so it goes

Recess at Midnight - draft 1

2010-10-19T00:36:00.000-04:00

You called it my spy car,

so I was your James Bond, crouching

in the woodchips of rocket ships and enemy fortresses,

cleverly disguised as yellow plastic –

the street light flickering orange,

electricity skipping across a florescence of puddles

not yet splashed through.

We shouted “bang” at the dark

as if telling the world to play dead would stop time,

(our words hitting the cogs and chipping the teeth

like the slide that chipped mine)

yet even the leaves are rusted

and falling while the trees shake bare branches like bones –

(when did I outgrow this skeleton place?)

I took you to East Hall

and we watched the vines grow into the classrooms.

Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.

(the chairs are still there)

Technicolor - final draft (I say, now)

2010-06-12T00:34:00.000-04:00

In pictures, the flash smoothes
over shadows - where history lurks,
and I can see the handprints of my family
before me, clawing to get free.
You can't capture this kind of suffering with photography.

And you wouldn't pose with headstones,
so why do you stuff this ovens with smiles?
At least graveyards are filled with flowers,
but the only flowers here are roses
caught in barbed wire,
and petal-shaped patches of grass
poking through cracks
in the pavement. I wonder

if the children played in the ash
like snow, making angels
on their backs
in the powder of their mother's bones,
pretending their arms were really wings
made of flesh
waiting to stretch
and take them through snatches of a sky
too perfectly blue
(like my great grandfather's eyes
shaded by his new SS helmet).

Have you ever seen yourself reflected
in the glass of a gas chamber door,
and stood choking on your own heritage,
stitching yellow stars
onto swastikas
on your arms

stitching yellow stars
onto swastikas
on my arms

as I hold the hands of ghosts
on both sides of my family tree,
the leaves withering
in the frozen dust
of eleven million dead relatives.

I am painting those yellow stars
on the prison bars
with the ink what was once my skin,
I am painting souls
in the boots of the Gestapo
with the powder
of my great grandmother's bones,
and I'm painting life on my cheeks
with the rose-colored dust
at my feet -

why death comes in technicolor is beyond me.
It smells like the rotted wings
of songbirds that fried
in the streams of black butterflies,
but imagine my surprise
when a single monarch
landed delicately on my hand
and proved that it isn't 1945.

If Pavel Friedman* were alive I'm sure he would have cried
for all the butterflies
that colored this Aryan blue sky

with life

- every time the sun's tears sang
against the white stone walls,
the liquid pooled
in the cracks and fed the grass,
and kissed the petals hanging from roses
caught in barbed wire.

In pictures, the flash smoothes
over shadows.

But life isn't in black and white.

It's bullets
and butterflies.

*Pavel Friedman wrote the poem "I Never Saw Another Butterfly"

Memories of Halloween

2010-03-31T23:51:00.003-04:00

canvassing on vine street

The splattered remains of Halloween

lay like carcasses to rot on the damp pavement,

piles of mush studded with cigarette butts

still smoldering. The smoke curled

through the air like fingers

stroking the faces of passing people,

and stealing the pink from their lungs

with ash-flecked hands. Nicotine-kissed

lips of college students searched for recollection

amidst shards of beer bottles and kegs, but me?

I'm searching for that day from my memories where small children,

cheeks pink from fall chills and the promise of candy,

were all sticky fingers clutching wrappers

like receipts for happiness, as though happiness

really does come in a pumpkin shaped plastic bag.

canary feathers version two

2010-03-18T17:12:00.002-04:00

Revised piece for creative writing class.

I used to watch

the chirping songbird

send sating streams of sunlight

(yellow feathers flapping

through bars in wooden cages)

through the charred rock

of the grimy mine,

but they relieved our detectors

of their feathers,

and replaced them with machines.

I never got used to the taste of ash,

as it always lingered at the back

of my throat and on my lips.

(how death tastes like cigarettes)

I never got used to soot's

grey touch on my skin,

each day painting

(metal brushstrokes)

my lungs

black.

over the relentless cacophony of metal on stone,

the canary sang, its notes slipping through the cracks

in our plastic armor, a delicate trill sounding loudly

like pounding keys on a piano.

you can trust a bird.

it's harder to trust an LED.

you can't whistle to a digital display.

bleating faintly in the backdrop of the mines,

the detector kept time erratically,

and I miss the beat

of wings whistling through the airshafts

like bees.

everywhere there is noise.

electricity bleeds through the plastic armor,

the color seeping a warning.

everywhere there was noise.

until one day,

silence.

(I'd rather death taste of cigarettes)

Walking With Ghosts - edit

2010-03-14T23:21:00.007-04:00

Still a work in progress, but better. Influenced by Andrea Gibson and "I Never Saw Another Butterfly", by Pavel Friedman. The location is still Mauthausen. I've also renamed it.

Technicolor

In pictures, the flash smoothes

over shadows. Shadows where history lurks,

where I can see the handprints of my family

before me, clawing to get free.

You can't capture this kind of suffering with photography.

And you wouldn't pose with headstones,

so why do you stuff these ovens with smiles?

At least graveyards are filled with flowers,

but the only flowers here are roses

caught in barbed wire,

and petal shaped patches of grass

poking up through cracks

in the pavement. I wonder

if the children played in the ash

like snow, making angels

on their backs

in the powder of their mothers' bones,

pretending their arms were really wings

made of flesh

waiting to stretch

and take them through snatches of a sky

too perfectly blue.

Have you ever seen yourself reflected

in the glass of a gas chamber door,

and stood choking on your own heritage,

stitching yellow stars

onto swastikas

on my arms

as they hold the hands of ghosts

on both sides of my family tree,

the leaves withering

in this snow that isn't snow.

I am painting yellow stars

on the prison bars

with the ink that was once my skin,

I am painting souls

in the boots of the Gestapo

with the powder

of my great grandmother's bones,

and I'm painting life on my cheeks

with the rose-colored dust

at my feet -

why death comes in technicolor is beyond me.

It smells like the rotted wings

of songbirds that fried

in the streams of black butterflies,

but imagine my surprise

when a single monarch

proved it isn't 1945.

If Pavel Friedman were here I'm sure he would have cried

for all the butterflies

that colored this Aryan blue sky

with life,

and every time the sun's tears sang

against the white stone

of the walls, the liquid pooled

in the cracks and fed the grass,

kissed the petals hanging from roses

caught in barbed wire.

In pictures, the flash smoothes

over shadows.

But life isn't in black and white.

It's bullets,

and butterflies.

Oh, Uggs [first draft]

2010-02-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

We were given a pair of shoes and thirty minutes to write a story. It had to be about the shoes. So here's what I came up with. Expect a second draft before Tuesday.

...

For a bear, I consider myself to be incredibly fashion forward. I love it when the campers pull up in their top-safety rated minivans stuffed full with technology, because, of course, you can't build a fire without your DVD player to guide you. Sometimes, I sneak in and watch reruns of Project Runway while the little humans sleep. The brave ones come in winter. The stupidly brave ones leave all of their winter food laying out. I take it as an invitation.

Anyway, I've been recently quite disappointed with the latest fads. Fall is a time for chic, sexy boots, with lots of do-dads and zippers. They may not keep you warm, but you'll look fabulous. Fall is not a time for endless, identical round things that look as though they've been stuffed with the fur of bear cubs. When you only get to see a hundred or so humans a year, it's nice when they all look different. These new, "trendy" boots do have one advantage, though; they're named appropriately. Every time I see them I can't help but go, "oh, Ugg."

