at midnight I can smell for miles
the scents of highway asphalt, coasting, sunroof down,
at 75 -- just off from work
and ignoring the burn of my feet.
Beyond the skunk and woodsmoke,
my patchouli wal-mart freshener,
and leafy loamy hilly forests....
I think I smell my freedom.

fireflies like litha fires will come soon.
the blazing light of July skies
will come with golden noon.
elder blossoms, lily blooms --
they will come soon.
but in the dewy spring near-dawn
I saw the summer moon.

a poem written for a spanish assignment. I'll provide a translation behind the cut, but even if one can't understand the language one should always try to savor the sound and feel of a poem's native words before polluting its purity with the muddling echoes of your tongue. :) and if you do speak spanish well, feel free to point out any mistakes. i'm still learning the language and i make no pretenses at perfection.

la aridez

Las arenas secas y gravilla granuladas,
los barros rajadas que salpican el desierto
no crecen nada de plantas floridas --
florecen solamente los guijarros castigados.

Por la tierra yerma, las mesas codiciosas
empujan al cielo sus páramos perdidos.
Ellas que sueñan de vistas nubladas
ofrecen sus huesos en tributo gritando.

Aún las montañas rezan de paz.
Son los labios partidos al borde del desierto.
Una vez lejana conocían la negrura
de nubarrones obscuros, ya olvidados.

La brisa susurra de las azucenas rojas
y del estío trayendo alivio.
Las mesas deseosas se arrancan la ropa --
pronto vendrán las lluvias anheladas.




( Translation and more below )

A Malaysian form centering around repetition, I found this form surprisingly comfortable to write in. Then again, I took liberties with my repetition, but that's because strict repetition sounded too forced to my ear...

Pantoum of a forgotten God

The sun is risen, I go into the West;
away beyond hills that shelter my shame.
I depart these fields where once I was blessed
for lands of dark shadow that know not my name.

And beyond these hills that shelter my shame
here am I bereft, here am I alone.
These lands of dark shadow know not my name
but the home I once knew is no longer my own.

Here am I bereft, here am I alone.
None know my songs or seek out my aid
but the home I once knew is no longer my own
and gone are its prayers and incense and shade.

None here know my songs or seek out my aid
in this exile-tomb, I strive to be heard.
Though gone are the prayers and incense, the shade
soothes my parched spirit, gives strength to my word.

In this exile-tomb, I will yet be heard.
I forsake these fields where once I was blessed
to renew my parched spirit and give strength to my word.
The sun is setting, I arise in the West.

There are reasons I cannot write, you know;
no time or place, or perhaps it was snow
in the middle of April that did me in--
I cannot feel spring when winter won't go.

And after all that, how do I begin?
How to fix the question and yes, what then?
If I cannot write cheerily, why write at all?
The world has had enough of madness and sin.

I cannot shape words or squeeze into balls
the sense of just how rainy spring lulls
the sleepy green buds, quiet on the tree,
into dreams of new leaves and baby bird calls.

And among the talk of locks and keys
of quills and keyboards and you and me
the moon out my window smiles and says:
But the buds dream of love and somehow, I see.

...things have changed.

eleven p.m., senior year

Our city, so small, still seems so seamy
when its nearly midnight
and I’m looking out through storefronts
at streetlights, red lights, and a silver gash of moon
just small enough to almost fit between us.
Five minutes, no more, was all it took me
in a cramped office, in a back hallway
to reverse the thoughts and deeds of four long years --
that anger between us, crammed into an inch.
Two years ago, I would’ve sworn that I hated you.
Two days ago, you could’ve had me right there.

Cold and smiling
cruel and effervescent, the heart
of high-class hallways and
the whole of winter
distilled. She has known
those fertile valleys,
felt the moon upon her back
and smiled, felt a heartbeat
grow and swell and crack
back to nothing.
Her voice all boiling,
her tongue all spilling over,
until the sound is only powder
crushed
and falling like new snow.

And she took a cautious step forward, felt the light upon her face, and flinched back; having ever been a creature of shadow this sensation was new to her. But she liked it, and when she shut her eyes she could thrill to the warmth on her face -- she did not see her skin rise up in pustules, nor did her mind sound the alarm as flesh and tendon shriveled. She died of joy, and of light, because for all of the professed goodness of mankind there are those among us who were never made to be happy.

