two more poems

to jack merriweather (A Friend I Have Lost)
if reincarnation
exists-
i will visit you
every day
of my lives.

to elaine
i didn't write this
for you
i only thought
of you
while writing
the title

Another Sunny Day

And I made it out alive! Day 4 of Hell Week has passed, and I am about to luxuriously partake in reading smutty fanfiction as my reward for my victories today. As you know, my 10 minute speech and AP Exam were today. Though I don't know my grades for either yet, I know I did well. My speech made people laugh, which was the focus, and I had numerous of my comrades vote for me for Speaker of the Day. My only fear is that I glanced at my script too much. At 12 I started my exam, and I found it surprisingly easy. I finished 30 minutes ago, and I'm exhausted, so after this post I am headed to the comfort of my bed, whom I have had intimate relations with very sparsely this week.
Tomorrow I have my Organic Chemistry test and Chapter 11 test in Algebra II.
Enough of school.

Yesterday evening, I fell in love with Allen Ginsberg. I have always really admired/appreciated his poetry, and have been a  huge fan, but it's become frightening how much I like him. I listened to him read his poems over and over, and the more I listened to America the more I felt this feeling for Ginsberg and it's indescribable but I physically felt a Thing. And then of course I started to brood over the fact that he is dead,  and I'll never be able to meet him for coffee, or listen to him speak, or accidentally brush against the middle of his back.
That's when I discovered that I am only capable of loving dead people. And that hurts.

I'm swimming in the shallow end of the shit now and maybe tomorrow I'll come out clean.

Cheers !

The Te of Who?

Today was the last day of Philosophy club. Our meetings are weekly, every Wednesday, and we usually gather in an empty room and discuss a previously posed question. Some memorable topics have been the basis of morals, astral projection, and even time travel. For our last meeting we talked about taoism, and read from Tao Te Ching, as well as The Te of Pooh, which is a book written by Benjamin Hoff analyzing taoism through Winnie The Pooh (it's a fantastic read).
Our discovery of taoism proved to be vague and contradictory, especially toward what the Tao was. It had the same descriptions as the entity of God; through words such as immeasurable or unknowable. I guess I found myself thinking if we cannot measure or know, than what is the point? However, the Tao isn't a being or entity, it's just there, and you follow it. Taoism stresses the act of not acting and understand yourself as a lifestyle. Or way of life. Or: The Way.

"When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” 

Next year Jack, Ryan, and I are running Philosophy club as a triple entity, as our former leader(s) are graduating. We'll be Christ-like. (jokes)


In other news, I performed my speech in English and it was, to say the least, incredible.
Some reviews:

That was really really really really good, Sarah. - Noah

10/10 - New York Times 

Two thumbs down. - Owen Wilson 

Yours was really good. It actually made sense. - Jose

You did really well. - Katie

*impressed glare* - Different Katie

I didn't practice in any way, so that was again an interesting accomplishment as an underachiever. I'm trying to defuse the self-loathing by embracing the cocky life. It hasn't gotten me very far. Tomorrow is my oral interpretation speech, where I will be performing Mike Birbiglia's "Sleepwalk With Me" in his book Sleepwalk With Me: And Other Painfully True Stories, and AP Euro exam.
We're halfway through the week. I'm going to try and keep my chin up in this pool of shit so maybe I'll be able to see if Ryan visits.


Also, if you live in Ohio, there is the monthly Beehive Coffee House June 5th, in which poets and musicians perform, and there is an open mic afterward! It's 3 hours away from where I live, so I might be there for the open mic. One of my favorite poets/bloggers, John Burroughs, will be there, if that interests you. It should be fun.

Cheers !