It was the last week of the camping season, and a bit of a chill was in the air. The tree branches were dusted with frost, and the sky was the impenetrable grey of imminent snow. A battered white station wagon, supplies falling from every window, pulled up. Two young women fell out, sliding across the icy pavement and skidding to a stop on the overgrown grass. The air smelled like wintermints, but that might have just been the gum stuck to the underside of the park benches.

Both girls were wearing those blasted boots. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have reacted as I did. But for three months, all I'd seen were Ugg boots. They don't even have any traction, for bacon's sake. I had to get those shoes. I couldn't take it any longer.

Now, even in the best of times, it's hard to have a proper introduction. For some reason, you humans think that every time you see a bear, it's about to eat you, your children, and all of your food. While the last one may be true, it is possible for a creature, especially a quite civilized one like myself, to simply want a short chat about fashion. Is that really so much to ask for? The typical human response is to run away. Or start screaming. Often both. Sometimes, the smaller humans will try to cuddle me (I blame this on those "care bear" things, which are so insulting; no bear in his right mind would prance about looking that messy. Pastels are so not in), only to be restrained by the older, greyer humans. Unfortunately, whenever I try to communicate my intent, it comes out rather…growly.

This being said, I had a feeling that it'd be unwise to walk up to these humans and start lecturing on the need for some sort of individuality when it comes to footwear. I decided to let them settle in for a while. It's also fun to watch them attempt to light fires Cro-Magnum style, give up, and settle for lighters. So I waited for nightfall, letting them cozy into their down-lined sleeping bags and cuddle up by the fire, as it crackled its brilliant light onto their faces.

"Give me your boots. They're just so boring, and a nice pair of knee-highs with a pointed toe would be so much more flattering," I tried to say, stepping forward jovially, paw outstretched.

They screamed.

I hate it when that happens.

Lumbering over to the offending pieces of footwear, I deftly snatched a pair from the ground, holding it with two claws as far away from my face as possible. I think that I might have messed up the lining and scuffed the sides, but who knows. Tattered is so popular these days, anyway.

For a few seconds, it seemed like all was going to go well. I'd get rid of the boots, and the girls could go about their evening. Normal humans see the bear, and run away, or stay very still and wait for me to leave. That would be fine. These two, sadly, were not normal humans. The smaller of the two (and apparent owner of the pilfered winter wear) stood up quickly, and dove for her car. She then emerged with a shotgun.

What kind of girl brings a shotgun to a camping trip?

"Holy shit, why do you have a gun?" I'm glad the friend and I agree.

"Those boots were the last thing my grandmother gave me before she died! She traveled all the way to Australia for them, just because I wanted them for my birthday," she turned to me, "give them back!" She shouted, brandishing the weapon.

Shit. Family is way more important than fashion.

The flames flickered on her face, and I could see that she was crying. While there's something truly satisfying about trashing a luxury SUV then watching the humans bemoan their bad insurance, this was different. I didn't like this.

"Okay, okay," I said, stepping back with my paws in the air. She probably just heard a roar, but that was okay. I set the boots down on the ground, and walked away.

Hopefully, the trends will improve next year.

creative writing assignment

2010-02-04T01:28:00.001-05:00

canary feathers

the chirping songbird

sent satin streams of sunlight

(yellow feathers flapping

through bars in wooden cages)

through the charred rock

of the grimy mine.

I never got used to the taste of ash,

as it always lingered at the back

of my throat and on my lips.

(how death tastes like cigarettes)

I never got used to soot’s

grey touch on my skin,

each day painting

(metal brushstrokes)

my lungs

black.

over the relentless cacophony of metal on stone,

the canary sang, its notes slipping through the cracks

in our plastic armor, a delicate trill sounding loudly

like pounding keys on a piano.

everywhere there was noise,

buzzing through airshafts like bees

until one day

silence.

(I’d rather death taste of cigarettes)

Paying the Bills (first draft, first segment)

2010-01-24T22:36:00.004-05:00

For my creative writing class, my homework is to write the beginning of a short story based on a conversation that I overheard. Here's the conversation that I chose:

A: You gotta wash your hands.

B: It doesn't matter.

A: Your face don't matter!

Next, we had to write a blurb based on this conversation, which would form the outline of the story. Here's mine:

In this buddy flick with herpes, meet Jenny, a down on her luck mother who turns to expert prostitute Holly in order to pay the bills and care for her son.

Finally, here's the first draft of the first segment of my short story.

"Paying the Bills"

On the street corners of New York, Holly was a legend. She was no mere hooker, no plain ho to be claimed as conquest by the city’s underbelly. Holly was an executive prostitute. And I was her protégée.

This is how I ended up between the legs of a rather unfortunate and unwashed man, smelling like a combination of sweat socks, beer, and ranch Doritos. I was his morning quickie, the breakfast of champions. Everyone has to pay the bills. Some sell drugs, some sell happiness in neat little plastic containers of toys and gadgets, some sell their votes in Congress. Me? I sell my body.

“Jenny, honey,” Holly said, sighing over a pair of stilettos, “you’re going to need some sharp heels. Johns can get testy.”

“They’re all named John?” My prior prostitution experience was limited to the bar of chocolate I received in the seventh grade for kissing the weird kid with braces during a game of spin the bottle. My street cred was probably in the negative numbers.

“We have a lot of work to do, don’t we.”

So began Hooker 101. Somehow, that course wasn’t on the list of requirements at my cushy university, where you paid thousands of dollars a year to listen to old men inflate their egos in giant lecture halls. The degree did come in handy, though, I sold the sterling silver frame to pay for lipstick. It was tax deductible as a business expense, even. Under Holly’s master teaching, I learned how to slip one night stands around my mind and body like wedding bands, convincing both myself and the john that this love, my love, was the best he was ever going to get, so pay me an extra twenty. Love, lust, sex, everything’s a commodity. That’s why my lipstick looks fit for the shaft of every dick, why my dress and fishnets show way too much skin. Advertisers have been using sex to sell shit we don’t need for years, it’s about time women sell sex to get shit we do need. But more on that later.

My first trick was the hardest. There’s nothing really comparable to it; the thrill of walking up to a man, eyes shrouded in too much make up, hiding behind black eyeliner, throwing your dignity away with that light rap on the window. His name was Chad, and he looked like a walking stereotype, all chains and plastic bling. His penis, he told me, was named Spike. The fact that he named his dick was sort of a clue as to why he needed to pay someone for sex. The cold sores on his face were also a pretty good hint.

Afterward, Holly lazily sauntered down the stairs of her apartment, neatly sidestepping the drug addicts as they lay in opiate oblivion. This is how an executive prostitute moves, I thought. This is how someone with money can afford to walk.

“How’d it go?”

“Um. Pretty well. He’s all over my hands, though. It’s really kind of gross.”

“You gotta wash your hands.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shrugging, trying not to touch my clothes.

“Your face doesn’t matter.” She frowned, and used a violently red nail to draw cold sores around her lips and jaw.

“Oh. Right. Herpes.” My face fell. My first day on the job, and already I’m diseased.

“You’ve got the gift that keeps on giving all over your hands. If you avoid working with your hands while the sores appear, you should be fine. Don’t want to immobilize both assets, do we?” She gave me a quick once over, eyeing my skanky tank. “Are those stretch marks?”

