Java Verses

I was going through some stuff I wrote in 2001 and found this. I just thought I'd share, and wondered if anyone would understand what it's really about. It seems obvious to me, but I've shared it with some people who didn't get it so . . .

Origami

Small fold,
Small body,

No memory,

Fold, press compact
Spicy smells . . .
Rapid
Rolling
Images
Received . . .
Fragmented

Grow, fold
Learn, fold
Sounds . . . iehhhhhhhhh!
Maaaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Learn manipulation.
Iehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Complications,
Fold,
Fold,
Tuck, twist,
Feel . . . texture,
Recognize warmth,
Reach, touch,
Emotions,
Twist . . .
Fold . . .
Tuck . . . .

Folding hands of the maker . . .
Render not a rip!
Lest you ruin rice paper creations.

I don’t remember the truth of the story at all.
Just disconnected real memories woven amongst
Fiction, which was embroidered by the constant retelling
So many times through the years that I know it by heart
Though I was really to young to remember
It’s almost a fairy tale now,
Without the happy ever after end.

A waterfall made bathing fun
Dusty porch lit by candles
Two rockers creakily guarded the shack
Inside it was dark, often damp
There was a wood stack behind
The cracked wall, I was forbidden to play near it

I remember twirling around falling
Leaves and laughter
Being hoisted up high on shoulders
To better see the starry sky

I remember a screen door that would
Catch a little girl faster than
It ever caught the fly,
Which got in anyways . . .

I remember Mama turning to step inside
Swollen and slow, restraining the screen door
As she glance hesitating in our direction
One hand supporting my secret sister

I remember smiling back with love
And fear that the door would catch
Her as it always caught me,
This was just before he grabbed me

His hand were hard but never too ruff
For a daughters tender skin
Insistent and determined as he took me
For good, this time

She knew I was gone before we ever left,
He threw me down into the cars interior

As I looked back for a final glimpse,
Torn, not for the last time,
Between a child’s two greatest love and fears,
He shoved me back on floor, the glass shattered,
I cried, because I couldn’t see her smile anymore
The smell of his fear, hung heavy, tainting the air.

It could have been different . . .

That night,
I wished that I could have been bought,
Like cheap wine, or stolen
With no questions asked.

Naïvely waiting on an ill lit street corner,
I know, now. . what was thought.

So simple, my well laid plan
Unfolded every night.
An established routine …

I was young, invincible, and invisible
I thought . . . then again . . .
Maybe I just didn’t care.
Just waiting . . .waiting to be taken out
Out of this hellish world.
A holy hell with heaven scents
Fermenting in the breeze. .
Taunting me . . .I wished for an escape.

A just a pack of smokes and my bag,
Was all I’d need to roam
All night, at least till 4am,

Check in time, sometimes delayed
By soft body resembling blankets,
Buying two additional hours of freedom
At the extra cost of risk.

I was almost innocent then.

First order of business . . . smokes
My fumescent fire,
Fighting to steal my life and breath.

I’d wait . . . . .
Till some “older” man
Or woman, but mainly men.
Tired, worn, reckless men,
Took pity on me, or perhaps,
Perhaps something more sinister
Was in their exhausted thoughts . . .

But nothing ever happened.
We each went our separate ways
After meeting in the dark alley
Running beside the 24 hour Stop and Go.

At least this is how it went most nights.
Really, all but one,
Man,
I should have feared
But didn’t
Don’t.

He could have been anyone.
We stood on opposing sides
Of the payphones that still cost 25 cents,
Waiting for an hour . . .
I was getting antsy.

Not only did I crave
My nightly fire stick,
But even then I knew . . .
Knew that the longer I stayed
The greater the chance of losing
My hidden freedom.

When he approached,
I hesitated . . .
For a moment. . .
But it was routine,
As always, I rounded the corner
To wait in shadows

Perhaps I was particularly lonely . . .
Or full of angst that night.
Seeking to defy to a greater degree
Than the usual,
Anyways,
No one ever noticed.

So, when he asked me,
“Do you want to go somewhere,
Quiet to talk?” as he
Peeled back his jacket
That cold night to expose
Offerings of peace and pleasure
Stolen and forbidden.

Young and dumb, I followed, he led,
A route I might have taken, familiar ground.

