Falling Down The Rabbit Hole

Then and Now

2010-02-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

My eyes,
they were clear once
and saw- without much knowing,
the world
as it was to me then
a glistening thoughtless place-
in sharp and bright actuality.

And now,
crippled as they are
ravaged by disease and agony
they see,
a world
in dim and darkened filth
a pure and simple
reality.

Acid washed

2010-02-20T04:42:00.000-08:00

In its infancy it sat and shuddered,
burnt, vitriolic and expanding
riding the crimson blood-splashed rapids,
It curved and wound, spreading agony without discretion,
cruising on a tidal wave of endorphins and plasma till I found myself embraced
in the torment of my own aesculapian understand of my eventual demise.
Now let me be our guide:

There will be a piano there, a blanket with holes and a stamp, illegible, faded and clutched many, many times. You will ignore it other than to observe the hole with contempt. It is imperfect. You will have a bed, with a curtain that pulls down easily on a little round-about-track. A set of drawers with a code: epinephrine, haldol, diazepam, lidocaine, within. They will not let you walk, so you will write furiously, fingers sliding across thoughts and paper manic yet restrained, little finger smudged with black as it slides across the cool slips, rationing ink and pages because soon you'll run out, time will be up. You'll feel the needle in your arm shudder as you breathe and the skin on your ribs crawl back, pull away. Away is exactly where you want to be. And knowledge goes from being power to being simply horrifying. You'll see more here than you wanted to. You'll wonder when they started counting you as a number rather than a girl. You'll miss drawing and oils, photos and acrylic. Canvas stretched tall and looming, industrial against brick walls in a dimly lit studio, dancing to a beat, laughing with a friend at midnight and painting while being, and just being while doing, and just feeling as one should, downing coffee, singing late into the night, not feeling your skull shatter when you laugh. And late, late at night you'll sneak out from your bed and walk the hall up and down. You hallucinate paisley patterns on plain disinfected tile and you delight in the creations your brain is painting. Feeling that acid wash though your veins when you smile and feel it turn like a diamond edged record through your cerebellum. Prayers will turn wicked- Glass in the bloodstream, a violent artful death.

Eight, Twelve

2009-08-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I know that sickly pull
a retched twisting clutch
rendering strong and controlled form
a pool of chesnut agony
Cold and jagged fragments
icy, bloody bites
slicing flesh to ribbons
memories and nightmares
moonlit cubes sliding
in still and terrorfying calm
across and up the walls.
Loss and fear and agony
a hollow, hungry place
filled with pearly tablets
the burn of canned heat-
medication for calamity.
I know that cavernous space
below the bony arched cage
where beats a worn and withered heart
that simply seeks resolve.
Death is our keeper
and we are his progeny.

Some sort of dying

2009-08-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

I tried dying once
But was woken from my sleep
The quiet and the stillness
closer to oblivion

My bones emerged from hiding
my eyes lost will for sight
and scars criss-crossed my skin
a road map of bad memories

I felt my self fading
to some solitary place
where the shimmer in the dusty air
conveyed no scent of you

And even there I fumbled
some creature, out of place
a mess of complications
a worried, manic mind

You were neather there no here
no heaven and no hell
just some lasting thread of memory
that I feel fraying with the years

The Gardener

2009-08-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

A laugh
and he brushed my hand

A warm guide to a spiraling swan
dizzy and joyful pas de deux
barefoot on freshly cut grass,
staning a red ballerina green.

Steady, a hand and a laugh
hearty and heartfelt roll
an artist and a gardener
smelling the lemon verbena
as it burst forth from the earth

A lesson in botany
the power of soil, sun and love
how little things could grow tall
with a little bit of skill

Cupping the power of life in my hand
I watched as it curled and frayed
a sickness of wasting and wanting
staining a green man red.

