on bookmarks, etc.

though my crayon topples your marker and greases
over the even, magic slide
you yet still have the other marker
maintaining our divide.

pages twist and unfurl around this
diligent character who minds
where we have left off:
what stanza, paragraph, or lines.

gracing the holographic, reflective
sheen of our divisive trial
there lies a face who portrait
reflects back our own, only style.

with frayed edge peeking over the top
of a book or anthology or film,
our bookmark guides where none else tries
though we are boats, with no one at the helm.

pounding deep into sonorous radar communication,
your heart breaks out of its once-sturdy shell
to begin the transformation.

first, it grows from mere muscle and organ
into a tall body, lean and lank with only sparse
gems to indicate eyes and smile and brain.

each jewel, barely hovering at the boiling surface,
seeks to embed itself deep into the flesh forming,
but gravity and my desire postpone.

while the diamonds and rubies of your glowing eyes
and lips try to escape their hard and fastness,
your still-dripping hands
curve their winding way
through amniosis and into membrane
which gives way to fresh, clear, though smoky air.

though birth has completed, your limbs remain too soft
for my grasp and, each time i reach, you slip from me
into the soft folds from which you emerged.

in looking back, remembering only,
i have cast you back to the deep, dark folds
where dogs and men may play and frollick, but you
will only pine.

self-restraint

as your hair weighs down, feathery and floating,
across your back with brilliant bright bones,
i will lay my hand across your birdsoul's infinite
sweetness and hold your spirit while you undress.

with your bright rings glittering in both brightness
and dark and your shining, glorious choir of breath
rasping across my bones which glaze over at its touch,
i will see your resplendence.

in the dim air of our conquest, your hand will alight
and take to the air above my head to trace out shapes
and delights the likes of which i will never see again,
nor remember from now.

with musical flight, you leap from our nest to fall to
the street and, in picking yourself to rightness,
you realize all our bright, unhidden sin
and leave our song and flying to wither in the wardrobe alongside
dusty albums and the maps of europe, spring, and time.

inspired by lessig

vocal cords lost
but still whipping your face
which slides across my mind even
as i am lashing it.

your content is lost
as i shape your fate
and toss your creative enzymes out of
our stomach of production
and your means reaches no end.
with no end in site.

in sight we have this marvelous
creature called vision
which rumbles through our collective
brains and leases and unleashes itself
into our collaborative process
in order to concretize our eyes.

in seeing we are reading
and in reading, reading only,
and only of that which is written,
not in writing.
this process breaks our minds and souls
and sharpens our wits while deadening our nerves.

as i am seeing
you are breaking
jaw around the eye

as i am seeing
you are dancing
jaw around the mouth

i watch while you spin
your wicked tales of silk
- if silk -
they are shimmery and shining and
brilliant hued with colors my
imagination bends only to see

translation

quando io vado a piedi, non lascio impronte
le neve rigano attaverso il ghiacco sono lasciati
linee perfetto e dune in 2-D

quando corro, vedo il mio respiro
aria fantasma spuzza fuori e su
piume in casi simili i fonsoli in il collo
dal parlamento morto lungho

guess what's it's from!

limit light

my limit is found
though limitless i may be

an army gashes my front door
though they are enemy

this limited military might
might light my sight
with arrows of night
and i may find, tomorrow,
gone all my way just to lose
that which i never might have owned
had they been only gentle
kind, sympathetic to my night-plight.

while the notes rollick on
and i stay sterile
- encased in fabric both hard
and crisp to my touch which is
smooth: smooth like the child i may
never
have.

this sterility, forced,
on by force. my force?
my force?

this thick plastic tears at my eating
soul which devours all my tears,
but leaves only dust and alcohol swabs
that clean the womb which is already
both foul and clean.

recipe

mix in milk and some cinnamon
fold in bed sheets lacquered in sweat
pour into the mold and
let sit for three years.

when finally it's come to frui(t)
-ion, caesura the ties, grease the lines
soften the raining blows
out the candle

when your alphabet cake
quakes
then you know you've read the recipe

the office

god, her smile's bright. i wish it had a dimmer switch -- nothing more obnoxious than a woman who can't keep her invisaligned teeth, crescent lips, exotic tongue in check and respect the misery of others. i watch her as she crosses the floor -- perfect ass swaying as she steps left, right, left, right; a perfect military cadence of heartbeat mixed with nonchalant steps unknowingly carrying her further from me at my desk, deeper into my heaving, sweaty, needy brain.
she returns from the copier to glance briefly at my shaking hands hovering over a keyboard that i sometimes caress as i might her breasts. she passes me without really seeing and i follow her with my eyes, vision loping after her like a lion after a fat antelope.

