greenie's blog

Directions opposite in turn [that ropes two uses, which Dutch Double]
Having read the same passages ten times over, I’m fin-ding
refuge in reading the syllables backwards and taking lib-er-ties
with punctuation [and grammar] – I have a license to destroy the fibrous mounds of language
I have compiled around me, draped sinew-like about my shoulders, wear so proudly
as if to say, “I am complete and you are a cashier, bagging spoiled milk and returning home to smell
of cucumbers”. No! I no longer fear the fragment sentence. Not that I ever have. Nor the winding

They were stork-like in silhouette, resembling large birds with concrete limbs, roosting next to the waves. In their heyday they preened themselves and dipped their beaks in the Gulf -- now, they chirrup slowly, shedding their dampened plumage – still staring towards Mexico.

& we are suspended in a place with no doors
& no time and we cannot rewind & we are
running out . of . time . & we are
ampers&s in the s& and we will wash away quietly when we
all fall down because we . are . children and children
accept their fates because Mommy told us that
we will be safe & it's better this way if
Daddy just sleeps in the basement for . a . while . &
we welcome this sigh-lence. & welcome this
sigh - lence.

Please be qui-et. For . a . while . because
Mommy's got a headache & she . can't . think with your noise, you silly girls and boy-oy-oys.

Why do people say, "I'll die without you"? Love is like
only seeing the world through water and finally
getting a pair of goggles. Love clarifies -- if you get a crack in your goggles,
you can still swim in the pool, the chlorine's just going to burn a bit.

Without you
I wouldn't die. No, without you I would live
in the same way that mountains breathe - slowly. I would crumble
into red clay and stain the riverbeds scarlet; absorb into rain and reverse plummet
until I splat - fragmentate on the sidewalks - connecting to myself by

Blade doesn't care that Skin is not Bone. Limerick meets
Men in Green with the same magnetic pull as Blade to
Marrow -- a love affair cut short; on again, off
again partners,
for [says the news] the ninth time this week.

Sliding between room service trays and cotton bedspreads,
tangling limp arms with shallow breaths, shining sweat -- shining Steel -- lover's quarrel?

Blade doesn't care that Muscle likes Fat -- doesn't acknowledge
the interconnected layering system of the human body. Sinew
and membrane cut the same
in every country -- as Blade nicks new slivers.

Blood swells to Blade, a different beauty every night --
a different hotel room, who needs protection when you have
cold steel? "Perfectly safe, mother. He's a

real gentleman."

I envy those who have religion.

I envy those who have such trust, such faith in something that they can suspend all evidence to the contrary and simply believe. My problem is that I can't quite convince myself that something else exists. I certainly can't convince myself that there's some Almighty God willing to punish all those who don't believe in Him -- I can't convince myself that there is one and only one right Way, and that all others are wrong.

Wait in emotional houses
and send me letters inked in lemon juice:
citric acid reminiscent of a gumdrop childhood --
garden hose turned on at 3am by a disgruntled brother;
Mother washed sheets soaked in groundwater -- suds
slipping past mud and grass stains, lye
your air -- hands that turned down
softened bedsheets and folded back the rim
on your birthday cake, wielding a spatula like some Almighty
God of pastries and Tupperware -- you run past
the upset dishes and tumble backwards down paint-sleeved steps,
landing in damp grass under the lemon trees --

i.
I want to hear about the bloody stupid
door that caught your foot on the way out - and the snow
sifting into the window-rim. I want to hear about
crystallization in the maple sugar jug, surprise candy when you pour it onto pancakes;

about tongue twisters and ripped paper, cap-less pens
at the bottom of your closet, the godsdamned mouse that wouldn't
click right -

about the wrong words

about stars that turned out to be satellites, swimming across
your horizon and tricking you into wasting
a perfectly good wish

i.
Spanish homework splayed before me - my invisible ghosts
walk beside the lamps I haven't had time
to turn on - steps behind me, each footcreak eerily akin to
my own.

ii.
For 34 minutes the heater is a steady purr, the shifting
foundation a reassuring mumble, the lighting creating
shadow puppets...

iii.
Click.
My ghosts slip under the door-frame
and gather in the ridges on the rug, the shadows return --
with new puppets.

i.
"So idealistically wonderful" -- like maraschino cherries, candy-apple red and 100% plastic. 1,000,000 impressions daily,
in sound bites that I would categorize in files
to be viewed later at a discreet and private time, to filter.

ii.
Can I slim down my vocabulary into verb conjugations, eliminating
selfish sounds, like "I", and "we" -- turning "my" into "zie" and "you", and winding up with "to run", "to fly", "to feed"?

Re-posted from elsewhere.

