xat's blog: "my poetry"

 

despite the cliché

our eyes meet in a crowded room

except i’m up on stage performing my poetry

& he’s down in the audience watching

i’m saying the words

popping the syllables like so many pills

overdosing on far reaching symbolism

on stage …

controlling the crowd with slow motion sound waves

turning big budget action movie in your ear

but i realize he’s

ex-significant

& i’m

reading my all out vent poetry

inner rage turned inside out

like the muscle man in Anatomy 101

wondering what happened

to my skin...

he’s staring &

i mentioned earlier how

our eyes had met, how

he was watching me

watching me say nasty things about him

clever things about him

piercingly accurate things about him

sad & lonely things about us

but i couldn’t read him from where i was

i was way too high

i was like God

staring down at him in hell

& it was like

i could judge him

& i could be right

& my feelings, my motives

my emotions & intentions

were finally valid

because the crowd could feel me

& that applause was THEATRIC!

an opera of love & hate

destiny & reprisal!

that clapping fused into

the dramatic sound of a fat lady SINGING

to my ex ...

hitting that impossible frequency

that could crack that man’s

wineglass ego

i had him!

he was mine!

& i didn’t care about the slam!

i had won a far more

important contest!

the scores were nothing!

i-had-satisfaction!

i stepped down from the tower

i crossed the court through the cheering gauntlet

& he approached

coming to me with those incredible eyes of his

& he said

‘i still love your poetry’

i still love your poetry?

he still loves my poetry?

well he couldn’t love me

[apparently]

he couldn’t still love me

[obviously]

he didn’t think so highly of the woman

he broke like so many pencils!

he couldn’t apologize

or maybe accept that he could

have quite possibly 

made a huge mistake in leaving me!

& that’s all he could say?

in the tumultuous thundering of applause

that made the world shake

from the very foundations of the Earth

all the way to the roof of space

that he still loved my poetry?

how about

i love you!

or

I'm sorry!

I’m Sorry!

I’M SORRY!

i looked back at him

& replied with a smile

‘thanks’

& walked away

m

 

it was the tender way she caressed his face
& traced her name across his lips

like a question mark
like a what if
like a...

maybe she made a mistake


laying her head upon his chest
listening to his heart beat
the rhythms in him were deeply true
she wished they would maybe somehow sing
her devil conscience to sleep
but, then she whispered to him

[i'm going to miss you so]

& you know, it seems crazy, but
he started thinking about Spider-Man & how
his Uncle Ben told him that with great power
comes great responsibility
& there were great decisions to be made here, certainly
great decisions that he thought he would
never have to make, but
he had the power that could make or break them
to be the super-hero
he could be the guy who walked away

or the one guy who got away
or the guy that had his way with the evil girl who led him astray
or the guy who just fell in love that day

this woman sleeping on his chest
with her arms wrapped around him
her hands in his hands
her hair undone, unfurled & laid out & all over
dangling carelessly
dangling dangerously across
her face
gazing into his soft & giving eyes
& there were a hundred roads diverged in an infinite second
that somehow filled the narrow space between them
between their lips was a nervous garden

of flowers too frightened to bloom
of autumns confused between her winter & his sun
of seeds that maybe should not grow
or should they?
or must they?

or can they even?

all she knew was that held within him was the answer
but she was the one with the weight
of yes or no resting quietly on his chest
watching him ...

he’s already yielding
he’s already willing
he’s already yes
with his eyes, yes
with his breathing, yes
with his arms, yes
with his touch, yes please

please...

but she doesn’t want to hurt him anymore
just remember it, caress it, take care of it, hold it
& rock it to everlasting sleep

she’ll always be gentle with this fragile present of his
trembling now within her heart

this forever fleeting, flickering instant
in passing of the candle hope & candle love

remember gently

  

 

so gently...

