Poetry-- July 2000

You will have a birthday.
You won't tell me the date
For fear I'll be there and hug you
And fill something in you that I filled
Before you went and left forever.
This month,
You've had so many ends
And I'm through with begging you to
Ease your sorrows on my heart which
You wore so thin I may break like
Glass
You thought I was glass
That month you started to care for me.
 

I hope you cry

I hope you cry hard
because i'm so angry i can't stop
can i at least make you sad?
it's your only reaction to any news or love or any
thanksgivings or warmth.
not even a goodbye when you know that's all i want.
when you know who i feared you'd become.
Hate isn't far when you compact my fears into a ball
and try to float inside.
 

Friend

You have begun my guilt
And now you've eased it and cursed him to his face.
You listened to my tragedies,
Maybe as some kind of punishment,
But freely tell him how you feel.
Grip his own anger and don't let it fall like sand
through your hands,
Tighten his need because you know he'll read
But never respond to things undone.
 

The Sound

Of quiet that used to drive me mad
Must be concealed by sobs or underestimated
Poetry of my self worth
That somehow sinks in your pathetic hands,
Closed around my heart
As you sit on a fence with a sunset backdrop
Only because you're acting again.
 

Stabbing

Are you thinking of stabbing yourself?
Because you're bleeding everywhere
And screaming inside breakable glass
In your nudity
By your ignorance of friendship
and even betrayal.
 
 

Worlds

We all live shrouded in dreams and memories and
Mystical illusions so that you see how hippie I am
And I can draw a smile on my face
Without crayon lipstick.
I could back then,
But now I need a two piece and a new car
To make you think I'm someone okay.
 
 

Mother

You have gone away
Mother
You have gone away
Water
You have left for good
Lover
Evaporated.
 

Another Letter

So I write another letter
To grant you patience and persistent time
To see that I'm going to stay even though I'm running
away
And you already helped me run
Just push me fast hard fast off the
edge
 

Raindrop

I feel a lot like you today
Dressed in blue but pretty somehow
To someone out there who broke my heart.

Raindrop

I smile a lot like you today
Not very frequently because I'm bandaged
In shadows of someone who left me to bleed.
 
 

Prolific

How do I write on and on
someone asks.
I want to disappear into myself
But I can't go where I've already been,
Not like you
Not as well as you can.
You've got to be sorry for yourself
Sorrier than I am
And twice as relieved to end me.
 

Said Nothing

I've confronted my big fear
Of his invisibility
because abandonment
Is my innocent, insecure
noble cause to victory over
the hate that I won't allow it to turn into.
I see myself slipping away from speaking directly to you,
Because of the pangs and the daggers so soft
like a pillow when you have a headache.
He said nothing.
 
 

Justice

Justice was a long haired lady
With locks of blood trimmed ends.
She was so fair because of cruel hands
dealt and hit with by men.
 

Children

The children are noisy
because their mother won't let them be
and I watch how they sigh and hold onto me.
I ponder you and sick lost dreams.
 

He Left Me

with about 25 good songs
and a hat that makes me look cute
but only when I'm not crying
because

he left me.
 
 

decency

it's sad to me
that i found another excuse
to cry over you
simply because you don't even have the
decency
to say goodbye.
 

The New Blue Me

How do you like
The new blue me?
Have I home grown old
so fast
and time to move on
so soon?
 

Salt

There are but millions of natural grains
within the ocean
that will someday cover me.
To give in now
And let the sand bury me
To find my body
In ravaged, drunken fury
Fueled by three colors
That I'd die for
Of indifference and disgust.
United States of Assholes
 
 

Two Piece

Aside from jeans and tee shirts,
I've never worn a two piece,
Least not until today.
And there was the string bikini top,
tied round my neck.
Clinging shorts
stopping before any leg.
But somehow I was different
Yet enough the same
To walk down the beach and have turned heads
Although all I wanted was your affection.
While I wait,
No point in wasting sight on others' attention,
For though they are of no consequence,
They mean ephemeral stars to me.
 

Update

You update
You sink late
You pour blood into the information age.
I sacrifice
In paradise
To find you in the old ways.
By candlelight
An opera
Production destitute
by morning.
Lights suspended
Lies have ended
This time my curtain call.
 

