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.