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unknown body of
water. we talked about
things this semester.

have to get my hopes
up. nothing like that, but i'm
still going to write.

he gets home after
i get into bed. i have
my evenings back.

what i ate at lunch -
i'm yet to figure that out,
before or after.

stolen expensive
hotel breakfast. let me tell
you in next week's...

Unsequined

Now that my floor is nearly clean
of all its filth-fuzz imperfections,
I feel like I should be dancing on it -
it's almost bowling alley-smooth;
it's so utterly without grain or grime
that every time I put my feet down,
I have the urge to pirhouette,
to triple-lutz like my quasi-famous
former figure skater of a third cousin,
but I squelch it.

I bottle up the need
because I'm not at all sequined; no,
instead I'm wrapped up in a hoodie
adorned with hot chocolate stains,
characterized by seven months
of constant daily over-wearing,
and if I started sliding around here
like the fucking Sugarplum Fairy,
I'd no doubt instantly trip over
the stretched-out cuffs of my pajamas
and hit the cool, fine-textured tiles
as hard as I just scrubbed them,
and what would be the fun in that?
Someone would find me in the morning,
languishing in a sticky pool of my blood,
and all my hard housekeeping work
would be for absolutely NAUGHT! -
and we can't be having that, can we?

No, we can't,
and that means I'll settle
for sitting rigid and squished at this desk
and ever so often running a tentative toe
across the unblemished dancing-ground
that now exists in here, all around me.

Leavings (hyper-draft)

So he fucking left this morning. It's OK. Really. I'm not too upset.
It's not like we're breaking up. It's not like he's being sent half a world away
to some underdeveloped oil-rich country to fight for a cause he doesn't believe in.
No, he's only going to the mountains, to this state's unbridled, lush forests,
to a land still so barely tainted by pavements and roads and homes and infrastructure,
so he can learn how to "range." Yeah, right, whatever the hell that means...

Anyway, he left me here at school with a broad bubble of silence
that burst as soon as he shut the door and snuck off down the hall -
and it unfurled a foul fume that filled this room the fuck up,
and it's choking me now, eighteen hours later - it's just as lethal, just as lingering,
and the crazy-ass assortment of songs my computer's been shuffling through
are helping to abate it, but not much. The off-handed comments I'm saying to no one,
yeah, they clear the smog for seconds at a time, sure. Never for too long, though.

Shit. You know what? You never notice the little things when the person you love
is around to distract you from them. You never notice how much shit is stuck,
deeply tucked beneath your fingernails, which you wish would stop growing.
You never realize that your bed has stayed unmade for at least a month
and that those sheets have been on there for way longer than Oprah recommends.
You never really think about the need to sweep or to scrub the sink or clear the floor;
you never give a second thought to any part of the room you wake up in every day
because none of that stuff is even remotely detectable when you're not alone.

So all of this - the drab dirtiness of this sad little dormitory, the smothering silence -
it's not making this any easier, but it's not awful. Solitude can suffocate you,
but it can also help you see clearly; it can help you define certain things,
like what needs to be done tomorrow, or what can or won't be done today;
it can make you appreciate that mystifying, blind-siding togetherness for what it is,
or what I make of it: a damn good distraction from the horrors of housekeeping.

The Law of the Bald Villain

According to the comic books,
sinister thoughts thrive inside
the hairless heads, but why?
Because of the brunette cowlick
that dangles in the blue eyes
of our airborne all-American hero?
Because we'd have it no other way?
Because shaved scalp = skinhead?
Because it reminds us of braves
who brought their broad knees down
on the backs of blameless pilgrims
and cut long forehead-arcs
and pulled back on the hair
to pry away a grisly prize?
Is it unpatriotic to be bald?
Does it make men evil?
And what about women?
If I took a razor to my locks
and lopped every last one off,
would my head quickly fill up
with mad plots and schemes
to crush this city or country
or even the entire planet?
Are my follicles the one thing
keeping me from kidnapping
the mayor's obnoxious child
or from wiring City Hall
with complex explosives?
Do they stop me from aiming
a custom death-ray at the Sun?
So, if that's true, tell me
why I should stay my hand.
Why not cut my hair off
and lay waste to this land?

I'm back?

