Poems

These are some poems I wrote this past semester.
I hope you like them.
They're not really finished.
But I'm working on them.

Self-Portrait as Cavern

I am a tangible void.

I am your footsteps,

the echoes following your every move,

the splish-squelch of wet-muddy.

I am the increasingly cold

dampness and the unfamiliar texture

of the moss and fungi which intermingle

and reach out with their wispy antennae to

brush the back of your neck and cause

you to turn around and look

for my invisible hand.

I am the fading light behind you,

gradually becoming less and less

pervasive as you come into my domain.

I am the triple-forked intersection that gives you pause.

I am the increasing risk of not-finding-a-way-out.

I am the steady drip of stalactite to stalagmite that becomes a flick in the back

of the inside of your head, becoming more and more forceful regardless

of your distance from the source because I will remain for the ages

while you will either leave

or die here.

Not My Monkeys –  a ghazal-ish

He is a terror at six and a quarter, but for me, it’s perfectly good.

She whines a lot and doesn’t quite do what she should – not my monkeys.

The polish proverb does quote fair, “Not my circus, not my monkeys”

It’s a comfort when troubled with stuff, to rebut: not my monkeys.

You speak of infighting, gossip, and full-fledged pettiness.

Conversations and sentiments misunderstood? Not my monkeys.

The child at work who is not wearing pants, or the one with the runny-snot nose?

Should my patience wear thin and my kindness turn rude – not my monkeys.

If confronted with difficulties quite simply not your own,

some annoyance who refuses to get out of their mud – not my monkeys.

When I find you refuse to acknowledge the obvious, I’ll go.

For I may be Anne, but I’m not in the Sainthood – not my monkeys.

6 foot and a mile high

I dreamt my little brother was in a tank unit

in World War Two.

It terrified me.

Sometimes he spoke about going off

and joining the Marines, which scared me,

too. But not as much as the thought of him

somewhere in the 1940’s, so young, in a world

that seems much harsher and bloodier

than ours

his lanky teenaged self, a face that will be young

even when his unstable spine is curled with age

amidst harsh jawlines and harsher realities.

I have an irrational fear of cotton-balls.

Well, more of their texture than anything.

The thought of touching them or pulling them

apart makes me nauseous.

My little brother knows about the cotton-balls,

but not about how much the thought

of losing him, or seeing him in intense

misery makes me want to cry for what has not

even occurred.

He takes art classes now,

drawing the instruments of war

he will never actually use,

still obsessed with a world

he will never truly enter outside

of simulations in video games.

He’s not even that little anymore,

6 foot and a mile high, I swear,

sprawling yeti toes.

I know he misses me.

We have 3 years between us

but at times we’re more like

delayed twins

with all our inside jokes

and conversations in facial expressions.

My marriage, his insistence on growing up.

Fibers tearing with the ghost of their texture left on my fingertips.

I miss him too.