8/29

The day has arrived.
I sit upon this bed in the shadows of morning.
And still
No call, no call, no call.

My day waists for you.
Every moment, every second,
Set aside
For loving you.
But I am alone now.

I should be with you
In the dark of some movie theater
Nervous, afraid
But so thrilled
To be in your presence.

I should be running
My fingertips
Along the soft cradle
Of your hands.
In wonder of their plains
And perfect proportion.

I could be speaking to you
In quiet tones
Afraid the
Thud, thud, thud,
Of my heart will be heard
At your nearness.

This day is for you
I wrote your name on it
In my clumsy child like script.
I was so excited
So naive.
But I am alone now.

So call, . . . or don't.
I don't care.
I don't really want to know
How your spending today.
I don't.
I try and try, not to think of
Where you are.

Because I know the most
Likely place
Is the place that causes me pain.
But I do wonder if you think of me this day.
If you remember, or if you forget.


How easily I am replaced.

How quickly I am blown from your mind.


"Please, please don't love her."

Machine

Electric motorcade
Tell me why I
Tick, tick, tick
Like some gawdaweful machine.

And who am I ticking for?
Who has my time?
Who buys my life?
I sweat in this rancid heat -
The heat of sweat and
Machine oiled together
Into something
Unhuman.

Tell me who brushed my lips
With those burning dry kisses
That make them crack and bleed?
Who cripples me?
So that I hobble about
Like an ancient thing
Begging to be
Put out of service.

So replace me
With the
New, new, new,
Til I am shinny
And in that tip top shape.
Smelling of a just bought car.
Well oiled to preform again
Til you ache to
Push and Pound
And drill,
Slam me shut
Beyond repairability
I will run as long as you want me.

Then stop.
And discard.
Leave me
But with the dignity
( i am already empty)
Remember to hang the
"Out of Service"
Sign around my neck.

I will tick for no one.

The 9th Nirvana (just for fun)

You twitch,
My little body.
Oh how you scratch
And claw.
Itching burning to
Be under the surface of things.
Your mouth is a golden moon
Frozen in an O
A shriek, A shriek that nobody hears.
Gaping, gaping
Waterless goldfish
Gobbling stars
Til your belly is full of them
Til your throat is stuffed up
To the brim.
Do you vomit up chaotic galaxy's,
The belly splits and the universe comes tumbling out?
Do you crawl in a corner
And hide from the light that made you sick?
No, you twitch and twitch
Silent shrieks
Rising up to claw the heaven
With your mute keening.
You could be a god.
A balloon rising, rising,
Filling with gasses
Up and up into the darkness you love so well.
Stabbed with needle points of stars
Letting that other,
That other thing through.
You could be hours
Or minutes
You could be defying gravity and seeing God.
But you don't.

You trip switch

You substancless cloud.


You cry for you are
Nothing.

You are unable to dance this dance
Or see this here
Transcendence.

Just shooting off thoughts

"We crossed the line.
Who pushed who over?

It doesn't matter to you.
it matters to me."



"We're cut adrift, but still floating.
I'm only hanging on to watch you go down,
my love.

I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me.
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn't what you wanted.


Desperation is a tender trap
It gets you every time.

You put your lips to her lips
To stop the lie.

Her skin is pale like God's only dove
Screams like an angel for your love
Then she makes you watch her from above . . ."

Did you need her like a drug?

No, this started out wrong.
I didn't want it to be like this.
Hear me out,
Please, I almost say . . .
But I don't want to be desperate.
Still I hope you stay and listen.

But now that your here
I've lost all my words.
I had them I swear,
I riffle through my memory like scraps of paper
Looking for that one important piece,
The piece that was supposed
To make all this go away.

I am caught naked and ashamed
But I don't think you see that.
Instead it's just another failure
Another thing to sigh and shake your head at.
I know I'm incompetent.

I spent hours on it you know,
I thought and thought
And put those thoughts into words.
Night after night I'd practice
The inflections.
Til it was perfect to my eyes,
Or nearly so,
Til through my clumsy way,
I would get my point across.

I know it's not a masterpiece,
But maybe, a work of art.
And I created it just for you.
You were my muse,
And my inspiration.
The one it was dedicated to.

