In death
people don’t disappear
they brighten up and write poems
on the other side of the sky
wait for you to decipher
their lines.
They bury the flowers
you planted and eat your leftover soup
even if living with the dead was hard
their life in your hands
is as comparable
as empty hands and brick walls.
Last night I fell asleep
before you came home.
I dragged the dog out for a walk
but he hates the cold as much as I do.
He pissed all over the kitchen floor,
he despises being alone.
He ate snacks before bedtime
wallowing in loneliness.
You wanted to have sex
while I had creative writing on my mind.
My blue journal sprawled between
my thighs,
I want my head there, you said.
My pens took precedence
Patience was playing from my phone
I ignored you. I fought your lights.
You take it personal, but I’m a writer
and you know that I can’t interrupt
my flow. Sex came and went,
making love is for another lifetime.
I took the kids out for dinner
ate avocado rolls
veggie burgers
St.Louisbourg burger
with onion rings.
I said, it’s hard to be an artist
to be in a relationship,
I am preparing them
for the heartache, but it’s
Too late.
If the one you’re with
does not understand what a woodnote is
or what defines you.
It’s a natural musical tone
or the song of
some bird
no one cares about trees
nature is becoming extinct.
The young and old have their heads
filled with useless information
school shootings
young wolves writing poems
academia taking the back seat
poets knocking on your door
I am locked in;
dead children
another statistic.
Here we are sleeping together
never at the same time
chaos in our fear.
Writing prompt: word: Woodnotes
#februaryfalls18
You said write a poem
about New York moments
we almost had in our arms.
I ignore you
only focus on the times
we had;
the walk hand in hand on Ste-Catherine street
the xmas gifts I gave you
in April—
you forget everything I remember,
that is how memory prevails
I could never be true to you.
I apologize for the past,
present, and dead future.
I apologize for being cruel
for changing when you could not.
You were not who I thought you were,
I wasn’t who you wanted me to be.
Bitterness is not changing
aging is ice skating on my dreams.
I held back
this is why I am not in muddy love.
I gave you corner bits
you wanted me whole.
I apologize for not loving you,
when I said I did.
At the time I felt love.
I am not a global liar.
I was drowning in red
carnations,
the smell suffocating me.
I wanted to melt in your arms
instead I was alone again
amongst five day old flowers
and a fake necklace story.
#januaryfalls18
Photo by @dan_cretu from Instagram
I need my naps
I am a modern poet
in semi-deep sleep
never fully awake
dreaming about pre-raphaelites and the Rosettis
still thinking
in all the colors
you left behind.
I hug you close
yet you disappear
into orange clouds
and sunset lawns.
I want to forget
the long trails
to your heart
and climb up
your mountain
to kiss your eyes
to sleep.
Alas, I slumber awake.
Awake, yet not.
Vodka, champagne
ice bucket,
free drinks on the house
because
we know the club owner. This
is his wife, we are her
privileged friends. We drink
and eat for free and pretend
we mean something
to no one.
Girls, girls, girls,
on fire, out to impress
each other with
shoes and a purse
and nothing to say.
It was q & a for me
“What do I think of a thousand dollar
pair of shoes?”
I had so much to say
and no one who cared to listen
and a few “she’s a writer”
so hence the nods
at my philosophy of designer
shoes and purse
and where is the value
in that? to look good
and panic that someone
stepped on you or spilled their
drink and the world has to stop
because they are alive.
I am ready for the exit
but first I need a few more drinks
to discuss how I prefer to spend
a thousand bucks on books
and you won’t catch me dead
in those
the only way is to buy them for
me
so I told them my stories of how
I feel when I walk
when I talk
and who knew that jealousy
is so ingrained in some souls
that they hate me first
and then such love and compliments
that fakery fuckery has arrived to visit again.
Oh, yes, who cares my phone cracked
life is beautiful, the lights are purple
the women are complimenting each other
and then whispering the truth.
On the drive home, my friend turns
to me and says,
“you’re just an oddity
no one understands
or gets you
so don’t get angry
because they just don’t.
I’ve known you for years
and I get it
but that girl who said
she knew you but never met you
she knew where you lived
she knew all about you
and you, shaking her hands
nice to meet you.
She said, nice to finally meet you.”
I swear the night just got weirder
and stranger
couldn’t wait to get the fuck
out and stop defending
my philosophy
my Nine West shoes
my vegan food
my new hair
my books
my poems
my art
I need to seriously be drunk
to face society girls.
