Poetry

the ghost
for jeff mangum
you are shaking.
shaking, bright, gentle
a star with a point, but no sharp pieces
you hide from the earth.
it is nothing to feel
it is more to know the feedback
of a thousand feelings
and fold and freeze alone
far away from here.

do you know our time is numbered, mister jones?
sand has a way of finding itself between your toes
and counting itself to faraway numbers.
the vines of a flower can choke me to tears,
temptation can set me aflame,
and a lonely dancefloor can become a bitter taste.
the shore holds every footstep before mine
and the splintered virtue and chastity
every toe once held upright
is held in every glint of light
off of saline waves.
i turn, and though there is a faint reflection
of perhaps a thin man i once knew
i am alone.

when worrying lines into your forehead
young thing,
the worry will work your heart open
until it is aged and cracked,
wrinkled and broken.
you will find it again in the morning
and it will be unrecognizable.
old love,
worry may bend or twist your spine
may notch pieces in your heart –
but i will plant seeds of heartstring flowers
where old blossoms have been uprooted.
blooms there will always be coated in honey.

midnight
a slice of orange floating in violet alcohol
finds its way shimmering into your damp eyes.
an almost-harvest, almost-autumnal moon
heralds the coming of change.
the night is young at midnight
and soon it will be warm hands and warmer beds
and falling asleep in your arms.

i’m not sleeping… anymore
my bed is warm but empty.
there is an angel who does not hear,
but i tell her all i know.
waiting for sunlight
to crawl up under the covers with me,
to trace my outline with its fingers,
to kiss my face gently,
to shine harsh on my eyelids,
i do not sleep.
it’s a gentle coma, paralysis in fear of dreams
that come alive after three sleepless nights,
breaking every bone in your spine.
i can’t stop crawling out of this skin.
circles are evidence of a night well spent –
trying to forget.

v
here is a sick ache of bile in my throat
that i am leaving behind this september.
there are songs about insanity
and songs about losing friends
(losing you, more accurately
because you were not so much a friend
as a kind of brother)
and songs about the churning dance
my stomach does when i think about you.
and maybe i am better off.

goading on and on and on,
this is not a war between factions.

i am a conscientious objector,
and i am better off.

newborn
in stars to smoke,
your young, wild woman
(which we work stiffly like marble,
once making moist needles
more like fresh porcelain ghosts),
ablaze from fever.
every child but hers is broken, liquid,
melting like night magic, naked.
god never lingers long.
come bleed, baby;
perhaps when you wake, she will speak streams.

hold me in your heart
wine will touch your tongue,
taste sweet the way we remember.
sad paradise voices warm perfume with wind,
then rises under the sun,
never wants a song.
where shall flames feel like your embrace?
when will the ocean comfort me, as your skin once did in sleep?
why will the fingers of wild love not trail beyond my cheek?

the face in your window
soon, you will scale water.
she — young, white, wild –
would write so,
every balance or grace
a concrete beauty.
you who suffer your question of waste
must think it like a soft, mad passion
he, as electric as canvas

in here were my raw monuments,
the world in red music.

all the rest
i want to go to sleep and wake up mid-july.
there’s a wanderlust that i cannot tell,
cannot show.
there is nothing left here, nothing
(a few friends
and a love,
but most will leave
and one will follow).
i want to go to sleep but cannot tell you why,
and what i need for now is not affirmation
not to sleep on it,
but to go.
when i leave,
it will mean freedom.

open doors are open ended
underneath the floorboards
i am stretching from my sleep.
i stay curled in three folds,
at the hips, at the knees
and bent around air, my spine
arching back with an ache,
new from dreams.
but i am folding back to three parts,
shivering with the cold sun
scarring my arms and legs.
it will be hours until the nails on my eyelids
are pried up.

nothing is more
when the fireworks are over
all that’s left is spiderwebs of smoke
on the dark sky
that headlights turn away from.

after the party
there are empty plates
and toothpicks
and no friends to speak of.

when i get out of the shower
the comfortingly warm water turns cold
and pulls open places
where my skin has become weak.

at the end of the phonecall
there are no more secrets
and somehow
there is something more inside my heart.

in the end, there is always something greater
for better or for worse.

friends are like needles in your spine
when you’re alone, you’re alone.
it’s alright,
it’s fine,
you’re okay
until you’re not.

