May 2012
5 posts
(imminent air)
(if it be] thy moon is dun with me, sylvia) see; let’s be patient) ly waiting/awaiting- inventing sounds for our mouths to make, lungs sung ba- loons, imminent air) squeezing nostrils to keep some more of your- self from the rest of the w o r l d ;;;;;;;;;;;;van ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;ish ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;ing ing ing i ng! from? where/ whom/whence\ eyes is pear, looking ...
prince and the pauper
wool’d hair, eyelashes, brows, navel, etc. pasture pauper, stuck with hooves for feet, walking the furrows, fields fallow-prince petunia, feedback fauna, flora, back to the earth, dirt in the levy, dirt in the teeth of the sheep, the cliff steep, the mountain peak, the still peat- weed the fence, too much moon on my chest, too much sun on yr breast-patterned importance- coast on your...
myth of sisyphus
sailing ships pass—we thank, or think—outside our eyelids. a steam engine wakes afloat in the belgium sea, until then, silent in its passivity- narrowlee, barrolee, entombing the mountains beneath, loving, lulling, eavesdropping coyly- your face is earth, monsieur, you said as i read from the foot of your bed: “no head unwed in the wooden den, no thread no spindle, just love...
Spin cycle (old)
I met God in a laundry mat on the other side of town. He had long red hair and wore a cotton gown and told me everything I needed to know about spin cycles and how to not shrink my clothes. He seems alright, it’s the first time he’s ever given me advice.
\/\/atermelon seeds
Yesterday, near the shore of that river, I caught a bird in my teeth when I was just trying to sneeze. It tasted like the flowers that grow on the moon. I hiked back and ate watermelon seeds until my stomach was sour enough to weep and thoughts sparse enough to sleep. This will be of some significance when history is no longer written by thieves.
April 2012
7 posts
sandals
belgium mount waters-
lest we,
must we,
take part in your
endless endeavors?
the boat drifts,
tips,
within the sanctioned
plot of cultivated
pond water.
here! hear me now!
floating crops,
crooked treetops,
i will not dust you off with a
loquacious tongue, though yes,
we were kids when we were young,
but now we’re just joined at the lung,
fucked in the sun-
no...
ants
fawning,
young mountain-
in the grass at your
base-a pasture,
a mattress where
sleeping things
sleep. ants
ant about,
not thinking,
dreaming,
wanting-
i walk, uneasy,
trying my best not to
squash them with my
feet, jealous of
all things not me.
myWaterProject - Matthew Roskowski's Fundraising... →
Hey. Donate money to this if you’d like…Or, share it with your friends. Instead of just being disgusted by the fact that 6,000 children a day die from contaminated water, I figured I could at least try to do something about it. Re-blog if you could.
Just click on the title of the post and it will bring you there.
dull
little kicks,
the reeds from the
bow of a ship, drift-
night lasts,
days pass-
dull, and
dulling.
no stars,
never any stars when
you want there to be
stars. the moon is ugly and
a lot of people know it.
sylvia, are you still coming?
i’ll keep the car running-
it’s morning, cold and
sunny,
your eyes are wet, and
nose is runny.
Wanderlust/Marcus/Monsters
Wanderlust
I met Margaret on a train near the east coast. It was all nice and wonderful and such. Her hair was like it is now. Smile, doubly so. Teeth crested white. Hands tucked into the deepest corners of her coat pockets. It was the end of our last semester and we were both cold. Mountains shivered. Streams froze. Someone bumped their head on the railing of the train. Margaret...
Margaret - Section VI
There is never anyone around when you want them to be around. Margaret is off to town. No one’s on the pond. No one’s on the docks. No one’s seen the little pier since they blew it up four years prior. I just sit alone, drenched in sycamore leaves which fall atop my head, wondering where the next lightening bolt will touch down. Somewhere everything I can think of is happening....
