The Poetry Marathon

I’m terrible at writing haikus.

I always need more words to say what I mean

5 7 5 can fuck right off.

I can admire the elegance of simplicity,

but at the same time, one cannot contain

the entire story

within the headline.

Words need to EXPAND.

I don’t like haiku

brevity is not the soul

of wit, its wit’s foe.

Haunted by a 20-Year-Old Dance

The pump in the espresso maker

pounds a heartbeat, like dancing feet

like the pulse I felt through the ground

when we danced together, okay not together

but nearby, barefoot on the dusty ground

and the crema in my hand is the color of your skin

the bitters are your eyes

drums in the machine

I am not here, no more am I here, I am there,

and you are Raven, your wings spread

poised to steal the sun.

Take my hand, take my hand

dance me ’round and turn me,

cross the floor for ten turns more

shiver me down and burn me.

Lead me up, lead me on

throw me down and take me

dance me hard in the primrose yard

plant me deep, unmake me.

Fade away, fade away

gone now from my sight

So madly met in darkness yet

vanished in the light.

Before the Darkness

Before the Darkness rides the Maiden

clothed in steel and leather, at her gauntleted wrist

a flash of skin soft and fair

as the flesh of a calla lily.

Strike in the day, my love,

and drive the enemy before you;

that all who trudge under the mortal sun

be driven off the edge of the world.

We wait, at the edge of night

to be born in your shadow.

I can’t write a love poem.

I’m thinking too much about loss.

I’m thinking of the time when you came to my window

I was fifteen, you were Starlight Incarnate

in a borrowed ride, a black Toyota Celica

that you weren’t even driving.

I’m thinking about the night you went dancing

but came to my place instead, you called me

from the Bauhaus (your favorite coffeeshop? Mine too!)

after years apart, yet always somehow together.

You would never play the song from our wedding

because it made you cry, and I teased you

for being sentimental, and teased you again,

for taking me to see Apocalypse Now on our honeymoon.

I’m thinking about my picture of you

holding our baby in your hospital bed

nested in wires like a Geiger nightmare

a man staring down the twin barrels of life and death.

I’m thinking about you leaving, always leaving

family night, date night, weekends with the parents and you

constantly inching toward the door, your black bag

and coat permanently under your arm.

You got stoned and slept on the couch,

and I went out and stayed out later

as we became quietly unmoored from eachother.

Until, even together, we were somehow always apart.

I’m thinking that a love poem is a loss poem.

The seed holds implicit the certain promise

that one cold day the plant will wither,

it’s frail brown stalk will crumble and be done.

You said “Goodbye Sara” and the ground opened up

a chasm between us. I was knocked off my feet.

Meanwhile elsewhere:

A horn-headed woman with a gown of stars

lay back and birthed a flaming sword.

A bright-shining Prince took up her sword and mounted a white horse

under eight burning suns that scorched the sky together.

Where He led the charge, Demons and Giants clashed,

hooves churned sparks from the rubble of ruined cities.

While the entire seething mass of sinning men cried out

for mercy, and found none, running underfoot like rats on the battlefield.

They were trampled into the bloodsoaked earth

bodies broken, their sufferings just begun.

When seven suns set, Fenris slipped his chain

and ate the last, and in darkness, the snow began to fall.

In that frozen silence I received your letter, and here is my reply:

“I’m sorry.”

The way the dandelion clock settles at the crook of the root,

or the alder-leaf drops to the surface of the stream

and rests lightly as she is borne away,

The way the bamboo stalks sway into each other’s arms,

or the morning glory vine twines around the ivy,

The way the hummingbird laps at the lilac

or the grass seed punctures the soil,

The way the moss lies upon the branch

or the lily upon the water,

Is how I drift, fall into you, hold you

Is how you fill me, and bring me peace.

It must be the rutting season

because I haven’t seen you in ages,

and you have that stretched-thin look you get

when running with a new bitch.

I waited.

Hours, sometimes days, I waited,

a broken-heart cliché,

phone in hand, heart in my mouth

turning to rocks and ashes.

Then I stopped.

I remembered who I was, like Rudyard Kipling said:
“The best ones don’t wait for anyone.”

I put down the phone, slipped off my shoes,

and went to howl at the moon.

I won’t do it!

I will not write another woman’s poem

any more than I will wear another woman’s face.

This is my voice,

my words are my person-hood.

Buddha suggests that, in the time before my birth,

I was no one. I merely was.

The Watcher-Behind-My-Eyes,

nameless, thoughtless, full of empty

but then! I tore screaming into the conscious world

on a spume of blood and light.

Since then I have been Sara,

fought for and won,

and this has been my birthright:

to say my own words, tell my own story.

Do you remember that time

we were picking blackberries by the side of the road

and you said you would still try to save her

if you had the chance, even knowing

that she was half-crazy, and one quarter mean,

because she was oh-so tragic

and completely hot?

I don’t say all the things I think to say

nor can I think of all the things I want to say

in a moment like that, when you are fixing to sleep with me

but still banging on and on about the one who got away.

Got away? You dodged a bullet, when

she didn’t give you herpes and screw all

your friends and accuse you of rape and

break your things and make fun of you

behind your back, but still, you are so wistful

that you never got to fuck her.

And I think, but do not say

that all men must be fools

because, like a trail of ants to a trap

you march on eagerly where other have fallen

and think the safe one sour

and the poison one sweet,

and that, anyways, the same fare will always be there

for you to come back to.