Original Work #4

Finally, something current (and there was much rejoicing...)!

When Did I Stop Loving You?

Girls, you’ve got to know when it’s time to turn the page - when you’re only wet because of the rain. -from Northern Lad by Tori Amos

I couldn’t tell you the exact day,
but looking back I think it was somewhere between
our first year in Bakersfield and two years ago in Amsterdam,
when I realized how much you’d say,
like the trochaic tetrameter drizzle of a slow beginning rain,
BAby BAby BAby BAby

I’ll pay attention later
BAby BAby BAby BAby

Can’t you do this for me
BAby BAby BAby BAby

I don’t wanna, go by yourself
BAby BAby BAby BAby

Haha – I know someday you’ll probably leave me
BAby BAby BAby BAby

You would put your mouth everywhere,
around your bottle, your cigarette, your pipe,
trying to suck salvation from anywhere,
anywhere but the woman
who created your life,
(BAby BAby BAby BAby)
built your home,
(BAby BAby BAby BAby)
planned for your children,
(BAby BAby BAby BAby)
while you sat on that same green couch,
still saying you’ll pay attention later.
(BAby BAby BAby BAby)

And when you would finally climb into bed
and touch me for the first time all day,
I would say,
“No BAby BAby BAby BAby,
I’m so tired.”
When what I meant was,
“If you’re looking for something wet to play with,
go outside and play with the rain.”

Original Work #3

We're getting closer to current work - this one I found scribbled on a piece of paper from a few months ago (even when I stopped writing on a regular basis, sometimes stuff would just spill out of me). I worked on trying to perfect the parallelism between the two major stanzas and fell a little short, but I think it still works.

Cruel Sandman

I dreamed of you last night.

Not the dreams of my witching hour,
filled with my body surrendered to your strong arms and dirty mouth (dirty words in my ear),
your seed between my legs and dirty smile on my face.
Those dreams I keep locked away for a lonely afternoon, a stormy night,
a random Wednesday morning.

But not this dream.
This dream came from Sandman,
and he sent me a dream not of your lust,
but of your love.

My body wrapped in your strong arms and clean hands (you whispered clean love in my ear),
the only seed spilled was on my kitchen counter from cut fruit – sweet like the smile on my face.
I sat on your lap while you told me all your dreams and held me close like a man in his true weakness for something more than just me in his bed on a lonely afternoon, stormy night, or
random Wednesday morning.

Unacceptable, Sandman.

Original Work #2

This piece is from several years ago as well, but it's one of my favorites from my older work. More current work to come soon.


Peripheral Crush

Straight passages to tangled webs weave into
my idle thoughts of your fingertips brushing my
worries of any other place I’d rather be.

You reach up and whisper sweet
something other than our lives outside
this moment; I reach up for
something more substantial than my lust and your broken heart
that somehow feels healed between my legs, or just some other feeling.

I will pick up your pieces for my own end, but you seem somewhat allured by my body that you’re not supposed to have – well I say some secrets are best kept under your breath while you kiss

temptation on both sets of lips and she smiles back at you through my hungry eyes.
We harbor the first taste of something richer than hotel rooms and hemlines.

Original Work

Since I opened with Ai's poem, I figured I'd better follow up with something original of mine that came from that poem. I wrote this about six years ago, and have been doing some reworking on it. There are still some posts I'm not completely happy with, but poetry is always a work in progress.

Ai’s Black Goat
I Have Got to Stop Loving You So I Have Killed My Black Goat -Ai (poem title)

You and he are in a cauldron
tied back to back and I’m
cutting vegetable like I used to for our
post-work dinners and pre-argument appetizers.

Suddenly, there is Ai and her black goat telling me
I’m getting it all wrong.
And he is waiting patiently for his turn in
the story, but I think he’s getting distracted
by a figure in the distance,
another woman I can’t discern, while you
are crying out to me and goat’s blood is engulfing
your heart. But I can’t stop yearning for him, remembering our passion that still carries
weight in my soul even while the blood is overwhelming you.

I climb in because I can’t reach him, and you are drowning at my feet,
holding on to my ankles, any anchor that keeps me near you, and I am reaching for something strong to hold
onto while he slips through my fingers and suddenly
you are both gone.

And I am alone in a sacrifice gone wrong.
The goat’s blood coagulates in the cold cauldron and Ai turns away shaking her head. I reach out,
but even she is gone.

One of my favorites...

This is one of the first poems I was introduced to when I started the Creative Writing program for my undergrad. It sang to me the first time I read it almost a decade ago, and still sings to me now. Definitely in my top five.


I Have Got to Stop Loving You So I Have Killed My Black Goat
-Ai

His kidney floats in a bowl,
a beige, flat fish, around whom parasites, slices of lemon,
break through the surface of hot broth, then sink below,
as I bend, face down in the steam, breathing in.
I hear this will cure anything.

When I am finished, I walk up to him.
He hangs from a short wooden post,
tongue stuck out of his mouth,
tasting the hay-flavored air.
A bib of flies gather at his throat
and further down where he is open
and bare of all his organs,
I put my hand in, stroke him once,
then taking it out, look at the sky.
The stormclouds there break open
and raindrops, yellow as black cats' eyes, come down
each a tiny river, hateful and alone.

Wishing I could get out of this alive, I hug myself.
It is hard to remember if he suffered much.