Christopher Reeve died yesterday. He was 52. I remember watching the Superman movies and loving them. It was very humbling and real to see him in a state where he could not even walk. Yet, the spirit in which he portrayed on-screen came to light in his courage and strength during the toughest times in his life. The real Superman...
I applied to a job today at the National Academies of Science, the same place Brandon worked during the summer. Hopefully, I will hear something back from them. I sent out my last recommendation request to Gray Stewart today and sent for a grad school bulletin from Columbia. I began UVA's online app. and should be starting American and NYU soon.
So, the plan is to really work on a routine, waking up, writing, working toward a job during work hours, going to the mall and writing more, going home, eating, reading, writing a little more, then to bed. It's the only way that I'll be employed by the end of the month, the only way I'll get this grad school work done in a decent time. I need order. Pops would agree. It's time to be a man about things, be about business. Ok. Enough talking for now.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Saturday, October 09, 2004
friday night
there were no beautiful women,
no cigarettes flaming into themselves,
no liquor, no red cups stained with lipstick.
from a balcony, i searched
the city sky for constellations
only finding orphaned starlight.
there is this beautiful woman,
but she is not here, to hold, to kiss.
I rearrange the letters of her name—sail.
a light turns itself on and off in my head,
a watch light resides atop a broken
memory searching for a new dream.
some beautiful women know me
others want to—so i’m told or telling myself,
or somewhere in between, where she lives, loving me,
and many friday nights amount to
a poem unraveling across the cold floor
of my discontent, and others, fall through
into the laps of beautiful women that listen to
‘kind of blue’ as much as i draw their smiles
with metaphor, hoping they see opportunity
in the space between our lips--
air whispering of movement to
somewhere maybe even a promise.
no cigarettes flaming into themselves,
no liquor, no red cups stained with lipstick.
from a balcony, i searched
the city sky for constellations
only finding orphaned starlight.
there is this beautiful woman,
but she is not here, to hold, to kiss.
I rearrange the letters of her name—sail.
a light turns itself on and off in my head,
a watch light resides atop a broken
memory searching for a new dream.
some beautiful women know me
others want to—so i’m told or telling myself,
or somewhere in between, where she lives, loving me,
and many friday nights amount to
a poem unraveling across the cold floor
of my discontent, and others, fall through
into the laps of beautiful women that listen to
‘kind of blue’ as much as i draw their smiles
with metaphor, hoping they see opportunity
in the space between our lips--
air whispering of movement to
somewhere maybe even a promise.
Friday, October 08, 2004
brandon's home :)
I went to Haverford this morning to get my little brother (in age)...apparently no longer in size. Brandon is officially taller than i am. I'll give him a solid 6'4". It took all day to get up there and back, partially because I eventually scooped Brennan as well (from Delaware). We're supposed to be going to partake in certain acts of debauchery (sp) but I'm real tired and I think pops might try to put my lil bro on house arrest. plus, i'm supposed to be getting up in the morning to go to a business seminar sponsored by Primerica, an affiliate/offshoot of Citigroup. Tomorrow is the day of the Morehouse Alumni meeting, which should be a good way to network. Alrighty chums...to all a good weekend.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
10:26
I am actually up. There is supposed to be a job fair not too far from my home so I guess I should print a few resumes out and head over there soon. I need a new suit. I need some pancakes.
my mind suspended
my mind suspended between shadow and sun
memory and dream
an early palindrome yesteryear
and the hollow existence of tomorrow
is enough to want for an end
to the voices behind the wall
a need to see through them
the comfort of knowing—
optimism is courted as the love of a lifetime
but
the only known result is the cynical clarity
of counting grains of sand on beaches never visited,
only seen in a magazine full of dead pictures
glowing neon against broken fingers—
the passing of time is an ashtray
of discontent as moonlight mockingly leaves joints
catatonic, a half-waking from
the blue-grey morosity of insomnia—
i think of dying as sweet laughter
buried alive,
or emptiness (as a room without windows
or doors)
the dead end of a smile
hanging from a lover’s lips,
a sorrow with neither beginning
nor end, only
now.
