soup from Abel’s leg bone
and he is wearing the coat
the coat he killed his brother for
and he is smoking tobacco
he is hungry
and there is no music
in his kitchen
except for the water
breaking a boil in the pot
the unpicked flowers growing in the yard
and the shadows rifles firing
on heaven.
6.
I have waited with the latches undone
the doors are open
and if you look inside
you will find me
tangled in the lines of parabolic letters
open envelopes lie like oysters shells
the beach is not as white
as the buttons of your blouse undone again.
I reasoned promises from your eyes
and the burden of my expectations
now keeps them closed
what will open them again?
what can I open
to make them mine for a moment?
A bottle of wine?
A book of poems?
A window to the moon?
An oysters shell could reveal to you
my patience and persistence through a pearl.
How can I open the boarders that keep you suspended?
A photograph that fades when I hold it in my hands.
I am praying for a sweeping dance that promises no end.
I will be waiting among the withered reeds and broken latches.
I am requesting that the world be returned.
the photographs burned.
a sweeping dance that promises no end.
7.
Hemmingway has made me mean. He has filled my head with words that bend women the wrong way. He has taught me the most efficient method of driving a faltering love to ruin. Hemmingway has shown me one way to never grow old.
8.
She will come. The ceremony will never end. The ritual will forever repeat. We will never grow old. We will close in on the reasons. Feed on the body’s fine mists. We will cure each other of promises when she comes.
9.
Here in the east we move mountains with our fingers- the wind begins in our lungs- we create water from nothing- knock the moon from orbit with words- we will murder the sun and illuminate the world ourselves- swell the oceans ceaseless lashes to wash away the insidious- bleach the blood from our sleeves- never wince in the face of those who would see us fail.
(1954)
vocab.
[ 25 January 2003: Message edited by: vocab ]
1.
to shed a skin of sentiment, a shell of sleeves, her name creates a steeple in my mind, a name, a word, a narrow gulf of numbers, letters subtracted and assembled from nothing, trust is an easy disappointment, never let your guards lie sleeping, this house is full of secrets, mass my legions at the boarders of my feelings, her weapons worn like eyes.
a bruised melody makes writing scarcely possible, a broken book, a page that lies, the face and shoulders of another painted and hung on the wall of where I work, until I come face to face with so much wasted time.
my shattered brilliance makes mice of me, my will is stronger than my body, I despise anything short of the truth in you, I EXPECT more from my friends, I will now always refuse anything less from myself, I can thank you for that
I can climb buildings in my sleep, in my sleep I can drown, I can transmit impossible messages, I can drink myself lucid, I can pretend away a feeling, I wake and start over
you can not see me there, with my eyes closed, commanding dreams like mental infantry, tossing off electric orders, transmitting, transmitting
you see me at these keys everyday, with my snarl for you, chewing on my tongue, wanting sleep to come, these keys now, inviting sleep, keeping me,
my spirit is a harp to pluck, a prayer that never leaves the lips, the angels dip there wings in ink, for these words, they agree to subject themselves to our laws, mortal laws, do not fool yourself with sentiment, sentiment is for fools
I am busy with words, they instruct my daily ritual, they are books behind my eyes, and my eyes never darken, never water, will never be worn again, if you see me smiling you can be sure I am content, I am not above, a little shedding of my own blood, I mean that quite figuratively, of course, the mouse, transmits, and in my eyes you will never see it, what it is your groping for, beyond a wall of words hidden between songs trapped in the mind a memory of a funeral of a feeling miscalculated, there is nothing left to fear or follow, I will never let it hurt again, it only hurts when I wince.
