new questions

so what now? now that i've decided to postpone my graduate education, assuming I was going to get in this time. the extra time allows for another stab at the GRE, about 10 solid months of new writing, searching for a mentor, some much needed work experience, i suppose.

(perchance early recitation understood, she has beautiful eyes)

i'm sick of volunteer work. i feel like i'm in the waiting station between college graduation and actual work of substance, some sort of movement toward career goals. i'm glad i got sick last week, gave me an excuse to stay home and do whatever, do nothing. i'm supposed to call the publisher of the Informer on Wednesday. Hopefully, I can get some sort of position there. Even if it's volunteer at first, I need something new.

(lips, yes, they quiver with every kiss)


i need a music giveaway. give me 500 cds of my choice and that should occupy me for a few months.

i need a smoke. i shall take it in a few.

(i can be your lover, i have enough friends)

yeah, the poetry is writing itself at the moment. keep reading.

blanket

-
i stretch
the thought
of your
kiss across
my bed
and fall
asleep between
your lips.
-

two statements to love...

sun: i would die for you.

storm: i can't find a way to kill myself, so, I must kill you.

right now, i'm somewhere in the middle of storm and sun, or maybe i'm on the outside looking in because of a certain someone or maybe because of a few special people. they are walking around inside this room and every now and again, they come to the window of the door and look out at me, smiling. i want to go in, but the last time i did, i had to be carried out by my own heart, which was almost stoned to death. i don't believe my body would have survived without the heart's help. my heart is a resilient muthafucker.

all tomorrow's parties

two men with hats over their faces in the back of a truck, being taken to jail possibly for some vice or other. Ai and her poems will become my poems, new and selected, real and neglected, some tears may be shed, some saved for later. in the end, something new must be known.

i search the eyes of passers-by for the next line, the perfect beginning, a timeless quote, sexual tension, pain, a hello, a silent interest...everyday, at the bookstore, in the coffee shop, on my block, in the car next to mine with the New York license plate...she's from out of town, he wears his shirts inside-out, she has green eyes, i am a leach, yearning for a connection deeper than blood, under the skin, never to be forgotten.

...my job, no job...all i want is to be drunk high and fuck away the night in a black light doom...conjure ghosts to dance with me...hendrix's manic depression, led zeppelin's dazed and confused or california, beck's peaches n cream or new pollution, in succession, just like that, just as i thought, or wrote or both...

i forgot to mention velvet underground...lou reed playing under the veil of an andy warhol triptych...watching eternal sunshine of the spotless mind in someone's back yard hotboxing in a tent on homegrown. and its all in my mind...and then it isn't. nothing, nothing at all, save the packt of sardines in a crushed tin box...epiphanous yet trite, mundane yet star-struck, a crescent moon dying in the equator's arms.

after the show is all tomorrow's parties, dangling from my lover's wrists, some tiffany and co. heartful(less) promise that diamonds are more than metamorphed coal...the earth truly everyone's best friend, although we love her like we love the gutter, all in passing.

is it just a dream?

I am continuing to question my dedication to reaching my goal of graduate study. It's just that there is so much going on in my head, from trying to stay active on the employment search front, to maintaining a grasp of my responsibilities at Africare, then actually bringing together a good sample of my work, which has been sidetracked by the affair with my computer (damage to socket on laptop). I won't make excuses but it seems I must become mechanical with every hour, minute, second of my days in order to complete all the tasks I set before myself on any given day. A schedule must be made and held above my head. I need a smack on the back of the head, good music, some good sex...yes, that would be great motivation, now that I think of it... Ok, so I think about that a lot too.

Today I spent some time in the bookstore reading some contemporary work from Sonia Sanchez, Philip Levine, Li-Young Lee and a few poets published in the Kenyon Review (published by Middlebury College if I'm not mistaken). My online outlets to poetry at the moment are Stirring: A Literary Collection, This So Called Life, and various personal websites run by individuals that have an affinity for certain established writers, from Plath to Komunyakaa to Kevin Young to Sharon Olds to Mark Strand and so on. The more I write, the more ideas I birth for original poems. I am feeding off of the energy, the soul of others writing. I would like to think this is reciprocal and not parasitic, the relationship I share with many who I may never meet or speak to on any terms. Tomorrow, Galway Kinnell, Lucie Brock-Broido continued along with more Columbia faculty, Kyle Dargan (MFA student at Indiana), and so on.