He spoke to me tenderly
His voice resounding sincerity,
Cautiously carting his pain,
Only a glimpse was visible wearily
Spiraling in his earthy brown eyes.
His tan body was all hard muscle
Which required for his survival
But I knew this was just scar tissue.
He used this surface well . . .
Hiding inside his soul.

I watched as he walked a lanky stride,
I saw at once that he was different
From his world, I learned one more time,
To not judge so quickly,
Or at least more carefully.

We smoked slowly,
read with care,
drank with abandon
And talked. . .
As though no one had ever
Listened to us before  . . .
Many, many hours
Above the high school track
Wind whipping our fresh words away.

As time passed, we eased down into
The gray velvet shadows
Faded dank and dark beside my old school
Sitting, laying in the faculty’s
Forbidden outdoor foyer

There he shared his heart
The folded tattered scraps
Singed and saved for years
He gave me all he had left

We almost fought falling in love
If both heart hadn’t already been bought,
. . . And returned . . . broken.

He told me stories,
Told me he’d watched
For days,
Me in my mask of concentrated joy,
Displayed with a purpose . . .
The others were always too near . . . too close
To touch or talk truth

He said,
“You don’t just walk up
To a girl in a crowd,
When your 24 and though she seems older,
She’s surrounded by kids who
Go to class with your baby brother”

His name was tattooed in
Old English across his shoulders
“Leonardo” the only typical
Thing about this turbulent man

So many demons . . .
So secrets . . .
We revealed that lonely foggy night

Holding on to each other . . .
As if we’d loved forever,
And were not just strangers
Sharing the night

I was dizzy, when he first
Placed a hand upon my arm, back,
Then waist, to caress, in that way,
That man touches a woman
He wants . . . I was a girl

We spoke honestly,
This stranger and I,
Baring our cracked crystal
With a trust that denied
Our supposed love of loneliness

As we moved, uncomfortable,
On concrete, his desire
And tenderness shone
Brighter than the moon
Ever could . . .
But the fog was thick.

That moment I recalled my choice,
For do not be mistaken, it was my choice
In one lucid second revoked
Not because of him, or anything
This man did, right or wrong.
He moved softly away, biting his breath
With difficulty, holding his head with dignity.

In our frenzied of need
My new “womanly” underwear
Were ripped . . on one side . . .

We lay there, talked, awhile yet
In the fog, under hidden stars

He had been to prison,
And was back, recently,
To haunt the night, stalk
His disowned family,
Who refused to see him,
He ready to run, again, from his past,
A ticket to California, one-way.
He begged me to go, I wanted too. . .

We toyed teased out a teetering plan
. . . Of impossibility

But, our iridescent dreams were bound to fail,
I was short on time . . .
Like the child I was,
I prized too many possessions
I could not leave behind,
The emblems of my former life,
The ink scrawled pages the held and bared my soul
There was no time to sneak it all away,
That way. . . that night, before day break.

Like the Latin gentleman he was,
He walked his foundling
As far as he dared,
Desperately whispering warnings
About guys like him. . .
Who had hardened vile streaks.

As I snook home from our halfway point,
Clutching my side, enveloped in shadows,
That even streetlamps couldn’t pierce,
The winding sidewalk reeled.

I slipped behind the haggard hanging wooden fence,
Crawled drunken in my silver patched window,
Floor solemnly creaking, announcing my arrival to adulthood,
If only to me . . . just before 4 o’clock check in time.

My mother,
She burned her bra in the 60’s,
Proclaimed her loss innocence with flames,
The smoldering cotton declared her new maturity

But not I . . .
I simply struck a match
A burst of sulfur
Lit a solemn funeral pyre for
The pale blue polyester panties,
Pretending to be satin . . .
Sent an acidic smoke signal
Into the rising sun
For it reminded me too much,
Of myself . . .                            

It could have been different . . .

The spacing between lines is not what I was going for, but its not responding the way I want.

She testified . . .     Everyday . . .For years . . .    In her mind . . .

The lawyers     In their        Gucci suits

Never called      Never came           In search of her

They didn’t see     Behind the crushed            Velvet creases                 Burnt orange                        Gapping                           Curtains . . .

      Hiding        Retiring            Timid               Tiny                  Us                                    We . . .                          Knew  . . .                     Him . . .                 Had  . . .               For . . .           Years . . .

Heard . . .    Strange . . .       Whispers        Down . . .          Lengthy . . .             Hallways . . .

They never asked     . . . this child

No one ever askedMe . . . or her

Our friends    Hidden ignored

Probation    Conviction . . .

