XXI

this little vacant lot
a grimace to wake to

dreaming excuses
explanations & petty jokes

it's a couple days from trying
couple days from cope

this smiling vacant lot
numbly mined & hallowed

XX

In Providence.
alternate universe?
well, i don't really know
is not my family
is not my sleep schedule
-is not my throat swelling
-my mild heart mildly twittering at distant thoughts
-is not my consumer wallet empty
is not my bed nor home nor
fight to concern myself with

the south side
the lovely rotten
skeptic faces & boarded-up buildings
trash lot parking church lot

the brown-green
un-funny overly irony
flannel glasses foreign language
politics narcissism nostaligia
the unheard mumbled voice
of the youth
of today
-laughingcrying WhyOhWhy

smiling sleep to siren wails
urban comfort
broken glass

economy tank & crowded malls
"the value of America's moral currency"

My Weekend In Providence, Rhode Island

XIX

I am a bit terrified.
I finally got the chance to watch the VP debate from last week -& I am terrified at what this country may become.
Obama runs under the banner of hope; well, I've had hopes crushed before in elections & I just don't know what I'd do this time around.
Americans can't be that stupid, can they? To even make sense of half of the basic sentence structures of Sarah Palin -the blatant lies and absolutisms thrown out by the McCain campaign.
All these years I hid from politics, I hid out the fear of America disappointing me time and time again. The climate -political, economic and social- in this world and this nation is horrifying.
I will not be able to sleep well for a long time, I know this.

XVIII

here's bitter, biting frustration:

Sept. 29
A Love Poem

it spans the world over
boys don't grow up
take near whatever
can get cheap
stomp out strings-attached

them boys that go for
boys -call me pretty
beautiful cute
them boys that go for
tail -look the other way
her starved torso
them boys that (may) go for
me -far away &/or impossible
to rationalize

say you got three girls
at your cal
say I'm anything you like
just not one of
them girls panting waiting for
any cool-eyed Y-chromosome
without a conscience
them girls immodest bowing to
the honor of sucking your
ungrateful dick
them girls desperately resigning to
following you in your unkempt
habits & taste
-----------------

today:

Oct. 8
adorable

heels click
vacant cynicism melts
to shouting streets
& blank rain checks

unexpected turn for
giddy fingertips
smiling staircase

mindless unapologetic
wanders
rain falls gentle
nonviolent coughs

teeth gleam 'neath
dark void of hair
eyes sparkle
-that sweet delicate
glow burns painless

an inside joke
everyone knows

XVII

man oh man. this has been such a stttttrrrange year.
it finally feels like it's taking a genuine up-swing, though.
i love being busy & making plans that work out or not planning, but being prepared & letting the night take me where it will.
i haven't written much poetry-wise in a little while, i think.
lemme check... yep. last one was a very bitter poem about romance.

on saturday night, among everything else that happened that day/night, I read one of my poems at Student Works. A large number of students and their parents, along with some members of faculty, attended. It was a bit terrifying, especially since the audience looked like a black void I was talking to.

Here's the poem I read:

July 10, 2008
wanna see

The Northern Lights
ground of green
The Emerald City in the Sky
The Aegean Sea
ruins of civilization
Alexandria of old
Zeus' scattered islands
The Fall of Rome
rose unto Catholic Empire
The Boroughs of London
The Boroughs of New York
The Cramped Housing
of New Delhi
Tokyo
Paris
Madrid
Rio de Janiero
The Spires of Communist Russia
The Shame of Germany
rebuilt Berlin
broken walls
smoldering Hamburg & Dresden
The Endless Sahara
the tombs it engulfs
The Busy Bustling Markets
of regenerated
& rejoicing Rwanda
Sudan
Kenya
Uganda
The Radiant not Irradiated
Bikini Islands
The Lush Unpoliced Mountains
of Free Tibet
The Gigantic Straw Goat
of Stockholm
up in flames again
The Lit Legal Cigar in my hands
before going to one of
the doctors on every Cuban corner
to be diagnosed with lung cancer
The New Knights of the Round Table
currently including
Sir Elton John
Sir Sean Connery
Sir Paul McCartney
The Vaults of the Swiss Bank
The Giggling Cafes of Amsterdam
The Unplundered Incan Home
The Palace of Blood and Bone
The Real Mount Doom
Mines of Moria
vast lands of Minos Tirith
The Pass Through Which
Hannibal hopes to
take elephants
The Beaches of Gun Shells
Oceans of the Ancients
avoiding the tourist traps
of postcards & t-shirts