After The Fireworks

Have faded,
And only old glory fades on,
I hear the ocean
And look at that star
And wonder if you're at Rehobeth
Staring across at my island
Even if you don't want to.
 

Smoke

I romanticized today
For the first time in a long while
About some patriotic man
Loving my ways
And me still living
In the old days.
 

Smoke Part II

I realized today
That I may dive back into fantasy
Whether of you or another;
So long as I am spoken for
And accepted by a sun god
who kisses my eyes dry
Like a good lover should
In the new days.
 
 

Jeremy

I envisioned your rounded self here with me years ago,
And your painful form stabs back when I think of him
How much I want him back stabs back when I think of you.
 

Having Time

Nobody has time
for a drive
or a walk
or a swim.
No more time to listen
Or to let me give in.
No more convincing
Or living in sin.
Just enough time
to let me give up.
You say I've been quiet,
Subversive
Withdrawn.
I no longer shine in the light
of your dawns.
Acres of people just hungry for nothing
Because I lay undiscovered in
Bedsheets
Covered in chocolate papered scripts that I wrote
So that you could give a listen.
I apologized a hundred sighs, but I'm sorry
I'm a joke.
 
 

Grill

Burning up what's left of the leather interior
To commemorate independence,
We humans flock shore-bound,
In this treatise of meat united
To tear in conviction that which we may lose,
For what starving families could go without
murder
barbeque?
And you ask what's wrong with the world
As brothers hit brothers and gundpowder explodes.
Fireworks are lovely in crisp ocean sulphuric air.
 

Ex-Couple's Couplets

I wanted to tell you that Lisa said hey
But I figured I'd only be in your way.
Transportation is wonderful; it brings me to you,
But you don't care to see its true color blue.
I asked you to see me, you told me some lies,
You didn't think it would be so hard for me to say goodbye.
Resentment constantly grows as I see how you move on,
Shedding friends and telling them never simply because you are gone.
I don't know what you tell yourself, I don't know what you see,
But if you ever come back to my world, baby you've lost me.
Baby, you've lost me.
 
 

You Know Me

I just want to see you act again
Like you did in my dream
When you loved me.
And then the next night,
When you died,
It was like you were acting again.
I have kissed through so many masks
And when you put my hand to your face,
Knowing me,
What else did you expect me to do?
 
 

Childish Sincerity

Childish sincerity reminds me of lonliness.
I was my only playmate because of the differences
Between the neighbors and their assimilations.
Note the plurals.
I love how you abandoned me
To convince myself of embracing individuality.
And I sit in my car with nowhere to go
And before I know it, I'm driving down to Westminster.
I don't let myself go by your place.
I just cry myself home.
 

Never Look Back

He ran the other way
After confessing that he held on to me
Too much
Held on too much
He might have cared for me
After showing me he'd rather be
Alone
He'd rather be alone
So he'll

Never look back
Never look back
I know he'll never look back at me
And smile
Which is all I ever wanted from him
A smile.

She wrote me back today
After confessing that it wouldn't work
enough
Wouldn't work enough
He might have cared for me
After showing me he'd rather be
Alone
He'd rather be alone
So he'll

Never look back
Never look back
I know he'll never look back at me
And smile
Which is all I ever wanted from him
A smile.
 
 

Secret Lust

After your best friend
Because I want to remember his face
more than yours.
Secret poem
About your best friend
Because I want to disgrace your reputation
more than mine.
Look how you left me.
 
 

Anger

Black mass seeping out into red
Carpeting stained
wooden floor or deck
ruined by it's mass
like a chainsaw
army of carpenter ants
Or your hurtful mouth.
Bite your tongue until it bleeds.
I'm still the innocent,
And you're the bitch,
But the difference is we see victory as those two different things.
Black mass seeping out into red.
 
 

Exhaust

The exhaust from the car in front of me-
How I do a lot of driving-
Reminds me of wanting to see you and
How exhausted I've become.
I've always been environmentally conscious,
So why don't you ease your sinuses
And use the telephone instead of
Exhausted,
Wasted
Gas.
 
 

Lazy

It's my last lazy day
For lunch and movies
Alone depression.
I want to be the victim sometimes
Because I deserve it.
 

Lock

I want to lock myself away
Because I admire you
And that's what you do.

I want to cry myself to dilusion
Because you have what I want
And that's what you do
Even if you torture me.

