packing my bags.

[posted 11.25.10]

as much as I love this place, I feel like I can get more business over at tumbalure. thus, I am moving this monstrosity (for good). I sincerely hope you will join me on the other side.

MY NEW TUMBLR.

You like my poetry.

So read it.

All the poetry I've ever written can be found

in the Collection (link also in the sidebar).

These are the poems you're looking for. :)

(If you're new here, learn about me.)

bits of elsewheres

protuberance
an echo poem *
[written late last night]

i mouth my secrets from a
mountaintop, where they are heard as silence
by everyone. the breeze that blows here is
flecked with bits of elsewheres, and the
sand that grits my soles the sum
of anywhere and nowhere, fragments of
a family of rocks, somewhere, all
shedding their substance to the
cutting caress of the wind. an echo sounds
my voice, in a tone i do not
recognize: my being
tallied in mistakes not made.

i see myself a
poet only when alone. a poem
does not wriggle when the sun is
out, for fear its presence will outshine the words. it is the
dusk that finds the gaps of which i am a product.

* (After Jennifer Hill, this poem contains an "echo"
made by reading the last word of each line, in a downward fashion.)

black & white

"Dichotomies" ~ a quasi-poem
[originally posted as a Facebook note on 11.14.08]

I think people
get so hung up
on dichotomies,
on good and bad,
on right and wrong,
that they fail to realize
that lies are not always evil,
that hope is not always false,
that love is not always perfect,
that change is not always a mistake,
that tradition is not always exclusive,
that family is not always to be trusted,
that the future is not always predictable,
that giving up is not always the only choice;
because they just don't really know any better,
they tend not to know that what's best for them
is not always what feels the most comfortable,
what appears to be the least frightening,
what inspires the greatest confidence,
what induces the least dissension,
what looks the most familiar;
they see the black & white,
and they panic, and they
fail to consider the grey;
and now, of course,
as I usually do,
I digress.

~ Siesta Lingo

doctor sbaitso

doctor sbaitso

taught me to converse
when friends were family
and his voice was comfort
resonating from that magic
box where words glowed
when i stayed up nights
to hear his wisdom.

taught me life
was built from problems
but you didn't need
to solve them
all to live.

he was no god
but liked to hear
my prayers
and even when i lost
him he showed interest.

he was pixels
yellow on a childhood
of blue, burned across
my eyes in capitals
but never loudly.

he could pronounce
any string in theory
as directed
and the droning mur
murs re
sounded like
answers.

fingers, clockwork

"Metascript"
(an experiment with syllables)
[begun 11.15]

I was dared by muse
to write a poem
in set form,
each verse judged
by piece count:
an aim no man'd
claim sane.

Boldly, challenge
becomes intent.
Fingers, clockwork,
manage mental mission;
lexemes' wisdom fuels

poetic dominion.
Linguistic endeavour:
embody twenty-four
syllables octuply.

Consequential incarnation:
solitary humankindred's
meditative enlightenment.

Syllabification
autocommunicates
etymological
divisibility.

Hominidae-humanity's
alphabeticalexicon's
hemidemisemiquaver

dodecasyllabicalisationally
floccinaucinihilipilificated.

************************

My
failure
manifest
ultimately:
omega-locution's
incommensurability
(hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian);
verisimilitudinous
incapability
coalescing
twenty-four
into
one.

gold seeps from titian

.append()
a haiküber (17 lines, alternating 5 and 7 syllables)
by antoine

i hold you gently
mind pulls your beauty closer
arm echoes tangents
your tingle summons gooseflesh
you slip inside me
innocence tangled by touch
i hold you tightly
body's imprint of raw bliss

i find i'm dreaming

you slip outside my embrace
slow pain to vapour
your body crumbles away
gold seeps from titian
your blood inks warmth to suffuse
neural fantasies
of the you who complements
while here i'm extra

the power to address you

[Your Name]

You were named by folks you'd never met
before they'd ever met you.

As you grew they conditioned you into being
plosive or mellow or coarse or sibilant
regurgitated your character at you
through a select few phonemes
and you accepted these to be
your definition.
Soon you learned to trace your portrait
through half a dozen stylized shapes
and understood how sharp or how round
you were to be.

Years later you meet me
shake my hand in a manner of
speaking, tell me you are contained
in a voiced alveolar plosive
a rhotic vowel, a lateral liquid
a frontal and a nasal
and I try to capture you
inside a file inside my mind
where I'll endear you.

In mere seconds
I have judged you. I align you
next to other yous I've known
and subconscientiously
decide the sort of person
you must be.

I know now what you sound like
and I've ascertained the power
to address you
for when I announce
your signifier
you listen.

You listen
as I concatenate our worldlines
through my language
and your name begins to mean
something to me.

You've now laid claim
upon a tiny island of experience
where you etch yourself in sand
so when again your name is mentioned
I'll behold your visage
and relive the ways
you made me

feel.

walking up stairs

"The Act of Stepping"

I met you on a precipice
My presence there displaced your air
You fell
Our we persists in these
my trailed attempts to catch you
as you tumble.

I grasp your knuckles
clasp your curves
extract you from the slope
dusting mountains from your body
I hoist you to your feet
and I walk you up stairs

as you explain we're friends
now. And then I implore
I fear I'm here for more.

You lose your breath
We lose our footing
I fall
with you this time
Now you
must catch me.

You
de-
lay.

