I was meant to live

Mornings with a coffee mug in hand

And a cigarette clenched between fingers

Unsteady, thoughts

Rolling like a pinwheel in the wind  

The sun rays – golden locks of Adonis –

 Leak lazily, like rivulets in a river

Outside my window pane

But I was meant to live

Among fresh flesh and sweat,

Brushing against heavy hearts,

Like gaits in an empty cellar –

With an agitated moth in my chest,

Like a fly in the web

I was meant to live

In cities that palpitate like thunder,

Wild with desires that wane

Like the hands of a clock

Desperate to retain dreams

That scatter like puzzle pieces,

And decompose like dead matter

I was meant to live

Insipid afternoons in bed

Carving my shape in sheets

Smearing pillows with tears,

Eating crackers and butter

I was meant to live

Counting hours like failures

Letting days slip like pages

Of frustrated books

I was meant to live

And dance in empty spaces

Of adopted homes

Drunk on red wine

And mac n’ cheese

I was meant to live

Smudging red lipstick on crooked lips

Wearing boots that say fierce

Confusing style with attitude,

Attitude with pride,

Pride with courage,

Courage with strength

I was meant to live

And wake up on mornings

With a coffee mug in hand

And a cigarette clenched between fingers

Moon Sorrows

How lovely the moon in times of loneliness. How comforting the swollen moon, bright and bare, floating in the deep dark pond as if it knew how not to drown, resisting being swallowed by the black vortex, always with poise and glory. Should I know how, too? Should I know how to be beautiful when the face of pain looks its worse? Or do your craters, gray like ash, resemble millenniums of learning how to cope? Should I know how not to be swallowed by deplorable loneliness, or does it swallow you too? Does it swallow you little by little?  Full, half, crescent, full – should I know how to be full again, too? Should I have known not to rely on those that made me think I could rely, or did you think you could too when that star sat next to you last week, and when the clouds hugged you last night? Did you know they wouldn’t tonight? Should I have known that too? Should I have known that loneliness is more devout and faithful than friendship, and that, although it sometimes strays… sometimes… it never forgets its way home? Should I have known that I would have to shine despite there being no one’s path to pave? Like those that were guided by your light tonight, but didn’t stop to look whose light they followed. Should I know how, too?  

No one stopped to look at the moon that night. She felt an irresistible urge to stop the next passerby and say “look at the moon,” but would they understand? And more importantly, would she have the courage? She smoked her cigarette, as her eyes tried to penetrate the copper outline of her lonely companion. She reveled so deeply in her thoughts that they bounced from the walls of her mind, forming rippling echoes of hollow noise. “Loneliness, loneliness, loneliness” they whispered. The moon seemed to muster an ancient tune, an ancient thunder. Her heart pounded like drums, the wind fueled the embers of centuries, and blew the flutes of gypsies.

“Loneliness,” she thought.

“Strength,” mustered the moon. 

 

City Mornings

I like the morning city

With its crisp clean air

Like the smell of ammonia

On hospital walls

The sky, pristine porcelain

Blue – cool like fresh waters –

And clouds that glimmer white

Like the marble floors of corporate

Buildings

The city morning

Metropolitan bustle is like a

Nostril whistle

Of a dormant giant

That wheezes indolently,

Sways steadily

Like the dozing eyes

Of crack crooks

Dope dealers

Maryjane junkies

Heroin hustlers  

That sing on subway stations

With coors cans

On both hands,

Their nodding heads swerving

To the rust track rhythm

Of machinery

Good morning! We are Bronx bound

And inert, rocking in our seats

Like babies on cradles

Our eyes heavy,

Swollen,

Dark like our bodies

And our language

Our heads turned aside

So as not to smell

Touch, see ourselves

In others

Our reflections, weary –

Tremulous – carved

On the window

Panes

And outside, the tracks

Churn their steel

The tunnel walls – agitated –

Furiously rush past

Like film reel,
Memories or time

I like the morning city

And its feigned frailty

Its dainty innocence

Like a crystal ball

But you’ve swallowed us

Pure, and spat us

Raw

Where have my words gone?

