In Which I Miss Her Already.

She wasn't my grandmother.
In the end, you know,
she wasn't anyone I knew.
Really, she wasn't anyone at all.
She was grey and bones,
and skin,
and tubes and blankets and coughs,
like some sci-fi alien monster
out to destroy or rule the world,
or both.
But three weeks ago, and four, and five,
and all that time before,
she was Pepsi first thing in the morning
and she was Midwestern beer at midnight.
She was TMZ and 12:30 p.m. and Judge Judy at 3 p.m.
and history books at 7.
She was pixie cuts and CoverGirl and she was,
"This is much too big for me, do you think
it might fit you?"
She was fudge and glass candy at Christmas,
she was ham on Easter,
she was the best Thanksgiving stuffing anyone
could ever make.
She was crazy earrings and too-big dentures and
she was every sale at Kohl's and Wal-Mart and Big Lots.
She was Fox 10 News, Sherriff Joe's biggest fan and
Obama's biggest critic, and
God help you if you had a visible tattoo,
or worse, a piercing.
And she was there,
always cheering,
always loving,
always willing to lend a hand or
a shoulder or
a book or
just a word.
She was my grandmother.
She was my Gramma.
And now she isn't.

RIP Barbara Janet Jacobson
Feb. 11 1938- Dec. 14 2010

Someone posted this today.
Someone posted this today
in a community about, of all things,
inspiration.
Someone posted this today
in a place where I and others look
for beauty
for peace
for distraction
for hope.
Someone posted this today
and it made me
angry and nauseous
made my stomach roil like a sea storm.
That's how my grandma's legs look. That's how
thin
how straight
how angled her limbs fall
against the recliner or couch
or bed
or wheelchair.
True, her skin hangs looser,
and she can't stand at all, let alone
walk pouting down a runway.
But those legs could be her legs,
and neither I nor my tumbling stomach
can see
how that is in the least
inspiring.

this bird is god, he said
and closed the cage.

wish you could see you
real you
three-dimensional imperfect
lovely you
all pride-inspiring and rosy cheeks
all sleepy smiles and literalness
wish i could mirror you
real you.

In Which I've Lit a Candle And Am Now Listening to Amanda Palmer.

she's the one who can't lie worth a damn,
and that's really what matters here,
so forgetting never lasts long enough for her

she's the kind of girl who needs to feel
to talk it through and write it down and let it out
clear the air or smoke it up

but she isn't the one who slams percussive screams
to the other kindly ones and
she's not the one who lives in the walls
and eats them from the inside out and
she's tried and couldn't use it in her art

but she's really very good at feeling
and no one can talk quite as much as her.

In Which I Am Overwhelmed, and Also There Are Probably Mice Nesting In My Mattress.

Something is gnawing

and I don't mean in some intangible
cry-it-out feelings kind of way

I mean, really, gnawing
chewing at my bed frame or my wall
and I can't see what it is

but I think it's probably mice

but since I did bring them up
let's talk about feelings
and how much they are like mice

how they nest
how they scrittle around, hidden
how they run out at unexpected or inopportune moments
how they breed so quickly
and how cats can sometimes chase them away and

how it would be so much easier to sleep

without this incessant
gnawing.

In Which I Don't Know.

so here it is,
that overflowing empty breath,
ragged and rasping and hot.
that old face you never recognize
the first time.
those claws
pulling everyone under you
to hold you up
despite their pleas and protests -
i'm not a foundation, i'm not a rock, i'm a person.

here it is again,
that useless vacuum,
those wet blurred intersections.
those lonely spaces full of secret
primal screams and old infected scars,
and you know them more than yourself
(you know everything more than yourself).
that clinging familiarity,
that revulsion.

In Which I'm Tired of August.

it's floating in
just behind
these last lightning storms --
and the leaves won't change
and the sky won't turn that proverbial
iron grey
but we'll feel it
we'll dance in it
we'll sit by our fires and breathe
over hot cups of cider or cocoa
knowing somewhere it's cold enough
to see that breath before rosy noses
somewhere
notebooks and pens and brand new shoes
mean something is changing.

In Which La Vita e` Bella, Truly.

this body is creation,
perfect as
anything on display at the Louvre
or the Smithsonian --
rivals the mystery of painted smiles,
the depth of starry nights.
one day it will belong, will deserve
inked skin stretched canvas-like,
heart propped on velvet under glass,
polished rosary of phalanges strung above
marble brain perched on a pedestal,
ears pinned in rows like
butterflies or beetles, dried hard
but lovely.

In Which I Give Up.

i
can't
write.

