It’s the silence that wakes me in the end.
The wind’s final gasp as it gives way to hush,
the thunder’s last groan as it shakes from the sky,
the rain’s waning beat at the end of the flush,
the fire’s closing streak as it lights its goodbye.
The absence of noise is my nudge into waking,
the alarm of my slumber garners no cruel beeps,
for in the pith of the storm’s cracking and quaking
is the only night hour in which I can sleep.
good enough
you say
but what’s good enough?
do I want to be good enough?
to be good enough
is it something to strive for?
desire for?
aspire for?
to be satisfactory
meeting the mark
expected and respected
like salad without dressing
or tornados without the sharks –
is that me?
good enough?
thanks, I guess
compartmentalized
pretty little brown boxes
straight walls and shallow stalls
same in shape
in style
in signature
just same
each brimming with diversities
trimmed into awkward unity
cardboard clipped by shears
rusty yet precise
angled and even
down to the last corner
same in fit
in mold
in make
just same
you sit here
and you stand there
no
get away
your box is over here
that’s right
good
now hold your chin high
arms tucked in tight
don’t let your elbows fly
same in stance
in structure
that’s right
just same
I’ve perfected the art of stumbling;
I topple at the highest score,
and in the sport of mouth breathing,
I’ve swept and slipped across the floor.
Call me klutz or call me clod,
clownish, clumsy,vice versa.
My two left feet may be flawed,
but I blame it all on inertia.
One leg longs to see the sun,
and flail into the clouds so white;
earth is home to the other one
(you can imagine all the pesky fights!).
One way this way, this way that way,
contradiction claims my core-
but if inertia jails my jelly limbs,
then what’re you blaming me for?
I’m a connoisseur of floundering,
the fiercest lummox to splat the land;
just crossing the street means drowning
(and all by inertia’s twisted hand!)
A foghorn cradles the morn.
It’s a forlorn sound,
the call of a bygone drifter-
a sound I recognize all too well.
Arches of water, black as bane,
rise high around me,
crumbling with thunder,
like sword against sword in
the raging war between sand and sea.
Fingers of foam bleed out from the battle,
clawing into obsidian sand that
glistens like hot coals.
I am small,
insignificant,
a grain of clay waiting to be washed by the surf,
swallowed by a sea of eternity.
My hair dances with the salt,
far freer than I will ever be,
and I am mocked
by that dark, watery line
that glimmers at the end up my fingertips,
unreachable.
It’s a heavy feeling,
the anchor between my ankles-
a feeling that’s weighed me long and well.
A foghorn cradles the morn.
I’ve been a bit inactive this past week, mostly due to the stress of school and exams and all those dismal dealings. I’m also absorbed by my current work-in-progress (just hit the halfway point!), so sorry for the lack of new content.
I molded this poem from an old piece I had sitting around my documents. It’s a bit rough around the edges, so I might come back to it later to tweak it.
If I were a star,
would the night tide notice me-
a dust mite in dusk?
In a sea of suns,
how can one speck stir the sky?
Am I bright enough?
Untied by time’s touch,
sun and stone and sky and sea
become kin to me.
Here the mountains sing
softly, like a brother’s hymn-
humming, I listen.
I watch life unfold
from my seat up in the stars,
distant, but not far.
It’s all in the lighting, you know-
the contours of your jaw, the shadow beneath your nose,
the curves of your lashes and folds of your clothes-
it’s a set-up, a farce, an acted-out scene,
a play performed in the dark
but heard through the screen.
I could curse every creation that conceals and cloaks,
spit upon the powders and perfumes that choke;
I could laugh at the lighting, the biggest liar of all;
I could snicker it sideways with unabashed gall.
But then what, do you think, does that make me?
A hypocrite? A blind pharisee?
Because I don’t hate the lighting-
I hate symmetry.
It mocks me from afar, shapely and shining;
its proportionate perfection pleases to persist,
and I wonder to myself, in a manner of whining-
does absolute symmetry even exist?
Maybe it’s all in the lighting.
There’s hardly room to breathe in this monsoon I call life.
At first it’s just a trickle, just a leak under the door-
but with newfound knolls the windows burst
and brine batters ‘cross the floor.
Each wave’s a spoiling slap of unrequited obligation,
a vinegar vendetta to submerge procrastination.
I row against the roiling rush
of rotting deadlines and clotting chores;
I swim up, and up, and up…
but I’ll drown before I reach the shore.
There’s hardly room to breathe in a sea of strain and strife.
But hey, drowning in decisions is something I call life.
I’m an expert at preening.
No, not hair-grooming and lip-smacking and nose-powdering
and all those kinds of skin-creaming schemings-
I’m an expert at forming a facade,
varnishing a veneer,
preening a pretense, if you will.
I’ve got a ripe, rosy smile. See? I’m smiling at you now.
Look at it, all pink and upturned and rigid.
It’s like a Barbie doll got a hold of Botox
and went to town on my lips.
Now I’m always smiling. Can’t help it.
But ain’t my beam a beaut?
I dress nice, I talk nice, I walk nice;
I am nice, with my carefully inserted giggles
and carefully crossed legs and carefully straightened posture-
you probably wouldn’t guess that I practice my laugh
in the mirror, ’cause it’s just so aerated and elated,
a chiming chuckle born and raised in my breast.
Persona preening isn’t just a personal pastime of mine.
I take it seriously with my morning coffee
(two sugars, hold the milk),
and tend to it with brittle fingers throughout the day.
I’m good at giving a guise,
real good, and though on some days
my lips wilt and eyes twitch and shoulders slump,
I can always wring it around with sugary sweet smirk
and assurance that no, I’m fine, thank you.
I’m perfectly ok.
Stellular Scribe 