From Mindspillage
Most of this was written between 1997 and 2002. I am a bit embarrassed by some of them; on the other hand I may be far enough removed now that I might even explain a few of them. (Expectedly, most are about guys, and several about friends. Oh, teenage angst.)
See also Category:Poetry for others, including parodies.
Behind the Camera
1.
A picture of a swordfight
with cardboard wrapping-paper rolls
taken Christmas Day, 1999;
four adults acting as children,
and one child, just shy of four,
pleased to no end
to join in the adults' game for once.
I am behind the camera,
the detached observer
of their sport, like a child
who has not yet learned to jump rope
waiting for someone to tell her
when to jump in. But no one does—
and if they did, the words would be vague
and unhelpful: how to explain something
one never needed to be taught?
It was natural to them,
the art of jumping in
when the rope reached the pinnacle
of its swing,
of grabbing a pause in conversation
for one's own words,
of boarding the merry-go-round
just when the empty space
came round again.
They never made a misstep,
a graceless maneuver,
or so it seemed
to one whose knees are still scarred
by the injuries that awkwardness
leaves with a child.
The bruises were not always
where others could see them,
and I was too stubborn,
too proud, or too shy
to admit how badly I'd been hurt.
Instead I'd claim desire
of a spot on the sidelines:
the better to watch you with, my dear,
and I was always the one
Only those not caught up in the action
can catch every detail.
2.
A good friend asked for my picture
a few days back. I gave him
my yearbook photo, the stiff, artificial shot
of myself as I never was:
formal, made-up, and posed, with hair
for once not flying in my face.
I hadn't any others,
being always on the outside
of a group, too far even
for the panoramic lens
to spot me, or more frequently
behind the camera, the notebook:
the perpetual detached observer,
always in, but never part of, a scene.
Even now that I have learned
to follow the patterns
of rise and fall, the turning wheel,
the tension and release
of conversation, I am never sure
there will be space for me.
I cannot shake the memory
of my scars. And so I remain
the one behind the camera,
the author of these lines.
Charade
I love how you've taken me in—
led me to believe
your thoughtful words;
let me think
that your casual touch
means as much as it would
were there any danger of commitment.
I love your secret smile—
the one that hints of sharing,
flashed furtively across the room
so that no one else can hear it
telling stories only we know.
Please, don't let go of my hand
while we sit here together.
The wordless conversations
going on beneath our chatter
have drawn me in,
bringing me closer to you.
Keep staring into my eyes when we meet;
keep grinning as we pass,
keep hanging on my words
as if anything could happen,
and I'll keep being fooled
by the semblance of feeling—
until one day we can no longer tell
where the act begins
and the truth ends.
Downpour
The ground was damp this morning
long past when the dew should have evaporated
in the harsh sunlight,
the puddles gathering round your feet
unwelcome in your new white sandals.
It had promised to be a fine day,
so when the sky loomed humid and grey
past noontime,
traces of wind still biting your face,
you were understandably upset
at your spoilt picnic.
Without warning, it rained last night,
a storm that had been brewing almost imperceptibly.
But the glass was so heavily curtained
you couldn't see outside, and
the summer storm raged so quietly
you would never have known it was coming
unless you had studied the clouds.
Down to Sighs
(a sestina)
Thoughts most urgently felt begin with sighs:
impossible to render in a letter,
more so with the quickening pulse,
the inexorable trembling of fingers
fluttering from sweat-moist hands
desperate for the catharsis of writing.
You never notice the inadequacy of writing
so much as when trying to transliterate sighs
or the fretful, anguished wringing of hands
that pales when spelled out letter by letter:
a thousand words to depict ten fingers,
so many every frame to make them pulse.
Divergent thoughts racing with my pulse
linger just long enough for writing,
hindered by suddenly clumsy fingers
pausing to accommodate insistent sighs.
How much easier to compose a letter
without the intermediary of hands!
I try to still frantic hands—
perhaps I wouldn't double my pulse
at the thought of sending a letter
if the infinitesimal nuances of writing
that distinguish relieved from despairing sighs
could be measured off on trembling fingers.
I cannot let you slip through my fingers
so soon after holding you in my hands.
If only I could send you sighs,
the dread that stops my pulse:
what soulless pedant made writing
the sole component of a letter?
I have labored over every letter,
chewed the nails from spent fingers
rereading page upon page of writing.