In Which I Miss Being Able To Stay Up All Night.

ain't no comfort here, oh no.

ain't no good-time-girls tonight,
no whiskey shots and no
fireplace stoked, 'cuz
ain't no warmth inside
this shanty town this time

ain't no comfort here, not here
where that breeze blows hot and
the Big Man's the only one who'll
give you a ride

well, ain't no music here this time,
boy, ain't no
jazz, no swing,
ain't even no blues hangin' 'round
these crossroads tonight

ain't no comfort here tonight.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson_%28musician%29#Devil_legend

In Which My Skin Feels Like I Have a Fever.

can we just live in
arms, please?
in my arms and yours,
wrapped
wholesome and warm,
and never leaving you
nauseous from your thighs
to your ribcage
aching from your scalp
to your fingertips,
never leaving you burning
bones to skin or
shaking in between --
never leaving you at all?

In Which Music Is Influencing Me, Again.

pounding, that beat
slams,
that song hits with
every dark or dusky word,
with every
lung-wrenching riff,
each cymbal crashing like
eyes clenching closed
or wounds sewed shut,
the very sound is body is
arms-legs-neck-shoulders
thrown hard against
walls of air or
your own life,
brain against skull --
the only struggle you have
left within you,
inescapable and
pounding.

In Which I Have a Headache.

so here's another
lost-soul-baby-girl
crying at four a.m.,
inhaling her failures
along with the nicotine.
life is oh so tough, isn't it,
when you're in-between
and underpaid?
when prayer is
less effective and
harder to come by and
burns your insides more
than the contents of the
bottles on your
nightstand.
give it up, give it up,
baby girl,
cuz no one's gonna steer
this ship to shore.
no one's gonna anchor you down.
no crew to help you weather
this storm.
i'm not here to unmix your
metaphors, not gonna
take the wheel or
be your wings or
carry you home.
no one has the key.
not you. not even you.

In Which If It's Going To Be This Humid, Then It Really Should At Least Be Raining.

they think in promises or
fragments
of spiderwebs between
curtains and windows
or spells and magic words
floating on certain kinds of smoke
(not inhaled not burning throats
but) silken
across the room,
or sometimes
every once in a
blue moon they
think in weather formations,
and that's when you get
those storms those
lighting-hot boiling-rain
thunderstorms
that make you weep
and at the same time
be.

In Which Lame Things Are Happening to Relatively Good People.

they say bad things happen
in threes, so
one -- you woke up
this morning
before the sun, even though
it's summer and at this
time of year, the sun rises
even before the birds
start to wail and
two -- glass on the asphalt
glints prettier in the daylight
than the stars ever bother,
cuts so deep and smooth
you don't even notice until
you're bleeding
and then, finally,
three -- you're lost,
standing in the bright hardness
of this panting city and
wondering
how you got here,
where you were going,
why no one cares enough
to help you home.

In Which I'm Wearing BPAL's "Ulalume" and It's Making Me Feel Like a Faerie.

it's easy forget
(or pretend to ignore)
those little things
those
add-it-up knock-you-down
slings and arrows
when you're freshly showered
and smell like a poem
or when someone sleeping
is beautiful enough to merit
kisses that
only you will remember
or
when you never leave
your bed,
your
soft comforter and clean sheets.

In Which -- Holy Balls, It's Fucking HOT.

there's too much sweat
running from my scalp
to my fingertips
in rivulets through my
fingerprints
to really write
anything
tonight.

In Which I Like Journaling, Whether It's About Anything Special or Not.

the drip and
slide
of black
wet ink
onto dry paper
across those sharp lines
(blue or black or any colour,
but straight from margin
to outer edge)
can give more peace,
more clarity
than prayer or
voices or
creation.

In Which It's To Fucking Hot Everywhere I Go.

one time i saw
this old, half-burned cigarette
on the sidewalk that was so hot
if you dripped water on it
it would most certainly
hiss and steam like the skillet
after you fry eggs,
when you stick it under the running faucet
just for that sensory experience
of cold on heat,
and that cigarette was still smoldering
a little, like the coals do
on the grill
after a big family barbecue,
where your dad got a little too drunk on cooler beers
and your mom ate a little too much potato salad
and you played a little too much in the sun,
but some of the tobacco
had fallen out of the paper
and was strewn
in a line out from the filter
as if the wind had blown it like leaves,
like every late August when
everything living isn't,
but is brown and parched
and covers the ground in scentless,
temporary piles,
and i thought how maybe
i read too much into things
sometimes.

In Which "Bad Moon Rising" is Stuck In My Head.

i see a
not-so-great sun
rising
but i gotta meet it, baby,
yeah
gotta meet it despite
or maybe that was
in spite
and I can't tell you,
sweetie,
if trouble's on the way
but monsoon season's
certainly
around the next corner
or the one
after that,
soon enough to merit caution
or at least
a glance ahead,
and, honey,
you might be prepared
but more likely
you'll just be in time
for those clouds to burst or
break.

