pomegranatet3a

[pomegranatet3a]

long spindly grocery aisles

decorate the iris of my eye,

the eggs are rather intriguing

with their cardboard; their pasture or their free or their farm raised

I imagine that here, in twenty years,

my hair will be shorter

and that i’ll no longer pick my skin,

so it will be smooth and not as spotted as the eggs

I imagine bumping into each other,

apples stumbling out of grocery baskets

and the juice would slosh with a start

In twenty years your hair would be a new, vibrant shade of something - maybe in twenty years we’ll have invented a new pink hue

We’d have talked, long and drawn down the maze of freezers and chips

You would have the following

in the sweet green basket you hold;

avocados (for the good gauc that you make), tajin and lemons (for the popcorn, of course), coffee ice cream, those little paw print fruit snacks, and of course - a mass of lolipops

I would have…

orange juice, lemonade, and a box of earl gray tea, black and chamomile

I would have have oatmeal cookies and pesto, lemons and tajin, and the good salted popcorn

I would wish to tell you

to ditch the lemons, the tajin,

I would have enough for two

and in minds eye i could picture

the walk back to our apartment

like I was looking at a picture book

but in twenty years

it will be but a chance encounter

of friends who spoke

tangled on the phone,

friends for a time

and lovers for a moment

in twenty years

the sliding grocery doors

will bid me adieu

[pomegranatet3a]

[lilac]

I can see flames dancing

like the finest of ballets

outside the window of my door

from miles down the highway

i wonder what mom was able to stuff

into our dirty car

the cats? for sure

I wonder if she got my copy of

Letters to Milena, or if she understands the value of those yellowing pages

I never finished Sylvia Plath’s journals, and what of the pile of new books sit still, placid on my desk?

I feel the biting of regret

that i didn’t grab my copy of Orlando

when I left the previous day

it’s banned in the southern states now, why must another copy burn?

I think of my blazer with the fall leaves encrusted, it dances and crumbles in the flames of my minds eye; along with the rest of my closet that i’ve left on display, rather than wear

I think of Stella and Arcturus

in their little chicken house

writhing and crying out

in the flames to encase their home

I think of moms olive tree,

the spindly thing she’s brought

to every home since she was twenty

- my mind conjures the image

of her tugging and clawing desperately to uproot it, in my mind

I watch it burn

Blue house on the hill

now ashes and supports

I wonder about the neighbors orchard,

their homes, their animals, and their lives that sit tucked into these rolling hills

and across the highway it’s all true

for the people whose faces I know not

their olive trees and their books burn,

i feel a hot flash across my face

[pomegranatet3a]

we sit, quiet and monotone,

under silver moons light

our skin encased

in the glistening black water

i’ve lived this moment

a thousand times, on a thousand different nights, in a thousand different ways: though it ends the same

my hand, bone white under the dark water, reaches up to you - never breaking surface, never breaking silence

your eyes gaze quietly into mine, quieter than you’ve ever been,

as the clear atmosphere above

prevails in her expanse…

i’m missing my glasses, and the edges blur as if i’m submerged under crashing sea foam

your eyes, your hands, your hair; they all stay the same

and as the dream ends

our limèrent silence is all encasing

i reach for my glasses, if only to see

that the night is over, us in tow

[pomegranatet3a]

Reflection in a Mirror, 1896 by Helena Arsène Darmesteter (English, 1848–1940)

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fushia breathes and crawls up

spineless walls

where shadows twirl

like hair around your fingers

and the drum, like a heartbeat,

keeps you breathing in

cold nights rocky air

and the spearmint smoke

that runs rampent and wild

off storage container mountains

laughter spirals and spins

like a record in quiet dusks room

morning breaks, an illusion on the stretching aching walls

and you breath it in

you breathe it in

[pomegranatet3a]

when i am an old soul, older than i am now, i strive to be just as whimsy and full of life as björk

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Rose Petals, 1900 by Robert Anning Bell (English, 1863–1933)

[pomegranatet3a]

watching

as the air moves like water

under suns steady beam

the room smells like wet dog and figs,

clothes scattered mindlessly

across the tile floor,

naked body catches

your eyes in the mirror

as your mind reels and obsesses

over the end of her eyes in mine

red blotchy scars

catch your eye

in the foggy mirror

as dogs paw scratches

white doors hinges

you think about it all, as one does,

the last paint to chip

the last blink i’ll catch

the last time i’ll feel her skin

the last the last the last

as i draw away like a breath

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Go Lovely Rose! Tell her that Wastes her Time and Mine by Herbert James Draper (English, 1864–1920)

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The Admirer by Annie Milnes (active 1892-1910)

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Tiny child's hands grasp firmly to red crayon, than blue

