miss

miss diana,
you're here again,
aren't you?
hurting.
it hurts no less
without the anger:
barking with his name in the doghouse,
and dancing to avril lavine until wee hours
with the girls i wouldn't let see me cry.

today her greasy hair shined in the morning light
next to rows of heirloom tomatoes
whose bulges and wrinkles always make me laugh.
i bit into my raw corn i had already eaten,
gnawing at its marrow
to avoid thoughts of her night before
that could have been mine.

i hate that we speak the same language
and you listen so fucking well.
i hate when we see each other
and that i don't know how to listen at all.
i hate wanting to see you
and that you always think the right thing.
i hate that this is hard
and that i'm just as far from invincible
as i've ever been.

i'll love my always loved quick fixes-
miles of hills
smooth dark chocolate
and my mom's coaxing voice
saying it's better.
she always says it's better.
but she doesn't know
when i snuck off to sled with sam
at every snowfall,
or our hours lying around listening to the white album
or canoeing around unknown waters.
she doesn't know about the sunday brunches
at the mcgoldricks,
that were full of blankets and crossword puzzles.
i never told her
about staying up all night with christopher,
running around the farm
under the night sky.
or when we drove hours,
for a short hike on the Appalachian trail.
or rearranging our entire schedules
to make sure we made completely homemade pizza
or running off to boston
with mushrooms and goat cheese, the sunday times,
and a glorious porch.
i didn't mention,
that i miss him.
actively, residually, annoyingly.
it's far from clean cut,
it's a fucking mess,
just like me.

DLS

talking

when i look at you
in my mind's eye,
i see myself
with my elbow acutely
propping up my face
to look at you.
your sheets
are blue and
not very soft,
but all the skin
was.
i still let you touch it,'
when your eyes went sad
and you told me
i was unfair.
it didn't make it better
but your hands clasped
around my waist,
and i thought of the nights
i could spend closing my eyes
and reaching to wrap your arm
on that spot.
it's for freedom,
or something like that.
you called it nebulous
and unfair.
i laughed,
and said we're talking about emotions,
right?
you told me not to laugh.
well i may not be a civil uprising,
using the word with valiance,
but i'm not ready
for anything else.
so all there was to do
was dance.
i stepped right foot back
and left sliding
double twirl under your
arm
twister, dip
behind the back grab,
twirling, twirling
and spinning, spinning,
my hair went out,
and i hid my smile.
if we're spinning towards entropy,
like they say,
every last one of us,
in pairs, in clusters, in movements,
may as well make it a dance.

DLS

On August 19, 2010

Well, she couldn’t find Westminster
But she could yell up a storm
Soggy dishes,
Chipped ceramics,
An explicit display on the floor.
And I thought, “Oh god, if this is the end of it,
Then I don’t want it anymore.”
Well, we got to Westminster eventually
But I should’ve known that
On Westminster
We wouldn’t find what we were looking for

A girl is a girl is a girl
Isn’t any other .
So, settled; it’s done
I am me, you are you, not me, just you, just you,
Granted, I understand where you’re coming from
But I see you
And have decided
To be
Different
Because the grass is always greener for you
On the side of the road that’s in the past
And eludes you:
The orgastic fading light, the eternally setting sun
Overlooked and dismissed today after yesterday, today, today, yesterday.
And I have chosen to live in the future, the future, the future

When all this is over, we will drink bubble tea
And laugh softly at a life we choose not to have
And we have love still,
If you doubted it
For my sake,
But for yours too:
Most important of all,
I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you

-BHN

To the Veterans of Brooklyn

Even though they wished one to forget the City and become lost in the “natural” wilderness, in Central Park, Olmsted and Vaux deliberately hid signs of their art for only the most discerning visitor.
—The Blue Book Guide to New York City

Near Green-Wood Cemetery there is a smaller park.

It is also solemn: To the Veterans of Brooklyn.

The statue is tall, grave stone. Though upright it arcs

As if among the gravestones of Green-Wood. There is a tin

Flower at its foot. Bright and metal, the kind that spins,

It is held in a glass bottle. There is a black, dry pen

And cracked, brown leaves by the scattered thin grass. Finally then,

The last fall leaves lift; and the pinwheel flower moves in the wind.

—EWW

An apology

So much time spent thinking
4:33AM and there's no beer in this house
(Which is some fucked shit)
Only Popov. Fucking Popov.

A full fucking night of thinking and all I get is Popov?

False--look to the less tangible, the more digestible:
Facebook 'stalking;' truly, deeply, with people that I have nothing left to lose with anymore
Less time relating to others' standards, I tell myself regularly, now
And music! Loud noisy trash with that voice,
That voice that you love because it fucking hurts
And you don't feel like an angsty preteen, because read line 8
Even him, bub, though he'll laugh and raise his eyebrows
Fuck it

This is a shitty poem. But it's less shitty because you say so?
And it's fucking fun to be shitty occasionally. Just stop freaking out about it later

LIL

August 13th

Why do we equate closeness with falling?
We say: the meteor falls to Earth,
though it may have come from
hundreds of thousands of miles away,
in a same-plane fashion
or zig-zag, perhaps.
Earth doesn’t pull so much as crash.

