Our past life's work...

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:00:18 GMT

Goddamn. One more thing, just so you can say, "goddamn, Cora is mad crazy." And maybe, just maybe, I am. And P.S. This one's PORNY! Wee!

Your long fingers
again tracing the curvature of my breast
and I, arching with impatience
brushing your neck persuasively
wih eager lips

eyes wild,
caught momentarily between restraint
and recklessness

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:54:41 GMT

Okay, what the hell. Here's everything I'm currently working on, just for the sake of total soul-baring and in hopes of good counsel.

1]
Your lips are reminders of everything I should have done today
but didn't. And my mind melts a little
falling out of my eyes and stinging your cheek.

I can vaguely,
faintly remember a time when I wasn't restless.
An eight-year old girl
in a harvard sweatshirt
carefully piecing together...
[I think I was called away from this mid-thought. Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten to take note of the thought I was in the middle of. Thus I have no idea where I was going with this.]

2]
Strangely enough, she hadn't seen him come in.

bent over a sketchbook,
her neck cramped from
holding the position and waiting for a spark [not sure about phrasing here]

he watched her there for a long time
eyes sweeping over scraps of tweed,
purple cotton and a bolt of printed something
before coming to rest again
on the exaggereated curve of her back.
[Again, not quite sure where I'll go with this, but I really like the "crazy artist in a too-dark studio" feel happening here.]

3]
In the late August dusk, I almost believe in heaven.
Becasue of headstrong frat boys
whipping a frisbee across the green,
and the steady pressure of my newly painted bicycle.

This, the best sort of night, is orange
and I can feel the air on my hands.

I'm wearing my favorite dress,
the green paisley wrap, "a throwback to the seventies,"
purchased on a whim at a thrift store in Brooklyn.
The worry that its kelly ties might catch in my spokes
hasn't crossed my mind since early afternoon.
[I think I actually thought this was done for a little while. Poor, silly, deluded Cora.]

Any ideas/advice/candy will be gratefully considered.

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:29:22 GMT

These are too new to title.

I remember the time
I hit myself with the door
of your silver-blue Taurus,
astonished by the body's
ability to block out pain
and by the russet-stained sand
of my parents' driveway

my mother, the seasoned nurse,
who turned squeamish
at the sight of her daughter's blood

and my father
driving a steady seventy-five
along the back roads of Hardwick
while making sure I kept
steady pressure over my ruptured eyelid

and the weeks after
I wore a hand made eye patch
to cover the alarming bruises
and stitched laceration
and to keep my waning dignity intact

******************

Nathan and I
hopeful under the jungle gym
looking up through the rusted bars
at the heavy August sky

he laughs when i name August
"the orange month"

we wonder about this time next year
how our shoes will pile in front of the door
late-night movies are our sustenance
and we wake with stiff necks
and rise from our makeshift couch

I touch his cheek
remembering how we were in January
practical
which is a synonym for unhappy

[to avoid confusion, this last one is only new in that I just finally finished it this past week. I started this one the summer after the beginning of Nate-n-Cora, sooo...summer of...2002? Yeah.]

And something that may need a little work:

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 12:36:01 GMT

My hair is at my shoulders now
and often, I touch my back
where I wish my ponytail would hang.

Can you see the metaphor in this?
Pricing rents in Manhattan,
you're far from alone.

I push these words together,
searching endlessly for the perfect synonym
fo "loneliness,"
simply out of refusal to aknowledge the word,
and to realize that my need
for such a word is no one else's fault.

Alright, parts I'm not sure about:
--middle stanza - I think it may be lacking something, makig it a little confusing.
--"no one else's fault" - just doesn't sound quite right.

Something done:

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 12:30:21 GMT

There were nights when her chest would
retain its soft blush for hours.

When they were in the kitchen,
she making hot cocoa
and he, lemon ginger tea,
he would touch her rosy cheek,
marvelling at the peculiarities of the body.

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 17:11:37 GMT

Why not do a little archiving, I say?

