My First Haiku

Jutting out its neck

The fallen grey willow limb

Turned to a heron


I don't think haiku is really my form. I'm long-winded, and getting to the pure meat of a subject is difficult. Maybe I'll keep trying. If you want to read some amazing haiku, check out Matsuo Basho.

three poems

Entry 1: The Storm

I woke up to an especially loud thunderstrike

And remembered I wasn't scared this time.

I looked to my left and saw he was still asleep,

The lights and sounds had no mark on him,

Maybe because the outdoor pathway light was still on,

The contrast dimmed-

I could see white drips of water coming off the roof

Like a stop motion film

Now it's one drop, now it's lower, flashing

In between lightning, the sky was pink

From the heavy clouds that reflect the never-ending

Building and street lights that define the city.

Still I choose to miss

The dark of my lightless town.

Thunder, lightning, how close was that one?

I nudge him awake, saying I want water

When I really just want to share the storm,

But remember

Men would always rather sleep.

It took me hours and the storm moving miles

Before I gave up and stopped expecting

The next flash,

The rolling rumble,

And sudden wind against the windows.

Entry 2: The Walk

He went up the hill to smoke

In the morning after the thunderstorm

I asked if he wanted to go for a walk

(He said no)

But left alone as

I follow him through the window

He stood behind a tree, either

So he couldn't see me

Or I couldn't see him

I watch his hands moving to and from his mouth

One with a cigarette

Other with a green mug, holding it as a globe

He left for a break

To make himself with smoke

And honeyed tea

Entry 3: Reaching

A dark man lying between my legs

Holding thick thighs

                     in open palms

Eyes to the ceiling snap shut when I see

All day it's been eyes up

Or down

Hands never-still but never-to-me

Lips to cigarettes and hands to little Lizzy

                to the trees

Lifting her                  when she shouts

“Sky!

         Look!

                   Touch!”

She uses the best and fewest words

To point at

The thin branches, not sky

               But it's the closest

Any of us reach

Even little girls with important words

That are raised by the same arms

Now pressed

                    against my flesh

Still but not silent

Uncomfortable in this stifling cradle

Where you can't reach farther

Only         push     hard     against     the walls

Internship Paper No. 1- Possession and Love

Ireland, home of the culchie

      "Sans Terre"- without land. Thoreau says that may be the place of the vagabonds in the language of people who lived in houses. It is obvious, maybe, that this is a misguided and sheltered point of view. Anyone who wanders around has more connection than someone that lives his life in the opposite of exploration. I have an acquaintance who lived for seven years on the streets. Those were the happiest days, he says, and only paying off school bills causes him to remain in one spot with a steady job now.

     Vagabonds are not without land, for all of it is theirs. Possession is a strange idea. People claim that objects and places are theirs, they want sole ownership and dominion. But those same people disappear without a trace after a few decades, leaving behind those possessions for someone else to claim.

     Possession is not love, and causes the “owner” to think only about themselves, and not about that which they claim to care about. Possession means that someone is possessed (not that being claimed) with an illusion. The owner may care for their property, but only so that it reflects well on them, so that they can get what they want out of the deal.

     Love is not possession. Love is not taming, or coddling, or holding back. “I would I were your bird!” Romeo says to Juliet.

     “Sweet, so would I. But I should kill thee with much cherishing.”

     Ah, is this love? He kills himself for her, and with the loss of his life, she thinks hers has ended as well. Lovers always promise to die for what they love and give up themselves. That isn't love. That is juvenile obsession. True love would not need to promise death, but life!

     But we do promise death- the lack of soul and wildness is death. To the land we claim, to the bodies we are clothed in that want to beautify, we promise slavery. We do not love our bodies or the land. Though we claim possession, our care is only an a cover-up. If we loved our bodies, we would not starve them to attain an ideal, we would not try to improve ourselves in superficial ways. If we loved our bodies, we would want them to live wild. We would not try to tame one another if we felt true love, rather than possession.