Evening - Section V
Night came in waves, upside down, somewhere here and there around. Bathing in the wet of the water-the swells steaming, steeped in fog, I swim and my body follows along. Algae blooms and catches fish like nets. Summer is sick with sweat. Ah, evenings in Balkan pond. My mind is aware of the wonder-the universe I will not deny.
The Beginnings - Section IV
Strange happenings today—I woke up holding a dream with Margaret next to me. Outside I heard a large mumble and when I looked out the window I saw waves 5 feet high rocking Margaret’s houseboat. There was no sign of a vessel. No wind. There was nothing (besides everything that was). The moon was still hanging about looking the size of a toenail that needs to be cut. Somewhere in the...
March 2012
5 posts
Distractions - Part III
Balkan forest surrounds Balkan pond. There are trees, as one might expect. All sorts of vegetation that looks edible until you get real close to them. Animals. Yes, animals. Four legs, two legs—animals with two or four legs. Ant hills freckle the earth. A small creek that whispers like a ghost stumbles through the lowlands and eventually, exhausted and a teaspoon dizzy, meets the vastness of...
Swimming Story/Walk (Sections I & II)
Swimming Story
Margaret was just a young girl with watermelon seeds in her teeth. She lived in a house surrounded by lily pads on Balkan’s Pond. It was actually an old houseboat, its architecture all a mess; the beams were askew and various whale bones clogged holes to keep water from coming in or going out.
I’d sometimes paddle on my back to see her in the summer. The pond was really more like...
Watermelon
The watermelon seeds sour in watermelon field outside my bedroom window. L. stopped by to say hello. She was wearing a dress that looked as if it was made out of sugar and I wanted to touch it, but didn’t. After she left left I hiked a mile to a pond that sits directly at the center of the forest in my backyard. I took off my clothes, all except my shirt. There’s a bridge that goes...
mezzanine
there is a freckle on your eye, it looks like a small world from afar. in elementary school we all thought you were blind, always closing your eyes or covering them with your tiny hands. what is it now you hide behind?
a slow life-your hair clings on to a faint smell of black tea. across the way a man has a look on his face, there’s no tell in it, but on his face there’s a look....
January 2012
1 post
seaaaa
it’s still light for awhile, the sea is swimming gently near a northern isle- ships dock and go back out again. oh! great russian seaport! your wharves so perfectly constructed! it is you that marks the precipice of my endeavors! to travel through light, to comfort the universe with a tongue so polite! the breeze floats in up my sleeves, the cracks between my teeth, it is the salt i taste...
December 2011
1 post
cold mountain
Upwards, somewhere near the cold mountain, a moon, a fawn, an indistinguishable something. Our train winds around the coast, i try to empty the sea from my pant pockets and coat. A reindeer pendant is pinned to my lapel, across the aisle a man is thinking about a haircut he had in the past, crooked curtains across his forehead, pull them shut and his mind is lost. I tug the scarf around my...
Lovebug (St. Petersburg)
I’ve moved to the far end of Russia- the one way on the other side of the other. It’s here I’ve found what had been bothering me then-a freckle of a larger whole constructed of toothpicks and glue that the kids didn’t eat- When I reached across your lap and tapped the shoulder of the ghost you were so closely holding. He was the blanket that covered you to your collar...
November 2011
8 posts
Lament (re-post)
another feeling betrays this passing season, the development of human dentition, the decline of the soviet union, i’ll write a book about them all and call it winter. i’ve the sea chained to my pocket watch, when it crests it looks like men with white mustaches trying to break the surface. leave em’ to the whales. leave em’ to the jellyfish and sharks and coral. i’ve no use for them, for apples...
