You sent me Om
while I was home, wondering
how many copper flecks
hide inside your eyes.
I was driving through Indiana
in October, thought of you and got lost
just moments after sunset; every color
of the irises of all the men I’ve loved.
You arrive by mail
and I am dazed in your swirl
and the shine of pinks and blues
that rest on all the petals.
I need you and you need me
and everything else is just an obstacle
until I can get to you, pull at your shirt
and love you in person.
i’ve had a lot of men
who told me they couldn’t be with me
because i wasn’t happy
that they let me go
so i could find happiness
since i couldn’t get it from them
but you understand
or seem to at least
that there is no unending happiness
we can float on a cloud
or a feeling or a moment
but it can’t hang in the air forever
there will be days that ache
there will be days and days of bliss
but when, we can’t predict
so i think of you and your words
and there doesn’t have to be needless years of misery
but the balance of all things you and me
and i still love you
even though it might be too soon
and i don’t want to say it
i’d rather give that to you another day
a day with my mouth pink against your mouth
a day that just is what it is and nothing else
I want to show you the places
where I used to sit alone
an hour from home.
My limbs were skinny then
and you would have fit nicely
inside my jagged collarbone.
I will still take you there
with red leaves and marsh grass
if you don’t mind a curvy girl.
I am hips now and rose lips
and you would fit nicely
inside my warm body.
I want to show you the swan
and the wood and the slate; the bridge
and the things behind my buttons.
I don’t have much left
to give or even keep for me.
But I want to give you as much
as I can, with my hands: I want
to make music for you and write
sweet little poems that might make sense.
Or not. I could spent hours with you
doing absolutely nothing. It’s free.
And we could be free. Roam the woods
and the world while holding hands.
I’m not sure why I entertain the thought
that you would ever want me because you
are in the thick of things far more important
than what lives inside my daydreams.
I just want to be beside you and maybe look
into your eyes if I am not nervous.
Then you can see that despite all my bullshit
I am very, very serious about you and me.
Don’t forget the Leonid meteor shower.
Don’t forget to shower again.
Like you did last night.
I am not sure how long I will last.
Not without your hands on my face.
Warm and wet.
Want you.
Red mouth on my eyelid.
Inner wrist on tongue.
Your thigh against my ear.
I don’t know how this works.
The mechanics of you and me.
Best understood geometrically.
You’d know better than I.
And you say you don’t know much at all.
Nothing valuable.
I say you are wrong.
You know there is a meteor shower.
You know where the music went.
You placed it gently in my palm.
I placed it up to my ear and smiled.
I say I need you.
For some reason, this doesn’t scare you.
You pull to me like a magnet.
A strong magnet in a junkyard.
You found me and I was in pieces.
I was ridiculous.
For some reason, you don’t run away.
We met and it was good.
We met and it is still good.
Three months and you don’t upset me.
Might be a world record.
In my little world.
A world with you and records.
The fake trees and legs like Legos.
Plastic green grass like Easter melted.
All my eggs are hidden.
You still found me.
I was sitting inside a treble clef.
I slid down to meet you.
You slid your words inside of me.
I don’t want to let them out.
You make me feel like I am just me.
And you are you and I feel the need to tell you.
I tell you that you are handsome.
You feel ugly and laugh.
I feel ugly and laugh.
You make me feel ten thousand emotions.
Most of them are twirling and skipping.
My face is warm.
My hands crave other skin.
We could put our hands together.
We could see what might happen.
If we don’t keep our hands in our pockets.
you tell me not to try and figure this out
but that’s like holding a thin glass bubble between two tired hands
and i am glad that all the laughter and wisdom and teasing and music
brings the softness i need to get through a day
because a kiss from sleepy lips might undo us both
so i walk around with pockets full of sweet admiring in the daytime
before the wolves come out and the coyotes seek something to gnaw at
just after i look for jupiter which supposedly sits besides the moon but is hiding
under a cover of clouds in a black bed
there are rules for things
even at the level of the heart–
which usually abandons the mind
and sometimes strays off the well-worn path;
goes looking for birds of every color,
searches high for every hue tucked inside a cloud,
longs for the key to the city of the puzzle
and never finds the answers; hangs itself from a poplar.
sleeps outdoors in winter without blankets,
wears a robe and broken slippers while smoking the house,
is a newspaper on a doorstep
with the other newspapers on the doorstep.
the rules to matters concerning the heart
involve no rules at all
except the laundry list of rules once unspoken
that are unrolled for miles when everything breaks
and most certainly will.
currently consumed. apocalypse now. the elephant man. one flew over the cuckoo’s next. the night of the hunter. brilliant films.
i have been sick for about 4 months. i recently dropped all of my spring courses so i could focus on my work and getting better. hanging in there.
in january i visited san diego. i can’t get that city out of my bones. i stayed in la mesa. real, beautiful weather. nice people. good shows there and in los angeles. a documentary screening. new friends. but i was really sick the whole time. did my best. had fun anyway.
i have my own radio show on tuesdays at 9pm EST over on realpunkradio.com. it is called “my little darlin’ radio hour” and i play all sorts of music… garage rock, indie, tweepop, no wave, early blues and country… no real rhyme or reason. just good tunes.
taking a break from poetry and my thoughts while life gets sorted out. happy to know what having a good friend feels like and i have a handful…damn lucky girl i am. f’real.
hope anyone who reads this is taking care and for you regular writers out there please keep it up. i don’t think writing is something you can lose once you’ve done it, but sticking with it is never a bad thing.
cheers!
k
(this is a song by the wedding present)
When you told me that you don’t get shivers any more
When you hold me you said it’s just not like it was before
Overnight you changed, the world got rearranged
You were clever, the way you never settled down
To be here forever, the way you smiled and said
Let’s take it one day at a time, you walk out and I’m
Not allowed to feel betrayed
I’m not allowed to feel deceived
Because no promises were made
Whatever I might have believed
So you’ve managed to avoid all the arguing and I bet
You are entirely devoid of any feelings of regret
When I met you, I was so in love that I
Just sat back and let you make up all the rules and that
Wasn’t a good thing to do because my world revolves around you and I’m
Not allowed to feel betrayed
I’m not allowed to feel deceived
Because no promises were made
Whatever I might have believed
So you’ve managed to avoid all the arguing and I bet
You are entirely devoid of any feelings of regret
I closed a chapter
on someone who is not the end
to my other bookend.
He told me to have a nice
life, and I did.
Another chapter opens
with a tug on my little heart-
strings.
There are men forbidden
to be with me.
And the ones who touch me
feel my fire, and then they
mysteriously disappear.
