pain: a list
one: to throw everything into
its transformation from
a state, a noun-dom,
into an active principle:
i pain--as a verb--
i be pain--i pained.
a lonely transformation,
that's point two.
for decades, like
a brunette princess
entangled
in a hundred years of dreams,
i waited, incarcerate,
to be saved--to be pulled
from the endless flame--
to be separated
from what is in essence
myself--
by some constant hand
not my own.
that's over now,
or i try to see it as such.
the longing floe of ice,
its attendant flame,
the wave that passed
back and forth between them,
ends like
a leonard cohen song:
too many syllables,
too acoustically demonstrative,
but powerful in its sadness
anyway.
three--
what do i do
from here? where do i go?
how to breathe,
how to draw breath even
enough to speak?
my face is drawn white against itself.
when i close my eyes,
i see skin drawn in red.
my hair unbound
black as a river,
and, to borrow a conceit,
the stars have gone out
in it.
suffering is all around, caked
thick like unsettled tectonic crust,
point four.
my own mangled whimpers
deserve no notice
amidst the general
traffic.
those who died were beautiful,
they who live in sorrow are
lovely as the asphodel,
and i am neither.
five--
a turn away from silence;
a homecoming beyond sound.
there is a tree, its branch heavy.
a rotation toward the bough--
a selection of the fruit that calls my name.
as though we'd never parted.
look at me, pain,
red in my palm.
you are the only witness
to the moment
of this my devotion
by flesh.
i eat, and
your juice
runs down
my throat.
i am honed
and ready for you
as the sheath
the dagger--
strike me
like a match
and see
the spark
that
generates.
six:
conversation in
that desert at night
that unfolds in my mind--
no, you are not pain's.
no, you are not meant
to gather only pain.
yes, stay here.
for the moment stay here.
for the moment be this.
for the moment, see nothing
beyond this.
touch me, fire,
with your sweet blue lips.
touch me and tell me
of safety in your arms:
take me, pain--
grant me the gift
of agony.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
spring poem
the beast speaks
i woke to my heart in a reddened place,
the sun drying dark on the backs of my paws,
each tree woven round with crimson light--
the birdsong, the low-throated insect song
was the light's weft.
i was alone and attired all over in the kill,
so solidly alone that sound itself sank to a backdrop,
and in the breathless wilderness,
at center of that pressing molten sunset,
my mouth covered in dirt,
dirt in my nostrils, dirt
scattered like a rotting constellation across
my shoulders, i saw her, dark-eyed, the white rose
cupped
in her hands,
her mouth
curved
like a petal.
but i knew she was not there.
it was a vision,
and as such hardly bearable.
it's difficult to keep to sanity
in such a monstrous loneliness.
difficult
to wait.
difficult past
all bearing.
i cry out, sometimes,
pressed
i woke to my heart in a reddened place,
the sun drying dark on the backs of my paws,
each tree woven round with crimson light--
the birdsong, the low-throated insect song
was the light's weft.
i was alone and attired all over in the kill,
so solidly alone that sound itself sank to a backdrop,
and in the breathless wilderness,
at center of that pressing molten sunset,
my mouth covered in dirt,
dirt in my nostrils, dirt
scattered like a rotting constellation across
my shoulders, i saw her, dark-eyed, the white rose
cupped
in her hands,
her mouth
curved
like a petal.
but i knew she was not there.
it was a vision,
and as such hardly bearable.
it's difficult to keep to sanity
in such a monstrous loneliness.
difficult
to wait.
difficult past
all bearing.
i cry out, sometimes,
pressed
under the red-stained sheets
of these sunsets,
and the sound of my voice
is subverted
of these sunsets,
and the sound of my voice
is subverted
at its tenderest point
into the body of my demons.
step aside langston hughes (this is a joke)
v
what happens to a sound deferred?
for how long can it burn
within, unheard?
for how long can it blench
taut skin to paste--
for how long can it lay
the heart waste?
