Chapter 1 - Concerning the sirens

I remember them

The sirens

It seems dogs would howl in warning

Or lamenting untold disasters

Prepare me for the sound

Deafening –

The sound and

Blinding –

The lights and

Tragic –

The scene awaiting.

Yes, I have seen

That of which you speak

Walking down some dark alley

My mind’s eye peering ‘round.

Feet like four

Then I run –

I run all the way home.

Forgetting the comfort

Of walking alone.

Chapter 1 - The Countdown

The countdown has begun

Young man’s mind

Gone to porridge

In a padded cell.

Henna-headed

Mud-encrusted

Cobalt

Blue

Dinner robe.

Dirty black jeans

Smug photographer.

Fashion frog

Pissing in the hands

Of mannequins.

Pretty prim princess

Throws her golden ball

To smash regal warted body

Leaping, croaking in wake

Of slimy sex

!!!SPLAT!!!

Yet the tadpoles swim on

In warm womb water

Of mother murder.

Chapter 1 - We Smiled

Got ahead of myself

Wanted you near

Wrote those lines

Shed no tears

Time has drawn

Your face

Where I looked so long

At the mirror

And remembered

The smiles we smiled

In a different place

Chapter 1 - No Sound

No sound passes

Wooden ear knobs

To live alone

With blue roses

Or diseases

Spreading life amongst the dead

Wandering aimlessly

Plethora of ages

Subsequent youth fountains

Owing not to breath or action

But the external force

Which pulls us together

Creating letters to form the words

Our mouths speak

Freely lacking meaning

Utilize material issues

Grasp stones that

Turn to marshmellows

Never return to

Coveted home

Where ceiling fans whirl

Roads curve and

We hold each other’s heart sin

open hands

Chapter 1 - Oscillate

Ceiling fan head matter

Transgress

Word world communication

To bungling existentialist

Rivalry

Past the cave of missing links

Through rancid sewers

In our sorry city

Mankind lost to fantasy, tele/vision

Protected from reality

Realizing only blue light screen

Pictures

Flicker.

Chapter 1 - Neophyte

Neophyte to the religious order of love

Enchanted woman-child

Gazing at the looking glass sacrifice

Emanating terror.

Virile man waiting your arrival

Cruel fire licks at her tresses

Incendiary monster flame

Amenable, beautiful child

You are planet to his sun

Succumb to vast temptations

Satiate desires for the flesh

Commence a pilgrimage

Across canyons of physical existence

Unearth the spirit impetus in two

Alleviate such pious struggle

Hold tight to the hand of the man

Who professes his love for you

Chapter 1 - Outsides

Writing prose

For phantoms

Dressed in women’s clothes

I dance

Gothic audience

Lipstick wearing men

Growing breasts like buds

In a vase

Shaped like a

Bathroom stall

The yellow world

Giving in to the

Blue hand of the

Next red door

Leading me

To frightfully cold conclusions

About ashtrays and

Track lights

Straying away from

Clandestine meetings

Into outsides

Here I’m safe

Chapter 1 - Perhaps

The blankness

Of this page

Is lurid

I am a waterless well

My poetry leaves me for dry wit

Here in Finland.

Circa 1991

Perhaps I am not a poet, but a mere peasant in the field of loneliness. Plucking away at the fruit of my labors until my knuckles are calloused and bleeding. Only to rise and sell my harvest to the highest bidder or the most handsome man in the village for a simple compliment. Or a kiss. A kiss that would linger on my lips through sun quenched rainfall in the field, in the mud with only my bag of onions and a memory of you. The kiss you gave me as I left your bed that early morning in July. Your hands and mine entwined for a only a second in time. My tears still wash away the grime. The only rainbow I see ends not at the pot of gold but at your feet. And in your eyes I see the rain.

The rain that once caressed my cheeks to rinse away the stains. The rain that fell the night before I left you to drench that cotton dress and drip from my hair to your chest, heaving in wet delight. My feet are heavy with this field. I feel it hard to escape until I have dropped my baggage but it usually falls on my toes. So, I must carry my own weight. From the start your presence beside me on this road of life could not impair my perseverance. We are lovers individual and self-sufficient, sharing our lives as well as strife.

With your hand holding mine we can walk through the field. My other hand managing the weight of my harvest and your reaching for your own goals. Together the mud is not so deep and we both stand at the end of the rainbow grasping our dreams – separate yet infinitely bound by love.

