Socktopia

Yeah...I know.

Somewhere in the universe is a planet full of socks.
Wormholes, I think, that certain scientific magic:
an extra tube coming from the back of the dryer that you don’t notice.
There are piles of socks. Mountains. Valleys.
Hills padding their shoulders with socks for the winter.
Trees wearing socks on their long, crooked fingers.
Lakes soggy with cotton. Think of the colors,
the patterns, the longs and shorts, the winters and summers,
the men’s knee-high socks, or little girls’, frilly and white,
or my brother’s socks, gray with holes in the toes (at least they’re clean).
A pair of underwear pops in; gets confused; turns and hops back down the tube.
Think of all the years of socks. Whose would you find?
Your mother’s? Her mother’s? Maybe your socks
are touching Einstein’s (though usually he wore sandals).
Hitler’s socks. Elvis’ socks. Martin Luther King’s. All Socks Are Created Equal.
Think of your socks joining the socks of history. That’s not so bad now, is it?
(Save the singles though; you never know if the other
might want to come back.)

Enlightened

When I was little, I thought the crescent moon
was a nail clipping from God’s big toe. Then I learned
about big lumps of rock spinning through blackness
and the perfect, white curve
that was just a circle
and a shadow. I like my way better.

I used to think that lightning came shooting
out of the ends of God’s fingers, pure maniacal anger, like Zeus
or a giant, fiery Spiderman. My teacher said that all it was
was little bits of rain and snow bumping into each other,
making crooked electricity
that fought to find the ground. Still no one seems to be able
to explain why.

I was wrong about thunder, too.
It is not our version of God’s voice or his huge fists
smashing down on the earth with rage. Actually it’s just
the earnest little brother of lightning, air slapping against itself,
trying to match the power of the light.
It doesn’t have anything to do with anger after all.

But I will always believe
that rain is how we know God is crying, weeping,
over us, over the desecration of trees and grass,
over blood and ropes and babies who don’t know how to breathe
and rice and rivers and the open faces of flowers
and a wounded wolf or an old man
who dies alone. And that makes him real, and feeling,
soft, alive, almost as human
as me.

Biology

the moon is just gray rock; the stars are just old light;
and we are only water, wrapped in tissue and hung on carbon.
soon the sky will pop and deflate
and we will be sucked dry, inside-out; pulled
into the gaping gut of space, into hunger that cannot be filled,
but small things will remain.
and all the chickens will turn back into dinosaurs.

Los Lagos

My first Spanish poem :$ I actually forgot that I had written this...it's from a little over a year ago I believe.


los lagos

y no me importa lo que pasa cuando no estoy viviendo
ni en el mundo ni en la mente; hay

algo insoportable, un aire que respire
como una fantasma indivisible.

y no me importa cómo soy, y cómo soy, y cómo soy:
una ventana invencible; una oreja muerta;
una botella abierta.

un cuchicheo rompe el silencio como
un lago fracturando –
fracturado –
fin.

y es como sé cómo los lagos
cantaban, cantan, cantarán.


Rough English translation...this is so freaking hard, I can't believe people do this for a living. I'm trying to translate my own poem and it's hard, cuz you don't want a direct translation but one that preserves the spirit/mood of the original...ahh lol.


waters

and it doesn't matter what may pass when I live
neither in the world nor in my mind; there is

something unbearable, an air that breathes
like an unbroken ghost.

and it doesn't matter what I am, and what I am, and what I am;
a fearless window; a dead ear;
an unstopped bottle.

a whisper breaks the silence like
a lake that is cracking –
cracked –
gone.

and it's like i know how the waters
sang, sing, will sing.


Erm...it really doesn't mean anything. (Why am I a dead ear? :S) But for some reason I like it.

Request: Distillation

Two destinies as strong as chains
are battling within my mind –
two bloods at war inside my veins.

There is a darker side that reigns
at times; a fury, cold and blind;
a destiny as strong as chains

which feels no sorrows, fears, or pains.
And then, another, softer kind,
a blood that wars inside my veins

to weigh and measure losses, gains –
in wisdom I am self-defined,
a destiny as strong as chains.

I try to separate from stains
that linger; my own core maligned
by blood that wars inside my veins.

For here you see all that remains
of these, my futures, so entwined:
two destinies as strong as chains;
two bloods at war inside my veins.

Ladder to Eternity

My ladder reaches the moon
and my fingerprints stay forever.
I bring the dust of it home on my palms.
I am a modern Midas – everything I touch
becomes immortal: this violet, that caterpillar,
a child with sweet blonde curls.
My kitten warms my lap, and his fur glitters with gray powder,
and there is no downside; just me, just life,
and the knowing that I won’t ever be
alone.