I want to end the pettiness
Because soon you will too
And that's what you try
Even if we created scars
That will soon meet
And part.
 
 

Office

All the women that call in
And all the calls that pour out
Will earn me status
Like one of your whores.
 
 

Weak

I start writing when I'm this weak.
I need lunch.
You're going to be weak without her.
Miss him madly.
I'm so afraid of being hit
Or hit on
Or pushed
Away again
That I can't run to anyone
or from anyone
but loving him is driving into his brick walls,
so thick I fell apart in my car.
 

The Stalker

He's really a she haunting this list
With my justified paranoia
And half necked confrontations.
Jeremy protects me when Ryan isn't there,
I hope she can see how pitiful and low
Her soul has become.
 
 

The Loss

Has led me to some smooth
goddess arm to reach across the sea
and take another, far away, too far
to be like you.
I will cradle him in mother's arms so that you cannot see me
And if you do,
I will smile by candlelight
Romantic just the same.
 
 

Driving on Glass

The road was a lake
And the lightening like tridents
Of Poseidon, up and down from the sky.
I think I saw Jesus walking across the street,
Or maybe it was just His reflection,
With more wiry hair than the never time that I saw Him,
But it was hippie long and wet like a dog.
He declined my interview.
Journalism's not my style.
 
 

Conan O'Brien

Unassuming late night host
"We said funbags"
And it's getting late.
Late enough to want to want
Conan O'Brien.
 

Craig Kilborn

Today I feel like I
Cheated on Conan
Because Craig was so tempting
So angelically misguided,
That he made me laugh more.
 
 

Don't Get Stuck In Westminster

Don't fall victim to the traffic lights
And the calling stage
Or the radio waves that don't reach too far.
Don't miss the schmuffins,
Or the perpetual roadwork.
Don't hold on to memories
Or drives.
Don't get stuck in Westminster-
That was his advice.
 
 

Instant Replay

At the end of every night,
I knew the answer.
At the beginning of your morning
Of busy days of longing phone calls,
You busy yourself.
And when you hear The Beatles,
who do you think of?
And when you wear your Clapton shirt,
Who is it that you love?
When you drive on a midnight run,
And order our food...
who's the one?
 
 

Jerry

Jerry was a waiter
(But perhaps only by night).
I wish to romanticize him;
an actor...
a rogue?

He could be a painter
(But perhaps only nudes!)
I wish to idealize him
it's better
thank thinking of you.
 
 

Disease

I thought that I was your disesase
Seeping into your irregular heartbeat
So like mine.
And maybe I was your poison
Wrapped in blossoms that day
Under the tree.
 
 

Late For Dinner

I used to be late for dinner
But now I make my own.
I used to be late for television
But now I entertain myself.
I used to be there for everyone
But now I am there for myself.
I used to be early for Valentine's
But now I will disappear.
 

Night

I was never by myself on a wednesday night
but tonight wasn't right for singing
and dancing
with nobody there
to really know.
I think the microphone was static
and I was afraid of confrontation
And wanted someone's consolation
That I never got a goodbye.
 

The Actor

There was an actor that looked like you
Just now, in the background for most
And he consumed my foreground
With unusual fixations
And your usual hair.
He had your hair
But he never let me see his eyes...
He had your hair.
 

House Paint

House paint
Back aches,
Cats, rats
Moths and spiders.
Footprints made of shadows.
Car needs brakes,
Sun goes down.
the sun goes down.
 
 

Bangkok

Diamonds on TV
Imported from Bangkok
And guaranteed.
Bridesmaid's gowns
At Goodwill.
Chintzy sunlight over
earth tones
and your katana
from the pawn shop.
Dollar dinners and
Low octane gas.
Burned CD's and
Yesterday's news.
 

Ease

If only I could ease
All the sorrows and stomach pains,
the coming of grief in you
And everyone.

If only I could ease
All the sadness and lonliness
the coming of grief in him
And everyone.

If only I could see
All the sins thrown into me
the coming of nothing in me
And everyone.
 

A Man

Once there was a man,
And he cried so much by himself
That he thought he was a boy.
Half of what was lost
Was by his own accord.
Half of what was given
Was because he was so loved.
The Narrator doesn't want to explain
How much she loves him again,
Or how many friends have tried to reach out
When a man locks himself away.
I wonder which of us will hold fame first?
Or if he's out there somewhere
And remembers who I am.