Each syllable shifted
To give it just the light I had in mind.
Each pause and start to offset it's wonder.
And I made it just for you.
But you'll never hear it.
I lost it you see,
I would apologize
But I doubt,
I doubt the familiar sound
Would ring with as much truth
As I'd want it to.

So I shift from foot to foot
Awkwardly.
Almost crying.
But somehow oddly understanding
Your impatience with me.
I know I need to grow up,
I do.

" Your free to leave me but just don't decieve me and please, believe me when I say I love you . . . "


I found out.

Hiku? I don't know.

I lay here.

I could be a leaf

or a petal floating in water

But I'm not.

I am a Sarah

And the water I'm floating in

Is only exhaustion.

He distracts me

His hands could be clocks
Ticking away hours


Is this what I want?


Is this what I dream?


What do I dream?


I'm afraid of that, the shadows of my wants.
That hover like the children I've killed in the corner of my vision.
I feel them breathing on me.
I don't look but let the fuzzy shapes hover there
Never taking substance.
Never being.


Like desire
Or passion.
The greater more that's supposed to drive us.


Then there is him.
And I feel pain in the pleasure.
A horror in the want
That something bad is about to happen . . .



Oh, fuck it.
. . . Why not?

A Story of Summer Romances

I lay upon this bed
Immersed in pain
(again)
It's the sort that makes you want to cry out
For it's cutting sharp edge
But I don't.
Instead I embrace the dull hollow ache that comes after the sharp.
This ache is my friend.
I've known it well.
It and I have spent many nights together
Reminiscing and talking of everything.
One could say,
It knows me by name.

The reason for a chat this time is over a boy.
What else?
That's all I have left to cry after.
I've cried over parents and dead baby's
And bad childhoods, so after all that
Why not a boy?

This particular one didn't call back
As is typical in these sort of boy - girl exchanges.
Lost interest? Found someone else?
Is truly busy?
Who knows?
Most likely will never know.

This ones different though,
For once I pursued.
I was the chaser.
I set my eyes on him and was captured.
I wanted no other.

That could of been my mistake,
It is said men like to chase.
Perhaps I should of let him do the work . . . or not.

[ mistake #1]



I broke the heart of a boy in Nevada for this man.
That boy was a kind boy,
A good boy.
The kind of boy that calls you back
And asks if your alright.
A boy that will grow up into a fine man
With a boring predictable 9 - 5 job
Who will marry and make a fine husband,
A fine father to his 2 1/2 children.
Who will surprise his wife with flowers
And write her love poetry off hours
And recite it to her while the have their
Weekly saturday night sex
In missionary.
I had a fine boy.
And I broke his heart.
I broke it for a man who wont even speak to me.

[ mistake #2 ]



But what i think it was,
What it really was,
Was that I showed him I cared.
I let my hand slip.
He didn't call me for days and when he did
I told him I missed him.
I told him how sad I was that I hadn't heard from him.
That I was worried.
He told me not to be obsessive.
maybe that was true maybe I was (am)

[ mistake #3 ]



So I tried not to be.
I didn't contact him.
I wish I could say I ignored the whole thing
And went on with my life,
But this is me we're talking about so of course I didn't.
Like the pathetic desperate creature I am
I waited by the phone
. . . for days.
I checked it every five minutes
To see if he left me a message.

I went insane.

[ mistake #4 ]



I went through all the pictures on my Myspace
And started deleting them.
Starring at myself til I became hideous and distorted
To my own eyes.
I grew despondent and bitter.
I called my ex
(cause he was always there)
And I broke down and cried
And pathetically voiced my insanity.
Now I'm sure word of this will get back to that boy
And if he wasn't sure then, he's certainly sure now,
He wont have anything to do with me.

[ mistake #5 ]



So short and intense it was, as these affairs often are.
Sharing your life with another -
Inviting them to do them same.
Consoling them, laughing with them,
Talking til the sun came up again and again
So that you were dead on your feet
At work the next day
But you didn't care.

All the seduction, the promises,
The 'I love you's spoken far to soon,
Vanish like mist in the sunlight,
Like a dream before a waking ones eyes.

And it's wondered if they ever happened at all.

In the long run these don't really matter.
They are hardly remembered and easily forgotten.
But right now, in this moment,
It matters to me.

So for now I still have the slight twinkling of hope
That he'll call.
That all my insanity will be erased.
But I know I'm just blowing on the coals of a dead fire.
I know it's over.
And in time the hurt will fade,
And I won't even remember his name,
But for now, just for now,
I grieve.