Scales are for Fish

2009-07-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

Blue ribbons
How you shape me
Bees in my skull
Bees in my skull
Seven stone makes me lovely
Seven stone makes me loved

Bones are waves
And I am an ocean
Blue, blue ribbons
Make me a puddle
A glint in a raindrop
A tap on the asphalt
Unnoticed and icy
Impossable weight

Scales are for fish
Pale, boney fish
And I am an ocean
A deep, bitter ocean
Seven stone makes me lovely
Seven stone makes me loved
Bees in my skull
Ribbons and raindrops
The sea is full of fish
Humming bees in my skull

Bits

2009-07-15T21:24:00.001-07:00

Eight summers,
Just enough
for the shimmering wave of memories
to crystallize into solidity.

Patch work quilt
a shield and tear stained marker
-some sort of solid weight
protection from the night
an anchor to my home.

And a television glow
flickering and humming from beneath.
A comforting ripple of laughter
a little past the piano
where she taught me to play.

A strange summer rain
where I sang a song to Jesus
and tried to make her smile,
but watched oceans fill her eyes
before she left with gentle steps.

Summer brings back fragments,
razor sharp and honey sweet
of what I'll never have again.

Exit

2009-05-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

High on the steel grate
Cello song from far below
We all predicted
the visions in your head
would get you in trouble someday

In your world
disinfected taunts and tile
A series of white exits
Gowns and glances
unmoving, frozen life
'When you're home by yourself,
you're behind enemy lines.'

You said we were alike
And foolish as I am
I took your words for good
even knowing
the visions in your head
would get you in trouble someday

Brian

2009-03-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

I did not mind the blush of copper wickedness
swirled in your eyes,
or the wild wind that caught your hair
and made it dance and dance.
I did not mind the calloused tips
fingers around the neck,
giving strings their humming voice
Causing pale skin to blush,
and a lasting chill to run,
vertebrae to vertebrae
along an instrument in song.
I never failed to walk with you,
the movement in your voice
giving color to the earth around
and painting a portrait of light.

Trigger

2009-02-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

In silence
I screamed for a time
and brushed fingertips, blue
over my new, re-sculpted form.
They danced for a moment there,
unfeeling yet sensing
that something
was not right.
Another one down
twenty to go
a exclaiming burn in the ribs,
A hallow place
full of obsession
a black ink polluting the blood,
And under it all,
bones begging to rise
to broadcast a shriek
to protest suffocation.
Today I was reminded
that sometimes counting counts.

Silverfish

2009-01-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

The trapdoor at the bottom
asks questions round and round
and in a creaking tenor, calls
to a tatterd collage, made from bits of cloth
that sits below the varnished wood
worn from dancing days.
And there, the shattered form of me
bent and fallen from glowing sunlight
summoned to those fading photographs
Pulls about a rich black agony
heavy, sweet and cold.
When I find some light to hold
and memories melt to dust,
your fading face persuades me
to slip between the floorboards
and find a blacker place

Tangerine Sunrise

2009-01-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

Snapdragons, marigolds
a tangerine sky
dripping with low hanging mist
Checkerbloom, starflower
from these I fly
catching the steps that I missed
Violet, tidy-tips
Fleeing the sun
Creeping up into the blue
Larkspur, meadow grass
each new day I die
and reborn, start running anew

Down

2009-01-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

I found a gold-green feather tucked within my sleeve
as a deafening tempest raged from above,
I saw a another fall from the sky
and the taste metallic carmine slipped across my tongue.
Down down down it came.
A bird rendered flightless
A uncurable mess,
I felt a new wind coming.

Your Visit

2009-01-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

Last night in restless weaving
from fragile light to darkend lids
You entered my room in silence
And led me to the rooftops.
We sat under the velvet tapestry
Admidst a foggy urban glow
and dipped our hands into memories
that swirled about our fingertips
cold and somehow distant.
Earl Gray was a friend to us then,
bergamot and oranges,
the day we took the bridge to Manhattan
to photograph the downfall
in shades of black and gray.
How early morning, our breath rose
small clouds that made us laugh
as they found the darting rays of light
and played there, in the sun.
And you, with your dark smile would,
make magic come from six old strings
a melody from nowhere
that made dancers of us all.
The way we painted, feverent nights,
The maddening rush of it all,
The way we'd wrap our icy fingers
around paper cups, our coffee black
Like the center of that concreat gray
from which you viewed the world.
And as we sat, old friends again
the moon smiled a wicked crescent
and a coldness from within me sang,
that this was just a dream.

