annaaa in a fairytaleee.

the man

2014-11-19T01:03:00.002-08:00

I knew this man
skin like worn leather
lived in a ravine by the high school,
sleeping underneath the yellow
of a patchwork quilt
smelling like nicotine and filth.

I met him when I was 15
he'd hang around my high school
pan handling with a Campbell's soup can.
When one day he sat right next to me and said
"If no one remembers me after I am dead,
would I ever even have existed?"
We use to sit there on that concrete ledge
near the chain link fences
and contemplate all the philosophical truths,
my parents had tried so hard to shield from me.
But the man for all his knowledge,
I realized,
was seeking after what all humans seek after.
Immortality.
The man who lived in a ravine
was able to accept
the awaiting embrace of death
but he could not accept
the idea that once gone,
he would be forgotten.
The man who had introduced me
to all the truth seekers
had never himself been introduced to God.

The girl and her wild adventure:

2014-06-06T08:49:00.001-07:00

The girl wondered as she people watched from the checkered patio of that tiny café. How she got to the place she was at now. Sipping, slowly, almost one would say, methodically on the Vietnamese iced coffee she questioned what she was doing here. Still living in the tiny town she'd been born in, still praying to her parents' God, wearing her mother's handed down Levi's, spoiling herself once a week on coffee.

It had never occurred to the girl to leave her town, to get on the local bus, take that bus to the nearest functioning city then get on the nearest Amtrack and take that Amtrack somewhere where that had more than one proper coffee house and more than one outlet mall. No one ever leaved, she realized.

Barbarious. The girl thought. Ludicrous. All these people staying in the same place, like sedentary animals disinterested in the unfamiliar.

Maybe it was because she'd started that community college last Fall that she had all these adventurous thoughts. Or maybe it was because Summer session was in Finals week and the girl felt like she was being pushed down by the very air itself. Like she could no longer exert enough force to counteract the airs weight. Either way she had gotten to a point where she no longer wanted to read of History or look at the Mona Lisa in a Textbook. She wanted her life to be like a history novel, compact, intriguing, scandalous. She wanted to live in a world where people didn't stay in the same place for more than two years. And most of all she wanted to see that tiny picture of Mona Lisa. See the face of God, pray because she had faith, eat very little or very much without fearing how her non-exsistant husband if she gained four or ten pounds.

An hour later with her coffee down, crossiant finished, and Roman history final studied for, the girl picked up her crocheted bag, unlocked her pale green Electra bike and rode home. Down the dirt path flanked by leaning Spanish moss trees and sunflowers. Her bike dropped with a clatter, her feet sunk into damp marsh and her cotton dress swayed around her leg in the breeze as the girl walked up the four creaking steps to that never changing house of hers. Sidestepping the broken strip of wood in the middle of her Mama's wrap around porch the girl, like always placed two fingers to her lips and placed those two fingers onto the front door of the white house her family had had for quite literally generations.

Closing the door beside her and dropping her bag onto the hook next to the mirror and the picture of a Confederate solider hanging on the wall she couldn't help but think. I'd probably just end up on the wrong side of history anyway, this family always seems to choose the wrong side. She realized then what her Political Science teacher was always saying to her, she wasn't Liberal like her Mama called her. She was conservation. Stuck in the monotony of finding enjoyment in familiar things.

#ein

2014-03-14T11:43:00.001-07:00

I enjoy this room of his

and it's forgotten things

like a reliquary to a relic

it houses dead things

A World made of Glass:

2013-08-15T17:36:00.001-07:00

Fields of dried out daisies

Corn husks mothers make into dolls

Rainbows that shine through the ruin of hurricanes

Two lanes of red ants dancing

Disappearing into London smoke and fog

Women, children gone hungry

The aching fathers failure to provide

Patriarchal societies that have forgotten God

The rains of autumn fall

Turn to sleet and hail as winter dawns

Ice ponds and frozen snowballs

Much like its people

This world cracks, shatters, splinters off

we're all made of unstable glass

And in the end fear brings us back to faith

Temporary escapes, play acting they pray;

