Pretentious Much?

In September of 2007, spurred in part by the suicide of a friend, I started writing poetry again. For four months, I wrote almost every day, producing a half-dozen poems every week. At the end of January, 2008, I stopped as mysteriously as I had started. So here's a handful of them, starting with the first in the series and ending, appropriately, with the last, with a few stops along the way that I think are particular standouts.

Moment (9.26.07)

i imagine the moment when everything breaks:
lightbulbs burst
fill the air with loose filament,
raining frosted glass,
wattage lost to a blinking sun.
and bricks crumble, our house,
a sandcastle to a thoughtless
restless tide, distracted
and consuming
everything we built
everything we thought
and we thought
we knew what safety was, how it felt,
wrapped around us like a cord,
that first cord,
wrapped around our throats,
and
i imagine that moment, light forced
into hiding, heavy, sleeping
against fluttering lids
against everything we made
and everything is pale,
finally still,
but you,
you are fluorescent
and iridescent
and you will not break
and you will not leave
you will not leave me in this place,
i imagine.

--

OCD (9.26.07)

made your bed now you ought to
made your bed now you have to

but i don't get it, i say i
don't see why and don't want to
ripple into this ordered thing my
bed made neat

i should take my dreams elsewhere, where
i will watch them rip
into the skin of the unripe
fruit of this unfinished
world, and

lie in it
sleep in it

--

Offering (10.15.07)

and when the light breaks
you bend
to gather the fragments
open your hands to the harsh edges
cutting the heel of your palm
shards of hope and broken light
assembled before me
the imperfect polished
to a perfect sheen
blinding the heel of my eye
your offering, a favor

I did not ask
I could not have known

--

9:12 (10.29.07)

the clock reads nine twelve
in the photo I keep staring at
of you against my yellow
walls, of you wishing
I would put the camera down,
of you smiling for me
in my bedroom at nine
twelve in the morning, and

I keep staring at this photo
remembering your body the
night before, just a few
nights ago, your body pressed
so close to mine that we
must have seemed as one,
and I was dreaming that
you'd never have to leave but
you're somewhere else now,
some different color, somewhere
as I sit with yellow walls
and memorize the details
of photos of you smiling,
of a clock that never changes,
and dream that this time,
maybe, time will stop for me.

--

5 and 2 (11.01.07)

1. our anniversary comes and will
go without event, without
recognition, just your name
which I do not speak aloud,
just your name burned forever,
branded into me

2. in those last days, I could
not have guessed that I would
ever lose you, or

3. how quickly, with a pop and
a siren, so much commotion
and noise, and noise, the
furious hand of our petulant god
rewriting my story with the
dash and a slash of his
unforgiving pen, crumpling pages
and re-imagining the scenery

4. his evidence previously unseen
but then at the end I
felt his hand
and saw it
and felt his hand
one fist to pummel me
into surrender while
one hand grabbed my neck
and I did not cry for
that was not his plan not even
part of it as I stood
powerless as a muted beast uncaged
afraid to dash for freedom

5. as I stood so powerless
across our tree-lined street as
sweet gums turned fiery red
and yellow and defied me with
misplaced beauty watching
like me across the street
where I stood
and watched you burn

6. there is no mythic bird,
or myth to our story, only
this: the turning leaves
still turn, and the wind
will rise and rise and
will carry them off
to burn and drift and
rest, to wherever it is
that you went that day

7. and i think of you, feel so
close to you, once again,
whenever i watch them
shove that ladder into
perfect sky

--

If Light (01.07.08)

if light
what then would
this world, I wonder

if light knew question
if light
could doubt its power
to illuminate, what
then would this world
I wonder what
or how it might look
lousy with pale shadow
if light
needed comfort or assurance
of purpose, if light, yes,
if light

--

Born Again (01.30.08)

in fragments sun
sliced and surprised
across my room across
your body without flaw
this gift your body
of earth this gift

born again as yellows
and blue eyes piercing

pain will not abate broken

fragments of angels
you flutter about me
and fall