In Which I Am Feeling Lazy.

everything looks so
washed out, so sun-drenched pastel
in this summer heat.

In Which I Am Watching Labyrinth Again and Don't Judge Me, Okay?

does he remind you of the babe?
that babe with that
alien power,
that chameleon who fell to
earth
in a tin can man of chords and
syth-pop beats and
a permanently dilated
sense of self-importance,
with his cruel owl eyes,
and a name that cuts
us all like a knife, and
though your will is as strong as mine,
his kingdom is greater --
we have no power over
him,
or his tight, tight pants.

In Which Arizona is Gorgeous, but Fantasy Worlds are Better Sometimes.

keep your head full
of living forest shadows and
moonlit wings dappled
with evenstar-wishes and
golden leaves falling in cool breezes
from oaken-strong trees,
for who wouldn't choose that
bliss,
those misty mountains,
over this never-quenched
and still and stinging desert,
its jagged cliffs rising from
thorns and rocks that have never
met moss or even morning dew?

In Which I Took A Mental Health Day.

isn't lying supposed to
make you feel bad
or something,
tear at you like claws
or guilt?
you know, when it's not
to dry a loved one's tears
or keeps those special
gift-wrapped secrets?
or is that just what grownups
tell you so
you'll stay in line and
they won't have to figure out themselves
if it was you who ate that last bag of
Cheetos
before dinner?

In Which I Think Maybe I'll Give Myself Weekends Off Of This.

it's only sort of
in spiders crawling under
sunrise-golden door frames
or in breeze-ruffled
oleander-petal afternoons or
in evening sips of cold red wine
through previously parched lips
or even in the burning
incense that takes me back to
starlit-jasmine summer nights
when everything was
not better but less hard
not softer but less responsible
not lonely but less full of you.

In Which Having a Brother With AS Can Be Ridiculous At Times.

"Your mom's made of pants,"
he sings,
repeatedly and
repeatedly and
he's never gonna stop, like
the momentum of his voice
is a juggernaut.
bitch.

In Which I'm Colouring My Hair, Again.

so much depends on
that red liquid-high
sliding into
droplets on your skin,
all the while
morphing who-you-are
into someone, maybe
new but
you hope it's old like jeans,
the kind you wear every day,
without washing,
and they fit like
they're part of you.

In Which Maybe I'll Start Again Tomorrow, or Next Week, or Never.

Fuck today's poem. I'm tired of trying to come up with something beautiful every fucking day and never finding anything in my mind except meaningless shit. I'm tired of this being just another obligation to worry about. So fucking fuck. it. I'm not a writer.

In Which I Think The Ol' 9-5 (7:30-4?) is Draining My Creativity Away.

gimme that old-time
vice, baby, that
good-time
need-escape
colour
because how can you live
so grey so icebox grey
and sharp-edged
without something
to keep you
awake,
let alone alive --
what's alive, anyway,
sweetheart?
unless you're talking
blood-pumping brain-waving
takemeouttahere
altered states or
human contact,
and any of those
more than once a week
will only leave you
steel-greyer,
straight-colder than before.

In Which I Describe My Weekend/Monday In Stupid and Disjointed Haiku.

Saturday:

Even after so
few hours, your scent lingers on
these blue-moon bedsheets.

Chattering and smiles
should be given more credit
for the lives they save.


Sunday:

Every day should be
so lullingly spent in dreams,
so full of heartbeats.

I wonder if Jane
shows off her pubes in heaven
and laughs at her fans.

Monday:

The day flies right by
when instead of headset scripts
you've got vampire sex.

Even words on screens
are better than solitude
on scorching Mondays.

In Which I Love Summer Storms.

these clouds don't hang
so much as swoop in
on rising winds and
fading light,
calling the girls
in their summer apathies
to dance
just as surely
as would the sanguine roll
of a doumbek
or the lighting-chimes of
a good set of zills.

In Which I Drank The Rest of My Rum When I Got Home And Now I'm Lonely.

burn, baby, flow
down my throat
to my
lungs, into my
solar plexus where you'll
sit for awhile, liquid glow,
amber and
intense,
before you'll fall
drop
by
drop,
lower, down, lower,
and
longing .

In Which I'm Sort Of Tired Of Putting "In Which" At The Beginning Of Every Post, But Now I've Done It Enough To Where I Feel Committed to the Style.

This evening, I'm not feeling
particularly productive or
inspired or
talented or any
of those things that make a person
special
so I think I'm just going to
break up my lines
in strange places
and hope you don't read this so much
as
glance over its shape,
so you'll perceive if not a masterpiece,
at least a poem
that was never really here.

