Rosary

Here in my own parade
I’m a castaway
I’m a terrible kind of alive
Would I mind moving aside?

Here on a carousel
which spun very well
was a boy who was swelling with pride
as he kissed her on the eyes

When we are old and gray
I’ll be somewhere safe
I’ll be wrapped up and warm and inside
and I hope we’re both alive

To stand on arbor’s edge
hold the vines in our hands
and pluck them, sweet and divine
but from them runs some other man’s wine

I was born to my brother’s arms
and to my alarm, I saw an image of you
as it was carved through to my eyes
and I’ve waited my whole life
while you pray for happiness
and I pray for blindness

2010
02/08
CATEGORY
Poetry
Unrequited
dreams
freedom
love
sad
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Action

Here is what I want to remember:

the experiences that appear
in the most stunning reality
after the moments of contemplation
that occur as the room blinks into black

the realization that this night has the potential
to be different than every other

the way things begin in swirling consideration
and are lost in the unfolding of events

the disappearance of time and thought
in the moments between being myself
and kissing you

the significance of simple words
exchanged in the space of a few crucial minutes

the realization that it is possible to skip loudly
while walking home

noticing my silhouette as I shed my sweatshirt
framed by the streetlit window

terribly worded goodnight messages

telling you “I’ll see you after the sun rises”

deciding now if its worth going to sleep
when my skin is rippling with this much energy

the attempt to write this all down in poetry
if only as a way to save it in memory

postscript –

writing “not a dream” on the back of a receipt
so I would find it in the morning

finding it in the morning

2010
02/06
CATEGORY
Poetry
freedom
love
memory
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Witness Ghazal

Conceived in the wake of a watery grave
I cried out impossibly into silence

My hand are pressed against windowless glass
and it chills my diluvian skin into silence

The scene unfolds through the ceiling above
where my ears are pressed against a house cast into silence

I watch mountains collapse in projection on her back
the kind of escape you can only see as it settles, into silence

Sometimes I dream of her lying in a stream
sinking slowly, completely, into silence

2010
02/02
CATEGORY
Death
Ghazal
Poetry
dreams
love
memory
nature
sad
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Apivore

In between these whitewashed walls
people teem, uncomfortably
like bees placed suddenly
into an artificial hive

Here we dance in an attempt to speak
but mostly just stand awkwardly
wondering if we would feel the same
if we were back in the places where we were raised

We sting each other unintentionally
while passing in the street
and believe we’re each alone in feeling
the same old static
tacitly shocking our brains into change

Sometimes I try my best to leave
this self-inflicted state of being
and in those moments I feel the grip
of a subtle fist
coarse nails and blistering skin
hidden within the sleepiness of smoke
silently keeping me
from ever understanding
what happiness might be

2010
01/27
CATEGORY
Poetry
freedom
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Pursuit

Sheathed in night
you cast a bell onto the breeze
and watch it toll itself away
on the winds that blow
forever and ever

At the end of the pier
you stand and watch the lights
that shine from the opposite shore
and you hear the bell
ringing away at the tops of the waves
and you see the ships that turn and twist
and smash themselves upon the shore
you watch and you listen
and you step onto the wet rocks
glistening with moonlight
you cast away the nighttime wrapped around yourself
and let the waves lick at your wintery white toes
as all along the bell tolls persistently
it echoes in the shifting of the sands
beneath your restless feet
it hides in the rush of the wind
and in the flapping of the fabric
that clings to your skin
as you step into the sea

The taste of salt floods in
until it is almost everything
but still the bell rings,
and somewhere on the water
pale fingers emerge
close
and then
quietly disappear again

2010
01/02
CATEGORY
Poetry
Unrequited
freedom
immortality
love
sad
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Lacking

This time I’ve discovered
that I really have no interest
in the highs and lows of realistic living
and honestly I’m not sure where my life is going
at this particular juncture
But what’s worrying me most
is that I seem to have nothing to say
and certainly nothing to write
which could be perceived as poetry
by even the most avant-garde of critics
it’s just lack of meaning
wrapped in a lack of structure
In other terms
while my poetry might often imitate my life
I hope that the opposite
is not entirely true

2009
12/30
CATEGORY
Poetry
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Seasons

Outside the leaves were settling
in all the colors of the sunset
and I wrote novels about myself
doing extraordinary things
being a better man
than the one I saw myself becoming