Sea-sick
Oleena laying on a towel near the wet of the water; let’s go swimming, just you and me. each continent is actually an enormous ship. life is just learning how to deal with being sea-sick.
laps
i stand to take a delicate position- your lap is only the surface area your legs create when you sit down somewhere. don’t tell me that’s something that you knew, i already know.
ghosts-1,2,3,4.
listless wishes on white evenings hidden in the pockets of winter coats stitched and restitched, lined and re-lined with leaves and twigs and whatever i could find. the quiet conversations in different corners of different rooms leaves me blue around the edges, yet i patch the sky with limbs i hide, soak the snow with tales i tie to memories created in the most mysterious parts of my mind. ...
-
I can’t write good poetry anymore, but, when it returns, those who still read will hopefully be rewarded.
anywhere-
sylvia said if we get hungry, we can just peel the freckles off her face; it’s been done, i thought, by someone somewhere, but okay. in her dress she led the way, i forgot where we were going but i knew it was somewhere under the moon and somewhere not where we were- good enough, i thought, as i ran to catch up to tap her on her left shoulder and then shift quickly to her right- it gets her...
twenty-three
in high school i used to brush my hair to the left but now i brush it to the right-i didn’t know what i was doing back then- i used to smoke enough pot to make me not want to do anything else, and then stop- if life at the age of twenty-three is just foreshadowing for life at the age of twenty-four, then i can’t wait to celebrate in 357 days- someone will get me a cake, someone will...
October 2011
4 posts
White Nights;
White nights are just outside. It should only be weeks now- maybe days- before the letter arrives. The one you said you’d write when the time felt right. I haven’t heard since July, how are you feeling? Are you feeling alright? That pain in your neck, did that go away? The steps to my den are covered in salt. I slipped and nearly fell, still, in the light of the night. The floral...
a day
october 9, autumn something, up at the hem of dawn, sylvia, blissful young fawn draping blankets over a cheek and jaw, rosy; not; or pale and clawed from kitten claws. make tea in pot-check-honey and milk-check-eggs sunny side up like how we made love between dusk and dawn-
the school is a bit of a walk with oxfords on, sylvia drags along struggling with her slip, mumbling about the underwear...
the sky is out
the ants in the sidewalk cracks, the frogs that swallow firecrackers, let’s give them all proper burials- no one deserves what they deserve, luck is a good meal and sex afterwards, that’s all. you tried to tell me otherwise and i just smiled and put my hands in the pockets of my pants- the sky is out tonight, hey look, the sky is out tonight.
pumpkins
your hairs still orange, sylvia, that’s a good thing if you want it to be, i say it is. let’s walk to the forest and pretend that’s all there is-i just want to feel good, and i just want you to feel better.
September 2011
2 posts
childrens poem
fall is here, so swift and so true, i tripped on a stick that i thought you threw- my mother she cried on the fourth of july when my brother fell off a lawn chair and died- his name was new hampshire and he layed in the pasture as we all jumped around hushing our laughter, oh new hampshire new hampshire you’re lying, you’re lying! you’re not dead but it’s true, surely...
everybody is leaving town
lookout, someone calls, the sky is swinging around-low, low, low-the stars are in my hair and eyes and a bird picks them from my brow
no one is around, everyone has either left town or burrowed underground-
i look through the underwear drawers of all the abandoned dressers of all the vacant women- wait, no i don’t.
August 2011
1 post
before she left-
anna slept there in her envelope of air, i pushed my shoes under the bed and tucked my head softly into her neck, i don’t really remember the rest.
July 2011
9 posts
Excerpt from Existence of Peas.
Alex, breathing, but not conscious of anything, not even of his existence, looked down at his knees. “Knees,” he muttered, as if he was seeing them for the first time and inventing a name for them. “Ankles, heel, feet, toes.” Alex began re-inventing his body. “Thighs, penis, hips, stomach, belly button, lint? Chest, armpits, arms, neck, head, face.” He named them all. He invented the words...
Novella
I am officially 5,500 words into my novella. This is the most excited I’ve been about a project. I’ve started countless short novels before, but I usually abandon them after 1,000-2,000 words, so I have great hope for this one. I’ve posted the unedited versions of the first bits of the novel, but I won’t be posting anything (maybe a few short paragraphs here and there)...