Let’s reach forth for solid ground,
if only to know the coast.
Too long spent adrift at sea
with only the moon for company
makes for bitter and horrid ghosts.

And who could turn and dive again?
Could be a mermaid, driving down
into the soft and foamy sea?
Or cease to struggle, and slowly drown?

I swear, somewhere there’s a shore I knew
hidden within the mist.
The stony sand sang to the sea;
the waves, in turn, sang to me
of eyes once loved and lips once kissed,
of pale vein-lines on an ivory wrist,
and the simple request your ears once missed:

Please don't give up on  me.

First poem I'm surprised by how well it actually mirrors the way I think and the patterns of my brain. Read it aloud, or at least whisper it; it's the way it's supposed to be. Not slow or measured, but kind of 'all in one breath' -- it's a confession, sort of. Half admittance and half advice. In fact, the title means 'a piece of advice' in French. Oh, and a kashikoi poem. Whom I'm now certain knows, though I don't know whether he was clever enough to figure it out on his own or if someone snitched. :/ Considering kashikoi means 'clever' or 'wise', I find the latter option rather ironic... Also, if you don't understand the references at the bottom, you can google search them... or SPOILER ALERT! they're different types of sacred prostitutes, women who practiced sexual healing in the name of various divinities. Hope I  didn't ruin anything for anyone. :3

Second poem, inspired by tonight. Met a nice girl through a mutual friend, she seems like an amazing person and told me that she thinks just that of me: literally said, ' you are an amazing person'. I introduced her to Pocky; she got me to drink Monster and like it. >_> In proud Campathian tradition, her name is 'kimi', a Japanese word for 'you' (of which they have tons, surprising for a language where they more often than not omit pronouns or subjects entirely). But ' kimi' has a feminine meanining -- as if tu in French had a gender like il or elle instead of being neutral and taking on its antecedent's gender. So, kimi she is.
( Cut to actual poetry... )

New poetry, yes. Le gasp
I have some from the poem challenges (not that I ever finished it, no) but I'm not posting them right now...
Instead, we have a poem that's kind of a love poem, but not a koishii poem. In fact, well, if koishii is koishii then we'll call him, um, kashikoi. It works well, I think, and sounds less feminine than the name I'd had in my head earlier. The second is also a kashikoi poem, but again not a love poem. There are more conflicting feelings between he and I, I think, and given past events I don't know if I'm quite confident enough to love him. Yet? Again? Choose your own modifier; I sure as hell don't know.


( Two poems for Kashikoi )

A friend posted this month-long poetry challenge on Facebook: A poem a day, more or less, one each of the following types. I'll give explanations of each below the cut....


1. Abcedarian
2. Ballad
3. Cinquain
4. Clerihew
5. Diamonte
6. Dodoitsu
7. Dorsimbra
8. Epistle
9. Haiku
10. Kyrielle
11. Lento
12. Lilibonnelle
13. Limerick
14. Ode
15. Nonet
16. Pantoum
17. Parallelismus Membrorum
18. Pleiades
19. Quatern
20. Rondeau
21. Rondelet
22. Senryu
23. Sestina
24. Sonnet
25. Tanka
26. Tetractys
27. Terza Rima
28. Triolet
29. Tritina
30. Tyburn
31. Villanelle

( Great. Fancy forms. Now how to write them.... )

Found this while opening up my poem .doc to write a new one. Apparently I wrote it around the end of October; I hadn't dated it, numbered it, or titled it. However, it's number 33. Which is lucky in my book. A koishii love poem and, I hope, one of the last of its kind.

Well, I wouldn't mind writing happy ones again, but that's all up to him. **nudgenudge**.



corazón

here inside my tender heart
portraits hang on a tidy rack,
each with arrows like a subway chart;
all go out but only half come back.

back behind the picture frames,
shut-up boxes lurk in secret holes,
hotel safes for hurts and shames,
keeping the bits that keep me from whole.

that one, though, guards a unique gem:
hoarded inside it, a bank-box key.
and it in turn opens things best not thought of:
a little black box of sore memories.

I lived the winter, awkward and hoping
I lived the spring and its chances at love
I lived the summer, the joy and the coping
(I’m living the fall of forget! rise above!)

Drowning in worlds better kept well-contained,
my only thought: oh, keep my pain unknown.
I am slowly not crazy. I can self-maintain.
Pick myself up. Lick my wounds. Carry on.