2.
i have limited our conversations to one hundred words or less. i saw a horse die last week. it was standing chewing grass, then just fell on it's side. my dad assured me it was only sleeping. but it seemed like a door slammed. a door in this house. the doors that i slam and blame on the wind. i am the wind. i am sure you know that. at two a.m. i am here at this keyboard, my posture is ruined. i have drank enough to kill a horse, which has little to do with you of course. the Sandoval where i work is beautiful though caught up in something i left behind a long time ago. you are sleeping on the couch reminding me how much i despise television. and my contempt for sleep. they are the same thing, though i would rather know my dreams are my own. how would you feel if you woke to a commercial? you have no idea what that would do to me...
3.
God,
please,
the traffic through my sleep is deafening
their collisions obliterate my dreams
clean the cinders from my eyes
collapse my will
my veins, my spine
make them light again
make me the wings that fly from pages
build me a heart that never aches
fill her form with riddles
mine with answers
hers with wonder
mine with wisdom
fill me with her rainy Sunday way of life
bleach the blood from my sleeves
and return us to a shelter of beaches…
Soon the sun will paint the sky blue again
and the day will take us in our separate directions
to mimic the motions
of a mother
and a man.
I’ll carry your riddles
concealed in my meditations
mimic the motions
brush strange shoulders
play my prerecorded tapes
and hide beneath the surface
until I return to you.
with you
I am a box of letters
blown by the wind
end over end
somersaulting to be read.
I am the beaches who shelter sleepers
you are a
a climb of hearts that multiplies
and crashes
with a thunder
that startles
these words
from my mind.
4.
Send the seasons to her window
where sleeping armies surround her body
pound her dreams
into fragments and flakes
the ghost of softer memories
bleed transparent visions
leave trails of leaves
that autumn atrophied
from summer trees
clearly marking the season’s seams
those leaves I remember turning
to flame before falling
with summers heat still in my bones
though it is hard to find today
with the wind being so cold
Euphoria folded like a blanket
over my shoulders
under my ribs
stretches idle release
expanding my blood
the universe complete
with me
beneath a blanket folded like Euphoria
behind her eyes
hearts climb too high
and falter
falling miles
wingless flocks
returning weighted
unannounced until
like lead
a heavy thunder crashes
startling her from sleep
to find codeine caked in the
corners of her eyes
5.
no flowers, nor music for the victors,
no.
the losers shadows still stalk the earth with rifles
Cain is at an ancient stove
making soup from Abel’s leg bone
and he is wearing the coat
the coat he killed his brother for
and he is smoking tobacco
he is hungry
and there is no music
in his kitchen
except for the water
breaking a boil in the pot
the unpicked flowers growing in the yard
and the shadows rifles firing
on heaven.
6.
I have waited with the latches undone
the doors are open
and if you look inside
you will find me
tangled in the lines of parabolic letters
open envelopes lie like oysters shells
the beach is not as white
as the buttons of your blouse undone again.
I reasoned promises from your eyes
and the burden of my expectations
now keeps them closed
what will open them again?
what can I open
to make them mine for a moment?
A bottle of wine?
A book of poems?
A window to the moon?
An oysters shell could reveal to you
my patience and persistence through a pearl.
How can I open the boarders that keep you suspended?
A photograph that fades when I hold it in my hands.
I am praying for a sweeping dance that promises no end.
I will be waiting among the withered reeds and broken latches.
I am requesting that the world be returned.
the photographs burned.
a sweeping dance that promises no end.
7.
Hemmingway has made me mean. He has filled my head with words that bend women the wrong way. He has taught me the most efficient method of driving a faltering love to ruin. Hemmingway has shown me one way to never grow old.
8.
She will come. The ceremony will never end. The ritual will forever repeat. We will never grow old. We will close in on the reasons. Feed on the body’s fine mists. We will cure each other of promises when she comes.
9.
Here in the east we move mountains with our fingers- the wind begins in our lungs- we create water from nothing- knock the moon from orbit with words- we will murder the sun and illuminate the world ourselves- swell the oceans ceaseless lashes to wash away the insidious- bleach the blood from our sleeves- never wince in the face of those who would see us fail.
(1954)
vocab.
[ 25 January 2003: Message edited by: vocab ]
