Advent of my Digression

Words, do not betray me.
Never cease to yield.

Armor, steel, spirit, chains
horses, walls, moats and mud

Arrows, swords, bows, knives.

Hide me in your crashing mass
or push me out to sea.

Crash

Scene set slipping ice and crashing metal

death takes life's incipience and truncates

bated breath and breath hot and windows cold

The terminus of longing comes with labor pains

and dinners set for one

and walks in frozen snow

and letters writ and never sent

and stacks of books and stolen looks.

In death, longing lies

lies on the road in mangled physics

lies safely in tormented sleep

lies about its self and lies about

and somehow beauty lives.

Confession #568

Over the weekend, I had a quick love affair with Sir Isaac Newton. I know it was wrong and, in many ways, I betrayed my professors of Theatre and English with my thoroughly un-artistic tryst, but before I graduated, I just wanted to experience and equal and opposite reaction. And it was quite a reaction. 3 and a half years of theatrical pushing resulted in an intensified wallop in the other direction. Physics. It has left me breathless. The most intriguing thing about Newty (as I now call him) was his theory of universal gravitation and how every body has mass and every body is somehow attracted to, and pulled to, one another. He showed me how a body at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force, and conversely, how a body in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. It was weird and interesting. He also showed me his telescope. Then I wrote a paper about it.

Type away your own legion
speak it into glass etchings
your soul stained glass
and beautiful
light bleeds through
morning
if not
mourning.
Write it into books
your handwriting
scrawled like narrow caves
stalactites stick like dried
ink.
Press it close in leaves
of parchment
rolled in fabrics--
dead sea scrolls
hid under rock of
arid air and ancient places
Hollow spaces hide
hallowed treasures.
Make it write.
Make it right.
Make it write.
Blind men gain their sight
and somewhere in the night
the angels fade through brilliant light.
Pour balm and ointment on your feet
and wash them dry with loving eyes
and tears and weeping,
sweeping sorrows,
casting stones
our own reflection.

Consequentially

Boxed wine is cheap
and cheap is exactly what
not to be.
Wild and free.
I find myself at the bottom of
another box
of chocolates.
I feel disgusting.

Self-Indulgent Reflection

I was having one of those moments where life was just a tad too much for me to deal with. I really needed a cigarette, but as I groped around my coat pockets, I remembered that I didn't smoke and smoking was bad for me anyways.

What I really needed was an expensive cup of chocolate coffee with espresso and whip cream. I emptied my purse and collected every penny and totally had a "Taylor the Latte Boy" moment at the coffee shop, which left me a little dazed, awkward, and reminiscent of middle school. He gave me a double for whatever amount of money I had cupped in my hand because I told him it was all I had to my name and I could really use a "Big Cup of Christmas" (which was one of the winter specials at this particular coffee franchise.)

I walked back out into the bitter--bitter cold weather and as I pressed my lips against the rich sweetness of frothy milk and warm chocolate syrup, I remembered that there is a God and that sometimes, rainbows appear in the sky. "Life is beautiful" is what I said, I believe, a little bit too audibly, to the chagrin and general confusion of fellow pedestrians. (I have to remember to stop talking to myself; or at least to put my cellphone up to my ear and pretend I'm talking to someone; or else save it for when I'm driving in my car or in my room when my roommates aren't home or in the shower or when I'm blow-drying my hair, or in a pasture of daisies and wild horses--which has never actually happened but I wish it will.)

Anyway, that's the end of my story. Now I'm at work and I should be doing something of use, but my boss is on facebook so I thought I could afford a moment of self-indulgent reflection.

Hell-in

I am the face that
caused the war
in Troy
It was my charm that
launched
one-thousand ships and
shook your country to
the sifting sands of
decimation
a mighty nation
now in bits and pieces
tiny grains of
sand now blown across
the sea.
I am the face of swift
destruction
look upon my features
each in love and fear
-women wither
-men will melt
I am a heroine
drug-like, toxic
take a drag--
I'll drag you all to hell
and wrestle in the fires--
but you can't win
because your sin is
more than you can
take
and I an sense a
God-forsaken
fake
Come taste the temptress
in the temple of the goddess--
bow down and cower--
within the hour
I'll devour
the shrinking power of your
self respect
You can't expect to
disengage the rage of
torment and desire.