I’ve let them run

Like wicked children

And I’m a weary mother

Too tired to chase

I’ve followed them

From a distance

My eyes, penetrating the horizon

Where they’re likely to end up

As air

But I don’t trail

I let them run

My sight tires,  

The wind can only carry my voice

So far

Then, I know I’ve lost them

Then, I wish they’d return

But I’ve let them run 

Van Cortland Park

I sat before the shrine

Of perfection

Mother –

The spirit of life –

Suffused my soul

With piercing splendor

And I wept

Beauty sings to me in slow whispers

Its breath, the smell of fresh waters

Its sight, delicate droplets of rain

Disturbing the stillness of ponds,

Forming bands like halos

The whispers are faraway

Psalms – aged symphonies –  

Journeying with the breeze,

Resting in the breast of a willow

Stretching like the gentle glow

Of a languid sun amidst the desert 

Of the sky

It strikes deep 

Like a terrible harpoon

Sending ripples

Of rapture

And I weep

And I heed you

Out of the darkness

Of my cave

Will sprout life

Out of life

Or I vow to die

Trying

4th of July

Fireworks, like sunflowers

Amidst a hollow sky

BURST like

Bright balloons

Of light

And shimmy golden

Gunpowder,

Slipping softly

On slick air –

A sad

Dance

Of stars.

   

Fading flickers                    on black water

Like                                                      floating                                                candles

Funereal pageant

Of time  

Flicker In the Distance

The tears gather in your eyes

Like a baby in a cradle

As you smoke, sucking slowly –

Puffs collecting into clouds

Of impenetrable gray

In the rim of your mouth –

The edge of your lips

Solemnity

You are like that star

Of shining silver

Flickering on and off

In the distance  

The unattainable glimmer

That one ponders about in

The gut of night  

A mystery made more beautiful

By its secrecy

You sit by the window

Staring at the wall

As if you meant to break it

You are stoic like the statues

Of saints

With that intrinsic nurture,

Indomitable Beauty and perfection

Of pain

That only art can contain

And I sit facing you

Like a peon at the altar –

Small, like a child

In a museum

Distance

The last touch,

The final tangible moments

When the hidden silences,   

The diffidence of love

Becomes feral

In a hug

I smell your hair of soothing lavender

I feel the fabric of your dress

I kiss the dampness of your cheeks

I walk away

At 21 I smoke

The way you taught me

Without knowing

Imitating poses,

Moving to your rhythms,

Staring at the wall

Night crawls like a spider,

The ghosts of memory

Hide beneath the curtains

Of shadows

And I nestle in their pallor,

Tangled in the comfort

Of desolation

I search for residual warmth

Where your head lay like a stone

Upon the pillow, 

A paper clip that you dropped

On the rug

I know that it is not

The wall at all

But the light –

The relentless flicker

In the distance 

There is no need to try

To survive, for the survival rests
In living, which in itself

Is inevitable

Riverdale Diaries

June 8, 2013

My mind likes inconsistency. My moods are prone to swimming in oceans and playing with tides. They submerge and resurface from the waves, like I do in dreams. Sometimes, like today, they dive indefinitely, as if they intended to drown. Last night, in a drunken daze, I mentioned that this was the most precious summer I’ve had so far. And in many ways, and many times, I think that is not at all wrong. It is completely new, and it had been a while since I experienced new. I must carry myself with new strengths, sometimes strengths that I’ve had to forcefully provoke. I have to look at life with new eyes, live by new philosophies, because for the first time in many years, if ever, I am fighting to survive a world, a life – the one that exists outside the chimera of youth. And I have been successful so far. Yes, I’ve had to learn how to steer a boat and tame the waves to stay afloat, but I’ve been successful. However, days like today have a weary dread. Not even cigarettes are alluring. The solitary chirp of birds is melancholic; the breeze is bitter, frigid. I read but I pause… not so much because of overwhelming thoughts, but overwhelming emotions. They confound me, and I am left staring at the ceiling, with hollow gaze, motionlessly idle, as if I was waiting for my moods to resurface with that desperate gasp of a frightened warrior. But I dwell with turbulent seas; my arena is the antagonist itself, as powerful as tornadoes. And I’m pierced by an ice pick of nostalgia. I miss the sticky heat of an island summer, the buzzing  of mosquitoes in your ears, the pallor of clean blue skies, the relentless motors, the rancid smell of toxic fumes, the sound of flittering leaves on trees, the smell of home cooked meals, the sound of propped wine corks, the chimes of opened doors, the pungent scent of my grandmother’s perfume, the homely inertia, the sound of the ocean, the crisp odor of salt water, the echo of waves, the impertinence of sandy feet and cars and floors, the roughness of beach hair, the tired weight of lazy afternoons, the voice of my father, the voice of my sister, the voice of my mother, the barks of my dogs, the drowsy meows of my cats, the familiarity and slang of my language. Today I miss my home. 