I keep secrets because maybe, one day, you’ll say
the right words to find them; I remove my “i”s from poems
reinserting them when I find myself unable to remain selfless, and I
weep until my shell collapses into pyramid dust – or
would it be a grain of sand in the Gobi, in the Mojave, indistinct
undeclared, eroding
eroding, we are eroding from boulders, from rocks, from mountain crags
into fragments, fragmenting, see my arms – veins not like rivers
but like cracks, see my partitions, see me dry up and dig

The first phrase may sound familiar; it's one that's been circulating around my head for some time.

We are boric acid and methanol, green
flames snapping glow in the dark
until we lose our oxygen and begin to
cannibalize each other, breathing not carefully arranged
"O"s and paired up molecules, but skin,
exhalations, saltwater on pillows.

Our handwriting in the moonwalk phase of development --
still set on impulse, improvisation
to the memorable finale...

in youth, we seek polish, perfection - which
comes from emulating youth. Age corrupts

Random homeless and unconnected snippets from my notebooks and odd papers scattered about.

Our secrets define us [if we let them].

[Freeze.] The books, the papers, the clubs, the whining, the stress, the people, the drama, the feeling of always having something to get done, the never having enough time, the cramming, the impossibility of finishing, the disappointment, the beating yourself up, pulling yourself out, the slow breaths, the gut feeling of inadequacy, the plethera of sticky notes, the changing. It gets better? [Unfreeze.]

Perhaps all my best work
will simply spring from surprised boredom
and flustered, illusionary thought…
I don’t believe I’d mind much –
It would certainly make college interesting.

i.
Silence holds an infinite fascination
with the lack of things
that should be said - and the excess
of revelation.

In the process of silence...

My verse has spun longer, taking
liberty with itself; uppity little things,
poems. Spunky, romantic, flighty.
Got minds of their own.

Spun longer... spun longer until lines
stumble over themselves to reach
the end of the page - and beyond.

My crazed verse has melted into disorganized
prose. How embarrassing. It seems
like cheating, somehow...
Perhaps because there are more lines
to read between,

in poetry.

ii.
I miss the resolution
of sentences.

For once, I won’t pretend to know anything about politics. I’m the kid who sits in the middle of the class and nods knowingly when the kids at the front get into heated debates about the next presidential election. I’m the kid who’s normally such a snappy loudmouth that teachers whimper audibly when the attendance list reaches my name. I’m the kid who knows absolutely nothing.

Packing List Essentials (abridged)

Entertainment devices of your choice
Wallet
Books - not massive back-cracking A.P. U.S. textbook
Flip-flops
SHORTS - do NOT ignore this option! You will regret it when your jeans stick to your knees and you are forced to peel them off.
Watch - yes, there is a time difference
Sunscreen

Day 1 - LE HÔTEL MONTELEONE
French Quarter; New Orleans, Louisiana

I end up telling the truth because it makes for such beautiful meter.

We here at the YWP offices are organizing a round of author visits in the space at Champlain Mills throughout the coming fall, to be followed by a forum with the authors on the site and a new selection of writing ideas/prompts. We're hoping to have about eight authors total, each speaking to a different genre of writing, spaced about once every two weeks. We've already gotten ideas from you all about which authors you'd be interested in having present, but now what we're looking for is dates. Which day of the week is the best one to have these workshops on? Please give us your feedback so we can get as many people as possible in to see these fantastic writers!

Please follow the link below to submit your choice(s).
http://youngwritersproject.org/node/33014

I feel as though this needs an explanation and I have none; perhaps this is just what comes of me being left alone too late at night. Also: the poem came out of the initial ranting and I'm not sure quite how it connects, yet.

7/23/09 (9:46pm)
I'm sorry for being confined to my own body; my own limitations confuse me. I apologize in advance for the incorrections, impoliteness; I warned. I'm not sure what I mean when I say... I always was/am too shifty for my own good. I'm tired of ill-done poetry.

It's time for spring cleaning in my head -
for untucking each neatly done up
hospital corner and unplumping the decorative pillows,
stripping away the crisp linen that lays
ornamental and sharp atop
the mattress-padless box spring. It's time for
the shaking out of spiders, hidden in the topmost drawers,
encouraged to crawl there; pushed upward by
a steady supply of handkerchiefs
and white gloves. It's time to dust off the windowsill; move

I demand
words to put to music that would
make you dance
make you turn your body every way
I command, and
brass so you could listen and I -
I could watch the teases
at the corners of your mouth crinkle -
silter-shift into a widening mirage
that makes my throat clench
and coffee-addict fills me to my
eyelashes with impotent potential,
but I won't let myself be brewed
like all the storybooks warn,
I will close my eyes and imagine
around you, around our hidden maybe's
and what if's, until I swim past Neverland
into the year the world will end.

This originated as a blackout poem, but I changed it around a fair amount and warped some of the wording.

experience
Art
in the destruction
of experience. break routine
break
instruments with
puffs of smoke
try to
pick up
the
music. But it's not de-
struction of itself; it's destruction of
doing. destroy everything -

break it,
break it!