over there are so many ways
to correct and correlate and can

you feel what words have not(can)
convey ?

when your necklace catches my hair
and my necktie slides between your breasts
and we are tangled in uniquely-tying situation
can you still feel what words?

your orange shaped heart tickles in my chest
while your heart shaped face crinkles
with laughing at me

i could never fathom your depths
though i drag the bottom through

rigid heat curls
at my feet
tape binds my chest
and sweat binds all the rest
my feet fly over frozen ground
i find what once i'd sought to lose

i always seek what i've already found

your tread announces your presence
-i can feel what you might call fear
but it is only that you are too near
to know what actually i know
because you know toomuch

you already have what you learn

her breath hangs sweetly next to mine
churning mistspirals lap across our
bare faces hands and eyes
communication rots our silence
and she spirals along with her mist
out of mineour lives

she already(always) takes what she has

wheat breath fogs my glasses
made you bread
and you punish.

your hand in mine and
i made you bread
and you call it dry while i
am slowly drying.

while i lie, you lie, we lay
down in breadsoft linens
crusty oats flaking out of our teeth
which chew and snap and grind.

fact: shouting and clapping both
ruin bread.

summer brain, winter brain

my summer brain is slumbering.
i cannot picture warm suns and hot days.
only the swift pitching of the choppy waters and
too quick progression linger with me.

my autumn brain is boring.
i only watch the leaves pitching differently
down and dwindling, instead,
the motivated craze of ocean.

winter brain beckons.
sweaters to snuggle into and i cannot
picture anything unpleasant.
only the warmth of tea and fog-breath.

looking back, i'll foolishly cry
-i wished for winter.
when all i ever ask is summer.

sky is crying
damp traces of today
streaks clouding my vision.
my own heat fogs the
lenses as i
peel them back
to reveal a blurred
clarity all my own.

sky is clearing
but my vision still blurred.
i promise, knowing i won't,
and that doctor will never hold me
down in that chair, vinyl cutting harsh
into my back.

sky cleared, vision cleared, finger tarnished
and the blur is retreated to the fringes.
my phone rings - purr in the too-tight
back pocket -
the polish needed
and received.
and answered call chases all my qualms.

hiatus

during the summer months i traditionally take a brain vacation. so, until further notice, consider all fiction submissions postponed until the heat leaves and allows back my brain. enjoy the summer!

birthday music

the motor churning beside his ear, Robin melded the beats of the escalator to the soulful wail of his own music. every commuter's shuffle added another note or harmony to enhance the simple tune.
incorporating cacaphony had made Robin a wealthy man playing at both colleges and concert halls, but it was this subway dwelling, strings quivering to the screech of poorly lubricated tracks, that spoke to his soul.

boston visit

cloud fingers stretch over us massaging and soothing. billows of friendly, aged faces trace wisps behind - each streak reminds us of einstein and air pollution. tiny size pretzels absorb our anxiety and we begin to relax, just as we begin the descent.

haze still obscures the distances, but the roadways and parking lots stretch below anyway, innocent of our pleading thoughts.

a 23.000 foot roller coaster - the drop is tremendous.

springs of mercy

link gun blazing, toren charged into the fray and quickly dispatched yet another opponent. his stats raised with every kill, plummeted with every death. he rose often. and rarely fell.
the game played fast: players died and respawned and died again. all but toren. he could hardly remember a respawn - wouldn't know how to react had he needed to. "killing spree" the computerized voice cooed at him; his hard work always paid off with a pleasant woman's tone celebrating his tenacity. "double kill" it rewarded when the carnage was swift.

jared wished he held something a little more powerful than the small handgun he wielded as he walked into the schoolyard: something closer to a link gun would be pleasant. though the stats wouldn't be available to him after this encounter, he could envision the results. F1 would reveal him leading over all his enemies. his 17 kills matched with his single death. no respawn this time.

untitled poem

when i walk, i leave no footprints
the snow streaks across the ice leaving
perfect lines and dunes in 2-D.

when i run, i see my breath,
ghost air spraying out and up
plumes like the frills on the neck
of a long-dead parliament.

even when i run, though,
i leave no footprints --
no trace of me, no clout.
no stomp of anger, no ---

but, let's forget about that.
let's talk about the snow
and how it, how it, how it
freezes and sticks and melts
and clings and blows and
hurts and dances along the
sky, twirling, a feminine spectacle
seducing to death and frozen wonder.

