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 Post subject: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:36 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
Once upon time, I was a creative person. I wrote poems and songs and played music, but then something happened (don't ask me what, I don't know) and I got lost. In a moment of clarity I realized that my life had gone terribly off course. And sometimes I think you reach a point where you have to destroy everything in order to rebuild. And so I did. There's a Kate Bush song I'm relating to a lot right now, called Pull Out The Pin.

Anyway, during the course of my demolition, I came across some poetry I had written many, many years ago. During my lost years I couldn't even read poetry -- again, I don't know why - I would just have this visceral reaction to it, and it made me sick. Now that's changed and I'm writing again too. And I decided, perhaps against my better judgment, to post some of it here. First I'm starting out with the old stuff. By way of background, so that some of the poems make sense, when I was 20 years old I fell in love for the first time, so some of the poems are about that. I was also involved in a car accident with my college roomate and best friend. She died. I lived. I wrote many of these poems in the immediate aftermath of that. For me, dealing with the grief is still, more than 18 years later, a work in progress.

And so, with my silver Buddha, and my silver bullet, I'm pulling out the pin.

Author: Badkitty (gail, versions 20.0 through 22.0 and 39.0)
Distribution: Not without permission
Warnings: None... uhm, sometimes I curse. That's about it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A poem for you

I am thinking of myself sitting here
wondering where to start or how, just how
so I get up, get another Camel Light
(my room is a cloud and it's a clear night)
People who love me call them "cancersticks"
Fine, so I get up, dial your number and it's
busy again, so I go back to writing

Like a myopic dart player drunk in a bar,
blinking after the board, barely discernible
bullseye in and out of focus
You must realize I don't want to miss a single
detail which makes me afraid to be a player

I'm doing my best here trying to write this
it is for you anyway I light the damn butt,
return to my desk get up again and get out of
the house I need a walk
down College Ave past the buses and Brower
Commons and back up again, faster
I need my typewriter

And I'm still trying to figure out what
the hell I'm thinking I'm trying to write and I
stamp out the butt by the door, up the steps
and there you are and I stop and I realize that
Tonight you're looking more beautiful than
I've ever seen you

[hr]
Note: I just remembered that I wrote this poem (or tried to) in the style of Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died." It's an amazing piece of work (his poem, I mean) and I'd be remiss if I didn't include a link to it here: http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171368

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


Last edited by badkitty on Wed Feb 07, 2007 4:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:41 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
I think this one might have been inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe. It's hard to remember what I was thinking when I wrote something that long ago. The other two that follow: the first is a love poem that speaks for itself, and the third is a poem I wrote for an assignment in a creative writing class. I'm pretty sure it's following some sort of form (lol).

-----------------------------------------------------

Upheaval

Imagine yourself coming home from work,
there is a foreman in your living room.
He smokes in your house.
His Caterpillar is where your fireplace
was, its jaws hold the remains of the
velvet Empire sofa your grandmother gave you.
His shoes are muddy.
"The sofa has to go," he says matter-
of-factly.
Turns on his heel, drops the butt, smooshes
it in to the carpet, leaves.
You stand there thinking that me must have had
a good reason for being in your house.
You stand there thinking that you never did
like that sofa anyway.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And dream of sleep

Ten thousand butterfly wings are beating
at the door; don't answer
They may disturb the air in here that quietly
ebbs and flows with the tide of each sleeping breath
you take. I like this quiet.
Ten thousand tree branches tap and scrape
at the windows; don't open
The shades and allow the black outside to pour
in with branches and flood the room stealing
the quiet light. The light is soft.
Ten thousand dreams are filling your head tonight
as I watch you sleep. Don't wake
From that world where you escape the pain
for awhile and maybe join the butterflies liquid
in the air by the door. I'll wait here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the silence

In the diffuse haze of twilight
my spirit rose soundlessly
to fold itself in cloudcover.

Last rays of sunlight shimmer
around and through my body,
my pores breathe warm liquid oxygen.

Air rushes past me like water-
warm clear salty water,
rushing with quiet intent.

The silence up here is exquisite,
like violins tuned so high
you can't hear them.

I am a whisper like a cloud
passing over the earth's surface,
throwing shadows here and there,

While I eat light and air and sound
until the final diminishing appoggiatura
of the last word.

--------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


Last edited by badkitty on Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:07 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
These are what I refer to as some of my accident poems. I have mixed feelings about them even today. There's a part of me wants to make changes to them, but I realize that would be a betrayal to the young woman who wrote them. It's as if I don't have the right. So I'm just going to leave them as they are. Sorry about the spacing being weird... but ezboard is a real pain in the ass.