Been a while since my last post. This was scrawled down in English class as we studied the first of our allusion projects -- the first section of the Bible, Genesis chapters 1-3. I was pondering the possibilities between I and another in the class... Or the lack thereof.

I have always loved snakes.
No stranger to serpents, I
tapped on Anaconda's glass
and thrilled to hear his rustle.
Shake, rattle, and roll --
Do I miss that Garden? No.
I ate proffered apples
with caramel and delight.
Who would long for walls?
Or flaming swords? Or rules.
I am myself, the sinner,
God's proudest prodigal child.

Why am I then tempted?
No stranger to suitors, I, to
virgins bearing dulcet words,
then revealed true freedom.
You bear apples in your precious eyes.
When young I loved you, we come
full-circle. Adam-mine, I lament:
You will never love Lilith and I am no Eve.

fever dreams, delirium;
those highway lights and fancy flights
and freaky footwork in my mind
have gotten me somewhere
near to rock-bottom.

beyond, beneath all ups and downs
where sky and earth are liquefied
the taste of those once-distant bells
embraces, races, stupefies.
coherent thought...? dare I say
what ugly words to hear!
there's no such thing as 'logical'
'pretend' is what is truly real.

Half-imagined nightmares, clouds, crying crows and loneliness,
a fourscore host of carriage-horse, all matched to bit and bridle-dress
to bear me to my resting place, deliver unto mossy yielding earth
the defunct derelict-icized remnants of my birth.
Breasts are beaten, harpies chant, wailing sorrow heavenward
whilst into soil sinks my coffin, to netherdom my soul deferred...

and if I am maybe dying,
can we stay like this some more?
can it be right just like this
the whole
ride
home?

Quarter-moon and then some. I crawled
Crying and mewling, sick with indignity,
There to the threshold and spilled on the stones.
The ephor spoke--
Do not waste effort on years that have been.
This is the losing-place, this is the turning-point
These are the stones from which lemmings leap.”
The hem of his robe was purpled with age
The soles of my feet were blackened with dust.
Out over the edge, the plains echoed onwards.
In that dread shadow I found our life together.
What I was holding onto suddenly woke up.

An ambiguous or roundabout figure of speech used instead of an ordinary noun in Old Norse and later Icelandic poetry. For example, Old Norse poets might replace “sword” with a compound such as “wound-hoe”.
--paraphrased from Wikipedia

I discovered kennings when reading up on Beowulf and thought that I'd like to try adding them to my poetry. Btw, I like hyphens. And blank verse.

Embrace the weeks of the leaf-turning time,
Take hold of each instant ere the season of snow.
On cool carven tiles in lyceum hallways
Apollo's last children dance years away.
Take hold of the storm-tambours such as remain
for Christ's-month, Janus, and Februa the pure
are deserts, dry sandpits, Zeus-ammo-lacking,
gelding the father of fury with cold.
Take hold of deadfall, in its many hues.
With money tree-minted in burgundy-red
the meanest of mushrooms a grand house may make.
Dismiss not the cloud homes, enrobed to mourn;
call it not corpse-flesh but dew-gild or moon.
Embrace the best of the mean harvest months
for their followers suddenly will soon arrive.
When cascading tree-scale to ice-chip gives way
longing for fall will be easy to do.

A pair of poems inspired by my friends and/or relationships... (Aren't all my poems?) But these ones more so. The longer, simply entitled friends, dates from june. The shorter one, wonders of the world, dates from approximately ten minutes ago...

( poems )

written in january of this year. old and rough, but somehow very relevant to me right now. I especially like the last few lines.

don’t you ever wonder what my love would taste like?
don’t you ever wonder what my life would taste like?
sometimes I know its on your mind,
sometimes I can see it in your eyes.
sometimes I pretend like I don’t mind
don’t you wonder what happens when hopes die?
every now and then you grow too much to handle
every now and then I wonder when I’ll reach the ending
every now and then I dig deep for that mantra
every now and then I find myself repeating
someday someone will love me
someday it’ll be him or her or them
someday someone will love me
someday, you-- no.
someday someone will love me.

short and (bitter)sweet

Autumn brings wine-pressing, stamping plump grapes
plucked from summer vines greened in the sun.
We are sour and hard, unripe and wasted,
gathered too soon, our usefulness done.

Now say goodbye and leave me out there alone
as I try to buy your time like a glorified whore
turn your face like the leaves, go from red and gold
from the man I love to a man I hardly know.