Oh Tears

Oh, I’ve lived in the trash too long
Even in dreams it creeps up in my veins
Now let me tell you that I’m ready
Ready for anything but this
My skin scrawls with bugs
My heart is a shattered mess
I will let you clean it up if you decline to inquire
About the reason for this fire
My friends have left this hovel
Onto better things
While I dwell in the wreckage of the past
While I swing and shake in the breeze
A single tree limb supports my whole body
Threatening to break
The real hovel is in your heart
It grows dark as your lungs
It crumples me like newspaper
In your thick calloused hands
It tells everyone I came from the trash
It tells everyone to shine a great big spotlight on me
Outside of the garbage
The world is still
And I spin on my axis like a planet
Without gravity
Go ahead, tell everyone where I came from
I’ll tell them where you hid
In the folds of my flesh
Behind the roundness of my breasts
Behind the chlorinated swimming pool of my eyes
Burrowed for years
Pushing them out of my eyes
One by one
Sparkling tears
You refused to clean up

On the "minx"-on the true-love--Fanny Brawne

During my reading of Keats, I came across the love letters between him and his belovced, Fanny Brawne. Keats died in Italy, after attempting to recover from tuberculosis which proved to be terminal. After witnessing the death of his brother from the same malady, he eventually suffered a similiar fate after a bleeding lung led to his untimely demise. We all seem to be struck by the untimely deaths of those whose art fascinates us. By age 24, Keats had written all the poems he'd ever write but fame in any magnitude arose only post-humerously. Whatcaught my attention was the clandestine relationship between Fanny and John (their engagement remained a secret because John who gave up a career in medicine to persue his full-time advocation of writing) could not support Fanny in a proper fashion. The two maintained a passionate correspondence. "At eighteen, Fanny Brawne “was small, her eyes were blue and often enhanced by blue ribbons in her brown hair; her mouth expressed determination and a sense of humour and her smile was disarming. She was not conventionally beautiful: her nose was a little too aquiline, her face too pale and thin (some called it sallow). But she knew the value of elegance; velvet hats and muslin bonnets, crêpe hats with argus feathers, straw hats embellished with grapes and tartan ribbons: Fanny noticed them all as they came from Paris. She could answer, at a moment’s notice, any question on historical costume. ... Fanny enjoyed music. ... She was an eager politician, fiery in discussion; she was a voluminous reader. ... Indeed, books were her favourite topic of conversation”.[8]"

In a letter to his brother, Keats describes the Fanny he'd soon become enamored with:

"Mrs. Brawn who took Brown's house for the summer still resides in Hampstead. She is a very nice woman and her daughter senior is I think beautiful, elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange. We have a little tiff now and then—and she behaves a little better, or I must have sheered off" ; the second: "—Shall I give you Miss Brawn[e]? She is about my height—with a fine style of countenance of the lengthen'd sort—she wants sentiment in every feature—she manages to make her hair look well—her nostrills are fine—though a little painful—he[r] mouth is bad and good—he[r] Profil is better than her full-face which indeed is not full [b]ut pale and thin without showing any bone—Her shape is very graceful and so are her movements—her Arms are good her hands badish—her feet tolerable—she is not seventeen—but she is ignorant—monstrous in her behaviour flying out in all directions, calling people such names—that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx—this is I think no[t] from any innate vice but from a penchant she has for acting stylishly. I am however tired of such style and shall decline any more of it" [13]

I decided to post a moving letter from a dying Keats, living in KItaly to his secret fiancee'. I don't know of any current pop songs that demonstrate this level of passion and devotion:


My dearest Girl,

This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my Soul I can think of nothing else - The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you again[s]t the unpromising morning of my Life - My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving - I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love - You note came in just here - I cannot be happier away from you - 'T is richer than an Argosy of Pearles. Do not threat me even in jest. I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." I can do that no more - the pain would be too great - My Love is selfish - I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