And the Light Leaves Her Eyes

2010-01-24T20:33:00.003-05:00

This is an old piece, from ATYP II (so, 2008). The assignment was to write a piece inspired by Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. This is what happened when I put my crazy ass brain to it.

"And the Light Leaves Her Eyes"

The little girl stared at her action figures, a stony expression on her pallid face. She wasn’t an ordinary girl--her mother was never home, and her father wished that she was a little boy. So instead of pretty dolls and silky dresses, she got Batman and a closet full of tee shirts and ripped jeans.

Now, she looked into the box of Power Rangers, GI Joes, Supermans, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, wishing that, for once, they could look back at her. Her usually blank and empty eyes filled with tears and left a glistening path on her pale face. The girl didn’t get out much, and thus had no friends.

In addition to playing with the action figures, the girl also read books of every sort, her favorites being scientific in nature. In one rainy day she would devour four or five books on the human brain or the skeletal structure of man (Neanderthal included!). She amassed such a knowledge of the inner workings of man and beast that she began to tinker with her figures, first giving them bones and joints of wire, making them bend and move freely. Next she created a simple computer and placed it in her favorite figure, a worn old Batman, its features so faded from use that the expression now resembled that of a cow facing an oncoming train.

This simple brain sated the girl’s hunger for a friend for a short amount of time, but the little machine was constantly overheating, and because she programmed the doll’s set of phrases to be applicable to any conversation, her long chats with her one and only friend felt a tad one-sided. The little girl longed for a real friend, for real life, not just flashing lights and clockwork.

So the girl continued to work, and as the years went by, she replaced the wire with small animal bones, her simple computers got increasingly complex, but still, the girl yearned for life, and it alluded her grasping fingers. She would work tirelessly into the night, becoming a mere shadow of a person, consumed by her dreams, soon to be nightmares.

She began to think that she would never succeed. That this task was too great for one such as her. But she still worked, the joy of discovery and experimentation long gone from her face and demeanor. Her body began to plead her mind to end her madness. Dark circles ringed her crazed eyes, graying hair clung to her head in matted and lank clumps. Her skin was sallow and she became frail and fragile. The death of her parents hardly registered in her possessed thoughts.

But then she did it. There was no masterfully orchestrated scene in a gloomy laboratory, no lightning illuminating a bloodstained table with a sanguine beast perched upon it, no dramatic build up to a climax of “it’s alive,” and no soundtrack of screams and suspenseful music. There was just the girl, now a very old woman, clutching a small and faded Batman doll, a rapturous expression on her withered face. She had finally done it.

She rushed to replicate her success, and gave life to every one of her little figures, caressing the now warm plastic with trembling fingers, sobbing wretchedly, as the gift of laughter was long lost.

The dolls came to life, running, laughing, talking and playing. The room was filled with a warm glow and there was a cheeriness to the very air. Batmans fought with Supermans over floor space, the brightly colored plastic faintly shining with light and life. Each movement was accompanied by a small clicking noise, like that of many cats running across a wooden floor. Eyes shone with joy, small black dots painted upon plastic faces glittered with a happiness unknown to dollkind. This cold and dark place had was now ablaze with comfort and company.

But the woman felt out of place. She was confused, she had succeeded, she now had friends...so why did something feel wrong?

The woman looked around. She was surrounded by life. The only dead thing in the room was her.

Happy Meal (rough draft)

2010-01-18T23:10:00.002-05:00

the first few stanzas, all conceived past one in the morning, of "happy meal"

Depression is a disease for the fortunate,

for people who cower behind fences

in suburbia and drive SUVs.

There are people in America

who starve because you can't eat

teardrops, they can't eat their tears,

and you think your life is hard.

Look into the eyes of a Haitian child

standing in the dusty rubble of his life,

staring at the outstretched hand

of his mother

from under the bones of his home; crumbled.

Us poets can afford to use words like "earthquake"

as only metaphor, but to the 200 000 dead and counting

(bones playing peek-a-boo through soiled tee shirts)

it's buildings falling like tears -

the sky, too perfectly blue, is crying

(concrete rain bursts on impact)

and you think that reality tv is heart-wrenching.

This boy is watching men drag the twisted bodies

of his brother and sister

onto the road, sitting to rot, sitting like shells

of bullet casings,

of childhoods crushed by the house poverty built.

He survived to be medivac-d to McDonald's,

where children white as bones

showing through his clenched fists

think sadness is a bad toy in their happy meals.

[end of ramble, I'm not quite sure where this is going to go]

Happy Meal (idea post)

2010-01-17T01:03:00.002-05:00

I've enrolled in a creative writing course at the local university, partly as an attempt to learn to write a plot properly, and partly because I'm going insane not having an English class. So far, it's incredibly interesting. We brought in bits of conversation that we'd picked up by being creepers, completely removed the context, and formed stories around them. One of them really sparked my interest: two little boys who always hang out in McDonald's, with no parents, not buying anything.

I decided that I'll have the narrator be this college kid who works there (for some reason, I want the kid to be a guy), and he eventually gets to know the children. They're either going to be Katrina victims, or kids from Haiti. I really want him to start buying them food.

This'll either be a very short story in the first person, or a spoken word piece. I'll probably just write a lump of text, then format it/edit depending on how it comes out.

Welcome to the Freakshow (more ideas)

2010-01-17T00:33:00.002-05:00

So, I've decided that I'm going to make the year a little bit later, because 1894 seems too soon. That, and I want H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who operated during that time period, to be imprisoned, if not dead already, which means that I'm shooting for 1896ish.

Some quick history (that I find incredibly interesting):

Dr. H. H. Holmes (an alias, his real name was Herman Webster Mudgett, or something like that) set up this monstrous building filled with hidden gas chambers, a soundproof vault, quick-lime pits, acid traps, and a kiln for body disposal to house people during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. He'd lure women in with his good looks and charm, force them to buy life insurance with him as the beneficiary, then murder them, remove their flesh, and sell their skeletons to medical schools.

Meanwhile, Chicago was undergoing a transformation from this smog-filled cluster of crime and poverty to the White City, a symbol of hope and the grand American future.

Clearly, this time period was made for poets. Or maybe I'm a sucker for a great metaphor. This man, an incredibly twisted human piece of filth, murdered people in the middle of the White fucking City.

Obviously, I'm trying to find a way to include him in "Welcome to the Freakshow," although I'm having problems getting the words from my head to the page. Part of the problem is my desire to tell the story in the third person, which definitely isn't my strong suit. I'm much better at getting inside of one character's head, and telling a story that way, which I might do, although I'll miss my main character's mother, who is an incredibly strong woman. I've named her Liza. I might start a new file, rewrite what I've done in first person, and compare. I'm not quite sure yet.

Plot!developments:

- Liza takes Rachel (with father, Charlie, in tow) to the Chicago World's Fair

- Rachel rides the Ferris Wheel

- "Am I going to be an angel, Mamma?"

- 189_? fair.

...

- Funhouse, perhaps with one of Holmes' victims [or maybe make one of the clowns look like Holmes?]

...

- Great clown, Arlecchino, is really an opium addict. [this is a little convoluted...poppy = death, poppy is used to make opium. Also. Death!]

I think that I just need like, a day where I sit and just write. All day. Probably after finals.

Welcome to the Freakshow (idea post)

2010-01-07T00:38:00.002-05:00

So, I've had this idea to write a piece set in 1894, the year after the Chicago World's Fair. It's going to be about this woman (who was, of course, a girl at the time) that essentially is stripped of her innocence by discovering the reality behind her cherished ideals. I chose the 1893 World's Fair because it happened to coincide with the serial killings of H. H. Holmes. Without all of the traffic (as in, travel to Chicago) created by the World's Fair, Holmes wouldn't have had nearly as many victims wander into his hotel.