Untitled #3

I woke up at 5 a.m.
To work on my home
Work but instead I
Woke up at 5 a.m.
And wrote a poem
And I read what you
Sent me and I didn't
Smile, but I seemed
To feel Important
In the world and so I
Said all those
Nice things to you
About meaning
In a meaningless
Existence
And I mean it
And I'll rot
Under the ground
When I die
Meaning it

two poems

seemingly related

it's 3 am
and i think i'm
braiding
the loose ends
of the universe
with my calloused
finger tips
and i think it's my
special skill
the one know one knows
but me
and probably
you
i'm working like
a chinese spinstress
and i've spun
a cocoon
made with just enough
room
for the two of us
just in case you
change your mind
about that whole
entropy thing

i'm writing this
with my eyes
half open and
my skull half
broken and
full of flowers-
because i never
let go of the ones
i brought to your
mother's funeral
where you read
the poem that you
wrote for her
not about death
or dying
but longing;
and i hate your mom
for fucking taking
those pills, i hate
myself for puking
during the
burial-
because
death
upsets
me
and i'm
addressing more
than one issue
but both have something
to do with the fact
that i'm selfish and
i forgot
your birthday,
happy birthday
i miss you

Feels Good:

In Loving Memory of Ulysses Hauer

I fall in love
With anyone that touches me
With kindness
And I told them
To keep the window open
The last night.

There's always a stage
Where you believe
Another person's life
Is ornamental enough
To hang-
Yet we hang ourselves
Instead.


I fell in love with
The CFO of my company;
He saw me before
And he saw me after
The cancer
And he
Held me like a baby
And I cried
In his arms
And he held his face
To mine;
I thought he was crying,
Too.
Three hours later
He had glass shards
In his skull, and I had the
Memory
Of his beard
Against my cheek.

~
I am not a disease
I was not a disease
I am a disease

~

And so I fall in love
With the wind;
Who tenderly brushes
My face,
And I pine for death;
Who wraps her full
Arms around me and
Softly takes me
Home.
And it feels
Good.

U g h

I had to stay after classes today for detention in an overly air-conditioned classroom, with my ass and thighs freezing on my plastic chair, and my head slowly filling with lead, maliciously promising to betray me and fall on the wooden desk. We were supposed to remain in an upright position the entire duration, work studiously, and contribute to the immaculate silence.
I was sat at a desk which had "I <3 RYAN" carved into the side. I nodded my head, agreeing.
The entirety of my discipline, I had attempted to write a poem, and I struggled. I came up with beginnings and middles and endings, but I could never string any part together with another. They didn't fit. I felt as though I was too insincere, or that I really am just that awful of a writer. I wanted to write something pretty.

pretty girls should write 

pretty words

I was using a piece of graph paper I had taken from my friend's binder and I drew faces with a green pen. I had eventually taken to writing the alphabet in cursive, not even completing an ounce of any of the homework that I had to do.
When I finally exited the building and began my journey home on foot, I checked my phone for any messages. The first were from Ryan, telling me to check my e-mail. The second, was from a number I did not recognize, and the message read: I'm really sorry.
I have no idea who that was from or what they were sorry for, but I appreciate the compassion intended for whoever they were trying to send that message to. But I guess this is another experience where I need to learn that my opinion has very little effect or meaning to others. Neither does a text message.

I'm being positively brooding today, and I love it. I'm physically and mentally fatigued, and emotionally incompetent as usual. I suffered to be on the receiving end of a "your people" joke, and I about snapped, yet kept my response to a level, "I'm going to slit your throat." This was lost on the other party, as usual, because I am a comedian, and everything I say is a joke. That doesn't mean that I didn't feel every ounce of wanting to hold him down and press a razor blade against his throat Sweeney Todd style. Of course, I would regret it  later, and I'm not sure I have the credentials to be able to hurt another human and feel no remorse. Nevertheless, I was pissed, as I usually come to be, when a lovely white hand pets my hair or I'm on the end of a racial joke. If only culture's ejaculate could spray its seed in my peers.

So on the list of things to do, I can check my 1984 test off. It wasn't too hard. Also, I got a B- on my AP Euro final, which isn't as credible as most over achievers would perceive it, but I am a professed under achiever, and for me, that was a valiant feat in conquering everything that has happened in Europe since the Bubonic Plague.

As a closing note, my friend and I played "Would You Rather" all day and one of the most memorable scenarios is me finger-fucking Shaquille O'Neal over swimming in John Goodman's waste.
How inspiringly vulgar.