Just Once or Twice is Enough

If I could get back to you
I would
But fear traps me between its glistening teeth
I was brave before I became aware of any real danger
Didn’t know that cars crumble into scrapnel
That fires melt skin into bubbling liquid
That lightening strikes the ground like a knife from heaven
You know If I could I would find a way to push back that
Thin skin and brave the plane and the train and the ride to
The station make love to you like a bullet meets the flesh
Trapped inside your skin the way all beautiful things tend to
Burn a little at first
Anything worth it’s weight in dirt stings a little at first
I felt your stare like shadows feel the night air
I felt your lips, chapped and red against my cheek
Like records scratch the songs I love onto repeat
I knew your name better than my own once I know
I did love you the way all delicate things should be loved
Covered in rags and kept in the basement
Like babies need a strong hand
I did, cradle your soft skull
I did fear I would drop you
And I did get a lump in my throat
At the sound of your voice
Croak my name
Just once or twice is enough
I love you
If that’s okay
If not, throw it away
Really I just need some kind of confirmation
A simple affidavit
I just need your signature on the dotted line
Autograph your name on my spine
I know the way that feelings lie
The way that lovers lie
The way that all things beautiful eventually die.

Dessa Rose by any other name...

Am currently reading Dessa Rose and am becoming more and more interested in understanding our sordid American past. I do not seek to understand the slave trade to unearth the reason behind such inhumane brutality or to find a rationale in the way it made the Southern economy of the 19th century thrive. I am reading it, because I want to fully understand the things that weren't spoken about in any of the history classes I was forced to attend. What I am becoming aware of are atrocities so brutal that it is difficult to comprehend that humans were capable of torturing one another in such unfathomably evil ways. Knowing that America, a country that has gained recognition for its supposed freedom, has allowed such awful things to happen on its soil makes me profoundly sad. I hope to be able to smash racism but I know I cannot do it alone. Perhaps while I am at it...someone who will join in and help me smash patriarchy as well.

Metal Mags

I saw MetalMags at BAR in New Haven over two years ago but sometimes I still get this song stuck in my head. I think she is one of the gems of the East Coast who should get more credit for her creativity and non-conformity.

For what it's worth...

I've been drinking seltzer with lime slices in it and find it to be quite refreshing. In other news I am back in school for another (hopefully productive) semester as one of the oldest under-grads I know. I am taking Chemistry and African-American Literature and have started reading "Incidents of a Slave Girl" by Harret Jacobs which has floored me. I suppose every caucasian person has experienced some form of "white-guilt" at one time or another. I must confess that although I was always aware of the atrocities of slavery, I had never read such a personal and heart-wrenching memoir detailing the horrific everyday life of a woman born into slavery. It got me thinking about the theory of the "invisable backpack" which is basically a metaphor for the unspoken priviliges that white people experience simply as result of their skin tone. I also began thinking a lot about a study I read about prejudice and how deeply it is engrained in the human psyche :
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870408,00.html
It scared me that people who consider themselves not to be racist behave in a manner that is anything but when tested. I think we all hope to be open-minded but it is important not just to be a humanitarian "in theory" but also in pratice.

Peace love and rock n roll
Zoe A.

Tick-tick-tock

Reveling in your tragedy
I found myself a crisis that fit
Seven year itch
I am finally breathing okay
I swear—smoke another cigarette baby
I know they’ll find a cure
For cancer or whatever else ails you, my dear
We duck down low
Fearing the apocalypse
Cuddled up in sheets
I wake up breathing fire and screaming
I wake up to the shrill sound of the alarm
I wake up with a time bomb in my chest
And I’m not sure how or when it will explode

We woke up so mad the other day
Your eyes were still wet from the night before
You were crying in your sleep
And I feel nothing but
The time bomb
In my chest
Tick tock ticking away
The days when you were mine
I kept you like a shell, right next to my ear—
Your breath , the ocean

You were so wild once—
Thought you’d met the calmer version of me
The one with the fangs
I keep locked up
Sweet talk the blues into my
Aeorta
Sweet talk the death kiss out of me

I was trying to get in touch with my old-self
The one I liked
The one who wrote poems and dyed her hair black
I wanted to write her a letter
I wanted to tell her to “get back—get back”—beatles style
I wanted to beat her up and tell her she’d end up with grey hair and gingivitis
But I began to feel sorry for her—
All the unrequited love—she feels
So sober and way less lovedrunk than expected
All the cobwebs that appear in place of her eyes
All the sorrow and the rainclouds in her heart
The princess telephone that no one answers
The way her hands feel for something in the dark
The way she will clutch at things that disappear
The way she will suck on poisonous fruit
The way her eyes will grow too tired
The heaving heaviness of her

help-I'm alive- my heart keeps beating like a hammer

Almost three years sober
And I am still learning
How to keep my head above water
To feel the spark I felt after my first sip
Of Jack Daniels, the rush I know,
If I drank enough I would spin
Like the skirt of a Flamenco dancer
But I could keep from falling down
If I knew just the right amount,
Just the right recipe for success
The spark in his eye, seeing me
When I felt like no one
Made me feel like something