More of a jounal entery

written in a close cramped office on lunch break.




I want the woods right now.
I want the hollow silence
That does not push it's self on you
As this world does.

I want to be that barefoot girl
stepping slowly and lightly
Like a little Indian,
Like a little deer,
Through the stubby pines and undergrowth.

I want to run to the great woods
And stand amidst the ferns,
With those tall, tall, trees about me.

And the sunlight shinning down in dull patches shifting like some great kaleidoscope at the wind gently stirring the trees inch by inch, but never heard.

I want the quiet of the deep woods that waits,
That does not ask,
That waits if you want to speak.
That lets you dwell and decide
That is never impatient while you find the words you want,
That you decide.

The quiet that couldn't care less
and is not offended if you say nothing at all.
If you lay a hand on a eroding tree trunk
covered in moss as if in greeting
it is only for your own benefit.
The woods never asks of you anything
But it will take it calmly and serenely
Because it is what you want.

It is there to be imposed upon
But never imposes.
It waits but does not wish,
It is welcoming but is somehow unchanged or disturbed by your presence.
It lets you view it
And somehow you know it lets you.
But never says a word.

I hear the call for such stillness,
For such peace that does not take
But to clear your head of worries.

I want that place that is nothing but the air
and the sun on my back
and the calm that knows nothing
of war or explosions

except of course to say -
"I understand dear one, . . . I understand."

F i v e

Some stuff I wrote in may of 2008. For Ian.


Apology for a missed call

I have disappointed you.
I know,
I haven't picked up the phone
When you called.
I have let the pause grow
In between 'I love you's'
And silence.
We are drifting on
a boat
And I keep trying to
Desperately anchor us
to land.
I pray for you to notice,
To understand,
To rage with me and take
my hand.
But I find you missing
More often then not.
The one thing I am always yearning for
Is someone who understands.
There are those that love me
But non I can go to, . . .
They don't understand me.
I think of way's I can
Put it into words
To make you realize
What I ache for.
To make you see my need.
And I do need you,
But I am afraid.




Drowning

There is a distance.
A wide precarious gap,
That I cannot cross alone.
Your silence has made a trench
And uncertainty a bigger hole
Til there is a cannon of quiet between us.
And I am sinking in a sea of Arctic doubt
The cold numbs my eyelids seducing me to let go.
I see the wavy lines of your face watching me from above . . .
Is the not understanding this bad?
I cry with my everything towards you
I stretch my soul through the eons of time
And space from where it was formed
Just to touch you,
Why won't you help me?
Why won't you speak?
Just one word.
Why do you look through me?
Look at me!
See me.
See my pain.
Am I nothing to you?

Do your hands hold me down still?





Hanging on the Other Line

I keep dreaming one of these cars will be you
Coming to pick me up.
I keep thinking every dark haired man with a Moscow accent is you.
But it's not true.
We left our hearts in hartland didn't we?
We forgot to pick up that very important thing.
I'm sure your heart got lost in the luggage
And is visiting London, Belfast, Brazil, and Nairobi . . .
Mines stuck in this bunker.
Did the barbed wire catch in my tongue that tried to speak with you?
Did my letters find their way into the paper shredder?
Telephone lines are faulty and don't go through . . .
We all know this is true.

Lives get buried in the laundry.
Souls are squandered in bills.
Yes, we know this is true.
Is that what happened to you?

Did life come down on you?
Mouths need food, backs need clothing,
Heads want a pillow . . .
Is that what happened to you?

How did you disappear?
Why was I ignored?
Did you think I wouldn't know
That something wasn't right?

Did you think I wouldn't notice
The day you ripped my heart in two?
How could I forget,
The day I murdered you.



Begging Again

Sun shines and it's shades are no more warmer
Then your apologetic smiles.
I didn't want attention
I was crying out for mercy
I didn't want you to see.
But how could you not notice
I was bleeding on the carpet?
Can pleasantries be battering rams?
Politeness artful distance?
Can cold goodnight kisses
Shut out a heart so earnest.
Can loyalty go unrewarded
And faithfulness unproved
Can sacrifice not merit
One moment of your love?