The pen drops from inkstained hands,
my wrists a Rorschach with a pulse,
evaluating the reactions of my sighs.
I hold the finished letter in my hands,
sure my fingers throb with every pulse,
and crumple the writing down to sighs.
Drift
You stare at me now
as if I were a spot on the horizon
you remember having been to...
vaguely...
but only the photographs
convince you.
I never believed
the sweet absurdities you whispered...
forever...
Like the continents, and the
mountains, you'd say,
but even Pangaea drifted apart.
Drifters
There you stand, sipping coffee, in solitude
while the world flows around you, unheeding.
A year ago I would have approached you—
A month ago nodded, waved, but
Today I passed you by, more alien than a stranger—
one who used to know you well.
The awkward, unacknowledged recognition
as we find each other side by side,
a strained parody of ourselves,
is sad enough to be funny
and funny enough to be sad.
I thought we were moving in the same direction,
but the undercurrents carried us apart, unseen,
until I could no longer recognize you
in the distance.
How have the rushing floods eroded
edges that used to interlock
to form them into barriers?
I wonder if you'd see me smile,
across the gulf that separates us
even as we travel side by side,
but neither of us ever dared to look.
So we float along, drifters,
until another wave comes to take you away.
Entreaty
Please don't remember me so fondly
Don't think about the days I lingered by your side
And I'll try not to dwell on the warmth of your embrace.
Please don't dream of me anymore
Don't try to recapture me in the night
When it's hard enough not to return in the day.
Please don't wish me happiness
Don't try to burden me with something so precious of yours
When I'm afraid I've already taken it from you.
Please don't think of how I loved you
Don't count how many times I told you
And you'll never reach the point where I stopped.
Please don't pick up the phone, when I dial it
If you can gather the strength not to answer
Maybe I won't feel so weak again, and call.
Please don't love me anymore
For only if you can stop loving me
Can I ever stop hurting you.
First Contact
When minds touch
it is easy to forget
that only a moment was shared:
the flickering burn
of a bonfire
drives more fiercely
to the forefront of consciousness
even after your hand
has left the flame
than the nightlong press
of sheets against skin.
One touch was enough
to draw me in.
Like a fingertip's worth of Braille
to the blind man
just discovering
the meanings behind the dots
I was dazzled
at the world opened up to me
forgetting in my elation
how little I had seen.
How much there was to see.
And how much would be always hidden,
only hinted at
in the furtive glances
toward the shadows,
watching for demons
you can never be sure
of vanquishing,
and I wonder:
what are the demons you hunt,
and
why was I not there
to keep them at bay?
Hallucination
Perhaps the fumes
of gasoline
hang too heavy in the air—
must have seeped into my brain, for
across the Gulf
I thought I heard you
calling out
my name...
Haunted
The roughness of your tongue
bristles so strong against mine
that I cannot be sure
it fails to linger
until I probe for your waiting lips
and taste only air. The scent of you
still permeates; the sight of you
flashes yet
upon the corners of my eyes,
though the hour is long past
when we parted. But still I feel
your rhythmic breaths—
remnants of sensation held over,
too powerful to take in all at once:
ghosts of you. Do I haunt you so?
I wonder, turning,
stiff sheets rumpling over skin—
I awoke before the dawn, fevered,
the burning of your flesh
still upon me.
Hypothermic
How cold it is here without you!
Why didn't the harshness of the wind
before autumn's descent
register on my vulnerable senses
until I could no longer claim
your arms as shelter?
How could I never have known
the longing for a compassionate touch
when the air is still with solitude
until none of my desperate reaching
ever made contact?
What could I feel of the solemn weight
of one chill tear trailing down my cheek
until your shoulders
were no longer there
to relieve my burden?
Now I've been frozen in place,
Unable to move forward,
Stuck fast, mired in memory.
I wonder—would I ever have let you go
If I knew it meant suffering hypothermia
With my only chance of survival
To cool the last warmth I feel
for you?
Innocent
You think I don't notice
the way you flirt with me—
all the unspoken signals
flashed, casually, in the course
of conversation,
and that I—just as casually—
accept.
You wouldn't love me
if I were really so blind
as I pretend to be
when you leave your arm
on my shoulder
just a little too long.
