12/14 trees and things

Snow

I found you in a cotton shirt,
lying long ways in the living room floor,
while the ceiling fan slowed to a crawl
and December chill crept in from the window.
You dropped your shoulders into the Saxony carpet
while the fibers bent around you like perfect eggshell sand.
They cradled the base of your neck, reminded you
of a time when summer filled the room, filled
our mouths, tasted wine thick between us.
And you didn’t seem to notice
when I said your name.

~

Oak

He looks at me with oak tree brown,
wise, like the crimson rings in the whites
of his eyes count the age of his soul.

He sways but does not sleep.

If I broke apart his skin and searched for green,
I wonder if I would find wilted leaves,
if I would find bark running between
veins in the branches.

Wise, like the crimson rings in the whites
of his eyes count the age of his soul.

Doughnuts, Goetta and Chocolate Delight

“You’ve never had goetta?”

I didn’t realize how my denial would affect the rest of my Saturday night. Ali D., my roommate from the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts was sitting on my couch, her arm stopping mid-swing as she prepared to bowl her final frame on Wii Bowling. Jen, another GSA alumni came skidding in from the kitchen in her new pair of Christmas socks. They had smiling Christmas trees on them.

“She’s never had goetta?!” Jen was the definition of a fiery red head, always laughing, always smiling, and always making up some new joke about our residence life group from Governor’s School. She was not smiling now. Her brow had fallen into a concentrated curve and she gave Ali one of her serious business faces. Jen and Ali had a sort of secret language I had never figured out. They were both Visual Art students at GSA, while I was Creative Writing. I would often catch them staring at each other, laughs on the tips of their tongues while they made some private joke through their pupils. It was frustrating to be out of the loop, but more interesting to watch.

Ali and Jen deliberated, half in silent looks, half in actual words (most likely for my benefit) claiming I had no life without this mysterious food called goetta. From what I could draw it was some sort of sausage with oats—not too appealing to think about if you asked me. I like to avoid oats…and foods that were, as Jen put it, “kind of like hot dogs—you just don’t think about what’s in it.” Ali assured me it was much better than it sounded. It was a German thing, she said, a Northern Kentucky breakfast dish. Somehow it was extremely important.

“Like hash?” I asked.

They just laughed.

“No, not like hash. It’s waaay better than hash.” I was a little surprised Ali had experience in eating hash at all, but then again, with the sound of this goetta, I couldn’t really be that surprised.

To prove to me how popular this goetta was, Ali and Jen pulled out their cell phones, texting friends and family to tell them all that I had never had goetta. Had I missed out on some major part of growing up—like watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade or tasting PlayDough for the first time? Hopefully goetta was in no way similar. I had missed some rite of passage…and my family claimed German roots. Was I simply a shame to my own heritage? At least I wasn’t alone. Mark, my boyfriend had never heard of the dish, and he was German enough for the both of us.

“We have to get goetta.” Jen clutched her phone and glanced towards my keys lying on the floor.

Oh, right. I was the one with the vehicle.

Ten minutes and forty seconds later we were in my car, Jen riding shotgun, heading to the local Wal-Mart Supercenter. If they didn’t have it, no one would.

They didn’t have it.

We searched the meats, the tubed sausages, the eggs, the frozen meats, the weird cheese kiosks. Ali was stamping down the spice aisle (because that’s exactly where you would find German sausage with oats) calling out: “Goet-ta! Goet-ta! Why—don’t-you have Goet-ta!?” That got us all going. Ali danced around the paprika, legs crossed to keep from peeing and hand over her mouth to keep from howling. Jen’s make-up was running down her cheeks in rivers and I was doubled over on the floor. This was the way things usually turned out between us. Once we started, there was no stop. The odd combination of being together after spending almost six months apart and searching for this mystery food was just comical enough to get ourselves kicked out of Wal-Mart.

Well…kicked out is such a strong word…

Asked to resign from shopping was more like it.

Back in the car, Ali and Jen were more determined than ever to get some goetta. Ali rode in front this time while Jen sat in the back calling Dylan and Thomas to see if they’d ever had goetta. Dylan thought it was some form of inner-city culture he should know about. Thomas thought it was a person.

“Thomas, you’re such a Debbie Downer!” was all Jen had to say.

These girls were crazy. They sang songs about goetta and the moon. They bounced around in my car like a couple of sling-shot bouncy balls. Ali directed me to the nearest Kroger to check their stock while they discussed the ways of cooking and eating goetta.

“You put syrup on it.”

“No, Jen, that’s gross. Mustard. It’s mustard.”

“Sick! Freak-face, you eat mustard in the morning?!”