I'm also planning on using flowers strewn about the place to symbolize her loss of innocence, Ophelia-style, of course. Daisies are the "innocent" flowers, so expect plenty of those. At the end, I'll also throw in a couple more flowers, but I'll let those be a surprise.

Essentially, the story (I know, me writing an actual story - I can *gasp* write fiction, too!) will go as follows:

- set the stage for the 1933 World's Fair, which also happened in Chicago, with the main character much, much older.

- go back to 1894, in the girl's youth (she's be maybe eleven or so, perhaps a few years older or younger).

- she meets a young boy at the entrance who gives her flowers (daisies).

- enter wandering around randomly section [for I'm not really sure where it'll take me].

- stumbles into a burlesque dance, and sees a freakshow (fault lines showing under makeup, pain behind the stage acts).

...and I'm not sure behind that. I know that I want it to end with her at the 1933 World's Fair, perhaps jumping back and forth a little bit. She'll not be at the 1893 Fair, just because it'll be easier to take creative liberties, and small towns are always so much scarier than big cities.

Teaser!

Pages crumpled and torn underneath a fine coat of dust and flower petals lay a stack of yellowed newspapers, piled haphazardly in a box that had been shoved into the corner of Rachel Porter’s attic. If one dared to lift one of the box’s flaps, the front page of the first paper was clearly visible.

“Welcome to the freak show! The carnival comes to town,” it proclaimed in once proudly black, now grey, ink. A spider danced in its web across the spokes of the Ferris wheel, stepping on the frozen laughing faces of children clutching parents and cotton candy with equal devotion.

Standing in the attic, Rachel flipped through the papers, scanning each page briefly. She was preparing to make the trip to Chicago for the much-awaited 1933 World’s Fair. A Century of Progress, it was being called, although the way her clothes felt looser and looser each day as they wound their way around her slim frame, and the way her pockets felt lighter without the comforting weight of weekly wages didn’t exactly feel like progress. Seeing the pictures from 1893 gave her a stab of nostalgia for the White City of her childhood. Everything, the buildings, the grass, even the people seemed to gleam with the shine of blissful perfection.

...

second draft

2009-12-22T00:08:00.000-05:00

A little boy in Uganda is learning to count
on the ridges of his ribs
as they rise like fingers
from the folds of his ragged
tee shirt.

His heart is beating like a fist
against his sunken chest
against the closet door
gasping for breath
until the day when those ribs
don't cage his lungs
like prison bars

as he paints straight faces
onto the cells of his DNA,
tears dripping onto the canvass
of his skin like ashes.

Heaven is on fire
from all the hatred-kissed
swollen lips of supposed Christians
who preach Godliness
as Jesus cries thou shalt not kill.

These children stuff roses
into their captor's guns
like love can stop bullets
like love can put out fires,
and paint hearts on the dusty floors
of jail cells where gay men and women

stare at the ceiling and imagine stars
while HIV runs through their veins
like pretty red ribbons run
through the hair of preacher's daughters
and senators who wipe their bloody hands
on the sands of Uganda.

Washington's hoarding the water
while bones burn like Bibles
and ashes fall like snow
as children make angels,
happy to eat your angry words

because a stomach full
of hatred is better than nothing.

America, tell me,
does that red ribbon tied to the grave
of every life cut short by AIDS

make the shame taste any better?
Your voice can save these children
whose paintings of heterosexuality
bled in the rain
as it glistened in the red African sun,
tell me, America, could you face

your reflection in the eyes of these children
as they count ribs like prison bars
chest rising with every breath,
each heartbeat a fist knocking on the closet door –
locking them in atop the world's dirty laundry
they are shouting for freedom,
all you have to do is set down your fear
and listen.

painted heart

2009-12-14T22:59:00.001-05:00

[inspired heavily by Andrea Gibson, and the current "kill the gays" bill in Uganda. You should Google it, it's awful]

A little boy in Uganda learned to count
on the ridges of his ribs
as they rose like fingers
from the folds of his ragged
tee shirt, too young to know
that gay doesn't mean happy,

it just means criminal.
He is holding his breath
until the day when those ribs
don't cage his lungs
like prison bars
as he paints straight faces
onto the cells of his DNA.

His heart is beating like a fist
against his sunken chest
against the closet door
gasping for breath
as ashes fall like tears

because heaven is on fire
from all the hatred that kissed
the swollen lips of so-called Christians
who preach Godliness
while burning the pages
of the Bible
as Jesus cries thou shalt not kill.

These children stuff roses
into the guns of their captors
like love can stop bullets
like love can put out fires,
and paint hearts on the dusty floors
of jail cells where gay men and women

stare at the ceiling and imagine stars
shining through the haze of fear
and feathers of the clipped wings of children,
dancing through the sky
like they were falling in love with the air

while HIV runs through their veins
like pretty red ribbons run
through the hair of daughters
of preachers and senators
wiping their bloody hands
on the sands of Uganda
as American anti-gay activists
tie ropes around the necks

of Uganda's gay sons and daughters
their bones are on fire
and Washington's hoarding the water
until the smoke kisses the moon
and ashes fall like snow
that children make angels
in, happy to eat your angry words

for you, because a stomach
full of hatred is better than nothing,
even when it beats the shine of love
from their eyes. America, tell me,
does that red ribbon tied to the grave
of every life cut short by AIDS

make the shame taste
any better as it drifts across your lips?
Lips that stay closed when it is only your voice
that can save the lives of those children
whose paintings of heterosexuality
bled in the rain
as it glistened in the red African sun,
tell me, America, could you face

your reflection in the eyes of these children
as they count ribs like prison bars
rising with every breath,
each heartbeat a fist to the closet door
locking them in atop the world's dirty laundry
they are shouting for freedom,
all you have to do is set down your fear
and listen.

Link!

2009-12-08T16:31:00.002-05:00

For all of you that are interested, I do have a deviantArt. There's nothing really different on there, just some artwork.

http://lefrenchninja.deviantart.com/

some introspection

2009-11-29T02:43:00.003-05:00

I was reading through some older posts from other places, and I've noticed an interesting trend; ghosts. Hell, they're even coming up in a mix that I'm making for my friend (I'll post the full tracklist, it's not a bad mix, if I do say so myself):

- Favorite Things (Incubus)

- Mysterons (Portishead)

- stalemate (Glowfriends)

- This Picture (Placebo)

- Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime (Beck)

- Blood on the Ground (Incubus)

- Spotless Mind (Jon Brion - from the Eternal Sunshine soundrack)

- Earthquake Weather (Beck)

- Jack's Smirking Revenge (The Dust Brothers - Fight Club OST)

- Dissolved Girl (Massive Attack)

- Alive (Kid Cudi ft. Ratatat)

- We Will Become Silhouettes (The Shins - cover of The Postal Service)

- Welcome, Ghosts (Explosions in the Sky)

- Fake Palindromes (Andrew Bird)

- Ghost Under Rocks (Ra Ra Riot)

- Water Line (Sage Francis)

- Harlem Streets (Immortal Technique)

- Walking with a Ghost (Tegan and Sara)

- What Do You Go Home To? (Explosions in the Sky)

The first few songs depict a relationship that's going awfully, and eventually results in a very Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-style ending; a fresh start attained through sleep. During that sleep, though, strange things begin to happen, The Dust Brothers and Massive Attack are fairly trip-hop-y, so there's kind of a strange vibe going on, then Alive discusses becoming a monster at night, followed by a piece about becoming, essentially, a shadow after death. After that, Explosions in the Sky set up this incredibly haunting piece inviting the ghosts of memories back in, and Andrew Bird contemplates murder and monsters. The next three, Ra Ra Riot, Sage, and Immortal Technique first ask why, then present two real problems; Water Line dealing with a family problem, then progressing into New Orleans, and Harlem Streets angrily leads you through the world that has been created for the people in poverty, showing the very real ghosts of our world. Tegan and Sara conclude the drama saying that the ghosts are invading their minds, and just want them out. Finally, Explosions in the Sky finish the mix with an incredibly beautiful piece depicting the loneliness of a night spent lying awake, with no one there.

