2/12 Poem

The first poem of the year wasn't worth posting, so I threw you a bone with the Halloween-esque poem. What follows is the official second poem of the year.

If you write, maybe you will understand what I'm feeling. Sometimes I sit down to write and I feel like every word is utter crap, and then other times I sit down and the words flow from me quickly, so quickly that it almost feels like the poem is using me as an outlet. I imagine my poem floating around in space,undulating among airwaves, waiting for a writer to sit down with a little confidence and ink.

Sometimes I start with a line and what follows comes as a total surprise to me, like tonight. I had a first line and nothing else. Perhaps a Field of Dreams reference is appropriate here.

“Lover Seeks Kiss”

One third of the photograph is bursting:
pink and green azalea bush in full bloom,
dainty stamen extending shyly,
like a lover seeking a first kiss.
Cheeks blushing as fingers creep
over dewy skin, goose bumps
spreading, exploding over timid flesh
covering the total topography of skin.
Connecting islands,
one freckle to another, quickly expanding
like diffusion in a controlled lab,
like the suddenness of spring.
Stolen kiss,
hands sneak around hips:
fire lit.

Writing Bits

When I think about your eyes
exposed to the bare flesh of another,
my stomach churns into tangled knots.
I use my fingers to untie them
(same fingers with which I touch
your skin alone)
but they return, tight.
You mark your territory on pretty doves,
aim your metaphorical gun at them,
but the only one left bleeding red
is this brown headed robin.
I want to horde your eyes selfishly
so their lenses reflect only images of me,
want to be the only one
covered in your brand name.

Poem: The Good Times

Separating you from this despicable act
is easier as hands spin round the face of a mantel clock.
Each day, I am increasingly reminded of the good: three times
and no luck on the chocolate pie with meringue,
the time the beaters ate the shell and you laughed
as filling flew through the air and stuck to cabinets and hair.
Or the day you were in the snow with a hammer
building our yellow shed.
I had the lemon pound cake baking, running to town
to grab stamps or pay a bill
and you forgot to take it out and I cried.
You smiled and ate the burnt bits anyway.
Or my 23rd birthday when you had to work.
You left clues around the apartment,
a gift hidden in each room: Edward Cullen
stuffed under the couch cushion,
a cd in the washing machine,
tickets to see Blink in the mailbox.

Three days before you told me,
I came home to a dozen red roses.
How cruel of you to kill a fresh flower
to clear your guilty conscious,
and yet the day they arrived
I had never felt more loved.

Divorce Poetry Part 4

See? I'm dealing with it in my own way.

Message R9K

Tell him I go weeks
without the thought of his face.
I am able to forget the existence
of someone who for so long
held my blood red heart
in his guitar calloused fingers.
I focus on Marie Howe's
"What the Living Do."
I lug the trash to the corner,
fold my wrinkled laundry,
wash the eight glasses of water
left randomly in each room
(He always hated that.
I can hear him now:
"Can't you keep up with one glass?"
NO!)

Tell him I do fine
until I catch myself shoving
an empty pizza box under
the trash can
or breaking the white shell
of an egg only to return
the shards to the crate
the way he did.
I keep the swispers under
the sink for him even though
I know he will never touch
their round cotton ends.

Tell him it's like a death, but worse
because he lives on without me
by choice as if I am someone forgettable,
as if he was the only one who gave up dreams,
the only one who deserved happiness.

Divorce Poetry Part 3

Again, rough and more free versey and conversational than what I usually write.

Barren

I turn a key to a door
that no longer leads to you.
The paint chips around the panes
dirt and webs crowd each corner.

Our home was bright--
a cheery yellow in a world
blurring around the edges, gray and black.
I hold on to the dreams we shared: a deck
extended for years, a privacy fence for the dog and kids.
But I realize your dreams no longer match mine.

How do I continue to move through this place with these old things,
these trinkets, lost and found.
A mirror, a clock, time
running out and me still here,
thin and frail.

Divorce Poetry Part 2

This is rough, but I actually wrote this a month before the bottom fell out. Women's intuition? Mayhaps.

Flesh Needs

I found the stain today,
gaping wet red mouth staring back at me.
I can tell you don't care for me
as you once did,
though you still laugh at my jokes,
trace circles on my open palms, hold
my brown hair in your hands tentatively
as if you aren't sure how
to proceed.

It used to be summer in this house:
windows flung open
in the sticky night,
moths flying blinding into porchlight,
not waiting even for a breeze to blow.

Eighty more year of contemplative comraderie
then our flesh rots and wastes.