“Yes! I can’t believe you put syrup on your goetta, that’s so disgusting.”

“Mustard’s disgusting.”

All I had to do was sit back and watch—and drive of course—as they threw down their cases for each topping. I was almost certain if they had both been in the back seat there would’ve been a fight. Over goetta. Ali claimed goetta had to be baked, while Jen said fried. All the while, I doubled over the steering wheel, trying to focus on driving while I laughed.

When we reached Kroger, my partners in crime made a b-line for the meats. They stopped only once, distracted by icing cookie sandwiches made to look like frogs, and then they were back on their mission. We found the sausages easy enough, causing a scene next to the hot dogs. We were all calling it out now.

“Goetta! Goet-ta!”

Deli workers stared. Late night Kroger shoppers altered their paths around us so to not get too close. We were diseased. We were insane. We were too happy for a midnight Kroger run.

We scanned the sausages up and down. Mild, country style, hot, lean, fat-free…

“IT’S GOETTA!!!” Jen’s hand snatched up a small beige tube in the forgotten bottom corner of the sausages and raised it high over her head. Screaming and flailing her arms, Ali grabbed it from her to read the label.

“It is! We found it!”

What I had expected to be a more grand and sophisticated food turned out to be just another tube of sausage. It looked a lot like fruit cake…only with less color and less…cake…

Jen was our parade leader, holding the goetta high over her head as we made our way to the check-out lanes. All the while Ali walked half doubled over, again to avoid peeing herself, making as much noise as possible.

“Ali, Ali. Let’s not get kicked out before we can buy it.”

We made it out safely and were back home in a matter of minutes, huddled around the stove, frying up disks of meat and oats, documenting every second with Jen’s digital camera. These are my friends. I thought, then again…we are the company we keep, right?

The smell of goetta was interesting, more like old sausage…left-over hamburgers. I agreed to try both syrup and mustard to appease the girls (syrup was better) and they began calling everyone they knew to see if they’d ever had goetta. Unabashed by the number of no’s and the many voice-mail inboxes we reached, we left long explanations of goetta and sang Christmas carols to our sleepy friends. We soon raided the fridge. Chocolate delight, doughnuts, pizza, goetta. It was our greatest smorgasbord, all washed down with a couple bottles of Ale-8. It was a night of local favorites, a night of triumph. I had goetta for the first time. The Three Musketeers were back in action. Our appetites and adventures appeased, we soaked up each other’s company in the yellow light of my 1 a.m. kitchen, munching on goetta and cracking open walnuts just to see if we could get them out whole.

Earthly Swallow

Pages turned to grey
as each moment lost itself
in sand drips of hourglasses,
in floral couch cushions
and in lightless stars
of the Kuiper belt.

Ink ran down our fingers,
bled from the corners
of our mouths, around
mason jar glasses
full of communion wine,
around planetesimal forms
standing eclipsed in our pupils.

Words erased themselves
from Earth's history.
Syllable by syllable they fled
from the underside
of a billion tongues, escaping
off the edges of open umbrellas

and became memories captured
in a firefly's tail, burning out in summer,
setting the space between your fingers aglow.

We were zeroed in,
back to black-skiy square one
when our languages never breathed
and eyes told our stories
like windows thrown open
to rid our minds of all the smoke,
when open mouths were pressed
in lines and bodies learned to say
I need you.

Pages turned to grey
and skies consumed my goodbye,
wrappped themselves around like wax paper
and banished sound
from our moment.

This Week's Begining is Just an End

This morning is a lazy kind of morning. Not so much tired as an apathetic lazy. I've checked out for this week. There's nothing I can really do to bring myself out of four days from now. I'm already there, waiting on the swing in the backyard under my paisley quilt. Mom and Dad are gone for their black Friday shopping and I am just waiting. It is sunny out and a chilled wind wraps itself around the yard. I draw up the quilt and lay down across the seat, swaying lightly. This year seems to be full of moments like this, sighing moments that just deserve to be observed. Human alterations of these moments would be sinful. They are like silk paintings in the wind, caught by a draft in a split second and then sent flying again as time finds itself and remembers who he is. I wait for the sound of a car, for my phone to vibrate in my pocket, but time seems to have stopped. The browning grass ripples in the wind and the trees make no sound but a low moan between their naked branches. I shush them, dropping my eyes to the back door, watching the house glow orange. Finally it is winter. Not many people can say that, but I have always loved the winter. I have always loved the snow and the shorter days, the whistling of bare oaks and bradford pears, hot tea in a snowman mug, pumpkin pie, Christmas candies, the wait for spring. That is what I love the most about winter--the wait between fall and spring. It is timeless. It is frozen. It is a moment to reflect upon the frivolities of summer that needed no analyzation before now. It is a moment to consider who we are, what we are doing and who it is we miss the most.