I'll be off now, but I make no promises. I may return with a poem or two.

Cheers

Getting Personal: Part I. Ryan, Part II. Bradford

I.

I meticulously came to the understanding as of late, that my blog posts are very distant. Impersonal. My writing loses itself in the tangled web of characters mirrored from me ("God created mankind in his own image"...) that you can't exactly tell who is the martyr and who is the angsty young adult stressed over finals.
So I've been battling chronic self-hate and trying to comfort a hurting friend and trying to understand why the hell I've been writing so much god damn poetry in the last 3 days.
I have a lot of work to get through this week; I have two speeches (one on Wednesday and one Thursday), two tests on Friday, my AP European History exam on Thursday, a 1984 test tomorrow, and so on and so forth. It seems less daunting typing it out, fortunately.

But I am looking forward to the weekend: Arrested Development Season 4 (though I'll probably reward myself for doing good on my finals by waiting and then watching during the summer) and the prospect of Ryan staying the weekend in Indianapolis. I don't talk about Ryan very much, but he is a close friend of mine, and I love him immensely. You know when you meet another human and they seem to be in touch with Everything that you're about and you can't help but be giddy because someone for once found out your secret special skill. Ryan lives in St. Louis, which is an issue- a five hour issue- for a person sans car/license. Our relationship is mostly Skype based, which is alright, but I sort of need to touch him and it's this very odd Kafka-esque longing that I have never felt before and it's worse because the feeling is 100% mutual. I really fucking hope he'll visit.

II.

I just had a conversation with my friend Brad, who used to be into writing but then he changed his major to Computer Programming. Basically, he gave up. And there's nothing wrong with that, I just miss his ambition for the written word. There's something sexy about someone that strings sentences together as an art. I love Brad, and when he was still in school I looked up to him, because he was older and wise and had a beard.
Brad interested me as an intellectual partner; someone who wasn't as romantic as I. He was cosmological and eerie, and I was listening to George Gershwin and sighing over New York City. Which is funny, because now that I've been there, I hate it. We debated over the meaning of life and hentai, which is exactly where I want to be in my conversations.
I brought him to my school's philosophy club and after a few visits he denied philosophy as a whole, because he's a finicky smart ass.
Going to college hasn't exactly changed his arrogance. It did, however, give him an undercut.
Brad comes back to talk to me about how he's got life all figured out. Brad's a real piece of shit.
He lists the things wrong with humanity and the meaninglessness of existence and how death is better than living. Which, I of course, refute fully.
Life doesn't mean anything, and death doesn't mean anything either, and we're all entrapped in the inevitable entropy of the universe. But breathing is sure as hell a luxury.

“Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Untitled #2

I could write
poetry
about sunsets


minimize the words
let us feel the presence of being
make love to the phrases in your mouth
the thoughts kept as yours you will share


still above the trees
smirking
fall below the graves
pinker than any tongue speaking
ancient, we cannot understand
impatient, so we refuse


I could write
poetry
about nature

fall short to its beauty
let us feel its terror
stay warm in the arms of your lover
metaphors are useless to the minds of the forgiving

figurative speaking
the murder of simplicity
lower now, darkness creeps on you
philosophize your world
endings are always a forte
but to me they mean so little

Untitled

living is the static
fuzz on a paper cut
there’s always an inch or grave
for a leader to conduct
the train, who’s riding
is it you or the other
outsiders from the fallen plane
cower for death and lie for gain
living is the static
buzz on your television screens
a one-sided conversation
and a morning wet dream

The Last Great War

I.

March 22, 2020: today is my 25th birthday. To celebrate, I watched tanks invade the east coast from a senile lighthouse sinking into the grains of sand beneath it. I was there with my lover, Sophia, who wasn't really my lover. She was merely there to pass the time. In bringing her, I had to listen to her preposterous ramblings about the beauty of war. I nodded, even though there wasn't an ounce of me that agreed with her. 