"The great tapestries of trees had darkened to ghosts back at the last edge of twilight. The early moon had drenched the arches with pale blue, and, weaving over the night, in and out of the gossamer rifts of the moon, swept a song, a song with more than a hint of sadness, infinitely transient, infinitely regretful."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise

New York Impressions

Tonight I celebrate myself

And the music latching to my walls

Like perfume latches to skin

I celebrate the blades of grass

Smooth as baby hair

Gracing naked feet

The droplets on leaves

Round and translucent

Glistening like gems

Tossed, misplaced or forgotten  

I celebrate the workers at cafes

And the conversations that surface

Unprecedented stored and released

For brief encounters

Made immortal

I celebrate the common names

Of unique people

And the faces now printed

In the folio of the mind

Like instants captured in photographs

The words spun from tongues

The texture of rough hands

On handshakes

Like sandpaper

I celebrate the laughs

And the movements of bodies

The walkers beside me

The accidental shoving of shoulders

On the subway

The spiteful looks of tired eyes

I celebrate the city and its colors

The city and its smell of

Barbequed sausage on summer days

The sour scent of sweat

From glistening black faces 

And flustered white cheeks

The chachacha of bachatas

On particular neighborhoods

The bum bum bum of hip hop

On particular streets

I celebrate

Found this at Poetry Daily. How precise! 

[The life I live]
    from "The City of Poetry"

The life I live,
The one I hoped
To live—
How seldom
They coincide.

Sometimes, briefly,
They do;
Sometimes, in the city. 

by Gregory Orr

Howl Festival

In the streets

Of the East Village

The people Howl,

Their minds fresh

With fervor

They prance naked,

Their bellies flopping

Like flapjacks

They lay in the grass

Encumbered with the sloth

Of youth – treasured alibi

In this side of paradise

They have replaced sand

With moss and dirt mounds
Towels with blankets

Palms with withered trunks

And thick branches

And I have joined

The tragic romance,

The aimless parade   

Of idealists

 I walk

With idle pace

Bare, braless –  

My breasts dangling

Like ripe mangos

Bearded poets –mouths that

Spatter syllables like pellets,

Rhymes like bombs

As coherent to us

As Morse code is for the blind

As it was for them 

Back then

The Beat of Washington Square Park

For three beautiful strangers, two beautiful friends, one beautiful day 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Over falafels and jazz

With eyes that glowed

Green like fresh grass

And blue

Like fine crystals

With crescent moon

Smiles, as curved as arches  

 Radiant like sunlight

On a napping afternoon

We exchanged five dollar bills

For verses from strangers

Searching for things with

Capital B’s and P’s

Like those in

Passion

and

Poison

Time stood still

Like summer heat  

Or the static bodies

In bras and sunglasses

O’Hara wrote

Lunch poems

And Ginsberg wrote

At roofs

That we talk about in parks

Over falafels and jazz

Like stray cats

We searched

For the truth

And the light
From the words 

Of a stranger 

Life

The little boxer steps into the ring

Unsteady, like a terrible earthquake

His legs wobble, still ripe from

The womb of childhood

They don’t know how to support

The body that must endure

His arms are the twigs

Of a brittle tree

His hands are hidden beneath

Gloves, big as human heads

They don’t know how to guard

The face that must endure

The ring is large and wide

Like the dimensions of an ocean

White and marble-cold

Like a medical office

Unstructured and unbound

He steps in with calloused confidence

And sweaty fingers that slip

Like macaronis

His wavering feet  

Drag his ninety five pounds

Like a giant hearse 

He walks

With a strained balance

Like a trapeze swinger on a cord

Keep your composure, young boxer

Your future is suspended

By a string of dental floss 

Riverdale Diaries

May 20, 2013

But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason. In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.

