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December 14, 2004
Means of Conveyance
Winter
A monkish engine hides behind this cowl.
Sluggish when cold, self-deprecating when
low on fuel. Complacent on hills. Not quite
honest despite its bruised fenders and wheedling
serpentine belt that no one has seen.
Summer
Parking lots melt back into constituents.
Electric doors fail to open, sensors somnolent
in the thick air. Streets with names like
Primrose stink in the heat. What is, is not,
when roads and soles begin to fuse.
Spring
Leaving the highway, the undiscovered country of
off ramps and pit stops, young men ejaculate
manifestos. Their waking and dreaming fused
in the invisible patterns left by hands held
out the car window, splitting the slipstream.
Fall
A car becomes the sum of its occupants, disgorging
pilgrims at the crossroads. In the slow veins
of leaves crushed by tires, a code. Under
the hood, the means of conveyance.
Windows roll down and the scenery floods in.
Posted by Josh at 12:38 AM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2004
Love Letter (Revision 1/03/04)
"Not easy to state the change you made" - Sylvia Plath's "Love Letter"
Itís never simple to change, once you live like
the stillness of glass. According to my nativity,
never to be bothered by it, though I could say
your name millions of different ways; it would still
come out the same. I am not sure what
color yours were; they always pointed to heaven,
with such unexpected descriptions; a close destination
where we saw disenchanting glibness, walleyed stars.
That will be all. I froze, say, two or three stares:
hidden in quarterly fish-wrappers as this fish does when
surrounded by metropolitan-ality of reviews in Fall.
Like like-minded dilettantes, ingenues with faulty wings -
Winged cheeks that engorge with blush and bite
my own pallid sauce with one vacant eye staring
snappishly at your moon visors; what will one more
be to me? These affectations bear no knowledge
of my hieroglyphic skin. These bladders remind me of
several other panpipes I played, with no treble response.
And still I carried on, a finger crawling with empty circumference.
The first thing I had had was dead air
and the locked vision that zeroed on nothings
that sprayed my incarnadine alloy, without preparation.
Full of aerated domes, I couldnít quite find my way out.
I froze, emasculated by the bedizens, the masks of flesh-
colored fluids mirror against the warm salt of a drug
of choice, mirroring smiles, swallowing away bistering sea.
I couldnít tell. I see you from the jump.
You fall, and catch the shooting light of ammonia, methane,
carbon dioxide, and water, always ahead by
the hair on its head. As my circumference closes,
engulfing a pose of an icebound effigy, the snare encircles me;
From sky to glass I have progressed, bending the language
to suit my needs. Now I dissemble those spindling stars,
twinkles that catch me. These snuff-colored stars gush ice,
freeze the brain in emerald negatives. Iíve a knack for it.
Posted by tony at 04:02 PM | Comments (2)
December 09, 2004
The Pianist
Lithe piano-fingers scaling
slender ivory precipices,
like a ten-legged spider flailing
delicate threads across pieces
by Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven.
His lank body leaning toward each note
with a face washed of all emotion,
lost and safe in a world afloat
on straining piano wires.
Tender movements by masters weeping
for unmarked burning funeral pyres,
unspeakable guilt, crimes gripping
one who canít undo what he did.
The pianist gently closes the lid.
Posted by amber at 05:47 PM | Comments (2)
December 02, 2004
Fisher of Men (revision)
You cast your disingenuous line,
ìI love this man!î
it whirrrs past me with dangerous aim,
then you run down the aisle
in a wide-brimmed hat with ribbons and rattle jigs.
I circuitously make my way through familiar and
strange dresses, suits to approach
your beautifully made-up face
sparkling at guests from a golden corona.
Your teeth flash readily for a second
husband; the photographerís waiting with his soul-stealer,
I canít wait to be next.
Luminescence falls on my face,
my life is better than possible,
and for a minute I catch your charm
in my childish net but its only me
so the light seals into a disapproving scowl.
Now I see its only sunlight filtering through blonde curls,
sea-foam blue layered on distrusting eyelids,
pink lipstick-stained teeth.
Your milestone anniversaries seem impossible, I turn the page.
The groom smiles through his drooping mustache,
the bride flanked by congratulations,
your lives diligently mapped out as round-cornered pictures.
Remembering my place in your world I
gingerly put your celebration back on the shelf;
my hands shake like a hooked fish in battle
sending glass mementos fumbling through desperate fingers.
Like a suffocating fish, your husbandís eyes blink in wonder
at the far reach of the fisher-womanís hand.
Heís been watching me wriggle at the end of your barbed hook
while heís been expiring,
his blurry eyes revealing everything.
Posted by amber at 07:52 PM | Comments (3)
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Posted by amber at 02:11 PM | Comments (2)