The Existence of Peas - (continued - read the rest...
Alexander sat on his grass for a little while longer and watched ants march around his stretched legs. When he finally realized that he was creating much more work for these small ants, he withdrew his legs close to his body and held them tight with his hands. The ants seemed thankful.
After watching the ants a little while longer, he bent down and put his face inches from them so...
Haiku
You often kissed me in front of your parents and that always felt weird.
Christmas Miracles!
Marcus just moved to the city. On the eve of Christmas Eve he tore a hole in the sweater he was wearing which was actually the Christmas gift he bought for his brother. The sweater caught on a nail in a doorway in some girls house on some downtown street and tore quite noticeably down the right sleeve. “That’s a shame,” was the only thought Marcus had on the happening. Christmas day exchanging...
The Existence of Peas - Part 1-3 (unedited)
“The Magpie robin,” thought Alexander, “Now that’s a magnificent bird.” After reflecting on that last thought and deeming it a satisfactory thought to be had at that current time, at that exact location where he had it and forever will be having it in infinity, Alexander went on, “Ann’s Hummingbird, also a splendid creature. I’d like to meet this Anna to appraise her beauty and determine whether...
sneeze
it is wednesday on the peninsula, still surrounded by water, still laughing like rolling thunder- ha ha ha, the breeze calms me under the umbrella of my allergies, i sneeze and the whole world is startled, not necessarily by my sneeze, but by the continual realization of the existence of everyone and thing, but at least one or two are only startled by my sneeze and nothing else.
thoughts on from a feathered mattress
the forest is outside my window, when I’m out of mind I address the trees in such a cordial manner that they can’t help but blush a little- have you ever seen a tree blush? it’s on someones list somewhere of things to see before they die. this morning i woke up and made tea, but simultaneously i was trying to live a different life in my head, one where i was waking up and...
good-bye
i, amongst the tumult of summer, resign myself to air conditioning and swimming holes- hello, until fall, hello!
June 2011
2 posts
ghosts
we’re all sleepy, we won’t sleep everyone’s mattress is everyone elses to share be nice to your neighbors, let them swim in your pool you were so pretty, Sylvia, before you cut your hair.
driving home the sky accelerates, and the clouds...
little longings; the ants are trapped in my mustache forever- they do not try to escape, i would let them go if they wished, as i let you go, when you wished- but, they remain silent, content, at ease, etc. longings like, sitting in the treetops trying to catch birds as they fly past- i’m never quick enough, but i get a good glimpse of the sky and i always pack a lunch, so really,...
May 2011
5 posts
Spring In 9 Parts
1. swimming near lagoons, youth and you backstroking light, sleep with worry, spring! 2. moonface’d worrying, dreams are never what you make of them, so shut up and sleep. 3. a sea full of blue, chlorine stains your teeth and tongue an awful hue- we still kiss like we ought to. 4. awaken before the morning comes, quick! quicker or you’ll miss it! aww, too late, you missed it. 5. i...
Anonymous asked: who is margaret?
things
the awning groves above, pre-disposed, yawning- upstream, margaret steps into sea stained skin and beckons me forth- a crescendoing spring of ephemeral bliss- these things, like most, i miss.
Make of This What You Will
It wasn’t upon entering the ballroom that I felt an instant surge of loneliness; but rather upon entering a crowd of familiar faces that I felt instantly on guard, and at the same time, defenseless. It is so, as I have conditioned myself in such a manner, that I retreat into a particular character while surrounded in rooms full of people. That character has many perceptive inclinations that...
daniell in the sea
daniell in the sea, often you whisper to me, the lisping wishes of a life without conviction, so much i see, too much to be, if the revolution comes tonight, you will surely mask its sounds with violins and whimpers- like a pillow o’er my head, restlessness manifests what is to be said, don’t wake me, for any reason, by any means, until the trifles of tomorrow become springing leaves...