A work in progress.

I don't usually like to do the whole predictable rhyme scheme thing, but this just came out. Not sure how I feel about it, but anyway, here it is:

I am seesaw
I am sway
Am black,
Am white,
But never gray.

I am fly,
But I am land
On the margins
Of somewhere
Nowhere
Sunk in sand.

I am seesaw,
I am swing.
I am plummet,
Backslide,
Nose dive.
I am spring.

I am plunge
But,
I am fly.
I am hello
To be goodbye.

I am soar
I am persist
But,
I am cease
To be desist.

I am be
To be become
I am add
But never sum.

I am Dare
I am Defy
But,
I am bear
To fail to try.

I am shout
But also stutter
I am falter
Sometimes flutter

I am seesaw,
I am shift.
Here not there,
And,
There not here,
I am
I am
Am I?

I am breathe,
I am exist
Or perhaps,
I am Imagine
Spawn of Wish.

I seem solid
But
I am seem
I am neither here
Nor there
Merely muscle
Made of dream.

Eyelash Armor

I count my eye lashes every night and morning
to ensure they're all still there.
Google claims I'll lose three to five a day,
but I've got none to spare.

They will not succumb to nature.
I will not permit it.

Every day I take a tally,
stroking every trifling fiber
of every soft black strand.
I'm not used to losing things,
and I refuse to lose
my eyelash armor,
when I'm already losing you.

And as my pinkies graze
the shields around my eyes,
I am comforted.
I am indestructible.

They will not
tear off
wear out
fly
flee
float
bolt
die--

I will not allow it.

Every day I count my eye lashes
to be certain
they've not got away.
I hold my breath and only hope
for 200 goodbyes I'll never need to say.

Every day I count my eye lashes
I shake in fear
'cause I see ghosts around my eyes.

wheels

it is 10 p.m.,
and the car-less road invites me
to become a vehicle
and to teach my feet to spin.

i will walk here for some time,
dodging thoughts
and shifting gears
until i tire.

but roads are made for wheels,
not people,
and how long might feet rotate, anyway?
wheels, i know they'll come
eventually,
and my feet won't stand a chance.

and my ankles turn to antifreeze,
as my motor calmly hums
a lullaby my mom would once recite:
"goodnight, sleep tight," it murmurs.
"don't let the bedbugs bite."

"do everything that's right,"
the motor moans, and,
"pleasant dreams," it sighs.
but pleasant dreams run silent
as i tie the tongues of thought,
and succumb to the night sky.

and i am tempted
to park myself right here
sprawl on asphalt
and lose myself in stars--

or headlights?

the wheels are coming,
and i am not afraid.

no, i am not afraid of broken glass,
just that it will shatter without sound.
no, i am unafraid of skid marks,
i am content lazing on the ground.

the wheels are coming.
my feet cannot compete,
and do not want to.

the wheels are coming,
let them come.

i simply do not feel like going.

for the sky is glowing, the air is clear.
let them come,
'cause on a night as fair as this,
i haven't any fear.

that is why
empty roads are deadly,
more deadly than a cairo highway.

that is why
we will end up in a junkyard,
or, possibly a graveyard.

because roads are made for wheels,
not people,
and i know wheels will come eventually.

Post-Finals Bliss

I am at long last done with finals, and have rewarded myself for a job poorly done by shopping. Hardcore. The splurges were unintentional, as they so often are. I was simply keeping a friend company while she shopped, and somehow, I ended up buying far more than she did when I meant to buy nothing at all! How typical of me...

They were playing club music in Macy's today, and all I want to do is dance, now that school's out!

It's blissful to be finished. I surely would not have gotten through finals without my old pals from Destiny's Child keeping me awake on many an endless night.





Also, the Sparks. If you haven't listened to them, you must! They've produced irresistible nonsense music at its finest since the late 1970s. It is hard to believe that they never exploded given such catchy melodies and lyrics like, "Chicks dig, dig, d-i-g, dig, dig metaphors" in the song "Metaphors," or from the song "Let the Monkey Drive," "We're driving north on Highway 1 / Toward Santa Barbara, lots of sun / Pacific Ocean on our left hand side / Though Santa Barbara's on our mind, our love can't wait till after nine / So she says, 'Can't we let the monkey drive?"

Really, there would be no Scissor Sisters without these guys.

the post-modern buddhist blues

buddhism is cool now
so let's look at this like buddhists do
the new kind, anyway

we'll plan to stop planning
because being in the now
is the same as being in

we'll be the post-modern kind of buddhists
the sort that love for free and often

the kind that lure you in
but do not lock the door
even as you're begging for a bolt

we'll look at this like buddhists do
worshipping the swift affair
until it ends
and end it surely will
because we planned it all along

maybe we'll meet sometimes at night
but if we do, it's only chance

and at 9 p.m. last wednesday
clearly, no, you did not recall
that I'd be waltzing down the hall
when you found yourself idling
where you did not have to be at all

of course, you could not, did not know
where i'd be or where i'll go
these run ins are pure luck
but since we've met again:
when will you be free to fuck?

we'll write it in the moleskin just in case
in pencil, since that's what buddhists do
the williamsburg sort, that is

how does june 16th sound?

Tonight, Imma fight, till we see the sunrise.

Last night, I planned to pull an all-nighter to work on a take-home final, a paper, and an internship application. I sure as hell stayed up all night, but only worked on actual work for about an hour. Typical, typical, typical. The rest of the time I downloaded The Doves, made a 4 AM hike to McDonalds, and wrote something resembling poetry (see below). Now, the sun has risen, I'm still awake, on my third or fourth bottle of Pepsi, and instead of starting my work, I started this blog. Oh well. Somehow, I still get my shit done with time to spare.

--

these days

everything has meaning

near in nearly

hard in hardly

bare in barely

the planes i almost missed

but didn't

the tests i should have failed

but didn't

the motorcycle

that got me to my train

in the nick of time

maybe it's a sign

in this relentless night

that the light that flickers

fails to fade

that yesterday's pigeon poop

missed me by a minute

and an inch

that the weather forecast predicted storms

but it only stormed in Jersey

close calls chime in sync

and tease my eardrums to believe

that the world might howl

even sans a big bad wolf

and ghosts are not the same

as people who are pale and ill

and coffins are just shoe boxes

graves are only stones

they are the only objects on this earth

that mean nothing

nothing

'cause these days

everything means something

and my eyes solely see analogies

and i only think in similes

my world is twisted out of imagery

and i am made of metaphors

you'd surmise that i'm a writer

but i am just a dreamer

built of words

and punctuation marks

or lack thereof

i see only what i want to see

images are chosen carefully

meticulous

ridiculous

there is symbolism in this diet coke

fizzing

nearly spilling

but just

filling me

filling me

filling me

with all the pseudo energy

i need to make it through this night

liquid utopia

bubbly

bubbly

i drink a flawless fantasy

and begin to breathe again

there is life bursting from this plastic

ejected from an automat

that gave me an extra bag of chips

for free

father seems to be dying

but this vending machine says otherwise

just a dollar-something for a coke and chips?

my luck is changing

changing

and maybe he's not dying

after all