WHAT YOU WANTED (You thought I didn't know) You wanted something of beauty long tall around your table arching back penciled brows something pretty high up on your downsizing something lovely laughing straight line teeth and red something on the sofa cross-legged sitting pretty still life something nestled between your pillows dazzled and charmed shooting stars and those granulated whispers of hope and loss. You wanted something priceless, penniless something full and wise to show how much of this world you own me in my second division mitosis thighs spread clean slated, penciled in thin line with three degrees and separation something smart and funny a butter mint at your reception.
I answer the door and 400,000 angry Emilys are on my front lawn waving slightly bent ticket stubs to not matinee priced may i remind you chick flicks that their boifriends refused to accompany them to something about the movie's at 4 and the Lions/Packers game doesn't end until around 5 and that's not counting overtime which this game could possibly go into and honey, can't we do it next weekend it's only the Chargers next weekend we can go next weekend, honey 400,000 angry Emilys are not satisfied with this answer and want to me to explain why bois' are so disappointing juvenile obnoxious insensitive (insert 399,996 other applicable derogatory adjectives here) Emily 26,569 used the word superfluous I told her it might not mean what she thought it meant 400,000 angry Emilys are now burning effigies of my intellectual smarminess on my front lawn neighbors from 8 miles away are calling to complain because the blaze and the resulting glare from all 400,000 pairs of the Emily's rather attractive punk rock granny glasses are making it difficult to watch Touched by an Angel I tell them I understand their pain withdrawals from Roma Downey's unassuming Gaelic charm can be difficult The Emily's have grown apologetic I invite them in but only if they are quiet and well behaved my girlfriend is sleeping, you know Emily 309,097 flips me the finger but is reminded of her manners by Emily's 156,982 thru 171,098 I like that group besides Emily 168,494 keeps smiling demurely and winking at me she's a keeper There's not enough room on the couch so 14 Emily's sit on the floor 399,986 Emily's perched like soon to be falling Wallendas on my $50 floral patterned couch want to why I am who I am why I never hit on any of them except #267,501 I was drunk and later apologetic and she forgave me She doesn't hold grudges Why I never elaborate on what they mean to me and what we could be and why do I find them attractive I just pour the wine kiss as many on the cheek as I can and whisper Okay, not really whisper let's be realistic there are 400,000 of them because I like the fact that we are just 400,001 people that enjoy each others company and that's all right by me.
There are nights when the fettered stars hang like loose barb wire across the sky, and all I can think to do is pull shut the shades, try not to use your name in my verse, cleverly call you by emotion, by the way your curtains move with such equestrian grace. I want to write, to tell you of all the times I've lost myself in the produce section, hitting melons with index fingers, rolling Cortland apples in my hands, searching for brown. How absent between the green pepper and Romaine, I think of you, cross-legged on the mattresses. But there is nothing to say, except that I still see you, hair slightly askew from fans, New York autumns, reading Marx aloud over the light of muted television. Except that every time I close correspondence with cryptic quotes I mean to tell you that even outside of the meandering of produce aisles, I mislay moments, thinking of that early April afternoon when I walked past the bathroom door to hear you singing "Blue" through the trivial battle of showerhead and tile, and I knew I'd never capture your hummingbird hands, even accidentally. There are nights when I cannot collect you enough, or in anything but twice-used grocery bags, wet with condensation and two grapes left for dead in the crease.
I like the first one best. Strong linebreaks. Perhaps there should be a new stanza the second time you say "You wanted something..." Evocative.
The heater kicks on at 2 in the morning, You turn in bed and come closer. My eyes open to a strange light-darkness, It’s snowing outside—no wind. Your left leg is warm—almost hot. My fingers search and find your fingers. I squeeze them and wait—you return A strong squeeze; then soft laughter; You’ve been awake now for an hour— And tell me I’ve been snoring a song.