     Our bodies are earths, an old cliché analogy, but one that has truth. We do find similarities in our treatment of each. We build up the land we claim, making it work for what we want, try to cover up imperfections. We have no regard for whether the land is healthy.

     If humans knew love, they would know not to kill with much cherishing. If humans were not afraid of giving up possessions, they would know that the vagabond is not without land. Jean Paul Sartre, famous philospher and author, said, "We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity- it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me." Cynical and humourous, but it gets the point across.

     Lack of possession doesn't mean that people should feel separation and independence from the earth, that they are above the earth. It means that people should feel like welcome guests in a generous house, not like an owner of a foreign slave. The realization of love, instead of dominance, would lead to people protecting the giving land. Right now we lock ourselves and our home in a birdcage, jealous of freedom, demanding song.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

Juliet: ...I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.  

For a Soul

There are waves breathing in and out
Lapping my brain with salty tongues
Fragments of other lives collected,
Cast off and condemned to memory

Don't squirm so quickly through the spaces
Linger a little in my mind before
You fly off
With the Northern Cross behind you

I wonder if
That soft quivering kiss
Will last longer than you meant it,
Maybe your star will always remain
If I keep it close with broken shells
Picked up along the ragged beach

Walk, feel the bones beneath
And rise above constellations
Pinned to the sky for our eternity
You'll be past the brightest one before
The beating ocean
Wears us down to sand

Just walk with me now, smoky breath
Smoking eyes wrapping round me
And soft grey water against gem-woven sky
While patience smiles shyly
She makes love through worn-out skin

Near Perfect Death

Don't you wish you lived through this weekend with me? Oh, it made me more than I was before. Less than three days we were there, on that famous Massachusetts Cape.  I'll be honest, it did more for my soul than Ireland could ever hope to do, even with its fairies and sad shining eyes. I learned so much, and so much about how little I know. Mostly, I felt at peace. But was it only a short runaway?

Perfection is a flighty companion, and only arises when there are echoes between people. Ah, those echoes die out in rocks of people's hearts eventually. Don't they? Sometimes the sounds are discordant, and sometimes they're moonlight when it hits the water and ripples in time with the movement of the seabed.

We sat on the rocks, the ocean growling at us, pretending to be tough, but always going back out with froth at its mouth. We sat and talked, arms wrapped, honesty flayed open like a finally-captured beast. You're never quite sure if the beast is ever truly dead, though. I think death might be the most obvious sign of life. The killing brings out blood, it brings out out the lights of frightened eyes, and it expires into the air. Make it quick Baby, I'm thirsty for this chase to finish. Baby, please, I just want a quick end to this echo-dance, don't make the whites of my eyes show as I wait for the knife. If you kill me, I'll kill you, Love, I promise.

I got shot dead and still dragged my body to the next ambush site, so green and sheltered and small. I'm waiting, ears pricked and muscles twitching, for the next echo, the next moment when all doubt is gone and I know I'm dead, foreign perfect death in my ribs. Ah, life- the waiting game, only won when you give your own.

Love Poem to America

Baby, I love your soul, plastic soul, full of broken vinyl edges.

I love your oil soul, pumped full of dead carbon corpses

That make your voice sing so sweet.

Baby, you have those 9-to-5 fingers that snatch me up with promise.

Mm, you fill me up so I look so good on my outside.

Sweet darling, sometimes I miss your youth

When I conquered you first

And your skin was still unbroken,

When the honey from your wounds hadn't crystallized your eyes,

Made you blind to me.

But baby, you lay yourself open for me,

So I love you.

Snakes

My mouth's ceiling is moving

I can feel

Bits of twisted wire

Popping from my slippery skin

Hard on bone

I won't deny it hurts

When tissue comes undone

Worming into a mass of

Tendrils squirming towards escape

Through those gates

That let in lovers' breaths

I know

My eyes must look so...

Just doped up

Only from sadness

“Please don't look at me”

Because gazes are tiring

And I'm like a silent rock

Ha, but unraveling

Inside where it's warm

To hiss silently

Under the scrutiny of

Dark Eyes

Searching for emptiness