Self-esteem and loveless dancing
Tragedy and the art of deception
Are all man-made words,
I pull the threads out and unravel
The sweater of my life
All the pink threads that were supposed to lead
Me somewhere
I am fragile and these red lines on maps
Give me panic attacks
If I could go wherever I wanted
I’d never come back
But uncertainty makes me nauseous
And still I don’t want to know what
Is true
I believe in your skin like tissue
All the femurs and fissures beneath
All seem make-believe
But I wanted to see them
To know if you were real

You are electric but still falling apart
The stuffing falling from your ears
I try to push it back in.
I am lost and confused
All the ledges seem daunting
Every night comes without warning
My skin is tracing paper
My eyes are wet
You don’t know how to read the maps
In my skin
The quiet sighs I make when I am sleeping
You don’t know how to solve
The algebra in my face
The lipstick marks on the cups
Can stay
I am pacing in slow motion around our apartment
It took only a few hours to watch everything
Decompose
If I were prettier
If I had more degrees
If I could look you in the eye
Like a viper, ready
To attack at any moment
How would you react?
I have no tact but you consume
Me and suspend me into belief.

Read it and weep (or not)

Madeline
　
Oh no
No more
Come on
I do all I can
I do all I can
And when I can’t that just means
I have nothing left to give
To you or anyone
No more begging
No more pleading with your eyes
Grasping wrists
No more trying to pull my eyeballs
Out of my head
No one I love ever pleads
No one I love ever tugs my wrists
Ot tries to bend the pipe cleaner
Of my heart
No one I love bothers to call
They make pacts with the devil
They click their spurs down highway 61
They scream and they spit blood cum
But no one I love ever comes
When I call their name
When I drag my body toward mirrors
Rearrange the lipstick and outline
The eyes in kohl
And try to impress
In the wrong dress
A funeral dirge rings
The bells of my ears
I am always teetering halfway
Between hell and high water
I am always expecting the worst
When I turn around
Half expecting that you won’t be
There anymore
There are songs I sing with my heart
The pull of my face against concrete
The slip and slide of my thin skin
Breaks blood on pavement
My fragile skull snaps off the chicken bone
Of my neck
You know, you do all this to me, lover
You do all of this so carelessly
As if you spilled milk
As if someone else is there behind you
A nurse maid or a janitor
To clean the mess of me up.

Jaws for Taryn

Your daddy was never
A daddy, he tried to slice
Your wrists once with a shard
Of glass in your sleep

Blondie with crooked teeth
Knashing your jaw
Science fiction face
That I loved
But no one else did

And you believe you should try
To stick this one out
Until your mom moved you away

To the Wilmington, North Carolina
Where a doctor took your nose

between his forefinger and thumb
Marked it in blue pen
And struck you with a hammer
Smashed the bone into 14 pieces
And re-aligned it, Pushed
your chin back in place
Sliced it with a shiny scapel
And left you sallow yellow
And puke green on some
Blue sheets in a hospital
In a town where no one knew your name
And I loved you

Somewhere thousands of miles away
I stared down at my half-smoked cigarette
Waiting for a point
Waiting for the fire to smolder the end
Into a crooked peak
To know that you missed me too

Taryn,
You were there for me when I wasn't there at all
Even for myself
You were my backbone
When they snapped mine into 47 pieces
And pushed them neatly into place with
Titanium and little slices of my hip
When I oozed blood from my back
Dripped like a broken water tap
You were there when I lied awake
Pushing a small red button down
With clenched teeth
The morphine drip
Sending me to the third precinct of hell
(Which is not such a scary place after all)
You were there when all the voices turned to static
And my mouth turned to cinder
So I couldn't kiss you on my mouth

You were my best friend
When I didn't even know what that meant
\n\n\u003cp\>Lying in the tepid bath with me
Legs bent, back arched
Your ribs springing from your stomach
like a deer, like a creature from another world
you were so mean sometimes
mean to everyone but me
because you could see all the gashes and
the disgrace behind my eyes
all the screaming and the whites of my
gaze turning red before it even happened and I always knew you'd be forever
and never at the same time
and one day you'd be gone
I didn't know ten years later
You'd be on the other line
Of the telephone wire
Wrapped around my
Polished nail so tight
it turned purple