Stephanie Morris got a 1580 on her SATs She took them sick and missed one entire page. She told me once about this French guy—a philosopher who, after growing quite influential lived out his days in a room with no windows and colorful floor pillows smoking hash and watching the movements of giant turtles that he had glued large jewels onto. The turtles must have absorbed the glue through their shells which are porous (so you should never glue or paint live turtles). The glue, the lack of ventilation and the hash smoke— this could not have been healthy for the turtles. But despite that cruelty and despite now not quite remembering if he was really French, or a philosopher or if it was hash or opium he was smoking and despite the many years since I have known Stephanie Morris (though often I wonder how she's doing) despite the Google searches for "french philosopher hash tortoise" and "Stephanie Morris" which yield nothing . . . Despite all that, I think upon it fondly.
one date I was ridinghood my bikecycle up rt.31, sweatying and lookingaround at the cows(shit) and tree(green)s. only a Chain aheady of me, a sprungup cow on its hindback legs (looked like) It mooed and cooed and glued itsself to the road. Verywelly , I could not avoid it Moving prettyboi fast, 8.556x10^-3 furlongs/fortnight, to be preciselyright. I skidslammed into the bigstinky cow my wimpy 38,400 dram body bounced gleefullyouch off the cowhide, onto the road and into the guttersnipeleafcatcher. the ownerman of abovesaid cow from his house (wife(bitch) and kidsyapyapping trailing behind) "[Was I] allright, son?" laughingstupidfarmer. I was/saidso, but would like (if it isnt too much of a hassle, Hoff[ss]) if I could use the phoneCall to my friendgirl fora homeride dumbfarmer spatshatshotsnot on the road and mumblecursed me wrecklessdriving crazylezzie.
Hy knows, for her, ten minutes late is early. She knows, for hym, ten minutes early is late. And so they live their lives together, but in different time frames. Hy thinks that she will surely miss the boat that hy is the first on. And surely, she thinks, when hy arrives hy'll wait and wait. She will put herself in the hands of fate; hy'll take his fate in hys hands and hold it securely. "The early bird may get the worm," she says, "but who wants worms?" "Late is just," hy says, "a synonym for dead." And so the worm of discord continues turning surely between them. Hy wonders if there's time to save the day. She thinks that it is just too soon to say.
For fucking up, for fucking down, for cursing, for fornicating, for irrigating, for extricating testimony from innocent bystanders by way of unbearable torture, for backsliding, for citing, for writing fifty-seven very sad poems. In my defense I submit that I was egged on by my brown carpet, a very unhappy color, an earthy color, a color leading to thoughts of death. I have ripped the carpet off the floor and laid tiles, bright sunshiny yellow tiles to atone for my sins. For making, for breaking, for aching to strip the sound from a note [what was I was trying to find?], for taking your hand and signing the orders, for waiting, for wanting. Oh. That’s a good one. Wanting to stay, say, leave a trace: a snail on dry river bed. The earth there was brown, and I have already tiled it yellow—there is water now, the most violent shape, seeping through sealed caskets, inducing a sense of vertigo, a desire to fall, fall into—well, what is there? Baby Jessica and three dozen camera crews tell me that rebirth is possible, even from brown earth. They don’t understand the miracle of tiling, of exiling all seasons except winter, because no one wants to be reminded year after year after year. So I propose a steady snow, a steady surrender to all things white and erased. For standing, for sitting, for sleeping, for breathing, for sneezing, for blinking, for stopping for nothing, for seeing, for peeing, for being bored and whored to the highest bidder For arriving here wrinkled and screaming, for leaving the same.
Well, their all very good! Haha i've just spent the last 10 minutes reading all of them, i like the last one alot
there were lips. on the side of her neck. well not lips. but the prints of lips. left red on her skin. where my lips were once. upon a time. or upon a hundred times. I said whose lips? and she said I cannot tell you Cannot? I said Cannot. she said because I don't know. someone danced past us nipples through thin fabric I thought briefly of the fabric and of the fabric falling away. and then what to do next. it was a moment. and then it was gone. like love between lovers. eventually. whose lips? I said again this time a little louder. I do not know she said do not? I said do not she said because I can't tell you the music was too loud for me to leave her then and there. not loud enough for me to think about forever. whose lips? I almost said again but decided against it. and put my lips next to those on her neck I felt her pulse there under my lips under someone else's lips and knew that no matter what no matter who time and I kept moving forward even under her skin just like always.
While I sleep my wife writes words on my back. She wants me to feel what she thinks, what's inside her chest. When I wake the letter Q boils between my shoulder blades as if it were branded or etched. I think she traced C but there's longing in her and she hates the word covet. Her delicate hands can’t hold desire. She is sitting on top of me naked, though her hair clothes her. The bed isn't large enough for this love tracing from her fingers. The room diminishes when she opens her eyes.
