I warped my writing, made it glow, forced wobbles, upstrokes, uneven ohs to set it apart from the springs of copper my family coiled on paper; every word a scrolled epistle every letter a disciplined art. No spontaneity in the slowness of vines of fancywork lettering. To resist inspections and deconfine words, I spider-scribbled-inksplat-scrawled; I [...]
I yearned for glasses; envied the elderly and myopic, tried them on if allowed and watch the ground swivel away. I wanted the wisdom, the aura of the library and authority implicit; I wanted the facade of quirky brainy quiet kind; unthreateningly smart, reserved and able. Blighted instead with stupidly cheerful normal vision, I had [...]
I’m supposed to more greatly fear the decline of the book and tape — fear for those younger than me, and all that it could mean. They will reach my age without having my background; Context-different and rounded strangely; so (so I understand): regret? No more tapes and books: crippling divide, and social divorce. — [...]
I sat down quietly, in a darkened room: I closed the door; I poked my bruise. I gasped a little, and a few tears came — But couldn’t help it, and poked it again. This time was easier, but still I flinched; since no one was watching, I had a full wince. To get a [...]
I tripped and ripped: the string around my neck surrendered and your gift turned into many. The pearls released, divided and rolled: collected by crows and kids, picked up, by random walkers far away, by joggers and wanderers weeks beyond, and briefly by a mistaken lizard. Your gift: split and splintered and suddenly shared; a [...]
Do not regret packing up summer things: for winter, with jumpers and mittens, oh my, brings frosted beauty, feathered mist and gemstone cobweb lace; bring bright eyes all excited, afire with chill; brings snuggling, woolly hats, brings mulled wine; symbols of the chill time, the still time, the come inside and be with us time! [...]
Rain comes, and with it a rush of polychromatic polyps! Bobbing orbs; brollies aloft; folks perambulate protected. Bump and bounce off one another while bumbling down the soggy street. The grey world crowded out by bright and portable mushroom rooms: a plethora of polyester blooms! Synthetic domes of confined climates, entitle each to their own [...]
Fat and slothsome, my uncle’s cat sprawls among the pillows of the couch and scowls if you sit down too close; and pisses on the washing if annoyed. Asthmatic and grim, my uncle’s dog wheezes while patrolling circles of the porch; lap upon lap, ignoring the heat, exhausted and dazed, it sleeps under cars. Overgrown, [...]
Trying to ignore the quiet chaos that creeps into the distracted mind she fidgets and rearranges; she reorders; she shuffles her desk and realigns in the hope of forcing her thoughts away from food, from lunch, from pining pain, neither overweight nor malnourished, she fears the creeping fate of gain. She sees her elders and [...]
Twenty years ahead of me, a pianist dances with an instrument ninety years and holding; follows black dots that tell a story centuries-old. An eight-year-old recording trickling through the four-year-old earphones on my two-year-old ipod in my one-hour lunchbreak; while I walk under trees growing past two hundred years rustling briefly with ageless wind.