At least, that's how it's supposed to sound. There's such a variety of music, with the hard rock of Incubus, to the indie folk of Andrew Bird, that the meaning might get lost, but the songs are fun, and I hope that my friend enjoys it. I'm still working on a case to put it in, I was planning on printing a few pictures from my camera to make into faux-leriods, but my damn printer's jammed. I'll maybe photograph and post the pictures of the finished product.

Happy Halloween

2009-11-29T02:33:00.002-05:00

-- I'm not sure where this is going. I don't know if I should add to it, or just let it sit as it is. --

The splattered remains of Halloween

lay like carcasses to rot on the damp pavement,

piles of orange mush studded with cigarette butts

still smoldering. The smoke curled

through the air like fingers

stroking the faces of passing people,

eyes red with the midnight moonshine,

they slur words as bodies began to blend.

I'm still searching for the day from my memories,

small children with cheeks pink

from fall chills and the promise of candy,

sticky fingers clutching wrappers

like receipts for happiness, as though happiness

really does come in a pumpkin-shaped plastic bag.

creatively dry

2009-11-15T21:51:00.003-05:00

Because I'm momentarily out of ideas (rather, I have no time to organize those ideas into that thing we call poetry), I'm going post something of one of my favorite spoken word poets; Andrea Gibson.

If you click the pretty link, you get the audio as well as the original words:

http://www.andreagibson.org/poems/poems_photograph.html

Here's the poem:

"Photograph"

I wish I was a photograph
tucked into the corners of your wallet
I wish I was a photograph
you carried like a future in your back pocket
I wish I was that face you show to strangers
when they ask you where you come from
I wish I was that someone that you come from
every time you get there
and when you get there
I wish I was that someone who got phone calls
and postcards saying
wish you were here
I wish you were here
autumn is the hardest season
the leaves are all falling
and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground
and the trees are naked and lonely
I keep trying to tell them
new leaves will come around in the spring
but you can't tell trees those things
they're like me they just stand there
and don't listen
I wish you were here
I've been missing you like crazy
I've been hazy eyed
staring at the bottom of my glass again
thinking of that time when it was so full
it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine
or sticking straws into the center of the sun
and sipping like icarus would forever kiss
the bullets from our guns
I never meant to fire you know
I know you never meant to fire lover
I know we never meant to hurt each other
now the sky clicks from black to blue
and dusk looks like a bruise
I've been wrapping one night stands
around my body like wedding bands
but none of them fit in the morning
they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door
and all that lingers is the scent of you
I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well
all the wishes in the world would come true
do you remember
do you remember the night I told you
I've never seen anything more perfect than
than snow falling in the glow of a street light
electricity bowing to nature
mind bowing to heartbeat
this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around
like children love recess bells
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy
I think of happy when I think of you
so wherever you are I hope you're happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life
I hope there's a kite in your hand
that's flying all the way up to orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out
I hope you're smiling
like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth
cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I'm still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat
and I wish you were here
I wish you'd never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my very very best

poetry fragments

2009-11-09T02:57:00.005-05:00

These are the weird things written in my magic pocket notebook. They don't make sense, don't form coherent poems, but may someday become something better.

-- ... --

The splattered remains of Halloween lay like carcasses to rot on the damp pavement, piles of orange mush studded with cigarette butts still smoldering. The smoke curled through the air like fingers stroking the faces of passing people, eyes red with the midnight moonshine, they slur words as bodies began to blend. I'm still searching for the day from my memories, small children with cheeks pink from fall chills and the promise of candy, sticky fingers clutching wrappers like receipts for happiness, as though it really does come in a pumpkin shaped plastic bag.

...

They told me I couldn't be a dyke anymore, that I'd have to settle for "lesbian." This is what happens when straight people define us with words that they feel comfortable with, because us "female homosexuals" all fit into the shoes of femme and butch, but I'm a dyke, goddamn it. Don't fit me into that box labeled gay, don't bind me with language used to please false morality, your breath isn't Jesus juice, fuck you, I am not a thing to be classified by some Showtime TV show, I am not a Katy Perry song to be played on request, I am dressed in a man's sweater and frilly pink underpants, don't call me something because it leaves your mouth feeling clean, you don't fucking define me, so fuck being politically correct and let my name rest on your tongue unfettered with heterosexist termonology....

... -- ...

This is what happens when you give me an idea and a pen. Clearly, there's a lot of work that takes the words scattered in the pages of my brain and puts them online. I'm rather fond of commas, apparently, too. Usually, I just scrap these half-poems, but now that I have some more free time (for all you Kalamazoo residents, ONE KALAMAZOO PASSED THE NONDISCRIMINATION ORDINANCE! YAYS!), I might flesh them out, especially the first one.

roots.

2009-11-09T01:35:00.002-05:00

The leaves told me it was time

to start dying. As I walked

through the crumpled golden sea

of the fingers of the trees, they crackled

like the pages of the books you'll never

read to me. They crackled under feet

that couldn't find the ground

when my dad touched me on the shoulder

and said "he's gone."

Now, you're a collection of dusty pictures

on the wall, memories of being tickled

as John Wayne saved the day on TV,

memories of oil stained hands gripping

Christmas presents, memories of the man

who was once a giant.

I remember the chemo, how your hair

lost its' roots and fell as though in love

with the ground, how every time I saw

you, you were a little bit smaller,

like cancer could swallow the man

who was once a giant.

Instead of sitting by the tree like Santa

that year, you sat in the hospital,

clutching the present like it was your last

day to live. There was an IV in your smile,

and your heart pumped hope and happiness

until pneumonia filled your lungs with liquid

like tears pooled in the lines in the face

of my mother as she cried

when you lost the war with your body.

I never said goodbye.

That man with glass eyes and grey skin

sitting in the casket under the John Deere

blanket wasn't you, his cracked lips

never threatened a kiss before bedtime,

never said "I love you"

never smiled as he plowed the last field

of beans before the moon kissed the sun

goodnight and sang a lullaby so soft

midnight stopped by to listen.

And now it's fall again, four years

of leaves and naked branches

shivering in the breeze. There are shadows

under my eyes from too many sunrises

without you, and all I can do is wish

that you were just another kid

with a sheet over your head

because real ghosts aren't thrilling or scary

and this haunted house used to be home,

so when the leaves began to bleed

I wanted to cry for all the trees

that won't get another spring.

piles and piles of dead trees

2009-10-29T21:55:00.001-04:00

An idea:

"The leaves told [me? you?] it was time to start dying"

as piece about the death of my grandfather. Despite the fact that no one reads this, input?