In the name of Jesus Christ: Amen

Suburbia's Greatest Prank:

2013-07-05T16:33:00.001-07:00

Bankruptcy's a bitch

then again so is marriage

happily-ever-after living parents

yelling so loud got Annie thinking the walls around her will crack

stressing over money so bad

ma's aged ten years in one month

guess I should have saved that twenty

I gave to the homeless junkie who lives in the weeds underneath celebration parks bridge

I guess the whole world's shot now

start tearing posters promising peace off my walls

ripping apart clothes and poems

anger feeling like cocaine

got me going like dried out champaign

shot straight into my veins.

Now it's raining,

I'm in a sundress sitting on a street corner

got my guitar

singing off key

cause I'm so drunk

Rat-Races

2013-07-02T23:58:00.001-07:00

People stare at pauperism

and men who smell like acetate.

Look down on women

who have bruises on their faces

and wonder who gave them it

I grew up in a tic-tac house

painting white front yard fences

mowing lawns in zigzag patterns

planting roses, buying new dogs when old ones died

grew up in a family of showmanship

be better, do better than the blood relation sitting next to you

how much you wanna bet

my drug dependence

came as a relief to them?

Moments

2013-06-26T23:38:00.001-07:00

Moments like rose petals

and beach sand

wet mud and jarred lightening bugs.

Moments we ache for; crave.

Moments we clutch to; save.

Like taped together torn photographs,

rusting swing sets

and your loved ones on Ferris wheels

mothers hugging daughters

right before cancer attacked.

Moments, we have to,

let go.

1976:

2013-06-26T01:52:00.001-07:00

Wheels, tires, asphalt

Spinning over white lines

Black eye throbbing from the night before

Whiskey sitting in the pit of my stomach

Ash in the tray dirty white shirt

looping over shoulder blades

Bowie 1976

Don't know a single goddamn song of his

Found the shirt on the beach

Needed a shirt, it fit.

Take a hit, pass the stoke

Press the pedal to the floorboards

Tires squeak,

sand spits, gravel flies

Another hit, cigarettes in ashtrays

Wax on a long board

Dented in barely holding on

Fabricated with polyurethane

to hold its leash

Smell of salt, rising tide

Smell of caffeine, stale French fries and synthetic bath salts

Ill stay in the water till

my arms can't carry me

Stars and Denim

2013-05-12T11:30:00.001-07:00

Brand new chucks
Worn till they don't have soles
Till duck tape can't cover their holes
Never had a dollar till she got to college
Never had enough to eat
Never could get enough sleep
Door locked barricading herself in
Never gave her peace
Never felt safe enough to be

Always praying for morning,
Hiding from moonlight and its big bad wolf
Too young to be so angry

Tile floor never felt so cold
Shaking hands never felt so old
Suicde; she'd never be so bold

Youth:

2013-05-02T23:12:00.001-07:00

First drove on a dirt road
Up a cliff
One wheel spinning air
Man I was flying
Screaming like this is it:
Life.
Gotta love that goddamn
Adrenaline rush.

Gliding fast over concrete
White converse
sprinting down sidewalks
Asphalt streets,
dust fields where crops failed
Climbing hills
riddled with rattlesnakes
Lift me higher,
keep me up
Gotta touch that goddamn sky
Free fall.

The Bluffs:

2013-04-26T22:59:00.001-07:00

Half my poems are still sitting on a shelf
Waiting for a publisher to come and write a check
Waiting for magazine to come and pat my back
Half my soul still screaming through the ink
Smeared lines and blood stains
Mangling with the wrinkles in the paper
Twice thrown away
Twice smoothed across the table
Twice I'd given up
Lost the rhyme, the flow, the high
Like surfing perfect breaks at sunset
Was convinced I'd quit
give up on the dream
The word those words were gone had left
Weren't ever coming back
Till they did like swells along the pier
Smashing into wood
Crashing into shore
Drifting back and forth
Till they fizzled white along with low-tide
Sea spray and rip-currents
Pulling you away until your just but
Bright surf boards bobbing to the bluffs

