Clouds

My eyes are practically closing themselves
as I stare at the blurring bright screen of the computer in front of me.
Drifting in and out of sleep,
I begin to dream in short bursts,
like the breaths a swimmer takes as they approach the wall.

I saw her face, so real I could practically taste the air
checkered with her perfume on my lips.
The oasis quickly disappeared and revealed the dessert sand
in the form of a constantly refreshing facebook news feed,
Christian just made 18 months with his girlfriend, great.

A Poet Is

A poet is just someone
who writes some shit about
something creative they had on their mind.

A poet is just someone who looks at someone
or something and turns the every day
into beautiful words that paint a better picture
than the thing the poet is actually looking at.

A poet is just someone with a pen,
or a keyboard, spewing their emotions on the page
and hoping to get some sort of support from a reader,
the poet is really someone with low self esteem.

A poet is just someone who isn't afraid of looking at themselves,
and writing exactly what they feel about themselves.
To the rest of the world they may be a genius with a bright future,
but to themselves they're just hopeless writers searching for a finishing line.

Voices

Trying to find my voice
is like trying to silence
all the voices in my head
crowding around the small child
who represents my individuality
in a world where the individuals
are quickly assimilated into
the media gauntlet
and mirrored until they
can't handle recognize themselves.

Looking for my voice
involves using my voice
which is like trying to define a word
by using the word itself.
Perhaps I should just write every poem
without any editing.

And become the most prolific writer
in the history of writers,
to have never found his voice.

House of Mirrors

You can spend hours trying to draw someone,
the brilliant evergreen around their pupils

Kissed by hues of brown breaking in through the retina
with particular detail to every eye lash, each distinct hair

Like a moment in life, all coming together to form the
sundress dancing around their eyelids

And the shadows, changing instantly with every
uncontrollable twitch, contoured to cream skin

Force your hand into a stutter,
and change the very mirror of perfection you had set out to create.

Undoubtedly your lips know more than your hands, having
skipped through the landscape your hands have only skimmed,

Every nerve tip a paintbrush, and every whisper
a maestro to his masterpiece, a quartet played through

The soft breaths exchanged by two canvasses,
details your fingers could never appropriate into color.

Art imitating life, down the road where two paths
converge, framing the sunset crimson.

Cancer

I wouldn't mind a chatty Kathy,
or a negative Nancy,
I just can't stand a volatile Victoria.

Love seems to creep up on you when you least expect it,
like when you're trying to find the flowery words to a new poem.
"Googling" birds native to New York City,
just to get your mind off the fact,
that the girl you want doesn't want you.

It's funny how life gives you what you want,
only to show you the fine print after you've invested yourself.
I paid my money, coins in emotions I don't usually carry around with me,
and now I learn things will never be the way I want them.

Young love is like that.
My brain isn't fully developed yet at nineteen,
so I can't blame myself for falling for a girl who doesn't want to be more
than "close friends with benefits".

I'm pondering whether this is even a poem,
my heart telling me  to write what I know,
my mind telling me not to be so fucking blunt.
What is it about the things I can't have, having me?

I could write about the bronze Hawk I saw flying over
the young people infecting my campus,
or the way the snow in the spring makes me wonder about death,
but I find myself penning her name.

The gift and the curse.
I couldn't stop if I tried,
and try as I may,
I wouldn't stop caring for the girl,
who half halfheartedly cares for me.

Seeds

March is the cruelest month, carrying
valentine love into the wind.
We held our heads up high
through the warm birth of Spring,
remembering the cold nothingness
turned violets in the viridian colored grass underneath the moon.

For Catherine

Spring flowers always bloom underneath the sun,
but they too have to sit in the twilight of the moon.

The first time we locked lips
in a dream,
the garden holding the fruit with the knowledge of good and evil
had opened it gates and invited us in,
 past the waterfall dripping honeydew
through the vineyards of grapes glistening fuchsia,
I held your hand.

Harps resonated through rays from the sky,
as the blades of grass underneath our naked feet
bounced lightly to the pulses becoming nature.

Softly I brushed your auburn hair
while peering into the eyes that opened those gates
to the world of conception.
It was then I understood the nuances of time,
and the puzzles of reality,
as nothing more than trivial distractions
from the ultimate truth of a man and his lover.

That was my first dream,
delicate, distant, and sincere.
I often deprive myself of sleep,
hoping for that rare moment
when consciousness slips from my grip,
and the cardinal red roses of paradise
grow before my eyes.

Intervention

We, who you've lusted and loved in the most carnal sense,
have come together on your behalf
to let you know that what you're doing is wrong.
We haven't seen you in weeks
and all of us are getting worried,
that our midnight make outs
are relics of the past.

