college – Page 2 – Press Send Poetry

life just is

We’ve all but forgotten the heartache
jon
cause life just is–
the days dwindle from when I spent
warm evenings with you,
the weeks slip and slide
and before long
I won’t have a good clear picture
of your face
only a haze from something that was
so overwhelming once
to see our best friends carry
that heavy casket
to see only pictures lining the room
to have the unspoken
hanging heavy fear that
we won’t remember you
jon,
I still have your photo on my desk
our triumphant return from the Keys
in your broken car
I remember your eyebrow raise
your voice laughing
“shut up jody”

Key West Florida (spring break notes)

6am “morning — stupid roosters crowing, house/trailer sleeping — I’m awake again clouds above are so thin drift on like a fine layer of lace on a blue sky dress. view partially framed with large skinny fingers of a green brown palm plant curling around each other in a tango. my feet are really dirty. one big toe completely black the bottoms look like I walked miles without shoes in a charcoal street.”

2pm “play on Jerry, got to love the Dead on a day like today, all sunshine in a cloudless sky light breezes carrying me away sand crawling like ants and the little waves rolling in, rolling on, rolling over clumps of seaweed smelling like the beach whatever that means and it’s probably time, as the song comes to an end, to reapply sunscreen.”

1am “till the morning comes again, we’re gonna drown our minds dissolving our thoughts like sugar into tea sweet colors and sounds become their faces longtime friends and those we’re bound to meet eventually. till the morning comes again with rosy fingers we’re gonna dance legs and arms moving like a slow motion trance in a silent movie white and black the night sky forgetting and showering drinks, drops satisfying tongues like rain.”

ghosts at church point (at st. mary’s college of maryland)

Justin lays frozen
beneath a pile of oyster shells
on the slope of the hill
at the edge of the old graveyard behind
Calvert Hall and the church.
I press my hand
on the cold metal of his name and
continue the walk down gravel
to the frozen river, the shore dressed in white.

At the end, a tall wooden cross
guards the river. I lean against it,
steamy puffs of air rising
up with each shallow breath,
one gloved hand splintering wood.
I hear birds flapping their wings and water
clicking and clacking in a strained attempt
at escape. There, the frozen horizon; it
stretches far beyond my sight.

Spread wide, my arms north and south,
face pale and cold, cheeks ruddy
from light river breezes.
The songs of the Sunday
church choir come floating in my brain,
the ghosts on the hill with
their soft waves of whispers. I walk
closer to the water; I am now
closer to that compelling
that led Justin quiet from this life.

(Rip, Justin, April 30, 2001)

Pieces (in Point Lookout)

I wrote this in college, on a trip to Point Lookout in St. Mary’s City, Maryland. The lighthouse is on the site of an old confederate prison, and it is said to be one of the most haunted places in America [you can even request haunted campgrounds]. I went with one of my best friends one night out of the blue, and he was so scared of getting too close. The night was very vivid, cold, and we didn’t speak much because it would have spoiled the scene….

Pieces

I picked up a rock
and skipped it,
ripples in a frosted river
and us walking
sand between our toes
under a black velvet sky.
The night dead quiet
and not a soul stirring
except some lighthouse ghosts
and our own two beating hearts
pounding out the rhythm
for the stars
as they danced across the universe
and then tripped,
fell scattered to the ground–
as if God shattered a glass
and we were meant to pick up the pieces
carefully, one by one,
and skip them across the heavens.

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)

residue

It’s beautiful and sunny, yet I’m feeling dark today. Dredging up some older poems. These, obviously, are more difficult to post than the ones about my family. Maybe that’s why I want to get them up now. Before anyone finds out about this blog….

Residue

Daylight comes creeping over tight shut lids.
I’m still in my clothes,
I’m on the shag carpet,
I’m feeling my head ripping apart.

My mascara runs and
leaves some raccoon eyes
looking at cold rain
with sadness. There is no one around
to see the mess that’s left.
There’s no one to clean up the
sticky kitchen floor,
no one to put the stale food away.

My dreams of black coffee and
black t-shirt men give me the shakes.
I’m tasting the residue
of a lingering hangover that feeds these thoughts.

I could claw my way out,
I could forget all the mistakes,
I could remember my medicine if you would just let me be.

“What brings me down now is love,” cry the crows.
They fly over the humming wheat fields Van Gogh saw
before he died.
I have the dried paint on my fingertips and under my eyes.

North Platte

I wrote this in a motel room very late (or early in the morning) after a long day of driving across Nebraska (towards the end of a cross country road trip with 3 college friends). We had arrived in North Platte in the middle of a great thunderstorm, lightning striking everywhere and tornado warnings on the radio (sadly my friends would not let me chase them). The hallways of the motel resembled a scene in The Shining, and I think all the traveling had really started affecting my brain – especially since I had left MD weeks earlier knowing that I would never see my great aunt ever again (she died of cancer just a few days into the trip). So was born the following….

North Platte

My stomach knots
and this hotel room smells familiar
and my clothes for tomorrow
will be the same as a few days ago
and my big thrill at two in the morning
will be brushing my teeth and showering.

I have the comfort of not caring—
outside the wind stops
and the moon slowly dissolves into shadows
and a mountain lion slips across an asphalt road
staring at the headlights of an intrusive car.

My friends will travel out in the morning,
but I will have slipped away,
Finding a way to grow a flower
in a littered empty coffee cup,
Kicking desert dust up under flip flops
Running towards away,
away to oblivion,
Taillights dimming around a curve
and my friends forgetting to wave goodbye.

Somehow in the dark
I can see my past clearly like my great aunt’s eyes
that stare from the coming sunbeams
and the white clouds and the dark clouds that
flash streaks of splitting lightning
and I grow older and older.

Just yesterday I was a fire ant
marching beside our tent
by the side of some Colorado river and cliffs
in some Colorado valley
where an old fashioned cowboy’s voice sang modern country
to a fading full moon
and ranch workers drunk around a bonfire
who went to sleep sometime.

My friends sleep—they breathe in and out
like the stale hotel room is alive.
But me, I am spitting up blood until dawn
till there’s no more left and I can look forward
to being the skyscrapers of bright city skylines
and the sharp cliffs of national parks.
Tomorrow you’ll hear my relief
exhale across the plains.

Remembering Spring Break 2002

South of the Border coffee
during the bleary night time morning, we
lost a bumper along 95
and sped our way like fast and furious
rebel riders. We were,
with walkie talkies, heading
to spring break.

Salty breezes
and some fat keyboardist with
fuzzy beard peppered gray
singing political satire and no one cared.
Dane, you, and I were
sitting sipping ritas in sloppy golden
honey sunshine famous in Key West.

Cool night, we
drank grain alcohol from odd angles
for prized smiles of being cool amongst
all our shiny beaded friends.
Your naked moments won us
a free frozen drink koozie
and jet ski ride we never took.

Long hours after the karaoke,
you and Sush found a credit card and brought home cold waffles at 5 am.
I sat in the trailer writing frantically, high on caffeine pills and palm tree fingers:

the blurry street lines, the charcoal miles, the hot rum, the mac and cheese, the seafood buffet, the southern girls, the scooter scars, the trailer smell, the Chicago gospel, the Hemingway cats, the frantic hunger, the ephemeral buzz….

Your car gasped for air when the week ended but there was none;
we were overheated, belly-up fish in Miami rush hour.

Sunburn behind and
and dark interstate miles ahead,
we sat on the dented hood.
Our sweaty hungry friends
waving at prudish traffic
a “honk if you’re horny” sign,
reminiscing and waiting to move on.

(r.i.p. Sekula 2003)