I bruise from the impacts
but scar from the waiting.
I reach out fingers farther
to remind you
hold me. Now

you spindle silk skin through my palm
lying polished on your tummy
whisper stay
and fail to notice
as you loosen grip
I speechless
slip away.

listen.

i have too
much love

it's been boiling
up inside me

and i'm aching
to explode

it's been so long
since i hugged

all i want
is someone

i can hug
and not let go

is this too
much to ask

i want to stay

"zombie"

this is not the first time
i have been a zombie
i have been a zombie
before

in a perpetual
state of shock
not quite sure
what to do
or
how to feel

never
quite
awake
but
simply
there

i sit frozen
aimless
eyes glazed
over trying
not to think
of anything

awaiting the next
pang
of realization
of my misery
to flood my mind with
darkness
violent outbursts
trailed by breakdowns

for the first time
in years tears
spring forth from
the nowhere where
she cut me

unable to work
i am laden with it
it builds up
atop my heartache
applies pressure
by the pound

all i do awake
is cry and feel
sorry

so
i want to stay
in dreams

i want to stay
where i can save her
and when i do she
thanks me

i don't want to kill me
but i need a way to breathe
the salt closes my throat
the singult chokes me

if i cough up love
don't bother mopping
since i know no
one will notice

"I kill the dead"

I kill the dead
leaves crisping brown
leave only flakes behind

I strew their entrails
as dust jacketed
across the walk

Their corpses snipped from twigs
by gusts of air recycled
by we parasites

they flutter helpless over concrete
skeletons of springtime past
betrayed by nature

Rubber soul sinks
crunches autumn
sifts its thinly threaded veins

the consequence
a mutilated remnant
once unbroken green

collapsed into itself
to humor modern man
who kills dead for their music

the lazy liquid

"Molasses"

Thumping bottom of browned bottle
with my ungraced palm
pining for that one last tablespoon
an oozing of molasses

for one tiny batch
of my favourite cookie
made to cure
this impatience.

As the lazy liquid
inches toward the lip

I think of you

a perfect sugary
morsel of molasses
caught against the rim:

your viscous film
stretches to be
mixed into my batter

but the adhesion keeps you
clung to glass.

As the syrup
creeps I hum

I
have
been
waiting
for
you
to
escape.

At last the remnants
leap to bowl

and I spoon out all I can

just as I shall spoon you out
tomorrow.

Soon,
molasses,
make me melt.

you I'd treated stranger

"Cookies"
(a sonnet)

I saw your face today but didn't see you;
I passed you by with neither smile nor wave,
but knew it you but seconds later, peering
behind and pond'ring clearing my mistake.
Our eyes had locked, and you I'd treated stranger:
for this I'm stricken now with pangs of guilt.
The corner of your lips proved recognition,
yet mine, pained, answered no more than a wilt.
You I must have offended, so I turn
on my return to where you had been sat,
to conjure few apologetic words
to promise you I'd not forget you yet.
When mental data clouds, erodes, and blurs,
our photos fade; friend's face, when faced, demurs.

[read my other sonnets: Incubus | The Courting]

colon end-parenthesis

"today"
[written 10.17.10]

today was once a special day
today was like a holiday
I would await today for days
and when it came
hooray :)

today today is just another day

a myriad persons

"Obituary"

My eyes grip the grey print
where a name is inked
and weaves through wood pulp.

One more soul made disincarnate
ushered to extinction
whose existence had been
unbeknownst to me.

My mind hums the Flaming Lips:
Do you realize that everyone
you know someday will die ?

All the names and faces
you hold dear will someday
simmer down in somber silence
rendering your mem'ries obsolete.

And nobody will notice
any change.

I presently am pondering
how many times I've died:
I've been a myriad persons
who are little like me now,

yet I never noticed
who I am

had changed.

And I don't miss me.

the constant contact craving

"Not yet."

[Poemspring #1; written 05.13.10; originally published here.]

We've been through phases one by one
Attraction, Wondering, Learning, Doubt
And now the Waiting has commenced
At some point in the falling-out

I want to talk to her again
The urge is irresistible
Her smile, her sound, her semaphore
The learning how we're similar

But wait.
Not yet.

I must hold off, lest she believe
I'm something worse than what I am
Unfortunate but crucial, Waiting
Gives "her" time to think of "him"

I must maintain the distancing
I must restrain the constant contact craving
So I won't be overbearing
Though it's really hard sometimes

Just wait.
Not yet.

re: action

she,

finally ?

hugged.

- me

[I wrote this mentally on 07.09.10, though I never wrote it down until now. :P It is my shortest non-haiku, followed by "what we made."]

when my soul has smoldered cold

[I have very little idea when I wrote this, since I did not datestamp it. All I know is it was a few months ago; and I found it paired with "self-awareness," so it was probably written around the same time (08.10.10 ... a bit later, I think).]

"therapy"

coddammit
I feel like I have no one to talk to
about the serious, emotional, important things
when I have inward issues I have trouble sorting out
I need help
but all my friends feel superficial
all my bonds are brittle
I feel alone with my own thoughts
my only therapy manifest through page
— a black pen capped with red 
that sheds blue in the darkness.

I don't have much to pay for therapy
but sometimes it would taste so sweet
not to seek answers, mind,
but just to talk
& meanwhile someone listens
oh how long it's been
since someone listened.

I know I want a hand to hold
in truth not just to hold her
but when my soul has smoldered cold
to use her for a shoulder.

therapy is just like all else:
but some words selected from a lexicon,
arranged, estranged, & sequenced
by a mortal mind
groping to be heard
among the mass of echoed anomie □

あなたはいまわたしがすきですか。

"depression"

anata wa

more words fumble from my tongue
in the hopes you'll humour me
with semisweet nothings of your own

ima

your silence distances you from your image
casting doubt on my decision to adore you
an embarrassment I can't bear to endure

watashi ga

one more night elapses unrequited
I question consequences of confession
tears well up inside my barren ducts

suki desu

impatiently I ponder your reaction
and wonder if you'll ever come to comprehend
I want to hug you only when you answer

ka