It wasn't officially prohibited to stand on the abrasive harbor, but the event of being in the midst of a ripe outbreak of foreign conflict so detrimental and so virgin to this country... it was a paramount pursuit written in my genes to watch this.

March 22, 2020: today, America is invaded by the French army.

Sophia and I have been dispassionately fucking for five months now, and the only thought I have at this time is how much I want a god damn cigarette.

I watched Sophia's soft brown hair dance wildly in the matching wind, and I brushed a few strands from her face. I watched her smile. I smiled back, and I told her I loved her. I didn't, not really. I was generally contributing to make her life as picturesque as her livid mind expected it to be; I wasn't the villain here.

-

I had only ever been in love once. My chemistry teacher in my junior year of high school. She was 45 years old and married with a drooling, shit head son just like me. I had dreams about her constantly, almost all resulting in an erection and mostly damp sheets.

So helplessly in love with this woman 30+ years my senior, I had written her anonymous poems on the white board describing the shape of her breasts and the curve of her lips under the projector screen in the mornings, and when she would write her new lesson plan she would inevitably have to erase my confessions of love. It was an odd thing to do, and I did it repeatedly, until the principal found it and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit. She was fired, and they moved away to Michigan, which I found hilariously depressing; because no one moves to Michigan, and how she would never know it was me.

-

Sophia's face was tinted pink; mouth moving fast, hands lying in the folds of her jacket. 

She kissed me on the nose, and whispered, "Happy birthday," and I smiled, because how can you not smile at something like that. 

We sat slumped against a wall, listening to the sirens ring.

II.

Much like the bustling crowd on a cold, rainy day, I was trudging about, determined to create the atmosphere of anger around me, so those who approached would defer I wasn't meant to interact with. This also meant that I in turn wanted everyone who crossed my path to share the same amount of discomfort and unenjoyment I had. Great minds think alike, and all of the city was fuming. The best part of days like that, was the bus ride. A compact of metal holding angry and unfriendly urban dwellers to travel through distasteful stops and 30 minute traffic.

As I ascended to the bus stop with the least amount of grace and pleasantry I could muster, the rain began to lighten and I watched out of the corner of my eye a young man sit down at the bench of a piano. I don't remember there being one on this street, and so I stopped and turned, intrigued. 

I can't remember if I was dreaming or under the influence of a potent drug, but then he started to play.

Long fingers danced across keys and snugly joined together in harmony with the help of a pedal. I had never heard the piece before then, and I hadn't heard it since, but it's still there, buried in the back of a dresser, dangling from a wire hanger or collecting dust on a top shelf, hidden from plain sight. 

Shortly after, the sounds of a violin reached my ears, and a young woman was clutched the neck and gracefully pulling a bow across strings, the wind pushing at her hair. And then behind me, a second violin harmonizing, neck gripped by the bulky man I saw on the bus yesterday, who I otherwise would never pay attention to. The music filled the air, and it was joined by a flute, two flutes and a clarinet; a street orchestra.

-

I ended up missing the bus, the mesmerizing twinkle of the finished piece distracting me. Had it been the crescendo of a filthy fuck or a dirty melody, I'd have ambled on the bus, raging off the fumes of a sleazy city and its tax-payers, forgetting the performance intrinsically. Instead, the piece caved in on itself in a gracious avalanche of notes- raindrops of a harmonious affectation- and settled, disappearing and leaving the morning dew in its wake. 

A few who were at my stop remained and applauded, filling the block with cheer. The musicians had disappeared, back into the nondescript crowds of tourists and businessmen.  The pianist, however, had stayed, wrapping up his instrument as he could not as airily cart an upright piano away with him. He had a handsome face, cheekbones and nice eyes, a widow's peak and long, blond hair pulled behind him. Clever lips quirked into what suggested a smile; I returned the gesture.

III.

"The stars are bright and shiny, much like your eyes, my dear." A romantic fantasy. Blond hair and nice eyes. 

"I could mark your skin, fuck you for ages-"

"Are you even listening to me?" Sophia's agitating voice cut through my tendons and I blinked once, and she was right in front of me. Brown hair. Cold, cold eyes.