Still, I am waiting. I am swinging steadily now, resting my head on the bars, curling my toes under to keep them warm. The dog is laying under the swing, snoring. I envy him. I couldn't sleep now if I wanted to. My notebook lays open flat in my lap, a pen poised between my fingers, but I stare off into the distance and let my eyes slide out of focus. That is where I am. Waiting.

Les Leçons Dans Le Media.

Il y a beaucoup de leçons que nous pouvons apprendre des actualités et des événements dans le monde. Nous apprenons des leçons dans nos vies quand nous voisons des actualités et lire des journales. Aussi de même, si nous voisons les événements dans le monde, nous apprendrons les nouvelles solutions pour les problèmes dans notre pays et le monde.

Par exemple, ce mois, un homme qui s’appelle Nidal Malik Hassan tirait 13 personnes à une base, Fort Hood. Il est musulman, un psychiatre dans le militaire des Etats Unis. Mais, la controverse n’est pas qu’il est musulman, mais que ses amis et ses collègues a dit que ils pensent que Nidal était peut être psychotique. Selon les actualités, il y a beaucoup d’évidence qui suggérer que Nidal avait des problèmes psychologique avant de cet incident.

Personne n’ai pas disent qu’il était des problèmes avec Nidal. Il était suivant des sites web qu’il était pour les radicales et les terroristes, mais personne n’ai pas disent quelque chose au gouvernement avant de le meurtre. Aussi, il était entrainé avec des groups Islamiques radicaux. Maintenant, il ferait face la peine de mort. Mais, il était des personnes qu’ils pouvaient prévenir tout ce que ce passe. Il y a une leçon ici.

Si nous saisons qu’une personne a des problèmes dans leur vie, nous avons une responsabilité de dire ca. Pour la sécurité des autres personnes et pour la personne dans son tort, nous devons être conscientes de quand une personne n’est pas totalement d’accord. Ceci ne vois dit pas que nous devons être fouiné, mais quand il y’a un grand problème, nous devons dit ca.

Président Obama a ordonné une révision des agences intelligences des Etats Unis pour savoir s’ils savaient que Nidal avait des problèmes. Il est possible qu’il trouve plus que nous savons au sujet de l’état mental de Nidal avant de le meurtre. C’est triste qu’il était des évidences qu’indique ses problèmes. Peut être il serait libre et recevant le traitement pour sa condition psychotique. Mais, non.

Nous avons beaucoup de leçons d’apprendre quand les évents passent comme ca. Il est importante que nous sommes clairvoyantes et entendent quand il y a un grand événement sur les actualités et dans les journales. Ils nous enseignent beaucoup pour nos vies et pour la sécurité, la longévité et la prospérité de notre monde.

Recollection

She didn't hear him the first time he called. She was wrapped in the blankets like a cocoon and the blue light from the television was floating beneath her eyelids, aurora patterns against the black. Somewhere at the base of her neck she could feel the prick of waking. It crawled up into her brain and invaded her consciousness.

He called again. Soft.

It was her favorite way to wake, in the middle of the night, swathed in an electric blanket and cramped on the couch in the den. She drew the blanket back up over her head and laughed.

“I’m so comfortable.” she groaned.

He called again, this time closer, showering her in his warm breath. She let her head sink back into the couch, sighing, willing herself to open her eyelids and leave sleep behind. His fingers traced the length of her jaw. It was every night like this, every night waking up where she shouldn’t be, him bringing her back to bed. She laughed again.

“I must have fallen asleep.”

He answered in a low murmur, drawing her further and further from her repose. He called once more. She pulled down the blanket, let the full wave of light from the TV hit her, and slid open her eyelids.

And to the room she gave one hollow sigh. She shuffled across the room, shut off the television and went back to bed, twisting his wedding band around her finger.

Atonement

When the moon swells, we’ll all die.
It’s just inevitable, in fact she’s been
bloated these past few days.

She sucks in the night sky and chews
up the stars between her teeth.
And her belly laugh sings us all to sleep.

When the moon swells, she pines
for the ocean’s touch and she’s reaching
out for him to take her back where she belongs.

Moon from water, earth from water,
we are all in love with liquid, longing
to be blanketed in soundless glide.

Paper Rabbits

This past weekend I was standing in my best friend's kitchen when her mother came through, smacking the Herald Leader down and complaining about one or two of the headlines. It took me a few moments to notice that what she had brought in was, in fact, the newspaper I had been selling months ago at my former job as a cashier at Walgreens.