Chapter 1 - Tango

Pussy cats tango

On the front lawn

While black widows feast

On their husbands

The boys grow up without a father

And the little girl spiders tease

Snow covers the garbage we leave

Prowlers seek refuge

Near my window

Peering relentlessly

Through black blinded panes

Chimney sweep curses

Neglected soot

Dinner is served on plastics

Microwave safe

Warm milk in crystal glasses

My poems have all been cut-up

Nervous scissors

Lint covers the clothes we wear

I catch

Light in broken mirrors

To point in your direction

Chapter 1 - A poem for the presence

Hovering

Perching on a dreamer’s head

No biology

Pulse races, sweat drips

Permeating skin

All laws defined

Contradicted

Controlled breath

Shallow evidence

Doubting minds

Constricting

Denouncing

The presence

Of another

Denying

The essence

Of terror

Chapter 1 - Slumber

Mind races with wolves

Lethargy drags me under

Into the comfort of submission

Cold, fresh, clean

Upon the body – heavy

Heat radiates

Red, glowing embers ascend

From skin to blanket

Rising

While I fall

Deep

Into fearless slumber

Chapter 1 - I Dared

(Then) I dared to live

And love and

Yes

To falter

I dared to dream

And hope and

Yes

Desire

I sought to fill

A gaping hole

Between myself

And what I named

Reality

It got me nothing

Save a hole

In my heart

Over you.

____________________________________________________________

(Now) I dare to live

And love and yes!

To be grateful.

I dare to dream

And hope is no longer

Simply the absence of pain

Faith fills my once insatiable desire

and wisdom comes from knowing

That naming reality

Still gets me nothing.

But my heart is whole.

I’m over you.

Chapter 1 - Judgment

Knowledge is a shaft of light

Breaking through the cracks

Of dungeon walls

For a time in reach

Then dissolving

As the bits of dust within that light

Our bodily concatenations

Impinging upward toward truth

Motion of mind

Hot coals underfoot

A wise man rules over phantoms

For fairdom

Nutritive soul, airy appetite

Waxing worldly worries

Truth is the shadow, the echo a memory

Yet the wax remains

From underworld’s darkness

As extended

And known into judgment.

Chapter 1 - Discovery

My poems grip me

As each new handshake

Enthrall me

To the point of discovery.

My poems awaken me.

A mute dreamer

Must exude emotion

Through his hands, his expression

No spoken language remains universal

In silence or the dark

My poems move me

I am but a muse

Mating metaphorical catastrophes

Used

Only to capture that which

Sound tends to lose.

Chapter 1 - Memory is a bitter friend

A maddening invocation

From the pit of your bowels

To the temple of your soul

To the back of your eyes

Out the side of your head

Through your ears

Emotions spawn

Like fish upstream

Toward relief.

A sigh,

Threatening suffocation or

So like the scent of your favorite bloom

You inhale until it hurts

Unraveling, travelling

Centuries

Before you leave your room.

Chapter 1 - First Storm of Summer

I thought I was through

With naiveté.

The first storm of summer

Thundered upon me

Showering my tropical desert

With fairyland humility.

I am among the believers, yet

I lie not in beds of the believed.

My imagination wills itself happily

Into the realm of reality.

I am not lost

But a man might search lifetimes

If ever he found me.

Eyes closed to the rising sun

Look westward, full of moon.

I am the one

Who can heal your wounds

If you let me.

Chapter 1 - The Fall

Who is this man?

His voice is silver.

And he is

All that one man could be.

I dreamt of him in a dusty city

As a girl, I knew he would find me.

He comes to me in slumber

And so I’ll never wake

He gives me dreams of

More pleasing things

Than gouged and bloody

As are we.

In my cave of visions

And loneliness

His treasures line the wall

Like ancient scripture

His hieroglyph

Warns others of my fall.

Chapter 1 - Alone

I cannot imagine anymore

Not fair

I know your bed is full

Wishing I was there

That she was me

Useless

Because the blanket wouldn’t cover all of us

And it would be a little too crowded

And my toes aren’t cold

Here, I built myself a fire

I am alone

And it’s better that way.

Chapter 1 - Promise

I never knew

of promise

and now it holds me

as if

a promise

I made to myself

to be true

might fade.

Chapter 1 - Beautiful Poetry Writing Girl

Beautiful poetry

writing girl, he says

Why are there tears

in your eyes?

