[x]

lovesong for sailorboyRead aloud and explained (somewhat) here.
i have always loved words as you love the sea
but i have grown to hate
prepositions
because i have always had words
about you
with you
to you--
but never for you.
words for everything
except you.
but i have words for this, so
i'll take them
one by one.
about.
the ocean was your first love and
i could always see it in your eyes.
most would call them blue--just
blue
like a swell over a sandbar
blue like the spring sky over a poppy field.
but i don't think anyone
got as close as i did and they're not blue
not shorebound and
safe--
they're gray like the steelbellied sea itself
like the horizon at dawn as it
encircles you
hems you into an impossibly vast canvas
like a demarcation line
or a promise.
one you always chased.
with.
maybe i had a streak of ocea

the beauty's in the leavingRead aloud here.
sweetheart, let's head out. let's
drink up the desert asphalt and that last bottle
of johnny walker blue--
one last toast to the copper sunsets,
to the good earth. a pair of
tailgate stargazers, you and i:
roaming curves across the glove compartment map, until
every foldline is worn flannel-soft
and it'd rather stay open
than closed.
let's forget route sixty-six. let's forget
the numbers
and pick up terra cotta dust--
breathe in the mojave. let's pretend
that the world's already ended
and it's just us.
let's leave the door unlocked
and go
west.

the cure for everything is saltwaterand my voice is choked with pebbles
and my veins are thick with ink
so i'll bleed out all my lovesongs
wash them down the kitchen sink
and i'll tell you that i'm leaving
and i'll flee this soulless town
for the silent sea is calling
and i'm not afraid to drown
and i'll search out quiet islands
let the blank horizons be
drench my soul in every ocean
sink my heart in every sea.

AcquittalWon't you leave me? I will love you
more than if you stay, transfixed

to the point of reference, our bodies
melding a sad, soft sublime, the back

spine of a little universe blown out
like a crafter's hot glass, the growing

moment, the wonder, the expansion
before a chill.

summergirlNow read aloud over here. Do give it a listen, won't you?
i. summergirl,
you are crowthroated and tumbling
through the aspen grove
hair on fire with sunrise, lungs
full of sky.
eyelashes like wildflowers
and every morning brings
a new spray of freckles
and a sharper curve to your collarbones.
the cornfields hold no shadows
for your lighthouse eyes
and there are no endings in that
surefooted smile.
ii. you have grown
so fast.
autumn finds you with broken ankles
leaning on an oak branch
and watching the skies.
crow to sparrow--you are quiet.
summergirl, there is peace in silence,
perched treetop,
fallen antlers in your hands.
you will come to mourn your deer.
keep them close.
iii. by winter you have paled,
and like the streams
your eyes have frosted over.
you feel the chill--
there is no need for sight.
summergirl, th

expired warningsI hate to break it to you but we're all betting on the day when
your nightmares will swallow you whole and you won't
remember how to open your eyes. we forget your voice,
it broke and no one buried the pieces. we're giving you up:
secessions (your ribcage is a civil war, your heart is the victim.
there will be no memorial; there are only red flags)
obsessions pick your bones dry, vulture needs, vulgar
mortality argues at least you're not alive

at least you can't see us anymore, counting the knots
in your neck and catastrophes in your mouth. in
your summer cage you were a soggy butterfly bearing
a cumbersome cross. now, we leave yo

scraps and sacramentsyou,
beautiful siren girl with melodies
entangled in her hair: you are
shell-shocked and sea-struck
even though you cannot stand
the sensation of sand beneath
your toes.

you have fingers for prying, picking,
pulling at your skin and nesting
in that hollow space between
your bones. and if anyone asks,
you will swear there are monsters
sleeping in the concaves of your ribs;
there are ghosts beneath your tongue,
embittered, and you are not the words
you speak.

they say there is an answer, little girl
(sometimes you begin to believe you are
a scarecrow on the border of reality
begging people to turn the other way;
and the mirror will agree)

syracuseListen to the audio version for the full effect, pretty please.
cloudshot sky like an oil painting and i am watching the
seagulls. i--
darling, i will swim for you
and swallow every whitecap.
i will pluck myself a coat of pelican wings,
sew them up with salt and spray--
become icarus for you.
you are calling me across the waves, love--
but you pull against the ache
in my bones, the hollow--
the clawing out for unseen sunsets and unturned tides.
i hear you, love
give me time.
i will always listen.