Infinity

Today is a broken clock that ticks
seven;
seven;
seven.
For these moments time doesn’t exist.
Humans, we try to quantify the qualitative.
What if we didn’t box everything into hours, miles, degrees?
What if we learned time by following the dawn,
tracked distance by the blisters on our feet,
let our skin tell the story of the sun?

Seven;
seven;
seven.
I live between these two small marks, and in this moment
I don’t exist, safe, confined.
The sun rejoices, the ground raises itself up,
and the clock repeats:
seven;
seven;
seven.

Depression

Wow, a long-needed update.

Depression
is being trapped
in an elevator:
the sudden stop,
the silence,
the clawing, crushing black.
Others may knock, but all you can do
is call out,
wondering how much longer the air will last,
and when, if ever,
the light will come.

Butterflies

And what if we all swallowed butterflies,
their wings paper-scraping our throats,
and kept them in our bellies, flutter-drunk
with sugar water and freedom?

Request: Coming of Age: Two Winters

I.
He is scared of the whiteness.
There is something dark and terrible about it –
the way it beats against the windows, finding all the seams and cracks;
the noises, the sighs and moans,
a phantom trying to get in.
The snow boxes him in, a small caged fox, pacing.
It wants to get in and chew him up.
It is some sort of creature, huge, uncontrollable, wild,
and all he wants is to put a muzzle on it
and make it stop.
Oh, for trees and grass; for brown and green;
the smell of the forest, the golden meltiness
of the sun.

II.
He longs for the whiteness.
There is something wild and wonderful about it;
the power of nature; its fury; its ancient, lonesome song.
He finds himself in its rage.
All his bones are longer now, and new knowledge
is embedded in his skin (new angers, new pain).
Funny how things have switched; how the snow seems safer than
the darkness in this house, darkness that seeps
all the seams and cracks; and all he wants to do
is open the windows and let it in.
To let it shake me, wring me,
turn me inside-out
and blow all the darkness away.

Request: Dreamland

Black and white makes things too clear;
I’d rather see in shades of gray.
You would be darker, of course, and I would be light,
but fundamentally we would be
the same.

We are in Dreamland, so I
can believe anything.
You are my Dream, my forbidden fruit –
your lips, your chest,
your slender wrists and fingers.
I want all your bits and pieces for my own.

But I am whiteness and you are black;
a simple truth that means
our futures can never intersect,
even here.

You have to trick others to steal their souls
when I would gladly give
you mine.

Request: Flamesong

Nano request to write about dragons (villanelle number four!)


Flamesong

The Firebeast rests beneath her wings
as every young one romps and plays
with all her jewels and pretty things.

When morning dawns and robin sings
she wakes, but, lingering, she stays.
The Firebeast rests beneath her wings

before, from mountaintop, she flings
herself into the golden rays.
She leaves her jewels and pretty things,

her crowns and goblets, coins and rings,
until, when dusk cloaks smoky days,
the Firebeast rests beneath her wings.

Feared by peasants, knights, and kings,
she calmly breathes their fields ablaze
and takes their jewels and pretty things.

The sun has set, and evening brings
cool breeze, and one last song to raise.
The Firebeast rests beneath her wings
with all her jewels and pretty things.

Still

An old one that I rediscovered today...

Still

Somehow the pain of delivery
is made up for by what is gained.
But what if that gain arrives
purple and silent,
choked before his first taste of air?

Blood that runs from ripped openings
causes fear, but contained in veins
it is to be desired.

Blood can be washed away, but scars harden into
personal tombstones, whether they lie within
or without.

Silent son,
I know not why you died
but I loved you while you lived.

Orion

I can’t find Polaris or a Dipper
but I can always find you.

I discovered you in fourth grade, and since then
you have been like some distant friend.
I seek you in each winter-black sky.
You are only seven stars –
three for your belt, then
shoulder-shoulder-foot-foot.
I have to imagine you a head.

They call you The Hunter; say you
are beating Taurus with a club
or stalking Lepus to cut off his lucky feet.
You are a Babylonian shepherd;
an Egyptian god;
a Finnish farmer
or Indian deer, and Tolkien’s elves named you
the Swordsman of the Sky, but I
will call you Guardian.

Science teaches that while the rest of the constellations
wander into new shapes, you alone
will remain, expanding imperceptibly,
the oldest and wisest sky-dweller.
You saw Eve peek out from behind the first tree;
supervised the construction of the pyramids;
watched bobbing white insects of men creep
across the ashen surface of the moon.
What more will you see that we
cannot even imagine?

In warmer months, I can find no pattern in the stars.
I long for your return.

And though you visit other skies,
I know you will come back
to watch over me once more.