In Which I Just Took Melatonin So This Might Make No Sense.

lovers dance in words
amongst the stars,
over living hills
and
into the dreams of the
crumpled and the dry,
lost, or old,
the lonely or
just alone in a bed,
fifty miles
or a tank of gas
and two or so hours
away from
the one whose sleepy sighs
are peace enough on
most nights.

In Which I Beat You Over The Head With A Metaphor.

dracula probably had it right
about mirrors.
they should come with warning signs, like:
THIS IS NOT A WINDOW
or
OBJECTS APPEAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEY ARE
or something.

In Which Everything Is Different.

maybe it's a dry heat,
but anyone can see it makes for
sticky situations,
especially when mixed with
equal parts
hidden tensions and
changing priorities.
you can only do so much
before you crack or worse --
fold in on yourself
like an old letter
(or more like last summer,
when the nights that
used to bring you to life
turned against you and were cold,
sharp).
she's been trying for too long
too hard
too much
to let that happen this time,
and
it's her turn now.
it's her turn now.

In Which I'm Pretty Sure No One Is Reading These...

...which is probably a good thing.

No, this isn't a poem post. I'll do that later.

In Which I Make Saturday's Real Post

Mornings seem more like
timeless
when eyes open, not harshly,
but flutter slow
to warm breath
on shoulderblades.

Skin
on
skin
on
skin
on
lips
is better than caffeine
or even taurine and guarana,
and, baby, I'll be wired
long after you've gone
this afternoon.

But I'll be here when you get back,
of course,
still nursing my
burger-and-fry brunch,
cuz you know they had it right
back in '55 when a malted milkshake
or cherry-syrup Coke
was an unspoken metaphor
and the food was almost as good
as Lover's Lane.

In Which I Forgot This Blog The Very Next Day

So this counts as yesterday's poem, since I totally forgot I made this within the first 24 hours. Because I'm an airhead like that.

Follow me,
out to the summerdusk.
We'll jump ship when the parents leave,
walk the plank and
drown together in catfish grease and
Captain Morgan's last diet cola --

and then we'll sit in the dark
while you talk and smoke and talk
and I'll think about how little it's always taken
for my lips to start to go numb.

In Which My New Call-Center Job Melts My Brain Cells

hello, thank you for calling;
for security purposes,
can I please advise
that you hang up now,
hang up and step away from your phone
or other communication device
before you get put on hold for longer
than the time you set aside for this call,
or transferred one or sixteen more times
to anything but help.

and I would just like to inform you that,
during this call,
I would like to use records of
your every thought and action
to suggest products and services
in a fake-smile monotone high pitch,
and that protecting this information
is your right
and my duty
under federal law or maybe just a moral code,
and your answer will probably affect your service
today. how may i assist you?
yes, sir. no, sir.
I completely understand, sir.

sir, do you mind if I just place you on a brief hold
while I go over your account
and finish colouring this picture
and ask my supervisor
who quit? and
who's fired? and
who's taking whom to the club tomorrow night?
thank you, sir.
hello, sir? thank you for holding, and
I do apologize for the delay.
It looks like this problem is not on our end
but on yours, or maybe your local service
fucked it up, cuz it sure wasn't us,
so what you'll have to do is call them
and tell them to change your routing
to none.

and before you go, is there anything else I
can do to ensure
you're very satisfied with my service today?
all right, sir, thank you,
and can I interest you in anything,
anything at all? no?
all right, sir, thank you for calling, sir,
and you
have a
wonderful day.

In Which I State My Objectives

Let me be honest, here: I started this Blogger because I was coerced. Miss Mustache Pie held a metaphorical blunderbuss to my head and threatened my life if I didn't make one.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But that's a perfectly acceptable literary technique, Dear Readers, which brings me to my next point -- a point which also happens to be the point of this blog.

I'm going to try my damnedest to write a poem a day for...well, who knows how long? Longer than a day, I hope. Longer than a week.

I hardly ever write any more, and it's sort of making me feel dead inside, or like a dried-up leaf just waiting for someone to step on me for that satisfying crunch. Something like that.

So here I am, with this goal. I'm going to write and post at least one poem every day, even if it's three lines long or makes no sense or is just plain terrible. I imagine I will probably write most of these poems right in the text box here on the site, minutes before posting them. I also imagine most of them will not really even count as poetry.

However, I am 85% sure this will be good for me, even as just a writing exercise or an emotional outlet. So I'll try it out.

Part of me hopes no one reads this, but part of me also knows I will be sad if no one does. Ah, the paradox of human emotions.

Here goes nothing special.