how long can it hold
itself to itself,
setting fire to bone,
leaving face a blank hearth?
how long can it claim
the allegiance of silence
before silence itself
turns cold eyes
on self-violence?
in the violate quiet,
heart, mind,
rent
from meaning
the vise of all sound
nothing but brute pressing--
what happens
to a sound unsaid?
does it forget?
what happens to a sound unknown?
does it explode?
what happens to a sound deferred?
for how long can it burn
within, unheard?
for how long can it blench
taut skin to paste--
for how long can it lay
the heart waste?
how long can it hold
itself to itself,
setting fire to bone,
leaving face a blank hearth?
how long can it claim
the allegiance of silence
before silence itself
turns cold eyes
on self-violence?
in the violate quiet,
heart, mind,
rent
from meaning
the vise of all sound
nothing but brute pressing--
what happens
to a sound unsaid?
does it forget?
what happens to a sound unknown?
does it explode?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
...and tired
waltz
what happens
to the contents
of the vase
when the glass
succumbs
to the press
of its flaws
and shatters?
the stamen,
the cupped petal,
drenched in their own
darkening liquid,
the stem stray,
holding nothing
together longer,
the lingering spread
of the water,
the waxy leaf
upon which drops
raise themselves
like thin welts
from out of
the wild-
spreading deluge:
water
against
the vague
and gentled
floral epidermis:
the damasked cheek
and insinuant cup
of the tulip,
the bending shifting mouth
of the rose--
all parts distinct
when the vase breaks
past itinerance, past mutiny,
past all endurance,
no longer sustained
as if solid against fluid,
but drenched,
subsumed
in the act of its scattering.
like a star
bends its light, rent
from deepest
midnight.
what happens
to the contents
of the vase
when the glass
succumbs
to the press
of its flaws
and shatters?
the stamen,
the cupped petal,
drenched in their own
darkening liquid,
the stem stray,
holding nothing
together longer,
the lingering spread
of the water,
the waxy leaf
upon which drops
raise themselves
like thin welts
from out of
the wild-
spreading deluge:
water
against
the vague
and gentled
floral epidermis:
the damasked cheek
and insinuant cup
of the tulip,
the bending shifting mouth
of the rose--
all parts distinct
when the vase breaks
past itinerance, past mutiny,
past all endurance,
no longer sustained
as if solid against fluid,
but drenched,
subsumed
in the act of its scattering.
like a star
bends its light, rent
from deepest
midnight.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
NINUS' tomb, man!
i've been writing lesbian poetry for about five years now. the point at which i finally felt, after years of writing crap, that i had at least some poetic thing to say and knew somewhat how to say it, was the point at which i started writing lesbian poetry. i can say with pretty much certainty that all the poetry i've written that i'd consider even somewhat good is lesbian.
and STILL this isn't a good enough clue that i might (gasp) actually be gay. nooo, i say to myself. you still have weird, tortured crushes on men you never actually want to be with. you aren't a lesbian--you're a self-loathing bisexual stereotype. and you haven't felt ashamed of yourself enough this last half hour! no more slackin'! go and think about how you're a vainglorious bastard who doesn't do anything right! do i have to cook the noodles for you to lash yourself with myself? (which considering that the "yourself" in that sentence is also "myself" makes it if possible even more confusing.)
i mean, why is it so hard to accept? it's not like i ever really thought i was straight. i still find men attractive, and i wouldn't say no to hooking up with one, but i want to have a girlfriend, not a boyfriend. if it ever gets that far, i want to have a wife, not a husband. i want girls because when it comes right down to it, my personal bio-mentality is set up so that to be with a man romantically would be an experience of safety, secrecy, and soul dulling pain, whereas to be with a woman would be an experience of intensity, passion and fright, sharing...an end to loneliness.
