I Am Elements
Need some mountains
Need some grey clouds
Need some Seattle
Need some Northern Pacific
Need some Matthew Good
Need some starfish
Need some driftwood
I need to start working my way West again
You Remind Me Of Everything I Love
Let's go
Imagine sunshine turning golden hair
And lakes which are bluer than blue, just over that grassy dune
Imagine a house that's made of panels and wood, ancient patterned carpet and grandmother's couches, sand trails follow your feet along the floor
The light wavers in to a tiled kitchen which has soda and bread and crossword puzzles
And we could lay here forever
We could jump off the dock
We could stay up all night and just talk
We could dream about constellations
We could dance along the beach
We could, let's go
He Sings Me
New testaments wrap their lettery fingers up your arms and around your neck
Down your spine and surround your navel like a burnt Aztec sun
Filling pours and collapsing veins til they are all that reign, and rain,
And rain, drenching calloused coverings until the skin glistens like silk
Until eyes are arranged like diamonds
All upon the sky and sun and earth and air
All upon the might and tide and courage and salt
And twisted hopes and wistful cares...
You begin by writing a love letter to Neil Young. To a voice that seems to break with every pluck of a string, an organ's chord.
I'm Pocahontas, Cinnamon, The Golden Hearted Baby, I'm not done. This is for every boy who ever heard this song played, when he gave it away. And now you're left regretfully reminded I am the one.
This letter ends open ended, you dropped the ink on the page in a million different ways, but nothing seems to spell exactly what you mean. This isn't for Neil. This isn't for men. This might be for the world. This might be for all of them. Stars and alien skies.
"You are like a hurricane, there's a calm in your eye...
...I want to love you but I'm getting blown away"
...Testaments that tell of all the mysteries beneath
Things that you picked up, like precious stones, glass washed up along the beach
It's so precious, and you remember
Every time you touch that warm opaque green
That there was a time when you knew some sort of meaning. It never was explained to you, it never was delivered. It wasn't proclaimed to you, you never committed. It was known like the air filled with sandy grains that stung against your skin. Known like the foamy waves that licked around your legs. When birds call, they tell meaning. They sing about growing grass and empty skeleton shells. They sing about forgetting. They sing about finding.
Sometimes this trickles down from above, and brushes begin to paint themselves all along your body.
Your body is a canvas, body mind and soul. And you understand. And you know.
Ugh
I am stretching for you across this room
Bathed in cool sunlight and white linen
I am warm, and warming
And needing you for breathing
Still, I can't find you. I'm digging through the sheets and tossing up clothing and paper bags, I can't find you, I can't find you
My head in my hands, my hair is a disaster, wet against my face
Heart beats til breaking, my brain hates the drama
But I can't find the one I'm looking for, and I lay lost in distress
Things aren't coming out the way I want them to. Sigh
Scared (Thanks Gatsby)
He waited for four years, newspaper clippings in hand
Only ones that mentioned her name, even only as the Mrs...
Left with sound of her voice keeping him awake at night
His house across the lake
Her candle lit on the dock
He waited and waited, four years and then some
Until the moment he could see her face
Hold her waste
Listen to her mouth shaping words
She was the sun and the moon to him
His reason, his map
Is it any wonder she let him down?
He'd had the best of her already
In the heart of his dreams
The height of his thoughts
Ha!
"You're nesting", you told me
"You're looking for the one"
Keeping your eyes open, wondering if you could fall in love
Your clock is ticking
Your biology is hot
The frequently asked question: 'does he have it, or not'
Now I'm watching you, (I'm laughing)
You've got your arms outstretched
All too eager to get started
She's not it, on to the next
"You're nesting", I see
Looking for the one
sigh
My soul is largely composed of lakes and mountains
I can feel it when I think of them
A yearning to be rooted deep within them
NO
There seems to be a certain misguided point of view
Which disregards such simple mathematical equations,
Such as "No means No"
And substitutes its own circumstances, such as,
"No means Maybe" or, "No means Someday"
While I do believe that in some cases
The equation can add or subtract a few pieces
In order to re-route the original "No means No" to mean something else
Such as, "No means No, unless you find a job and become less dependant on your mother"
Or, "No means No, but if you gain a sudden sense of self-respect, and perhaps a beard, I'll re-consider"
Though quite often, even these additives don't pan out
Thus, I fear this ignorance of the true way of things has caused some people a little bit of confusion
I'm all for hope, but I believe that when the "No means No" phrase is most plainly delivered, one should quietly gather up their hope and put it in their pocket for another day
I'm sorry to those certain individuals who have been decieved by this folly in thinking
But really, No means No.
