Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Haikus For Otis

rhythm, fits, storm, breath, sea, touch, fog, rocks, swallowing, night, tide, searches

      UN.
the rhythm we make
in fits and starts, heroic
is my perfect storm

     DEUX.
time my breath with yours.
drown myself in your green sea,
reach out and save me.

    TROIS.
fog rolls slowly in
still we sit, two craggy rocks
swallowing the dark.

    QUATRE.
the Moon, wrapped in night
finds her image in the tide
she searches her face









Letter To An Unknown Gift-Giver

Dear Mr. Samlidis,
       I am writing concerning a very lovely pair of Anthropologie earrings. They were sent to me, as it would appear, by you. However, I have never been to New York; neither have I - based upon your Facebook photo - ever met you. Understandably, I find the motives behind the earrings dubious.
      If it was a mistake that they came to me, (as I presume), please let me know and I will return them forthwith. If, however, these earrings are connected in some way to an attack upon my identity, I must ask you to please desist. I assure you I haven't an identity worth stealing...

                                                   Yours,
                                                   L.Moore

Friday, November 26, 2010

Black Friday Special: Two For the Price Of One

let the dead carry their own
he said, and i trust
him. 
there is no lie behind his eyes
but i just cannot 
put this down.

i'd need a rubric
or someone with
shoulders stronger.

Removal.
Removal.
 just Beats in my brain.

Remember.
Remember,
even He wept.

 < --------------------------------------------------------------------------

the crush of youth
is heavy on me,
when i feel so old.

my skin is parchment.
my bones too brittle.
i have to dance slowly
these days
one wrong move
and 
SNAP!
gold dust   
 from the most
ancient of deserts
floating on the wind.

there is dirt in my blood, and 
words excised 
into my parchment skin

that are older
than language.

i cannot say  how my skin reads,
but
i learn myself 
from people i meet.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Nom de Plume/Nom de Guerre

i need one/both.

So far I'm attracted to the last names Botwin, Frezza, Chamlee, Isaac, and Mierau.

First names that shimmer/shine: Lura, Lera, Loura, L.K., L.Kei, and L.

Curious about the dubious possibilities of taking a male name, or a Japanese one...

