(8) Breakthrough and (9) Q&A

(8) Breakthrough

The poetry
doesn't have to
"make sense,"
but it must
make senses.

(9) Q&A

he said he loved her
because she smiled like a question mark
she did
well
all of us were taught
to gently bend our every curve like that
for boys with exclamation points for eyes
to answer
we were taught to be provocative,
warned that they could stand alone forever
if we didn't find a way to draw them after us,
because they would all age into
confirmed old bachelors
grand and purposed statements
while we would slowly wilt until we turned into old maids
left alone to wonder
whether our sex was just rhetorical
or simply
completely
unnoticed.

(8) The Thing With Wings

(8) The Thing with Wings

A small Northern California town slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when hopes of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness.

Usually hopes are social,

communicating with visual signals, calls, and songs,

but human activity threatens many hopes with extinction,

and they will not be so easily clipped.

They are angry

hopes

with no thought of giving up

their ability to fly.

(7) Homecoming

(7) Homecoming

I see you in the distance,
running toward me so fast
that I think your old bones are about to collapse--
just slow down...
but no,
you are suddenly young,
putting your arms out to fly to me
like a child would.
It's a little ridiculous
how your giant smile
takes up your whole face
as you call my name
like your lungs are made out of loudspeakers
and I don't remember ever seeing anyone
with eyes so open-wide
as you see that yes, it is me,
I am home,
wearing everything I've ever been and failed to be
right on my dirty sleeves
and I'm struck by the fact
that you know everything
...except how not to love me.

Day (6) Proud

(6) Proud

Somewhere under the lens of some neglected microscope
in a broken-down community college biology laboratory
in the middle of nowhere, or at least of a state
which most Americans cannot find on a map,
the biggest amoeba feels
superior.

Days (4) and (5) of NaPoWriMo.

(4) Disconnect

Go ahead

call it ending

wash away the rotted hope of ecstasy

and just accept as tacit fact

that everyone is lovely

except 

for 

you

(5) (Wo)Man

I was almost ten years old when dominion was given to man.

My mother and my grandmother took such great pains

to clothe me and my sister

in dresses pale as Easter sunrise

so we could wait on stone steps

for man to pass out of inexistence,

for father to become something

more than letter passed through prison bars

and blue jumpsuits in waiting rooms.

We told our friends he worked away from home

but home had always been a woman's world

until then.

How strange it was to watch him re-name everything

with such divine authority.

We found ourselves smiling, yes, this is right.

But I was always unsettled--

Mother was always wonderful at covering my eyes

but when he tries,

I see right through his hands.

Day (3) elevated

just under the eaves of that library there
a certain flock of poets is congregating
to communally insist that poetry
means not talking like Real Life

meanwhile a certain flock of other poets
is throwing rocks at them

it is getting ugly
quick

meanwhile I am climbing a tree
and trying to remember what Real Life talks like

but I can't

2014 NaPoWriMo Kick-Off (Days 1 and 2)

Well, here goes something...

(1) Danger

For a Stranger in a Dream

I know it's cliche to start with the eyes,
but they scare me.
They seem to understand
better than I want them to.
I'm scared how unafraid I am to touch you.
I'm scared that I am choosing not to be safe for once,
     choosing a closeness I don't understand,
     choosing to bring myself into your gravity.
          (for you are worth falling for
               and I am drunk on the thought of the coming crash)
but choosing is the wrong word,
     dishonest.
          I have already chosen.
My reservation is a lie that I will tell myself
when it is all over.

(2) Fight Me

I need you to be angry.
You say that you love me?
Well, prove it.
Tell me everything you wish were different.
You never react;
it is only ever acting.
You are proving that you're sleeping,
pleasant-dreaming,
and we
have never had a real conversation.
Direct didn't get me any closer
     to the lion inside you
so I've been trying for passive aggression,
multiplying my lies and their sizes,
just wishing for some kick-back;
call me on my bullshit,
please.
We are in complacent crisis.
It is time to revive our inner peace
long silenced by passivity.
I need you
to fight me.