Archive for October, 1992

Breathing Pains

Posted: October 26, 1992 in Poetry
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waiting for you to arrive,
I close my eyes for the birds that rise,
flowing over my skin,
baiting the thoughts that cruise like fish
within.
I sink deeper into my steel water trough
to wonder when the night
will roll in.
the flowers I brought you have wilted
from the sweat on my brow,
but I am waiting, still alive,
waiting for you to arrive.

I count the turns of the fan and
stir the last of my ice
with my hand,
watching them dance.
I taste the water from the ends
of my fingers.
the salt and the cold comes
with chills of your eyes
if you tried to lie;
you’re coming here sometime.

I think of what I can’t see
past my reflection,
through the window’s glass;
where you said you were going,
where you might be instead.
these spinning spiders cobweb my head.

everything slow, slower, slowest;
these breathing pains.
a record skips on its label.
I’m watching these wilted flowers.
cut, they glower back at me,
slowly.
I’m wondering when blood will
run out of my ears
with the weight of all these
anthological fears.

I pluck a melting cube from the water
and send it sliding along the table
as I lay, my head on the back of my arm.
a cold green fire simultaneously heats
my uncomfortable forehead and
roots at the pit of my stomach.
I will wait with my breathing;
you’re coming here sometime.
I will wait for you to arrive.

Rabbit Girl

Posted: October 22, 1992 in Poetry
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wet rabbit girl,
where do you go?
know puzzle piece fits you
and my rainbow glasses miss you
when you’re gone so long.

private poetry
to roll in and chew
– a mouthful of wet paper,
foam caught on a branch
in a river.

I stand as a boy
with both hands
up and out, offering you
my heart
with hopeful eyes.

if not, I’ll go home.

Untitled Poem #135

Posted: October 20, 1992 in Poetry
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throw it all away
and find something
to expect nothing from.
I hate so complicated a tangle,
snarls hanging in other knots
of responsibility and expectation.
find a river to listen to,
to die by.

Untitled Poem #134

Posted: October 20, 1992 in Poetry
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arranging my stuffed animals neatly
seems to rest my mind,
giving it a stump to sit on.
curled up on my bed,
I wall myself in with
bodies stuffed with fluff,
still so little in a big body.

I am the bear at the back of my closet,
warm and furry.
but nobody knows it.

I am the star cut in the flesh on the back of my hand.

you, however, are a fig-ment
of my imagination, subject to my rules.
and you are whatever I choose to make of you.

you are a grasshopper, or a shiny penny,
or a bunch of balloons third graders let go
with notes attatched to the ribbons.
you are roadkill, or a lonely sock in the trash.

I am the wildest man with this imagination;
the most dangerous with this pen.
I am, most of all, the bear at the back of the closet
whose winking eye has been mistaken for a star
that you use as a night-light.