memory and dream
an early palindrome yesteryear
and the hollow existence of tomorrow
is enough to want for an end
to the voices behind the wall
a need to see through them
the comfort of knowing—
optimism is courted as the love of a lifetime
but
the only known result is the cynical clarity
of counting grains of sand on beaches never visited,
only seen in a magazine full of dead pictures
glowing neon against broken fingers—
the passing of time is an ashtray
of discontent as moonlight mockingly leaves joints
catatonic, a half-waking from
the blue-grey morosity of insomnia—
i think of dying as sweet laughter
buried alive,
or emptiness (as a room without windows
or doors)
the dead end of a smile
hanging from a lover’s lips,
a sorrow with neither beginning
nor end, only
now.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Monday, October 04, 2004
poem of the moment.
Insomniac by sylvia Plath
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole ---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue ---
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole ---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue ---
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
april 18 by sylvia plath
the heart split open. damn. her work is real.
APRIL 18
the slime of all my yesterdays
rots in the hollow of my skull
and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation
I would not remember you
or that because of sleep
infrequent as a moon of greencheese
that because of food
nourishing as violet leaves
that because of these
and in a few fatal yards of grass
in a few spaces of sky and treetops
a future was lost yesterday
as easily and irretrievably
as a tennis ball at twilight
APRIL 18
the slime of all my yesterdays
rots in the hollow of my skull
and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation
I would not remember you
or that because of sleep
infrequent as a moon of greencheese
that because of food
nourishing as violet leaves
that because of these
and in a few fatal yards of grass
in a few spaces of sky and treetops
a future was lost yesterday
as easily and irretrievably
as a tennis ball at twilight
?
this weekend was filled with questionable decisions and i'm sure of one thing at the moment--this week will be filled with many more, that is, questions and decisions. i am starting to loathe i.m. conversations. i'd rather talk on the phone or over coffee somewhere. i think i will start to drink more coffee. that is decision no. 1 of the week--more coffee. yeah, we real cool. i'm the hippest of the hip, a real sleeve puller. and now--more poetry.
in september,
the highlight of
my day was
the release of
shit from my bowels.
(it should be noted
that this is not at
the expense of all
the beautiful faces
and voices i encountered,
it's just that, well,
the sounds in my head
often drown out even
those moments worth
remembering, even
mentioning later to
someone else, even to
myself)
in october,
what will be
?
in september,
the highlight of
my day was
the release of
shit from my bowels.
(it should be noted
that this is not at
the expense of all
the beautiful faces
and voices i encountered,
it's just that, well,
the sounds in my head
often drown out even
those moments worth
remembering, even
mentioning later to
someone else, even to
myself)
in october,
what will be
?
Thursday, September 30, 2004
overslept life.
i make plans just to break them. i set my alarm just to have something to turn off in the morning...makes the day a hair more interesting. i slept september away. yes, yes i did. with a little work here and there, the rest was sleep. but then i stay up til' 6 so really i just sleep when i should be up. so i didnt sleep away the month, i just slept away the mornings. either way i'm useless and this is just another reason for me to say that i'm useless. i'm such a loser.
Monday, September 27, 2004
inspired by t.s. eliot
your Waste Land
resides high above my head—
as a cloud—
or right beneath my feet—
as a shadow.
One is a reminder of heights
i will not reach on my own,
the other follows me—
even into my dreams—
but does not allow me to
touch it,
for then i would feel
my ego
and that is beauty
i am not ready
to see
resides high above my head—
as a cloud—
or right beneath my feet—
as a shadow.
One is a reminder of heights
i will not reach on my own,
the other follows me—
even into my dreams—
but does not allow me to
touch it,
for then i would feel
my ego
and that is beauty
i am not ready
to see
someone else's poetry.
A Poem for Speculative Hipsters
Amiri Baraka
He had got, finally,
to the forest of motives. There were no
owls, or hunters. No Connie Chatterleys
resting beautifully
on their backs, having casually
brought socialism
to England.
Only ideas,
and their opposites
Like,
he was really
nowhere.
Amiri Baraka
He had got, finally,
to the forest of motives. There were no
owls, or hunters. No Connie Chatterleys
resting beautifully
on their backs, having casually
brought socialism
to England.