Again

Some other child’s . . .Word . . . was enough

They . . . never looked . . . here

Because courts never asked       Because she never told              The right people . . .                         Because . . .they               Never made him pay,      She did . . .Grandmas in denial

Ok, this is a little silly, but what the hell . . .



Woman . . .

Sometimes we as women,
Have a hard time . . .
Identifying with MALES
The old time “oppressors”
Those cavemen brutes
Those corporate sexist pigs

But think for a minute,
Woman . . .
Before you go on your next
Holy crusade of male bashing
Have we become the oppressors now?
Cavewomen, sows
Still nursing resentment
Long past its prime?

I don’t understand you,
Woman,
You’re still trying to down the “man”
While crawling in the broken glass
Filled attic, the ceiling’s broken
Where do you have left to go?

Stomping the heads of brothers,
Fathers, uncles, “boy” friends,
Who personally did you no harm?
These passive, active, male women’s libbers

You still want to beat your
Bongo drums, marching, chanting,
“This penis parties got to go, Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho”

Bouncing bra-less

Damn it woman!
The wo in wo-man
Was not meant to make us worse!

Aug 27, Ed Aug 28 2001

There is a peace in finding answers
Forgotten in the earth,
By distractions pulling
Syllables through the air
Elusive as smoke . . .
Found the question calling
Out in high notes on the back
Of a leaf left drifting in smoggy years
Feel the winding body wrapping serenade,
The future tickles my ears . . .
Tiptoe, and trip, sing stand and try one more
Silly step, dizzy dance holds my hand and head
Hearty and hesitant

I feel something, inside of me.
I have no words to explain,
In proper English sentences.

The smoky gray storm clouds
Hugging the moon, who peeks her head
Around it’s smothering arms.
Under gaps and beneath edges.
Unsure, whether to come out for good,
Or if it’s her bed time,
Along with the night owls, and vampires
Who don’t need or understand harsh daylight
The suns irrepressible cheery heat

I must be kin to her in some
Distant primal past

I have no memory with which to recall
But her light is like unto my blood
Necessary at times, to be shed
I feel myself bleeding,
Wounds never quite stanched

I don’t know when I stubbed my toe,
Ripping off the protective nail,
Or when I pricked my finger,
Bit my lip, scrapped my knees
Scratched my chest . . .
But I must be hemophilic,
For I’m still bleeding

This is one of those pieces that never seems to be finished. I started it 4 years ago, and it has gone through 5 revisions. This is the 6th incarnation of it. There is a link at the bottom if you want to see the last version.

Basically I'm trying to improve the verbal & visual flow, hammer out any areas it trips up, and rework the last 4 lines (it use to be one line, but I have never been entirely satisfied with it) Any feed back is welcome!

“I looked at her,
And she looked the same,
As she always had”

What had changed?
Years of married suburban life,
At some point . . . someone,
For some reason . . .
I can’t understand,
Stopped . . . touching
How did it begin
That begging of the end?
I feel as though
We’ve been in the dénouement
For years . . .
Was it me? . . . Was it her?
The touching . . .
Its one of those things best remembered
When reciprocated . . .
Like a dime store romance
“He grabbed her body and embraced her,
She raised her head,
Brushed her fingertips across his lips”
I can’t remember . . .
The last time she ever looked at me,
In that raw kind of way

With half close eyes pouring tears of passion
To mingled with our steaming sweat . . .

Really it’s the words I miss most of all
The stupid endearments that fade away . . .

We became one of “those” couples
Who in our hurry to the office,
Only glanced at the park full of children,
Dogs, happy families, lovesick picnicking,

We thought only fleetingly
Of the honeymoon
I worked too much,
Paper piles grew despite my diligent,
She flew often to other countries
Gone for weeks
Hammer in hand to break the glass ceiling,
On her way up up up . . .

While I stayed glued to the ground, shrugging,
Struggling to shuffling my feet,
Haunting happy hours, and after hours
Where I knew I would not find happiness
But I played the game, at some point
We all play the game, you would too ya know
Living the life of a lie,
Alls well, Alls well, Alls well Here in Hell

Then
One morning,
That rare hour when we awoke
Still lying next to one another,
Separate cocoons in a bed unused to two

We arose to complete our
Solitary morning routine,
She carted her body in silence,
As if she was the only one,
My presence just a necessary invasion
Like a maid in one of those four star
London or Parisian hotels
The ones I could never afford
But her company always paid for,
Million of miles and years away,
Always claimed she was alone.

