Untitled

I stroll upon the foremost page of your mind:
You are wondering how that little girl grew
and why she demands the world. You're dismayed -
you've done everything yet nothing.
Chided, consoled, disciplined, loved - fruitless!
Mold, compress, harness, restrain - desperate!
And why she demands the world.
You don't know it was offered in that first breath
of earthly living air and that
every morning it is a promise renewed -
offered again -
unholy and tainted
the incense of strife and success
and of adulthood and heartbreak
and of death and rebirth
Crisp origamis of lives on display.
People arrayed in all their 3 dimensional pain.
That is offered again - renewed -
tantilizing and unreal
borderless.
You are wondering. You've done everything yet nothing.

Vow:
Not until maturity crushes this tender promise
(complete with aspirations of a child)
will I cease to feel the joy of wanting the world.
Of yearning, desiring, striving, begging, wrecking, deceiving
for the world.
For it was offered in that first breath of living air
I want the world.

Surrendering

You were full and fully capable
You were self sufficient and needless
Your house was fully decorated in that sense

You were taken with me to a point
A case of careful what you wish for
But what you knew was enough to begin

And so you called and courted fiercely
So you reached out, entirely fearless
And yet you knew of reservation and how it serves

And I salute you for your courage
And I applaud your perseverance
And I embrace you for your faith in the face of adversarial forces
That I represent

So you were in but not entirely
You were up for this but not totally
You knew how arms length-ing can maintain doubt

And so you fell and you're intact
So you dove in and you're still breathing
So you jumped and you're still flying if not shocked

And I support you in your trusting
And I commend you for your wisdom
And I'm amazed by your surrender in the face of threatening forces
That I represent

You found creative ways to distance
You hid away from much through humor
Your choice of armor was your intellect

Self protection was in times of true danger
Your best defense to mistrust and be wary
Surrendering a feat of unequalled measure
And I'm thrilled to let you in
Overjoyed to be let in in kind

-Alanis Morisette

Disenchantment

[To Sarah, this is dedicated to you with a blessing: May your suitor get a clue. Soon.]

You failed to bring that debonair spark
I missed your sudden gleam when you entered -
there was no flash.
Maybe next time you'll do better.
[Next time]
Well, maybe not.
Okay: readjust my expectations that perhaps I'd set to high
Yes I knew you were mortal
I'd just forgotten
It got scrambled in that late-night calculation
when I also forgot you faults.
Surprising, you have quite a few.
Never noticed you cracked your knuckles
and clear your throat everytime you say "Heillldengaaard".
But of course that's fine - we all have our qurks
and physical flaws like your unusual ears and bow-shaped nose.
[Pause]
You never mentioned you are obsessed with Oprah
And that your kitchen floor has never seen a mop.
Your classic, careless wardrobe is beginning to look grundgy
(have you ever taken those pants to the cleaners?)
The half-lidded, smoky look that made me swoon
looks daft in broad daylight.
Sorry I didn't call last night [first time in two weeks].
No, not tomorrow. Maybe later [maybe never].
See ya.

[Sheepish laugh]

Whew.

That was close.

Black Horse & The Cherry Tree

Well my heart knows me better than I know myself
So I'm gonna let it do all the talking.
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.

I fell in fear, upon my back
He said "Don't look back, just keep on walking."
When the big black horse said, "Hey lady!"
Said, "Look this way, will you marry me?"

But I said no, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no. You're not the one for me
No, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no. You're not the one for me

And my heart had a problem, in the early hours,
So I stopped it dead for a beat or two.
But I cut some cord, and I shouldn't have done that,
And it won't forgive me after all these years

So I sent it to a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.
Now it won't come back, cause it's oh so happy
And now I've got a hole for the world to see


Big black horse and a cherry tree
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me
Big black horse and a cherry tree
No, no, no, no
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me

- KT Tunstall

A Solitary Triumph

[Statistics show that the number of criminal women is considerably less in proportion than that of male criminals.]

OH, the progress of Woman has really been vast

Since Civilization began.

She's usurped all the qualities which in the past

Were reckoned peculiar to Man.

She can score with a bat, use a rod or a cue;

Her tennis and golf are sublime.

Her aim with a gun is uncommonly true,

But Man beats her hollow at crime.

The strings to her bow are both varied and quaint;

There are maids who can work with the pen,

There are maids who can handle the palette and paint

With a skill that's not given to men.

There are ladies who preach, lady doctors there are,

MPs will be ladies in time,

And ladies, I hear, practise now at the Bar --

But Man holds the record for crime.

So it's hey for the jemmy, and ho for the drill,

And hurrah for the skeleton keys.

Oh, to burgle a house or to rifle a till!

I am more than her equal at these.

She may beat me at home, she may beat me afield;

In her way I admit she is prime.

But one palm at least I compel her to yield:

I can give her a lesson in crime.

-P.G. Wodehouse

The Accursed

Is this rediculous tune playing again?
What in hell -
Do you think you will hypotise me
insych with your reality?
Spewing the innards of this song
daemons, sloths, worms and spirits
convort onto this psuedo-nightmare of a dream
Do you believe I will fall for this
deathlike-pantomime?
My hope is deeper than your ocean of ruination
So play it again
So play it again
What in hell -
Do you think you will hypnotise me
insynch with your warped reality?
You existence is ephermeral
and this battle is supernatural
I will not buy into this death-like pantomime
An eternal being:
(living for more than merely today)
Should never buy into this death-like pantomime
(if only because there is life everlasting)

To a friend

Your voices sound distant yet warm
and I respond to your laughter and rediculous antics -
How a simple grammatical truth could be the subject
of such mockery is only possible in the closest of company.
You look so happy next to him as he struggles to express
deep affection through gentle teasing and sarcastic retorts.
Smiling, you understand.
You know it too -
You feel it, and it is right.

