We live unsettled lives
And stay in a place
Only long enough to find
We don't belong.
--Mark Strand

Springtime in Lynchburg

What blood was this, and what roses? It could have been the rose of union, the blood of murder, or the rose of beauty bare and the blood of some unspeakable sacrifice or birth.
-- Annie Dillard

It is Spring:
the old tom cat
leaves blood prints on the porch.
I hate them and the open throated swallow
at the end of their serpentine path.
I hate them as I hate the hyacinth scent
that hangs stale in the air these mornings,
and how I have never learned to look away.
All journeys end this way. What’s the surprise?
And yet, how handsome the old tom looks
reclining beneath the azalea bush,
licking his jaws with his pink tongue,
purring like a lion.

tho ught:

A blue whale's heart is the size of a small automobile.

nightmare-ish?

The teeth twist clockwise before coming out
and out they come. You shouldn't be afraid.
They are pieces of quartz from the great digs
we gave up when we found the femur in the yard.
It was a funny thing, that bone. You laughed,
looked like Prometheus with it by your side.
We are not much better now, dragging our
knuckles along the ground behind us.
Smile. Let's see your gums all pink and wet
dripping from cheek to cheek.
There is a still a Saturday left in these legs
so lets run it into the ground, see what we can find
see what else we can lose.

Shorter poems in one entry.

Recently I've written some unsubstantial and silly lines that I don't consider finished by any means. It's really just things that come to my head, but aren't quite the jumping off point that I'd like. In any case, I think they're funny in my sad melancholy sense of humor.

a PhD in English
it's out of fear
of floral patterned book clubs
of lavender morgue perfume
of dog eared romance novels.


The Day I bought those shoes
everything moved: Keds and i
we kicked out the sidewalk from under us
we warn't a feared of no mans.
Keds and i, we stomped down
stomping grounds.
we'd keep going
but i punched a hole in Left Ked.
I let him sit on the rack
like the Inquistion.

i've been in the mood recently where i write the poem first and then worry about the title later, which is the opposite of what i usually do.

I could give you
a stone--
so smooth and black
you wouldn't believe--
to run my ankles
raw and red
(and how you'd love
to peel the skin
from my nimble bones)
I'll pull it from the creek.
In the silt
I'd bury myself
and you too--
if i cut out
your sour tongue,
taught you how smooth
a stone can be.

because i'm copykate:

Albums:
Wilco - A ghost is born
Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Modest Mouse - We were all dead before the ship sank

Songs:
Band of Horses - The End's Not Near
Sufjan Stevens - Pittsfield
Smoosh - Take it away
Modest Mouse - Fire It Up
TV on the Radio - Playhouses
Roxy Music - Oh yeah!
Beyonce - Irreplaceable (possibly the greatest song ever written)
Feist - Past in Present

Books:
How green was my valley - Richard llewyn ( is this shit on Oprah's list yet? If not, soon)
The journals of Sylvia Plath (abridged, fuck me)
Penguin's book of contemporary american poetry

And as always,
Wait Wait Don't tell me: The NPR news quiz.