Poem of the Week
Of Betrayal And Flight
* i wrote this in the spring of 2004 *
From where I stood
with the moon around me
in liquid form,
your skin shone whiter than normal,
your eyes a woodland creature,
your hands ready to claw out,
to pull those night lights down
from the hollow sky and
smear them across my chest.
From where I stood,
these things:
the solid beams through the branches,
the half smile of a thief,
the twisted hand of depression
create a longing
that stirs in me like
whip-poor-wills in dead leaves,
like a rusty chain across my ankles.
You disappear and I stand naked.
- Saturday, February 26, 2005 untitled
* i wrote this poem in 2003 after driving down I-10 through west texas, new mexico, arizona, and off to california. it's strange that i found this hand-written jumble of paper as i'm doing it again in two weeks. i knew i'd never publish this, so i thought i'd share it with you... xoxo *
The highway will hypnotize you out west
when the thunderous, erupting ground gives way
to the smooth desert land and
strangled plants appear.
It is where the tall cacti are seen worshipping God,
calling out to distant lovers they can see
and not touch, praying eternally to the
magnetic sky that seems to pull them ever upward.
The dust whips high into the oven air
like a big brown cloud, a smokescreen that tries
to cover far-off plateaus like
a sheet over a table, and
the spinning windmills alien to the mountain below them,
some quite still, and others with their white, metallic
sides moving rhythmically to the ubiquitous
wind from distant waters.
I love this barren land.
I love it like a sharp object loves skin,
like a bee loves a fallen apple.
I will drive through you next week, moving in the
opposite direction, this time parallel to the trains
and not fighting the fury of the wind.
- Thursday, February 03, 2005 poem of the week archives