Tag: Poem

You as Conductor

I’ve lost this place I’m suppose to have
my place in this thunder, ringing, ringing clear
what I have, and trust in what I haven’t gained
with this losing war, I’ve won something?

I’ve lost my place in this thundering mess
that lightening tragically strikes on paper
clipping my worth together.

I need a bow and my own arrow to make this right
I need an exorcism done to baptize
my worried hands together

and into a pit of strangers I’d dive
un-bruised by bravado’s curses
I’d dive into this tidal wave of circumstance
I the interpellator, lose myself

I hail
i lose
this champion.

Sabotaging Blueprint

I. IF

Delirious with the minute by minute
how different it could have been, I realized nothing.

And then like a solution, I’m stuck again on If
If I was a time traveler.  It interrupts the answer for why

like a sucking between the teeth, it’s juvenile.  If I was
If I was a time traveler.  Yes it is.  Unconcerned about culpable

blame, ripe with unfortunates, If I were a time traveler I won’t have to
wait for an anomalous filler for fragmented voids, or even wish to delete a moment.

If I was a time traveler, unconcerned with real time
since change is my past and the present is my future

what once was a rabbit hole, no longer becomes familiar
with its miniature tea cups, with its no longer cluttered exclamation to the unknown.

Hair

I was getting rid of some boxes that’s been just sitting in a corner of my apartment.  And I came across a book that I thought I had misplaced.  It’s the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden.  Flipping through the collection I came across a favorite, Snow.  The reason I think I’ve always enjoyed this piece is that it uses so little to express so much.

Snow by Robert Hayden

Smooths and burdens,
endangers, hardens.

Erases, revises.
Extemporizes

Vistas of lunar solitude.
Builds, embellishes a mood.

 

Here’s my attempt at using as few words as possible to express my feelings on my hair:

Hair

Nappy nappy
springs split-ends
soft wild dusky velvet.

Bold black beauty
spry leaping panther
rich as the Nile
subtle as wisdom

Nappy nappy
springs split-ends
soft wild dusky velvet

Ah, Panacea…

photo by Craig Marston
photo by Craig Marston
With this pull
crawling on all fours
a killing ease of breath
with this swallow
comes a lush
spawning a dancing line
bitter burnt out
cool regret.

With this…
as slender spirals
rush the room
careful of the outer air
exhale gently
as appetites loiter
a mouthful
Panacea.

Something in the Middle

Something In the Middle CoverMy band uploaded a new song on our myspace page. It’s called Something In the Middle.

I can’t remember the details which lead to  Something In the Middle. Maybe it was a day when one of us was so beaten down, that we just spilled all of our guts out.  Because that’s what we do when we’re together, we spill everything out, everything that is trying to kill us. We sing louder, play harder, speak in tongues. We joke that our band practices are really therapy sessions.

Anyway, Something In the Middle is probably one of our most political songs (other than our very visible presence as women playing rock music) on our line-up.

Oh wait, it’s coming back to me now, how it all began. I was talking about the issues surrounding gay rights, and Hanna (bass player and vocalist), or maybe it was Maggie (lead guitarist and vocalist), made a scathing remark which lead to a beat, to a riff, to a refrain…

The recording is homemade, live at our studio. It’s not as polished as our previous recordings, but I’m digging the rawness.  We used this really handy recorder that fits right in your pocket,  Olympus LS10.

You can listen here: Something In the Middle

Something also reminded me of a poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah!

when tomorrow is just tomorrow

when we know that our phenomenal experience

isn’t as immediate as the phenomena expected

where Yeah exists.

I hope that these impressions stay with you

like the scars dealt to me for being open

as long as you live

I hope you live with just that amount of fear

living, breathing, preparing yourself for an attack

as you sit calmly with someone’s else’s blood on your shit: maybe it’s your own

wishing they were gone

as you sit and wait for Yes

to magically appear?

I’m still going to have Metal beating through me tomorrow

I’m still going to text my lover, I heart yous, and still be under-represented

infected with insanity, perversion, illegality

until I’ve been completely molded into something accustomed

I, continues, growing into a form

a persuasion for pettiness

and oh, I thank you God for my nose, eyes, and ears

because I couldn’t have reckoned without them

I couldn’t have survived this Love.

I’ll Take the Bus

I can accept the breeze 

believe that it is air

air enough for me to breathe

makes me cleaner

so I’m so sure of my belongings too, standing still

XOXOed as a shameful that can’t wake up

running, keep on running XOXOed incapable of a tabla rasa

Sures I’ll make sure everyone close to me is aware of Power.

We won’t depend on a riot or one singular revelation

sharpen, as dull as cutlasses

as bright as misguised bullets, exploding from a Yankee’s Rebel…

I will depend on your selfishness

your eager pretense of wanting to care

but not caring really

I will depend on your indiscretion

as you believe it’s all dependant on what you feel

as what you want, doesn’t, isn’t in my existence

right now or ever

when you think it’s time to stop

when you have your fools to dance around your mirror

and muddy consideration?

yourself reflected fully flush, pandered around your peers

you never consider anything else

Architecture of “You”

There’s nothing “Indie”, in·de·pend·ent about You…

Doesn’t it sound good though, ìndə péndənt

and to think without conjunctions

connecting

that fickle clause:

the making of a tastemaker

one who defines taste

based on

nothing other than what you are not to them

and the what we’re all rebelling against

a zeitgeist however small.

You’ll remember such a moment.

I wish I had thrown

my opinion through a window

smashing the enclosure of me

and then relinquished it in the irony of a blog

for all to view and to follow in weekly segments.

To hate…

To agree…

To dismiss…

To wonder about…

To trend…

And then define like a science.

What is new and what is not:

the what a terrible to look and to listen to.

The unorthodox use of expression

would have been mine to oversee

because I can, however public

because I obviously need

to be a part of the Fickler.

Even during work breaks

or after hours

there’s always

a need for a benchmark

however drunkard and desperate

to see and hear

of a relentless muse

that will continue to be the ultimate chaperone.

Moving

with purpose, prepare the boxes
with tape and cleansing powder
removal of all, small sparks of a glance
all that was suppose to resemble permanence
a long tale towards dementia, a small unpleasant trail
of spotted associations
split at the end with dots of potential use, or useless information
pile into a box, discard upon arrival
there’s no more space for their meaning
departing