-Ernest Hemingway from A Moveable Feast

It was the first warm day of summer. The temperature rose to 80 degrees and the city was jubilant – swimming in colors and sweat. Madison Square Park was a garden for lost wanderers such as myself. I soaked up the heat, the first natural heat I have felt in months, as I read A Moveable Feast. Hemingway spoke to me about falls and winters, but I sat in the cusp of spring, welcoming the summer radiance, like a new-born flower – its petals barely visible as they emerge from the ground. Across from me sat a girl. Her body was stretched as if she was floating. On what, I don’t know. All of us were floating… it was that kind of inebriating warmth. Her eyes were fixed at the sky, as if she were guarding it– as if her eyes were a magnet for the sun. As if she had longed for that warmth for a long time now. Beside me sat a middle aged man; pages trembled slightly on his left hand. I looked over out of curiosity, for these are city people; these are the people that I've wanted to be for years. And now, for the first time, I’m one of them. Yet, at the same time, I’m a lonely traveler – a lost wanderer still, never quite belonging. Maybe the secret is simply just that: we’re all alone. We live our lives feeling like outsiders, when the reality is that being outsiders is what makes us all belong. I caught a glimpse of the page and recognized what it was immediately. Its lean structure gave it away. I devote my life to that glorious silhouette, so there was no way I wouldn't try to read it now. I wondered if they were his. Was he a professor? Was it an assignment? Was it his assignment? I felt like a spy, so intrusive that I looked away every five seconds to make sure no one was noticing me prying on this man’s personal document. But I did, and as I was stealing this stranger’s words, I had that inexplicable feeling that comes to me when I take pictures… a feeling of stealing someone’s life, capturing their soul, being let into a secret that was never meant to be yours in the first place. And I find that, like poetry itself, the words are as human, as deeply resonant to us all, as is the need for water. And maybe that is a second truth: Art is our attempt to decode life by divulging secrets that have never been secrets to begin with. 

Watching you
Crossing the street
In my direction
I am in awe
Of your arrival 

First Signs of Summer

Now there are only the deposits
The smell of smoke after a fire

The goose-bumped skins,
The chill of spines, like frozen electricity
Must hibernate

The leaves have been drooping
Their lives suspended only
By snake-like roots,
As if they wished to falter

Now they tremble lightly,
Like giggling children
Tickled by the bare breeze
Of the morning

The songs of birds
Renounce to spring
Their choppy chirps
Are nature's orchestra
For the arrival

A single ray of light -
Its sliver like a sword -
Punctures the corner
Of my windowpane,
Taps it gently with its
Edge, as if to say:
"Here it comes"

Riverdale Diaries

May 19, 2013

To my left, outside of the square glass windows of my new living room, light rain is falling. It is not pouring; it is rather a sprinkle – quiet and soft, like the dance of ballerinas. I decided not to go out today. Not to the city, anyways. I woke up very early this morning, 6am, with a strange anticipation – a feeling of unknown productivity. At 1:37 pm, it is still unknown. But I’ve been reading. And I’ve been reading about reading, and about writing, and about Beauty. And maybe the strangeness that woke me up this morning, even before it woke up the sun, was just that: Beauty. The beautiful recognition that I have the day sprawled naked before me. That I can dress it however I please. The beautiful recognition that time, for the first time in a very long time, is now yielding, like a tamed lion – an obedient watch dog – letting me do with it whatever I desire. But those things are just beautiful… they’re not truly Beauty in itself, which of course, I know is unattainable. But from time to time, like it did this morning, it whispers tenderly in my ear, like a child that wants to play, urging me to search for it. And so I do. Today I will read. I’ll watch movies. And I’ll read some more. And during intervals, try to search for the beautiful child. I’ll follow it, always from a distance, until it goes back to hiding in between the creases. 