Only ideas,
and their opposites
Like,
he was really
nowhere.
another monday
time waits for no one. i know this. and it is why may 17th is so far away in the scheme of continuum but like yesterday in my thoughts--partially because i would love for may 18th to be today and not september 27th, mondays as different as education and none. that way my whole summer would be ahead of me, more time to think, do nothing, think more, dream, no deadlines, no curfew, self-imposed, no thoughts of the future, who i am, should be, will be, won't be, can't be, anything but that. time. laughing. laughing at me.
i have not written a complete poem in three days. she made me re-think my motives, inspiration. i feel the need to pull the words that fill blank pages in front of me closer to my heart, to some universal understanding of me, being. in no way do i want to slight my voice or my audience, both irreplacable, raw, uncut, me.
all i have is this right now. i wrote it yesterday while listening to some song i cannot remember.
i dream in rhyme,
i speak in free verse
i think in sonnets,
i feel in haiku
i hurt in sestinas,
i whisper blues.
another monday. here's to life.
i have not written a complete poem in three days. she made me re-think my motives, inspiration. i feel the need to pull the words that fill blank pages in front of me closer to my heart, to some universal understanding of me, being. in no way do i want to slight my voice or my audience, both irreplacable, raw, uncut, me.
all i have is this right now. i wrote it yesterday while listening to some song i cannot remember.
i dream in rhyme,
i speak in free verse
i think in sonnets,
i feel in haiku
i hurt in sestinas,
i whisper blues.
another monday. here's to life.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
love letter #1
Dear You,
oh me. they are paying me now for the trangressions i have forced upon my heart and your name. my love, i never planned to make a career out of streaming tears and untempered longing but even after you left i could still smell you, hear your breathing next to mine as i slept. there is a place for you here with me and now i understand that no one is coming to fill this empty space, this outline hollow with heartbreak. nowadays, i spend most of my mornings and afternoons writing blueprints for grief and building winding stairwells to glass ceilings of desire. i can see heaven, sometimes, in old pictures of you, just underneath the glint of the sun but the cloak of hades rides low on the curtains after sunset, so during the evening hours my head is bowed and my body still. i allow the darkness of passing time, all time after you, darkness, to consume me. the world cannot be turning for everyday feels the same. funny, how i quit smoking while perfecting the art of drinking. for every shot i take, i take two for you baby. for every full moon, i carve your name in my arm. for every couple i see in the lonely streets, i blow a kiss in the direction the wind moves, hoping it will reach you. my life has paused and is waiting for you to come back and play. i lie in wait.
with all that i am,
me.
oh me. they are paying me now for the trangressions i have forced upon my heart and your name. my love, i never planned to make a career out of streaming tears and untempered longing but even after you left i could still smell you, hear your breathing next to mine as i slept. there is a place for you here with me and now i understand that no one is coming to fill this empty space, this outline hollow with heartbreak. nowadays, i spend most of my mornings and afternoons writing blueprints for grief and building winding stairwells to glass ceilings of desire. i can see heaven, sometimes, in old pictures of you, just underneath the glint of the sun but the cloak of hades rides low on the curtains after sunset, so during the evening hours my head is bowed and my body still. i allow the darkness of passing time, all time after you, darkness, to consume me. the world cannot be turning for everyday feels the same. funny, how i quit smoking while perfecting the art of drinking. for every shot i take, i take two for you baby. for every full moon, i carve your name in my arm. for every couple i see in the lonely streets, i blow a kiss in the direction the wind moves, hoping it will reach you. my life has paused and is waiting for you to come back and play. i lie in wait.
with all that i am,
me.
the song i never want to end (unedited)
you are the song i never want to end,
the quiet storm session on the way home, alone.
i drink to you in my room as i two-step
to Maze's 'Golden Time of Day'--lonliness
never felt so good until it came packaged as a gift
with thoughts of you within a dream of my mind's eye.
you are the reason for rhythm, the blues
working a sweat upon the brow of the jukebox,
why fingertips dance themselves across the lips
of lovers in vertical, kinetic foreplay--orgasms
echoing out of opened windows, mimicking
the crescent birth of the moon.
you are the mathematic equivalent of zero,
neither positive nor negative,yet the root
of all others, indivisible, all-encompassing everything
and nothing--the limit approaching infinity,
what one reaches for even when he is not reaching.