Significantly smaller, the paper didn't make quite a satisfying smack on the kitchen counter, nor did it bulge with adds for local businesses. It was a simple, flat paper, less than half of its former glory. I noted this to my friend's mother who merely sighed, telling me that since they get the paper every day, she's been able to watch the slow deterioration of something Lexington once prided itself on.

It's become apparent that newspapers are in trouble. With Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL taking over the news circuit, many people believe that print newspapers are in for a heavy hit. With the massive lay-offs on the Herald, I can see they've already been socked a few good times.

Personally, I like the feel of a newspaper. I like to unfold the sections, search for continued articles, read the comics, the editorials, feel the paper between my fingers. Nothing can replace the feeling of a good, thick newspaper under your arm--as much as institutions like Blogger.com are threatening it. There's something concrete about having a newspaper, something I think the majority of the population is faithful to.

Blogs and online newspapers have a place in American society and news today, but I agree with John Carroll when he says in his article "The Future (we hope) of Journalism": Bloggers see themselves as heirs to the pamphleteers who were prominent in the American Revolution. I think they're right. If Thomas Paine were alive, no doubt he'd be blogging away.

There have always been people out their giving their opinions and their own version of the news, but the institution of most newspapers today is just too strong to be wavered by a force like wordpress and blogger. The new technology that has given us these new forms of journalism is really a great thing, but something I don't think will impact the print papers so drastically that I'll have to log onto my computer to read the news every day.

Quite frankly, I don't think the effort is worth it.
A blog, valuable as it is, is simply not an institution with enough heft to stand up to big government and big business. We need institutions of journalism, muscular institutions, not just individual voices. (John Carroll)

1 plus 3

Happy Friday 13th, all.

Today, I advise you to walk under a ladder into a pet shop to buy a black cat who has a deep hatred for mirrors.

Good luck.

Shale

The sheets are stone against the bed,
crumpled in a mountainous rock face
by the footboard, and the blankets
lie spread out on the floor like
a valley at the foothills.

Something in these sheets pricks
the edge of her mind in the night,
a chronic tautness in her muscles
to fuel the insomniatic twitching.

She covers herself in earth each night,
buried alive beneath quilted cliffs.
She hides her face away
in ruffles of eroding lace
while day kisses her one last time,

as he turns out the light,
and locks the door behind him.

Fall Break

We were passing white nights under black skies, and the air froze as lungs expanded, leaving open mouths wide, heads turned to heavens searching for starlight to illuminate the vacant spaces linking our teeth. There are no goodbyes between the half hours around midnight and the layers of 2 a.m. slumber, blue ivory feet sticking to frosted concrete. Winter consumed Lady Fall while night leapt from behind the streetlamp, catching us without headlights on a winding road. Let’s get lost, you said, let’s get lost; let’s find the stars again. But, honestly, I might run away with Orion if you can’t find a more dazzling belt. I’ve always been mesmerized by open sunroofs, night air caught mid-breath, and the prospect of losing our way exactly where we meant to be. I tried to tell you, but when I said goodnight, my voice turned to whispers and the sun dipped behind the trees. I tried to tell you; I found the starlight between my teeth. I told you we don’t have cliffs where I come from, just flat fields and these rolling hills, trying so hard to build up to a wave big enough to earn my suicide. These canyons you brought to me, wrapped up in paper, cuts of land you carved with the groove of your hands, are begging me to be the one who discovers flight. I always knew I’d jump, but I never dreamed it would be off the owl’s eyelashes, from the tips of her talons. She promised to watch over you while I slept backbone to drywall, and I promised to teach you how to fly. I only wish we could both have hollow bones.

Daddy's work shirt was my art smock...

Tomorrow I'll be seeing my dad for the first time this week. My parents aren't divorced or anything, he works the night shift at Toyota--Body Weld department--so I don't see him much at all. It's almost like living in a house all on my own these days with my mom at work or class until nine or ten in the evening and my dad leaving for work at 4. I get home and he's just left and my mom won't be home for a few more hours.

I make dinner for myself.
I wash dishes.
I do my laundry.
I kind of miss my dad a lot.

I remember when I was six, my teacher, Ms. Reedy told me I looked blue when we were getting ready for story time on the reading carpet. She called my dad and he was so upset that he had to get up so early in
the morning to come and get me. When he got to my school, though, he took one look at me and practically carried me home. I had caught the flu for the first time. I think it was the first time I really got to
stay home and bond with my dad. Nowadays whenever my dad and I go out it's usually on errands for my
mom. We think the same way, me and my dad, so, naturally we're completely incompetent in WalMart. I was hoping I would get a chance to go grocery shopping with him again this weekend, but between
Chicken Chow Mein night with Sara and Madi and a visit to Centre, I don't think it's gonna work out.

