cognition XX

on impression dissention
how past me sees me now
and how me now sees me to be

questions come when shower water covers
about mothers, will i ever hear
your children are so beautiful?
what do i wear inside my mini
below my sunglasses and ice coffee
that conceal and reverse a restless night
lipstick stain on an orange straw
can i see myself at all?

what did i see as a girl
wishing i was a teenager
curly black hair and hoop jewelry
curves and lines shouting out my head
walking on asphalt, my childhood street
slapping heels and smacking gum

two for limbo

deffered for now/prison, london

people wait for/tunes to change

one with some luck/two lack of funding

split like a hypun/known future remains

russel rustle, stirring ghosts

heart is a rabbit in a hurry, hungry
for sundry samples of memory, lovely
flashes of you in your tank are too much
for my stomach to keep down such little a lunch

i wish you the best, i’m wishing you well
but seeing you there is like being in hell
i’ll throw in the ocean my happiest token
to wash away notions of sad laughing swells

404: love not found

later, you will look back and cringe
at our pithy attempts of intimacy

knowing the future finds a car, computer
to have you gripping your seat in full swoon

decked out deco

to be you, girl
outlined in sultry bold black
woven fingers to hold your curls
waist dropping and droopey, disappears

those twenty year later minxes of gingham
all cheeks and titted teeth
smiled for a while but
what stays, distant stately elegance
dripping with parisian decadence

late early life lessons

learning how to steer, point, turn
my mother directs us to hough’s neck
where i was born, and a place of regional pride
evidenced by the lexus vanity plate: NECKER
let’s go down to where you had dance recitals, i’m getting chills
i’ve backed up in a straight line here before, only in a tutu
more landmarks are in the maternal tour guide
like where dad had a boat with cliffie
and where the horseshoe crabs burrowed
generating phobias, spanning generations.

got over hump day

waited for your lips in my dreams
which is where i went on waterfalls
which were more like haunted houses

after long burns from sojourn yearn
back home is where the walls groaned
spittin trippy drippy metallic static
make breathing heaving, goes to toes

genius of love*

i’m not moody (spaced out)
always returning (2)
a fifth of beethoven
waters of nazareth
take pills: phantom headlock
colours: the warning
hold up trans europe express
we will become silhouettes

*all words are from titles on my ipod's genius playlist for "take pills"

lust bites

saying i love you is like scratching summer skin
relief in a rush, then the tingling spreading sin
knees got pink and grew, elbows ankles creepy crawl
infected, engorged, inescapably enthralled

dog v skunk no one wins

midnight, the chow black lab, learns life lessons like
skunks spray stink and
people push putrid pups
thrown baking soda and water from a distance
white powder took root in black fur
with the smell as well
she could have fooled anyone

saturdays poem uh oh

(i will publish this poem when i find it)

lynne is in

when you enter
standard retail salutations
face is backlit
lighting cover
silence gleans a twice once over
i see you for who you are
long lost friend jersey swallowed
you see me in a hideous floral frock
i don out of wan

egg scramble ramble

alright police
i know running full speed
to the station is sketch
but you best believe
that i'm under duress
and it ain't cause of weed
its a chore i detest
theres some eggs that i need
ima done do dis deed
so is in your best interest
to let me go please!

i omit the d in vieogamin

i wonder if our error is in glorifying terror
all the pixelated soldiers getting shot at from our server
trigger clicks and grainy knifes in computerized lives
forever gamers never know the value of good weather

melee malaise

ah, glorious quincy center
home of junkies with sweatpants too tight
and crazies with stretchpants, fitting fifty pounds ago
only this afternoon is different, a flock of normals
watch two fire engines outside their place of work
firefighters do roughly nothing at a routine firedrill
nevertheless, they watch, back to the freaks
and i watch them watch
coming late, hoping for carnage
but there is none so i walk home
and run straight until i plunge into the waters of blue oblivion.

hot pink nylon makes me smile

dog escape
pool goan break
in stride i take
setbacks of late

baby, you key
to sanity
specially trained
in depravity

ansty dans pantsy

my body screams for change
not like a u turn or underwear
but the change that happens with the rivers of consciousness course
little pebbles shift, and bit by bit, removing grit
i clear pathways to clean rooms
and nights wrapped tight in simple sheets

not so hot

it’s july but it’s overcast and i’m running cold.
you run hot.
my arms tan, you say, but the rest of you fucking burns.
you’re a smouldering flame, but easily squelched by warm morning showers that estinguish the chills in my elbows
when i put up my arms as if i’m relaxing

pack rat book worm

i collect chaos, along with dusty vintage feathers, wrinkles, improbable stains, and the endless absence of everyday effects.
but not with this book. it is my health class egg shell with an evaluation at the end.
any speck of dust a barely damp towel inspects.
i find clean plastic bags to protect its words against the elements of work and transit.
when i’m done we will see the anal intellect i can be.

jason anderson tells It

singing stomping, yelling in pitch and out of it
beards and flannel like you wouldn’t believe
but all of us genuine for one second
hearing and believing what you say on stage
about this moment and the rest of what we have
and how it may not be much, right now is time to live
so drop your brows and forget the ambulance and go woah woah woah

domestic tornado

forever wanting more
i’m the tub with the leaky drain plug
so close to a warm bath
if i could learn to keep my holes shut

sometimes i got nothin

yesterday was a do nothing day
of sound and fury, and if it signified anything
the meaning slipped through my hands like sand

yesterday was a good for nothing day
with crests and valleys and crashes like waves
that brought me to warm pink sheets and a pristine book

yesterday left me with nothing to say
about wet garbage and corvettes blaring MJ
or deals that make you reel
but i feel tomorrow, and tomorrow’s okay

classic shock

upstairs i straighten and jimmy h encourages
from the grooves in some blackass vinyl

his face stares from cardboard, perplexed
no doubt by his disembodied voice

in the corner of the cover a possessive s-j-c
it was once my fathers but belongs now to me

when side one is done, i don’t live today
i hear jeff m downstairs helping get dishes done

to slapping strings and hoarse throat notes
i think of genes and leaves of trees, all one

oooh. AHHH

colored bursts for america
facilitate the need to scream
sounding whitman's barbaric yawp,
mothers take after their children
and both shriek into each other
moving along a summer zephyr

ungodly tired

double crossed eyes
sight betrayed
my cognitive map
has a flight delay

jonesin for phone sin

a girl of the modern age
i feel squeamish unplugged
unleashed, removed from the confines of communication
if i can't hold on to your voice - transcribed, electronic
if i can't feel the fuzz of your new timbre, warming touch tones
my ear alive with radioactive fervor
then my body lies stagnant
unsure of what to do when you can't get through

nervous novice

pins, hot fingers
lightly graze my cheek
and lingers
until the warm glow grows,
goes down my nose
praying for snow
or a cool wind to blow

wet lunch

it's been a long time since a rain like this
slopes in the old cambridge roads
make primordial pools
shimmered explosions from fat fast drops
that fall from fickle heavens

crowds run, afraid but more alive
their hair returning to its natural state, protesting sprays