Spring Revisions (times in Creative Writing Class)

"in fact" - gregory and the hawk
#1
in fact i don't wanna be friends
Spaghetti noodles
Their twisting highways
They're around your fork,
For now—there embracing.

As your fingers wrapped,
succinctly surrounding silver
worn and bring the noodles slip and slide into your mouth.
The way the noodles unwound themselves—from and in again between the tines
The lapping suction of pierced lips on wet grain-worms,
your tongue trilling tones against metal tongs

Lips,
tongues,
sucking - you're invading acoustics

your mouth—flecks of sauce linger on it
a stray spatter on your nose
the left nostril,
you sense it, you wipe it away
you
tomatoey sauces
yours, it was mushrooms slices and garlic bits
oregano and parsley,
homemade and homegrown,
A crimson thickness staining your lips

it was your mouth—I tasted myself on
I wanted to,
taste myself on you
I wanted to taste you—
I did.
your skin
taut
muscles
curving, winding black ink
hips
arcing down into clinched white
tight errless folds
you glowing in the darkness of near-morning, open windowed
your attic
The sheets, the spread, your bare skin.
The suds that slipped off my skin in the morning
standing alone in your granite-tiled shower,
I removed you with her pomegranate shampoo
With her toothbrush, spearmint toothpaste,
I washed myself in her smells
I removed the film you'd left with her taste
You were probably reminded all the way down the stairs I descended

The salt on your lips an aftertaste, iced awareness coating
The belly like a soft-shell crab's underneath my tongue—
A stalactite glazed over the back of my throat
The ribcage on the roof of my mouth—my mouth
left open, full of these places, dusted over with flecks of dead skin.
Yours truly,
and I felt you before I felt you
did you feel me too?

#2
lye's pith and lava
You are the in between of glass,
the see through part.
the shards of ice crystal fallen from a Northern sky,
where only flurries fall it seems—
an accident you found me
tripping in the middle of a thick forest deep—
the balding center of a middle-aged man's head
stood opening onto a tiny globed world of differentiating flakes.
A gift given, shaken to see the snow swirl around in it's captured tornado form
and wound to hear it's tinkering jingle bells whining in weaving return.

And all the "hellos" and laughter
all the jokes and games—like when you'd take hold of my hand and squeeze.
and the peach-kissed cheeks and jeans,
the ring round the middle of my left handed finger
the parts of me you've taken
In each of your photograph's frozen—all of it
stripped away as you stand alone in your winter

And something in your face, on your pale skin bared
something, a balding vacancy, I saw even as
the bloated clouds in your manmade sky colored and crafted this—
your suspended self.
In the slanted back and forth motions of an arthritic forearm, her wrist at an angle
A white-colored pencil on a cardinal blue piece of construction paper,
it was really quite simple when I saw—when I saw you and I wanted
to take you up, all your criss crossed shapes and lines, and tuck you alongside.

As easy as the water, cascades down my wet morning skin
I am the plastic melded into filmy building blocks—the shower wall
make-shifted bubbles inside, I wanted you as one of them
you, but you'd never sit still.
And it was your winter bed I left myself suspended
naked praying in; awake
with both eyes open and blinking—you'll never know the words I write about you as
we are still just
we are all just humming skin.

#3
taboganning
It's hibernation season again, and I've grown
Seething in my own settling adipose,
in my flightless plumage, my penguin skin
I scarcely find it in me to stare back at myself.
I've found no reason to change my ways—
as a new year waddles in.
Rosey-cheeked and ample bosomed;
more warmth to come by on a rack of sinewed bones.

I'm cleaving…
to a thick fallen snow fourteen years in the making
a pricker bush no longer standing
shrouded in a cloak 2 feet deep, a peddler's voice to the infantile.
Daylight savings came to pass (fourteen times nonetheless)
I've scarcely breathed to notice

to photograph my footprints. To have experienced joy—snowfall, fluorescent bareskin, moonlight spewn as the sun stirs
a six year old's eyes through tilted blinds

breathe, cloud, shallow
swallowing

It is only now that I recall
and want it back.


I am alone.
Aside from this I sit, amongst friends.
With a bottle of plum wine and 3/4 tempo I've come—drowning in and out his or her words,
all penguins are counter-shaded just the same and still,
insatiable is my will to record these moments—
of laughter without the nagging knowledge that it will soon end
a kiss with no conclusion (eye's open)
a wedding band stitched in wrinkles
the comfort of a past,
a present where held breathes can only last so long

this long this year.
I've seen a richer purple.
Edges bitten by orange flames, dull, a stricken imbalance like wind.
Nothing again will ever be this easy, life
the living.

for nothing and everything and jose gonzalez

"Crosses" - Jose Gonzalez

there's a warmth in my bed
when the music is playing
there's a warmth in my bed
even when i'm alone
there's a warmth in my bed
and it's not worth repeating
a bodies could split
the seam of a heart

there's a stillness that falls
when only one heart's left beating
there's a stillness that falls
among the artists of breathing
there's a stillness that falls
with each process completed
a bodies could stutter
the rhythm of a heart

there's depression decreasing
on your side of my bed
there's depression decreasing
with each warm day alone
there's depression decreasing
even still and i know
a bodies could smother
the burn of my heart

