"white and smooth"

she was made to be filled
purposed and designed
named with destiny
“pale and smooth”
a vessel to house treasure and holy things
an alabaster jar

but an insidious insinuation was introduced

whispering disparagement and lechery
"not a holy vessel--a dumpster"
renamed and repurposed for this reality

so she was filled
with a vile stench; putrid fumes.
with an acrid taste; rancid spirits.

with a grievous sensation; despoiled

with a heart like a house of horror;

its walls crawling with mold,

dripping with cigarette tar,

and riddled with carved words

what of those words spoken so long ago?

and the knock she was afraid to answer...

too ashamed to open that long shadowed door
"No, it's ME! Your FATHER! Open up!"

but she'd known two fathers before
one was named Abandonment...
and the other Abuse...
what manner of man meant to greet her now?

still yet, she suffocated and suffered
until her tongue atrophied and her spirit asphyxiated
"Help me!" she choked. "HELP ME."
And HE came and carried her out of shame.
"Come to My house, I will build you a new home."

That place burned to the ground that day,
to soot on her eyelashes
and cinders in a colorless mound
"What is your name?" she asked in wonder.
"Amends."

"The Pool of Babylon"

authored by my brother

Lost in the Pool of Babylon, 

filled with defiled bodies dead and alive.

Black skies, dark cries, light hurts your eyes,

struggling for oxygen on top with everyone else, 

dive down and you'll die.

Touch them and you'll be marked by plague.

There are only walls, there is no way out.

Don't listen to the floaters,

the environment isn't polluting the water,

THEY ARE

They're running out of room on the surface.

They're running out of food on the surface.

Eating fetuses is the only way to solve their problems.

Don't settle for oil slicked vomit and excrement, 

clinging to cold bodies to stay afloat.

Listen closely to instruction:

there is clean water to be found, water rich with oxygen,

you just have to go deep.

"Avoid the alluring bodies, 

you'll end up a corpse.

Avoid the alluring bodies, 

you'll lose your ears and voice."

Dive deep and be filled with peace, 

in the quiet find relief.

Let the deep current sweep you to the real surface.

The Pool of Babylon is but a cave...

"when I'm with you I feel like I could die and that would be all right"

to know you
to be buried
to burn
and to drown
what is
monstrous and empty
will be made
inundated and glorious

"hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/broadbottom/2393231499/

See hope float

It is suspended in the air

Dandelion fluff, wishes,
a star, prayers
or the loose down
from your winter coat
When you fly my way

My heart takes to the skies

It nests in my throat

a tapestry of life

i'm numb
pins and needles
so sew me with sorrows
a patchwork of pain
hem me with hardship
weave my wonders and dreams
let it unfold beneath the upsets;
a taking tapestry
thread me through
with yearning for YWHW

when will i know?

http://eibo-jeddah.deviantart.com/

And how is maturity measured?

Is it weighed in wisdom?

Counted in the keys we keep?

Learned through love lost?

Is it in the newly known nubile?

Grasped through generations?

Summed up in scars of survival?

When will I know?

for you or me?

Forgive me,

I stand in scathing silence seeing I am such a selfish soul
I cannot show the semblance of sanction to console,
evading enmity in expectancy of its eventual ebb
Nor route to remedy with reprimand as might a righteous rebbe.

Forgive me,

Although the adamantly adolescent assert I am acute in asperities
I am analogous in affections and animosities
It is hyperboles and hubris behind which we hide
that foils fidelity and fosters fratricide

Forgive me,

But berating bedlam boys
and proscribing petty and perfidious ploys
ought not label a lack of “like” in love as loss or in lull
Understand, the uxorious is of no use to the unconditional

Forgive me,

Ascertain my anguish as avarice and apostasy attend
droves who dam their ears and to deception descend
Cunning digits and cotton conceits
frustrate what is faithful and with fairness competes

Forgive me,

Clever message à clef
Arbiter of an anonymous addressee
Ambiguity in actuality
arranges absconders of amenability

Forgive me,

Here we have a harbinger of hypocrisy;
I am inundated with inconsistency
The focus fades and the foundations fragment
for I have forgotten the fellow for whom this fathomless poem was meant

sisters' remembrance

The silent lullaby of a flower:
is it heard, is it in the heart,
appellative of divine nature?
Do we understand when we are older,
like daughters carried upon their fathers' shoulders?

Remember some things are that simple.




A little green shoot tearing through the loam;
like a majestic wild cat
surging forward peerlessly
But cautious creatures draw back
when a young lion does lack

Remember trust.

Sparkling waters,a rushing deluge!
What damning thing has held you back?
Cascades lit by the Sun are beauty made bold
as a gown interwoven with gold

Remember where you are led.

O priceless, beautiful dreams!
Dare alla luce
Give and receive
Sacrifices the world treats bizarre;
Like pouring the content of an alabaster jar

Remember love.