At the table,
I sat clutching my coffee,
Contemplating a bagel,
She grabbed dry toast,
Orange juice, and keys
Rushing for the door . . .

As if she had some reason to run,
Some awful thing to escape . . .
Or maybe just something better waiting

I called out to her…
“So, Hon, How’s your week been?”
Two clipped word were all she answered,
“Fine, yours”
With out awaiting a response
She started the car,
Peeled out of the driveway.

Well, what can you expect from a stranger?
Submits to lie near you a week total out of a month,
Always . . . neatly on her own side,
As if there were bars separating his and hers.

When a man in his crisp Brooks Brothers suit
With a mask of detachment etched in his features
Approached me at lunch hour I was not surprised,
Except that it had taken this long for him to contact me.

He handed me a slick expensive pen
Oily with the essence of sorrow and bitterness,
I clutched on tight to keep it from slipping
As I signed the soulless legal document,
Accepting the unavoidable.

Back in my cube, I refused to weep,
My lack tears were the only things . . .
Saving me from dehydration,
Despair had long since passed, years ago.

When I finally looked up, I saw her picture
Sitting in the shrine I’d appointed to her
Many long, long years ago.
And I wondered why?

Why she looked the same as she all ways had?
Who had change?
The bags under my eyes drooped,
My shoulders slumped,
My feet stumbled more than they ever had in the past.

Sitting beside the first picture was
Another photo of her taken last summer,
She looked the same as she always had,
But something inside her had changed.
In that way that pictures cannot capture,
And gilded mirrors do not reflect.

At first I thought maybe a little less luster to her hair,
Or a used spent look to her eyes, but no.
She still looked the same as she always had.
There is neither a line nor a fold on her body
That wasn’t there before,
But the person who had spoken to me
These last few years . . . was a stranger.

I wonder . . .
Was it a cheating heart
Or merely the body
That it consumed . . .

Version 5 Of “She Looked The Same As She Always Did”

X-posted in

I forgot all about this poem, I just found it on my computer and thought I’d post, it about 4/5 years old.
Click here to hear me read this!

Ringing

I lay with my ear pressed,
Against warm flesh of your arm
A ringing sounds . . .
From fathoms deep,
Burrowed in your bones

Percussion sounds reverberate my skull
The faint insistent ring

The rise . . .
And fall . . .
Your chest
Is  out  of  sync

Discordant
With my
Breathing.

Your heart beat,      
Ba boom,
Ba boom,
Ba boom,

It comforts me,
Strangely, to know deep inside you’ll keeps going
You know it’s you who steals my sleep

Ba boom
Ba boom
Ba boom
Your heart beat
It pulls the strings,
Leads the concert,
Conducts the orchestra
Of breath, blood, and vitality.
Your parted lips led the stricken symphony
In the holding court of stolen silence

It calls out to me
Conflicting sounds,
I can’t interpret
Your body’s compositions
Drawing back unto the tower of Babel

It wakes me up at night,
The angry anchient staccado
You sleep soundly
I check the phone,
A dial tone greets me
Though I know it’s you, I still check the door.
Keep telling myself that I just have
Remarkable hearing, wish
The damn neighbors would not
Get calls so late

I hear its echo when I’m alone,
In the space we rent,
But can’t call home
The plaster cracks, splits
As Your percussion bounces
Off walls of tainted canvas
Filtering through me with every pass
Straining my mind of rational thought

Seal the windows, shut and lock the door
Must . . . keep the vibrating sound inside,
Escape . . . cannot let it follow me.
Flee from the den of trembling noise,
Driving me from sanity . . . tormenting me

A conflict inside you,
It doesn’t include you
Refuses to exclude me,
Fights and races me
It waits for you,
Wants you to discover it,
But torments only me.
Unfulfilled, uncontained,
Fighting me, frightening me,
Repeating things I should not know.
I am weak, it all drains me
You are ringing, pounding
My past is buzzing
The line is busy

***This is a short paper I wrote a few years ago that seems particually apt lately, So because it deals with poetry, even though it is not poetry, I wanted to post it. ****

There are many forms of art, which we encounter everyday. Musicians are adored, actor/actresses are admired, sculptors, painters, designers, novelist, all of these are exalted for their forms of art. When reading Patricia Hampl’s, “A Romantic Education,” it brought to mind the scorn we place on poets. What has happened to all the poets? Did they die out? Is theirs a lost art form? Did they commit a sin so heinous that they deserve scorn and ridicule? Or perhaps our culture just stopped listening? Could it be we no longer wish to empathize with each other, or maybe we just don’t know how to anymore?