--december '06, read at "hard freight" coffeeshop open mic

some rights reserved

allow to me to break the fourth wall here: i recently decided how i would like to copyright my work. (see top of page under the heading "working title").
basically, i request that anyone who wants to work with my work ask me first. similarly, i'm fine with attributed distribution. note the "attribution."
also.. i'm not making any money off of this. so, you shouldn't either. ::pre-emptive glare::

fourth wall closing. check out creative commons for more information about rights and copyleft.

short fiction

the glass cold against her temple, she pored over the text, heavily weighed down slender white fingers with dry pages, flaking binding, yellowed, aging words. blue veins clenched in tightened, bare forearm; delicate bones tapping and retracting in long, exposed foot. laura's days were spent in study – she lounged in window seats and languored in deep grass. the library windows were cold and unwelcoming, only offering a view of all she missed, but the warm grass tickled and discounted the novels: discredited dickens and lambasted tennyson. perfect concentration she found nowhere, but everywhere dissatisfaction.
eyes scanning pages which fingers itched to turn, laura plowed through the greatest works of england and america while slowly aging, gradually losing the blush from her cheek and the fat of youth from her frame.
in the late afternoon, nanny would call her for tea and laura would slouch into the dining room, slump into one of the high-backed chairs, and, with deliberate, studied slowness, sip tea and spread her toast with jam to crunch languidly between teeth small and porcelain.

laura spent her time studying not only books, but people. she read emily post between eliot and proust. while walking in the town, she stopped to stare awkwardly at lovers walking together. laura spent a great deal of time alone. she missed home and mum and disliked the smallness of america after immense england. of course, everything in america was oversize and indelicate; not out of a sympathetic largeness, but due to a spiritual size lacking grandeur. they compensated poorly.

rise up, rise up

spirals crept along her jaw, gained momentum in the smooth transition down quivering neck to rollicking bosom, slanted deliriously through twist of waist and cried softly on joyous union with unending hips. it died slowly on the floor, petered out, exhausted, dripping with the sweat descending from a whirl of soundless motion.

her name was alex and she had been dancing for a long time. hours maybe. years more likely. she was lost in the sounds and in the silence – for her, time was crawling by so slowly that pausing moments in each rhythm took ages to complete, each break was a heartache and she could never recover quickly enough to cease her swing.

angles quaked around his awakening form, paced through his warm limbs to rapidly cooling emotions. slowly he creaked from under soothing cover, stately mannerisms belying pain crouching just below the surface. a wrong step, a slight turn too hard and he was on the bed again, age forcing him low though dignity urged him up. finally, conquest in his eyes, he raised himself and stood erect on the equally aged floor, pine boards rubbed thin through years of meticulous sweeping, decades of clubbed feet wearing smooth the soft wood.

“papa,” she glided over, “papa, why are you so grumblycreaky of a morning? i am already awake for hours before you join me dancing.”

“child, i have lost my youth, yet you throw yours away. why do you wait for my waking before you go about your life? my time for wakefulness is passed. let me asleep.”

“ah, papa, morning is no time for your dreams. come, today we to market!”

and papa agreed, as always, his only child wooing him the way her mother failed to but once. “with this girl, there is no reason, only motion.”

as Dear left the now cold bed, she brought with her no poetry and no delight. she clambered over blankets heaped into mountains and leapt, as from a great height, the few inches to the floor, the same floor that she stumped around all day, all night, all her life. she thought of the child and the man and, as quickly, dismissed them: “fools, they have no idea. they market, they dance, they dream, but no sense they have.”

she limped into the kitchen and lit the fire, the ashes stirring lightly in the sweeping wind of her housedress.

“mother criticizes so much our dreams, papa. why does she hate us?” Holding tightly to his rough hands, she skipped through the festival feel of the market.

“she cannot understand our freeness, child. she has only her hands and they swiftly move to fail her.” He picked at linen displayed on a board piled high with silks and muslin. “she tried to compromise. and fell too hard.”

when she was young, Dear had a name.