*sigh*

Sometimes I forget how much I really love my dad. He's the one I inherited my artist-brain from so a lot of times our personalities just meld and I forget how influential he actually was to my writing. Not that my mom wasn't, my dad was just a huge chunk of where I found a love for books, music and movies. I'll go tomorrow to Southland Bowling Lanes to see my dad bowling in a charity tournament with his work. It'll only be about twenty or thirty minutes, but at least I'll get to say I saw him this week at all.

11/12

Good morning all. I hope you've slept well. Today begins another day in the life of a high school senior. Woo.

This morning I discovered six things:
1. Toothpaste is not to be swallowed in large amounts.
2. If you sleep with your hand under the pillow, it might turn blue by morning.
3. If you're going to drive down Springhill Drive at 8 a.m., it's a good idea to have sunglasses.
4. Just because you've been dating someone for four months, doesn't mean they'll take the initiative and be the first one to say, "good morning".
5. Scarves make everything better.
6. Google is the worst place to look for news.

Big news in Grobania (even if I'm a few days late):
Josh Groban's new website is up and running!!!

Ah, another day.
Good morning world, I hope you survive the day.

She Was Day Once

I met night on a subway train

moving east from 42nd, searching
for a lost coin underneath the plastic
seats. She was wrapped in sheets
and fur skin coats, discarded
scraps of blue jeans.

Her eyes were white like star blood
and she whispered galaxy lullabies
saying Orion had left her
in the half hour folds around midnight.

She is a single mother of the moon.

The Milky Way was strung
on the shrunken skin of her left wrist,
clanging against the rings of Saturn
and reflecting Pluto’s blue against her bones.

“There’s no wealth for the night,”
she said, gritty fingernails
scraping against graffiti floor,
“There’s no money for the stars.”

Memorandum

She waits on a star map,

spread across the floor, pinning
blue string in the shapes of
new constellations.

With each drive of the pin
into corkboard she bows her head
in silent prayer.

“I’m mapping out eternity,”
she says, “So we’ll always
have someplace to go.”

There is a sapphire spider
web wrapped around her fingers
and she pulls it into a ladder,
a cradle, a loop knot and
back out again.

“When the string ends,”
she whispers, pushing down
another pin, “that’s where
heaven is.”

Here we are, six billion years or so in the making. Some long way we've come from the cave status, huffing around with no indoor plumbing or written language. Some way we've come.

Today, as I was coasting down Main St., on my way to school, I stopped at a red light, peering at my fellow commuters, sipping coffee, enjoying their sacred defrost and morning radio talk shows. Then, as I swiveled my head to the left, I caught a glimpse of Phoenix Park where sleeping bags and shopping carts scattered themselves among the rot iron benches. Shabby men and women laid themselves over blue chess tables like they had lost the world championship of 1981.

Some way we've come.

Triangle Park

As day breaks, delicate as languid tongues,
he is a void, melted into gutters
where rain water reflects in patterns
of rippled orange.

His spine slouches against
a skyline, breaking from earth,
imprisoned by the sky.

This exhale, this puff of morning
smoke over brick buildings
beneath peach moon blue,
circles his head.
He is empty.

She is imprinted on the street line
creases of his palms, Parisian scent
on the underside of his tongue.
She is transient, coveted, sifted
through frozen hourglasses,
as loved as death.

Isle D'Ivoire

Between the sheets, and my blue dinosaur blanket,
I find a paradise once forgotten in a dream,
an island floating in the linen ocean
where you left your scent.

You wait for me in the palm trees, the sunrise
clasped in the palms of you hands.
"You can't miss this," you say, lifting
your smallest finger so I can see.

When I come to the island, I find you
straddling the curve of the earth, one foot
on each shore, fishing for summer orange
over the horizon, while you hang the moon
from your line like bait.

Why haven't you fished these past few nights?

Your skin was gingerbread from all the days
spent gripping the sun so close to your face.
I never expected you to pull it down for me.
But there it was, the day you left,
wrapped up in Christmas paper,
caught in the dome of a snowglobe.

Sometimes, between the sheets and my blue
dinosaur blanket, I find an island where it rains,
an island where I stand on ivory beach,
waiting for you to return so soft
between the sheets.

We Are Poem

Sometimes I wait for our moments to overdose,
past all the times I said, I can’t.
I can’t.
Sometimes I’m trying to talk myself off the page,
until there’s only free fall into the air,
off the edge of college ruled blue lines
into your arms.