Eidetic

2008-12-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

Thursday I walked,
Hood high, pace quick
kicking waves within the gutters
Sending tree fallen sailboats
rushing from my feet.
I have a novel in my pocket
and another one to write,
on things a girl can learn
when she stands outside the pale.
My film, it keeps on running
Through chemicals and fog
the substances that pulse
through the channels in my mind.
Observations of mortality,
desolation, sin and grace
sit wrappen within the gray,
the filter of my view.
Photographs and memory
words and written things,
create archives of insanity
I cannot forget

Carved

2008-12-19T23:50:00.000-08:00

A well polished blade
razored ribs
lurking below the pale
Inhale, collapse and hold.
Beauty's in the details
fine lines and parallels,
that run, tangled ribbons
in a shadowcast design.
Ana was yesterday
and is still perhaps, tomorrow.
Every moment sculpting
scraping away the excess
of shame and guilt
Between my ribs she gave me,
a hallow sort of place.
Ana's blade was carving,
And from her bones she built
a puppet out of me

That is all

2008-11-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

My friend, she walked the city
music in her mind
and dancing in her step.
A dark haired whirlwind
fearless of the metal grates
and streetlight streaking rain.

I caught her in the silence
a silken state of mind
muffled with the memories
of hollowness
and sound.

Cloudburst

2008-11-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

A choir of spirits, altos all
Singing a sweet serenade
Glassy and silver, humming, they fall
Darting, they quickly cascade

Crisp amber leaves, glossy gold
under billows of low cast sky
blowing in waves, muddy and cold
casting off drops as they fly

A melody risen of unknown birth
Musicians from mist gathered gray
Heaven sent fingers, playing the earth
Washing my troubles away

A changing state of grace

2008-10-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

Visions of rubies, light caught in the sun,
the corner of seeing, the damage's been done
In spreading at sunset, in darkened expanse
a moment of blindness, a paralyzed dance
From minor to major, a musical riddle
steady and low, a bow on a fiddle
A sightless musician, a dancer gone mad
playing a song to a dream she once had
In puddles of moonlight, and flashes from storm
in candlelit puddles, where images form
moving in shadows, and fleeing the light
the blindness of music, dawns in the night

Sakura

2008-08-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

We plucked cherries in the garden
overstepping rows of earth
where mama planted snap-peas
and blackened soil gave birth
Us muddy girls, we tiptoed
past the grapes, the appletrees
the strawberries we planted
admist a humming cloud of bees
Sweet pale girl, Sakura
her twin, the cherry red
dancing under August lightening
tiny arms widespread
Caching rain upon our shoulders
Ivory fingers well entwined
My sister, you have left me
with Sakura on my mind

Orion Missed

2008-08-13T00:27:00.001-07:00

Now is when I think of you
When summer clapped its broad wings high above the horizon
and painted pale blue sky a heavenly shade-
as night fell, Orion rose, hunting amidst the stars.
I crushed grass, crisp and cool beneath my feet
and ran in moonlit spirals
We embraced the summer nights- they were old friends to us.
Orion drew an arrow, a placed it in his bow
And from the northern sky he faltered.
A solitary gleaming arch, a glowing point, a collision
between the constellation in your mind
and the archer high above.
Once the moon has cast its blanket
Hatsya is at my throat
so summers heat I wrap around me
its all that I can do

Theia's Hands

2008-07-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

Into the hazy glow of static
Fraying steel cables, electrical conductors
faulty in design or function
spark lethal jolts of light

I watch them with passive interest
a light show of disintegration
fire-flys dancing behind the curtain
of a former world view

And this too is momentary
Theia in her radiance
winds her hands into the fibers
of pale and dying nerves

And helpless, I am learning
-as vision slips away-
To dive into the waves of serenity
and drift in the cool of apathy

Left Eye

2008-07-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

I found God in the trenches
when blinded by some crime
I know not what I committed
for I sin all the time
The fear of losing vision
has brought me to my knees
with hands clasp, head low
bowing, singing to the breeze:
If I could find redemption
If I could live to See
My prayers and my salvation
Would bring God back to me
So I'm a gypsy trader
Bargaining with fate
singing in morning
till the day grows late
Casting stones into the river
Casting nets into the air
Begging god to bring me vision
lest I parish with despair
And my traps, they bring me courage
I catch stars within their nets
and place them where I see them
and reflect upon regrets
I've found God in the trenches
when blinded by some crime
I know not what I committed
for I sin all the time.