White fences:

2013-04-21T11:09:00.001-07:00

There's a rumble
A great noise
That sounds like a South African stamped of rhinoceros's
Loud and frightful
Gaulish at nightfall
It disrupts the suburbs silence
White picket fences
Rose gardens, victory gardens
Survival gardens.
It's uncommon here
We've never experienced it here
The roar of helicopter blades spinning
The sound of boot heels running
Landing, parachuting, invading
I am among the lucky
I've never seen war invade the suburbs.

Rain Water Bins:

2013-03-13T23:46:00.001-07:00

The rain comes in swift
Pleats, our tin roof and water bin
Fills, tips and refills

Velveteen Curtains:

2012-12-31T16:48:00.001-08:00

The curtain falls
the face of a girl huffs
Her red checks are
like stamped on rose petals
smeared across cement sidewalks

The audience applauds
Encore!
the screams drape like a foxes fur
over her shoulder blades
settling in like thunder, hail, and rumbling gravel dancing over train tracks

Her body aches
toes bleed through pink slippers
stray hairs stick to painted rogue lips
mind races to the pianos tempo
starched tulle skirts pressed up and out
toes pointed, back arched, knees locked tight
eyes peeking between
the creases in the velveteen curtains
searching for the boy

The boy who made her smile
was a lair,
who said their affair was right
because it felt right
took her hand and jumped off
Huntington Pier with her
just so she could feel
the wind in her hair

Cycle:

2012-12-26T22:10:00.001-08:00

The air is thick and cold
the kind I ache for
endlessly, bitterly,
striking across my skin
freezing my fingers
turning me to dust
there's a bird
with pretty black wings
he doesn't know it
but I've named him Meg
there's a boy
whose all right for me
but I'll say nothing to him
and he'll never notice me
he wears a caramel sweater
and smiles at me before crossing the street
I could smile
should have, would have, ought to of
but I walked to class
and so goes the cycle.

Irons:

2012-12-19T15:42:00.001-08:00

She is heavy leaded
with sagging shoulder blades,
got mercury and acid from the 70s in her veins
brick factory from the Great Depression in her basement
Orange preserves in jam jars,
her six brothers weren't draft dodgers
They fought and came back from Vietnam
could tell you stories of kids strapped with bombs
that'll make your skin crawl
came home without parades,
people threw bottles at their heads
called the men 'baby killers'
Arthur was a marine
tied a rope to an attic rafter and hung himself
His sister went mad
was locked away
in some white padded cage
the doctors, parents, friends
stretched their arms back till the muscles clenched
and threw that iron key
straight into the Mediterranean Sea
the world forgot all about her
and the hanged marine

Wet Sateen:

2012-12-13T08:29:00.001-08:00

The rain is falling down so fast
it makes the sound of swirling melodies
tink tink tink
the wind is like the bass and drums
rushing, blowing through oak trees.

There's a leak in the roof I painted blue
drops hit the cast of iron
and the triangle sounds

God it's like a whirlwind out there
I spin and spin arms wide sateen slip
sticking to me like a second skin
It's brilliantly cold outside the air burns to breath
I write a letter leave it for the rain to eat

Dear world,
Never let the rain stop.
It's ink swirls and whirls dripping like mascara tears,
like the drapery of St. Matthews Ebbo Gospels.

Athenian Rhetoric:

2012-12-11T03:00:00.001-08:00

The weeping willow tree
is riddled with silver bullets
that stick out like scars
and tinsel draped over Christmas trees
My aunt Sharon has a metal cage in her back
cancer and a trailer in strawberry park
she's got a tormented past like I do
I suppose that why we connect
This worlds got such a rage to it
people never just walk to walk
lawsuits handled in courts
by the incarnated rhetors of the Athenians
a showpiece, men lying about lairs to those who know their lying.
Is it justified yet?

