Sojourner

~A prosaic poem dealing with the passage of time; inspired by my desire to revisit my own past.

mental decorators seem to have tarried in my endlessness. the shades replaced with iron bars; draped cloths upon the desks. eyes of ancient ancestors are watching dust fall, silent, down the hall. mahogany panels starkly flank me, rising far over my head. like a mausoleum cold, like a tomb dark and trapped.

footsteps ring within my skull like a hammer of steel on the anvil of now. dim fires that burned once in chambers of clarity snuffed out with a kiss far too cheaply given. the shadows that play in the darkness run down paisley corridors of then, as ghostly footsteps do echo before they do fall for they forewent forever many long years before.

all is dense like a fog on the lake is. all is cramped like an embrace of the desperate. the outline of a door ends the hall to my back. i have walked down this path for a long while now; turning often, seeing less than before. light is dying as is time, dimming sight of that door that i came from so many painful, padded footsteps before.

down the spectral blackened hall i can still make it out–why there’s no point in returning down the hall of my wraiths–for where the great door’s brassy door knob should be is a hole through which eyes watch me diligently.

and do not blink.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NGC7293_(2004).jpg

Car Insurance

~A memory I have of a rumor about someone I knew–a poem about the lengths we may go to if the world closes in on us.

drive me and park

where you want to

do what you need to

in order to insure 

that i get home safe

down dark asphalt

papers scattered on sidewalks

meant for passers-by and not

for me wishing that

i were walking them

in the cramped sweaty confines

of a seat now for two

you reek of regret and revulsion

and my only option still around

handsome once but now spent

car insurance–that’s all you are to me.

Photo by Tomas Castelazo

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waiting_for_customers.jpg

sometimes

siphon off a little silence
in a day of endless hustle
guide your hand to touch me
on a morning like most others
lose a little violent feelings
with a smile spent on life
and find your way out my bedroom door

sometimes that's all there is
sometimes that's all we have
sometimes it's time that sums us up
sometimes we've nothing left but laughs

strike the pavement with your step
on your lazy way to work again
switch on your Bluetooth once again
with practiced efficiency
snag a coffee from the cute barista on the corner
as you daydream what's ahead
and find your way into your office door

sometimes that's all there is
sometimes that's all we have
sometimes it's time that sums us up
sometimes we've nothing left but laughs

evening rises in the west, white kisses on your skin
in your own room, own home, own retreat
where you're conscious you're finally alone
with a smile you play through your highlight reel
years of playin, dodgin, winnin, lovin everyone
familiar emptiness that needs to be filled again

sometimes that's all there is
sometimes that's al we have
sometimes it's time that sums us up
sometimes we've nothing left but laughs

i hear you voice, near a whisper it seems
as i settle down in bed
and the clock is ticking ominously
but i can't work out the rest
and you say i should come over
and you say you miss my laugh
and i say you shouldn't ever have left
if you were gonna want me back
i can hear your breath take suddenly
as i hang up on the past
i can hear my heart beat slower
as i smile in the dark and laugh

sometimes that's all there is
sometimes that's all we have
sometimes it's time that sums us up
sometimes you move on at last

As of late

As of late, I have been toying with various ideas for short stories and novels.  It has been quite some time since I sat down and wanted to write anything so involved; I have mostly been focused upon my professional life.  A recent move to a different state, a change in personal roles to pseudo-housewife, and a sick feeling unpleasantly blossoming in the pit of my stomach as I watch our government continually pour the acid of capitalism upon education have all combined to realign my vision.  I do not wish to simply scrape a living out of this mess anymore.  I need to contribute something; I need to leave some mark of my mind, however covered over it may become, to stand in my place as proof that I did not go quietly.

This realization has prompted me to re-examine the career I am so forcibly involved in sustaining--education in this country is dying, despite the best efforts of thousands of dedicated and effective teachers.  Many of these educators could reach minds like never before if our system did not demand every ounce of energy, every second of time and every cent of one's paycheck to achieve testing margins and continually realign course materials with state and school scopes and sequences. Many of these educators never find the opportunity to become an active voice within their subjects' ongoing development; they are too busy attempting to teach students meaningful lessons while fulfilling the auxiliary state-mandated, federal-funding-dependent requirements.  The students and teachers deserve more from an experience that lasts decades.

 If the US government gives me the opportunity to set foot in front of a classroom again, I would sincerely like for my students to know that I have been active in this field of English--that I have communicated beyond academia, beyond my assumed social groups, and beyond aspirations I once held.  If I am to teach expression, communication, the betterment of self through hard work and determination, then I must model and exude these.  Otherwise, what right do I have to teach this subject?

Let Diogenes have his sunlight, for the Stoic will become the sun itself.

Finding Me Among

there is a hollow chamber within and of my memory, illuminated by the glow thrown by the sparking cedar fire

where shades clad in dying dreams and molded  hope  dance deftly round the stones

echoes off the moonswept  bay, upon my face the wind and the din of all the sin i wished had been

the scent of grass as the sky yawns wide in this room i have locked away

where silence sings far louder things than life's strings howling at my flesh

and you stand here, not dancing, not laughing, not having

that which i have selfishly locked within.

your smile you wear upon your lips

my own locked safe within

and i have not the key for you

for i dance still within

Kinetic

you have some sort of 
ill-placed faith
that i will rise again for you


you have some sort of 
viral belief
that the true me's locked within


you have some sort of
aspiration
that i'll make you what you weren't


you have some sort of
misled fiction
playing out that you've not created this


i have some sort of 
painful wish
that you will be proud of your child


i have some sort of 
malnourished dream
of being valued for who i am


i have some sort of
pibroch song
playing for all you warned me against


i have some sort of 
you within me
keeping me trapped in "potential."