TitanicSo you've decided to be a shipwreck
just to taste the Atlantic open
between your lips
and soak your lungs in saltwater
until your limbs turn to bones
and grow their own crust,

a new orphanage
for the school striving
in the depths of the underworld.

travelersthis silvertongued land
is fit for strange adventures
so we will roam as the city
sleeps, and the soft
hushclick
of the camera shutter will lull the crickets
to silence.
we will leave our trail
in incandescent flashes--
the negatives seared and crackling on
closed eyes--
and drag our hearts on
moonshine wisps behind us--
gathering fog and scents and
strains of music
carried in on night-thin air.

tense intentionsiv.
you lurk behind my sternum and
lace my uneasy breaths with
doubt and self-deprecation, I

can't breathe. I
guess I didn't need to sleep.

ii.
I am smudged in between the lies,
an asymmetric astrology chart
mapping misguided dreams

when you make a wish on me,
I sell away another piece

(I wish I were my own)

v.
it was always me, it was always
the blood clotting in my heart
and words coagulating on my
tongue – I swallow cyanide to
vomit up my narcissistic tendencies

iii.
it was nothing that ever mattered
when the dust settled and you
could finally remember my name

(and you settled down into my bones
deciding I was

After a Blue Sundayi.
The week slips hard
rolling in upon itself
to pull me under;
hardly a victim, more so:
a participant lacking
ii.
I clutch at taupe walls,
boring walls that do much more
for occupying
a hangover than breaking
the monotony
iii.
The after-break, break:
realizing my solitude
undoes me quicker
than your infidelity;
than her scent on your body

north pacificAudio version thisaway.
icewater and tumblestone beaches, and i wonder, clifftop,
if the fog tastes like forest.
the ocean carves its histories
in the driftwood--creation stories and
lullabyes worn smooth,
bleached to a polish.
it might be sand shifting but maybe--
maybe i can feel the whalesong,
low and deep
thrumming in the hollow spaces of my bones.
i envy the seabirds
who have more room to feel.

escapeAudio--both versions.

the words the sounds
among these iron islands entre estas islas de acero
we fight to fill our lungs-- luchamos por oxigenar nuestras
our reptile blood venas frías--nuestra sangre
run cold. de reptil.
those lungs pulmones vacios,
empty with the asfixiados con el
everything--

on the roadhomecoming,
dragging through the cling
of elsewhere nights
and asphalt haze.
the door creaks against the
whuff
of stagnant air--
antiseptic
and unwilling,
and it takes you two tries
to find the light switch.
you sleep in the car.

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nightmarethe foxes are at your bedside and singing--
feversongs,
songs of boiling thoughts
and broken muscles.
their lullabyes.
they sneak so quiet, and
somehow,
you can't quite
dream
anymore.

with thanks to frosttwo roads diverged in a soulless dawn
and you pull over,
idling on the shoulder of route 50.
it's a polaroid morning and
the world is as grainy
and sleep-heavy
as your eyes,
and one million miles
is not far enough.
it plays back, filmstrip,
blurred along the length of
optic nerves,
and here you are:
facing a choice between
on
and
out.
and this?
this loosejointed, hollowbodied
weightless ache--
this is what
gone
feels like.

rapid eye movementi am jealous
of my birdwinged half-sister.
later, birdwinged reapers--black,
looming quiet in every doorway. they
followed me from my hemmed-in waking terror
to the free reign of my subconscious.
far better suited to their purposes.
thunderstorms like supernovae out at sea, and
empty little boats tossed on emptier shores.
it rains, and the sea advances,
cresting the saguaros. someone is lost.
i don't know who. i don't know why i
care so much.
cliffs and skyscrapers. tightropes. sometimes
i am afraid of heights, and sometimes
afraid for those who are not.
the skinny girl
with the long dark hair is
always worth dying for.
sex. i am in turn
bemused, and indifferent, and bored, and
frustrated, more often than anything.
i like that i still remember how it felt to hug my dog,
right down to the cool wirecoat
and the warm fluff beneath,
and his immense
patience.
sometimes i wake up with misty
recollections and the overwhelming thought:
i wish it could be like this.
jungles with ancient

sun worshipand we, the broken-winged disciples
thrum closer, closer--
seeking warmth on our dust-drenched backs,
and reflections,
and a landmark in the wide and open
dark.
we breathe,
together
(closer)--
moths among the fireflies.