Sticks, Fists + Broken Bones:

2012-11-03T22:00:00.001-07:00

She cut the ties of anyone who had the power to hurt her. She wasn't running or forgetting, she was leaving, because the oppressed always get tired of being oppressed. She left the people who mattered the most to her, the ones who ripped apart her soul, she left and has never looked back. It was the easiest thing she'd ever done.

--This is an sample from a short story I'm working on called "Sticks, Fists + Broken Bones".

Favorite Quote:

2012-09-27T16:49:00.002-07:00

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." - Enerst M. Hemingway
A truly good quote should make you think something different every time you hear it.

Invocation of a Goddess:

2012-09-22T11:38:00.001-07:00

Sing goddess the wrath of Achilles,

whose swift feet carried the Myrmidons across the Aegean.

Sing goddess the tale of Hector,

breaker of horses, whose glory of Troy still pulses today.

Sing goddess the song of doltish Paris,

whose arrow killed Greece’s greatest warrior.

Sing of Briseis who tamed a soldier’s heart

And brought peace to his lifetime of war.

Sing goddess that of witty Odysseus,

whose said to have lived in the time of great Achilles

And of the ruler of Kings, Agamemnon

whose brother Menelaus brought forth the Trojan War.

Sing goddess, forever the songs of fallen heroes

Of Swift Achilles, and Ithaca’s’ wily King

Of Poseidon’s tribute which brought down the gates of Troy

Of Helen, child born of a swan and god,

Sing of Patroclus who fell at Hector’s blade

Sing forever of their glory, lest they be forgotten

God help us all, against the wrath of Achilles.

Unpolished:

2012-09-11T22:50:00.001-07:00

Living in the shadow of our scars.
These pasts of ours define
who we are.
Clinging to the memories that cut
so deep
Trying to survive in a world that makes
us weak
Letting the tears fall
Because our eyes ache for it
This is the roughest part of us
The things left unpolished
Every part that remains unclean
Like this wrist
Or that so-called victim
Our tradgies others classify
with scales that tell them how to pity us
And we, well
we're just trying to survive.

We're All in A Jesters Suit:

2012-08-28T19:27:00.001-07:00

She smiles like its forced
Often lost between her world and ours
In avoidance with right and wrong
etched in salty tumlbled stones
Blighted fools in jester suits
Mayhap we know the worsts to come
Lest we be forgotten for last
Better charm those gypsies
With ale and stale coins abound
Necks bent down by a weighty sun
Villages of loved patrons
Docents to tell of lost kingdom comes
Still she smiles sweet
Full of malice, full of release
Vultures aim at hearty length
Lives smoothed by a loves sweet embrace

War:

2012-08-17T19:01:00.002-07:00

What is peace?

If not a showpiece

of bias blindness.

Brash in its malice

claiming chorus’ of soldiers

with drab camouflage armors’.

Promises dripping under pretenses of – due valor

a mirage of homeland glory

suspended among avid imaginations

bloodied and blessed in a – subdued bliss;

they lay dying

brothers in arms

at the very front line

a distant and blurry sight of

Gods pearly white – Crescent moon

they all smile

for it aligns perfectly;

to say goodbye.

What have you learned?

2012-07-18T20:01:00.001-07:00

I learned to forgive.
to let the bitterness of other people glide right over me
to sing for a crowd of beach goers even if they boo
to drink only when I'm happy
to pull off to the side of a highway just to get a perfect picture
to understand that my scars will never heal
to smile because they've made exactly what I am;
perfect.
I learned that people are unjustifiably mean
that we may live under the first amendment but that people should know, not to protest a mothers child's funeral
Because its inhumane. Because its wrong. Because he died fighting for you.
I learned to live and let live.
to write because its not a pay check but a way of life
to apologize when I'm wrong
to be okay with losing a friend when they don't accept your apology
to live surrounded by music and classical poetry
to keep hydrangea's in my bedroom because they remind me of Long Island
to live for small moments of sheer happiness and peace
And that the hardest thing a person can do is forgive.

What have you learned?