---------------------------------------------------

Code:

The Deposition

And when these things begin to
come to pass, then look up, and
lift your heads; for your
redemotion drawth nigh.
         -Luke, 21:28
         
         
Day 2:   Awakening this morning to
         the everyday topple of things
         I can see a light at the core.
         Though it is still many miles
         away, I move toward it,
         straight through the wreckage,
         straight at the center.
         
         There is much rubble here
         but my boots make short
         work of it.
         I cannot see much of the torn
         landscape; ash diffuses the air and maybe
         this is for the best.
      
Day 3:   If distress is fuel, I'm
         running low. I'm moving
         almost imperceptibly, hacking
         at the ash air, burning a
         low, slow burn.
      
         Words of yours float back to me:
            "This is all there is"
         I've become passionless.
         Numbness is not skipping along
         cliff edges; it is plain existence
         on the fringes of things.
      
Day 4   This mess of blased concrete and stone
         casts no shadows.
         My shadow passes over land as a shroud
         momentarily floats, settles, and finally
         shades the muted faces of the dead.
      
Day 6:   Of all my dead, Amy     it is you
         who will not rest
         I want to go      back to you
         to find you somewhere     outside this
         wreck
         but I know you are at the    core of it
         grief     at the core
         it always is.
      
   I know the days have passed, yet is is getting difficult
     to keep track now. I've seen her up ahead but her pace
     is unrelenting. She waves to me, she beckons me to follow
     when I fall farther behind. She frightens me.
 
Day 14(?)Closer and closer to the core
         and the air is thick,
         concentrated toward the center
         of everything that is.
         Squatters are lodged in this burnt out,
         crumbled city.
         
         Every time I think I've finally
         driven them out,
         they come back again.
         She sends them to me I think-
         Messengers to remind me not to ever,
         ever forget.
         
   I don't know what day it is. I know time passes only by
   the wear of my clothes, since fatigue is a constant. The
   distance between us closes; I continue.
   
         Fire at the core
         Fire at the core
         Oh it must be burnt
         Run to the fire
         The fire at the core
         Run, witch, hair afire, run
         To the fire at the core.
         
         The sun set today, magenta.
         The fire is gone, or it was never there-
         I can't tell which.
         I imagine the end that is
         approaching, the blessed coming
         of the night.
         Forgive me father, but I know
         exactly what I'm doing,
         and I won't stop now.
         I won't stop until
         
         Contact.
         She bleeds.
         She cradles me.
         A word, a single word
         from her lips
         soft from her lips floats
         to my breast as the ruins fade
         around us, and the night
         blooms like a great black flower,
         and it floats, and settles, and says
         "Forgive."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:10 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
Some Final Thoughts On The Accident

I have a story to tell you
smoked and gutted, a rambling ranchhouse
of a story,
filled with dump trucks and refuse piled
to the ceilings of my livingroom,
my bedroom, my cellar.
Welcome.

This is a confessional;
You're the priest
And I want absolution from you.

In a haze of drink, people kill.
I do not. Or I didn't but I should say that when people don't
PAY ATTENTION
they die. Somebody does. You did. And, fuck you.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.
Punish me, so something please
(Please blame me)
Someone, will someone PLEASE BLAME ME -
I want to burn like a witch.

There is something inert in my womb,
a lion maybe, or a cancertumor that has no
business being there, screwing with my head.

Am I pussyfootingtoomuch?
Ok, I'll get to the point...
But not yet.
I can do whatever I want, and right now, I want to
Throw chairs through windows.

So here I am,
Prostituting my soul to you and yours,
stumbling around
Like some dumb animal with its thoat cut-
Ever look into the eyes of an animal with its throat cut?
As its blood and life drains away,
not comprehending the pain?
It's called shock.

To be honest with you, I'm hating life.
But here it is, in all its glory like another
goddamn I forgot to close the shades last night
sunrise in my eyes
In a morning-sticky stupor I meet it, mute.

Why my eyes and not yours?
Where the fuck are you anyway? Shit.
I told you this would ramble on.

You were like glass, my friend, a
tiny porcelain doll.
Have you ever dropped a porcelain teacup and
dumbly watched it fall,
Shattering?

A sharp pop smashing pieces everywhere, all over,
and when you sweep them together
They never quite add up, do they?

Humpty Dumpty
got in a car
Smashed it up, and
killed his best friend.

There. I'm done.

________________________________________

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:14 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
I Do Not Long

Here in the ash heap
Here in the wreckage of events
and uncharted depths of planning,
Careful, careful planning...
Here in the pupil of the eye of
the Sphinx
I peel off experience and experience,
setting them down, filling the logbook,
wishing for better days...
Don't call me a stranger-
I want to live.

---------------------------------------------------------------

(I never gave this poem a name. I think I was ashamed of it.)