 

 

 

 

 

 

m

 

 

 

tonight
a concrete heaven balanced precariously
atop the needle tip skyline
& as it grew late
grew darker
everything became more black & white & stone & sober
even the people were pale
frozen, gray, & bloodless 
midnight was suppose to have stars, but not here, not now & it seemed no one cared




i was cold
two layers short of warm & common sense, even though there had been enough proof
of winter for the past several days
i had decided style was more than substance
& that what i was wearing would have been plenty
to repel the cold, & yet attract the eyes of men
but the opposite prevailed, it seemed

i was alone waiting for the train
standing silhouette against a black rail
wondering distantly about an old touch, he had a warm name & soft eyes
& staring at the track made me think about
the long road i still needed to travel
or something like that
i really don’t like to imagine myself so badly poetic
but it’s where i was at the time, beneath the rock sky that night
feeling empty with my eye to the unseen horizon
& weeks from my birthday

i had met a man nights before, but i wouldn’t even let him hold my hand, though he smiled
& laughed generously with me
there was a something twinkle in his eyes
but a star of look was nothing...
to the moon & sun of touch that wasn’t there
& the architect in me knew
that something was wrong with this false roof of hope i had tried to build over us




i heaved that blood & stomach feeling
whispering a small, cold



...no




i struggled there in that moment, but managed a
[he was a nice man]

but he wasn’t

him...



so that left me here tonight
thinking as i gazed into the blackness
& i wondered where love, or that chemical reaction
called love, had gone...

suddenly
i despised that stone moment
i hated the train
i was so tired of coming & going
i wanted to be there already to be home...
[home]
beyond the fall & crash of clumsy party hours of stumbling sleep walks, delirious with dead dreams...if i could run only far, & run fast enough
to throw off the hands of my inner damnation



i might yet stop the endlessness of thoughts of him
night-dreaming, night-yearning, & nights lost
to constant desire of him...



i might yet drum the bumbling female from inside me
& awaken her from the twisted dialog with my heart
i might move, i might move on

i might



...i just might




a light comes & clamors magnificently down the metal artery
open to the air & proud of its motions
inside people are sleeping
their meager belongings of hue & tone
clutched close to their chests



i step forward

as the doors close...

m

 

 

it was vertigo induced by his magic eyes
his dizzying telepathic stare
that commanded my brain to love
& to never stop thinking about him
... a silent hypnosis

it was then that i realized
that he must be some kind of vampire
or a martian armed with some futuristic
obsession inducing ray beam
built right into his cornea

he could drink my blood
he could have my planet

but please ...
let me keep looking in his eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

m

 

 

 

 

 

i have a library overflowing with my favorite
books, & my own movie theater
with a whole host of DVD’s ... i
have a room filled with sunrises & rainbows, & a
room brimming with moonlit skies & twinkling stars ... i’ve
built a small room of silence & a big
ballroom of sound ... i have a basement
packed with knowledge, a
bedroom saturated with
heated skin & satin sheets ...
scattered broom closets awash with good
jokes & bathrooms bursting with
dirty ones; & all, all connected with corridors lined with
memories & emotions ...

& as i grow older
i add more rooms as life adds more experiences, i never
cease to build & clean & sweep, so
that in the end
[i feel]
even the poorest can live in a mansion ... & when
i’m sad & lonely
homesick & alone
i simply look inside myself & walk down those
warm corridors, peeking
into all the many rooms of my home, & stay there until i feel
ready to face the world again ...




[now]
m

 

 

i think my soul has cancer too

& there is no medical treatment

it eats away at me

like a worm through an apple

in these holes there is nothing

just shadows of separation

as for myself & i

we are not on speaking terms

those shadows wedge between us ...

soon enough my brain will seizure

& my bones will dent under pressure

... getting hit like piano keys playing my requiem

m

  

this poem
won't make a difference
it will fall to the floor
between us in our gentle dance
us alone, together in the vacant space
spinning on checkered floors
in dimly lit ballrooms
nostalgic illusions of romantic grandeur
that will never be
anything but this poem
this simple, simple poem

this poem
will never say the words
the magic incantations
that will keep you by my side
divine proportions of sentence
of verb, pronoun, & adjective
spoken to walls
recited to air
fruitless & desperate rehearsals
in search of the words to say
to be the poem that this poem
can never be

this poem
won't save us
it won't do anything
but sit quietly
in a room somewhere
& be read perhaps
every other year
when a hint of you slips in
to kiss the memory of me





mary