yellerbellied

been looking backwards today and yesterday. been twisting up my insides every afternoon in a studio. my teacher said its good to do the core work--it gets your insides all smoothed out; untwists your sadness.

i looked at your photos tonight because i could and looked especially for your hands. i can't remember why i hated them. did i ever? do i? there was just something off, you know. the nail was too short or the joint stunted; much too feminine although the knuckles were good. i just couldn't say. either way, i wanted to write you to say i'm sorry for that year, but i'm coward, you know.

i won't tell my mother my sister's secret either because i'm a coward. my insides are true yellow.

a voice from the heart

From the heart a voice commands: believe
in that already dishonoured word justice.
The distant heir of the lion
must rebel against his captivity.

There is a way. Its destination springs
from the wild primeval forest of memory.
There is also a microbe
that carries the toxin of a millennium.

Then if you search for suffering's meaning
become its revealer
and hear how grandfathers awaken sons
like stormaxes against the bronze of bells.

There is a way. So climb, stride,
kick away the perpetual stumbling block.
Death pardons every error,
but slavery it never forgives.

Vilna
Seymore Mayne 22 July 1941

insincere

the problem with me is that i never
admit i was wrong.
i repent & cry at your feet when you
find me out
collapsing beside the bed, instead of on it;
please,please believe me!
but by next month, i will not remember my own remorse.
i am not sorry.
yes, i did that & it was real & good.
i'm not sorry, i don't take it back
i'm not sorry, i'd do it all again.
it is only in the thunder of the moment
when you scorn me cold & angry, i am sorry.
i am only sorry for the way you
look at me.

arthritic

so unearthly cold and grey, monday. looking out the window from the fifth floor of the lang building this afternoon was dark and unpromising. robin had a headache and gave it to me.
--what are your symptoms? i said
--like a bad hangover plus food poisoning. he said. yes, exactly.
today looking out that window, i wanted to knock down the red brick walls across the street to let in more sky. but the sky is just bleak and mean, so why should i bother?
winter is setting in, slowly sinking down through the streets; i can feel it in my knees and hip bones because they crack when i walk and my ankles ache when i sleep. its a different feeling than summer heat or humid rains pouring through to make elbows and joints ache. it is a cold that claws at ones bones and is irreverent of layered clothes.

looking out a Lang window during poetry class

The wall is of glass
Opening out to 11th street.
The brick across the way is red red red
With black painted window frames
Covered by the trees.

The trees are what I love best from
This window. In September they
Are still green and the window is
Filled and the street is filled with tree.
But now, in such late October, the leaves have
Gone so red and yellow
The street is covered but the window is cheated.

It’s the fault of the Nor’easter
That rained through last week.
The brown bark can now
Show its face. Almost shaven clean
But not yet bare.

Soon, maybe by Christmas, the leaves
Will all go and the bark be covered
in cream and snow
And I will love this window just the same;
The white and the brown and the red red brick.

red saks sweater

New York is bundled up all in
Wintry coats and dusty sleeves
Away with the sandals,
Away with your fingers!
Unpack the yarned scarves, boots, and mittens.
The six train will be warmer now and
Cozier at the rush hour
Instead of sweat and skin, there will
Be down feathers and sweaters.
Thus here I sit in Lang,
In my Papa’s red Saks sweater
The sleeves must be rolled up—
Twice—
So my fingers and wrists are free.
The tight, red yarn knits on for rows and rows
and folds down to my knees
But all these rows used to just fit across
His Christmas belly
All full of turkey and pudding and pie.

patellar reflex

i love, i love, i love.

i cannot stop but
it is so near
when you are--

i want to just be.

its involuntary, all of it.
like a patellar reflex in
my knee, i love you.

the red sea

i have gone and bleached you out.
like a stain of wine on my favorite shirt
i have purged you gone.
the red sea has swallowed you whole
your chariot will ride
no more.
yet what land or sea
could keep you to begin
with?
you unearthed yourself
from the desert sand
and in your thirst
you drank me dry.

how selfish you are!

the red sea will swallow you whole
and water your mouth its fill
of love and
salty greed in the desert.
And should the sea spit you out, the
sand will not take you back.
you will wander to sinai
but your feet will not rest.

you are never satisfied, afterall,
with the ground you have tread
or the mouths you have loved.
so wander the desert,
my dear, until it takes
you back.

sometimes i worry about you and i.

blood brothers

we are almost in alphabet city

running down

first avenue

we are almost in alphabet city

eating nights away

in june,

and stepping over puddles

on the bowery.

the water clings to

the bottoms of our

shoes and seeps into

our heels.

the streets are in our

blood stream now

like blood brothers

we'll never forget

eachother.

we are almost in alphabet city

the avenues getting

closer to the water--

the water that

beats between the

shores of qns and

this chunk of island

beats between you

and i.

the east river and its

brown brown waters

hug the boroughs

we love best.