Liminality

“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “I guess their grandmothers could have done it.”  She stalked away, leaving me alone in the deepening gloom with the smell of water. “I for one don’t think I could do it, though,” she said over her shoulder. I suddenly felt a very deep craving to throw something hard at her retreating back. I imagined the weight of the rock in my hand; I knew exactly how I would shift my weight to give me equilibrium for launching the rock from my palm.
Instead, I ran after her and grabbed her hand. “I DON’T WANT YOUR GERMS ON ME!” she shrieked, wrenching free and taking off running. I let her get far ahead of me, so that she was just a moving shape on the horizon, and then I started running too. I didn’t want to be left in the dark. Plus I knew she’d come around. She always did. She said mean things to me, but I never really thought she meant them. 
The sun had gone down far enough that the little evening-bats were out, circling and diving overhead. I slowed my running home long enough to throw a few small rocks up in the air, to watch the bats swoop toward them. Momma told me once that if curly-headed girls played outside after dark fell, they were liable to get a bat stuck in their hair. I was never entirely sure if I believed her, but the thought was so terrifying it was enough to keep me from wanting to be out after the sun went down.
By the time I made it home, Cara and Lyra were arguing about whether or not Depeche Mode would prefer their two most adoring fans to wear tutus or no tutus to the next concert. I hung back in the shadow of the doorway listening to them argue like sisters do. I was still sweating from my run home, and wishing that some of their blonde glamour would spill out and settle on me.
“Why’re you lurking in the doorway?” Lyra drawled at me. Her voice still had the Irish brogue that she could lay on thick like jam on toast. Of course, the accent was just icing on the cake of the Bearden Girls’ glory: they were too cute to be believed, blonde, so incredibly intelligent, well-mannered, and then, ohmigosh those accents. Either one of them could make you feel privileged just to be noticed by them, but Cara was my best friend. And I? Well, I didn’t really have anything very special about me, just a head fulla kinky curls that Cara brushed out once to see “how big” my hair could get. So where they were fair, I was dark. Where they were straight I was curly. Where they were so well-rounded, I was just sort of ordinary.
 “I asked why you are lurking in my doorway,” Lyra demanded, glaring at my reflection in her mirror. “Oh, I was just, um, waitin’ on Cara,” I stammered. Lyra always made me a little nervous. She was practically grown since she had already got her period. She always seemed kinda mad, so I mostly just tried to stay away from her.
Lyra rolled her eyes. “You two brats get outta my room,” she ordered. Cara pulled a face and I tried to stifle a giggle. “I mean it. You’re getting on my nerves and I’m trying to concentrate.” She bent her head over her desk where she was braiding bits of string together.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” Cara asked, plopping down on Lyra messy bed. “Maybe we can help.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. I knew two things with the wiggling of those eyebrows: 1) I should keep my mouth shut, since that was our signal for Cara to do the talking; and 2) she had already forgotten our fight before we ran back to the house. I grinned at her.
“I’m making these awesome friendship bracelets to raise money for my new publishing venture. So no, you may not help unless you want to help by buying some.”
“I don’t have any cash to buy one of your dumb bracelets,” Cara retorted, kicking a pile of clothes off the bed and into the floor. I snickered. “Wait, what ‘publishing venture’?”
“Don’t worry about it, you little jerks, it’s not a kids’ book.” Lyra didn’t notice the toppled pile of clothes, or Cara’s nasty trainers on her bed. She did, however, notice me still leaning against the doorframe. “Are you still here? Get out!” she yelled. We scrammed.
An hour or so later, I snuck back to Lyra’s room. The door was closed but not latched, and I could hear the thump of her stereo from inside. I nudged the door open with the toe of my shoe.
Lyra was lying flat on her back on the bed, flipping through a magazine. “What do you want dork?” she asked. “Ever heard of knocking?”
I gulped. “Hey, uh, Lyra, I think I wanna buy one of those bracelets you were making.”
She glared at me disdainfully over her magazine. I dropped my gaze and stubbed my toe into the carpet. I could feel myself shrinking and getting smaller with her watching me. After a few seconds, I was just a bug, and I wished I hadn’t come.
“Why do you like her so much?” she asked very softly. “She’s like, one of your only friends. And that’s really weird, you know?” She had propped up on one elbow, and looked genuinely interested in how a bug would respond to an obviously rhetorical question. I thought I was going to faint; her accent was a lilting melody that disoriented me. 
After a few beats, I summoned all my faculties and shrugged heavily. She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She glanced at my pocket, so I began fishing around for a few quarters to give her. “They cost-“ I pulled a crumpled five dollar bill I had left over from my allowance, “exactly five dollars each,” she finished, holding out her palm. I gave her the money, and then moved to where she pointed at a row of braided bracelets spread across her desk. I quickly chose one and headed to the door.
Maybe the sudden rush of courage I felt was just because I was leaving her stifling presence, or maybe it was because I could feel myself transforming back from a bug to a girl again. Either way, I suddenly felt bold enough to say at the threshold, “You should ask the man in the moon why I like her. That’s what I do when I have a serious question that I can’t really ask anybody else. Then when you go to sleep, sometimes he’ll give you the answer in your dream.” I blushed, embarrassed to have spoken at all.
Her eyebrows knit together, she watched me leave her room.

lim·i·nal·i·ty

  [lim-uh-nal-i-tee] 
–noun Anthropology .
the transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during whichthe participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous,shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms ofconduct, dress, etc.
Origin: 

L lÄ«min-  (s. of lÄ«men threshold + -al1  + -ity

Monday, November 22, 2010

truth no. 42



i am burned-out and procrastinating. 