Sutros at Midnight

2008-06-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Washed upon my dress
lifted, worn and pale
a spray of blue or seafoam
caught the eucalyptus breeze-
a zephyr of your breath.
I clambered up the cliffs in heels
you chased in boots, laughing
and caught my hand, spun
a dangerous midnight chase.
CliffHouse, ruins, seaside
you in your ambition
stole sixteen years of purity
in one consuming gaze.
Beneath the watercolored moon
you pressed emeralds, gold into my palm
folded me into your arms
and beneath your black coat I found
a sure and steady warmth.

Sundowning

2008-06-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

In dreams
memories announce their identity
without words.
Color is louder than voice
and shades are indelible
as emotion.
In the dreams of my youth
New York was a song
and the minutes of the day
changed their lyrics,
and never repeated them.
The freedom to see clearly
was my wild and uninhibited dance,
and I saw clearly
that there was only beauty.
In wakefulness,
I've viewed distinct shades of night
creep across my folded hands
repeat a simple verse
and take away
my voice

Cyanosis

2008-06-03T01:57:00.000-07:00

His eyes were a shade I'd never seen before.
They shone out against the paper mask, a kind yet glassy copper-brown reflecting orbs of radiating white that shown down in tear-inducing sheets. The lights were far too bright. I inhaled and felt it rattle within me, a mechanical lifeform, my lungs withering with some unnatural strain. Panic. These were not my own. I fought to speak and felt consciousness slip, the grasp a silk thread on my tongue. A word! It rose dry in my worthless throat, azure, indigo, cobalt, kyanos, see me! I slipped further, faded to a blur. Brown eyes froze, stepped towards me and took my hand, pressing my fingers to his palm. Tilting his eyes to my face, he revealed his voice to me as sirens filled the room.
'Blue,' he said addressing white coats, bodies filling spaces, honey to my soul, the word
'and blue
Means she's not breathing'

Red

2008-05-30T00:55:00.000-07:00

Turpentine
I ran it over filthy palms
and let it gather rivers
over red and black stained fingertips
down the bathroom sink.
It separated in marbled forms
spirals, globes of pearled gloss
a film of ruby blood
floating on my reflection.
And there it mingled still
amidst the chemical bath, of salt
and fury, and the image of my face
very much like yours
but framed with curled copper.

And so started the canon:
Longing for the man
The anguish of that August
And the mania began-
Oil, blood and crimson
turpentine dissolves
memories of madness
ritual resolves
purposeful starvation
resurrects the dead
the artist of the flesh
wears a crown of red

Brunette Turned Indigo

2008-05-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

I sang a song for a girl
while painting her in oil
low and heavy blue notes
a cadmium jazz sad melody

Bronze flesh became ashen
Brunette waves turned indigo
I caught a girl Observing
a memory of grief

Her song became my own
and then I stepped away
beheld the portrait of a girl
All in one piece when broken

Seven and a half stone

2008-05-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

Clavicle to scapula, road map down a ribbon
Fingers over solid intercostal waves,
Hello old friends
Iliac crest, your razor ridge
is a chipped and scarred reminder that She is still within.

Ulna, Radius, pisiform, five inches round
delighting in shrunken anatomy
sinew and flesh fading
while memories float to the surface
she steps-

again, recalibrate.
again, recalibrate.
again, recalibrate.

Playing in a rain cloud

2008-04-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Exceptional girl,
waltzing in the cumulus
her loss is apparent

She teeters, arches and is immortalized
a brunette whirlwind
hiding visibly

Her pain only seen by those
who too, have been touched by thunder

Dramatic Language

2008-04-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

That Wednesday morning I met a man with service boots
and an unlit cigarette clamped between his lips
He had penetrating, desperate eyes and a nervous,
rain-cloud mind, and he passed time by counting memories,
which he pulled out one by one.
He disappeared that year, out of the city and the gray
behind the veil of medical solutions,
he'd tried to kill his demons and feed them to the pigeons.
For one hour and sixteen minutes before he had been locked up,
All he had said to me was that there were decent people in the world,
and he pulled my hand and held it
to his warm and desperate heart.