Sometimes I wish you’d rip me apart,
analyze my pieces to know what I am.
Sometimes I wish you’d take me by the throat
and slice me open with daisies, I can only bleed
an ocean of summer night fireflies.
Listen to their voices.
I am poet.
You are muse.


Tap into me like a maple for syrup
and I’ll sink slow out of my skin
into your hands. Have you ever held
a poet between your fingers
and wrapped her around like a wedding band?


Cut me open and you’ll find a million magnetic
words stuck to my vertebrae, arranged
in a Whitman poem that forms the ribs
across my chest.
It says “I can hear America singing.”
while hugging my lungs tight,
so every time I breathe into your face
you taste the lyric oxygen.
I am poet.
You are muse.


Tear apart my pigments,
my freckles, my scars
and you’ll find the beating thesaurus
pumping out all the synonyms for your name.
You’ll find my soul, flayed open like the pages
of a grade school journal
where I wrote my name and yours in purple-ink
scribbled hearts.


Sometimes, I wish you could dissect me,
let my organs tell you the truths
that my tongue never figured out how to say.
Examine my brain.
Maybe beneath my scalp you’ll find
all of Medusa’s snakes wrapped up
to hold me when I’m shaking while you’re pleading
“let me kiss you.”


Understand, I am poet.
You are muse.


Maybe there in the central system
that makes my body go tick,
you’ll find the moon
and all her star songs hidden
in the folds of my frontal lobe.
I stole her last night
while she spied on us,
beneath the street lamp,
when I first let you cut me open,
when I first let you take my breath.


“Muse, you have knives in those eyes.” I said,
Sever the length of my smile,
tear apart my murdered poem pieces
and keep them written on that coffee
stained napkin,
hold them close in the breast pocket
of your Abercrombie button-up.
They are yours.

Blushing

Red, just beneath the skin,
just beneath the purple bruise
circles under her eyes.
She hasn't slept in weeks,
minus tonight.

Red, across the bridge
of her nose, making hazel eyes
gleam under a flickering
street lamp, making
her skin glow gold
beside that silver Audi.
She is blocking the driver door,
whispering promises in her head,
thanking the dark that no one sees

red. Running in, flushed
and painting her ears in pink,
where she tucks soft sandstone
hair. She kept her lips parted,
as if to say something more,
but her mind was silent,
her cheekbones brushed
like a seaside sunrise in
perfect auburn-sunburn

red. In the soft yellow,
she can't distinguish
stars from moon
and home from you.

©Jordyn Rhorer 2009

Skylight

Your face has moon in its glow,
and I know you are dreaming
by the way your eyes are wide
and focused on some unseen star.

Your breath is like disaster,
but your lips tell me to stay.
I taste shooting stars in them,
and with the way you keep
them under your teeth,
I know you like the taste too.

You are Father Night sky
and your untold daydream thoughts
are the answers we were looking for.
When people ask what life means,
I tell them to look for the moon.


©Jordyn Rhorer 2009

Dive

I want to dive deep into the voice of poem,
into the black and thick water like molasses,
like blood in the moonlight. I want to sink

below the surface and suck in thick,
metaphor sky, fill my lungs and drown
in starlight liquor.

I want to breathe poem-air and taste
the raspberry center of the 80% cacao.
I want to run into the brick wall of stanza,

swallow my teeth and be flattened,
like graffiti on its surface.


©Jordyn Rhorer 2009

Morsure (Bitten)

A French horror short film. Excellent, in my opinion.

Samson Went Back to Bed, Not Much Hair Left On His Head

I think it's funny that in the
summer time we write about winter
and in the winter, spring is only a dream.
Though sunlight surges around us
we long for the taste of snow,
the wind on our cheeks.

I've been thinking a lot about the story of Samson and Delilah. I don't know why it intrigues me in the way it does, but I just can't get it out of my mind. Samson made a promise to God that he would never cut his hair. In return, God made Samson strong and powerful. He sent Samson as a Judge to the Israelites to free them from slavery...and Samson didn't exactly follow God's call to a T. He did liberate the people, defeated their offenders, but married outside of his people. Delilah was her name. She cut off Samson's hair in the night, after finding out his secret. He was then captured, weak and without the gift God had given him. This is a man who split a lion in two with his bare hands. This was a man who killed hundreds of men with a "fresh" jaw of a donkey. Suddenly he was weak and vulnerable. He was made to work in a mill for several years, pushing the grinder like an animal.

But the part that facinates me....is that his hair grew back. His hair grew back and his covenent with God grew back and God saw him in favor once more.

A God can be so forgiving?

Unfathomable.