we alre almost in alphabet city

one foot in qns

and the other on the bowery.

but don't spread those

legs too wide

don't lose your balance

and maybe something else.

our fingers shake and

our ankles quake

on this lower east

side corner.

let houston run you through--

you won't die on this

side of the water--

she'll jsut steal half

your soul and feed it

to the river.

let houston run you

through the lung, my love

as we sit smoking

in the garden.

the bowery owns us

now, sugarplum--

we're blood brothers--

let her love you through

let her love you through

the sole of your feet.

let her sidewalks love

your legs as they wander

up and down

up and

down

lettered avenues.

you must

(for the slam tomorrow night? maybe, we'll see.)

these words
are like water
gushing from my mouth
always wanting to leap out
off my lower lip
onto yours
spilling over the dam of mouths
into the river of a kiss:
"darlin, i love you! i love you so"
but i think you--
i'm sure you--
know.
i cannot say it
i willnot say it
i said it once and i will not again
not until
your foundations
are shaken
and you must--me--
you miss
me so that
you say it
first.

boxing up

it was tonight our last night in 4c5

that betsy cried 

and her hot tears flooded my head

right down to my shoulders

and rolled onto the couch that was new last august.

the walls are wiped clean

pam, we got rid of all the smudges on the closet doors like you said

and i've been scrubbing between the tiles with a toothbrush

scrubbing out the black of this year. 

the floors are shining with our spit

and our beds are empty

the sheets lay stripped and piled in the middle of the room.

i said goodbye  to rachel this afternoon at three.

i hugged her tight and knew that today at three would be last time

i would ever see her curling her hair on the couch

she used to always leave the curler on in the middle of the floor

and i would step on it on my way to class and yelp like a dog whose tail got stepped on.

i have a burn on the sole of my foot from that.

i have a burn on the sole of my other foot from this house.

we piled our paintings on the walls

and re-piled them and moved the couch the night kD and i wanted to scream

because we couldn't stand the complacency a second longer.

we sat on the couch that night, hands folded, and waited for the other two to come home

and find what we'd done.

tonight i'm sitting with betsy in the same spot on the couch but all the walls are bleached 

and the carpet is gone.

we threw away the baskets of yarn and the old clothes from freshman year--
that green dress is pilly and we have no room anymore--

we threw away our house in the compactor room

left the pieces of our second year in white garbage bags tied with yellow strings.

so tonight is the night we shake and shiver in our silent house

with the windows open, letting the air from herald square spill into our chests

because tomorrow we start the summer.

qns will be the sticky tack that keeps us in place. 

it will be the tape thats stuck behind the tears of a page 

so you won't know its ripped unless you look very closely

and stick your nose to the paper. 

non te posso lassare

your love and your heart are weak, collapsible like a beach chair.

this semester ended SO FAST.
tonight we ran in the rain on the lower east side and ate french chicken at a restaurant with no name. tomorrow its going to be cream scones for brunch and spinach for dinner.

REEMS

i want to pull the reems from your head

to read 

the thoughts i can't have

i want to pull 

and wade through you 

until i find me.

i always want this from you.

every

moment

i'm with you, i just

want to know doyouloveme?

and to think that when i'm old and grey

i'll look back

on you and i

and remember how i wish you were mine.

now

i've just got this sad, sinking feeling 

the lowers 

from my head to my soul:

that when i am 

old and grey,

you'll be far 

from me.

going south on 95

black speckled rock stretching out

and over Appalachia

straight down to Florida.

drive overnight so your contacts

stick to your eyes

all blinded by the eastern sunrise.

ghostbusters

pangs or fangs? in my chest each morning.

we will have to bleed me to get you out

attach leeches to my arms to drink out your love.

expresso is the opposite of pot,

yet my hands shake for both. 

                              i need a smoke.

now will the defendant please rise?

i dreamt about your sweater and your hat

i dreamed you killed the ghosts of my past

and your mouth was warm, like wine

red and raw, pouring through my spine.

electric

the feeling was psychic and i knew the second i saw you smile. 

i swear that yesterday i felt new york shake.

its in the stars.

a picture from two years ago just came up in the roll of photos on my desktop. we were really happy that day, i remember. but i think i'm happier now. better off, anyhow. 

everythings changing this month. i woke up and realized that i'm entirely different than i was two years ago or even just a few months ago. it's a little unnerving, but progressive, i hope. 

oh and guess what. i'm transferring (for real this time!) what's up, eugene lang? 

i went  on a campus tour this afternoon with dad (yes, m & v are being supportive in this switch. i'm still a little shocked) and we were  impressed. i can't wait to go there in the fall. yipyip. 

i feel like the new school and i were just fate. i nonchalantly happened to pick up a brochure for their writing program at hunter and here i am filling out applications and registering for an interview three weeks later. also, i just so happened to sit down next to a new school student in the cafe i've been camped out in for the past 5 hours. what are the odds?

oh, also. my poetry and a couple of paintings are going to be on display at the artisan guild's art expo next weekend (April 3rd and 4th) in the slounge. be there or be square, youngins.

i just wanted some cereal!