Paper or Plastic?

2009-10-26T23:23:00.003-04:00

[wip, x-posted to dA]

I watched the eager teenagers

make their weekly pilgrimage

to the grand Mecca that is our mall,

clutching purses like Bibles,

as though twenty dollar allowances

could purchase enough indulgences

to reach discount heaven.

But these people left Jesus on the clearance rack,

squealin' and screamin' about that great deal

on shit they don't need, snorting sales

pitches and lines of a crack rock called greed

because they're American, not some fucking Commies.

See, capitalism is the devil's wet dream.

It's the American dream, because national pride

is how many credit cards you own,

it's loving the flag and homeland and apple pie

and how many times can you fit country and mother

into the song playing on the radio all day long?

The white noise is deafening,

saying "woman, you can't be pretty

unless you hide under a hundred dollar mask

of L'Orielle and Maybelline," and you'd better buy

some Proactiv, because those zits are unsightly,

blemishes on the face of this fifties housewife society

and poor is ugly, and the homeless are useless,

and those Mexican immigrants crossing lines

to walk the line between a nine to five shoveling shit

to get enough money to send home to the kids,

and being deported are "stealing all our jobs."

Funny how when illegal aliens

land in our suburban wasteland, they're worthless

until they're serving our fries and flipping our Quarter Pounders

and Whoppers, working the shifts you think

you're too good for. You swallowed your dignity

with that sip of Pepsi. I hope you choke on your hypocrisy,

'cause your national pride is how many value meals you eat,

it's how many times you can fit faggot and spick

into this sentence, because being the best

means being the playground bully,

because America is just another kid

by the swingset, covering her face in crayons

to feel beautiful, but that Crayola smile

is waxy and dripping like a candle lit

at both ends until you have an explosion

of patriotic tee shirts and freedom fries

and fires in the streets of Baghdad and Kabul,

because we needed to blow shit up

in order to feel better about ourselves,

as though our ego is the size of the sound

screaming through megaphones

preaching hate and asking you to demonstrate

by buying another G.I. Joe to fight Cobra: al'Queada

edition. We're American, not some fucking Commies,

just have to replace the Made In China sticker

with some stars and stripes. Our national pride

is seeing who can scream "FUCK YOU" the loudest,

standing on the corner in front of the mall

wearing sweatshop chic, clutching Bibles

like Jesus juice is going to save you

like discount heaven marked

the economic hell down to affordable

like the cost of living was worth designer jeans.

Welcome to the American dream,

would you like that hypocrisy in red, white, or blue?

Ideas

2009-09-16T23:00:00.003-04:00

So, the concept of imaginary numbers really interests me. I mean, I knew that they existed, and which numbers they are, but I can't get the concept out of my head. Wow, I never thought that I'd feel like a Zamyatin character (read his book, We, the first chance you get, it's the basis for Brave New World and 1984).

I've been trying to write a piece about them, but the words just aren't coming as of late (writer's block, oy vey). Hopefully, something will spew forth soon.

In other, more depressing, news, I've also been working on a piece inspired by something I read in James Hider's The Spiders of Allah, a book written about the current holy wars in the middle east, focusing mostly on the conflicts in Iraq, with bits of the Israel/Palestine conflict thrown in for fun. While reading, I came across a passage about these American soldiers (so, Army) who raped and murdered this fourteen year old girl after shooting her parents and five year old sister. After killing her, they set her body on fire. Cheery, no? The piece really struck me, and I felt like trying something from the perspective of the girl. I'll post when I've got it finished/edited enough that it's not total shit.

Finally, I'll just throw in a pitch for two shows, one still running and one not, that have incredibly interesting characters and plot lines. The first is arguably the best television of all time. I don't say this lightly, it's really fucking amazing. It's called The Wire, and it aired five seasons on HBO, starting in 2002 and concluding in 2008 (with a few breaks between seasons, of course). President Barack Obama's favorite character of all time, is on this show. His name is Omar. And he's a badass motherfucker.

The second is something my mother got me hooked on, Dexter. Basically, it's about a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. It can be slightly graphic and gory, but, well. Duh. It's about a serial killer. The fourth season is soon to air on Showtime, and one can catch the first three onDemand (if you have Charter, that is). I like it. I mean, it has flaws, but what show doesn't? Plus, the actor who plays Dexter, Michael C. Hall, is fucking amazing. Seriously. Go watch it.

Ash Stained Eyes

2009-08-29T03:14:00.001-04:00

[written for a dA contest, themed "Letters to Loved Ones"]

“Dear—

I’m not sure why I’m writing this. I don’t even know your name, but that’s not surprising. I hardly know anything these days. I don’t know where my father is, or my mother. Hell, I don’t know which country I’m in. I think it could be Poland. A few weeks ago, I woke up in a Hungarian ghetto to a gun in my face and orders to climb into cattle cars with everyone else. One man gave me a small hunk of moldy cheese. ‘For the Jewish vermin,’ he said. Gestapo humor, I suppose.

This morning, I woke up in Birkenau. That I do know. Every day, I walk outside in my prison stripes and forget that it’s not snow in my face. Snow doesn’t smell this bad, doesn’t taste of death, doesn’t leave grey streaks on my skin. Someone told me that it was spring, but I don’t believe in life or flowers or happy things when the only butterflies I see rise from streams of ash and bodies.

This afternoon, I stood in a square and watched God choke on pleas for mercy. The SS wrapped a noose about his neck and kicked the ground from ‘neath him. This evening, I felt him in my lungs, still screaming. I saw myself on those gallows, too.

I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never been in love. Never seen myself in the light of someone else’s adoring eyes. But I’ve also never seen eyes as kind as yours, in such contrast with the glare from the emblem on your hat. They were a striking blue, and reminded me of clear skies. Haven’t seen those in a while. You handed me a piece of meat, with a little bit of bread. I didn’t ask why. There is no why here. I just looked up at you, wide eyed and scared. Would you shoot me? Would metal linger on my lips like kisses?

I guess not.

I don’t know your name. It’s fitting, because I don’t know mine, either. They gave me a number, because names are a human thing. There isn’t any humanity here, except for maybe you. Do you have a name? Is there anything to you besides ‘SS Officer’ so and so?

I don’t know much of anything these days. I don’t know how many times I’ll see God hang, how many times I’ll taste the mercy of the SS. I saw a skeleton in my reflection, sunken-in skin hung from my emaciated frame, empty eyes stared back at me hungrily.

I don’t know why I’m bothering to write this. I don’t know why I’m even still alive. I wish I knew your name, just so I could tell you that I loved you. Because I do. I love you.”

SS Officer Engel held the letter with shaking hands as he looked upon the writers’ face for a last time, through the window in the gas chamber door. He saw his eyes, not so kind this time, coldly blue in the reflection on the glass.

He whispered, “I love you, too.”

And then threw in the Zyklon B.