when finally set free

Yours was the first, albeit the worst
and yet a belief inside--i'd never find
in another. the first, northern glowing lights
experience, a horrible, mismashed, stick and turn and stick once more
slimy experience. to break the fall
lessen the tremor. such a big heart you had, have
i miss you.
second, learning together
up you went, we grew
good God, i miss
laughter -- chocolate running -- grass hands -- ice
mismatched eyes -- cream poetry pictures --
yours and mine, family
the end from lack of sleep & growth
(i skipped a few)
a cross on his neck and back and boots
to match, to fit between the gap in his two front teeth
but when he was - there - God
tick
words
tick tick
were
tick
roads driven at speeds
tick tick tick
on paved gray platforms
tick
bare backs, grass, the sky and brass bars
tick - i hate to say this, don't need
want to say this - between a whistling teeth
nothing more than that, not a thing

in the rain, one day, you fell on me
i found you worth saving in front of everyone
i learned how it felt to be
the one to hurt another
and i reveled in it, i reveled in the change of scenery
all night, early morning, day
drank, you did, and i it in
you--it was only because of who you were to me, and your grip
and your scared eyes searching everywhere but me
i want you to look at me, you did
fell

you were the best
you took me for everything i was
you know who i could be
you took who i could be
you were nothing i needed
i deserve none of you
there is none of you ever worth deserving
waste you still
hurt me
and you think you deserve? the skill you gave

you, to me, are worth nothing less than the worsening of a progression into hell
we're done.

onward, drunken, onward flying--whipping--lashing
walls, windows, showers open onto backyards, single
naked smoke curling, tempting a dream to become
front stoops, the shot, the stare, the word
words, pictures, notes, things needing to be typed
message, massage, a mess
a candle, a movie--three movies--chocolate
coffee, eggs, residue--alcohol bloody legged last year's being
a failed beginning--a chancing mid--ending apology for everything
taken, away, for granted
you're the sweetest, greatest, most wonderful girl in the world. why thank you.

1--you know the before in me i never had. you took me, thank you.
2--several times, not much to say.
3--saw.
4--not worth mentioning, not worth the words you've got stuck in your head that you're allowed to write. good luck.


there was a time
when it all just was
and there, you were, accumulating everything
the shit and the wonder
since then no other
by choice, i've been here
i'm here and i dream of something, anything
deja vu's & sweet memories i've imagined and remember when i wake

these are.
we don't live here anymore.
these
me and you and everyone
we know.

"When Finally Set Free" - Copeland

cause I know you by heart

i wasn't ready for this, caught up in the things
the moments and people who've never mattered
but you, you changed everything about me and i didn't even have the self to look you in the eye as you said goodbye.
your love, you are something i could hold all day long and never ever tire of
i'll wear it infinity, infinitely you're inside
my heart, my eyes, the way i talk, react, write, think, speak
even my voice is yours
i wasn't ready for this, i'm a coward kindly waiting
to deserve, what you've been given
my heart is yours i want you to know--whoever, wherever, with-ever you might be
my songbird, hurricane, my stolen car
on a street where you and i will forever be kept, in the rain, holding hands
touching, i wanted so badly to taste your lips
your smell lays on my skin, like it's always been
tonight were you might be laying your head
i wasn't ready for this.


"I Know You By Heart" - Eva Cassidy

Warmth en doors

when your foot hit the groundand the water surround
cascade, it fell in upswept hurricanes around
our heads, hips, bare legs, and feet
we ran down that canopied concrete, we ran
hats soaked to a matted head
2 in the front, 3 in the back
driving, speeding, evening traffic
Stone Mountain men, drizzling, laser lights projected
laughter carried frisbees and fat, lazy summertime Georgians
out on a day like today, that day
the sky fell to spite them

him.
The day we met, we split
dinner, flash photography
foursome
never have we been so happily unknown

you taught me to inhale when i took a bite
Talk Tonight Mona Lisas
and Madhatters in a Spanish city, tunneling
little silver discs don't stop believin'
I'd forgotten how good your smell felt on my tongue
standing in the driveway, 2 AM, you're alive with music
those hands light skin on the space right above the small of my back
I'd forgotten how it felt when you held me
ten times in a row
I had to leave before I remembered,
what it felt like to kiss you.

I'd forgotten how much I missed you.

"Tupelo Honey" - Van Morrison

the airport, if necessary

to lose
and the emptying is such a release
release, you've been gone for so long now
i can scarcely remember
the way the slit of your eyes tilt towards,
the way the sun hints at mine
and i've seen them before but the old and the young pretend not to know
midday, one another
how easily we are strangers in Midtown City, eyes catch
we see one another and there, is, no, response
to a heart that once shed itself bare when sickening thoughts filled
a mind, a mouth of consecration, tie me
to a heart that binds, binding words flowing
through an early, early morning line
you bide your time until
She
comes
home
you'll forget and hold her hand and you'll
forgotten, two years prior, the one, that, was there
despite whatever pitfalls you might've seen,
she flew 532 miles, it falls
she's sitting
waiting
1 dozen roses, ocean blue she's waiting
and you
never get it,
you never come.

decorum and fragment

i'm up and over
spilling down the sides
of a cup, ridges, solo

marching in a solid, straight line
facing forward, sturdy
stern--ridgid watching
it, pour out of you
you're solo, on a stage
but you belong, the warmth
you'll never question who you are; you've taken over.
simply

i cry, on the street
crouched on the corner, brick wall, by the bookstore
i left the place you'd once comforted me
i slip my hands underneath, take you into me
you're gone, one last time, i don't wait
no hugs
no last dance, kiss where jaw meets cheek
you'll leave no music to color my memory
you'll leave no footprints, because you chose this fame
my bed stays empty, lopsided where a brand new pillow lays
you'll leave--the one i knew--you did
months before
you were gone
i'd never been asked to stay the night

and i'm still here, i'm still the same person,
i'm still running, i'm still laughing
i am still the same voice
i am
still
running.
i rest a moment, i study