You need to come back to us Richard.
We know this isn't what you want to hear,
but it's what's best for you.
Who ever she is, she isn't worth it,
and she'll never love you in silence,
she's probably going to love you all day,
and night,
regardless of whether she's seen you or not.
She'll most likely listen to you,
and trust you,
and want you to do the same.

Most of all you guys aren't even having sex.
Really?
We know what you need, and want Richard,
this girl is just a passing phase,
soon enough you'll be texting us when you're bored,
wondering if we're busy,
and asking us to come to your room.

When you're done talking,
and getting to know one another,
and building a foundation that will withstand the corrosion of time,
we'll be waiting.

Ovid

Over the river, with the tide running south
towards the warm and expecting, two white birds flew.

Behind them the dead of winter remained stagnant,
and beneath them ice broke into life, and became motion.

The first bird dipped, and grazed the child of nature,
the birth of water, from its December carcase.

The second bird soared opposite the first, choosing the path of Icarus,
and so nearly touched the sun, that my eyes burned to follow its flight.

They exchanged places down the Hudson, for as far as my limiting vision could perceive,
an endless concerto, into the light, between life and death.

Friday through Sunday

Memories of what they had and lost
reproduced themselves like motion pictures in morose minds,
black and white, because the color of love had left their souls.

They ignored text messages, and deleted facebook pages,
and besieged blogs with letters on life
and bulletins of salacious semantics.

Their scent remained
the only reminder of what was,
the forbidden fruit of weekend love.

Casual encounters in the halls
led to brief signatures,
signed with the exchange of glances,
and the contact of their essence.
Windows peering into the truths
that they couldn't dare to say.

Roaming down the polar end of the dorm,
from the one who was magical, scarlet, and absolute
young lovers learned the luminous delineation
of passion and becoming.

Christening

This river belongs to the man without a home.
Between classes I ventured through the brush,
and caught a glimpse of him skipping rocks in tattered clothes.
His torn black jacket had golden buttons that glimmered in the February sun.

I could see an equatorial line on his jeans, just above his knees.
Speculating on this line, I walked to Communications,
in awe of the man who owns the river.

Two weeks later I yearned for the moon, and the stars
and walked to the river side.
He stood submerged in it,
that line I had noticed earlier, marked his convergence with the Hudson.
His arms out spread, as if receiving the Holy Spirit of the crescent,
he basked in his midnight audience.

The water was jet black, and the tide calm as mahogany,
but I have a life to lead,
and blood to bleed,
before I bathe within sea.

Seven Year Old Musings

Little Sakura asked-"What happened to Christine, I miss her?"
"We aren't friends anymore"
With the crystal clear logic of a seven year old angel,
she quickly responded
"Why aren't you friends anymore? I liked her"

I felt my phone burning in my pocket,
the digits practically pressing themselves.
Her emery eyes blazing the brand left on my heart.

"Sakura, you're going to be a lawyer one day"

Pharisee

I read some Dickinson,
And promptly left English 109-Literature at work,
So I could rush to the nearest computer lab and write a poem.

“We grow accustomed to the Dark” had inspired a commentary
on the idiocy of American academia.
A few digressions later
I realized I no longer had the creative spark to write a poem.

I returned to class, defeated.

Promenade Wanderings

We walked the Brooklyn bridge, drowned in bitter cold
that whipped mist from the Atlantic onto our tender lips.
Her dirty blond hair teased my face with constant brushes
instigated by the oceanic winds.

I still remember walking the tightrope between
every man's worst nightmare, the "friend zone"
and the place where our eyes intertwined into the story
of our happily ever after.
The Brooklyn Bridge never seemed long enough.

One day she invited me up to her room,
mementos of herself tattooed her wall
every piece of art, and photography,
a hearkening to a past I didn't know,
with insight into the future I wanted to live.

He called,
and she asked me if she should answer.
I liked her too much to tell her no.
I left so she could talk privately,
and that was the last time I saw her in person.

The Brooklyn Bridge never seemed long enough.

Eight Thirty A.M. History Lecture

While I wrangled with the Sandman to keep my eyes open,
during a discussion of Christopher Columbus' treatment of the indigenous
I noticed a crucifix on the wall near the windows.
Our lord and savior was surrounded by water damaged walls with chipped paint,
and rusty lead pipes.

Amen

Phantom

Last night during the witching hour
I woke up in a cold sweat.
Perspiration forced from my body
I knew that you were the fire burning in my
sanguine vessel.

Time never reverses his firm grip
around the neck of mortality, however,
As the morning dew collects, and our rested faces
venture into new winds
your aspect grows more beautiful second by second.

