Her Hair in terse blond droves: pixie, Reading over a pot of tea

She leans in, placing one hand at the nape of her neck

Then removes it, nibbling at the skin of her thumb,

Pressing her hand up to her chin, and

down to paper

Into her hair, then back to examining the inconsistencies of the

callous cuticles about her nail

-BHN

no sleep

some songs are

symphonic like

shivery wavelengths

through the heart

the kind for

soaring a little tipsy

through a packed

party feeling that

anything could

happen.

this one is

too, heard first

in its natural

habitat:

from big

speakers at 2AM

after glasses of

wine.

it played again

late, in the library,

at the hour

when reading isn't

appealing anymore

and all you want is

love. that

time, between

books, it struck me

sadly,

symphonic

shivery wavelengths

of misplaced

promise

no jobs and

no sleep and

live it up like

it's the weekend

vibrating with

those empty night time

emotions that

don't find

feet in the day, don't

translate themselves into

connection when

we scatter around

city blocks.

test its

promise. make

out to a song

like that in the

morning

with the windows

open and

the sun catching

rising particles

of dust.

cvp

Love Poem

You are almost taller

than me, little beanpole

budboy. You

slouch sometimes because

all the other boys are

shorter and you

lisp a little because

your teeth are still

retained but I see

you

in your messages, in your

jokes, in your calm composure

snorkeled face to snoutnose face with

a shark.

You outgrew your

blazer already, obviously,

because no amount of

Newman O's or grilled cheese

could fill your stomach

these days, and every time I

come home and you run to

the door your stick legs

are three inches longer. And

I was so happy when mom

gave me the blazer: Brooks

Brothers youth small thick

double fabric, gold buttons,

striped lining, the same that you

will keep wearing until

Mom and Dad don't dress

you anymore. I like carrying

you on

my back, like so many

piggybacks and pony

rides, like you carry that

big backpack, now, full of

long books and A+ tests

in Spanish, when you

remember to do your

homework.

You still run like a child, a little

gimpy, but

I see the lope coming,

I see the fire that will light

something more than this fun

phase of pyromania and strobe

lights, the fire that

maybe set you off

on the first of many runs

with Dad on the first day

of spring. Spring off, beanpole

budboy, lope away, just

promise me you will

always hug me the way

you have since I could

carry you.

CVP

even stillness can move here

old cameras click twice

the shutter stutters

stop go second guessing

the shot before

then click

pull back, captured,

sepia smile, frozen faces,

flying hair.

the movement stops there

or keeps moving but is captured

savored, undone.

no movement could unmove

me these days i am whizzing by

catching flight on bicycles and

letting the wind wisp my bangs

up through the air.

once yesterday amid this movement

moving quickly i was deep in

motion on the street going

somewhere and i suddenly thought

that you are leaving soon and soon

you will be gone moving away

and i will be here moving around

in aimless motion clicking my

boots on pavement letting

momentum ride on the soles of

my shoes lingering between me and

sidewalks while i am muting thoughts

of other things besides permissible

distractions like the

undeniably compelling

tap of tapping fingers on

tabletops, waiting. in the

morning you smell warm

of sleep and your skin is

something smooth and close and

still. soon your absence will be thick

air, humid nothingness next to me

in bed, densely trying

to be matter until motion and

remotion dissolve it into the

movement of the day.

d

Listening to Songs from Two Years Ago

Shh

Spring is still

sleeping snow still

melting from the sky so

I plug into my headphones

walking step shuffle

click rubber soles hit

strangely electronic, a

soundtrack to

my footsteps shimmering

baseline remix.

Love Like

a Sunset feels right for

the gray, the cold, the

snow

last night's dreams and

memories: a

late night car, a

landing on the

moon. chords pop

pull me

out dry but leave me

strangely

sentient vibrating

to the sadness

behind my lids,

the sounds still between my

ears

Nemi tunam

begam ke khub-e, ke

koshang-e, ke

khoshal-e chun

nemi dunam chi-e,

jendegi kardan dar

Tehran: streets like any

other city but they drink

tea there, and the girls

wear scarves over their

jeans and combat boots and

speak in lion's voices and

sometimes their

brothers rape them,

sometimes they are fourteen and

their mother's slip them

E in their baby

dolls.