it's not like loneliness isn't the human condition, or that i don't acknowledge that. it's just that i've been finding recently that everything i thought was irrevocably true is less true than i'd expected. not that it's entirely untrue, just that i've been...well, rather bleak-outlooked about it. for instance, yes, everyone's alone, but no, we're not all cut off behind gigantic secretive walls through which the best we can do to contact each other is a pre-Ninny's tomb pyramus-and-thisbe act.
man i hope this sticks. i'm so tired of being dicked around by my own proclivities. people who say that everyone has bisexual tendencies are right, i think, but they aren't me, and haven't tried living in that place for 27 years. i need some part of me, some fact of myself outside the blank meat and bone of me, to be something other than everything.
yeah, try that one on for sentence structure.
and STILL this isn't a good enough clue that i might (gasp) actually be gay. nooo, i say to myself. you still have weird, tortured crushes on men you never actually want to be with. you aren't a lesbian--you're a self-loathing bisexual stereotype. and you haven't felt ashamed of yourself enough this last half hour! no more slackin'! go and think about how you're a vainglorious bastard who doesn't do anything right! do i have to cook the noodles for you to lash yourself with myself? (which considering that the "yourself" in that sentence is also "myself" makes it if possible even more confusing.)
i mean, why is it so hard to accept? it's not like i ever really thought i was straight. i still find men attractive, and i wouldn't say no to hooking up with one, but i want to have a girlfriend, not a boyfriend. if it ever gets that far, i want to have a wife, not a husband. i want girls because when it comes right down to it, my personal bio-mentality is set up so that to be with a man romantically would be an experience of safety, secrecy, and soul dulling pain, whereas to be with a woman would be an experience of intensity, passion and fright, sharing...an end to loneliness.
it's not like loneliness isn't the human condition, or that i don't acknowledge that. it's just that i've been finding recently that everything i thought was irrevocably true is less true than i'd expected. not that it's entirely untrue, just that i've been...well, rather bleak-outlooked about it. for instance, yes, everyone's alone, but no, we're not all cut off behind gigantic secretive walls through which the best we can do to contact each other is a pre-Ninny's tomb pyramus-and-thisbe act.
man i hope this sticks. i'm so tired of being dicked around by my own proclivities. people who say that everyone has bisexual tendencies are right, i think, but they aren't me, and haven't tried living in that place for 27 years. i need some part of me, some fact of myself outside the blank meat and bone of me, to be something other than everything.
yeah, try that one on for sentence structure.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
oh my
can't stand the rain
imagining bone
straining against flesh
when i touch
my own cheek:
where
did i go?
against my surface
used to lie
the safety of
the body, marshes
of yellow fat
fed by red blood,
but even this
recedes,
and i am left with
bone--
white
that would rather
splinter
than bend.
a new skin
that feels
translucent
as glass
overlays
my face.
copper lady
press yourself
closer.
the brush of your hair
brings to the skin of my neck
a vision
of a desert
with a river
cleaving it through.
the noises
that live in these walls--
echoes of
some shattered half hour--
etch sounds
perilously close to the vein
in a color
that looks like blood.
it dries on the cuff.
to remember
the way you wiped
your mouth
on your silk shirt.
tied down and split
like a fig
every sound
reddened as skin
i shake my head
on its thick and chalk-white stem
and nothing
comes loose.
if you
love me,
if you
hate me,
guide me
to that red river
and let
me
drink.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
domino, biatch!
what do you want
white rose
your petals like a white stain?
i carried you back from the
other shore
and in darkness
taut as the center
of a gamba string
you unfurled,
petals white
against sweet black leaves.
what do you do,
white rose? against
what
do you
center?
petals like
a bridal dress,
a new moon,
stained white
like bone.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
if it's written to the song "theft, and wandering around lost," it's BOUND to be good
i piece various aspects of myself together within a dream
parts
that dredge themselves
up
from within
that black water.
thanks, i said
dryly,
receiving into
ridiculously pale arms
the sodden torso of my desire.
