& it feels awkward unwieldy it stumbles in places & considered excusing this claiming it is uneven by design but i couldn't, isn't. so it's rough, a draft, oddly i did try to keep it quiet tucked away let it settle & breathe in peace. however that just wasn't feasible.
oh yeah one more thing: twenty three years ago? driving down McKee Road in San Jose, on my way home from my night job. you?
ashfallen the feeling bonebleached
beneath dirty blonde sun harsh
heat soft dry light thick
friction fills the eyes raw
silence fills the lungs slow elegant
stillness in the shape of a living
being vanishing under layer after
delicate layer shallow like skin hollow
a shell a girl torn
like a hole in her own
afterimage
after all
ashfall
~me
27oct03
(reporting live from fiery southern california)
baptism by fire extinguished consumed with torrential rage & i swallow my bitter lesson poison & spiritual emetic alike & nature of course takes no chances vomits ash & stench & molten granite & iron into the clarity of the gaseous myth-ridden separation of our latter half-lives & shows you winter just like me nuclear & i stand back hold back hold on hold what i can & until i can no longer stand & laugh like bells rattle bones & confess yes this has been my most realistic simulation so far & funny thing i think i had you for a minute there i did didn't i?
in the interest of full frontal disclosure i wrote this other one too. again, iffy iffy. but hey.
you strip down
lay yourself out
i know you can't fake it
but are you tired and naked
are you tired and naked?
~michael stipeyes. yes i am.
better than remembering
the illusive truths
lost in the circumstances
and the vastness
of the spaces
in between
the lines
given what was
left unsaid
and
in return
an answer
and
yes, i am less
than willing but
i find i must,
and
so i will:
listen carefully
this whisper will only be
forced once from me, twisted through my
tightened throat, there,
there, i did it, dammit,
i did admit it,
did you
hear it?
~(me) 09.12.03
junior damn high school. mrs. allen's creative writing class. it wasn't my first choice of electives, you know. but it changed my whole, entire life.
what if ... naah.
and i've never exactly thought of it like this, but you know, mrs. allen was a saint. can you imagine, your whole career devoted to the care and maintenance of bad teenage poetry (including publishing an entire book of it every year). and believe me i only post the stuff that is waaaaay over to the 'not so bad' end of the bad teenage poetry scale.
there are copies of echoes '75 and '76 that i could seriously be blackmailed with.
... is remembered
fondly and also with
incredible regret and
without whatever was
taken
forsaken lost
dismissed
and
or
forgotten
in other
words, most
of whatever it
might have been and
everything it meant even if
that wasn't anything
really
still, it
was perfect
as far as the
imagination could
manage and beyond
that, understand:
nothing unreal ever
ever
ends
... was dreamt in a
dozen thousand
words first then
set loose in
lives, words without
restraint sent unrepentant
and as consequences go how
these were unforseen is
beyond the scope of
apology, ironically
there are no words to
repair whatever those
words flayed wide
open or any of
many subsequent
losses
one of which
is
trust
and
words fail
me here but words
do not betray
people, people do,
and in the process
the damages go
beyond
and indeed the words
themselves were
damaged,
for what went
unwritten was
something else
entirely, and
that is all i
will say, i
have done
enough
already
... and i would add that
just knowing trusting
isn't anything by
itself and by
alone i mean only
knowing ones ownself
in relation to some thing
else which will
never be, maybe,
and this means
it is merely
a theory as
far as that
goes, and it does
go on about
the business of
spin and yes
indeed i was
spinning then
only just
spun into time
out of mind
out of time
and why? well
you see what it
isn't is
real, that's all,
aside from
that it is
intense it
is perfect it
makes sense well
from some perspective at
least, it must, though
this makes no
difference and so
mostly i just
know and i know that
i know and lately i
can hardly stand this
knowing