Likewise we say people fall in love,
as though it has more to do with gravity
than chaos.
Falling in love is just like bumping into a hurtling space-rock—
first the thrall of hot hot closeness,
then one hits those impenetrable, invisible
paper-thin barriers,
and is equally rebuffed.
Love is no more than the mad
crazy and beautiful streak on the sky
as we burn up.

EWV

I think I wrote

I think I wrote the best poem I've ever written
Last week. It started with a stupid walking-through-Central-
Park joke, and then developed into something that
Makes me really uneasy. I worked on it
And in fact am still working on it, as we
Speak. So I've done the beginning-middle, but
Not the end. I was thinking about it yesterday
Too, when I was cooking carnitas and
Ramen, but I still don't know why it
Isn't so good yet. It's not this poem, in case
You were still confused. This is more of a waiting-
For-my-salsa poem. I think it isn't all that good
But I think I'll share it with all of you anyways.
After all, my sister thinks I can be funny
Spontaneously sometimes. I don't know if
This is such an instance. I'm just really hungry and
Trying to distract myself while I get my
Tacos ready.

It'd be great if you were here,
As long as you're not vegetarian, you, whoever you
Are, because then we could eat tacos together because I
Think I'm going to have lots of leftover salsa and carnitas,
Overflowing from my little corn tortillas
Just like that really good poem I wrote last week,
But that still isn't done, is overflowing into this one.

Not what's good about it. Not at all. It was so
Concise. This is a bit rambling, if I may say
So myself. But tacos are supposed to be
Concise too, aren't they?

—EWW

Lately I've been

reading Cavafy, Simic, and Frank
while newspapermen pass me by
calling strangers, interrogating telephones.
I've been summery-er. Er. That is.
More like summer and tanned-gold-almost.
I've been substantive.
Bishop helps - the girl, not the hat.
Poetry days, morning runs, trains.
Lately archways mend themselves
before I walk beneath them and
pigeons manage to balance
on those very thin
white
cornices.

I think,
"like kings of old,
or like a miracle"
and gallons of coffee to swallow
and crumbs that are buttered loaves.

It is dark still,
but I see the sun coming up,
over the balconies and white
pyramids - warming them,
so cool and calm and real,
and pointed.

It is so soon, isn't it?
That we'll all be together again.

CDL

A Limerick

I met a young fellow named Peter;

He told me he didn’t like Jeter.

We went for a walk;

I hit his head with a stalk,

And his heart stopped beating its meter.

—EWW

the water's ice cold here

The moving wood panels on the Brooklyn bridge scared me slightly
But I hid my gasp with pursed lips and inquisitive eyes in an amateur attempt to appear curious or maybe attractive
In any case at least I found distraction with the slow coo of

-iiiiiiiiiice cold waterONE DOLLA iiiiiiiiice cold water-
And the slow beat of hip hop from the traffic
Blocking out the mumble of words underneath

And the comforting thought
That I could wear a short denim jumper and deep red lipstick
And I wouldn't be the strangest one on the bus,
Not that I particularly care for deep red lipstick.

Still crossing, and my left hand jumped to my chest
At the sight of the symbolic statue

I climbed with Indian Princesses in the third grade
And my grandparents saw once,
And maybe they cried in public when they did,
But probably not.

How strong they were.
And I felt like a cliche, but cliches do come from somewhere, you know,
And just on this bridge everyone looks so different,
And despite my ennuyence with a public kiss, it's nice to know you can.
Mostly, though, the subtle locks on the bridge with two names, just two, ring true.
Maybe one day

But my heart was still lightly floating because I went to a bustling flea market
With people with light brown boots and thick rimmed glasses
In an old bank in Williamsburg,
And I now wear a potentially tacky, glittery headband with a large flower
And earrings with trees inside
And there's a beaded Mexican shirt in my bag that may have sweat stains
But I prefer to think of it as decorative,
Like the paper I used to blot with tea bags at colonial camp.
(Yes: I went to colonial camp.)

Walking along, I felt a growing false sense of nostalgia
For a city I wish I knew better,
But felt quite warm from the thought that I could be accepted here
As an extra fan in a sweaty apartment building in the summer
Or an extra body on a subway packed with people trying to avoid (or maybe catch) eye contact
Or an occupier of the shade under a young but full tree in a tiny, unnamed park that takes up the empty triangle of space between two streets doomed to intersect
Or extra feet walking down the sidewalk with a sense of purpose, trying to think of the important things I had to do with such important and focused steps.
-icecoldwadaicecoldwadaicecold How you doin?-

There are happy things in this world,
And the half new/half old ones are quite a smile,
Even when they remind me of the things tar away,
(on the other half of this infinite dialectic, moving towards something hopefully better than mediocre),
Those things that make me cry on airplanes and in churches
(It's distracting to hide tears),
All a part of the never ending war of words, weapons, and maps.

Today, it will be enough to smile, though,
And rest my head on my sisters shoulder
As we ride home in a quivery car of metro north,
With challah between my feet

(I almost cried when I saw it,
But instead I smiled,
And payed three times as much
For a much less fresh variety.)

DLS