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life... For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

-Ernest Hemingway

Living By Myself

My eyes followed the car

As it rode down the street

Like a tremendous whale surfing

Out to a sea I no longer swim in

Absence

The world seemed vast,

Surroundings widened  

And I was like a child on the shores

Watching the waves recede

I’m small –

Inconsequential –

More singular

Than ever before 

Spring Blues

               After reading Sexton 

I smoked
With a mild hangover –   

Residues of last night’s laughter

My legs, unsteady
Hands, vacillating – two fingers
Firmly holding the cigarette butt


From its head, an innocuous flame flared
Like an extension of the sun 

Maybe my hands knew  

And held life from fleeting,

Deceived by smoke and lust for flying,
Their rigid grasp, like the strains
Of a determined survivor

The warmth does not console me
Spring is late to bud
Within me, a stale fear has chilled
My skin – burned it dry

I never notice ants in winter, but now
They crawl toward me, like weeping puppies
My feet have lost their danger, I must have lost
My strength, and now my head is low,
Like a drooping flower, bent as if pulled
By the ocean’s tide

The garden echoes the voices
Of strangers,
Like a ricochet of crickets
But my mouth is stuffed
With cotton balls,
The tongue, jammed
Like a swollen thumb 

...I cannot speak

From afar I saw a girl
As timid as a ladybug
Silent, like May rains

I used to know you, but I left
To follow the trail of time barefoot,
My bare back facing ashes
That never stopped burning

The past looks down
Upon my naked corpse
Its eyes, red-veined with panic

But although my head sags
Like candle wax, my gaze remains
Afloat, like the eyes of a sailor
That refuses to drown 

Journal

You implore

Answers that I cannot provide

Your stare is blank – absent –

Like the white of my pages

As we sit still – naked silhouettes –

Penciled by the shadows

Of midnight

Beneath the coppered outline  

Of a swollen moon, you rise

Your eyes heavy with slumber

To reproach me with silent accusations

Your looming fingers,

Feeble – like broken twigs

They do not supply, you say

As you proceed to tear me,

A masochistic ritual you endure 

Forgetting that I can only confess

Truths you have already discovered 

Portrait of My Mother

Let me place you on the deck, like it should have been

With the tips of your toes grazing the water

I’ll make it so that it quivers

 Lazily with the brush of a breeze

And let the color be green

Or pastel turquoise, like your necklace  

So that it does not overshadow

The radiance of your lips 

Which I’ll curve gently

In a casual smile, as if you didn’t know

That I was there, and you were just happy

Stretched bellow the blades of orange light

I’ll make them razor sharp

Puncturing the center

Of your belly, poking

Playfully like a child

Not fire bright,

Carrot orange –

The last fuming flickers of the day

Before the chilling moon

Which, I’d make silver like cold metal 

But I want the day to look mild, not too warm

So that it does not take from the comfortable

Grip of your lustrous eyes

I’ll gloss them neatly, like polished pearls

They’ll be perfect spheres of tender

Brown, to complement the smoothness

Of your suntanned skin

Glazed in russet

Like a dress of wet sand,

And auburn hair will latch

Faithfully to your freckled shoulders

The damp ends spread out like the fingers 
Of an open hand 
And it’ll all look blissful

As if no one was ever there

Ode to Eyes

My eyes are dangerous

Weapons

They do not attract,

They enthrall

Nor do they request,

They command

Their lashes do not adorn,

They entrap

The long curled hairs

Are webs for fiends

Their blinks are not flutters,

But thunderous collisions

My eyes are proud dames

And should be handled with caution

They do not take lightly 

To bribes or deceit

When they speak,

They don’t stutter

When they love

They’re not mute

When they’re hungry

They devour

And when irate,

They offend

My eyes are muses,

They evoke desire

And they’re known to be gentle

If given respect

But if one was to gash them

With lies or betrayal

They sprout lethal fountains

For drowning the brute