Friday, November 19, 2010

Writas Blok


poem, junket, seminal, sprinkling, punctual, red, swagger, ever, pop, stops, timid, shimmer


hello, poem.
we meet at  
the very same junket,
stuck.

seminal ideas,
once rosy-cheeked and vivacious
now lie crumpled and discarded on the floor.
They are used up and we cannot coax ourselves
to use them again.

there is not even a sprinkling
of new and fresh, 
none of the passion we had once
for those words.

the reaper is jealous, and ever punctual to
slaughter the muse.
he lies in wait for her, Inspiration, to rise as the glorious
phoenix from the ashes of frustration

her blood is red
where it has spilled over the
page

all my bravado and swagger
have gone with her,
leaked in inky blotches.

nothing comes to
pop and sizzle like blue lightning
through my mind.

the kinetic electricity 
of neurons firing fast
just stops.

there is only the premature ejaculation
of a timid poetess
and then nothing more...

even the shimmer
has begun to fade.



Monday, November 15, 2010

From the Turkish of Edip Cansever


The Table. 
A man filled with the gladness of living put his keys on the table, Put flowers in a copper bowl there. He put his eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in through the window, sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel. The softness of bread and weather he put there.
On the table the man put things that happened in his mind. What he wanted to do in life, he put that there. Those he loved, those he didn't love, he put them on the table too.
Three times three makes nine; he put nine on the table. He was next to the window, next to the sky; he reached out and placed on the table endlessness.
So many days he had wanted to drink a beer. He put on the table the pouring of that beer.
He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness; his hunger and his fullness he placed there. Now that's what I call a table! It didn't complain at all about the load. It wobbled once or twice, and then stood firm. The man kept piling things on.
 Edip Cansever



la Pluie

hi there, 
grey Monday.

dripping leaves
there's chill 
and damp

so i'll sketch
somewhere
nicer.

it's a day
like today
when all i want
can be found
in my nest.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

A Letter To the Daughter I Haven't Got

 small, curiosity, tempting, beaten, stepping, tongue, echos, fear, knees, slipped, taps, saves




leap from what is small to protect your curiosity at all costs.
Though killing it is tempting

there may come a day when you are down, beaten low
and your demand to know could be the stepping stone.

don't ever watch your tongue, but be ever ready to own your words.
Sometimes the echoes of your speech will return to cheer you,

and sometimes a prodigal and grotesque word you've said,
will return to you, make you cower in fear and shame.
it will demand paternity with you on your knees,
toppling the pedestal you have placed yourself on.


but when your crown has slipped,
and mortal frailty taps at the window of your expectations, 
remember to be curious. 
Our burning curiosity saves us from the dust of yielding to bland conformity.






Wednesday, November 10, 2010

untitled.



when i do not like
the answers

i reverse

and try to change
the question

but it's always 
too late

the thinking
has set them
in stone.

if i try again,
i know
that i know
what i really 
want
to
know

is 
exactly
the same
as before.

i can 
rephrase.

i can reach out
grasping for
something else, but

i come away
holding the same.

truth no. 7



Sometimes it's hard to listen to the answers.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Yellow Woman In the Desert

see, shift, asking, ambivalent, bodies, lured, agreed, stop, why, yet, look, secret


see out over
the sand

dunes that
shift and settle

wind blowing
answers, never
asking

dust falling
into every ambivalent line

a mirage of
bodies

lured by
the smell of water

it does not
matter,
the desert will agree

to stop is to die.

so why did you
come here?

you sought barren
wilds, yet look -

every grain
of sand is fecund.

the secret lies
in the ability to start all over again.

truth no.5



 clean sheets + Hercule Poirot = The cat's pajammas

Sunday, November 07, 2010

truth No.2

i would look lame 
in skinny jeans.



Not Another Lovesong.

see waking promise keening frostbitten not power trust room stone carry we

see here,
now

the waking
is slower
these days

don't forget
your promise
to keep

don't go
keening for
what's broken

what we had
is only
frostbitten

and with warmth
we'll thaw

the freezer burned
taste will
not be
forgotten

no matter how
high
the power

i trust you
enough
to throw you

i won't turn
my back
on you
in the room

but i'll toss
you like a stone

that i have
carried so long
in my pocket

we eat slowly
the things
we are ashamed of.