Reflections in the Green Room

2008-04-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

The girl, the score, her soundtrack,
playing on six, down on eight

oh New York City
The cradle of my ignorance
Where I starved and danced and sang
Where I claimed my title
as queen of the paint-stained underground
and orphan of sixth avenue
I am home in rain and sound
taxi horns and bitter coffee
in snow-dusted Central Park.
Here I could breath and paint and be
as ever I found myself able
fingers stained in oil and ink
hair tight in a bun
singing low under my breath....

"Blackbird, Blackbird , Blackbird bye bye"

Oh New York, your Jazz, you saved me
dancing in summer with girls in black
splashing in puddles and laughing
singing and finding my savior
in the eyes of passing strangers

The girl, the score, her soundtrack,
playing on six, down on eight
I'm going home,
I'm coming home

Courage as the Cure

2008-04-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

What you need is courage
to suffer through the meteors
crashing upon tarnished silver wings
and burning like the acid poison
medication for the cancer
of a sickened little bird.
But also you need a fortitude
beyond the pull of gravity,
to spread and stretch beyond dark shadows
and corners of safety and silence
for those future soarings in a foreign sky
have no safety nets or guarantees,
just the wind,
made capricious by some violent planets upheaval,
some black blizzard eruption,
singing through the ozone
with awesome power
that tosses me about in the cloud-cast rivers
that weave throughout the horizon
to which I am future bound

Beyond the Boundary

2008-03-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

I walk the streets that used to call my name
That used to cover this world, so small
And yet so very large. How can it be
That these streets are just that, monsters
Of tar and asphalt with cracks of heat and time?
For I have walked these streets
I walked them when they were alive
More than ebon minions of the night;
I have touched the pavement and been afraid,
felt the acid drip into my skin and
watch the colors spill forth with my will.
Or against. I laugh at this simple mortal fear
And so do they.
For once, through the mists of memory
Beyond the Boundary
I walked these streets.

Breath for Music

2008-03-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Pan's flute I play
Pacing the room as I do so.
I watch as the world comes, and goes, and changes
I watch as the flowers bloom and die to bloom again.
And are we not flowers or stand as trees
Majestic and scarred, with feeling to a man
Moving in the azure worlds of Tennyson.
Music glistens above the haze.
A thin, warbly note confused for a bird
Seeking flight again and again in its cage, unable
To drop to the ground in surrender.
Singing the only song I know.
I cling wildly to the slipping away dreaming
That I do not dream, dreaming
That I do not wake.
And the music continues, not needing my breathless air
And the music continues, not needing my ceaseless need.
I play because I know, should I go, I would not be missed.

IV Drip

2008-03-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Two forty five, my favorite time of night
60 milligrams past sleep
Nine hundred drips till three

I am in my paper bed, my paper gown
my paper frame of mind

And something has gone off within
sharp little drums are beating
a battle song
moving through my temples
every drip a violent beat on the timpani
of a panicking crescendo

I am shrinking, but its still growing
I am fighting, but its still growing
I am smiling, but its still growing

I am shaking
Living in an alarm clock
Perpetually ready to sound

Me and my weapons

2008-03-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

I am encased in this:
Me, I grew up years ago
when I spread my wings across that city
took that taxi on my own
clutching a briefcase- 12 and old, in lipstick, heels
and a false sense of security
camera by my side, ready to capture the world
so I could hold it in my hand and view myself a God
or maybe just a girl.
I photographed the puddles, a man, a sky, a day
the dogs that roamed the park
in little packs of heavy lidded hopefuls
hungry like my self, and longing for a home.
Me, I am in everything that made that city gray
An orphan of the Upper East, plastic, sweet,
withstanding every blow -like you said strong women did.
An icy little girl, smiling at the man who looked me up and down
Said: 'why, you're a real-life porcelain doll my girl'
hardly understanding how true he really was