Stance
"This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere"
-
The best thing I've read in "The Time Traveller's Wife" yet is in fact a quote from A.S. Byatt. Because I stand on the stone, above the landslide
I watch it fall and tumble and wash like water
The embittered, jagged flow
And I am not afraid
I am staring at the sun
I can sense the entirety, around me
The great lonesomeness which I dwell upon
Sandstone cliffs
The Great Burnt Solitary Lift
And I can truly feel here
Everything is taken
In through my left palm,
The finished, unravelled end held in my right
I hold it calmly
Though the wind pulls the sand under my feet into the universe
I can't be moved
Only holding the things that capture my heart
Or labour my breathing
Whether to keep or set free
One Word
Driving and driving
You're making me crazy
I'm stopping the clock
Taking a breather
There's a automatic setting
Its wiring is off
Where's the manual when I need it?
When by brain is mixed and shot?
Huffing and puffing
I've barely been running
One word and you stop me
You had me at hello
I'm vulnerable maybe?
Could it be that I'm weak?
Taking every minute as a sign
I'm in love with naivety
I only wish I could write like this
"A great and wondrous sign appeared in heavan: a woman clothed with the sun, with the mood under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth
Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days"
Cool? Yes.
M&M
Mary and Merrin get together every Tuesday afternoon to write seasonal cards, including Tim Horton's coupons, for the poor college kids around the provence who used to attend their church.
Most are gone now, far away from those 15 year old sports they used to be. They're out of sorts with the church, actually they don't even think about it, except for this occasional Christmas card and coffee they recieve in the mail. Then they feel a little ashamed, but hey, they're the ones still sending, probably because their mother still attends. And what college kid says no to five dollars worth Tim Hortons?
Merrin doesn't remember the last time she's seen these kids, and she knows it's with reason, but she's trucks along with a mind of steal and a heart of gold. Her own son has nearly disappeared off the face of the earth to the jaws of philosophy and science. He's smart enough to come around, she's sure, maybe like his father he keeps it deep. The girls are still loving, right? They are who I'll keep close to me.
Mary adores her children with all her might and soul, why some of these kids whome she neatly addresses used to be their best friends. Though her twins are throwing themselves off the deep end with relationships that devour their every emotion...she can't help but seeing their every perfection. Like she would always tell the choir director, "they have the voices of angels!"
So these woman get together in their high wasted slacks and stylish (for their age) leather jackets and write in cursive and lick the stamps. The coupons are nothing on their budget, and the kind-hearted gossip is a treat, and maybe someday through their festive efforts a disgruntled youth will be reached.
Wonderful
It's harder to speak up here
The air is paper thin, and it's softly cutting up my spine and lungs
Everything is crystalized; oxygen, land, sky.
My hair is whipped around my face, but I seem to feel nothing but freedom
I could fall if I wanted, I'd feel nothing
I could stand forever
I could fly
Sharp resolution
Like a freshly cut diamond
Dangerous precepices with an infinite view
NOT Melodramatic
Tonight, I watched my whole universe go through a complete cycle
Creation and hope, light, complete brilliance
Rest and swirling infinite particles, settling into purple and green waves and winds a billion miles across
And a final, sudden, cataclysmic death...as the old ones expand angrily and explode, suctioning themselves into a fallen hole, dissipating and fading until the black has suffocated everything
I watched and watched and watched, and wondered if it was true
I know I am a great story-teller, an inventor, having difficulty determining dreams from real memory
So I'm having difficulty determining this one
If all the stars are gone from my sky, I do believe I would like to cry
Dear...
What a spectacular ability you have, you can find it all
Maybe it's imagination, maybe it's fact, but you've captured it all, reinventing it still
I wish I could turn you inside out sometimes, like an old sweater
Hold you upside down and shake you out
What is it you're keeping inside that makes you so bitter and tense
Were you born this way? Is it inherent to your gender or race?
Someday I'll find a mirror that suits you best, the kind that shows you who you are without all your preconceived notions
I think you'd be shocked by what you saw
And I wouldn't stop at your skin and that level
I think if you could really see, maybe you never will, but if you really could,
You might see someone composed, confident, who's laughter lights up the room whether you notice or not
You'd probably appreciate your softness a lot more, your lines wouldn't seem so harsh and abrupt. You'd probably realize how wanted you are. Maybe it's best you don't know some things...
You might understand the full effect of your eyes, which I know you grasp to some degree, but maybe you'd stop trying to make boys fall off their bikes.
And maybe you'd let your heart rest more often, instead of sending it to the edge with your up and down palpitations. Instead of looking for the worst intentions and the hidden meanings and the complete shut downs.
Maybe it would be good for you to know that people don't think about you as much as you think, but when they do, it's more often than not lovely thoughts. Not these imagined daggers and criticisms that you seem to hold so tightly to as truth.
Perhaps, if you really saw yourself in relation to the world, you wouldn't rest so heavily on the worst case scenarios.
I'll keep searching for that mirror, just for you
Too Much Noise
Since when has this been an excuse to let things get out of hand?
Since you got a haircut and wrapped your dress up high?