My best friend, he smoked tobacco from a pipe
and talked a lot about the best kind of life
about “doing things without thinking about it
instead of thinking about doing things”
and he made up these quotable phrases
because he thought maybe it’d be a good way
for him to be remembered

The girl I loved
she used to lie on her back
and she would tell me about appreciating
the simple things
and for awhile she was someone
I thought I could learn from

I used to contemplate
the world I was living in
and one day, on a whim
I bought myself a notebook
and long after my friend’s pipe was mine
and the girl died from too-high-self-esteem
I had filled the pages with descriptions
of every beautiful moment
every unexpected encounter
all the times my heart felt itself
beat in a rhythm different
from the one I was born with

2009
12/25
CATEGORY
Death
Poetry
freedom
love
nature
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After the War

In November
we remember the snow in a different color
not black and white but some shade
impossible to name
just like all the colors hidden in your hair

In our bedrooms
we remember what it means
to fight in a war
how the bullets rained on our rooftops
leaving holes that we could see stars through
when we lied just right

In our next memory
the sun rises in spots across the carpet
and I wake up with your hand in mine
and we feel the thrill of being alive
for the very first time

2009
12/21
CATEGORY
Poetry
love
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Influence

We being miracles
believed in ourselves
and let religion come naturally
For example,
you were to me
a book of poetry
filled with prophecies of quiet boys
who you visited in the night
who were stricken with the realization
that they’d lost you in memory
and that has always been the tragedy
of having no evidence
that the past was ever real

I tried to be more eastern
in my philosophies
chanting mantras
like om mani padme hum
over and over again until eventually
sanskrit reverberated
off of all the things surrounding me
But even finding focus
in tantric meditation
and pranayama breathing
couldn’t clear my mind
of that image of you
floating golden into me
in the middle of the night
and how it sticks in my memory
and how it colors every thought
Even when finally,
I step out of the river of my mind
and sit complacently on the bank
watching it flow by
I see a shadow of your face
just beneath the surface
the only place where the water stops
examines itself
touches you
until I can’t say no to nature anymore
and I realize finally
that the sea is just another place
from which I’ll never be able to escape

2009
12/16
CATEGORY
Poetry
freedom
love
memory
nature
sad
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Lullaby

Lying here
pretending I remember how to sleep
I can’t help but imagine
that sound you used to make
in the moments when we’d kiss
and how in the morning I mentioned it
and maybe you thought I was making fun of you
because the next night you kissed me silently
and I wonder now if that was the first time
that I broke something of yours
and then hid it in my memory

I remember the nights
when we would lie side by side
and for the first time I could sleep peacefully
with your arms and legs entangled in mine
because whichever way we’re facing
we’re still face to face
and even with your eyes closed
I still feel you seeing me
and I see myself reflected in your irises
the only place where blue can make me feel better

I think back to the times
when we touched each other drunkenly
and when you brushed against me
the ecstasy was almost unbearable
so I drew back from your fingertips
and I’m not sure what that meant to you
but you kept your hands behind my back
from then on

When we talked about how your life
was beginning to feel empty
because we had just found our passions
sleeping in another country
you cried right next to me and that’s when I realized
I couldn’t remember how to comfort you, or anybody really
and I spilled orange juice on your floor
but in the morning we decided
you must have forgotten knocking it over

I can’t remember why I didn’t see all the signs
that buried beneath the layers of lies
which we thought we’d been peeling away all this time
were just more layers
But I truly am beginning to feel
that with you I could find myself one day
exposed and without a shell
and lying in your bed
with your hair filling the crook of my neck
I’d feel warm without my clothes

Some part of me knows
that we did this all wrong the first time around
I could tell by the way you didn’t want me to touch you
even though that sunset was so beautiful
and we both knew I’d be leaving soon

But now I think I’m strong enough
to kiss you with nothing but
our blood draining to our lips
and I hope I didn’t start you
on this downward spiral
but if so, I wouldn’t mind
meeting you at the bottom
because even in the dark
I can see how your hair
rains down around your cheeks
like your head is just another cloud
lingering over this city

Again I think back to when we kiss
and fall asleep in that position
our lips commingle, stick together
like licking opposite sides of an icicle
and when we wake up it’s just as cold
but the rain in Seattle never really freezes
it just hits the ground quietly and collects around our feet
but to me it doesn’t matter which side of the country
we collide on
I just know that in that moment
we might see each other
in a way we haven’t been seen
in three years
and for once I’d be happy
just to sleep

2009
12/07
CATEGORY
Poetry
Unrequited
dreams
freedom
love
memory
sad
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