Insomnia

2008-03-13T01:43:00.000-07:00

They crawl upon the ceiling
flashing nails tearing at the crumbling plaster
leaving tiny semicircular scars, tracing a path
A twisted winding sort of road map
where they have been before
I watch them endlessly
Ducking in and out of shadows, darting, thirsty
They feast upon my nighttime
Pick out your star girl, and watch it keep you sane
Seroquel and lithium, blueprints for a broken doll
When the early sunbeams alight upon my walls
they retreat into the crevices, the vents, the dark
Reptilian, hungry and never satisfied
sheltering behind my lashes, glaring, manic
and when I draw those curtains close,
make fists of paint stained hands
and bring me to my keys, my canvas, my knees
furious, laughing, mad
Many sleep to dream
I simply dream to sleep

Coffee Stains

2008-03-08T00:17:00.000-08:00

I think it was everyday, we went to the cafe,
that cradle of meter and rhyme
and the spiraling truths going round,
truths of every day, like the clatter from the
street below, our conversation falling
like leaves in central park

I spilled my black confessions about
like bitter burning coffee
we mopped them up, a messy stain
so much like myself
I'm sorry, I'm sorry
a broken record spinning round

We sat there and absorbed them;
the smells of cinnamon and of grounds
as I begin to think you a dream,
in your absolution and your ease
a cool and ardent lullaby
sung sweetly to our daily grind

A Song for March

2008-03-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

Somethings in the air tonight,
The singing moon,
The last days light,
Falling swiftly past the trees,
They gently grasp the stars they tease,
Hold the coldness,
Pulse like blood,
Your icy hands, the ones I love,
Falling stars like fiery rain,
Burn my eyes, yet once again.
Another ship lost on the sea,
Tossed about like lifeless leaves,
Burning waters,
Like a dream,
Fighting hard to kill this fiend,
On and forth, we raise the sails,
We will charge on.
We will prevail.

Her Desert Samba

2008-03-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

She is of electricity,
a static snap
lighting flashes of silver sparks
a heat wave, a summer tempest
a monsoon in a tea cup
with pretty flower lines,
that weave around a rim
slightly chipped, and razor sharp.
She is brown and gossamer
fluttering and flowing
the wayward thread that seals the seam
torn and coming loose
She is something silent
observing and consuming
a flash fire in the desert
melting sand to glass,
and blanketing the land
in molten lucent passion
She's a girl left wandering
Singing- low and smooth
dancing to the beats of samba
unaware of who she is
and what she has become

Votre Folie

2008-03-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

Pour David- Dormez en paix, mon ami.

I found the better half of you
rolled up, tiny
pressed inside the cardboard box
I filled with photos once
and tucked into the dark
Your eyes were reflective still
of chaos and the crimes
your tumble from the heavens
a massive
fall from grace
But you took it like I knew you would
intoxicated, hypnotized
pressed into the the corner
wild in the eyes
laughing as the shutter snapped
Granting your madness
immortality

A Satin Inch

2008-02-27T23:50:00.000-08:00

Icy benches, the early city sky
falling in slapping waves upon hands
pale fingers extended, collecting from the heavens
the weighty hum, photographic music

A crushing clutch pulls in to out
violent forceful agony
of all thats been lost and all that will be lost
Images in flashes
photographs and key changes
The day I rose to a satin inch
And fought to hold my grace
an artificial angel
dressed in tulle and anticipation

A daughter to her father
It was my gift to you

I wish you saw me dance

Glow

2008-02-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

I am from skyscrapers, wet streets, a sunset
the purple ghost over a glittering bay
The twenty-ninth floor
A foggy view
I am from the rain that falls and dances on windows
A sort of percussive music
That brings me to a blanket,
the rich black smell of over brewed coffee
and an onyx companion by my side.
I am in the streetlight glow
of a city to bright to reveal
the stars that dart in and out of vision
Depending on your avenue

