Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Funny Freedoms




skin
inspiring confusion
eliciting the need for tidy labeling,
categorization

but what if i told you
that i defy 
your neat and
orderly
filing system

suppose that i 
choose not to choose
and suppose that i find your insistence
upon my own choice
a theft of my freedom to do so


where will this leave us?


awkwardly 
in that vast grey space
between black and white
where only one of us feels uncomfortable

your discomfort
no longer holds power
over me

but it causes me
to hide my smirk
behind my hand

for i am developing 
a fondness, you see
for categories
other than
colour

i am learning
the voyeuristic pleasures
of watching
the fantastic collision
between ideals and realities

the good news is, however
that Reality is merely Perception
and is subject to Choice

vive la liberté de choix!



for Shaina. I do not know the way, but I will hold your hand through the Grey space, darling.

Monday, April 26, 2010

El Tango Con un Megalomaníaco


the dreams i dream
are bigger than the head
that thinks them

they burst out, fully clothed
and eloquent
ready to dance and
splitting wide
the cranium
like an over-ripe melon

they are infected with the mania
of the egg
from which they've hatched

they spread it
a contagion

the fever
is ever so delightful
and articulate
it reacts with
the narcissist in us all

the Narcissist and the Megalomanic
they tango

stop your ears
it's catching

too late.
i see you
tapping your foot
in time to the melody

Cave-Dweller



forgive me
the words are often morose
for the thoughts
are often dark


the heart is often grey


and from heart 
mouth speaks
thus runs the world away


it is from 
too much time alone
societal isolation
the prison sentence of skin
and breeding







Sunday, April 25, 2010

alien

my skin is the color of
light toast or
tea with milk
or, coffee and creme


it is 
the warm and gold 
of honey


or the burnished wood
of my cello


it affords me freedoms
and confines me


it restrains and defines me


it causes people to 
throw up walls, and don masks


i see myself reflected
in the eyes of those i meet


brown girl

Reaching Out To Touch. Something.


pretty sure
i'd rather
write a letter

than send you a TXT

i use the heft and weight
of the pen
to carve out 
the words i want to say

and there is nothing
 quite like
the smell of old books
or finding things
between the pages

beats the hell
out of Kindle
any day

don't "message me" on
Facebook
it makes the bile
rise in my throat

call me

i miss the warm timbre
of human voices
talking to me


a Digital Camera
cannot
capture and suspend
the images
that i seek to fix
in my memory

 not the way
film
does so
effortlessly

i miss permanence

and i fear
we are losing

the art of conversation
has left us

we are
swept away
on the tide
of our own
selfish
convenience
and
the collective lust
for instant
 gratification


Saturday, April 24, 2010

Luxury No.13

OakMoon Farms & Creamery
Honeyed Chevre
on an 
Ines Rosales 
Sweet Olive Oil Tortas
with a drizzle of local honey

decadent and rich
conjured visions of Le Petit Trianon
and frolicking through fields of clover
a picnic with Marie Antoinette

best eaten on a rainy day
for it tastes like sunshine

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Stay Sleeping/Not Dreaming

twitchy
itchy
writhing
ache

ecstatic
intentions
of shimmy
and shake

turning
burning
threatening
to break

forcing
and
fighting
not to
wake
 

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Sunday Afternoon

remember my youth to me
tell me it's ok
to leave the laundry
and lie down in the grass

dirt on the knees
and under the nails
are the hippest sort
of fashion statement

when we laugh
it's easy and warm
it bubbles up and out of us
and is infectious
like a yawn

don't let me forget
the pleasure of root beer
from a frosty bottle

or the sleepy purple smell of wisteria

it has occurred to me
that i've grown up
way too fast

i've rushed
when i should've lingered

is that the lesson, children?

that sometimes, wasting time
isn't?

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Au Musée

i dislike the crowds
and the noise
i wish people were more reverent
though i suppose art is life, so 
it is only fitting that life be here, happening
in its presence

but i don't like coming, finding things changed
rather like someone has snuck
into your home
only to rearrange your things
while you were out
it is disconcerting

i want to go right up to the familiars,  
see my reflection in them
breathe my hot breath on them
changing only the slightest of molecules,
but leaving my impression

i want to run my fingers over them
absorbing the hardened strokes of
oils, egg temperas, gouache, and glass
i want to feel what you felt
while it was forming
inside of you

close-up, i can look right into the eyes
the ones that watched you
while you gave birth
(again, i feel bereft, that i am no one's muse,
and that my hands lack the skill
to paint what flowers in my head)

i can see the hair that you have cut
or the bristles that have fallen
from your tortured brush
embedding themselves
binding the two of you forever
tiny razor reminders of anguish
and the strength of truth

i could reach out, feel the swell of the lip
and the curve of the nostril
i know exactly how it would feel under my hand
but i long to do it anyway

















i see the velvet
and my memory conjures 
the gentle push of it against my fingers
funny, how this works
the memory of sensation

And the dress cast in glass
would be cold
and smooth
lacking 
the warm curves
of a real woman

inconceivable that dust
should be allowed to gather
in the folds of that dress
the one that embodies the immortality
of femininity

i am a sensualist,
i do not deny that 
when the slab of marble was offered
i caressed it, 
running loving hands
over cool, rounded edges
cataloging the feeling of it
to refer back to
at some time in the future
when i am not allowed to touch