Wow. So I haven't posted anything on here since December. Well, that's OK. I've been spending most of my time over at LiveJournal, but as of late, I've sort of lost the will to post anything there. Therefore, I'm re-reverting to the Bloggerland. And I've got a whole new intention for this thing.

Well, in retrospect, it's actually not new at all. I think it was my original intent for this...but it never came to fruition. Maybe this time it will. After all, I am closing in on the end of this damnable academic year, and that may mean I'll actually have the time and the intellectual capital to make something out of this. (I hope that's the right "capital." I always forget which one is which.)

Anyway, lately I've been trying to de-conventionalize, if you will, the way that I write. I feel that my journalism classes have made me much more rule-savvy and syntax-compliant than I'd like to be, and it's having the result of squashing some of my best ideas before they can even truly emerge from the depths of my mental primordial soup. Therefore, I want to practice knocking those conventional walls down and capitalize on my desire to do so. And that is what I fully intend to do here.

I'll probably primarily stick to poetry, as that particular mode of expression has suited me best throughout the past month and a half or so. When paging through some of the stuff I've written lately, I tend to get perplexed by my own lack of definite voice or style - and I've noticed that it seems to be because I'm too concerned with making things prosaic. Which is, of course, ridiculous, because I'm supposed to be writing poems! AAH. I wonder if anyone is following this. I barely am myself.

Whatever. To make a long story short, this blog is going to be a sketchbook of sorts. I'm just trying to see if it's possible for me to drop the unnecessary conventions and fly free of the "journalistic" trappings that prevent me from engaging in a FULL-ON ARTISTIC REVOLUTION! So, without further ado, I close this post so that I may start another one, one which will consist of my first attempt at this bulldozing, as it were.

Woosh!

Kevin Carter at Area 51?

This is a moderate rewrite of something I worked on last night.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Eyeless, mindless,
they walk through the desert.
They lope along together
between the cactuses,
their bare feet scraping along the scorching sand.

They are strange-looking things -
they are low to the ground, short-legged,
bumpy and blueish, with peuse warts
and fleshy, spiny flaps of skin
on their heads and shoulders.
They are not really as intimidating
as some of the monsters I've seen and shot,
but they are unbelievably ugly, and equally dumb.

They don't know I'm watching them,
but they can't see and they probably can't think,
so I'm at somewhat of an advantage.
I saw them charge and claw and slash their way
to a freedom they did not know they wanted.
I saw them tear down the fences
and the unsuspecting soldiers
of the base. I got a bunch of good pictures.
I didn't intervene. I never do.
I just aim and click.

But anyway, now they're out in the open world,
and they're heading towards the interstate,
though they have no idea that they are.
Maybe they'll make it to the casinos,
or to some small unsuspecting Nevadan town
where they'll inspire a graphic novel or two,
or maybe they'll just get hit by a speeding semi
and the government won't have to look into any,
what do they call it, "damage control."
Who can really say? I certainly can't.
I'm just a photographer.
I've got what I need.

The Way I React to Rain

(Prelude: I am not much of a person. I'm more of a thing, or maybe a place, or just an indistinct noun. I've always had a hard time "fitting in." Well, just what in the fuck does that mean? "Fitting in" to what? Is it like that age-old idiom, "a square peg in a round hole," or something deeper? Who knows? Well, I'm happy to not "fit." I like being the puzzle piece that doesn't belong, the one that somehow snuck in the box at the factory or wherever it is that they make puzzles. If there is such a thing as a puzzle factory, I'd like to go. Maybe I could put stray pieces in every box just to feel like I have some bloody company, somewhere. Whatever, though - time for a "real poem.")

Today is grey, a grey-grey-day,
a day of which you'd prob'ly say,
"Why get up? Why? Why not just stay
inside, under covers all day?"

But you know you can't do that, though,
so you get up although you know
just how awful things always go
when outside there's this pseudo-snow

that simply kills the very will
to not just snap and blindly kill,
to maintain sanity and still
squelch the urge of a bloody thrill.

You'll talk of murder, anyway.
"It's a means to an end," you'll say.
You won't kill any, not today.
Instead, you'll keep the grey at bay.

The rain spits all over the glass
as you're running from class to class.
You slip on the glistening grass.
You curse, but you know it'll pass.

Soon, you know, you'll be far away.
You won't have to work. You can play.
You'll recover from this dead day.
You'll simply sleep off all the grey.