Deepday Madness

This should be about Italy

but it’s hard to find its light etchings on my mind
with only hindsight,
and when all the rush hour traffic of an island that swells
to twelve times its evening size
is barreling through the point between my eyes,
it’s a fight to stop squinting through heavy lashes
at the crosstown buses
and the taxis blurring by,
at the socks high, cap straight, stretch-necked father
posing sons and their smiles with the
Empire State,                      
at the hordes of black and white,
of heels and ties,
of ears buried in iPods while they wait for their light
cars stop
and they walk straight,
chins tethered strong to the horizon,
wearing blinders like a prayer to belong –
I see walls that stretch and yawn with the morning
on all sides
reaching up towards a vanishing point,
but somehow
a glimpse of sky still trickles through the spaces left
by joints bent open,
offering summertime embraces…
there isn’t much room on cross-streets for breath
or width
in this fit-me-in city,
unless you fix your gaze on the rooftops,
invisible from here,
but you can tell the metal fingertips are scraping fresh air –
but back on the ground
with the glares that glance off windows in my irises
the sound of each motor droning by
the purr of bike tires turning as they carve out their own slice of the one-way street
the water weighing in the heat
the sheen of sweat on backs and necks
and the frantic urge to check underarm fabric
the dizzy wafts of cologne
and of gasoline
the ticking seconds spent waiting for the 1 and the fickle breeze
the stray leaf from the sometimes-trees that rides its way through the gridlock,
settles in at my feet,
and the pavement
itching under track marks and trash
the attention it demands and
the attention that it lacks
the backs of every stranger
and the fronts of every friend…
every instant in this place turns concrete in the end
I can’t see
past the universe of my five senses
so, instead of sprawling views of terracotta roofs,
I write park benches
and let the subway grate’s rising scent engrave my bones,
line paper with traffic cones;
I find home
in the truck groans and flickering lights
and with my eyes wide open,
whites reflecting the sky,
I find home.

Tales of the Minifridge

Magnetic Poetry is my FAVORITE.

Here are some lovely pieces, of varying and often multiple authorship, straight from my fridge door.



smell the rain, for
I am drunk with music
this moment shines through a honey sky
and I smear dreams on delicate skin & worship sweet summer.
_______________________________________________________

let as-s shake.

(why on earth would they not include the word ‘ass’ in the kit itself? oh well, at least they have spare ‘s’s.)
_______________________________________________________

you said,
pant-s-ed,
“I have
no red
sausage.”
_______________________________________________________

blow petals in
whispering wind
always picture spring
_______________________________________________________





More to come.

There will ALWAYS be more to come.

(via thesecretpostcards)

I’m feeling unusually proud this morning.

I don’t even like eggplant.

2/3 of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

(via fuckyeahfacts)

DAMN STRAIGHT IT IS.

Sixty-Four

I am the savior
of pent-up crayons.

This house of sixty-four
has recently become much more spacious –
more elbow room for
cerulean and indigo, and
the free-floating hunter green, bright fuschia,
and brick red find god-
worthy bedding
name-deep in the carpet.
Their colored tips are no longer sharp
and wax doesn’t lift off
as easily as the Karate Kid would have you believe
but being blunt
and without apology
has made them every kid’s
megaphone of choice
and carrying the singsong
flight of a five-year-old’s voice
is the same as
carrying deities on hard shoulders through doting streets
or
helping a fledgling poet to its shaky-fawn feet.

This five-year-old new-footed prayer
remembers the off-white
refrigerator
in the little house
on the corner of Mountain and Plainfield.
Its front door was tiled with magnets, free
from the bank,
from the plumber,
from the grocery store,
bearing landscapes and
wit, pinning filled
to-do-lists to the
front of our minds.
There was no space for white paper scrawls of
pentagon houses
orange stick figures and
smiling suns.
Purple double-bump birds could not find rest there
but five-fingered hands
with five-year-young fire
and eyes with selective blinders for
when manners say ‘no’
did not care in the least.
This savior of crayons
back then
was the preserver of white sheet integrity
because
there were much bigger hollow spaces to
fill with echoing
spectrums of light.

When parents took baths
colors took action,
and those unguarded moments
marked the house
mine.

For months, the walls held my name,
exuded it in robin’s egg blue,
exclaimed it in shocking pink,
whispered it in hushed lavender
and romanced it in rose red.
Rows of letters
always three feet off the ground
spelling my name out in tones of joy and
pride, envy,
strength,
bright shades of
loud disregard and
learning to find your soul somewhere in
the hues of a rainbow.
The ‘J’ was always backwards
and hours of soap-scrubbing,
of poor relentless mother
waging vendettas against
waxy yellow mess,
did no good.

Wax off is no easy task.

My signature remained, branded
in sixty-four colors,
slowly teaching the walls to
grasp them tight like
open hands,
to offer them to friends and strangers
with bright greens and no shame,
and never, never
to let those outspoken marks
fade from sight.

Homesick Hands

The spaces between my fingers
hold tight the lingering scent of
your shampoo,
and with discrete sniffs
every now and again,
I recall the feel of
soft locks
rushing past knuckles,
tumbling into chaos
beneath ticklish,
playful palms.

The Coolness.

Major props for defying practicality.

One day, man.

The interior of my future house.

(See ya there, Sammie!)