class twenty-three

Peach


stringy innards
torn from its body to become
an organ, once pumping life,
now whose purpose is only
my enjoyment
skin taught on the outside,
but push it and you feel a deeper
vulnerability

bite

pulp arching into royal hues
fuzzy skin crunches
juice like blood
staining the inner core
spilling over my sharpened teeth
down my stickied chin
helpless, ruined,

consumed

class twenty-two

Soccer


Sky is cool in evening dusk as
darkness settles like a mist, I’m
watching from my bookstore perch while
man and boy are lost in sport

Toes are gently flung to tap the
Edge of sphere that whirls around just
Like the earth in ever-twirl,
‘Round the sun that gives it spin

Spinning, too, are man and boy, they’re
Curving as their smiles do, the
Man is always knowing next the
Places ball will find itself

Boy is not as competent, as
Ball takes flight away from him, but
Still, it seems that all he knows does
Trap itself inside the sphere with
Secrets of the man’s delight

class twenty-one

Sight, space


Inside your eyes, I see myself
and all that I’m surrounded by
does show itself there in the globe.
My nose is centered at the pupil,
larger than I’d like to think,
and all the rest of me is there,
too, held inside your lens of sight
that has been skewed since you were small,
ensuring that your glasses sleep
forever on that winsome nose
of yours. And yet, in spite of your
flawed sight, your eyes see more than I
have shown another. Yes, it seems
that all of what we are is shown
inside your eyes: the way you softly
hold my gaze because the thing
you feel is more than fast and violent
passion; my tiny bits of self
I see in you; and all the times
I’ve had to learn that loving you
requires me to look at things
beyond myself.

class twenty

Rainy


You woke up and the sky was gray,
–As gray as dingy cotton sheets–
And all the sadness that you felt
projected itself in the sky.

And as you walked out to your car,
the mist began to organize,
collected itself into heaps
of wetness there upon your head,
began to sink into your throat
and condensate within your eyes.

As tears that fell onto your hands
dripped like the rain upon the car,
you felt as dreary as the world.

From there on out, the drive was nice
because it seemed to sympathize
with all the pain and hurt you felt.

You went to classes–such a bore!–
Instead of learning all you could,
you dwelt upon your misfortune
and thought of all the things you know
about the world’s horrific state.

Brooding in your misery,
you walked out to your car again;
this time the skies were clear and blue,
“The nicest day we’ve had all year!”

And suddenly the day was worse
because the world had woken up,
decided to forget its pain
and left you here without a friend.

class nineteen

Parkway


Walk like kings in wings of night
Climb through grass and stone until
the world lies underneath us now
Starshine bursts on faces white
See you as I did at first

Shiver cold, exhale of me
See it, feel it next to you
First tear falls, I rip apart
Comfort me in silent care
Breaking through our walls of lies
Pain and love in every word
until I feel I know you as
I longed to know you long ago

Earth that spins and pushes out
all things that remain within
And yet it seems that we are each
pushed into the other one
Falling toward the middle core
Flailing, yet there’s trust inside
that when my gaze does meet your own
I’ll find the ground that waits for me

Streak of light through spotted sky
reminds me of our dying love
I left behind the thought of you
and still could not let go of hope
that one more star would find us here
rebirthed and burning as the sun

And all the earth and stars beyond
will bow before the regal two
As we reclaim what never left:
galaxies that kissed our hands
and all the life outside of us

Moments past will slip away
and all that came on this fair night
will soon be but a memory
Knowing that we’ll soon depart
I spin to dance and closed-eyed sing
remember all in snapshot mind
Our last goodbye or first embrace
Hold you just because I can

Riding home, watching the road
and I knew that it was over

class eighteen

Neo-Hippies


Driving home, you put the Dead
on, relishing their simple greatness.
I’m passively gazing out my window
at weary fields and clumsy cows
that pastured places just like these
some thirty years before us. Looking
out at them, I almost see
us back in 1965–
and wonder if anything
has really changed from then to now.