the quiet storm session on the way home, alone.
i drink to you in my room as i two-step
to Maze's 'Golden Time of Day'--lonliness
never felt so good until it came packaged as a gift
with thoughts of you within a dream of my mind's eye.
you are the reason for rhythm, the blues
working a sweat upon the brow of the jukebox,
why fingertips dance themselves across the lips
of lovers in vertical, kinetic foreplay--orgasms
echoing out of opened windows, mimicking
the crescent birth of the moon.
you are the mathematic equivalent of zero,
neither positive nor negative,yet the root
of all others, indivisible, all-encompassing everything
and nothing--the limit approaching infinity,
what one reaches for even when he is not reaching.
she said
" i want to make love to you in free verse to sade with the windows open in the dark, so dark we can't see, all we can do is feel. i want to be one of your poems i want to be recreated by your hands in the dark. i want to feel that place inside of you where your deepest thoughts come from. you're so beautiful. i've never known anyone quite like you. sometimes i feel like you are privy to my most private thoughts. the ones that you can only think when no one else is even around. it's like there is something inside of me i have never quite been able to put words to, but you do it."
how does one respond to this:
"damn"
now i need seven vanilla candles, one bottle of oil, a box of prophylactics and a plane ticket to atlanta...oh, and of course a pad and a pen. i need to take a walk.
how does one respond to this:
"damn"
now i need seven vanilla candles, one bottle of oil, a box of prophylactics and a plane ticket to atlanta...oh, and of course a pad and a pen. i need to take a walk.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
new york.
jai and i walked from chinatown to columbia on the 12th...walking 1st avenue up to 42nd (United Nations)...then across to Times Square...up to Columbus Circle and into Central Park...most of the day was spent chilling in the park...we walked from 72nd to 123rd. We stayed at teacher's college in Columbia w/ Kamauru. Spent the other day walking Greenwich Village. I'm home now, loving NYC just a little more, planning my move there via graduate school. It has to be done. And now back to writing poetry.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
untitled mirror project.
it will only take just a little longer to reach the end of the road to the place where our shadows will meet their end where the dark corners of our dreams move together, a little closer to understanding, weare not so different we only look it under a certain light, while in dissimilar mood, during a listening of music (in tune with our vanity) or a twitch of the heart attempting to fit itself inside another (two beats) or the breaking of a fingernail, or in the company of the same sex, the greatest air of conformity, thick as an urban august haze.
you have known me before (you know me now) we tread the paths of life in the same shoes, borrowed, broken, wise as drunk men nearing death. i know you, proud, disillusioned, always waiting, endless waiting for a vision that will never come--you reflect a still eye, frustration hanging low on each lid, watching dreams open themselves as gifts, revealing nothing.
our only salvation is to forget, to pour out our memories under black light, under the keen eye of each other's image. yet we stray, we continue to hope and for that we suffer, alone, in rooms with no windows, beginning to believe that nothing else, outside, is...
you have known me before (you know me now) we tread the paths of life in the same shoes, borrowed, broken, wise as drunk men nearing death. i know you, proud, disillusioned, always waiting, endless waiting for a vision that will never come--you reflect a still eye, frustration hanging low on each lid, watching dreams open themselves as gifts, revealing nothing.
our only salvation is to forget, to pour out our memories under black light, under the keen eye of each other's image. yet we stray, we continue to hope and for that we suffer, alone, in rooms with no windows, beginning to believe that nothing else, outside, is...
Monday, September 06, 2004
haverford
i've been up at haverford with brandon since saturday. yesterday we went into the city (philly) and ate philly cheese steaks on south street. i bought a few cds...jill scott's new joint and a new ryan adams release (love is hell). the campus here is great, very peaceful, a nice postcard to send home to the folks. unfortunately i will have to leave tomorrow but i have enjoyed my time here. all of brandon's dorm mates are very nice and i'm sure his time here will be well spent. that is all one can hope for. peace.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
yesterday was the first day...
it felt like fall. it was raining. the air was cool. i realized, summer was ending. i find it hard to concentrate. the words fall like rain. the words seep through cracks in the ground and i never find them. they are lost forever, like the summer, the past. memory is the purest form of torture. i don't want to remember.
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