And finally,
killing you made me lost my
confidence.
So it is my fault then, me,
the one who always found it so
necessary to make people into what
they could never be.
As if I drew up the plans,
life schematics, a master I am
at the architechture of scheming.
Beyond the grave you're still
throwing monkeywrenches into
my careful orchestrations
of things.
This thought and this one
should prove it all, your victory:
Congratulations.
You shouldn't matter this much
anymore.

----------------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


Last edited by badkitty on Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:14 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
Another one with weird spacing:

Code:
the Black

Help me
  I am grasping for something concrete
here something to feel
stewing in my hands, running through
  my fingers
slick, wet, tangible,
solid as solid words like "I swear
  to God"
Can you give me something solid?
Can you give me anything because
  I'll take
what I can get and steal what I need;
Even my waking dreams do not clarify things
  I break
mirrors and glass and wood with a huge
Black Sledgehammer and it feels good but it
  doesn't last


_____________________________________

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:16 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
Route 27

Sometimes I wish you'd just walk into a room.
I'm getting tired of people who look too much like you
And who wear the same perfume as you
And who flip a "hi!" at me here and there,
The way a tree serves up a leaf to the wind.
It's getting colder now;
I'm starting to lose that hot, hellish summer day
When no one, but no one could warn me.
A flat tire.
A driving rain (Hey, stay off the goddamned road!)
An engine stall.
We must choose our own roads, they say,
Only we must walk without looking down,
Circus idiots, we fall, get up, keep going,
Keep going, keep going,
And hope that someday, things will just naturally
end themselves.

------------------------------------------------------

One year later

My friend I can still see you, feel you:
your sunlit smile,
that laugh.
It has been a year and still
the emptiness is immeasurable.
Another year from now it will be the same
Your handprint is forever on my chest,
branded there, still smoking,
And ten years from now it will be the same
And twenty and thirty, if I should
live so long, if I should continue
my silent grieving.

---------------------------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:21 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
And finally, to 2007. I wrote this while in transition, losing and finding love again. Losing and finding hope again. The woman I speak of in this poem... she knows who she is and what she means to me.

______________________________________

in the breakdown

it's too late
honestly, i tried for so long, gave everything
and lost myself for an eternity
i hate that this hurts you so, but love?
it's everything and it's still not enough
and now i know it's nothing without passion
taken for granted
it consumes itself with grief

all these years my heart's concern centered
on the mere movement of oxygen through vein
and when she placed her hand upon my chest
my gaze fell upon Her, sought up like Adam
not to god, but to Eve
oh, that spark of life
that only a woman can give!
i'm still dumb with shock over it

actually?
i'm not even sure i'm sitting here.
i'm at once in my body and out of it
i only know my heart is warm again
it's beating this crazy strong skipping flutter
for Her, only for Her

and all of life's trivial torments
have melted away
like a second skin sorrow has
deadened every sense for too long
i am myself again, by Her grace
Her warmth, like the sun on my face

i remember now
i remember who i am supposed to be
i remember everything
in the release of all that needless pain
there is a sweetness, love, light
She is with me now
I Am Alive

_____________________________________

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


Last edited by badkitty on Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:22 am 
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23. Volumey Text

Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:39 pm
Posts: 3787
Location: UK
Great poetry,thanks for sharing.


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:11 am 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
Thank you for reading, SJ.

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 5:40 pm 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
love poem to a woman i've never met

dance with me
lover
you are about my height
we could make a go of it i think
no, you lead
or i can just watch you.... sit back and
watch you spin and shake your hips
for me
watch you dry your hair in the morning
after a hot shower
dream of you all day then
breathe your sleeping sigh beside me
at night
listen and i'll sing my love
to you
i'm breathing it into this word
right now

------------------------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:57 am 
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23. Volumey Text

Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:39 pm
Posts: 3787
Location: UK
Lovely poem.


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:18 am 
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3. Flaming O
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Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:01 am
Posts: 128
Location: North Carolina, USA
offering

he touched her
pig
i wanted to kill him for you
i wanted to make his blood flow
and bathe in it
cut out his heart
and offer it to you to appease your anger
instead
i knifed him with words
but he was too dumb to even see them coming
he made it too easy (pig)
and the woman?
i cut the child from her stupid womb for you
i took her from them
for you
she's yours now
remake her in your image
raise her as you desire
make her beautiful and dangerous
you can even make her a killer
like me and
can I go now?
she's yours and
we're even.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________
Now that my house has burned to the ground, I have an unobstructed view of the rising moon - Old Zen Saying


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 Post subject: Re: Some poems
PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:15 am 
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23. Volumey Text

Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:39 pm
Posts: 3787
Location: UK
Powerful words.


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