Flames and Music

2008-02-17T03:33:00.000-08:00

My companion played piano.
And I, Siobhan, would dance.
And when our little home caught fire,
I mimicked the flames with the sway of my spine.
My friend stared solidly into the blaze.
He flinched only once,
when the piano began to spit and splinter
and chimed into a crackled chord.
When the monstrous song concluded,
curls of smoke rose in adagio
and joined in my ballet.
My spirit found its form in fire.
My dance ignited in heat and fury,
As I foolishly watched you go
An ignorant girl
Dancing in the smoke
Finding beauty in the heavy air
and the smell of burning music
Now my music is mathematic
Empty soulless chords
Swirling into the heavens
Like that dusty, bitter, murderous smoke
that carried you away.
My blue eyes became gray that day
A reflection of the filth,
the music and the madness,
The mourning and the man
Willing to die so beautifully

Urban Angels

2008-02-16T02:15:00.000-08:00

San Francisco
Early morning mist
Acid and asphalt
as synthesized pandemonium
Beat the cement walls behind me
and cigarettes and eyeliner
turned innocents to vixens
I knelt down in my dream haze
to touch the glass
Gypsy glitter in the gutter
Felt it bite into my fingertips
Like the chill of winds around me
A little girl in mamas heels
Looking for salvation
In blood and glass and music
pulsing through her wires
Breathing in pacific air
and missing my old city
Where children of the nighttime street
Find hope in urban angels
Who wrap warm wings around them
to save them from themselves

Another night

2008-02-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

Last night I made your image
out of forgotten tubes of pigment
from my box of bristled treasures.
As four-o-clock came creeping in
Heavy and candlelit, wild and silent,
I found my manic whirlwind
concluding with a conundrum.
The exact hue alluded me
to fill the windows to your soul
and all the frantic, crushing memories
Could not return it to me
I lay upon the floor
bathed in the beeswax glow
and slipped between the floorboards
And dripped into decay.
I lay in little droplets
upon my dusty cellar floor
gazing up between the old oak cracks.
I tried to reassemble
become the person I once was
but even this was futile
and as I realized my wound
I found the perfect hue for you
In the crystalline blue and violet
that lit the horizon at sunrise.

Golden Boy

2008-01-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

Standing in the kitchen
polished glowing white under the static hum of unnecessary florescence
you kissed me
and placed those perfect 'piano' hands within my hair
Chocolate eyes alight with that wicked spirit
you carry in your bones
I felt my spine electrify, and my heart began to swell
a now familiar reaction
to the presence of your light.
I found my self delighting in the wonder of such little things
as melted cheese and golden hair
and the sound of a mighty sneeze
Words cannot describe my love
and this is truly how I see you:
a gorgeous golden boy
emanating light in a room
already saturated in midday sun.

Your final melody

2008-01-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

I played your song,
fingers dancing in frantic flight across the keys
as if part of you would live again,
if only I was good enough.
I played and played, hot fingers slipping on cool keys
begging the music to bring you back
And all my thoughts of you,
played through my mind with dissonant resound
as the unfathomable weight of your absence
came crashing within the crescendo.
I broke a string.
Heard it snap, scream and die
Its final cry echoing within the polished black prison
attempting to contain it's spirit
The final note of your melody.
So I spent the early hours with you
Embraced the solid green earth
now blanketing your smile
I lay down by your side
one hand pressed to the canyon in my chest
the other to the cold damp grass
I swallowed hard
and fell apart
And that pathetic sun couldn't even begin to warm me
though it fought through the icy morning clouds
to dance upon your grave.

Finding my silence

2007-12-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

I did something right
I earned myself that coveted title
A word or two on a clipboard,
A disinfected white hallway- leading to nowhere.
I sat at the piano, didn't touch the food
Played the same songs again and again
in a room unworthy of music
Pills, blood and peaches in the metal sink, panic.
Old habits die hard.
Squeezing my reflection into a plastic mirror
Punishing my own inconsolable fury
with a heave, a slash, or a refusal.
Sealing my lips and finding my silence
Locked within a room, a body, a mind,
That is just too much, too often