The House helps

them but I can't yet

say that it's

good, that it's

beautiful, that it's

happy, because I

still don't know what it is,

to live in

Tehran: Nemi dunam

chi begam.

I don't know what to say

but I know

I would walk there in

a second for the

squeeze of a hand, the

promise that it will be

good, it will be happy, it

will be beautiful.

CVP

lazy fog

this isn't spontaneous overflow

or a garden of words

with flowering language

and scintillating syntax.

it's a box of postcards,

old photographs,

faded rays of sunshine

and chalk white smiles--

running through fields

with a bush whose top sways

in the breeze.

i miss

memories i've forgotten,

they leave craters in my

heart, suck water from my

brain, like sticking a

straw in a coconut

to suck the milk from its shell.

i miss misunderstandings through

unshared words, miss the lack of electricity

that illuminates an electric sky--

splattered stars and a nightlight moon--

i miss

fog that sleeps in,

nestled inside the valleys of

one thousand hills.

i've wanted to sleep in, too, lately,

sink deep into silence,

clutch tall grass and refuse

to rise, shut

my eyes tight until sunny rays

light up behind the lids

and tell me that the beat goes on,

the sun will keep rising, even

if people are dying, killing,

standing on streets with machetes,

or living through a nightmare that

refuses to stop.

the drum deafens, that endlessly

beating endlessly moving endlessly

constant sound of progress, turning

pain and passion into rote learned facts

of history.

i don't understand this, this movement, unremembrance,

flow of time.

i immortalize tears,

strain them for their salt, seek them

for their solace, misunderstand them for

meaning as i flip through these snapshots

that show

bright colored cloth

bumpy roads,

fancy looking insects,

unfamiliar to this castle in which i abide.

difference is relative, though.

maybe we're all relatives. so raffiki this is for

you. i'm holding tight to your words as tears fail

to connect these dots and photographs

into a life, a history. your words

stand tall, they shoot for the stars

all the time every time, even after

they miss. lately mine seem to be drowning in

murky puddles, falling flat, lacking hope, but yours

need no conditioning. you speak from

what is it? the bottom of your heart

inhaling before their utterance

and exhaling their veracity. we can't do

everything, but we can do something.

dls

NOTES ON KIERKEGAARD FOR THE MIDTERM EXAM

It's settled then I will never be a philosopher I get far too distracted here are some more lines that needed to be put in a poem

1. One does not dare look at the other at all for fear
of discovering that he does not have proper eyes
but glass eyes and hair made from a floor mat

2. Like the customs clerk who,
in the belief that his business was merely to write,
wrote what he himself could not read

3. It is like wanting to paint Mars
in the armor
that makes him invisible

4. But to be a lover, a hero, etc.
is reserved specifically for subjectivity,
because objectively one does not become that

5. BEHOLD
a. Behold, erotic love is a qualification of subjectivity,
and yet lovers are very rare

6. BY KILLING ME
a. Thus abstract thinking helps me with my immortality by killing me
as a particular existing individual
and then making me immortal
and therefore helps somewhat as in
Holberg the doctor took the patient's life
with his medicine
but also drove out the fever.

7. SOME REFERENCES TO THE MOON
a. It can only occur...
by tying a ribbon around the little finger
and throwing it away in some remote place
when the moon is full...
b. Speculative thought must first explain
how a particular existing subject
relates himself to the knowledge of mediaton,
what he is at the moment,
whether, for example,
he is not at that very moment
rather absentminded,
and where he is,
whether he is not on the moon

8. AT THIS POINT MY INTROSPECTION WAS INTERRUPTED BECAUSE MY CIGAR WAS FINISHED AND A NEW ONE HAD TO BE LIT. [!]

9. ASTRONOMY OR
We shall stop with these few examples.
Examples I have aplenty; I can keep on as long as need be;
I have enough for a lifetime and therefore do not need
to proceed
to astronomy or veterinary science.

- SK, mediated by CDL