Afterglow

Just when the days start getting colder,
I walk the streets I never knew.
There's some words I never told you.
The sound rings out like the truth.


As I sit here in this dark room, all I seem to feel is light.
I see color, I see the maroon in the blood of this life...
That's ours.

Watch the sun it paints an orange sky.
Lay me down and feel the days gone by.

Just when the days start getting longer,
I walk the streets I never knew...
The sun comes out for you.

And if you could see what's come over me,
then you would know.
'Cause I'm walking free.
The wind at my back, bathed in afterglow.

-Vanessa Carlton

Speed Dating

Step right up

Take'em down

Duckies in a row

Ping ping ping

Score!

(Big time)

Move on.

Victorian

Covert glances in public places
muted whispers and calling cards.
Restraining -
refraining -
waiting for your cue, your implicit nuance -
a hint of lust?
Never black and white (never hit it on)
Only smooth lilac, cream, and emerald.
We dance a painstaking masquerade in low-lit halls
as aquaintances and distant music meld
into the background of our
- Waxen Set-up -
Position Here:
Hand behind back, face behind fan, heart behind form.
Hair severe, rouge thick, lips closed.
Satins entrap heavy breathing -
Perfumes mask fervent feeling -
restraining
refraining
poised in a perfect tableaux
waiting for you.

Vehicle and Animals

It's the simple things like the robots Stevie G draws
and the ease with which we seem to pull those tricks.
There are moments of escape for every one of us
and the beauty in the times that we create.
I saw you smiling
and I need my vehicles and animals and I will be alright.
Take me back to nineteen-seventy-nine so I can find my open eyes.
He can play all by himself for many hours
I have never seen a kid who's so content.
There is nothing from the outside that can touch him
'cause he's just learning how to be alone with one.
Lying down on my bed Ijust got another kick to the head
oh yeah you're a part of me yet another branch on the family tree.
Slt on my fingers,salt in my cuts,salt on my face and salt in my guts.
I's been a battle but we've come through
okaytop what you're doing and play.
'Cuse we've got our vehicles and animals
so we're gonna be alright there's no need for us to go back in time.
Bcause we've found our open eyes
Weve got our vehicles and animals so we're gonna be alright.

-Athlete

Sanctified

Now we have not received the Spirit of the World, but the Spirit who is from God, in order to know what has been freely given by God. . . Don't you know that you are God's sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone ruins God's sanctuary, God will ruin him; for God's sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are. . . Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body.

-1 Corinthians 2:12, 3:16-17, 6:19-20

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

- Billy Collins "The Apple that Astonished Paris"

Simply Ghastly

Exclamation point stare
Drop jaw prickle scalp
halt shift rubber neck
shudder fun hide fast

Fashion faux pas.

Ever-Fixed Mark

Development/growth/expansion
are too scientific/economic
for the language of love -
They exclude from its vision
possibilities of remaining/eternally
with him/forever.

Industrial Consumption

A burning intensity consumes all
except the mounting debris of loose
carbon ash and dreams
swept into the wastepan tucked
neatly underneath the sterile desk
of your conscious thoughts.

Pity Bath

What does not break you leaves you bitter
I watched that expression before
a mingling of resentment and bleeding wounds
revealing your past upon that sketch blank.
History claws into your heart
staining the delicate future hope.
Play that self-pity chord again
Pull the empathy from the crowd
Would their shallow mourning lessen the burn?
How can they know - How you have suffered -
Wasn't it all against the rules?
So life's not fair (not fair)
(but a future's beautiful).
Shake those bitter scales let them fall as dead
forsake them for hope.
A sketch blank renewed.
I watched that expression before
what does not break you leaves you with a
past.

The Luck of the Bodkins

Too damn silly, he felt, her asking a thing like that when for days he had been going out of his way to make it abundantly clear what his feelings were towards her. An intelligent girl like herself, he meant to say, was surely aware that a fellow does not look at her the way he had been looking, squeeze her hand the way he had been squeezing it and kiss her on dark decks the way he had been kissing her, unless he means something by it.

Reginald: "I've loved you ever since you nearly twisted my neck off that first day."
Mabel: "Great."
Reginald: "I started worshipping you at that precise moment."
Mabel: "Swell."
Reginald: "And day by day in every way it's getting worse and worse ever since."
Mabel: "Don't you mean better and better?"
Reginald: "No, I don't mean better and better. I mean worse and worse. And why? Because it's hopeless. Abso-bally-hopeless."
Mabel: "Hopeless? Why? If what's worrying you is that you think I don't love you, dismiss that notion. I'm crazy about you."
Reginald: "You are?"
Mabel: "Dippy."
Reginald: "Would you marry me if I asked you?"
Mabel: "I'm going to marry you even if you don't ask me."

-P G Whodehouse

Daylight Robbery

Don't mind me - Just cruising by -
by the girl with the balloon.
Good, it looks like we're the only ones around.
Caught on CCTV - Heading towards the city lights
Winking diamonds at me, arms stretched out now.
Ha-oooooooooo, it gets me everytime.
Sexy baby, Happiness and silhouettes,
Revolving in the deep water.
Indigo its high tide,night sky, pleasure moment.
Thinking big thinking positive and itching to get on with it
Its all stops out.
Excess is the new moderation
Get all dressed up to the power of ten
Raise glasses on repeat, again, again, again, again, again, again
Ha-ooooo it gets me everytime, wade in the sonic joy
Pleasure in the wave and synchronise
Sway in the sonic joy.

-Imogen Heap

Rebirth

Drop all hindrances
Be renewed
Press onward
God willing
We will survive
Unscathed and reborn
Gleaming and clean
An offering to you
My Savior

Let me write as unto you -