Captivating daughter(s),
dispense with mnemonic scents
Know your helpmate's fragrance
and all other things eschew
The king is enthralled with you

Remember him for who he is.
And remember please,

I love you.
Remember that.

if you couldn't tell, i'm sore

http://ginjutsu.deviantart.com/

Nitpicking leaves us poor,
casts the good to the floor
"Not bad for...
a lefty, a drop-out, a chub, a whore"
Such words we abhor
Is affirmation SUCH a chore?

Words that ring in our core
cut, jab, wound, and score
Please, we beg you, we IMPLORE,
why can't you try for
peace and rapport?
You'd think we'd have learned not to ask any more

BANG! we're out the back door
it was that or fight a losing war
ROAR,
hurl stones we don't want to be responsible for
But I guess for now we just ignore
And look elsewhere for words that restore

i do...

Enjoy cooking experiments and tasting new teas
Savor seasons of autumn and spring
Appreciate the variation and beauty of trees
Cherish the nostalgia a solitary walk can bring

Revel in the aurora's indigo and tangerine skies
Esteem the Holy word, transforming and sublime.
Treasure when the Beloved says "you have dove's eyes"
Prize moments spent on quality time

Fancy the best amour is romance in a glance
Applaud grudges we let go of
Worship with tears and dance
Love, love, love, and love

Procrastination is an Art

Procrastination
I linger on fading dreams
The day won't wait long

pennyroyal and blue cohosh

[HYPOCRITE]
Charlatan woman,
With your uncouth phallus tongue,
Wanting honesty...
Go cry your crocodile tears--
They will never deceive me.

An innocent is cast away by its reluctant host and vindictive gossip spreads as the mephitic stench of a corpse.
I hate gossip. I'd much prefer to just sweep something (something... oh God it makes me weep) under the carpet then talk about it. Talking about it isn't gonna work it out or undo it or resign our hearts to its being real and irreversible.
It's just picking at a scab.

pastoral poem

standing in the mountain's corrie
our praise echoes heaven's glory
listen to the fading traces
it takes us to holy places

enshrined in forest cathedral
'neath canopied temple extol
here our idols it erases
it takes us to holy places

in our father's vineyard we dance
to the old song of songs romance
in one another's embraces
it takes us to holy places

most noted notes

Letters penned in turquoise ink 
are best I think
Skill commanding
notwithstanding

In cordial red envelopes
they inspire hopes
Like Valentines
and lucky signs

And if we've written them sincere
or cavalier
Feel no remorse
for such discourse

last testament

My dearest sister, don't give in
Whichever way the cruel wind blows
I bear your heart as mine, within
My dearest sister, don't give in
Though consolation echoes thin
Whence thou goest, thy sister goes
My dearest sister, don't give in
Whichever way the cruel wind blows

"I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway."

grievance
like a sapphire
compressed, polished
hoarded like a wyrm's cache
malice

A Valentine

From: Me
To: False Hope

You
preclude
happy hymns
and joy elude. 
My poor paper heart,
so shoddily glued
with speculative promise
and notions quite misconstrued.
It is such a small, sad Valentine;
but another discarded billet doux.

Spring

 Spring

thaw, bloom

raining, running, changing

melted, slushy, chilly, muddy

creeping, transforming, unfolding 

burgeoned, fresh, fair

Vernal

waiting at a bus stop on an autumn morning.

"God is in everything." --Mercedes (The Count of Monte Cristo)

Before the sun has burned away the fog in the cold morning, the naked trees cast ethereal shadows as the sun rises behind them. The dawn paints a conflagration of blazing golds and violent lashes of purple across the pale daybreak...

My eyes water with epiphany. How can people be sleeping, I wonder, while all this beauty is occurring--even though, conversely, I sometimes wish I were one of them?

I felt blessed to witness this secret beauty. It reminded me of God.

know in words that which you have always known in thought

[There is a name written on my heart.]

_

I am a writer of lists. Little memorandums of groceries, movies, playlist tracks, lexicon, errands, or boys I have lent my heart to. Footnotes tacked to my door trail across my vision as I run to school each morning and the margins of my writing tablet are riddled with notations so cryptic even I won't be able to decipher them at the end of the day.

Detergent

Amelie

Vito's Ordination Song

Inori (prayer)

Drop off resume

It occurs to me that I should save these deciduous leaflets of thought, so I paste them together in a book of other extracts from the vicissitudes of my life.

Lists of: Often unfinished chores, verse excerpts, epistles secret and unsent, options post-graduation, reasons I love my sister, lost items, umbrages I've yet to forgive, scriptures that speak to me, tangohen (vocabulary).

Maybe when I look back at the close I'll find I've recollected something else entirely.

_

[And I've scratched it out so many times there is a tear now.]