on a different current
floated by
the calves of
my helplessness.
dessicated are
the eyelids of
my dependency, churned up
from some dark recess
within the general
undertow.
parts
pile up
waist-high
on the riverbank
and i wander
in the shallows,
elbow-deep
in rank
and turgid
liquid,
grasping at
scraps of flesh,
physical detrius,
the casualties
of
fracture.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
depressing as shit
i always come back to rain
1. icarus
as if all mankind
needed only one symbol:
rain, falling,
shudders
against a roof,
that shudder
located somewhere
within the stuff
of sound
and touch--
which, in their
stretched
blind twist,
work,
like
a root
v'd
into wetted earth.
thirst,
like the stroke
of a hand
down a back,
shuddering
along the root.
2. math
the sound of every raindrop
echoes the beat of some
heart,
somewhere.
statistically
this makes sense--
each heart beats
its own rhythm,
and some part
of all rhythms
can be seen as
encompassed
in rain's percussion.
this may be
an idea
of beauty
but it is lonely.
or perhaps
just shattered.
they call the fern's equation
a fractal.
3. the lady in the tower
i already have so little,
i think,
and in some small way
it's true.
clouds the color
of oxidized copper--
rain, rain,
never stop falling on me.
how much will
the breaking
of one girl
matter?
how much will
the breaking
of one girl
matter?
clouds the color
of chased silver--
rain, rain,
never stop falling on me.
i am shattered
in sadness--
it matters
so little.
clouds the color
of water
clouds the color
of water
rain, rain,
never stop falling on me.
other poem
premise
beauty being the press,
as if of two palms,
of pain onto pleasure,
the nature of the pressure
being such
that they turn into
each other
by turning in
toward themselves:
a strained
homecoming.
this is how pain
looked at herself
as if into a mirror,
seeing all she had discarded
become all she ever
would love--
she would have cracked
from side to side
if beauty,
like a bitter taste,
had not held her
bound together--
if beauty,
in a blind
home-coming,
to herself
had not bound herself
ever-closer.
beauty being the press,
as if of two palms,
of pain onto pleasure,
the nature of the pressure
being such
that they turn into
each other
by turning in
toward themselves:
a strained
homecoming.
this is how pain
looked at herself
as if into a mirror,
seeing all she had discarded
become all she ever
would love--
she would have cracked
from side to side
if beauty,
like a bitter taste,
had not held her
bound together--
if beauty,
in a blind
home-coming,
to herself
had not bound herself
ever-closer.
early music metaphor
string player
subtle
as an instrument
with ten strings, i
move
for you,
idea of
a lover.
as the church
awaits her bridegroom
so i
await you,
like the center
of the earth,
in a state of
banked yet constant fire--
like a shape in Hell,
self-enflagrate,
even when nothing's left
to burn
but the fire itself--
formless
but for its flame,
or frozen,
repeating
like the echoing vein
of the wood,
polished
into liquidity,
that makes up
the broken back
of the low-singing gamba.
subtle
as an instrument
with ten strings, i
move
for you,
idea of
a lover.
as the church
awaits her bridegroom
so i
await you,
like the center
of the earth,
in a state of
banked yet constant fire--
like a shape in Hell,
self-enflagrate,
even when nothing's left
to burn
but the fire itself--
formless
but for its flame,
or frozen,
repeating
like the echoing vein
of the wood,
polished
into liquidity,
that makes up
the broken back
of the low-singing gamba.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
sound of science
i'm NOT depressed. i'm just using this blog as an outlet for when things get too weird.
as, for example, now--i'm wondering if every sizeable part in every opera will be as difficult to handle emotionally as cornelia's being (that totally maybe makes grammatical sense). i mean, granted, she has about thirteen arias, ALL of which deal with the subject of wanting to kill herself (a slight exaggeration). but, although i like comic characters, it's the tragic ones that kind of do it for me. and being cornelia's kind of killing me a little.