when all i want is kinetic...

within

small eyes, fragile limbs
bright smile, curls of burnished gold
skin like snowy china
twirling, radiant happiness
black and white world of color
she makes it
silence that sings like a child
to me across time
the mother who has always been there
dancing, singing, smiling 
within

Justice

tarot cards come out

and the leaves sink slowly

in the blood stained water

a scent of ethereal potential mists through

imploring divinations i sat 

as i felt the cold metal

wrap seeming tighter

the inscription a brand full of doubt

all the books in my bookcase

and my glasses on the table

all the machines around me

and not a candle in the house

the king of swords, the fool,

the ten of wands, and Ruin

and floating the hanged man

never have i longed so for death

all the books in my bookcase

and my glasses on the night stand

all the laptops, televisions, the phones

and not a piece of chalk or bone

it all depends on him, she said

with hazy eyes and foggy voice

and i lost hope because you are

the reason i came to her

late nights at work

streaked with inception of questions

darker than the liquor in the cup,

leaves screaming broken rings and lies

all my studies kept me from the truth

and without the glasses, your honest face

all the distractions you use to escape

and it took a sideshow stranger

to show me the proof i held

princess of pentacles ill-dignified,

i paid her with the ring

Missing

I'm sitting here wondering where the time went. Not recent time but holy time; the type of time that you sit up and take notice of as you experience it.  The type of time that you know you'll regret inevitably saying good-bye to and the type of time that no other time can seem to match.  It's the time filled with friends, new relationships, confidantes, realities you had never glimpsed before now laid out before you, shiny, new and promising.  It's the time of drama, theatricality, the rush of blood to the cheeks for countless reasons.  It's the time of loss and gain, of realization and grudging setting aside.  It's the time of falling in love because you knew you could fall and be caught by something other than vanity or pride.  It's the time of kisses, breath, confessionals and sins repented and revisited.


I'm sitting here wondering where that time is now. The current is rushing past me but I am static, working hard to remember enough to will that time to rise again, to hold me, caress my skin, look deep into my eyes and reassure me it's still there, always will be, beside and together and one with me. 


I'm sitting here in absentia, and that time is moving on without me, carving wakes in the waters of my hope, a horizon beyond mocking me and my longing for a time I had you with me, making moments of our own.


Besos,
Inicia

Dissent

A study in the paths
That have brought me up to now:
Sign posts of funerary use;
Of mourning for what was


Solitary exposition
Writings in the sands
Memory of fading "maybes"
Smoking up the mirrors


The tale to tell is one of "soon"
Of "later", "once", "eventual"--
The lee of all my hopes diverged
The yellowed dear investments


My step falls light on heavy times
No longer wishing to move forward
All the journey by your guidebook
And here I stand: I've failed


Creeping on this weathered page
My story of doing as told
I turn to see a precipice
And dare to think descent


From all the well-trod, failing paths
From all the misspent currency
Of youth never repaid with interest
Potential was waste realized


If I am writer, sage and author
Of my own details,
Let it be said I deviated
To savor every page


That you could never read.

Ghosts

Tranquil memory floats, writhes
Exhales a name lost
Sinful songs a mere aside
Echoes of the meaning linger
And sharp are the bruises
Of ghosts in the soul.

Vox Populi

silken it moves through my thoughts
a gentle assault on Stoic logic
vibrant and strong in the shadows
out of sight in the mind of my eye
creeping in shadows of acceptance
visions of cadence engulf me
cascades decrying my soul
plays my innermost sensual selfishness
on the whisper of all that i could-should have been
and the passion of what if infects me once more
as the promise of withering normal cedes
in the twilight of loss i am found again
uncovered in all disarray
dashed upon the jagged rocks of dead dreams
bruised by the youth as it bleeds from me fast
swollen with ideas damned in infancy
unbelievably crushed by opportunities' absence
worked to starving by education that taught me too well
tricked to wander 9 to 5 already-ever worn
exhausted by hoping for freedom, raison d'etre
yet this sound echoes loud in the still
and i focus the rising of my shallow breath
determined to finally sing loud, to sing me
a swirl of what i am in spite of this
near-pornographic hypocrisy and pretense,
waxing again my restless, ripened thoughts
as my lips part in finality of all yet realized
the history of my world in a voice
my raw impassioned cry of betrayal:

choking silence.

Langston, Walt, I, too, sing America
And the song is the substance of itself.

fortresses

fortresses are meant for protection:
my own affords me none.
a fine architect, as fine a citizen,
cloistered in the rooms of memory
i sulk and wait for day
to repeat the walling up
of all unseemly truths
i wish to keep to myself,
but the eyes will see the brick, the mortar.
secrets do not need to be known,
clenched tightly to your soul
beneath the flesh of stone you've housed them in,
to be revealed.
their keeping is their undoing
and our own.

morning

green stretches over
warm and soft
to hold me, secured
the moss vivid
slowly caresses away
the fantasy of night
steel eyes somehow warmer
in their ice and distance
they, however, saw
what the mossy green of yours
conceals
but i gave all to them, his.
good night, love.
good morning again.

delicate

small and untaught
sprite in haze of childhood
an innocent spirit dances
in the soul

naivete glistens
in eyes without the jade
of a hundred disillusioned days
of abandonment

promises arriving
slow, agonizingly slow,
just before the hopeless lives
the ever hopeful

night is dreaming
quiet self-awareness of the maya
and you whatever you wish
is satisfaction

burn the candle bright
dance long and forever feel
think with the mind of innocence
delicate one

steel yourself