Sunday, January 9, 2011

Life as a Volt

I dreamed last night of darkness.

It was sweet like wine on a table

next to a vase of love notes.



I wake up in this eccentric,

ecstatic light bulb

wishing I could feel the cold.



I live in a blacklight.

It's so bright in here,

but out there it is pitch black

except for tennis shoes and ballgowns,

glowing like angels.



I ask my mother if I can go out in it

and play.

She tells me if I do I'll destroy everything

with my eyes.

Best leave the shimmering darkness to those

who know it.



I want to dance too,

and know what it means to be a real wallflower-

a beautiful thing that grows against the wall-

not inside of it,

being born anew constantly

like a drop of blood returning to the heart.



I want to feel excitement,

live on the edge of death.

She tells me my life is better.

I am excitement,

and I never die.


Self Sufficiency

I could dance if I really wanted to,

but I don't.

I like planting rose bushes all around me instead.

They are aesthetically stunning,

marvelous for security,

and shocking for how high and thick they grow.



I used to flourish in the loud and the dense,

but now I grow slowly in the dark and the wet,

and wonder if I should wish for deserts.



I always order desert on dates.

Everyone wants to find an oasis,

but no one wants to be one.



The truth is,

any oasis will tell you,

that lovesick travelers will take everything

they need from you,

decimate everything you had that made you a paradise,

and then leave.



The truth is that humans being human beings,

they want the desert.

It proves something to them.

They are sufficient.

They need nothing.



No one else believes them or cares.

Sand and wind blast everyone's wrapping off,

and the heat will eat them,

but each devoured human being in the empty, dark, caverns

of alone and dying will know that they alone

were enough to be consumed.


Tepid Compromise


I'm dying in this dream of mauve

that is covering crazy.

Soon I won't be able to see new

rising over the world each day.



Everyone is yelling mauve! Mauve!

They all stink like forests without trees.

I detest them the way a butterfly loathes a locust.



Mauve! Mauve!

Maybe periwinkle!

This was shouted from those

who are less bold in their demands

for two toned indecisiveness,

unable to decide not to decide.



If an egregious compromise

must be made between Should and the people,

I hope Should gives them periwinkle.

It would serve them right to destroy themselves

a little more by request.

And periwinkle is light enough that I could at least

barely see new and beyond it to always.


The Process of Revision


Revising voices is an arduous process.

I have to dub in kisses

where they used to say you.



I love to revise my professor's voice.

He has no idea he is talking about

smiling wishes in the language of God.



I tell him I can't see him again because

each time I do I know it should be the last time

and that this instinct is lightening in my throat.



Revision.



I told him to slide his hand higher,

and slip his fingers in.

I only speak magic when one person is listening with

their tongue.



I am revising my own voice and



I am revising the voice at the end of this tunnel

between me and the light.

It stands over the dark and graves,

stradling them and singing of candles

and two battles of will.

I've never been lured by the voice of a new house.



It is only when I listen to the ocean

that I never revise it.

Its voice rolls to shore from distance

in the dark,

telling me moonlight

and no matter how much loss I bleed,

it will always be there for me to talk to.

Lisa Minner

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...