I feign ignorance
so you'll feel safe pursuing me,
knowing you'll never be caught,
both of us left to go free,
and neither of us
innocent.
In The Rain
I have always loved to go
swimming in the rain:
the sheer absurdity of worrying,
as I immerse myself in
chlorinated water, that
I might get wet.
Or perhaps the enjoyment
is the knowledge that,
all around me,
as drops add imperceptibly
to the level of the pool,
they sacrifice their identities
for the new joy
of joining with their own kind
in rapture—
until the water evaporates
once again
to repeat the cycle.
Mourning Glory
Autumn is the beginning of a death
from the first midday stroll
where the sun fails to punish,
hovering, benign, in an overcast sky,
the first shudder at the chill
of a crisp morning wind, and
each frail wisp
of chimney smoke
bleakens a funereal sky:
the monochrome of mourning.
I savor the pain of loss
that autumn brings, like
salt tears tasted on the cheek,
like mounting dissonant chords
intensified by the contrast
with the bright melody it follows.
Sorrow seems out of place
in the brazen summer—
how can one mourn
when furious blades of light intrude
through every crack in the curtain?
When the sky grows dim
and the air grows cold
the tears flow freely,
all the stronger
for having been left to steep,
all the sweeter
to at last release.
I revel in the pungent sadness—
the cool October breeze begins
as summer's dying gasp.
Palimpsest
I am always surprised
by your ability to surprise me.
Just when I have come to know one layer,
you tear it off,
ready to emerge from your old skin,
and I am left
blinded
as if seeing you for the first time.
Are you changing so fast,
coming closer to the center
as time passes,
peeling off layers as you pass
their boundaries?
A closer look
reveals the old growth
just now exposed,
almost ready to be shed again,
and I know:
it is not yourself
that determines
how close you come to the core
but your trust in me.
As the distance between us grows closer,
you show me only as much
as I'm ready to see.
The Persistence of Memory
My mother was absent
as I grew up.
Not from the beginning,
but once I entered adolescence
she was gone.
She has no recollection of
my proudest moment,
my first kiss.
I grew up distant from her
stolen away
when she no longer had the strength
to care for me.
She is blissfully unaware
of years of time
slipped away beyond recall.
What little she knows
are surreal fragments—
impressions, pictures, moments,
often with no bearing on reality,
with only a faint uneasy feeling
of something missing.
And I—
I grew up right in front of her
but she never saw me.
And I am the only one who will recall.
Portrait of Her
She sits at the table, alone
cutting her bread with a plastic knife—
she gave away all the metal ones
after finding a blade beneath her mattress,
having almost forgotten intending to slice her wrists.
She has one-sided conversations with Oprah
only half-knowing the screen cannot hear her—
collects tiny tea-sets and dolls, wizards and wands,
furnishing the world of illusion she's built for herself
as a shelter from the cold flood of reality, letting just enough trickle in
to reassure her of her existence. Sometimes she doubts it—
when the voices inside are too strong, their messages too painful,
she casts the rune stones, hoping they'll tell her
of a better future than she sees for herself.
She gets her sanity by prescription
and her courage by nature, with unlimited refills,
needing both just to face another moment,
another day, another struggle—one more pebble on a worn and crumbling road.
Sometimes, all that keeps her afloat
is taking on the weight of others' burdens:
so that no one ever has to be like her, she says,
not realizing no one else ever could be.
(Written 1998. For Mom, 1958-2002.)
Portrait Gallery
The portrait hung on my wall for years—
a ballerina in a perfect arabesque.
She gave it to me when I was a little girl
and still fancied myself in satin pointe shoes
before dropping off to sleep.
It became one of many. Whenever I visited,
another painting joined me on the return trip:
mementos from a foreign land
where I enjoyed my visit,
but never got close enough to know the people.
I might have been staring at my portrait gallery
when my great-grandmother fell asleep,
never to paint another picture,
and the journey to her house was no longer a country vacation
but a survey of the wreckage following a hurricane.
The paintings returned home with me—
not as friends, but as orphans.
They had nowhere else to go.
Many years faded into the distance
with many houses that never had time to become home
where a cardboard box was my closet,
and the pictures were crated more often than not.
The next time, new paneling in the bedroom
and no picture-hanger holes allowed.
The portraits remained in the box,
but enough time had passed
that I barely felt a sting to put them away.
Power Play
I think I could love you,
if you let me.