Paper Planes

2007-11-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

I'll never know how I found myself here
on my back, picking out cracks on the ceiling
I never asked for this,
to be sprawled, a glassy eyed rag doll
eye stinging as I watched the t.v screen
cast a florescent highlight over the strands of copper hair
dancing in the stream of my shallow breath.
Bees singing in my ears
a deafening hum numbing my panic
Time winding, spiraling,
a manic dancer spotting paper planes.
An artificial high, my serotonin angel
Sanding down the rough edges
turning shadows into monsters
and bleached skin into marble.
I lay there aching
white knuckles clutching a filthy sheet
a stone monstrosity, cradling the humming shards
and bitter remnants
of a childhood now stolen

What I have done

2007-10-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Black as the grave where dreams are laid
and sharper the the razors blade
yet sweet as songs, by lovers played,
missed as times where joy once stayed
Grey as paintings when colors fade
But valued more than gold or jade
and partly cloudy, as if in shade
Dear as the hardest price I've paid
and filled with faces I've betrayed
are all the memories I have made.

The last time I saw you

2007-09-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

Brown black hair blown asunder
amidst the crimson pool
and patches of your memory
in black and bloody rivulets
running down the sofa
That tacky, funny sofa
that always made you laugh
Where we sat
and wrote our songs,
and drank coffee, black and hot.
The very funny sofa where you perched,
wrote those final words
Where you pulled a foolish trigger
and took your final breath
The prescribed medication
to remedy
your life

Well-Water Song

2007-09-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well-Water song

Partially cold, partially stable
hold my hand as long your able
kisses blue on bitter faces
secret thoughts in hidden places
heavy lids and fragile lips
watch the glass, the water tips
worlds a' turning, child you know
hold on tight or off you'll go
wrap wings tight round little bones
cold like sea swept shoreline stones
Water in the well my dear
Is never coming up I fear
Dreams are nothing, till their dreamt
float on by, your time
is spent

Mianamia memories

2007-08-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

I hide within my great disguises

Always shifting shapes and sizes

Shrinking when the hungers born

Bones and soul, my purest form

Always starving, telling lies

She hides within and never dies.

City Jazz

2007-07-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

Under blue umbrellas
and the heavy honey of jazz guitar
The percussion of rain patter
Consumed an old cafe
Outside in glassy puddles
stood the children of the night
under the city glitter
and the chill of abandonment
in surplus boots and too-thin shirts,
with hallow eyes,
they listened to the old smooth blues
songs that old men sing
and orphans understand.
These broken hearted lullaby's
that keep pretty brunettes swaying
and the heavy raindrops falling
on my wet city at night.
I pulled my hood down slowly,
Stared into the brutal sky
to bathe in the tears of heaven
and inhale the scent of jazz
So slipping off my heels,
I found my way inside
a pale spirit warming slowly
in cigarettes and soul

Within the Fold

2007-07-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

2am
Wednesday night
I sat in a cafe with black haired boys
nicotine and lithium
coursing though our veins
Me and my Big Secret lay heavy in the smoke
as understanding tidal waves
broke the cliffs upon my shore.
We took turns at dark deceptions
trading scars withing the fold
and downward glances, flooded eyes,
spoke more than any words.
A little wind abandoned me
as we stepped into the night
A tiny band of vagrants becoming family in the dark
We wound our arms about us
a chain of wayward kids
embracing home again
and wondering where we find ourselves by morning

Ramblings on 450

2007-05-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

It's rigid form unsettles- angles, razors, violent peaks
Yet pleases, in sinister demented shades, of bleached and pallid flesh.
Bones, my bones, these bones.

I hurt, I shake, the world spins to black,
A derailed train, a broken track,
and its all coming down to the final attack,
its hard to dance with the devil on your back

Once

2007-02-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

She was a wild girl
With freckled skin, an easy laugh
and the sort of spirit that comes with sunny days
and starry summer nights.
She punched, and yelled, and ran
Sat Indian-style in the shade
whistling through blades of grass
She wrestled her brothers, and often won
The smell of wisteria delighted her
drifting up the lattice work and catching,
ever so lightly in the breeze
She ran barefoot down the street at night
a fireball of energy, in pajamas and a ponytail
chasing away the final heat of summer
eager for the copper light of fall

But when the night came earlier
and the birds began to fly
Autumn came knocking upon the door
looking for her child
Who lay sobbing beneath the blankets
a tiny ivory puddle
not wild anymore