One for the boy

who once went away

and one for the man

he left behind.

dogs wail untold disasters before sirens howl

Chapter 1 - Precious Core

Fingers I use to write

Crawl over the words

Your fingers have already written.

Friction between hand and paper

Creates heat

Your feelings burn, yet

My skin knows no blister of shame

Or pain with you.

No poems of self-destruction, please.

My letters not few

Drive themselves through white snow

Making way for the plow

Creating a path for

Would be pilgrims into

Untamed territory

Not yet explored

Or even invented

My pen cuts my brain

To its precious core.

Chapter 1 - The Execution

Seven shots sound

Simultaneously

The signal (?)

READY!

..and from the prisoner

“Hail Mary full of grace…”

AIM!

“..now and in the hour of our death…”

FIRE!

“..Amen.” And a final excretory moan from the mouth of a dying man.

Perhaps it was conscience

That triggered straight shooters

To stray. For one less than seven wounds

Brought justice slowly to

A beating heart.

Red-blooded and condemned

The rosary fell to his feet.

Head bowed, hooded

Body bound.

Winter’s icy chill conjured steam from

Mouths of the living and

Rose up from death’s new blood.

Chapter 1 - A Message

A message

in the form of fire.

Young man

you are in trouble.

I cannot help you.

Your sin

Is standing by

To watch as your life

Is destroyed

With no one

To capture

Love in her stupidity.

You should have

Belonged to me.

That would have been better

Than certain

Systematic death.

Chapter 1 - I Thought

I thought there was something

To everything

And nothing interested me

About anyone

So, I went about my life

Keeping secrets I would

Never share with everyone.

 

And the secret is

I wouldn’t have

If I had someone.

 

So still, my lips are closed

To open ears

The secrets long forgotten

With the passing of the years

And oh, my friends

What I would give

Now that the time is gone

To have given of myself

So that my song

On the lips of another

Might carry on

And on and on.

Chapter 1 - The Oracle

In the shadow of tomorrow's sun

I think of nothing.

I see naught but brilliant light

Narcissus’ reflection.

Titled frame

Of wilderness wisdom.

With his second hands

Time dips into our tear pools

A ripple, at first glance.

Obscurity, then

Calm.

Clarity.

Chapter 1 - Man Sits

Man sits

 at the top

of the food chain

waiting

for someone

to feed him

or die.

Chapter 1 - The Horrible Story

She saw that her roots were dangling

But she could not feel.

She heard herself talk, saying nothing

Yet her mouth and her ears

Would not tell.

And her mind

And her heart

Were not listening anyway.

So she went about life

Hands open, palms empty.

She went through the motions

Like a piece of machinery.

And she cried

And she wanted

But not for humanity.

And she laughed

And was joyous

On occasion, or season

But not for eternity

Or even one day.

Chapter 1 - Things

Things

Matters of unimportance

Orbit my head

Change is certain

I am a rock fallen from my cliff dwelling

Into the valley of the dead

There is an underwater city in his eyes.

Am I in the center of such a whirling

Dangerous abyss?

Dark

I am the pit of it

The very core.

Chapter 1 - My Face

If my face

Were on the cover

Of a magazine

Would you love me?

Would I be clean?

And if my toes filled your filthy mouth

Would you stop lying?

If my eyes closed

In pleasure

Would you not doubt my strength?

If I never spoke of love

Or faithfulness

Would my impotence then

Arouse you?

Chapter 1 - Joke Don't Poke

Walls

Pictures

Government scriptures

Joke

Don’t poke

The rabbit

She’s already dead.

Chapter 1 - Your Words

Your words flow over me

As warm, fresh water falls

From cliff to canyon

 

Your fingers brush my skin

Just as the wind

Gently rushes; fondling

Flowers in the valley below

 

Your eyes shine with

The passions of sunrise

Still, I do not fear the heat

Of your presence

 

And your soul

Your soul envelopes me

Like moist, brown earth

Where our love does grow

Already buried.

Chapter 1 - He Speaks

He speaks

And slowly

Of love

He sings

A rhythm

Lost

In time

The words

Are yours

And mine

The song

Is ours

To record

Chapter 1 - I was

I was a writer

And so I wrote

But for myself

Until the day

I found someone who

Needed me

And so for her

I wrote

And she alike

Until the day

I found a man who

Needed no one

And so for him

I wrote.