in a way it's probably just that it's too damn much to do. between the rehearsals for giulio cesare, the rehearsals for rake's progress chorus, and the rehearsals for suor angelica, even though i haven't put in ANY time on either rake's progress OR suor angelica (nothing like being a super-impressive student, here)--and class, even though i skipped class a bunch last week--and this...whatever it is, paint-by-number project of piecing myself together out of colors, voices, answered questions, and random-ass symbolism--
it's not working out. there's not enough of me to go around.
which is what everyone says. and they always survive. and i'm going to survive. but at what cost? i refuse to give on the cornelia thing. i'm going to keep trying to put more than as much of myself as is possible into her. i hope it's working; i don't actually know.
i mean, i hope that it's not just being her that's making me this...shattered; i want to be shattered, at the end of my rope, etc., because that's where she is; i just don't want to be there all the time. in a professional production, would the rehearsal time be this long? maybe, right? but i wouldn't be trying to do as much? except i might?
there's a rumor floating around within the various entities that are trying to help me piece together a self-identifiable self--you know, the ones that might mean i'm crazy? it's that pain is my gift. like buffy, with death. oh god. i mean, that the way pain is within me is a gift of mine (nice rephrase, sra. way to really explain the heck out of the concept). i don't understand what this means--i don't see what it entails, aside from the berserker streak that might just be a product of over-strong amygdalic reaction. pain is a method by which i define myself, but i use it in the old sense--the unconnected, over-intellectual, overly brutal sense of self, self in the vacuum, that i'm being reformulated from. i don't know how to break the hard plastic shell and get at the truth behind pain... it's too separate, too distinct. maybe that's the issue.
right now my shoulders hurt real bad. i'm not loving the sensation.
bitch and moan. bitch and moan.
as, for example, now--i'm wondering if every sizeable part in every opera will be as difficult to handle emotionally as cornelia's being (that totally maybe makes grammatical sense). i mean, granted, she has about thirteen arias, ALL of which deal with the subject of wanting to kill herself (a slight exaggeration). but, although i like comic characters, it's the tragic ones that kind of do it for me. and being cornelia's kind of killing me a little.
in a way it's probably just that it's too damn much to do. between the rehearsals for giulio cesare, the rehearsals for rake's progress chorus, and the rehearsals for suor angelica, even though i haven't put in ANY time on either rake's progress OR suor angelica (nothing like being a super-impressive student, here)--and class, even though i skipped class a bunch last week--and this...whatever it is, paint-by-number project of piecing myself together out of colors, voices, answered questions, and random-ass symbolism--
it's not working out. there's not enough of me to go around.
which is what everyone says. and they always survive. and i'm going to survive. but at what cost? i refuse to give on the cornelia thing. i'm going to keep trying to put more than as much of myself as is possible into her. i hope it's working; i don't actually know.
i mean, i hope that it's not just being her that's making me this...shattered; i want to be shattered, at the end of my rope, etc., because that's where she is; i just don't want to be there all the time. in a professional production, would the rehearsal time be this long? maybe, right? but i wouldn't be trying to do as much? except i might?
there's a rumor floating around within the various entities that are trying to help me piece together a self-identifiable self--you know, the ones that might mean i'm crazy? it's that pain is my gift. like buffy, with death. oh god. i mean, that the way pain is within me is a gift of mine (nice rephrase, sra. way to really explain the heck out of the concept). i don't understand what this means--i don't see what it entails, aside from the berserker streak that might just be a product of over-strong amygdalic reaction. pain is a method by which i define myself, but i use it in the old sense--the unconnected, over-intellectual, overly brutal sense of self, self in the vacuum, that i'm being reformulated from. i don't know how to break the hard plastic shell and get at the truth behind pain... it's too separate, too distinct. maybe that's the issue.
right now my shoulders hurt real bad. i'm not loving the sensation.
bitch and moan. bitch and moan.
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