Bird Tamer

Kiss me again.
Let it be final, the last time.
Finish what you've done.
Why love me into submission?
Why persist to hold so frail a thing
Just to cruelly kill it?
Like when you held that baby bird in your hand.
It's soft feathers covering a body so weak
It could be seen through the snowy gray.
It's heart beating, it's delicate eyes
Looking up to you in trust.
With gentleness that moved my heart
You tenderly cradled that little promise in your hand
And closed your fingers over it.
With a loving sigh you crushed it's frailness
Til the blood wove thin tears through your fist.
Weeping with the last downy feathers
That floated through your fingertips.

You have no more love then stone.

Life Let Go . . . I Guess

on depression and cutting




Do I feel good enough?
Am I worthless?
Whats wrong with me?
To big, to empty,
The song of nothing plays inside my head.
Maybe that's why I can't sleep at night.
I just wanted to quiet the voices screaming at me.
I'm sorry I couldn't cope.
I'm sorry that I'm weak and indulge in secret interludes
To alive my restless ache.
Restless motion spins like a drying cycle before my eyes.
I'm sorry that I need you.
I know in the eternity that spans before me,
Vast, cold, and endless, there is no harbor that would take me now.
I am alone
And the tree's stand barren in my life.
The fruitless womb of promise
Expels it's last stillborn.
Hope is unbreathing.
Wrap her and bury her
The sun stops for nothing.
It will set as it has thousands of years before.
Come let us depart, and let loose the night
To steal the last fragile breath and pale wisps of soul
Before the coming morn.

Seth

I wanted you last night.
Not way the way lovers want
each other,
Tangled in passion driven beyond
Care or logic.
But in the way widowed wives must want,
A cold creeping hand
That squeezes the heart
Forcing me to lie awake,
To think,
To remember.
Til each memory drives me mad
And I cry and babble like
Some insane person.
Maybe if I was insane
You would have a reason not to call.

I rest on this bed
Bord flat
Starring at the ceiling cracks
Wishing it was
The lines of your face
I was tracing
And retracing.
Hearing the spiders
Whispering among themselves.
Are they judging me?
What must they speak of
In those webs like
Wisps of air.
They appear hovering,
Some alien creatures.

I lay with the light on.
In the darkness
All these thoughts are magnified
And screamed
Instead of softly spoken, -
Stated like facts.
I can deal with facts.
I make up a thousand
Excuses for you
And I believe every one.
But in my heart the betrayal still stings.
It weeps deep down
In some dark center of myself,
A self I never knew
Or could figure out.

I know how to play the china doll,
I know how to paint my face
And even be smile ready
If it's suited to the occasion.
I am thus now prepared.
I shouldn't be,
Your not here to see.
But it gives me satisfaction
Like winning some game
To know I wept not
When my heart was breaking
I screamed not
When you absently tore me in two
I didn't call
And I left no further message
When you were out
Living your life.

Eden in the asphalt

What are you? You Mannequin.
You wear love like the latest fashion
Memorize lines and act the part
But be devoid of passion.

You are arced in my mouth and I spit you out.
You ripped my heart from the roots up
But it's beginning to grow again
There will be roses where you pruned it.
Yes, lily's in the deepest darkest valley
That grow wild, untouched by your hand.

You are a gardener in the picture I have of you.

You are cutting all the flowers down.
"Must not have disorder" you say
"Must not let things grow where they can't be told"
You are sheering the grass into dirt
"Must not attract bees" you say
Harmful spreaders and vicious infectors
Spreading the sex of flowers
Like a rebellious sect.
"They spread over night"
You confide.
"A firm hand is a loving one"
Is it love to take the beauty from this patch of earth?
Stripping the flowers of all
Comeliness and favor,
Dressing them down like your plain woman.

Even so, it must bristle your heart
To know each one caries the seed
Of it's loveliness.
It remembers what it was born to be
It nurses the memory until death
Then releases those pods of promise
Into the wind.

And deep beneath your drear garden
There is a stirring.

In the warm womb of the earth
Awakens the precious scion of hope.

Thinking on papper

God, where are you? . . .
Will I ever find you again?

Sarah where are you?

. . . it's not a stern voice.
It's not filled with disappointment of frustration . . .
It's filled with longing.
The voice of a lover peering through a lattice,
Of a shulumite running through the streets for love.

What if God longed for my heart? . . .
What if he called, burning , burning,
Running through the desert?

What if love was the voice that called and called . . .


What if God was a God that loved us?