“your momma, she painted. did everything, really. she could create, your momma, but then she created too much and she had to put away her youth and turn into an old woman – she never experienced being a mother, only a maiden, only a crone.”

Ilania.

“she used to do so many beautiful things – music and art and love, but she forgot how to do all that when she learned to knit, to sew, and to sit. that is what kills her – the sitting. your momma has no patience, only courage. so, everyday she sits to discipline herself and everyday she ages more, embittered further.”

“what a strange and tiny thing, this husk. corn is never so dry. so barren – why, how could I?”

genre unknown

plot: pre-apocalypse/revolution. boy and girl thrust together, split. girl kidnapped, raped, broken. boy left temporarily broken-hearted, finds new girl, misses first the whole time. but fadingly.
girl returns and finds boy. goes after him and finds him with the new girl. he runs away with (original) girl only to discover that she didn't escape, but that she was send to find him/actually believes in "the cause." she takes him to her "home" with the revolutionists (called "the ventriloquists"). close with him allowing brainwashing out of despair. (?)
[for the record, i probably just spoiled the story. ^_^]

August 8, 2103 Philadelphia Inquirer [this will have appropriate news format]

Mayor Assasinated, Assistant Steps-up

Early this morning, police responding to a 911 call from Mayor ___________'s home discovered Mrs. ____________ weeping over the body of the mayor. She reported that a masked man had broken into the home and killed her husband, telling her to relay a typed note to the police and to the media. That note, reproduced here, reads
to our dear city:
today, 08.08.2103, is the day that we have begun our revolution. today, the eighth day of the eighth month of a year intolerable, is your last breath of foul air before our force clears your lungs and frees your minds from the smog of oppression.
tomorrow, you will suffer, but you will know the truth and the future will bring you comfort and freedom. our forces have begun only today, in anonymity, but you will know us and we will call to you.

ours,
the vulgar streak.

Assistant mayor Hale/Hail [i'll decide on one of these] has condemned the writers of this note, calling them killers and has already established a polices task force to find and bring to justice the commiters of this heinous crime. Assistant mayor Hail [decided?] is acting as mayor for now and will continue to do so until the elections next November. He will formally address the public in a press release to be issued later in the week.

"Well, isn't that just typical? The moment things in office start to get hairy, the mayor goes and gets himself killed. Typical!"
"Daddy, that's unfair and cruel! You read the news: he was murdered in his home. He didn't even go anywhere!"

science fiction - long

The ground gulped greedily at the proffered fluid. As each drop began its sizzling trip from pitcher to parched earth, a small girl trembled in anticipation of her own relief. Salarek was what could be called a lonely planet, desolate, even. The few hardy inhabitants quenched their desert thirst by forcing water from air to rain down in artificial showers long ago invented by generous masters.
Each dweller on Salarek had an assigned task to complete, each according to his or her ability. And each contributed. This was not a discriminatory planet. From the smallest child, imported from the outer worlds, to the busiest machine, all were employed and all useful. Of the few laws governing Salarek, because it was a loosely governed home, the greatest was work, hearkening to some ancient, unremembered concept of the Protestant work ethic, perhaps.

• Salarek: dusty planet of hard work and harsh discipline -- hardly enforced because, while loosely governed, it is strictly punished - if only by death from thirst or retaliation by one's peers. this planet is close to the star duo at the center of the planets.
  

• Ataren: industrial planet entirely run by machines and, thus, strict. machines are sentient and, in a small way, capable of feeling very religious. what doubts?
  

• Qual/Kwol: this planet is inhabited by untamed tribes of indigenous people (or are they just untamed planetarians .. australia-esque?). tribal people who cooperate with each other for survival and war. planet is heavily booby-trapped and people there hate planetarians. this planet is much like earth of old, with oceans, bodies of water, deserts, forests, plains, and TRASH.

• Planet: the home world. breeds children from people reporting from other worlds. selective breeding pairs bright with bright, low with low, and mixes. planet isn't just a breeding colony, though, it is also the hub of government and commerce. people come here for supplies and pay with resource certificates. this is a water planet.
  

test

this post serves as both a test and an explanation.
you see, while i already have a blog for observing and complaining about things, i really have no forum in which to showcase my writings and ideas for writings.
so.. here it is.