You are not a poem
I’ve tried before to squeeze you
into 14 lines, into neat beginnings
middles and endings
but somehow it’s never done and
you don’t fit.
I won’t compare you to a summer’s
day or talk about your shoulders-
not holding the earth like Atlas,
but shards of pale moonlight.
You are not the perfect verse
over a tight beat.

You are crosshatch pockmarked
dog-eared note pages with
hangman playing in the corner
and I’d like to buy a vowel because
I never understood what game we were
playing.

You’re half-checked to do lists
with back of mind impending
should have done yesterdays,
little reminders to myself , phone numbers,
ideas, and lines for later
but they never fit into a central thesis
they’re just fleeting moments tucked into
one corner or another.
usually 17 syllables or less
but I’m no good at haiku

so these fragments will have to do

remember baby velociraptor branches
hiding in the shadows of your bedroom
window overhang

your indiscernible murmur that is somehow
all at once the word for “I don’t want to talk about this,”
“I’m so glad I’m holding you right now,” and…
“I love pancakes.”

and maybe you didn’t understand my
attachment to Sunday mornings and
what pancakes mean is “I like you kid-
I get dressed up for boys I don’t know
but you get to see what my hair looks like
in the morning.”

and there’s a poem somewhere in my
notebook, waiting to be written about
how you learned everything you know
about women from a strangely romantic
outlook on pornography…

There’s no fishing line strong enough
to tie all this shit together
and I’ve worn threadbare anyway
like an afghan made of dental floss
with a hanging thread somewhere
near my wrist
and we both know how I like to fidget-
it’s only a matter of time before I
unravel the whole g-damn thing.

There’s a whole lot of ugly out there
and beautiful is easy to break
fast is easy to trip so
be careful what you say around me kid
I’m seconds away from pink mist and
no I don’t think you’d get caught in
the explosion
but I think the guilt of tripping the wire
would feel a whole lot more like the
earth on your shoulders
than those shards of moonlight.

I dig meta pieces.

This seemed a little dense, for me. I had a hard time moving through it.

Perhaps that is what makes this line so significant:

There’s no fishing line strong enough
to tie all this shit together

Loved the ending.

-Jesster

I loved the ending too, and the way it tied in the theme from the start of the poem. It's a lot - a lot of images, a lot of words. I wonder if paring away some of the words might make the images stand out more sharply?

nice imagery. a "ton" of nice images i like every one ( well maybe the "buying a vowel" verse was a bit much) but i think it could use a pare down. you always have sooo much to say. and the importance of your verse just jumps off the page but sometimes a bit of mystery makes the reader wonder a bit. and sometimes wondering what comes next is good. you are extremely talented, i admire your voice a lot.

This is one of those pieces like the ones that my "Writing Out Loud" professors used to really have to pull teeth with me on. I get attached to the words. I'm going to give myself a day or two to detach. Really, this whole piece was just to get the stupid velociraptor on paper. I agree that it's pretty dense. Thanks so much for all the other kind words.

I loved it. I also get attached to words, and I felt everyone as I read it. Just in my opinion don’t take anything from it. I was lost in the fulfillment of reading it! Thanks

This is a little bit long for my taste but I love the way you write and I think the whole first stanza is fabulous!

Yes the poem was a little long, but it is excellent. I loved the first and the last two stanza.

It is all there, and in fine form could just use some smoothing out to improve the flow.

Enjoyed the read!

walrus