Red Lace

Life-drops are dripping
from my broken
fingertips.
Sliding off.
Splattering.
How unlucky
that I need those ribbons
of beautiful scarlet
that are piling up
on the floor.

Perhaps it isn't true.
Perhaps its like all the other lies
they always tell me...
All I can know for sure
is that my
beautiful color
is filling up the space
on the floor,
and I am hiding
under all this lace.

Lace....
So delicate
as it strangles me.
So silent
as it covers me.
It is surly
stained
by now:

Pure white
has been violated.

Long Way

I can see my dreams
from way up here.
It's a long way down.
Its a long way
from you
to me.

I hate the loneliness
the exclusiveness
the lines.
I want to leave
but I can't get away.
I want to be claimed
but I can't find the means.
I want to speak
but I can't use words.

I can see my breath
float up to the stars.
It's a long way up.
It's a long way
from there
to here.

I hate the distance
the separation
the boundaries.
I have ideas
that I can't realize.
I have beauty
that can't be shown.
I have wishes
that can't come true.



I can see
from way up here.
And its
such
a long way.....

Of an Unnamed Girl

She looked right at me as she cracked her window. Thought I did not know her, though I had never seen her before, I was suddenly sure she was about to tell me some important secret. but the feeling passed as instantaneously as is came when she looked away; our worlds fell apart, away from each other. She looked down and fumbled with something in her lap - I could only just see her by the light between our cars, a beacon in the dark parking lot. I held my breath, but didn't know why. Her face was lit up quite unexpectedly by a violent orange glow. A cigarette lighter. I could see all the curves and plains and flaws of her face in that moment. She inhaled and put the lighter away. I was vaguely aware that I was staring, but she seemed not to notice. It was cold. She exhaled and a mixture of steam and smoke curled lazily out her window, disbanding in the frigid night air. At last she glanced back at me. I had not moved. I would have smiled but her eyes were empty - she had not seen me. She started her car, put it in reverse, and drove away. I watched her tail lights in the distance until they became lost among all the other little red lights. Realizing I was still half-way out of my car, I swung my bag over my shoulder, slammed the locked door shut, and strode away quickly, aware as well of just how cold I had become. I shook my head as I crossed the parking lot, thinking of all the other similar memories that had already faded to nothing....

That Face

I gasped when I saw you.

You! That face! I've seen you. In my dreams. Pieces of moments from your life flashed through my brain. If you were real, were all those memories real? Memories that were leftover images from my sleep.

I gasped when I saw you. And then I felt dirty.

All those nights - weeks and weeks of them! I had somehow been spying on you in my sleep. All those personal conversations I had sat in on. All those moments of weakness I had witnessed. I was an intruder. You couldn't possibly know me.

I gasped when Isaw you. And then I felt dirty. I opened my mouth and then closed it, like a fish.

What could I say? 'Hi, I know everything'? I knew your name, knew your family, knew your friends, knew your room, knew your life. But I didn't mean to! They were only dreams!

I gasped when I saw you. And then I felt dirty. I opened my mouth and then closed it, like a fish. I settled on a shy smile - maybe you would walk away?

Noise

Through this sort of death, find life.
It is opposite thinking.
Become the rain.
Open up. Give away.
Vulnerability is beautiful,
like a person of color in a world of grey.
Release yourself.
You are hiding in the darkness.
Come out of the quiet. Live,
and hear others' voices.
Quietness shows that you only
hear on voice: yours.
Be free of that, and
listen.

The sun blushes at such passionate beginnings.








For my poetry class, we had to write a 'response to a poem'. Weird, right? Well I picked Rumi's 'Quietness', which you can read in the blog right before this one. =) I really liked this poem -- and so did my teacher!

Random Works of Rumi

Quietness
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an ax to the prison wall.
Escape. Walk out
like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest
sign that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full mood comes out now.







[Untitled]

You've so distracted me,
your absence fans my love.
Don't ask how.