 

I purged my soul

Of impure thought

I sought

To be an individual

And in this act

I found myself

Accepting nothing

But for the

Absolute

And for no one

But myself

So I am left

With nothing

Save my writing

And as for being

There is nothing

Greater

 

Chapter 1 - Then

I saw you then

My teeth twitching

What is this dance?

A waltz you say?

Oh, my! How fine!

And if there is such

Grand delusion

Are we to be forbidden?

I who did so thirst

To wish a paining of your words

Upon my lips

Unto my breast

Heaving

The breath of life

Does fall.

Risen is this new desire

From blood of old.

 

No angel sits straight with me

Her eyes wander from my glance

And she does not dance.

Somber

You are cool to my touch

Waiver not

My conscience is past

It is then I speak of

Now is yet to be set to music.

Chapter 1 - Why?

Why? I ask you.
Silently pleading you’ll reply.
Help me
I whisper.
Hoping that you’ll hear my cry.
How? (Long?)
Can we hide behind this lie.
Heal me
I am wounded
And I do not wish to die
What (?)
I am saying
Should be of no great surprise
Kiss me
I want you
To look me in the eyes.
Tell me that you love me more
Then say goodbye.

Chapter 1 - Absolute Control

There is no absolute control
In omniscience
There is power yes, and
There are answers.
There is knowledge, yes
And that
Is power.
But without wisdom
There is darkness
And that comes after
We have been
And are made aware.

Chapter 1 - Happiness Breeds

Happiness breeds

on food of existence

poetry, art, humanity.

Seek out those things which

Bring you joy.

The bomb in mind

Set to explode with knowledge.

Feel.

The wind that blows

Leaves into tangled hair.

Hear.

Tragic sirens blare.

See.

Into the cause of the stranger’s stare.

Smell.

Fresh air unstaled by human hands.

Touch

Those hands

And know your fellow man

And dare

Dare

To be more than a reflection

In the mirror.

Dare to live and love

And yes, to falter.

Grow

From seed

To bud

To that which you wish

To be (come)

And then

Dare again

Not just to be.

Chapter 1 - To Begin

Days are sunny, clouds form

ever-changing images in motion and there

is a cool breeze blowing in from across the

dirty river. From among the branches

of a wise, old tree we can see a whole new

world - it is soft and green and it is

alive.

The mountain was bald for a short wet

while just after the Arizona sun singed the

desert's skin and we got baked - yeah, we

were like leather - tough and tanned in our

shady tree-top hideout.

Looking down at the ground from a higher

elevation we smiled at the beauty of it all

from a distance, simply wonderfully

naturally at peace and in touch

with our surroundings

completely comfortable not seeing the forest

for the trees but seeing our world from a tree

in the forest.

____________________________________________________________

Maudlin Machinations

Rattle chains

as

pathetic phenomena

roam; staggering,

disconsolate

into vase deserted corridors.

Malignity echoes

spiraling at and away

from its source.

A Parable

___________________________________________________________

Open Road

Free ride

50 miles

with bullets in mind

the smell of wet nail polish

and nicotine at my lips

60 minutes

Sam's cellular is out of service

Little boy boxer, Roy

Lives in the bus stop ghetto.

The sun leaves me

for the harsh eyes of darkness

in the company of two.

_________________________________________________________

Black candles bleed

violet blood

violated.

A young man feeds

on the tangy flesh

of yet another

helpless heifer

who grazes in the bush

of his love

lapping at the milk of

The Cyclops

The Virgins

The virgins burn with squelched desire

in beds of fire they lay

beside evil men of position and power

transformed, they watch each other

wilt from fresh, young flowers

to shady whores for hire

petal soft skin now crunched old leather

a mother's warning once shunned

leaves young ones with the stench

of evil dripping from their souls

and otherwise.

Chapter 1 - Portrait of a Wounded Man

Fingerprint of crimson stain

Everlasting

Waterfall

of

life

and

death.

Texture changing, smooth yet harsh

pale

and

cold.

Chapter 1 - Bleeding

Unexisting communication

between the walls

I cannot understand

the wailing, howling calls

disguised by meandering shadows

lurking through dark halls

the scene

a horror flick

just before the victim falls

his every move more repulsing

than any graphic gore

as you quiver, I sense panic

a strong pulse amid decaying veins

come closer - I can see your eyes

tear streaked, blood-stained orbs

of yours

approaching.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection

through your dark stare.

I can see that it is me.

I am bleeding.