Gotta keep writing. yes.

weekend happenings

I was back in ATL. Homecoming 2004 consisted of a lot of not so old faces, a lot of drinking, and the acceleration of time in between, so quickly, I'm back in DC at work, writing in my journal. I guess there isn't much to say right now or I just don't know what to say. maybe more later...

ps either arrive early to Copeland's party or don't come at all.

foresight or the love that was never made love

turn me
inside out
baby doll
(my head
falls from
the neck
after dreaming
you were
not real)

turn me
on as
you walk
away then
back again
(into my
skin you
go, a
needle searching
for more
than blood)

turn me
over, spread
the root
(bark spills
from my
eyes, leaves
sprout from
your breasts)

what music
dangles from
your lips,
a time
signature frozen
between our
whispers (stars
fall just
to see
our invisible
dance of
soul a
little closer)

we move--
(as thunder
through cloud
as thought
in air)
to being
nothing more
than memory

how will
we forget?

orgasm

her moan is a somber soprano
melody i playback on nights
when the stars hide behind
their lonliness
--

my fingers play carousel
between quivering thighs
that struggle to contain
the secret of being pure

as her lips part--
body wraps around the little
death undertaking exploding nerves,
i understand now the palindrome

of our ever meeting in a life
before--in being born, again

i speak:
"your vision went golden didn't
it baby...heart skipped a beat,
felt the center of everything was
breathing in your womb, defined heaven..."

she speaks:
"mmmmyeahummmhuh...i was grinding
down a waterfall, watching your face
at the bottom, your voice speaking
a somber staccato, reminds me of
the first time, the very first time"

i remember
her voice
and the song
my hands made
as she danced
us both to sleep.

Denise Duhamel

...Between his songs, the silence
of the city is so full and tenuous
that it can't be called silence at all,
but rather the sound after great sex,
the sound before a great war.

from 'Testament of Sex'

baseball history

Carlos Beltran (Houston Astros) - second player to hit 8 home runs in one postseason (Bonds) and only player to homer in 5 straight postseason games

Bernie Williams (NY Yankees) - most home runs in postseason history (22)
Hideiki Matsui (NY Yankees) - first player to have 5 RBIs twice in the same series during postseason
Mariano Rivera (NY Yankees) - first time in career in which he has blown two saves in a row

David Ortiz (Boston Red Sox) - first player to hit two walk-off home runs in one postseason
Boston Red Sox- first team to force a game 7 after trailing in a series 3-0

Red Sox v. Yankees - Game 5 - longest game in postseason history (5 hours, 48 minutes)

i lost my wallet

for the second time this year, i've misplaced my wallet. a check card. driver's license. 17 dollars and some movie stubs/receipts. carelessness? maybe. or it could just be another sign that i'm a total loser. either way, it is gone and now i must buy another one. more pressure to find a job :)

it could have been us

Brandon, Mom, Dad and I said a prayer before I took my little brother back to Philly. The ride up was nice, it was sunny through Baltimore all the way to Philly. Brandon slept the last leg of the trip which was cool. I would look over to him every now and then just glad that he was there...he's growing...he's a college man. I just sometimes have to sit back and think...wow, my brother is growing up too, my height now, not so little anymore :)

anyway, he needed to get some clippers from a Target up there but we got lost on the way. This added about an hour on my trip. I was a little frustrated but in hindsight, it was just more time to spend with him. Well, on the way back I'm driving along at a good pace, anticipating an arrival back in DC around 10:30...I happen to see a prompt about 20 miles north of Aberdeen saying there was an accident on I-95 and that all four lanes are closed (use exit 85 or 80). So, I stop at the Chesapeake house for gas and some food, call home to get directions on the detour. People are at the rest stop talking about the accident(s). Apparently around 5 or so there was a major storm that dropped visibility on the highway to 0. I didn't really get a grasp of how bad things were until I got home but there were 11 separate accidents involving 50+ cars on a five-mile stretch of the highway. All night, many scenarios ran through my head. What if Brandon and I had left earlier (which was the plan all along)...and I had been going through the White Marsh area of MD (just north of Baltimore) around the time of the accident. It could have easily been me. So, for once, my oversleeping served a higher purpose in a sense. I just remember taking exit 85 and going over the ramp staring south and seeing all those red lights...cars stopped. I got off the highway just in time...although the detour added a few hours on to my trip, I got home in one piece and in the end, that's all one can hope for.

back to haverford

i'm taking brandon back to school today. he isn't packed yet so we're a little behind schedule. i guess i'm not in a rush really. we'll get to talk a lot on the way back and i probably won't get back until sometime this evening. i think i'm going to be missing the red sox v. yankees game. stupid rain delay last night. anyway, the sun is coming out, time to roll.

the new danger

The new Mos Def album is live...cop that joint, early!

i'm listening to it now-- track: Sex, Love and Money (the hotness)

i give it 4/5 mics

always room to grow but it's a solid sophomore album

i'll discuss tonight's activities in more detail tomorrow.

Upon viewing them in an 'I Heart Huckabees' Ad, Naomi Watts’ eyes speak in the kitchen scene of '21 Grams'

sean penn begins to grasp your grief
as the baby doll of your dead daughters
loses its head in your throat—there are not
enough words to cancel out the sun
or enough lies to trick your heart into
forgetting to beat, so you scream through
the doll’s eyes into your babies’ silent room
and out of their open window for a reason
that does not exist.

snippet

a red light
through a window
is witness to our first kiss

i see rubies in your eyes
lips play bridge
as hands play tag

god is watching
our silent prayer
for new love

monday

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.

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.

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.

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.