The downward swirls and swoops

Like a rollercoaster in their tiny, widened eyes

Storybooks, like The Little Prince or The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Drag bouncing curls into the worlds of stories and make-believe,

Pulls thoughts like thread 

So that imagination is woven into great, vibrant tapestries -

To tell the stories of the bugs on grassy hills,

Or the intricacies of a lalaloopsy dolls life

Waves of brown bounce and twirl rapidly

To the beat of your fathers old alternative music,

And their little mind doesn’t comprehend

How much the ‘In Rainbows’ lyrics will fuck with your mind

In just a few thousand sunrises 

Words come together, once again, like thread into mimi’s sewing machine

As the push and pull of lyrics wash your fingers toward the page

Begging you, like mourners at your feet, to write and write and write;

Creation, at its finest, takes place in hot car seats hidden behind moving paintings

Gabi Abrao and Yrsa Daley-Ward fill summer days in the grass,

Sylvia Plath and Mary Oliver dance around ones mind like phantoms as the sun rises on a new day, a new hour, and a new bird song out your window,

The heavenly voices and thoughts of The Maria’s and Fiona Apple buzz in your ears like wasps, hanging above your head as the concrete carries foot after foot through the day

Each new voice, new strum of words out her lips, new book to read or page to fill begs and plead to form and shape and make,

To create and create and create,

Then, like yin to yang or dark to light,

Begs and pleads for you to take and steal and make your own,

To consume and consume and consume

Like a pool current, flowing endless into itself, the pattern forms

And thus is why crayons were made

For little girls and boys and all those in between

To write and read and listen and think,

To draw straight T’s and spiraling C’s

In tiny kindergarten chairs

[pomegranatet3a]

my voice is in my sword

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i know i am dying

from the swirl in my stomach

i know i know i know it

i know from the stinging pain in my abdomen, like the way ice melts on the concrete; it seeps and finds its way to the crevices

and i know i know i know it

i know from the way my heart clenches, the way it beats so fast

like i am so fast that i will fly

and i know i know i know

i know from the way my eyes go dark

and the world swirls

like hot black coffee

and i know i know i know

i know that the bath calls and calls and calls, and you answer the phone and sweet sweet pomegranate juice

seeps into the water

and the night kisses your new scars

as mommy yells at you

again and again and again,

and i know i know i know

i know it with each pill, each slash, each sip, each heart beat missed that i note

and i know

i just know

i just know it

[pomegranatet3a]

i have no sons,

no daughters,

no flesh and blood born

from my own womb,

nothing to call my own -

instead a momentary exit

from within my body

like clockwork every month

i have no sons,

no daughters,

but i have my little boy

my love-bug

with eyes that once shone so dark

like the sea when his tiny baby hands clasped to my hair, my clothes -

his eyes are now lighter, like his mothers, and his hair is short and messy

he laughs like a maniac; it’s infectious

he still clasps my hands

and i am reminded

of my little boy

i have no sons,

no daughters,

but i remember my feet aching

as i set him to sleep in his

crib, bed, car seat, couch

i remember the way my back ached

as he clutched on for 5 blocks, the shining silver of the boon shining in our opposite eyes

i remember the way my cheeks hurt

from so many smiles and laughs

we have conjured together

i have my little boy

and one day he’ll be

my little man

if i am welcomed to see it

[pomegranatet3a]

the changing of

the hour

deems me seventeen,

and it’s like

a slow blink

and nothing changes but

the pit that swirls,

like the galaxy that never stops,

in the space below my belly button

dreams of tattoos i’ll get on my eighteenth

and will i shed a tear? in this moment?

over the passing - oh so passing time

or will the thought sit? simmer to a slow boil, a bubbling as the

realization dawns

in the coming hours ?

seventeen, the word sounds funny on your tongue

like the hiss and snap of a snake,

the spark and pop! of firecrackers

a slow trickle now,

the great reality of it all uncovers: a field under thousands of birds small feet,

a sight to see at last!

and you look up so you don’t have to think twice

you close your eyes, so you don’t have to think twice

[pomegranatet3a]

time is a

cruel reminder

of the sleep that beckons

and calls

but that the eyes of a canary,

so hard at work

- so at odds with the danger,

the danger oh and coming,

cannot fall prey to

the fluttering of eyes

the softening of breaths, like a baby’s exasperated sigh

the curling of one’s body

like trying to return to simpler modes

one cannot fall prey

will not fall prey

clutch onto

the moons light

which bounces off the walls

and know that the sun is her provider

know that the morning will come

and the rest that so beckons you

only begs and pleads like false prophet,

hauls a sack of all that makes your eyes blow wide open

and the shrill down the back of your throat crawl up once more into the open window of you

the watches tick on

just as the hours fall away

canary oh canary sing

canary oh canary sing

as the moon does turn away

[pomegranatet3a]

Egon Schiele. Lovers, 1909.