For Baltimore

2009-08-23T13:37:00.005-04:00

Dear country
that never loved me,
could you take a minute and speak
to your sons and daughters on the streets
with tattoos of teddy bears and tourniquets
cutting off the flow of light to their lives
because at the end of that tunnel
there's only a re-up,
because Saint Peter
stands on the street corner,
because God is only a heroin nod,
too doped up to care about anything
but getting the next fix, the next high,
see, heaven is daddy not going to jail.
And mommy not selling the food
for money to spend on meth.
They got track marks from growing up
on the wrong side of town
shooting up with memories
of friends shot in drive bys
driving by homes destroyed by police
looking to boost stats
by rounding up eight year old boys
drowning in the holes left by their fathers'
footsteps.
In schools, we're saying
save the children
save the children,
but when No Child Left Behind
leaves kids stranded
in gutters bleeding from multiple gunshots
because the system can't teach 'em
that getting out isn't only a dream
it can be made reality, yet,
the only horses that heros
ride to save the day
come in vials of white powder
and have names like Black Tar
and Scag, this Devil Dust
has blinded us to the dead presidents
spent funding a war on drugs
that sends kids to fight on the front lines,
dying to make sure those politicians
can keep snorting lines
of a crack rock called greed,
because they're in need
of the spotlight, the headline to read
that they saved the day
from the dangerous youths
that created them. Where would Detroit
or Baltimore be without the drug industry
paving the way with bodies
paving the way with campaign trials
leaving behind messes
that get pushed back for the next mayor,
the next governor,
the next president.
This country needs to have a word
with the sons and daughters
lynched by ropes made of strings and false promises,
because America
is not beautiful or free,
and Washington was built on drug money,
they smoke green that's been dusted with cocaine
and use lives spent on cold streets
to pay for wars overseas.
The war is here.
It's not only saving the addict,
but saving the dealer,
because there's no rehab
for the corner boy.
Until we stop taking power trips
and listen to the stories,
it'll take more than twelve steps
to get these boys and girls off the streets.

Hopefully, Big Brother Isn't Watching

2009-08-17T17:05:00.003-04:00

Once in a blue moon, I'm struck with an idea so brilliant that I can't help but talk about it. I was cleaning my desk, and discovered a stack of post-it notes, which got me doodling, which got me thinking about cool artistic adventures, which resulted in my latest project: attack downtown Kalamazoo with various interestingly decorated post-it notes. For example, I did one with a very cute duck that says "QUACK, not crack, kids." I also have one that says "SMILE. Positive Panda Man loves you." adorned, of course, with Positive Panda Man. Right now I'm working on a line of literary-themed notes, one saying "Thoughtcriminals Unite," one with the Brave New World motto ("Community, Identity, Stability"), and I'll probably make a few more with general dystopias in mind. Upon posting these around town, I'll photograph them and post the album on my Facebook. Hopefully, this'll be epic.

If you want in, message me on Facebook or email me at ersatz11@gmail.com.

Convincing, You A'int

2009-08-15T23:51:00.003-04:00

"I am the false character that follows the name around."--Don DeLillo, White Noise

[more a brain dump than a piece to be polished]

Pardon me, but who are you this week?
Between your split personalities,
I can't keep track of which stereotype
you choose to embody, and I know that happiness
depends on how up the drugs get,

so chalk up your smiles to Prozac
and the placebo effect. Today
you're high on your favorite lies,
delicious poison of false hope
running through your veins, tomorrow

you'll be slapped in the face by reality
and so caught up in melodramatic melancholy
that you won't taste the stale bullshit
as it spews from the day's latest mask.
You've replaced love and concern

with a frenzied cycle of panic
and drama, because you wouldn't know how
to deal with a real relationship,
and you're not happy unless you're the center
of attention, making your friends
tired of treading on thin ice

all day long, hoping the wrong comment
won't make you break into pieces,
sending shrapnel all over the place
into soft skin now hardened
by pain and experience. It's the same shit,

just rehashed and with different names.
You're static, despite the ever changing facade,
you stay unmoving, as much by circumstance
as by design, because you're too afraid
of letting go of this person you've created,
the high queen of all things unnecessary
and vain, and so you remain

in this self-made cage of misery,
blind to your own hypocrisy
because there's always someone else to blame.
Grow a pair, because we're tired of shouldering
your baggage, and my back is breaking
under the stress of flipping out every ten minutes.

Take off the fucking mask, it's not that convincing
anyway, and each character
you decide to act out for the day
blacklists you with white lies, and every time
I'm told to do this or that, I find it harder and harder
to actually care. So pardon me for forgetting
which person I can't offend for the week.

[I'll just give up on this here, and let it sit for a few days before editing/deleting]

Walking With Ghosts

2009-08-12T15:09:00.003-04:00

[work in progress]

In pictures, the flash smoothes

over shadows. Shadows where history lurks,

where I see the handprints of my family

before me, clawing to get free.

You can't capture this kind of suffering with photography.

And you wouldn't pose with headstones--

so why do you stuff these ovens

with smiles? This necropolis

is still very much alive

with the memories of inmates stripped

of their humanity and further exposed

by fucking tourists with cameras.

While I was not one of those children

packed into cattle cars, waiting to be shipped

to Auschwitz, seeing a blessing

in each daily bread ration,

I grew up half blind from self-loathing

of the swastika in my left eye,

seemingly placed just to oppose the Star of David

in my right. In my history all I can see are wrong

turns, leading me to be bundled into cattle

cars of ignorance. I'm sick of hiding

from my own heritage, and my integrity's compromised

by uncertainty. Imagine walking with ghosts

on both sides, one hand dirtied with the murders

of eleven million, the other just bones and grey skin

held together by a will to survive greater

than you will ever know. Because we've lost sight

of the life we've been given. Yet while we try to forget,

the ground I walked on still reeks of burning bodies,

because despite the SS's best attempts to hide the atrocities,

the stench of scorched flesh still hangs in the air

like its' ash accompaniment, the dancing funeral procession

paraded about the camp like a death sentence.

In pictures, the flash blinds you to reflections. Reflections

through glass in gas chamber doors, where I stand still, living

on one side holding Zyklon B, and seeing my face on the other,

among the handprints of my family, dying.

Closet Freak

2009-08-10T02:18:00.003-04:00

[work in progress, less so than usual, x-posted to dA]

She looked at me as though I were diseased,
infected with some life-wrecking virus,
one so foul that it’s embedded in my very DNA.
I have THE GAY. So deadly it kills fantasies
of Stepford houses and husbands, so contagious

(it seems) that I’m forced to be quarantined
by a straight-faced version of me,
you see, I could say that society
has shunned me, shoved me into the closet
atop the dirty laundry, but honestly—
I’m the only one with the key.

The lock’s been placed on individuality,
and we’ve all stuffed some facet of personality
out of reach to present a better façade of orthodoxy
but this mental ghetto needs to be liquidated
and our spots and stripes should be brought out of hiding
proudly, because the disease is in the silence,
and it’s this atmosphere of fear that’s killing me.

The monster in the closet is only a mirror,
glassy as the surface of this stagnant water
we’ve anchored ourselves in. Humanity
is flowing, it’s poetry,
it’s the cadence of sexuality, the beat of you and me
in a cacophony of emotions expressed only through living,

not just being alive—
because a life spent treading water chained
to false ideas of normalcy runs out quickly,
and we’re left with another suicide
leaving a bad taste in mouths that imposed
masculinity on young boys wanting to play Barbie,
and white weddings in dresses sized three and lower
on girls with boy cuts and loose jeans.
Sorry society,

that’s just not legal for me,
dykes don’t get quite the same rights.
Us factory rejects are told to stay out of sight,
out of our minds, because we’re all crazy
closet freaks, not buying into the philosophy
that ignoring the supposed illness makes it go away,
especially when the plague is stupidity. See,
while my particular gene may be carried by many
lesbianism isn’t exactly catching, so when I sneeze
you don’t have to worry about those scary homosexual feelings.