Another Breakup Poem from a Girl who isn’t a Native New Yorker

The cement was harder tonight
as I boarded the six train to Manhattan,
gingerly composing my facial expressions.

I carefully avoided myself,
embarrassed by the failure of my own plans,
which I thought to be more permanent.

Barely eighteen, I had already felt sorrow.
It wound deftly into the capillaries of my fingers
and through the marrow of my fragile bones.

The boy selling candy bars at the front of the car
knew to avoid me;
could see it in the red-rimmed sadness of my eyes;

and perhaps decided that the basketball team could afford
one new knee sock
without my contributions.

I wondered if you’d been nothing
but one year-spanning mistake.
Not so.

I had learned, then,
that some sorrows are unavoidable.

Harmless Curiosity, Otherwise Untitled

Perhaps comfort is not the best thing.

Watch the calves, the tousled hair,
the thin cotton on underdeveloped pectorals;
the excitement of uncertainty.

Care for the licking of the lips
as if it were your own,
and hoard the borrowed pens,
phallic, and on some days,
satisfying.

Nudity #1

He traces the familiar route
of freckles on her back,
a veritable connect-the-dots
of skin and the effects of sun,
and sighs the altogether righteous sigh
of the satisfied-with-life.

She cranes her neck,
looks up into the familiar eyes
of every lover she’s ever had
and asks sweetly,
“What would make you want to leave me?”

He thinks for a moment,
hesitates with the implications of the question
and replies,
“Your clothes.
If you were to put your clothes on right now,
I would leave you.”

Backstage at the Magic Lantern

Marlena tells me I look like sex.
“Hotter than grease on a griddle,” she says.
I don’t believe her.
There’s a rhinestone missing from my silver tiara
and my thighs look fat.

I pick up the black eyeliner
from the cluttered vanity,
disappointed in the
unflattering fluorescent lights;
angry at Marlena’s tight little ass
and how she could hit that high C
even if she weren’t lip synching.

I listen to Roberta warbling “Respect”
as Janice dances in the corner
by the plastic palm.
Her beauty is palpable
and I’m glad for it;
glad for the strung lights reflecting on sequins.

How to Seduce Me

Carry yourself so as to demonstrate
your surety in the rotation of the earth,
and carefully weigh the impact of your words,
spoken or not.

Wait for the moment of awkward silence,
and in that moment,
gently touch the ripe skin of my cheek.

It will be hot,
from blushing and the uncertainty of first impressions,
but the touch is everything.

See? I haven't always been at such a loss.

Fri, 21 Nov 2003 18:18:25 GMT

I find that when I ride the red ten in the morning
from the Springfield terminal all the way
out to the small suburb of Westfield,
there is less intrusion. I can fit my bags easily,
and there is no one to talk to,
no one to look at my naked feet

and when I lick the edges of my pink marbled notebook,
there is no one to imagine the multitudes of
mental disorders with which I am afflicted.

I can dance unabashedly,
battered dicman loyally producing the music
which I usually react to only with
carefully restrained shoulders.

The difference becomes apparent.

Suck, suck, suck.
It'll come back to me, I know it will.
This is what I was born to do. Or something.

Thu, 13 Nov 2003 22:21:32 GMT

Just finished.
Or not.
No title, because I suck at titling things.

As it is, I don't know whether I'll be able to leave
this place next year. My uncertainty
holds me to a place too similar
to everything that has come before.

I fret, rubbing my thumb and forefinger togther
until both are raw, and still I come to no conclusion.

Should I leave in search of a more impermeable self,
or is such a notion best left to the wishful musings
of a dissatisfied woman?
I can't imagine I've done enough to be called "woman,"

yet I know I want more.

Critique, anyone?
God, it's been too long.

Thu, 13 Nov 2003 03:19:57 GMT

Right. So.
This is my new journal.
As stated in the info [which I'll probably change at some point, making this sentence nonsensical], it's for Writing.
I don't know what to post first.