Chapter 1 - The Joke

The joke went on for months after you left

at home I found you playing chess

your girl staring at me through the glass

or perhaps her own reflection

a crystal ball into her future

outside the warmth of your knowledge

your family.

Take your son and be happy.

Someday I might think this joke is funny.

When you are laughing and playing

with the next one

remember the beautiful one, the lonely one

the quiet one.

The one who silently walked away

without a mention

of all those wasted years

or what might have been.

Chapter 1 - My Grandparent's House

Opens in five places

to the land and the bees

Outside of these

white walls with golden curtains

through long panes of glass

I can see the trees.

Imagine all this

in another world.

Chapter 1 - Unlikely Trio

There is a place

where the earth bleeds

Gouged

by masticating metallic monsters.

 

We met inside the hollow tree.

We shared a silent repast under a harvest moon

His heavy hands cupped

my pulsing breast like mother of pearl

as noon shadowed his fingers

weaving delicate wine meanders

through my hair and throat.

 

Fish skeletons bleeding

on ivory plates

Lunar rays reflected in thick liquid

drip, dropped, drops

 

My soul's breath taken by force

of tongue twisting whirlpool words

being sung by an unlikely trio

the moon, the mountains and you.

Chapter 1 - Subjected

Swift and fierce

large cats come to mind

my name in blood

smeared on a photograph

of me under a blue neon crucifix

"Jesus saves," he said

laughed and snapped the picture

black and white film

Chapter 1 - Passion's Wonder

Glowing - in the heat of an instant

a smothering pleasure,

and I awoke -

flushed.

I leapt into reality

my lips aflame

thirsty

for the touch of those

I covet

a forbidden fruit

passion's throes

and clever prose

Leave me in

wonder.

Wet with the feel of you

I dream

And lured

from fervent slumber

I drown

In my thirst for you

Please,

pull me under.

Chapter 1 - If

If my concentration dove as deep
as the finger in my mouth
I could explain

If you hadn't fallen for her
in the hole I dug for myself
it might be easier

If I were as old as I am wise
You would have loved me

If my fears had a name
it would be yours

Chapter 1 - Staying True

The poems in “Made in U.S.A.” are taken from the five year period between 1990-1995. You will experience the roller coaster ride of childish fancy and drama of a 17-year-old depressive with an addictive personality and an insatiable "hunger". You will be exposed to a view of the world through a know-it-all 22-year old's beauty, sweetness, fear and naiveté. You will get an abruptly honest albeit ego-centric take on the 1991 graduating class of the "Prozac nation" because as it turns out, almost all of us were born without filters or lost them somewhere along the way. But above all, it’s just me turning out some poetry every night after whatever thing just happened in my life so let’s not get too serious about the whole thing.

It's the same old story of a young American woman maturing in the early 90s with all the requisite passion, wonder, experimentation and joy which manage to manifest in sickness, laughter and in tears.

It’s the vital, yet almost completely irrelevant years in the progression and telling of our future adult lives. Our semi-final paths now chosen or at the very least in the process of being drawn whether by our own will or the will of those who shaped our earliest memories. The ones whose voices go with us for better or worse.

We have made decisions concerning the future and we are now faced with the paralyzing task of separating adulthood from our beloved childhood. We are now completely free to be whoever it is we want to be yet we struggle with remaining true to an identity partially created for us by our parents and our schools while protecting and nurturing the selves we are not yet.

And all of this while becoming what society deems a productive member ie. dreaming the American dream while daring to be a little different. Of course, anyone who knows me knows I’ve always been a little different.

Chapter One - The Extraction

First and foremost, poetry is the song of my soul. It is a deeply felt, extremely personal expression of my own individual thoughts that arose from completely, absolutely unoriginal normal universal emotions. It is the instrument with which I actualize these emotions and the score is but a subjective reflection of my generation's canon. Played out in short bursts of consciousness, imitated in intervals; the individual parts enter and exit with varying speed and pitch in virtual chaos discarding all measure of time. The final composition can only be appreciated first as a whole and then by the sum of its parts. It is a path to the Golden Mean. To beauty. To the meaning of life. It can be played backwards or inverted with corresponding reverberance. It is liquid, dynamic and fixed upon the page by a single clef contained within the staves. Notes unwritten until they are heard. Sounds unheard until the exhale and the push and the flow of time inhales them into existence. Do you recognize the melody?

[caption id="attachment_438" align="aligncenter" width="497" caption="With United Forces"][/caption]