April 2012
21 posts
3 tags
Hemingway to Fitzgerald
May, 1934. Writer to writer.
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.”
Read...
Clearly, I have failed.
You win this year, National Poetry Month.
12.30 - 3.days.late
(Not a poem. Just a freewrite. Deal with it.) You are sitting on the floor, with constellations of primary colours splattered on the tops of your feet. Squeezed between pyramids of acrylic, paintbrush handles sprout up out of a coffee mug like cacti on a desert floor. The easel stands in the corner; her slender steel legs prop her en pointe. You tried balancing on your tip-toes, once. You came...
1 tag
11.30
Haikus from the nape of my neck: Procrastination Is the best habit your lips Practice on my skin
Kiss me there gently It is where all my secrets Swarm like summer bees
When we are threatened With a sunrise in August Hide there until dark
2 tags
1 tag
9.30
I was born with my father’s wild stallion heart It pounds like a relentless war drum But is easily spooked Prone to smelling storms on even the sunniest days And yet still, you ask to hold it Your palms filled with the calm understanding Of its constant need to run And your mouth full of whispers to call it home
1 tag
8.30
It’s easy to disguise words that should be spoken out loud In labyrinths of lined paper Tucked behind the audacity of vowels Cradled in the safety of consonants I speak with the steady cadence of ballpoint pens Through looseleaf lips But these are poems of prayer For when the steel curtain of syllables falls May my tongue be coated in courage Thick enough to carry every sentence To the ears...
1 tag
7.30
He sees the fullness of my lips And wonders what ancient dialect takes root between them As if my mouth could be the gateway To his own cultural enlightenment
He tries to read me As if there is calligraphy In the curves of my hips Spelling out exotic incantations He can use to label me
So before I tell him what I am I tell him what I am not
The olive undertones of my skin Don’t make me a...
1 tag
1 tag
6.30
They bought a house that looked like every other house Lost in the subtlety of the suburbs Coated in one of four exterior colour palette packages Crafted by designers and limited by developers In an effort control the “personality” of a neighbourhood They would never set foot in again They went with a muted tan and grey Wet blanket beige Dead elephant ivory Her mother called it “sensible” While...
“Their “schizophrenic” music is characteristic of a pop-cultural moment full of...”
– —Ann Powers, Fractured Femmes: Madonna And Nicki Minaj Man Up (via nprmusic)
Wow, amazing article.
1 tag
4.30
Ask me about the weather
I will tell you that there have been Five hundred and forty seven sunsets Since the hurricane of our introduction
Ask me about politics I will tell you how the tension Between your right wing fingertips And left wing tongue Sparked a revolution between my thighs And a coup in my heart
Ask me about sports
I will tell you of my soul’s marathon Running from everything...
1 tag
3.30
If there is a love more monstrous than this I dare it to bare its teeth I pray this wild beast Punctures my body Until sunlight pours through me I will simply come spilling out Like an unruly river Flowing even faster Towards you