And, this time...I don't say that from a glorifying standpoint. I don't say it as a proclimation to make my reader feel that I have the faith I don't. I say it from the standpoint of a broken, lonely individual. This year has left us battered and bruised. I feel blind to the ways of God. But as sure as the sun rose that day, when Samson pulled the pillars of the pagan temple down with only the arms he was given, God was with him.

God, are you with me?

I sure hope so. I don't think I can do this alone.

The War

An army of white horses

ride on the horizon.

Like a ribbon of

cloud and flame,

consuming the world

in smoldering mouths.

Yahweh.

Their voices

drown the lands

with exaltation

and every knee

is knelt and waiting.

Yahweh.

Sunken in the ashes

of life built by man

the world waits

aside the great beast

jaws tight against

his enflamed reigns,

roaring with tremulous fury.

Yahweh.

Today the birds will feast

under the hoofs of

the Great Commander,

on the flesh left behind.

Today the light will

come into the shadow.

Today, the dark

will be obliterated.

Yahweh.

--
~jack

Writer's block

This is what happens when you take away my music from me. My head clogs up and I can't write. I can't think. I can't form coherent sentences...

The result:

I want my iPod.

I really want my iPod.

I desperately need my iPod.

For the sake of my sanity, please give it to me.

If you're out there, darling iTouch.

I miss you.

And I need you back.

I've lost my mind and I need

you to bring it back to me.

--
~jack

No Man an Island

Eyes who saw before
pull back the cataract film
like a leech against the blue.
See.
Ears who heard before,
rattle the hide stretched over
those deaf and dying drums.
Hear.
Hands who built the sky,
wring the fingers
and forget the swollen scars.
Heal.
Voice who spoke existence,
bite the tongue and
grind the teeth.
Speak.
Again.
Feel the earth tremble
above arthritic limbs
and wash away the cloud.
When the smoke clears
rolling off the horizon like silk
rippling over hillsides,
Wonder what world will remain.
See.
The light of victory peers
from behind some unknown shadow
and we wait.
When the smoke clears,
escaping our lungs
compressed
will we hear your trumpet
or fall before the first note?
Listen.
Feel the fingers snapping
under the weight we carry
like glass beneath the bricks.
We can not build
this alone
we can not hold
this alone
we can not
live
alone.

At this moment...

After 8,506,644 minutes of life...if my calculations are correct, I have come to four conclustions:

1. God does not want me to know everything.

2. Sleep is not always a guarentee.

3. No one is what they seem.

4. If stick a fork in a microwave, the results will be less than pleasurable.
--
~jack

Battered

I always find it hard to breathe when I'm thinking. When I'm thinking really hard, really deep into the edges of my mind, I just forget to focus. My head is feeling light and I realize I'm doing it again. My eyes come back into focus just as my lungs flood with warm, mid-day Arizona air. I see someone staring back at me. The blue marbles, pupils contracted, my head spins.

"Oh, sorry." I mutter, biting my tongue a little.

He laughes; his breath caresses my face. I'm lightheaded again.

"You okay? You've been kind of spacey." His voice is gentle, cautious. The eyes are guarded, poised, waiting.

I shake my head a few times. It reels. The dizzy spells have been plaguing me for days.

"No, I'm just thinking 's all." The words come out slow and I shift my stare to the other end of the diner. I let my eyes pass the tiled walls, the vinyl seats, the checkered floor, like a wave. They wash over each object and then back again, examining the details. The paint-cracks and the leftover crumbs from last night's dinner rush glare at me. There is a man across from us sipping coffee and reading a crisp newspaper. I try to make out the headlines, but give up as he turns the page. The rattle of pages startles me.

"Are you sure?"

He is still staring, I see the concern, but his jaw is set, like he knows what I'm going to say. He always reads me so well. I can't help but hate my own face for being so inconspicuous. I remember howhappy it made him to be right, to know what was in my head.

I decide not to give him the satisfaction.

"I'm truely and completely okay." I smile, but it tastes bitter and dry against the back of my teeth. I let it drop. I look down at my food, untouched. My stomach does a flip.

"Please eat something."

There's that concern again. I dare my eyes to cross the tip of his nose, to look at him square again. I do. My stomach is doing cartwheels. I know there's no color left in my face. He notices too and reaches for my hand across the table. I recoil, this time more out of reflex than actual fear. The polarities of our souls are finally repelling.

The bridge of his nose is wrinkled in frustration. He pulls his hand back and rests it in a loose fist on the table. My eye twitches at the sight. I wonder for a moment what my face looks like these days.

I push away my food.

"I can't," I whisper.

That hurts him. He looks at his own half-eaten burger, resting in greasy wax paper and bites his lip. It is the same expression as the day we left together. Only, somehow then his eyes were bluer.