Anne Boleyn's Last

From Henry VIII, obviously. My third villanelle ever!


Anne Boleyn’s Last

When morning dawns above this solemn tower
and wrests me from this prayer vigil I keep,
sunlight will bleed across my final hour.

The night was long – it taunts me with its power.
Just moments yet remain for me to weep
’til morning dawns above this solemn tower.

The Devil lingers close, but can’t devour
my guiltless soul; no weed for him to reap.
Though sunlight bleeds across my final hour

and warms the yard below, I will not cower.
The sword will greet a lion, not a sheep,
when morning dawns above this solemn tower.

Oh Jesus, take me now, your little flower,
and let the arms of Death rock me to sleep
as sunlight bleeds across my final hour.

Without the sweet, we would not know the sour.
The sky is lovely, though despair is deep.
Morning dawns above this solemn tower:
the sun bleeds out across my final hour.

Gravity

B-17; C-14; PT-13; B-52.
Letters and numbers fall together
as my father and my brother speak fluently
the language of my grandfather.
I wonder at these seemingly random combinations;
the mystery of how they each attach
to a giant thing of metal and dials, and more,
how people manage to remember.
How does a letter and a number describe
number of propellers, position of wings,
nose shapes and body length and even color?
It is a tongue that I don’t think will ever
fit comfortably into my mouth.

But I don’t need to know their names
to be able to picture them, these huge silver beasts,
roaring across the smoky sky: or Grandpa,
lively but faded in black and white,
standing in front of his plane in his uniform,
waving and wearing his crooked smile –
thinking of home, but also of ascending
into that vast blue freedom, of forgetting for a moment
the weary pull of the ground.

When we saw him in the hospital, asleep
and asleep and asleep,
my little brother said he thought
that Grandpa was dreaming of flying,
but I say he didn’t need an airplane to have the sky;
he carried it with him in his eyes.

When I miss him, all I have to do is look up,
and being embraced by such blueness
feels like falling once more into his arms.

Passing an Orchard in California

A blur of sticks and chaos
and then, for one half second,
a perfect straight line, and everything
makes sense.

martini

when she hangs up the phone
she presses her glass
to her temple

only ice left
but the outside cries
cold tears

Not-So-Young Lovers' Dance

Grandma can’t see, Grandpa can’t hear,
and their relationship is a slow, stilted waltz.
They both know each step perfectly.

Sixty-eight years since the cheeky, dark-eyed brunette
and the grinning Air Force pilot said, “I do.”
Panama, Trinidad, Washington, Cali –
four children, four grandchildren,
and four Boston bull terriers named “Jupey” later,
they still dance that same dance. Slower now,
with longer pauses to rest and more stepping on toes,
but every small movement expected.
When he sits down she silently switches to his channel.
He cooks dinner and she washes clothes.
They sit in their chairs, she with her jumbo crosswords
and he with his book, and the fan hums,
and everything is yellowsoft and familiar.

As for the smarting toes –
well, they both deserve to be called crotchety;
grumbling over politics, over changes in the city
or the way things have always been,
and they grumble at each other when things don’t go
according to plan, and Grandma sasses and Grandpa snaps
but it’s all part of the dance now,
and soon he’s reading her the mail, and she
is yelling from the family room because he can’t hear
that a timer in the kitchen is going off.

The truth is that he’s gone now, though it seems
none of us can say it.
They pour all of his pills into a Ziploc bag
and when telemarketers call they say
“He no longer lives at this address.”
Aunts bustle around, cleaning, sorting;
Dad calls the bank, and Grandma sits
silent-still in her chair, trying to think
of how she’s going to do the dance
alone.

Departure

For Grandpa, 1920-2010

I started to listen to The Lion King on the way over
but I had to turn it off during the first song.
We were coming to say goodbye.

After you died, I sat on the floor and stared into the fire.
Part of one log was coming off, the shape of a thumb;
it burned more brightly than the rest
until it fizzled out, a hanging white bone of ash.
Grandma tried to pass her tears off as eye drops
and Dad came to dinner wearing your coat.

Memories came in sharp jabs.
A scratchy-mustached kiss on the cheek.
American flag suspenders hidden
under the jacket of your suit at our cousin’s wedding.
Hearing aids squealing: Grandma
hollering your name from her chair, letting you know
that the oven was beeping.

It was worse to think of your swollen, purple arms;
the fever burning in your hands and head;
those choked, gurgling breaths, and bloated tissue-paper fingers
that couldn’t remember how to bend.
It was hard to hold your hand – the first time I saw you
all I could do was touch two of my fingertips
to yours.

Mom said when you had gone
she lifted an eyelid so she could see
your clear blue eye one last time.