Kevin's Watch

I've taken a bit of hiatus from writing. Trying to hone my skills again to write like I used to 3 years ago. Most of the things I'll post here are old. I don't know the exact dates (they're on my old comp), but they're probably from about 2004 and on. Most of it is dreck, but enjoy it if you fancy. Here are some samples:

Elegy For Autumn

The magnolias are
gone, love. The winds have blown and
shook the seeds to sheathe

someone else's thighs;
water streaked they ooze her red
petals: nectar you

suckle, ruby throat,
until the winds blow and your
silence feeds my rain.

Until my stems are empty.

--------------------------------------

Elegy For Winter

The blackberries are
withered, my love. Winter has
come; no longer will

the fruit stain my lips
plum. No longer will its juice
trickle down my chin,

and you are not here
to lap its honey; for you
have gone away, flown,

my butterfly. There
is frost on the ground shrouding
your tracks, and the

ice mourns its clipped wings.

--------------------------------------

Syphon

Fingers smear oil,
leaving streaks; red spilled concrete
elicits vultures

overhead to hang
inert, a paralyzed cry.
And the widows weep

grey mornings, chatter
teeth until the miasma's
stench is drowned in the dead.

--------------------------------------

02. vermont

i watched you undress
in pale light, shoulders bare
through hotel curtains

i wrote poetry on your back
sang into your hair as you slept
as you spoke cracked words

and in the mornings
you would take showers alone
my hands in your empty spot

vermont, you said
we were going to vermont

--------------------------------------

And I'll close this with a recent one:

The Birds Are Silent

the birds are silent,
wholly now. and on this moon-
less night i stand by

this window in the
middle of this room and
wonder where love goes. (and

feeling, of course, is
not forgotten but love) oh,
how it grows cold and

i long to feel your
hands upon my hands; your lips
upon my lips, and

laugh until we are
silent in this room, and feel
your skin on my skin.

12/18/07

nice work jaz.

excellent. loved the vt poem most of all.

Thanks guys.

And the vermont poem is actually from a series I'm working on. I would post the rest of what I have written but some are fairly suggestive (withoout being graphic) but I don't know exactly what's acceptable and what's not here.

Anyway, here's some more:

Freebirds (palindrome)

may, and it's raining again.
but jet planes draw lines across the sky in
white, they form strings around our necks,
and her breath is smoke filled, expels small halos,
her voice dances around my smile
as the faded cassette bursts forth playing Yes;
so the last of her cigarette is snuffed
and there's miles behind our pain,
asphault and steam underneath our feet
our lives stretch out on the road,
like mother, like daughter, we're nomads
freebirds
freebirds
like mother, like daughter, we're nomads
our lives stretch out on the road,
asphault and steam underneath our feet
and there's miles behind our pain,
so the last of her cigarette is snuffed
as the faded cassette bursts forth, playing Yes;
her voice dances around my smile
and her breath is smoke filled, expels small halos,
white, they form strings around our necks,
but jet planes draw lines across the sky in
may, and it's raining again.

--------------------------------------

0101060150 epact (palindrome)

barren and cold; it's winter again.
i would hold my hand to the window, sitting at your feet,
framing the doorway, limbs leaning on the edge,
you would smoke a cigarette,
but you quit your addiction.
obsession comes naturally to you, compulsion pulls you,
and for now your only concern is the distance between us.
you tell me about the forecast tonight,
but i just want to hear
your lips speak
"you're my daughter"
"you're my daughter"
your lips speak
but i just want to hear
you tell me about the forecast tonight,
and for now your only concern is the distance between us.
obsession comes naturally to you, compulsion pulls you,
but you quit your addiction.
you would smoke a cigarette,
framing the doorway, limbs leaning on the edge,
i would hold my hand to the window, sitting at your feet,
barren and cold; it's winter again.

--------------------------------------

Seraph's Cry

i.
Concrete cracks
and flowers force
underneath to nest
vital roots.

ii.
The rats have eaten
through her skull.

Anorexic bones
mend among ivory,
discolored keys
and the roaches
are crawling putrid
as hands seek
nourishment.

She used to say
I had piano fingers.

iii.
Gunshots batter
like gentle raping
through flesh and
the window pane is
palmed crimson
fingerpricks on
sharded glass.

Firing synapses
are the only noise
in stereo ad nauseam
as ears bleed
and widows weep.

Peace was always
this way.

iv.
But who of you
know the weight
of a child's tear?