Some people love you
for all the right reasons
but you still go searching
for the wrong ones. The ones
that keep you up or
make you want to smoke up
all day. I never hide behind
a persona or a brand,
I am what I am
sometimes ditzy
sometimes brilliant
but always me. I woke up
in a Woody Allen movie
you can guess the title
but you know it’s dysfunctional
and petty yet narcissistic. I
liked talking to you
because you never interrupt
and this is such a quality
that I adore. I don’t have
scorn, I just love you
so I put up these walls
to protect myself
from how much I care.
I will never tell you,
of course, or maybe
if I’m drunk and Purple
Rain’s solo is on and you
turn to me and with your
eyes you tell me
how you never meant
to cause me any sorrow.
I know. I am smarter
than you think. I carry
you like e.e cummings poem
nowadays it’s modern:
in my phone, in my pocket,
but in another era
it was in my heart
and you,
you are invisible to everyone
but me. You are like
a magician
popping into my life
like the pills
I swallow.
I loved you and lost
you like
a true poet
and you can’t get
any closer to
art than a few hours
alone in a locked room.
I mostly watched the singer
shake away his age
as it caught up with him
and nothing seemed to impress us
anymore besides one hundred dollar bills
and vodka shots. The youth left us
with our past. Our ten percent shot
at another night of bringing back the
days. All the drunken sailors
tried to get their hands on us
but we have to try so much more
now and drink so much less.
We’re getting sick of the city
and the dirt and the envy.
We’re getting tired of the puddles
and the hurt and the five dollar coffee cups.
We’re getting upset with the fake news
the killing sprees, the hiding
of ugly humanity. I swear I want
to leave this place and never
look back. Never think about
what language I should speak
first, second guess someone’s
authenticity. I like the vast sky
the view from my window
on my quiet street, for years
I wanted to run from it
and chase the night. Now
I want to sit, enjoy my moments
and never look back to who
I used to be before I met you.
I was thinking about
you are too loud
in my silence,
You’re a cross
between a rock star
and a supermodel
as if spring is in the air
when winter has a few songs
left to play.
I will admit
I do not fall into cliques
or rules
because I make my own
and burn them after.
I pull back for my own sanity.
Understand you are so wild
that no one
can hold you down for long.
Lordy, you are raw talent
combined force
of a drink and a coffee
of a poem
you read a thousand times
a song you can never
stop listening to
and the car crash
you relive over and over.
Lordy, Lordy
I make up words
sounds
and some people call me a savant.
Shut off the world news
and caress my disturbance
it cannot bear concealment.
I recited this to my husband
and he nods his head
because he was watching me write it down
shook his head
and said
you are so fucking gifted.
I am envious.
Don’t be, I said. I’d rather sit and watch
the news and not listen to
my mind
I was reading Truly Madly Guilty
in my t-shirt and underwear
under the blankets
away from the -25 Montreal cold.
When seven songs arrived
at my doorstop
that killed me in a slow
musical dance.
Each one had a story to tell
like a poem
each voice had locks and keys
to a mysterious track
in Old Montreal, the one I would
stare at every day for seven years
while I worked at that bar.
I want to smoke now
kill my lungs
but it has been two
and a half years
I have not killed myself
that way. I could drink instead
and throw up my pain.
Your hand is somehow
in my heart and on my skin
and your territory
is not even near mine
yet magically you
appear at my doorstop
with seven songs
of heartache.
You light me up
and I believe again.
I woke up to write
before the coffee, the sunrise
it was words that fancied my skin
to forget my dream the moment my eyes opened.
What is it that makes you want a woman like me?
Your list is long
and everything you say
makes me reevaluate my life as if it were a spreadsheet.
I know you only want to use your knees to spread my legs
my arms
across yours. It is what I want. I really do admire
how you are so quick to the point.
You do not miss a song, I know I hate to text
and read way too much. I am quiet and methodic
concentrate on the typewriter as if it loved me back.
How could we be here?
People dying from cancer, heart attacks,
and I’m aching for you. It is not a myth,
or a legend, it is how my heart wants
to be pressed up close next to yours
with no fabric between.
I am not anyone special, trust me.
If you lived with me, you would see
so best to elevate my status by
being silent of all my defaults
eliminate my errors
by not telling you anything
more. I will keep it for my poems
my books, my next life.
This is what writers do,
we beat ourselves up with words.
The difference between us
is distance
yet all the words
you refuse to share with me
I know them already.
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Aren't songs of grief lullabies to the lost?
