LMF - Jewel Poetry

Sometimes
Sometimes
I feel
my heart
fall
to vague depths
between
words there
are such
spaces that
I can't help
but feel
my heart
fall
between
the pregnant pause
of all you will
not say
and all
I can
not ask

Father Of A Deaf Girl
Every time her hands began to stutter he became enraged.
She threw these fits sometimes and he never took the time to
understand what they meant, or why she shook so terribly.
Her words were wasted on him.
Her hands useless birds caged by their quiteness.
He did not understand them and so he would immobilize
them, tying her wrists together so they'd
jump like awkward fish gasping at the shock of the air.
Unheard they'd dance like that for hours, her eyes full
of silent desperation, on the other side of the closet door.
He never even knew what they were saying.
I want to fly from here! I want to fly from here!
I want to fly from here! I want to fly from here!
I want to fly from here! I want to fly from here!

Insecurity you don't call
I check again
I become uneasy
is this a frame?
Suddenly I'm not so sure
I check my sources
each conversation becomes crumb
how easily I'm led
how stupid I've been
to believe
you could be
loving me
you who can not be seduced
by anything other than
the temperance
of need--
each one facilitating the next
and suddenly I see my place
the phone rings
you say hello
but I don't believe you

I Miss Your Touch I miss your touch
all taciturn
like a migration of birds
nesting momentarily
upon my breast
then lifting
silver and quick-
undermining the landscape
with their abscence
my skin silent without
their song
A thirsty pool of patient flesh

12/9/95
Bukowsky's Widow My Prince has slipped!
and his face has turned
to shadow
his tongue no longer strong
but gray (how sad!)
it used to be so full
of spit and roses

My prince the stars have
fallen from your crown!
and I can not fathom
their fading
some things should be forever!

You've taken your coal
and seaward gage

You've taken you're will
and your weakness and left

me with nothing but
words to keep me warm
But I don't want them!
Take them back!

I want Paris
I want you drunk on wine
I want to walk with you
and hold you up
and giggle and kiss
God how I miss
your smile and thick skin

At night
            Do you remember?
            How I'd worry
and you'd press me tight
against you. Extinguishing
              the red flame
of my head against
your shoulder
              Smooth as chalk dust
you'd laugh in the face of
death and uncertainty
               Do you remember?
       you'd say time knew nothing
Well, now your gone
               and time is all I have left

Rosarito, Mexico

These strange tongueless people
with their large eyes like muddy sponges
absorbing every detail of
our white bodies

Our flesh an unfathomable dream
sex and cigarettes
and other visions of America
brought to their haveless little hands
through the miracle of TV

I Guess What I Wanted Was I guess what I
wanted was
to hear

you'd stay with me always

I guess what I
wanted was
to see

those hands vowing
never to leave my own

I guess what
I wanted was
to know

I am not loving in vain

Untitled The things you fear
are undefeatable
not by their nature
but by your approach

It Is Like A Dream (11)
    I want to take you
      I want to hold you
                             sweaty and spent
Telling you everything--

let the world fall
into it's sleep!

let these nations
destroy them selves
with swift roads and
impartial vow

For we shall be spared!

we shall be left standing
with four eyes and four hands
to face what's left
of concrete and honey

SEX
OPEN
FIRE
TORCH
TOUCH
SCREAM
GROIN
WET
PLEASURE
KISS
STEEL
TEETH
IRON
SEED
IMPLODE
SILENCE
SPACE
FALL
CLEANSE
ONE
EMPTY
THE
OTHER
HALF FULL

Lost Lost
is a puzzle
of stars
that breathes
like water
and chews
like stone

Alone

a reminder
of how far
your acceptance
is from
your understanding

Fear

a bird
that believes itself
into extinction

Desperation

the honest recognition
of a fake truth

Hope

seeing who you really are
at your highest
is who you will become

Grace

the refinement of a
Soul through time

Camouflage A gay man is sitting in
a hotel lobby
smoking
a cigarette

he stomachs my
breasts dutifully
like spinach or lima beans
or other things that
make one sick

because he fears
the red-necks
at the bar
are on to him

We Talk We talk
               slowly
about nothing
about movies
               we stick to
surface streets
               and find no
meaning in cafe windows
no substance in
               hotel rooms
I used to unwrap you!
tender layers unfolding
like eager gold
               but now
we are cool
and recount our daily bores
               as though
the sum or our
               uses
equaled
               something
               (more)
substantial
               while softer
things shrivel
               and dry roots
go unfed
               strangled
by the phone line
and all
               that is
               not said

Driving Home Through
Sun City, CA

Churches thrust phallic steeples
into the rosy flesh of dawn
as sleepy eyes file pavement
to a dull stub

commuter cars rattle like zippers
and undress my every nerve
like stories I already know
the ending to

no element of surprise
no unexpected filling
just chocolate Bon Bons
in the morning and
Gin and tonic when they
get home at night

Sometimes I Want To Run Sometimes I want to run
until my thoughts can't catch up

until my flesh falls away
like solied linen

so I can't scratch
and itch and rattle anymore

I want to run so fast
my feet forget
to be heavy

So objects don't
seem so stubborn

So I can remember
how to move them like magic
(LIKE I USED TO DO)
turn pillows to whispers
and doubt to something
less vain.

Sun Bathing Sun bathing
I read a book
and the man thinks
I cannot see
the wrinkled posture
of his son
as he is nudged

He thinks I can not sense
four eyes upon my flesh
as the father tries to bond
with his teenage boy
by ogling my breasts

Saved From Myself How often I've cried out
in silent tongue
to be saved
from myself

in the middle of the night
too afraid
to move

horrified the answer may be beyond the
capability of my own two hands

so small

(no one should ever feel this alone)

Moody Sometime I turn calico
trying to fathom
your fall
you turn all shades
to an indigo quiver
and at such depths
i do not know how
to penetrate or
turn heavy sighs
to something lighter

it used to be easy
but now I do not
              understand your
tongues account
              the language
changed
              my heart the same
But the vehicle ever moving
   toward it's Solemn vow
               with slow pulse.
I falter foolishly and doubt
my hands or the greatness
of words because words
are not as dependable
as stars

(It's hard to navigate with nothing)

Taking The Slaves They burn her eyes
in hopes of
understanding them

They kiss her mouth
so that they may
fathom
it's strange tongue

They indulge
in her brown skin because
it reminds them
of Mother

They rape her mind
because it is not their own
but so sweet
so familiar
like coming home to
a native land
their pale and inbred hands
can only faintly fathom

I Left The Ribs Of Adam

I left the boney ribs
of Adam

for the fruit
of my own
personal desire

It's scent still heavy
upon my flesh

my absence still
thorn
to his side

But now how my belly
hollows and aches
craving seed
craving kisses
but outside the road hisses

and I find myself
packing girlishness
in an old leather bag

love stepping lightly

away from the door

Wild Horse I'd like to call you my wild horse
and feed you silver sage

I'd like to paint my poems
with desert tongued clay
across
your back
and ride you savagely

as the sweet and southern wind
through a green and wild Kentucky.

I'd like to make you my secret son
blazing dark and red
in the orchards, and
steal away
to wath the way
your silver belly bends
and bows beneath me.

I'd make you my wings
in the foothills of Montana
my lover in the oceans of the world.

I'd like to make you my many calico children
and scatter you
across
the green memories of home.

I'd be your hungry valley,
and sow your Golden fields of wheat
in my womb.