Then you come near.
"Do not..." I say, and
"Do not..." you answer.

Don't ask why
this delights me.








This Market
Can you find another market like this?
Where, with your one rose

you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?
Where, for one see you get

a whole wilderness? For one weak
breath, the divine wind?








[Untitled]
I hear nothing in my ear but your voice.
Heart has plundered mind of its eloquence.

Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul can read and recollect.







[Untitled]
Pale sunlight,
pale the wall.

Love moves away.
The light changes.

I need more grace
than I thought.










Rumi is an amazing 13th-century Persian-born [present-day Afghanistan] poet. I love his poems!! He is famous for writing love poems, which I am typically not a fan of. But I love his stuff.

Good to Eat

I feel the grinding
of my bones
in my bones.

I know it will
reduce me
to a stumpy
bloody
core.

That's always how
it goes.
Grind my bones
- like fee fie fo fum -
and I am left
motionless.

-

-

-

-

-

Things are eating away at me.
Nibble.
Nibble.
Nibble.
CHOMP

I can't help it if
I look good to eat.

Difference

Sometimes I
feel
-and I hate it.

Sometimes I
recognize
-and it eats away at me.

Sometimes I am beyond
sick
of myself and all that I am,
all the damage I have caused
-and lived through.



Sometimes I am
overwhelmed
-and it swallows me.

Sometimes I am
alone
-and its suffocating.

Sometimes I become
aware
of how unlike everyone else I am,
how different and disconnected
-and it brings further isolation.



Sometimes I
reach
-and you miss it.

Sometimes I
scream
-and you aren't listening.

Sometimes I clearly
understand
that I am from a different world and
I am not a part of you or your world
-and it hurts me.

Ghazal

When I'm with you, I am who I am.
You see through the nonsense and grasp who I am.


The essence of Me is thick. It's hanging in the air:
I'm breathing in and breathing out suspicions of who and what I am.


Suggestions of what to be and where to go accumulate above me.
The rain of possibilities falls on all that I already am.

My whole life is reflected in your eyes. You peel away the
falseness with your bare hands. You effortlessly uncover who I truly am.

Classifications - of future, past, and present - are obsolete with you here.
Together we explore, and I am not afraid of what I am.

You say my name: 'Courtney' - it is so beautiful in your voice!
I wanted to be what you made me, but you have chosen to love me as I am.


















I'm taking a poetry class this semester and we are writing ghazals. I really love them! Here are the rules:
>The verses are written in couplets.
>The refrain, a repeated word, ends every couplet and ends the first and second lines in the first couplet [in this poem, the refrain is the word am]
>The couplets must make sense alone and end with a period. They don't have to be related.
>There must be at least 5 couplets.
>The lines are long - not one or two words like some of my work
>The last couplet must include the poet's own name.

Shelf Life

Day after day you.
Invade my space you.
Stick your hands in and.
Press your face close and.
Fog up the glass.

Am I really so.
Entertaining I.
Just lay here and.
Take care of my.
Life-needs but you.
Seem to find that.
Far too interesting for.
Me to be.
At ease.

I don't understand you.
You flat-faced captor you.
Hand that feeds me and.
Thinks yourself great while.
Exposing my life for.
Your own amusement.

Just because I.
Have no words or.
Legs or vote and.
Can't get out does.
Not mean I.
Enjoy it here.

How about we.
Switch roles just for.
One day so you.
Can see the need I have.
To bury myself in.
Wood chips to.
Ensure that I.
Can't be seen.




So in my poetry class we had to write a 'Research Poem'. I was like 'What the crap is a research poem???' Somehow, writing from a different perspective fit in. Anyway, it's nearly 11pm, and I realized at about... idk... 10pm that my research poem is due at midnight. So I feverishly grabbed a notebook, and this poem about a pessamistic* snake just kinda fell out. Weird. But I really liked it and now I just don't wanna go to bed so I'm rambling.... sighhhh.... Somehow I became 8 years old again. Idk how I managed it, but I did.