I hope there's still honor left for those who keep themselves inconspicuous
Hiding their glory, shelving their gold, and calling you into quiet times
Imogen
Radiance
She has turned her head to the sun again
To burn, to dream,
As if I have to explain myself
Though I'd shout it from rooftops
Like velvet, like ripples
Calm me now, rationality
As if I could be more vague
I'd still promise to close my eyes forever
With my hands out, waiting
In a dark room
In a bright light
It's not the same
It's all the same
Peace
As if I could be anymore off of my feet
Change
Because I feel it tingling through my body
Another Memory
Once upon a time we all sat atop a playground, the kind made with the heavy wood beams and we stared up at the sky. We talked about who was beautiful and tried to hear the sounds of the stars. I wished so badly that someone would choose me, but I've forgotten all their names. I still remember the whispers of space, though.
I'm listening for it now, through waves and chipped blue paint, through foreign television and yellow lights, I'm really trying to hear it, really trying.
Check!
You've got them all wrapped around your slender fingers
And are left with no hands to hold
Well it's been a long long time without bows made of limbs
And blushing self-concious movements
But don't be forgetful, what the minutes mean to me
I log them all here on my blue-lined mind
Checking off the boxes til they all add up
There are those who tell me
To find the truth, you need to dig for the bones
But I was born with the sky in my head
I don't need to hunt for days for the right kind of meat
Some people were made for berries and seeds
Stars and clouds, far upon far, mean everything to me
Talking About The Ocean Some More
I just looked out a window (the plaster cracked, filled with dust mites and beetle shaped mould) and saw the ocean, but it didn't have a beginning or an end. The sky was falling on it in a misty veil that sunk listlessly into the sullen grey shallows.
Earlier, I was sitting in a gas station spending a hundred bucks a minute calling across the world. My heart tends to weaken in the most inopportune places, so I sat at an unbalanced aluminum table wiping my eyes with cheap napkins. The guard kept looking at me with his shot gun slung across his shoulder, and amidst the scars I couldn't help but think "I hope my silvery eyes and broken disposition at least add a bit of helpless beauty." Not like those unfortunate ones who get sloppy and red faced and have to worry about their nose and old make up. All I have are the precious little tears that God collects in ivory bowls.
This morning I began watching a movie that wants to believe in Love.
A few minutes ago a marching band just passed on the street, playing a kicked up drum version of jingle bells.
Sunday I waved at a man I wasn't sure how I knew.
At this moment I'm holding a yoke on my back and a burden in my heart, and I'm looking out windows for some quiet waters to lay down beside.
Invented
Take me with you, ocean; drift me out to sea...
I think they've lost their use for me here on the bank. I'm sitting with my elbows on my knees, on a sun-bleached piece of driftwood. My hair, I've been told, is like straw in the dust. It's splitting and wrapping around my fingers and face, getting caught up like only hair can in its own private wind storm. My eyes tend to shine best in bathroom mirrors and gazing across lonely horizons, places nobody gets to see them. Here they're reflecting a million colours, they share common roots with the Pacific.
Sometimes my fingers rake the sand, picking up some oddly shaped rock, shiny black or flecked with red. This is special, I tell myself. I intend to keep it forever; give it some sort of significance. Like if I press it tightly to my palm, to the very centre, the world will see it's meaning. The world will see that this rock, among the infinite others, is a precious one. It's warm and strong, intricate and brilliant. I feel it through my skin, in my heart.
Shaped and painted by the sea.
Oh, Under Sea Love
You can't pretend you don't know me
With your deep, carnivorous heart
You search veins, combing those blue ridges with your gentle teeth
Before anyone can even tell you're there
I beg you, don't cut me loose
My cells are flowing into you, they'd fall all over this land
Your life reaches in cool tentacles around me
Taking icy breaths and delivering a frozen pulse
The air is white, my skin is transparent
Light rains like dust from the sky, and you are full of phosphorescence
The Bad Side of Beautiful
My chest is burning
Yelling, "How dare you...how DARE you!?"
I'm only a child
Not long ago there was a visitor, he wasn't vagrant, wasn't alone. He had a house and a car and a wife and a god. Yet he knocked on the neighbour's doors. Asking to visit. Asking if they'd like to share brunch. Harmless, they've told me. Simply exchanging pleasantries, as friends. But I wonder if they ever looked into his eyes, looked into his heart. He could have wanted more. He could have been looking for a way out...house, car, wife, god. A bed for the night. A woman in another life.
I never want to meet this man, he frightens my soul. Not understanding his travels, I turn into a ignorant child. If he stands on my front yard, I've promised not to talk to strangers. Last time I may have trusted the niceties. This time I've developed some sortof paranoia. I'm ready to scream for help.
Ho (Hum) Ho Ho
I can just imagine what it would be like
My boots wet with powder, threatening to crawl in beside my ankle
And it crunches like crackers and squeaks like window shields
I can imagine not seeing or feeling a thing
And warming up with blankets and safe bodies
Hands wrapped around fingers
Fingers wrapped around faces
I can see the magical land of white frosted branches
The clumsy balance of our ice dances
I could watch this all with three quilts and three pairs of socks and a fireplace
With gingerbread and cinnamon and apples and pecans
With steamy drinks three times a day
Oh my