I. you make the effort
but it won’t be the same.
that’s your fault
and you know it. all the same,
it hurts.

II. it’s bipolar. you don’t know why
at one second things
are fine
and the next
you yell
because you’re being yelled at.

III. this hurts most.
being ignored
blown off
called names
treated like nothing but what’s on your chest
but beyond anything
you just want to be noticed.

IV. nothing is wrong here.
this is not a problem.
it’s the only thing that keeps you sane
and you love that.

spring tracks
shed your skin and slip these bars.
the sky may be dark, with dead stars
but the city is not too far.
it will lift us up, and we
will sing.

here we are, alive at last.
you promised me the world, and
you fulfilled it
with your heart.
travel fast away, and we will take our first breaths.

miss muffet’s aversion to conflict
perhaps i am not what you are looking for.
if i had a cigarette
i would smoke my friends
down to the filter.
instead, i’ll bake in the cold sun.
i’m just turning eighteen
and trying not to look too lost.

emergency exit
you forget your heart
at the baggage claim. o’hare
never seemed so cold.

hanging moss garden
yesterdays are gone, and there is a new rose
you can’t put your arms around.
the garden is better than before.
don’t cry — you could be mine
if my world were nearer to yours.
it rains here in november; the ground freezes,
cracks, and holding on becomes hard
since i don’t have you.
i may move to the city where
there are no gardens.
to the street of dreams, where
i will not be the first whose bones
crumble to dust.
patience is a good apple, and
i have only the bad.
the horse is dead and i can wait
for you no more.
perhaps this garden of eden
is right next door to hell.
we are estranged, though i think about you.
it’s so easy to jump on this last train
and leave this garden, to go east.

from bobby with youth, always
brownsville, mississippi, is new to me, and much different
from nashville. the skyline is stark
and every sad face stuck inside the lowland mud only
looks like yours, marie.

you made me lonesome when you left,
disappearing into, around, under the red sky.
and in the vermilion moonlight, i have the blues
since you tried to get to heaven, marie.

it’s cold irons that bind me, but
i have god on my side, though i’m only a pawn in their game.
we’ve all got to serve somebody, but you’re a big girl.
i’m still waiting at the altar, marie.

i’m a poor boy. but in a series of dreams, i got my dignity,
through buckets of rain and a hurricane, through high water.
and i was standing in the doorway
’til i fell in love with you, marie.

it’s not dark yet. but there’s one more night after
your restless farewell. send me no boots of leather from spain,
simply be honest with me. i may cry a while, but
oh, it’s just those summer days, marie.

there’s lily and rosemary, and their father jack and they ask
when it’s rained if i need shelter from the storm. i’ve been
a million miles away, i say, and say, if you see her, say hello.
oh, to be alone with you, marie.

to make you feel my love is a distant hope, but the times,
they are changing. my clothes are dirty, but my hands are clean
and i’m sick with love. the north country blues don’t haunt me no more,
because, tonight, i’ll be staying here with you, marie.

paris is distant
she is away and it
has hit me like stones, or
like iron flung too fast.
i am lonely, i am alone.
there are no tears, only
the vague empty feeling
that something is missing.

and someday we will trade
hands, and press lips to lips;
hearts we’ve already given away
ache to be nearer to one another.
i could crawl across the ocean for her
and die content tomorrow
if i could only hold her tonight.

dreamy weather we’re on
there’s a dream in the air in our kitchen
as we trade hands.
red cheeks and red lips
exchange doll-eyed glances.
swollen hearts are too young for anything at all
and i have been drowning without you
and your gentle reminder
that i am alone –
the fear is the only thing
that keeps me afloat.

outlaw of the heart
i will rush you out.
this is not permissible;
i will wash the evidence of everything
through and through
with pipe cleaner through my heartstrings.
you are alcohol and illicits,
you are phonecalls and fiction,
you are something awful,
you are the most wonderful.
i can wash your fingertips from mine
but every cleanser aches
and burns your name
against my heart.

i have been home
I – home is your lips in the moonlight
you will ask me a loaded question
and the answer will send bullets flying.
apologies are no apology
and i am a big girl;
i will nurse my own broken heart.
it’s an awful joke
like a kiss given when
everyone around you laughs.
the sun is rising
and you will leave
and the feeling is familiar,
the stinging realization that
i am always alone.