Love is an apparition that mingles in the minds of men
turning rationality into feeling.
Before the windows of my soul, I gaze upon your demon
the phoenix of my lifelong passion for you reborn.

I lay me to sleep, and pray for your intervention.

"Robert Frost's discussion with a Rose Bud"

29 January 1963

It's been too long since you've blessed my nostrils,
your fragrance like melodies from the French quarter.
You will never understand the sway you hold over me,
but that shouldn't concern the mind of a child.

All of my writings,
considered legendary visions inspired by your predecessors,
could never invoke the emotion animated by your wonder of this magnificent world.
I know you'll struggle to find your place, among your August cousins,
who melt the sorrow off human hearts and remind us that Nature is eternal.
I want you to know that your energy and spirit in life,
resonate through the manuscripts of man's history.

Eva Braun

My canvass has never painted a more beautiful picture
of a more beautiful women,
like a rare jewel hidden in the depths of Poseidon's empire
your image shines through the dark abyss of this imperfect world.
I know.

Artists, they take liberties and over indulge the mind in
useless scenery that sceptics search within,
but you, Eva, perfect Eva, are the muse which moved the pen
to tell the story of the face that launched a thousand ships.

On this villa, over this mountainside
I see your face in the wind that brushes tree tops in the distance
to form a wave through nature,
like God's hand wiping impurities from his earth.

Soon we will have Paris like two
star crossed lovers lip locked in Venice,
and our french love will perpetuate through the world.
Our kisses a break from the bombs that burn in my mind.


Always Yours, In Death and Thereafter

-Adolf

Letter to Lela

If you could smell the food my lela used to cook....
that little swag as she danced around the kitchen,
those boriqua hands, aged in years,
were young as love,
in that project tenement kitchen.
she used to tell us how she left puerto rico,
i'd see it in her eyes...
puerto rico was her first love,
she left her for dreams, hopes for a family in the future,
that American dream, was always lying,
because my Lela stood young for puerto rico,
and people always said she looked 10 years younger
than her actual age,
Why?
She did it up for puerto rico,
and during those cold new york winter months,
when it snowed so much that her bus was delayed,
and when she got on her bus young men
sitting shivering and numb from the blizzard of the bronx,
wouldn't even stand to offer a seat,
but she never stood in vain,
her Rican legs stood proud,
they walked an entire family into existence,
salsa floors to hospital hallways,
those young legs marched for me,
and my father, and my brother....
those young puerto rican legs
said Fuck 60, im feeling 16
and I can't stand these trees in new york city,
Im thirsting for palm trees and coco rico,
and gossip with my girls,
underneath the wise old sun on beaches white as heaven,
speaking of heaven she never sinned,
and I know that's not true,
but if a sin is something wrong, lela only did right,
and when she went to church, the wisest,
most well versed pastors knew that her humility was unbecoming,
she was too kind, she was bright,
she probably read the bible one hundred and one times,
but when the pastor talked, she listened,
and sometimes I could see the exhaustion
pulling down on her gorgeous eyes,
and I know she wanted to dose off,
and I've seen her do it, at times,
but never in Church, it seems God and Puerto Rico
had too much respect from Lela.
I want her to know that they both respect her.
And if she prays, God listens.
And when she steps off that plane into her motherland,
it gives her a big old hug and asks where she's been.
She's not dead and this isn't an obituary,
this is respect from a grandson who forgot about peurto rico
and forgot about God, but would Never, in his long
tedious life, full of vanity and sins and darkness,
forget about Lela, the woman who taught him how to be a man.
And her little anecdotes about life,
and her stories about persistence,
and passion, and sufferance.
I don't know the definition of a profit,
and I never knew Dr. King, or Gandhi,
but Lela was my saint on earth.
And I know im far in spirit, and im far in presence,
but every time I cook,
I have that little hop in my step, that little bounce,
that little swag.
Lela lives in me and she won't die for shit.
When she comes to my wedding im gonna let my wife know,
I'm gonna point to Lela, and tell my wife on the alter,
this women is your role model of a wife and a mother,
and if your even one percent the woman, and wife, and mother that she was,
you would be the second greatest woman, and wife, and mother. In the world.
Gracias.

-Foofie

Ode to Oedipus

The sickle of time’s most invested agent
haunts the shadows, and never ceases.
As I look into my lover’s eyes,
I see the hands of time ticking up and around,
Like inverted sex, on an unholy matrimonious bed
The youth flood the streets with signs screaming in revolt,
Old men push buttons and young men die,
While the newborn’s eyes are pierced by the light of death
And every second is a token from the reaper,
His economy running on lost opportunity,
Has given us the most unsolvable of riddles.
The sphinx was never the problem,
It was the king.