--------------------------------------

Seraph's Cry: Prelude

Heaven is
conformity,
squared;
a double
negative:

It's the cigarette
between her lips,
the debaucher's
tongue shoved
in her cleavage.

Light winks out,
shifting black pinpricks
in the space among
haloed silhouettes.

And she stands on
streets paved gold,
shoulder blades
stripped as far
as her wings
will allow.

--------------------------------------

Gaia In Utero

Mother's hand rubs a
Buddha's belly, rubs stretch marks.
In amniotic

lilac wrapped incense,
her lips will be soft petals;
her hands and feet, thorns.

Undeveloped womb
will evoke Nagasaki
bowed titan children.

Gaia In Utero is fantastic! need time to digest the others. how long have you been writing?

Thanks!

I first started writing when I was about 13; I'm 23 now. It was mostly a school related project, when the school system started introducing poetry to us. I read poetry and wrote, liked it and then kept writing on and off. I think 2003-2005 were my golden years, per se. Then in 2006 I got married and gave birth to my son, wherein my writing took a huge plummet in quality and quantity. I'm trying to get back into the groove again. It's been hard.

well it is great, i hope you crank it up once again.

Thank you very much! I've been trying to.

Here's some more:

Cognition In Repose

Thighs broke wrinkles
in the waves spraying
seafoam across his lips.

Water rolled smoothly on his
sinew in onyx jeweldrops;
melding together onto the sand.

Closing my eyes, I imagined
licking them would leave
behind a trail of salt.

Moondust spilled lightning
on the crests and I arched
my neck to receive his kiss.

--------------------------------------

Canto For Winter

Sing to me softly
love, as we walk through paths paved
velvet and honey.

Your breath is warm near
my skin, and your kiss leaves the
merlot's blush upon

my lips. Speak into
my ear gently, and the trees
will be our only

witness; the snow, your
voice. Sing to me softly, love,
and let us remain

as still, as hushed as winter.

--------------------------------------

0419060214 prenatal butterfly (phase 2)

i.
bone for bone
i know you
shaped you
from ovum to embryo
to fetus to
our child

ii.
breathless, forming
inside passion's womb
there is a home for life
there is a home for us
and you are loved

you are loved

iii.
but
home is a
2 am barefoot car ride
a Pink Floyd song
an empty ochre horizon
stretched beyond
segmented highways
beneath the stars

beneath you

--------------------------------------

Observing Zoology

Intestines like pink maggots spilled
in descent through ribcracks and fractures.
Eyeballs bulged grotesquely, and popped
joints lay gaping in the walkway.

Near the concession stand the fat kid
stomps on an ant pile, reminding me of
when he threw ketchup packets at elephants,
and how the aorta squirts red, too.

--------------------------------------

And I will end with a very recent one (with a date!):

Sandpaper, Bone and Grace

the orchids will die:
all purple and white,
then brown,
whithering into sandpaper
and bone.

outside the crow
answers the raven's call:
shrill and dying
as the echoes fade,
as I shut Bukowski's ghost closed;
write, he says, write.

I was a poet once,
writing cracked words
between skin, sinew
and grace.

but now
what's
left?

somewhere between
shopping lists, doctor's appointments
and 3 a.m.,
I was a woman:
all legs and hips and breasts,
bone and grace.

I was,
once.

and now what's left
of orchids,
of Bukowski?

they
were.

who weeps for their ghosts?

who weeps for me?

10/26/07

Fantastic! I think Elegy for Autumn is my favorite at the moment. Please keep posting!

0419060214 prenatal butterfly (phase 2)
- outstanding.

Commercial Break: 2/26/08

I fear I am but
human,
and not all a
mother
should be.

---------------------

It is not enough for me
to love you, my son;
but
it is enough that
we can share
a cookie and
a hug.

---------------------

The silence is what I
worry over,
not the destruction
left in your wake.

---------------------

If poetry is my
proverbial cigarette,
then writing is my
nicotine addiction.

---------------------

Save my writings,
so that when
I am gone
you will know
who I am.

---------------------

Staring at the moon
for hours will bring
you no less
closer to brilliance.

---------------------

Falling in and out
of love works
very much the same
as a penis.



Coffee Break: 2/28/08

breakfast is:
eggs and toast,
Bukowski
and coffee.

---------------------------

living the life i dreamed,
i never imagined i would
have so much around my hips
and so little in my wallet.

---------------------------

why does it
always
go back to
sex?

---------------------------

the only fighting words
we have left, lay between
a pair of breasts and
a gun in the glovebox.

---------------------------

the temples are crashing down
around us, but we are too deaf
to listen when it is fashionable
to be blind.