II – home is burnt feet and broken hearts
bare toes on pavement in summer
are nothing in comparison.
skin burns, skin cracks
and skin heals within the week
(though the evidence of the burn is
where it peels, flakes
where it is possible to tell).
you are the lemon juice in my open sore,
you are the careless john to my fragile whore.
burns underneath skin last a lifetime
even when the skin blisters over.

III – home is tears until you fall asleep
books’ pages rustle more
when laced with iron and lead that fall from your eyes
because there are no more tears
inside your head.
books’ pages rustle more
when covered in daffodils
that you’ve wrapped in your heartbreak.
books’ pages rustle more
when placed upon the nightstand
because iron has turned the daffodils
into a mess of yellow petals and smudged words.

solidity
concrete, but unsure,
everything has lost tangibility.
it won’t be long until my lungs give out
and i wait for the day i use yours.
i want to crawl into your skin,
feel everything your nerves have to offer and more;
i want something wrapped in certainty
because, little girl,
you’ve wrapped me in nothing but daisy chains
and chocolate wrappers.
i want you to wrap me in your arms
from three thousand miles;
i want you there, here,
now. i want your roses
and i want your thorns,
to press my lips to both –
to be fluid, and sure.

untitled
dissect these words and make them your own:
it’s said and the momentum of it all increases tenfold.
reservations are suspended, sugar in water,
and lips meet lips;
hip to hip, with sparks flying
as eyes trade glances,
there’s only brief hope for something more.
it’s days and days
and we’re known only for misses–
what else is there to be known for?
questions stay unanswered
but we’re well acquainted with the feeling of failure.

on taking sweet and low
Fingers gently crawl across the table top
Quickly, hostesses and patrons shuffle by
A withered hand reaches to the small bowl
Her coffee’s cold now, and nearly gone
But still she wants the crinkled pink packet
to rustle between her thin, twig-like fingers
and drop nonchalantly into her purse, adding
to the hundreds already in her cabinets.
She stands to leave, and pay for her meal
The cats will be hungry soon, she thinks.
Check paid, and fingers shaking,
she opens her umbrella and steps into the rain.
As she drives home, a speedbump topples her bag
and pink memories of her husband, her one and only,
fill the car.

untitled
fried hair that sticks, stiff
rough sweaters on soft skin
and i am up far too late wishing i was asleep in your arms.
chapped lips drink water and smoke cigarettes for taste
and the wash hangs on the line like in a tenement,
waiting to cover hungry bellies and fall to pieces.
my eyes are dry and tired
and crusted in old make-up and dry tears.
my stomach stays empty so i can watch the needle
turning down down down.

opal
i’ve got tired eyes and a quiet smile
but sinking into covers is not enough for me.
there must be hands at hips and fingers on lips
and there may be chatter in the next room
or harsh judgment from every angle
but doors are solid and hide peaceful slumber.

a new way
i wish i spoke a new way
a way with rolled and swallowed r’s
and a smile coating every word like honey

i wish i spoke a new way
with light breathed laughter
being kissed to breathlessness
in morning light, with you

i wish i spoke the old way
with a stream of antiquities
to be carried away from me
on your soft lips.

i wish i spoke
out loud
at all.

sowing the seeds of discontent
pomegranate seeds
in a palm, in granite steps
i don’t know what i should do
with my hands when i talk to you
so i close my eyes and focus on the sounds of seeds
hitting the steps in our silence.

lump
when i scratch my chest it leaves red lines
all across my skin.
there is something in there that doesn’t belong
something that aches, that feels and bleeds
that, though i spend all day
keeping it out of my throat
keeping it locked away
trying to deaden its thump
only wishes to be pinned to my sleeve.

time
gold steam streams in through your window
and you soak naked in liquid light, eyes closed.
it robs you of your mask
and in a soft perfumed voice, speaks secrets
which poison your warm porcelain skin.
you remain, until sharp stars
cut through the velvet skies.
secrets told imprint on your soft skin
and haunt the gentle pink morning clouds.

fidelity
he speaks soft, sacred, wet words
like young velvet smoke
that drifts in and out of ears turned pink.
kiss me again, and i will never leave you.

swim mountains
you are not a film star.
there is nothing for you after this melodrama
there is no paycheck waiting for the stunts you’ve pulled
there is no cast party for being self-serving
and there is no spotlight for you except your own.
you are not a mother.
kibitzing has only made lives worse all around
snooping has lost you a child you never had