Bus Stop [2005]


Your friend is dead, with whom
You walked the streets.
The Metropolitan claw of smoke
Reaches from the chimneys
But doesn’t touch you.
You lost your gusto, and
Your cigarette burns deep.

Your friend is dead, with whom

You talked about life

Over kettle fires where

Children with demonic faces

Burned behind flames;

You lost your mittens, and

Your hands are numb.

Your friend is dead, with whom

You ran from home.

Night’s widow calls you again.

A ventriloquist’s hand up your spine

Shoves words out your mouth.

Your mind is gone, and

You’ve lost your ticket home.

2009
07/28
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

Les Rencontres


Les Recontres_Nicholas Miller

2009
07/28
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

Pulp Fiction


Musty cough and rusty breath choke my lungs

and flush parts of the dark,

and then plugs again.

Crumbs of light seep from the corner

where this walled up

cat of a conscious sculls for a jump

from rock or a bridge from its eighth attempt.

Bitter lipped mendacity ropes a mandala my throat

and I center and clench,

and grate symmetry eddy my grip.

Vows concentrate the air,

shiver, and discharge folds,

black slides and pins my wide-eyed gag on the floor

and blurred breathy eyes in glass.

Out from a jagged rouse

my sight makes focus on beat,

steadily thrusting to contest this dispute:

orangen

It cleared my peripheral into full view.

My knees shook and sleeves ripped

and fell with my orange cardiac pulp.

Stained juiced on my sleeve.

A heart is a terrible thing to wear in Winter.

2009
07/28
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
Write comment

Clothes Hangers [2004]


[in memory of joshua, 2003.]

You always were so ornate.

The way your clothes hanged

on a gentle rainbow of pine, maple and cypress

and the latter of etageres

like steps to Heaven

or a staircase to Hell.

You were such a man of disguise

how you drew the smiles on your lips

and painted the light in your eyes.

Even when you shut the world out,

everything was still so bright,

alive and rich.

I remember how

I left that morning,

ignoring your quiet room,

or the clean dishes,

missing cutlery.

But still, my earphones couldn’t drown the sound

that 163lbs on etageres can make

as a belt snaps loose and then tightens

around the waistline of a neck

as the constellations of veins

in your hands, your legs, forearms, palms

burst in supernova.

When we last locked eyes,

I just stared and followed the curves

of your body;

The way your arms draped by your side

like curtains on a summer day,

how your hands looked

like a sanguine canvas on that Starry Night.

But it was those eyes, not the watered mess

that dampened your thighs

or the footstool beneath your feet,

that met mine.

In a wintry blue framed in bloody snow.

2009
07/28
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

Sketch No.1: Dissociation [2004]


Define dissociation.

Velveteen Rabbits

sketch № 1

…and where did it begin?

-The rabbits?

-which rabbits?

-nothing… no rabbits

I said she was feeding me strawberries when I was in the stroller; however, sometimes, I’d be strapped, African/hippie-style, on her back when she cleaned the house or walked the dog or smoked crack with the neighbor –

- did what with the neighbor?

only a couple times or three.

-ok, and you remember this incident, or three?

i remember a lot of things. I AM old enough, you know. You shouldn’t be… you shouldn’t be…

Shouldn’t be –?

Yes.I remember everything perfectly.

after the walk we came inside but first i had to clean off my shoes because every good girl cleans her shoes when she goes inside and then i would walk up the staircase but i would walk quietly because I was a good girl who didn’t make noise

but they would I just would go quietly,

it would sometimes take me a whole hour just to make it up

it would last a whole hour…

and sometimes those hours were long

and sometimes those hours were cold

and sometimes those hours were hard

don’t forget sometimes i’d scrape my knees on the wood floors and dirty my shoes and my white panties

-white panties?

i think they were white

no, no, they weren’t white

YES. They were white.

i’m thinking g r e y

grey?

Grey… no, ugh-

White?

White?

Maybe red.

Dissociation is an unexpected partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning that cannot be easily explained by the person. Dissociation is a mental process that severs a connection to a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity

2009
07/28
CATEGORY
Poetry
Uncategorized
Write comment

Looking into the Eyes of my fears


I’ve always believed that things have purpose and that every happening is a thread in our fate. However, believing and understanding –  let alone living, in this mindset is challenging, and I, admittedly, don’t do it well.

We all have a list of names, collected from stories told by friends, colleagues or lovers about people in their pasts. Sometimes these names are as striking as a midnight cough that shakes you from your sleep or as intoxicating as a card you’ve read for years. The personalities and charaters of these people are outlined from the stories we hear and filled in with the feeling we feel for our beloveds.

For five years, I’ve painted a portrait of a Name, whose mere utterance sucked my brightest day into dark. Whose ability haunted and killed my esteem. A Name whom I know had called Beloved before me. I’d made a hero and a monster of this Name. A hero for breaking the skin of a paladin none had, and a monster for beating me to it. I’d also secretly mourned this Name for the troubled endured and channeled advice for the paths I’d walked.

Last night, I locked eyes with this Name in the middle of a crowded debaucherous room. With knotted tongue, I listened to words so different than I’d imagined. I’d always thought would I come to put a face to this Name what would transpire. Rather than loosing my grip, I found my footing.

This takes me back to where I’ve left so many times before: there’s a god in every Monster knock from inside our closet doors.

2009
07/26
CATEGORY
Epiphany
General
Write comment

NyQuil


I don’t sleep well at night

anymore.

Just as my eyes beign to shut

and my lips part just slightly enough

to breathe,

I hear the noise begin.

They’re behind the door,

on the other side of the wall,

playing cards and casting lots

on who is bigger and better.

They laugh because they know

I hear them.

It’s been years since I’ve seen their faces;

they must be ever so much larger.

Their shift is the red eye.

I know they’ll vanish when I awake

and the rest of the world isn’t there to hear.

I don’t sleep well anymore, but

they still don’t know I did it.

As long as they’re quiet,

those skeletons in the closet.

2009
07/26
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

sleeveless date


last night’s storm

knocked out the power

, but

morning still came in

just as it always does.

the patomime face

of the clock

beat like a swaying powercord

slapping cold wet brick

outside

the window that

was left open

for the chill to enter

and

paw up my back.

i forgot you left without locking the door, too.

2009
07/16
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

Waxing Gibbous


I figured if I didn’t start, it would never happen. Thus, as the moon begins to see its face so do I. Here goes an attempt to recover what I’ve lost in the last year during which I’ve not been writing regularly.  My lack of authorship has evolved into more than empty pages; it’s become a virus that usurps my person until one day, i WAKE UP only to find i have no words to share.

2009
07/16
CATEGORY
Epiphany
General
Write comment

Medicine Man


If I could cast a mold

of his violin oak back,

there would be no god

whose answers would suffice.

2009
06/06
CATEGORY
Poetry
Write comment

AddThis

Bookmark and Share
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.