Apparently, different is bad (unless it’s the current
fall fashion), so any symptoms of dissent
must be hidden for fear of a lack of understanding,
because a lapse in the collective handicap
could cripple the image of masked faces
so treasured by this blinded society.

This generation is afraid of its’ own reflection,
and until we can see ourselves un-Photoshopped,
wearing fault lines and imperfections with pride,
we will never be comfortable in our own skin,
now stretched thin between who we are
and who we want to be. This personality split

has only lengthened the gap between ourselves
and the figures in the mirror, making parents
ship kids off to therapy, because paying hundreds
of dollars for psychology is easier than spending
an afternoon in conversation. We’ve turned

not knowing ourselves into an art form,
because between the idealized person in our minds
(exceptionally average in every way)
and the closet freaks we are, we can’t tell which image
is diseased, which person we’d rather be.

Hang your straightjackets in the closet, not yourself—
coming out isn’t social suicide, so loosen the noose
and embrace your personality, not cookie cutter standards
of humanity. It’s not the social paradigm
that’s got you mired in hypocrisy, because honestly
you’re the only one with the key.

O Brave New World

2009-08-09T01:18:00.000-04:00

[work in progress, previously published on deviantART]

I’ve been conditioned into complacency.
my integrity’s up for sale—
I advertise my mind, locking glazed eyes
on static screens, watching soma holidays
unfold before me, virtual reality
beckons with open arms, faintly glowing
with the electric current of promised happiness
(just have to sign on the dotted line
between reason and imagination).

Big Brother hovers over my shoulder,
but I’m blinded by my smile.
See, as long as everyone’s happy now,
a few freedoms sacrificed along the way matter little
because it’s a nation of We,
and my supposed individuality stands as a cardboard
cutout, toppled by the slightest breath of dissent.

And the problem is, my literary allusions
only seem to confuse you, alluding
to the illusion of an education
because while cameras are in the school rooms,
they’re only there to protect the equipment.
To me it seems we’ve become part of the machine,

twisting cogs in the social framework,
with hands once used for protest
now raised in united submission
to the almighty practice of clocking
in from nine to five, cyclic situations
spinning statements until they’re meaningless.

Excuse me for my bleeding fingers,
I cut them on the walls of my hand-made glass house,
presenting a face of transparency—it’s easy
when the world only sees the image you create,
as if personality could be quantified and defined
by posts on Twitter and Facebook status updates.

This anger may be dated, but until the fingers
poised delicately above keys, blogging endlessly
to point the blame at any supposed enemy
stop typing and turn the finger of blame inward,
I will be ashamed of my country.

Just Canonize The Victims

2009-08-09T01:15:00.000-04:00

[work in progress, previously published on deviantART]

Sometimes, it surprises me how casually
humanity manages to destroy one another.
We’ve taken the ability to compartmentalize
to new extremes, because if it’s a battle of US
against THEM and we can’t be wrong and we have to win
because if God forbid (and he is on our side, right?) we lose
then we might actually have to question
our motives. What if they didn’t deserve it, what if they
didn’t have it coming, what if America,
my country home of the free, free hypocrisy,
was wrong. What if we were the bad guys,
and instead of saving the day we’ve set the stage
for another string of pointless atrocities. But it’s okay,
because THEY died, and we survived.

You can’t teach a class of high school freshmen
that Japs and Krauts have families, too, because
the second you realize that the body on the ground
once belonged a human just like you,
because then? Then THEM might cease to exist
and it’s just you. With no one to turn to.
The blame never falls onto one set of shoulders,
and when the most powerful nation in the world
keeps shrugging off responsibility
the death toll weighs heavily upon my morality.

The assignment on the board asked for a poster
or powerpoint presentation on the evils of the Third Reich,
but I fail to understand how you can fit over a decade
of tyranny into a five minute oral report, and some stories
really can’t be punctuated in black bulleted columns
piled on a red background. Can you confine horrors
that escape the English language to three to five slides?
And excuse me if I interrupt the lecture to point out that
just maybe money shouldn’t matter when we’re discussing
which way we should destroy life, because if all the money
we spend on killing were spent on thinking and listening
we wouldn’t have to see lives spent in the name of another
costly war. We parade around hangings on the television screens
because progress isn’t measured in conflicts evaded
but terrorists created. See, America has the brilliance to make
all of our own enemies, what with torture policy and Micky D’s
lining foreign streets.

And these black butterflies only serve to remind me
of how cruel we can be, because that could be my family
pushed into ovens, emaciated by the pains of being a THEM
in a nation of USes and dehumanized until they are the walking dead,
bundles of bones held together by grey skin, assigned a number
because names mean too much paperwork and stripped down by history,
captured in a moment too graphic to show schoolchildren
because then the collective bubble of sunshine and happiness might be broken.

Well, we can’t have that, can we. If people actually recognized atrocities
then they might try and stop them which only means that those fabulously
low prices at Wal-Mart and Target might go up for ‘humanitarian reasons.’
See, clearly, my twenty dollar shoes are more important than feeding
starving children in factories and we’ve managed to go back to the past
back to a time when coal dust coated lungs like deathly blankets
tucking children into their deathbeds, sound sleep of carbon monoxide dreams
poisoning futures and paving the way for my great deal on designer clothing.

I find it kind of funny that we strut our nationalistic pride, a country of US
wearing tees made by THEMS, trembling fingers hovering over sewing machines,
too young to know why we so despise the word ‘communism,’ wondering
if a missed stitch will cause another beating, strip searched at airports attempting
immigration into the ‘promised land’ of opportunities to do the same damn
shit in factories that hire illegals in order to save on production costs.

We may have moved on from seminary killings
yet I can’t help feel that we’ve cheapened the cost of living
turning people into products to be marketed and sold,
we waved our integrity with the flags pinned neatly to chests,
breathing in the sweet air of success because in America, US
always triumphs over THEM, it’s in the name itself. Collectively
we hold a holocaust every day, embedded in casually racist comments
straying from thoughtless lips ever flapping emptily and stumbling
over words like honesty. I guess the only question left is whether to bury
our humanity or let it burn and scatter the ashes.

Before Writing, Some Reading

2009-08-08T23:54:00.000-04:00

"Dear Self, I wrote a letter just to better my soul" --Common, "A Dream"

Writing is not a luxury. It's a basic human need. It's expression, it's a way to vent, to screamshoutyell all of those crazy thoughts that take up space in our minds. Everyone needs a release. Some people do art, some play sports, some watch TV. I write, mostly poetry of the spoken word variety (even if I'm a little lacking in the performance department). I'm going to use this to post my pieces, for all to see. To start, however, I'll include a list of some of my favorite books, which occasionally play parts in my writing.

(in no particular order)

Brave New World--Aldous Huxley

1984--George Orwell

Fahrenheit 451--Ray Bradbury

Hope Was Here--Joan Bauer

Looking for Alaska--John Greene

The Green Mile--Stephen King

Maus: A Survivor's Tale--Art Spiegelman

Tweak--Nic Sheff

The Burn Journals--Brent Runyon

Hamlet--William Shakespeare

The Prince--Niccolo Machiavelli

The Sirens of Titian--Kurt Vonnegut

Sonny's Blues--James Baldwin (it's a short story)

Notes From the Underground--Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ender's Game--Orson Scott Card

Frankenstein--Mary Shelley

The Martian Chronicles--Ray Bradbury

Slaughterhouse Five--Kurt Vonnegut

Girl, Interrupted--Susanna Kaysen

That's probably enough for now.

Next up...poetry.