Retrieving lighter and blown glass bowl,
you pinch your plant apart and pack
the weed with awkward fingers, carefully
light it, sliding low into
your seat, evading window’s gaping
view. You inhale slowly, and
the scent of marijuana and
the slightest tinge of body odor
flood my nose and I can’t help
but think your dreaded hair is so
appropriate; your tie-dyed shirt
is just a plea to have been born
in other times. You start to giggle;
my mind wanders. Would you still
have been this way if you were there
just as it was–without the glory,
fashion, image, everything
that makes it cool–Would you still

have fought against the war, or gone
to football games instead, always
thinking of the boy your mom
brought you up to be? Would you
still have taken pride in passing
up the meat she may have served,
or would your fifties upbringing
have made you long for breakfast bacon,
lunchtime deli, dinner steaks?

Coming back, I see that you’re
still grinning. Maybe we’re all trying
to escape this place, and maybe
you’d be just as counter-culture
then as now or eighty years
before. I think it doesn’t matter
where we are–or when–but that
we’re here, and trying. At least there’s that.

class seventeen

Ode


Striking in obvious beauty,
your face is a
closed bud in spring,
hiding the complexity of all
that remains tucked beneath
its silky shroud: flawless,
it hides what you
never show to others.

And yet I envy more
than just your petalled skin:
the adventures that you bloom,
your hollered embrace
of life and those that surround you,
–even that: your devoted following–
all grow as green and violet vines
within my envious heart.

You’re the first crocus of spring,
the daffodil among weeds
and I can’t help but want to pluck you
from among the rest of them,
to savor you as my own.

It seems that all the
things you long to hold onto–
meetings, tests, names–are lost
within bouquets of
thoughts and dreams,

but you always seem
to remember your need for
life to blossom into life
at every fertile moment.

class sixteen

Bookstore


Sitting in a window sill, I’m
nudged between the shelves and sky as
all my senses come to life in
quiet calm of afternoon. To
the left are lives of trees that
once stood whole as city-scapes, but

now are pressed into the mold of
lumbered floor and wood-grained ceiling.
The shelves have used tree souls as
well, and every page of all the
books can tell the tale of forest
greens and oceaned sky. And if they

were to glance outside, they’d see it
as they may have once: the yawning
blue as deep as infant’s eyes that
have not yet turned into brown. And
would these souls of dying trees have
known their brothers still outside? And

do they know now those who once did
stand beside them in the wood? It
seems that windows always know the
world that they have once been in and
now must stand and guard the way to;
this one, too, is much the same and

seems to grasp the outside world as
framed forever as a painting
of a scene in constant motion. The
paint now rots as bark on trees that
fell in epic downward crash, the
glass that once knew sand and storms has

now become a smudged and faded
portal to transport the wanting
into places never seen, as
now it takes me toward the realm of
quiet wood and shattered waves that
break upon my wandering thoughts.

on poetry

i've never been lost in the ocean
but i think i know what it must feel like

i'm looking for some kind of footing
but it slips off me
i'm looking for some way to define myself
i'm looking for the words to understand
how to fucking say what i want to say

dammit!

i've become your bucket
to fill with the sand of your needs
i've become the passionless voice of
opposition, until it gets too close to home
and then i'm no voice at all

i hate these silly poems
i hate my constant thoughts
but i'm too passive to feel anything

i meant to
i meant to feel something
it just wasn't there
it isn't

on justice

i used to write you poems
i hoped you understood them

you've erased me
and i can't say i blame you
did you take your trip back through it all?
or did you wake up and forget?

just a girl
i'm just a girl
now

i still haven't shed
a single tear
for your memory

they were happy times
we were happy

i hope you don't find this
it wouldn't seem fair

on movement

it is march and
the trees are blooming and
the sun is shining and
i think i feel ok here

it seems that i am
stuck between the
two places that i long to be
and people that i long to be
with. i think that i can
no longer define myself
through my relationships
i think that i do know myself
better than i give myself
credit for

my parents sometimes
try to explain the world
in terms of jesus christ
i think that i see it all
much differently

everything is
moving forward

on strings

it was
the most beautiful night

the sky was
blue like where the ocean
starts getting cold
the stars peeking through
their veils of cloud
illuminating the tears
that couldn't fall
from his eyes

it was too much

i stood some feet away
as he retched
his loneliness
magnified by the sound
of splattering

i couldn't even
say i was sorry
i didn't want him to think
i felt regret

two lives
twist themselves together
every fight and recovery
another knot to try and pry apart
when the strings finally untangle

was it all
leading up to this?