"What were you saying? I was stuck in my head for a moment." 

She shoved a fat envelope in my face and expected me to take it. So I did.

"What's this? Look, I've paid the rent, they don't need any trouble-"
"It's from the government.  Looks like you're enlisted. Congratulations." She stood now, her green eyes full of tears.  I watched in awe as she crossed to the bedroom and slammed the door so hard it bounced off the frame.
I went after her.

"Hey, hey, look." I shushed in a comforting tone, hovering over Sophia. The window that faced our bed was open, blowing the curtains in and out, and permeating the room to a sweet and ashy mess. In the distance were bombs, close enough so that the light reached us and flashed in our eyes, yet far enough away to tell it was only the small towns going up in flames. 

She was still crying, damn her, and shaking the bed with her sobs. I pressed our bodies close and played with her hair.

"It's going to be fine. It isn't an immediate course of action; it's only when deemed absolutely necessary. We have months, don't worry about it." I said this aloud, talking to myself more than Sophia, who only happened to be in the range of my self-reassurance. 

IV.

Little girls look up to pornstars and Martha Stewart, boys follow the steps of their corporately poisoned and domestically violent fathers, and the rising political leaders are the piss and shit of my generation. High schoolers are being sent to kill and get killed, and I'm hiding from my girlfriend.

Sophia had anxiety disorder. She thought this made her more appealing, but in reality it was the opposite. I kept her around because she made me feel better about myself; and for the sexual relief.

"Did you hear me? I said I was going out." I nodded and she put on her coat and went out the door. When she left I jerked off and watched the news. I had realized two things in those moments: the first, was that the draft was very much a real thing, and I felt sorry for the poor bastards that were chosen. The second, was that I was one of those poor bastards.

-

I've been thinking about marriage, yanno?" Sophia said as she entered the door, my vision from the cramped position on the couch obscuring her face. If I could keep it like that, Sophia on one side of a wall and me on the other, maybe it could stop me from wanting to bash her brains in every time she opened her stupid mouth. She went to take a piss and then collapsed on me, filling the air with smoke. 

We decided to have sex, and she was on top of me, sweating and moaning, and I squeezed my eyes shut, reciting Dr. Seuss' rhymes and thinking of home.

I would have sighed if I weren't on the verge of orgasm.

I sat on the sheets and looked at Sophia. By now my breathing had subsided, and I lightly panted and hung my head in my hands, almost as though I was trying to keep my post-coital mind from drifting away. Sophia's breaths had turned to sobs, and I turned my head, mildly concerned.

"Did I... hurt you?" 

Of our sex, the meaningless physical act, neither of us are satisfied. She had just come to realize this.

"Are you seeing another..." She trailed off, unsure if I was cheating on her with a man or a woman. It was safe enough for her to leave it open ended.

"No." I said with disdain, almost wishing I were cheating on her. Was I? Does my mental realm truly effect the man I project?

"Do you love me?" Her mistake. I didn't think she was ready to hear it.

"Yes." I said, true to my word of deceit.

"Are you lying to me?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been lying to me?"

"All of my life." I wasn't talking to Sophia. I was talking to every human being I had ever had any contact with. I was a disappointment. 

There are tulips in Holland, and my mother used to tell me that each one of them bloomed when someone did something kind. 

In those vast fields laced with enticing efflorescence, there was no petal I could claim.

Sophia smiled now, stretching the freckles around her eyes.

"I'm leaving." Now she stood, naked and pink and soft and willowy, and she was beautiful. She slipped on a sock, then another. Slowly packed a bag of her things.

"I'm sorry." I was looking at my crotch when I said it.

"No one's telling you to be."

V.

I'm puking in a parking lot. A man had just shot himself in the face, and the blood was dripping down his rolled up windows. 

Government papers stuck to the blood on the windshield, and a woman was screaming, and I was on my knees retching onto the gravel, being petted by a stranger that winked at me in the convenience store. 

I passed out before the ambulance came.

After Sophia left, the apartment was lonely. The air was cold and damp and I woke up later, and sweated more often. 

