presssendpoetry

complexity of the time-space continuum

Ok, I’m still working on the ideas/metaphors behind this one (started many years ago, still not even close to being finished). As it it deals with space-time, I hope you indulge me a bit. I have no business diving into these areas, but I like to anyway. The idea of relativity, of our clocks as inconsequential, all our fears, worries, anxieties all wrapped up in our own version of time, which we know only as a constant… then learning that it’s not! If you are into cosmology and related “light” reading, look up Mario Livio. [my fav astrophysicist/author]

complexity of the time-space continuum

I am a three dimensional solid although
many dark nights I feel completely flat.
I experience time, and it is blood pounding through my heart.

In the universe, all is light billions of years in the traveling
through space billions of miles empty.
Here, all is the idea of now.

So many times I say I have not begun what I set out to do,
that I’m wasting my life
sitting in this dark moldy stairwell waiting.

Waiting on the perfectly safe door to open.
Waiting on a perfect gentleman to lead the way.
Waiting on that epoch fear that my hours will cease
before I’m ready.

Some say “be patient and wait, in the future you will see.”

Future?
Don’t they hear the hours
while we stand still growing old.
Don’t they see sand swallowed by the tide,
by the moon,
All of us neither created nor destroyed
yet slowed by gravity, affected.
Don’t they understand by the end of this breath,
our notion of the present is the past
and by the time we decide to move,
the space is filled.

No one, not even Einstein or Hawking,
has this relativity figured. Us poets
are not exceptional. We witness
our space plowing straight ahead
to only come out bent.

Two Live, One Dies

He seemed embarrassed to call,

but now,
he clutches my hair painfully,
fistfuls of soft brown waves
twirled up and tangled in his white knuckle fists.

His head rests on my shoulder and
bobs gently in steady shakes.

I am crying,
but my tears are running down my throat
so he won’t feel them.

My hands pet his hair and face
like a mother and son
and I whisper nonsensical
like empathy is possible.

He is mumbling words,
prayers wet on my shirt,
for the friend in the backseat–
white sandy hair
bleached eyebrows
tanned legs
soft snores now permanent.

(r.i.p. dave hayes 2002)

HFStival 2004

[HFStivals were THE events in the DC/Baltimore area while I was in school, all thanks to the greatest alternative radio station that ever was, 99.1 WHFS (rip)]

Trade your aviator shades for
a Seattle radio station button during
Modest Mouse off-stage, grab a beer, and
settle down on a hill
next to greasy passed out bare legs,
and pick at French fries like sea gulls,
stumble off inside,
shoving through to the stadium floor
for a taste of mud mixed with beer mixed with weed
while you crowd surf and wipe-out.

We had such a buzz kickin cause it was 90 degrees and sunny.
We sweated body to body and our ears burned.

Collapse into a seat when night falls
and the sliver of a moon appears in the middle of the
open dome ceiling;
listen to the man with the black eyes and red lips
sing “i will always love you” with a gothic howl.

Finding Truth in a Darkroom

Am I the only one who misses film? Settling into the afternoon and thinking how much I miss the surprise of a new roll of film. I found an old roll sitting in my purse this morning, which I think was from a weekend trip to Portland, Maine. I wonder if it is still good? I wonder if there are any places left that will process it? I wonder what our faces will look like if I do get the prints made….

Finding Truth in a Darkroom

My eyes are a
shutter open as the world blurs by
and when I blink,
I capture your face in
black and white clarity—
your scars
etched carefully on film.

Then, if I use the technique
of solarization
I learned many years ago,
your expression can be exposed,
naked print facing forward,
before a flash of light.

Negatives will
become positives
by chance, in chaotic fashion,
meaning
you can’t know exactly
how it will turn out.

At first thought,
the Sabatier effect
may suggest a complete darkening,
a wasted effort,
but no, instead your face appears—
your pupils brightly opposite.

I get what I want

I said to the man,
“Gimme more”
and he said, “take take!”

I reach; my hands fervently
staining with the juice
of those red berries pressed
into wine,
and I am drunk,
my lips purple and even
that color I lick
off to get more.

I said again to the man,
“It is not enough;
you must do better”
And he quietly
takes me by the hand,
and leads me down
into the
hungry darkness.

One Night in Mission Beach

In the shadows
Of a steaming bath with Turkish detailing
And palm trees framing its lovely face,
So gently,
Like my wet hair to my forehead and neck,
I was held in arms
Bigger than my own, bigger than my fears.
Arms
With strong muscles and hands
That seemed to seek out
My weaknesses and my dreams
On my wet appendages and
Underwear not meant for swimming.

And the jet stream pulsed around us with bubbles,
And the sky seemed to spell out in its stars,
You only live once,
Live it up.

Nursing Home Hallway

I turn to leave
and watch my grandmother,
dressed gracefully in
white slacks hanging
loose over thin limbs. She is tall,
regal,
looking at me from the middle of a
tan hallway that stretches
into a deep florescent
lighting, nourishing
the hazy limbo between us.

I walk straight,
past pictures of Christ
and metal crosses that hang
on the stripes of wallpaper
and fish circling in a dull tank,
past dark hollow rooms
where white-clothed bodies
watch TV,
past the chapel
that is now empty and waiting for
tomorrow morning’s mass.

I stop abruptly after a few feet and turn.
I watch my grandmother, her
thin frame easing into the hallway shadows.
She knows,
turns,
waves goodbye.

The light gets bright at the entrance.
I pass
white-haired women
who talk of President Roosevelt
and I hurriedly
push open the door.

no meds

Little poems are soul food~
you will feast as long as you
don’t let em get ya, don’t let em ever get ya.
You’ll live the colors that create life.

Don’t you let em lock ya up
with their nonsensical ramblings of ordinary thought.

Tell em: no meds;
you were born as stardust
and don’t need nothing more than that.

agoraphobic

An old man with gray mustache
deplores the light when peeking through the green door
of an unmarked bar
on an unmarked, unremarkable city street.
He wears
an argyle sweater vest
that matches nothing, and stands in stark contrast
to the dark pouring out from behind him.

I saw him.

And I saw a 1-800-call-Jesus billboard bus sign
for a quit heroin half way house
sprayed with graffiti.
I saw porcelain hands praying without arms
confined in a windowsill, in front of blinds dusty
with neglect.

I saw all those others
rushing by and those passed out on the benches
that boldly boast: Baltimore, the greatest city in America.

I did nothing but stare.
My heart beating
loud above the sirens;
my palms wet with sweat.

ghost

I am a cold vapor, a whisper— I feel
nothing when I walk. My
loose skirt gliding gently above the
wooden floor.
The dust stirs slightly in my presence
but that is all.

I want to be the spirit who
throws china with a heart-breaking crash.
I want to be the memory that
raises hair on your arms.
I want to be the phantom
you call to in the night, when no one is around.

But silence is mine. I leave
the light on
with tears that
won’t wet my cheeks.