Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Got a shining star out there in the night
that night sky holding it high
and tight

so I can look
and look
and want.

It was writing note pages
pressed against my chest,
the painting on the wall
and every day I lose you.

You're out touching flowers
when you walk by the petals,
if I knew I could walk right into you,
I would, it's the know that I can't.

In dreams I can put my mouth all over,
like a phantom, there's the haunt.
I never make you quite happy
even after a night like we do.

There was a speck of light, a glimmer.
I looked for a vase of water
or a glass cup in the windowsill
with the sun shining through it.

My legs were bare,
I had my hands on my knees
and the light was on my feet.

I don't know where all that water was.
I don't know if it was something I started to drink
on some other night and forgot it there.

Her looking from a fifteen story window
out at the busy sidewalk, with all those people
doing all those things in such a rush
of color, voice, movement, clutter

none of them looking up to see her there.

It was weird to have on lip stick,
who was I to be this night,
I had to pick her quick
and get the eyes in character.

There was many layers
of fluff
and ruffle,
but he still got to me.

There was a chicken in the crossing.

Speaking of a chicken

I love this poem

Chicken, by Kim Addonizio


Why did she cross the road?

She should have stayed in her little cage,

shat upon by her sisters above her,

shitting on her sisters below her.



God knows how she got out.

God sees everything. God has his eye

on the chicken, making her break

like the convict headed for the river,



sloshing his way through the water

to throw off the dogs, raising

his arms to starlight to praise

whatever isn't locked in a cell.



He'll make it to a farmhouse

where kind people will feed him.

They'll bring green beans and bread,

home-brewed hops. They'll bring



the chicken the farmer found

by the side of the road, dazed

from being clipped by a pickup,

whose delicate brain stem



he snapped with a twist,

whose asshole his wife stuffed

with rosemary and a lemon wedge.

Everything has its fate,



but only God knows what that is.

The spirit of the chicken will enter the convict.

Sometimes, in his boxy apartment,

listening to his neighbors above him,



annoying his neighbors below him,

he'll feel a terrible hunger

and an overwhelming urge

to jab his head at the television over and over

BUST DOWN THE DOOR - EAT ALL THE CHICKENS!

kosher butchers
headless roosters
chicken soup for the soul

death sticks to your bones
no bread
no wheat
no meat

no eggs
yeah tofu

or die

is there really an alternative?
nope
eat like a monk
ommmmmmm

eat like a monk
fuck like a monk
seems to me
a cure for a disease called man

I was born an innocent and trusting child
Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

how did it get so twisted

uh- you had me with 'eat like a monk' but fuck like a monk- i went somewhere in my mind- see- monks usually live with all men- and.. well- maybe i could do the other- but...


how did it get so twisted?
there are two mountains behind HANALEI school in kauai- my children went there- the name of the mountains? twisted sisters-
i forgot- my mind is a fading watercolor in an assisted living home for blue hairs

my mind's a joke
my spirit broke
swinging between life and death

I been thinking about wearing a plutonium hat
just to keep me from blowing away
perhaps I should stop posting for a while
till I have something more life affirming to stay.

the nirvana principle

i think not- poetry should only be happy? and death a secret?
i would hope that the best writing was intensely felt not so very great times mixed with a fantasy and a description of what you really wanted=- after all-
ya can do this alive or dead- just feels better alive- im sure-
i lissen to ppl and they all say they could of done it better
but they didnt do anything at all-just thought about doing it=
write about it- write about what you really wanted- and could still have and love-- and if all the cuts and wounds were healed- what would that look like- would you be on the bus having a moment= or would you be in a group of people reading your poems in the park-? maybe
kite flying with all this wind=