dance party of oneever the same, rob thomas
there's a bonfire in the drum
of a washing machine by the lake and
bottles tied to trees with sparks
glancing off like so many
fireflies.
the a la menthe, nikkfurie
most
get lost among the cobblestone
rabbit warrens or
take to the sea but our road
is lit by midnight cameraflash
and the neon,
with our tracks scuffed out among
the hush and rumble of
a city
where no one
knows our names.
travelin' on, norah jones
shoulders just broad enough
for six strings and a hollow body
and the weight of
all those words yet to be--down the
train tracks and through the
blue dawn, with that
crossroads rumble
in his bones.
don't let go, weezer
and the irony is
that they were always right
but we never cared.
are you happy now, by somebody whose name escapes me and i'm too lazy to look up (and covered by cassadee pope)
pretty little thing with a pretty little gun
and a smile like the devil on a
monday morning...
breathing, lifehouse<

three dogs in the churchyardThe chain link around the graveyard runs straight through an oak tree. The bark looks crippled where it passed through the wire--mutilated in a faint diamond pattern--but you can see around the edges where it's fusing together smooth again.
The kids with the distant eyes always come here to smoke. You've never seen eyes like that. Distant, but not glazed, like they're looking into eternity and watching the threads of livewire possibility arc and writhe before them. The embers at the ends of their smokes cast cherry-red reflections on their irises.
The top of the fence is buckling where it enters the tree. You wonder if they'll have to cut it loose if they ever take it down. You wonder how far the roots have crept.
You wonder why the kids with the forever eyes never stand, vulpine, by the churchyard with its stray dogs and subterranean hum of faith--of vulnerable hope. Maybe all the life drowns out the eternity.
On winter mornings, they exist only in the pinpricks of light from the ends

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Submitted: February 3
Submitted with: Sta.sh Writer

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with thanks to salinger

by ~disrhythmic, Feb 3, 2013, 3:28:10 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Audio version.

it's on those cold mornings
when you are nothing but indrawn breath
swirling and knitted up inside too-big
skin and weightless bones--
when the horizon arches up against
the half-thawed tendrils of sunrise
and smiles
with golden teeth,
and smiling, begs--
it's on those cold mornings
when leaving is easiest.

the car will be cold, and you will
shiver, and the engine,
much too loud,
will smack of blasphemy
but you will find peace in the steady roll
of tarmac and the yellowing light
spilling across it,
with dust motes kicked up and carried
like fish in the undertow.

when you come to that first
crossroads, it will shock you:
the way the decision hangs there
trembling and desperate--
but there are no right answers and you will not
hesitate. and each successive choice
will be made of its own accord,
and you will roll the windows down,
and draw down the scent of earth and
photosynthesis.

the trees will hush and
hush in your wake and forget you
instantly,
returning to their own silence
and whispered secrets.

and you will drive until you find an ocean
because your heart will always
sing
for saltwater, and pull you to the great expanse of
your own personal magnetic north--
the ley lines that ache in your ribs.
you will open the car door, and maybe
you will need to take a moment
to stand and inhale and
be.
and you will have left so much of yourself
behind
that you will feel like you have nothing to your name but
a pair of lungs
a beating heart
and blood thudding hard through your veins
and that's okay.

because the sea will always
slink up to you along the shoreline--
as if it knows how infinitesimal you are
and is trying to be gentle.
it will reach out to you and hush
and retreat,
and entice--
and it will hush and draw you in
and hush and purify,
and you will realize what a
thrumming, boundless
beast you've
hush
surrendered to.

and maybe for while, you
hush
won't remember
where you came from. and maybe
hush
that's okay.

with thanks to salingerby ~disrhythmic

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

I found a quote today--one single line from Catcher in the Rye. Yanked all this out of me. I don't know. I like it.

love 2 2

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wow 1 1

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*archelyxs Mar 1, 2013

Hypnotizing and beautiful. I savored every word.

~disrhythmic Mar 1, 2013

Thank you so much.

=MrsKyoya Feb 21, 2013 Student General Artist

I read this one out loud (I read all your poems out loud now) and I just finished it and i can feel the tears in the corners of my eyes. I love your stuff so much, it is always so amazing~ I dont know if this was supposed to make people cry but it touched my heart anyway.

~disrhythmic Feb 22, 2013

Oh my gosh.

That is such a huge compliment--thank you!

=MrsKyoya Feb 22, 2013 Student General Artist

>3< Your welcome~

~juniorel Feb 11, 2013 Writer

Hearing/reading this felt almost like the time I accidentally discovered "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." Just certain stanzas… I can't explain it well. They aren't the same, but they put me in a similar place.

I feel weird about adding so many of your pieces to my favorites, but you keep writing these pieces I want to go back to and read again. I can't help it.

~disrhythmic Feb 13, 2013

Thank you so much!

~Dozza88pwns Feb 11, 2013 Student Writer

The Catcher in the Rye is a book that wrought havoc upon my perception; it told me of a beautiful yet melancholy pursuit towards the unknown; most importantly, it grasps individualism in a hilarious way.

This poem brought a little bit of those feelings back. I thank you.

~disrhythmic Feb 13, 2013

No, thank you.

~Flummoxative Feb 8, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Just gorgeous.

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with thanks to salingerby ~disrhythmic

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