I stayed up all night thinking of blond hair and nice eyes and a world upside down. I would walk on the ceiling and feel the plastered texture under my bare feet, and I would dance with the chandeliers. 

Bombs went up, up into the sky and popped like balloons, falling lightly into abandoned fields and golf ranges. 

Sophia's eating a cheesecake with Emily Dickinson, and I'm in the launderette folding our dry sheets.

I started to listen to classical music, hoping somehow that would lead me somewhere. It didn't. 

My walk was beyond the strips of possibility.

VI.

You can't predict the best moments of your life. You can't even predict the bad ones. In all silver linings, in all epiphanic journies through time, the best people are the ones you hold on to through every moment. We all need a flying partner. And in the bomb-shattering wake of this beautiful city, hundreds of people passed by, not acknowledging a single human soul.  But with the hi-definition technicolor of the world I seemed to have woken up in, The Great City passed in perfect time.

"My name is Vincent. And you are?" The flash of a smile bigger than any nuclear threat.

"Jeremy. You don't have a cigarette, do you?" I shrugged.

"This is my last." I said. A moment passed before he slipped his slender fingers into my pack and reached for a Parliament. It flopped from the corner of his mouth.

He fumbled with the documents in his hand, chucking them in the nearest waste bin. In a second the papers burst into flame, as though laced with gasoline. They curled into grim smiles and tarnish. The air was thick.

I smiled and smoothed my hair, and he mimicked my expression, his eyes roaming from my neck to the top of my forehead to the darkening sky.

In this silver lining, inches from death and advancing toward life by the closing distance of two grinning mouths, the last great war stomps his heavy feet on Earth. 

Heavenly noise shatters the line between Earth and space. 

The end of a skyscraper that seems to tower into oblivion, the make-up of tiny shards that were never important, because they would always reach the point of nonexistence some time turn to nothing but dust's cells and human flesh.

I can't tell you where it leads, just that it stretches painfully and wraps itself around the universe, and if I had the chance to think about it when the world imploded, there would have been no doubt that I enjoyed every second.

For Ryan: Part I. Song For Water Part II. Tales From The Dark

Over spring break I went to Toronto. It was the best week of my life.  This is for Ryan, because he is all encompassing, like the stretch of rainbow above the water, and the faint sound of poetry that rang through my ears throughout my journey of the city.

Letter to Allen Ginsberg

I.

Who is your hero, Allen Ginsberg?

Do you still wander the moon-lit streets

And take in the broken hearts that miraculously beat

For you? Keeping your ears open

For the howls of quick fucks

Looking for what to look for?

Who is your lover, Allen Ginsberg?

Are you still fisting your cock

At the image of thousands of lonely men

Without homes, without wives

Waiting for you to take them in?

Who do you pray to, Allen Ginsberg?

Is it your soiled, sordid savior

A prophecy remade of

Dripping sodomy to carry out 

The divinity of being Afraid?

II.

I hope that you'll find
In time
The world isn't all it used
To be-
America, it swelters
And hides
Its prejudices
Smartly, behind
Its brilliant sunflowers;
And they're growing
Tall, and technicolor
And they are alive.

III.

I take a train
To give you this letter,
And hope my words
Will press against your two lips;
I missed your funeral, Allen Ginsberg.
Your corpse is in the earth, now
And I'm changing your dirty sheets
There's a budding rose
On the counter
I hope it finds you
Well.





Special thanks to Michael Ruff for reminding me of Kaddish. 

vesuvius

we both craved human touch
and that's how we got along so well
either my hand in yours or
the subatomic moving particles inside your head
that i could reach
that i could touch,
that you hated when i felt
like a cupped palm
on your jawline
yet you'd twinge the corner
of your burroughs lip line
we were like track stars
our brains working like fast legs
minds pumping blood like overactive cow hearts
i can handle you
i want to handle you
i want to be handled by you
calm down and
rest your studious head
on the pillow on the bed we had met
trust me, i can handle you
i can make no promises
cause i'm delusional too