Last post for a week

The Jar - Susan Minot (From "Poems; 4am)
I took the man out of my jar
I thought, That's no place for him to be.
That's no man to be in my jar.
I took him out
and the song went out of me.
And the tree trunks, hit by the rising sun
and the shape of his teeth
left.
It was for my own good that I took him out, you see
[After a looting, after a theft]
He was an insult to my affections.
I took him out and
his voice was gone,
and every sound changed but one-
the beating sound kept beating on

At first I was relieved.
I took him out and took out pain.
I thought, My jar will be ready for
a new set of teeth.
The slowly that drained out, too:
the relief.

So there it sat, my jar on a sill
with nothing to sing about. Quiet, still.
A jar on a blank page, a jar on a roof
with nothing inside it and nothing to prove.

So I launched it. Out to sea.
A jar set adrifting, a jar on a wave.
A jar on the ocean, far from the shore.
Miraculous. Buoyant. Able to float.
but useless and empty and floating by rote.

No sound but the little tin pecks
of the waves on the glass.
My jar bobbed further and further
out to sea
till the water grew so large
and silent around it
that it was lost to me.

Hey bright eyes.
If I could have your heart,
[as you so suggest]
I would;
but for now, I'll settle for your head on a platter.
You're my paper weight.
You make me want to write
You make me feel unnervingly safe.
And now I fear I've ruined everything.
When I act on impulse,
when my temper gets the worst of me.
When I open my mouth
or close my phone.

[Sometimes I wish I could read your mind - what an unfair advantage that would be.]
And if you fly away, never to come back again, I wonder if you'll think of me.
Will you see my face in coffee shop windows,
on the bus, in the park;
my hair my nose my arms my inkstainedfingers
will you catch glimpses?
Seeing a young women writing on a notepad,
or bending down to pick dandelions?
A curly haired lady striking a match? An I♥NY shirt?
A book of poetry, a cherry stem;
will you think of me?

Will you think of me
even half as much
as I'll think of you?

Absence leads a heart to wander.
And though I, which withstand the
change of days, stay,
you shift and break and scatter.
What shall I do my dear?
Chase and gather the fragments of you,
as I know that is what you wish.
I suppose I'm to put those pieces back together too?
I suppose too, that I shall do so without complain.
It's who I am.
And it's not who you want.

May 9th, o9

Packing light.
I want to leave everything behind me.
Can't let you slip into my suitcase somehow, can't let you follow me out
Toss a shirt in- I remember how you liked it, fingering the fabric - toss it back out.
[I've spent all my years in believin' you, but I just can't get no relief]
I can't even decide if I should put my own broken pieces in.

I lost the rhythm of this place.
It's continuing, I feel the pulse,
but I can't seem to keep up myself,
I can't find the beat.
[Should I change lotions I wonder? I recall who you would smile when you caught the scent of this one]
I look forward to seeing and being with the ocean salt, once again.
Maybe if I sleep with my window open, I won't think of you
or dream of him.

Do you even like the sea? The island? The markets, the trees, the way the sun and rain are one?
Did you even know it's a piece of me, or that the air lets me sleep easier than here?

My Travel Books:
Poems; 4am - Susan Minot
Selected Poems - Margaret Atwood
Anne of Green Gables - L.M.Montgomery
In Arabian Nights, A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams - Tahir Shah
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

For Now, Heavens In New York

He had no poise
no drop dead looks
and yet,
this little crooked smile
played on his lips

and something about it became him.

Maybe its the lighting
Maybe its the timing.
his shirt
the way coffee jumps in my stomach.
maybe its me.

Maybe its me sitting here
with fresh eyes
and unused to clean air.

Maybe its the way the sun came out, or how he said "excuse me" so politely.
Or how the birds are out again, after so long.

Maybe its him.
And Me.

"[it's scary/it's glorious]"

you are the elephant in the room, fast asleep.
We tiptoe about you, careful, ever careful, so not to rouse you.
So you won't awaken and crush us all
[me]
Your weight, importance, cannot be discounted.
One day you'll open one weary eye
and see me again
- awakened and infuriated, you are less large gentle bumbling elephant, more calculating, wild, preditor animal. -
and you will try to reclaim me
with bright scary eyes
large fumbling hands.
And he who tiptoes with me
shall try to slay you.
How do you slay what also exists in the mind, as real as outside?
How do you banish what will mearly
easily
return?

She is wearing rags and feathers, from Salvation Army counters

it's odd, knowing that
everything i've regretted recently,

has lead me here to you, and your absense.
Every lover
with eyes that warm and hands that tear;
Looking around my workshop

[as it is tonight, just that] I see evidence
of myself in everything:
the stickie note above the bed, the cup of coffee and glass of water. A pair of heels. A kleenex box perched percariously on a stack of books. 5 notebooks in plain sight.
The absense of you.
The dreams [nighmares] skulking on the cealing, reaching down occasionally to tickle my face or pull my hair.
If I were brave, I'd deal with them.
Banishing some, letting others go - after tender goodbyes - and helping a few down, making them adjust and adapt to reality;
'til I once again have control

[in the absense of you]

a voice whispers : there is
poetry
in the dark my darling, and what are you?
Sandy gritty eyes [my own]
peel open to have a look about;
What poetry where? Who's darling am I tonight?
"What I am" has little consequence tonight - while voice unseeable whisper, priorities shit to accomidate them [& besides, the only part of that statement that is new to is not that]
What poetry?
The stuff in my mind, the words of madness' voice? Or is it perhaps under my pillow? At the foot of my bed, or hiding in a cup? Hovering above me [ in such case, perhaps it entered with our friend here]
I blink at the sand in my eyes.
When did time move from 1 to 4?
Why am I afriad - when did I find the time for his nightmare?
I shiver.
4 to 10am.
The poetry came with the sun.

I've been kinda down lately.
I don't know, maybe too many sad songs.
But you know when things all just feel...
too much?

Yeah.



I can't tell the difference between
black and white anymore.
It's quiet here today,
and I can hear the quiet
even if I hum to myself.
It's hard enough without feeling
like I've killed
this little part of you.
It was quite a lie
to make me think that this
was more than it was, I suppose.
My fault, or yours?
Cause I stood still,
I closed my eyes,
I let you take
all you wanted from me.
If I'm not to blame,
If I'm not the reason,
then what am I?
Heartbroken is extreme,
but battered and bruised sounds
close to me.
And nothings riding in
from the distance
to save me.
I've contridicted everything
I ever wanted.
I've left behind everything from
before
and am left
only with these
fragments
these bruises that
refuse to yellow and fade.
This hand that still aches
from that too-hard-squeeze.
Who am I,
now that I am no longer
defined by what you do?
In the night
I know I am defined by what you did.
By what I allowed.
I see you in every pair of hands.
You saw the terror in my eyes that day.
And you dare to ask me
why.
And you dare to beg me
and I dare to cry one more time,
before I fall asleep to be defined again.
I am doomed
to know that this is
unchangable,
and I am responsible,
that my anchor crushed me
and I am lost inside this quiet tonight.