I think I could be close to you,
but neither of us will tear down our walls
for fear the other won't return
the gesture.
Instead we design
elaborate constructions
around the walls, over them,
trying to best each other's
complexity, knowing
the most difficult maneuver
would be tearing them down.
Funny, how in our endless competition
neither of us ever tried the one move
that would assure victory.
It is a risky play;
all or nothing,
either total success
or complete destruction,
needing collaborated effort to pull off,
and I can see how we
(carefully figuring the odds)
would shy away,
but for one thing:
we agreed
to be teammates
before the game started.
Reversal
I no longer have the right
to see his tears
in the expression
that at last releases mine:
each steaming droplet
upon his chest
adding to the burden
I place on him,
the weight he will carry
inside himself, unspoken
until it lowers him
into the earth—
when he should've been
the one to cry.
Rock
There you are—
all storms and turbulent swells
crashing against the craggy shore
with each gust of wind.
Your foam envelops me—
covers me with briny tears,
drops of bitterness and fury,
a solemn barrage
evaporating
once you let me bring it into the light.
You entrust me with these pieces
of yourself,
for I am your rock,
the unwavering presence
at the end of your journey,
the guardian in the dark of night,
placing a shield around you,
absorbing the shock of your beating waves
before you could ravage the fragile shoreline.
You never noticed the erosion—
the slow and silent wearing down
under constant abrasion:
if I ever appeared different in your vision,
you thought it only because you had changed.
So you have,
and so you will continue
in an endless cycle:
until one day you return to see me
worn and smooth,
still sitting by the shoreline
in anticipation of your arrival.
I'll still be there
waiting...
Self-pity
I want to wallow
in this muck for a while—
feel the tainted warmth envelop me,
ignoring the polluted currents
that rush against my flesh.
I've already dug the hole
to sink down into;
made sure it's deep enough
to hide my face from anyone
who would come by to rescue me.
I don't want to be saved
from this mess of my creation.
I don't want to add obligation to shame.
Just let me stand in my
oblivion—the pool I'm swimming in
is only as muddy
as my own tears,
though it's soiled with the tinge
of self-deception,
and when it evaporates
with the next rising sun
I will still be standing here,
with only my memory
of the wet and the cold
to bring discomfort.
Shirt
there is nothing like crawling into
a shirt
fresh from the dryer
the heat that so recently came to inhabit
its fibers
transferring into my own
nothing else gives the sense of security
of knowing
that I am the only one it encloses
and nothing else comes so close
to the warmth
of the wrapping-around of your arms.
The Shore Maiden
Maybe she thought no one was watching
But this morning I witnessed her impromptu ballet
She flirted with the tide, skirt flying,
As if daring the wind to outdo her.
Perhaps she thought no one could see her
Dancing on the sunlit shore, a foolish girl.
Perhaps she didn't, and knew better
Than to fear notice by other fools.
Thin Walls
The walls are thin
in my dwelling-place,
porous enough for every whisper
to penetrate
its scant defenses.
And a whisper is sufficient—
but the walls are impervious
to sight, if not sound, so
mutually blind,
we shout at one another:
searching for some sign
of comprehension,
never sure of being heard.
Twenty Pages
Twenty pages—
twenty blank pages
in a book of twenty-five
after three years.
I started sketching portraits
on anything I could find—
napkins, notepads, ends of wallpaper—
and decided to invest
in a sketchbook:
clean, thick paper, perfect-bound,
easily worthy of the bookshelf.
Five pages in three years
and hardly a drawing anywhere else.
"I should draw this in my sketchbook,"
I'd think, scrawling a rough figure
on the back of a flyer,
and stop, not wanting to waste effort
on a rough draft.
But by the time I pull the book out
the fire is gone, leaving only
the cold perfection
of the untouched pages, accusing:
your feeble art no more deserves
these pages
than fingerpaint the Louvre:
better not to squander the book
until I can improve on the blankness.
And twenty pages,
twenty pages have bested
my pretensions to art
with their pristine logic—
so I sit, pencil in hand,
afraid to waste the paper.
The Visitor
There you are, an apparition in the night
Come back to haunt me again?
So brief appeared, then lost to mortal sight
There you are, an apparition in the night
Convince me that dusk's fading into light
Will not dissipate your face, your form, and then—
There you are, an apparition in the night