The process of holy
art is music.
The ideal:
get killed after a
stupendous performance.

in the scene
were every word has to mean something
play this kind of ethereal
mind. Eventually go too far:
leave the world
for what it is. artists are

becoming Unapproachable. a
show, a circus
hit them, punch them, kick them
on the floor:
get out of hand for its own sake.

start on that business of Obscurity

Our bones break with twig-like fragility
snap backwards and forwards when they’re not designed to bend –
but I, I flex,
I conform to the breaks and cracks in our foundations.

USE me as a springboard, a jumping off point for your maltreated
regrets – let my bloodied limbs tangle with misshapen fingers,
scrape on the bottom of the kiddy pool…
while you drift to the top, floating with unnatural, oblivious
buoyancy.

Children will catapult
from your open arms into mine and I will drop them –
my bruised tendrils-once-hands can no longer
clench in fists, my beginner-knitter eyes (red yarn fragments glistening)
cannot gaze into the light… I see
your shadows.

Throw your surprise reality in the air,
let its limbs remain whole, un-shattered, young and naïve…
Learn the lines of your reality’s face, read its moods,
cater to its demands… I never made any.

We were given the prompt to write a poem using the phrase "I am from" repeatedly.

I am from nowhere, from outside
the perimeter, I belong to
a race that hasn't yet begun,
but I am looking and one day,
I'll find them - I am from
old concrete bunkers and songs
that mock atomic bombs
in a time when everyone is terrified.
I am from the cheeky, the
klutzy, the daringly oblique when
hysteria is a
solid noun. I am from structure and
silent orchestras that sing at midnight:
tighten up the flute, louder on the viola!
(But it's all a child's game
of pretend. I can't tell a whole
from half note.)

I am from uncomfortable laughter
and trainwreck speeches which make
up the best and worst memories
you have. I am from background, I
am from insanity and blue tie die
on too hot days... (in winter). I am
from instructions and metaphors
and jigsaw puzzles -
puzzles that make you look inside
and ask yourself

"Do I really want to be here?"

This was written via prompt in a Writing Craft session on metaphors. We were instructed to pick a person and metaphor-ify them. The second one, if you miss the reference, is compared to a traffic light.

Learn to
strike up conversations on stone walls
with leering gentlemen. They'll like you, dearie.
Let them take you home and teach you about
lust, about graceless ineptitude as their fingers fumble
with your zipper and you end up unsnapping
your own buttons in stomach lurching regret.
Earn your make-up cover, child, like the rest of us,
waiting until long past noon to sneak home, sinking to
the floor in your bathroom, letting the tiles imprint
your already tattooed thighs... reapplying that lipstick deadbolt...
they never need to know, right? Relish that part of you
that didn't take their money, drowning out the
need for rent with the vague concept
that you can still call it "attraction", "impulsive",
(rash).

Stairs are concrete, unmoving.
Pale light shifts on every shade
of brown, maroon, taupe.
But to the left, only cobwebbed corners
slide into muted geometry
(an architect once told my five year old self
that my 2D houses would be "gravitationally
unsound", my response was that the oversized dog
would hold it up).

Some people find faces in clouds, but
I must've had a warped childhood because I
think I'm beginning to find faces
in these stairs. Ingrained in woodwork,
their muted mouths gape in splintery
distress, calling me to still, to slow,
to flow into oak, birch, elm...

Their knothole eyes don't understand that
I am just crude flesh and marrow -
I cannot sink in roots.

Hum listless strains of imitation tuba
you once heard at a gay rights rally
in Detroit, and when someone asks,
say it was played at your great-uncle's
funeral.
Tap out your message
in Morse code and if no one understands,
click your fingernails against
unstable trees with an aura of wisdom.
Discard solemn footsteps in favor
of lyrical shuffling - if it flaps and slaps,
embrace it.
Embroider yourself with jangling metal,
twist clinking medallions in your hair
and stand in a stiff breeze, arms outspread,
letting the passing cars slow to
overhear your clothing
chime its defiance.

We are a broken record player,
needles bent and scratchy - still,
spin on and round.

With each melodramatic chord
resounding from without - all,
displayed in ridges for better viewing,

we rise up in better symphony,
and with each careless circle round
- we skip -

and leap to the next
peaceful
note.

I decided to experiment with the villanelle rhyme scheme.

I am a Picasso of my own words,
thoughtless compilations of time -
gathering dust on the wings of birds.

Common concepts, defiantly heard
provoke me into softened song,
I am a Picasso of my own words.

A painter will not, cannot gird
himself against prospective wrong,
gathering dust on the wings of birds.

As each brush stroke does gather curds
of thought, one of a sifting throng,
so - I am a Picasso of my own words.

With every image done and sprinting upwards
into thought, thus let me be and so prolong
gathering dust on the wings of birds.

As each bold man becomes a coward
standing 'neath paintings as they belong,
I am a Picasso of my own words
gathering dust on the wings of birds.