The linoleum in grandfather’s kitchen is speckled and cold.
It clacks softly
Beneath my sandals.
The curtains are
yellow
The cabinets are almost
Yellow
But I can never quite get the bottom cabinet to shut.
It always swings back
out
after I’ve walked away
So that dad knows I’ve opened the cap’n crunch.
The box is red red red with blue and yellow--
Primary colours--
Lined up between the bleached white of corn flakes
That cabinet door always gives me away.
The way to shut it,
I discovered,
Is to slam it--
Hard--
So the wood will stick.
But dad can hear the slam
And he knows
I’ve opened the cap’n crunch.
So before he can come downstairs,
I slam
And run out the back door.
The cellardoor is next to the back door.
It never closes either.
A musty chilled smell climbs up the linoleum stairs
And stops only at the walls.
I take it outside with me as I run
And the glass in the back door rattles.
Now dad knows I’m gone.

indian praire fire

A prairie fire

I started

when you were intent on women

and hindered by them.

Did you see it?

well,

it was I,

who did it.

shootings stars sign their names in my atlas.

conjuring up my melancholy--oh i've been so wrong.

but don't get dramatic, this ain't the movies--turn the cameras off!

daddy,

daddy,

i'm through!

i like riding my bike through the lower east side at night. 

29 january

numbers are eating our clothes.

river swimmer

unarmed prophet foretells of 

mine demise. 

this tea is too hot it burns as it goes

 down 

go      down     O' Moses

let's go      down 

down the steps to the V train

it will take us back 

to the other side of the East River.

the dirge.

tommy says when i was 16, all that i wanted was bright and clean. but now that i know what its like to have sex, i wanna see something that i've never seen. don't be the one who write slow songs for pretty girls--insensitive smokers with cigarette eyes. keep chasing hopelessness--tom boys are dangerous! it shows in your style, your smile.

i've got a fever. 

fine romance

i know i said i loved you but i'm thinking i was wrong-- 

i'm the first to admit that i'm still pretty young. And i never meant to hurt you when i wrote you ten love songs. Because lately i'm losing sight of you and i, 

We are slowly slipping from my brain and your every feature is turning into him. 

i'm scrambling and rambling trying to hold onto you, but lately, i can't even look you in the eye.  

i am pressing and resting

out on the couch 

in the middle of the room

but there is another soul folded into mine and there is no room on the couch for you.

--later, you say

--later, i say

but how much later until you are just a mirage in my head and i am stuck stumbling through the sand dunes of the sahara? i'll raise my hand to my eyes and scan the mountains for you, but i'll never get past the desert between. 

--don't you drown, now.

--but i can't swim in sand, darlin.

i can't swim in sand and the golden bits of glass will whip and hail into my eyes and dry my tongue. 

the desert will drown me.

lines

--how many lines do you see?

 --how many are there? 

--i'm not sure. i never am. you tell me "love may save everything, just one thing at a time." one thing at a time. really? because suddenly, it is two, then three, multiplying like cells in a womb. how many lines do you see? 

--my soul and yours are parallel.parallel lines. 

lines! lines! so many fucking lines--like noise. noise in the other room while kadey and i try to sleep. noise in the hallway and noise in the stair well--songs echoing up and down. 

--ave maria, ave maria. harmonize o' sweet lines of melody, but only to become stick straight, rigid, and immovable in my head. 

--my soul and yours are parallel lines. lines like train tracks going up and down the sides of this island beneath the east river between you and i. our souls are parallel and perpendicular. latticed from queens to manhattan across the water. 

blood

BLOOD
in veins shakes
and                 
quivers
like leaves
  brittle
on branches
and twigs
ready
to fall
in Autumn.

electric electric

                       darling, darling, its time.

i sent that boy back spinning into space.

he came here once and will not come again.

i sent him roving back to the river where he belongs

he is no longer hiding and creeping between the tea cups

twisted

somewhere in my sheets

my bed is clean

and my dishes are done.

cacophony

hey you with the pretty face,
welcome to the human race.

9 jan 2009

i was just walking down 34th street and saw a detached squirrel’s tail.
my insides quivered as i pictured some horrid woman with large hair and pointy heeled shoes stepping on that poor squirrel and yanking out his tail as he tried to dodge her feet.
i imagine a squirrel’s tail is his pride. it is his cherished fluff he shows off and trails behind him everywhere he goes. it even keeps his balance as he scrambles from tree to tree in the park.
so without his tail what will he do? his pride lays trampled, the bloody end crushed into the sidewalk cement in herald square.
poor kid.

–poor kid, you say to me.
shh. can’t you please keep all your clothes on and just let me sweat this out?

darlin, i will stay good for you.
i will be chivalry at her finest.