There is no other art form so mocked, hated and derided than that of poetry. Is it any wonder that the poets have drawn back up into their shells and become “closet” poets? They have been called dreamers, crackpots, and lunatics, gay, worthless. Why? Because they dared to write and express emotions that we’d rather not deal with. Forcing us to listen and think about their feeling and ideas. They use poetry to communicate feeling, illicit empathy, envy, understanding and healing. This kind of interaction is important to our social and emotional well being. Poetry is an art form that expresses emotion. Now, due to social scorn of poetry and poets, many have been forced to suppress emotions that are unhealthy and often this has caused disastrous results. Everyday we see violence and hear crude language on television, both real and fictional that is desensitizing us to our fellow human beings.

Before we move on let me explain what I mean by art, poetry and communication. According to Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, “Art is the conscious use of skill, taste, and creative imagination in the production of acetic objects, and also works produced.” Poetry is defined as “Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experiences in a chosen language, and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.” Communication is a technique for expressing ideas effectively. As you can see, by these definitions, poetry is an art, which allows us to express emotion and receive a response. That sounds harmless enough, so why does it incite such derision among the general populace?

In Hampl’s “A Romantic Education”, she says “I am enough of them, my kind of family, to be repelled by the significance of things, to find poetry with it’s tendency to make connections to past and present and break barriers, slightly embarrassing.” This is coming from one who is a self-professed poet. So why all the fuss you might ask? After all our school systems teach it, it’s still on the shelves at libraries and bookstores. Because though it is there, there it stays, gathering dust. We have a nation protesting that we don’t need this frivolous use of words, and we don’t have time for silliness. We don’t care to hear about the angst, whining or mushy poetry. We have tuned out each other’s feelings. We see and hear of murders, rapes, kidnappings, and catastrophes and say that it’s too bad. Why do we do this? Simply because we don’t want to care, we don’t want to get involved. We don’t want to be scorned as weak because we do care and cannot help doing so.

Finances also play insidious role in our gauging of self worth. Society says if you make a lot of money you are worthwhile and that if you do not you should get a “real” job. But due to the cultural derision of poetry, no one buys it. If it is not bought then poets do not get paid. So therefor they are not worthwhile and should get a “real” job. Do they, yes, they are hiding in your office, schoolrooms, day cares and drive through windows. They hide because of their fear of being called a dreamer, a crackpot, fruitcake, or worst of all, a “Poet”.

If we as adults do all this, what are we teaching our children? Our children are growing up in a time when role models are few and dangers are many. They are continually faced with not only the normal cruelties of childhood, but also excessive violence and extreme lack of caring. Many of these very children have lashed out on their environments because of this lack of understanding and caring. I am not in any way excusing their actions; yet how much empathy did these children receive? Could these children understand the grief they wrought? Could they empathize with their victims? Can empathy be taught? If they could have empathized would it have stopped these senseless tragedies? We have taught them to read, write and to scorn poetry and their creators, through our adult behavior. Many children see poetry as a childishness to be avoided so that they will seem more grown up. Do the children of today know what it is to communicate emotionally, without suppressing their feelings, to be taken out in anger and resentment? We all need an emotional outlet, and poetry is not the only venue for this, however through a desire to understand, poetry teaches empathy. Empathy is the capacity for participating in another’s feelings or ideas. Children and adults alike need to relearn how to communicate emotionally, in other words to empathize. Fear of rejection has imprisoned them. Throughout history people have felt the same emotions we do. But they didn’t keep them suppressed. If they had many of a great works of art would not be here today. We all need a positive release from our mind’s bondage. Poetry can offer just that. With each verse you are pulled farther into the poets world, their point of view. They are not so different from you, they feel the same as you do, but they express it constructively. They let down the barrier to their very souls, a precious gift; they let you in to explore. We as a culture must embrace this again and teach our children it’s all right to do the same. We must tell that there is no shame in showing emotion. Because it is most important that we do not lose our self and how to understand each other, or else we will have nothing left except an ever-escalating piercing scream for emotional release.