---------------------------

somewhere, some god is
laughing in a wholly
cosmic sense and
I don't know whether
to laugh with him
or weep.

Ooh! Yes! More!

I am a fan of Elegy for Winter but my favourite would have to be Vermont:

i wrote poetry on your back
sang into your hair as you slept

- !

for the man who stares from his window

No - do not presume you know me
beneath those crumpled white sheets
you dream of.
For I trembled already,
spoke broken, red vows
from the scent of memory.

The sway of these hips were not
designed for you.
The eyes on this face know too much
grief. No,
no,
you do not know me.

You were not there when life was
stripped from my womb: beautiful,
bloody, and screaming for these breasts;
they were not made for your lips.

So do not pretend through
the panel of your glass
that you are a standing conviction
and I am half a heartbeat removed from
forbidden.

No,
you cannot know
these bones.

2/29/08

breakfast is:
eggs and toast,
Bukowski
and coffee.

- outstanding.

Estos Huesos Viejos

I am an old soul
between nothing
and everything
in this old hotel in
Mexico.

We lay iris to iris,
bone to bone and
it took 540 million
years for our eyes to
evolve.

"Eso es mucho, mucho tiempo",
I give you in my best spanish,
but you don't listen.
Even the flies have
gone.

The ground smells of limes
in the summer. "It's hot
here", you say in english but
you are already blue when I am
dirty.

Mis manos son pequeñas pero
mis huesos no mueva. Además,
no puedo oír la lluvia y suspiro
para esta medianoche. No puedo leer
tú.

(My hands are small but
my bones still. Besides, I
can't hear the rain and sigh
for this midnight. I can't read
you.)

3/3/08

-----------------------------------------

Feel free to tell me if the Spanish isn't right. I'm not fluent by any means.

I really like for the man who stares from his window. I can't wait to read the next one!

How A Mother Is Born

1
Rapture,
orgasm, yes!
It always goes back to
sex. What? A broken condom? Shit,
what now?

2
Jasmine,
sigh softly. Speak
with delicate petal
undertones. Step lightly around
flowers.

3
Pregnant -
tender breasts and
morning puke. Oh lovely
round belly, you feel just like sex-
tuplets.

4
Breathe, breathe.
The head won't fit.
Doctor says there must be an
emergency incision. Breathe,
my son.

5
First words:
mommom mama?
mommy mom my mama
momm am a mom mymom am a
mommy.

6
Breakfast
is eggs and toast,
Bukowski and coffee.
You don't listen as it gets cold,
then leave.

7
Wonder -
your eyes: black pools,
liquid filled awe over
blowing bubbles. We learn to laugh
like kids.

3/2/08

---------------------------

Sin And Suicide

It's no surprise I'm here again
when you are still so shallow.
You act as if these sheets
belonged to Jesus himself:
white, pure and holy.
Even he had a whore once.

I know you; know your bones
are haunted by a memory of
other hands tracing coy shadows
along the concave of your spine.
Loving you never hurt as much as
belonging underneath your skin.

In the morning you won't go back to her
but you won't stay here, either.
You'll tell me love is suicide and
the only thing we ever shared was a
cheap night and an orgasm. But as always
you were wrong.

4/16/08

For Glory In The Highest

I.
In the ancient gutters of Rome
murmurs the thronged concession
of old monks singing God's prayers.

And if you listen, you can hear
the voices of marred bones
beseeching their Lord for peace.

(Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini)

II.
I fear you abandoned us long ago;
as my blood called to you,
as the mist swallowed my tongue,
as my hallowed screams fell deaf.

Did you weep?

III.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
in the shadow of Death, I can see you.
my faith is guttered, O Lord -
but I can still see you.

(Hossana in excelsis)

IV.
Glory in the highest descends -
for if you are not my God,
why then, have you come?

V.
So in the shadows I shall wait
as my body grows cold.

(And in the shadows I shall wait
as your body grows cold.)

9/21/08

The Body Language Of Us

I bruise as easily
as fruit with no skin;
and you cut me
when I am most ripe.

9/26/08

Through Strength And Weakness

I imagine my mother in her kitchen:
the air pungent with whetted appetites,
as she imparted her wisdom to me over
boiling water and chopped garlic;
the scents never left her hands -
shriveled husks of youth,
each wrinkle a memory.

I wanted to be everything she was:
a cook, a mother, a wife, a woman,
but I never saw beneath her eyes
how she wore her pain as easily
as she wore her smile.

9/26/08

..JF...1st time i have read all of your work here..i am moved.