I need you like I need
A hole in my head
And seriously I mean
That as a compliment
No I mean I need you
To steady me on this shaking earth
All this plate tectonics has me falling
Into small cracks in the pavement
Has me dreaming of your hands
On my head
Your laugh like a catastrophe
It sounds like I could save you
You need me but maybe I need you more
You never let me lie in my own shit
Lie to myself
Lie to you
Lie on top of you
When I was too trashed to know any better
You never let me go
Even when the rope stretched so
Far and I was hanging on by a tiny stitch
You are older now

Long pale hair to your ass
Like your mom
When she was dancing
At the playboy café
1977 when you werebarely a flicker in her eye
Before the tables turned
When she was drinking a bottle of cooking cherry
Tearing out her hair
because she loved you
like no one else did
not even me because I could never birth you from
a tiny place
I could never spill

Lying in the tepid bath with me
Legs bent, back arched
Your ribs springing from your stomach
like a deer, like a creature from another world
you were so mean sometimes
mean to everyone but me


because you could see all the gashes and
the disgrace behind my eyes
all the screaming and the whites of my
gaze turning red before it even happened

and I always knew you'd be forever
and never at the same time
and one day you'd be gone

I didn't know ten years later
You'd be on the other line
Of the telephone wire
Wrapped around my
Polished nail so tight
it turned purple

I need you like I need
A hole in my head
And seriously I mean
That as a compliment

No I mean I need you
To steady me on this shaking earth
All this plate tectonics has me falling
Into small cracks in the pavement
Has me dreaming of your hands
On my head
Your laugh like a catastrophe
It sounds like I could save you
You need me but maybe I need you more
You never let me lie in my own shit
Lie to myself
Lie to you
Lie on top of you
When I was too trashed to know any better

You never let me go
Even when the rope stretched so
Far and I was hanging on by a tiny stitch

You are older now
Long pale hair to your ass
Like your mom
When she was dancing
At the playboy café
1977 when you werebarely a flicker in her eye

Before the tables turned
When she was drinking a bottle of cooking cherry
Tearing out her hair
because she loved you
like no one else did
not even me
because I could never birth you from
a tiny place

I could never spill
Diamonds from my sleeves
Onto the table before you

Diamonds from my sleeves
Onto the table before you
Show you the answers

But you are her
23 with a southern drawl
A pocket knife
And a tea kettle
You are miraculous
I am finally waking up.

New Sheets on Sunday for S.

I saw a man stumble to right
Himself, stand up straight
Drop his backpack
To the ground & hover
Over it like some space ship landing…

He was wasted and I was
Thinking of you
On 42nd Street
Looking into the funny mirrored
Pillars, the reflection, emaciated.
I was skin & bones except
For the bottom of my stomach
Totally bloated…
I was staring at the people passing by

Reflections like gazelles
Gaunt and lustrous magazine
style perfection; I looked back
and they were just people
fat and unloved racing to some
stupid fucking job they hate

and I can't sleep
on this dismal train
back to a city that threatens to
eat all the toffee inside me
leave me carved out and vacant
as a dented toilet paper roll

because in your bed your body is still
& calm and I can kiss you on the mouth

While you are totally unconscious & you'll
Smile and brush the hair from my eyes even though


your eyes are closed & this is the first time in so long
That I haven't felt like an
Unwanted
House
Guest


I can call & tell you that I'm okay
When I get home from the big city
Yr so pretty
In the faint light
That glows in your bedroom
Through the windows
& the street lamps

Your eyes are telling me jokes
Your mouth is a fixed hello
Your hair is out of control
You make me sentimental
And not for some memory
But just for you

I have nothing to compare this to…


I am catching feelings
And you said it first on the 7
From Queens to 23rd St.
You held me hand
Stroked the inside of one palm
Said you were scared
Of the same thing
Happening again
That some girl you used to love
Said to you that:
Your money was her money &
her money was her money
& you know That I'd get by
But if I had it could I share?
& I was dumbstruck
Defensive
Because I wanted you to know
That I'd been
robbed blind
that I could
never cheat you
that no one
ever makes me
laugh like you do
so hard that I
cough rocks
that no one
makes me
calm
as you do
2 fingers
Bent inside my
Open mouth
I'll do whatever
You want

Happy
Happy happy
Because you
Never
Take take
Take care, happy
To take
You in my
Mouth
Your body soft & clean
Like new sheets on Sunday.