He tightens his jaw, his mouth is a line now. "Then I won't."

I can feel myself tensing, my pulse rising, but I breathe hard and swallow it. This is what he always does, how he thinks he can reel me back in after the blow. Guilt. I sigh loudly. I can't look at him. I can't put his face back together, back to that velvet, sandy stone figure I used to love. I watch the man with the paper, just over his shoulder. I feel my eyes drift out of focus again.

"Please?"

My jaw tightens. "No."

"Listen to me."

I clench my fist atop the table. "No."

"I'm sorry."

I swallow hard and try to taste those words, try to feel the texture of his tone against the back of my tongue, grind the words between my teeth like gristle. They seem real enough.

But so does the twitch in my left eye, the soreness of my neck and shoulders, the heavyness of my head.

So does everything else.

He wraps up his food and puts it back on the tray. Then he takes mine and wraps it up, but he leaves it off to the side, obviously planning to take it with us.

With us.

I can't believe I'm leaving with him. But, I know that I am, and that nothing will stop me from following him to the car. What a magnificent lamb I have become, trotting along behind him, head down, watching the passing blacktop against my tennis shoes, trying to not look at him across the hood as we climb in. I forget who I was, where I went and who might have taken my sense from me.

And then I remember.

I remember how the dash used to shine in the early morning as we crossed the border into Missouri, Kansas, Colorado. I remember the air against my face from the open window and how soft it felt. I remember being jealous of that wind as it whipped his hair about the headrest and how comfortable it was to just be in that car. It's practically my home now. The passenger seat is where I belong, curled up with my books and cameras.

How can I get home without it?

Leave it, I could not.

Leave him...I was still trying to figure out.

Reflections on Valentine's Day.

Let me begin by wishing all of those with their "heart in a headlock", a happy (and very late) single aware-...oh, sorry Valentine's Day. I haven't been very on the ball with these blogs, but I promised...

 

For those of you still searching for the perfect prom date, no worries. I hope you had a wonderful day of sitting on your couch eating ice cream. (I recommend Cold Stone Creamery's quart ice cream. It has self-pity written all over it.)

 

Today, reflection.

 

It's amazing how many people spend today going out of their way for the people they love. Yes, I think it's great to show affection. Tis a wonderful thing to do.

 

But is it worth it?

 

First of all, personally, I'm not going to make my boyfriends suffer with those kinds of expectations. Your hand that's all I'm asking for. Your hand and your heart. I don't need a heart-shaped box or something chocolate to tell me your affections. I just need the words and actions that suggest it to me.

 

Secondly, is there any reason we shouldn't be treating people with this kind of affection every day? And if not just the people we love but all people. I mean, no, I'm no saint. There are people that I've been unkind to. I have said that I hated people. I'm not proud of it.

 

So this is as much reflections on myself as it is to the readers.

 

We shouldn't succumb to Hallmark's holiday and just love people on a day set aside for it. Yeah, it's okay if you want to do something special just because it's Valentines Day or whatever, but just make sure you're smiling a little more every other day. Love is universal. Love is forever. Love is Christ. And love is every day everywhere.

 

Then again, what is love? Most people think of love and they get this romantic picture in their heads. There's the guy, a dozen roses, chocolates...and (if you're looking from the guy's point of view) the hot girl with skimpy clothes. Love is something given to one special person (or several special persons who don't know about one another) and is a romantic feeling. Well, maybe for individual relationships there is a tad more intimacy, but love is not just a romantic thing.

 

Well, let's start in John, chapter 13. It's the time of the passover and Jesus is dining with his disciples. (CSB Version)

 

"(1) Before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end....(3) Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands, that He had come from God, and that He was going back to God. (4) So He got up from supper, laid aside His robe, took a towel, and tied it around Himself. (5) Next, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet and to dry them with the towel tied around Him."

 

Remember, at this time, you either wore sandals or no shoes at all, so your feet were pretty nasty. The job of washing feet for a dinner, because when you ate, you reclined, was left to the lowest of all slaves in the household.

 

Jesus, the savior of the world, and the one who everyone thought was going to come in as a great and mighty king, took a towel and some water, and washed his disciples' putrid feet. Just think about that.

 

Now, typical Peter, says to Jesus:

 

"(6) He came to Simon Peter, who asked Him, 'Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

 

Peter, as thick as he had been, was aware of just how Holy Jesus is.

 

"(7)Jesus answered him, 'What I'm doing you don't understand now, but afterwards you will know.'

'You will never wash my feet--ever!' Peter said.

Jesus replied, 'If I don't wash you, you have no part with me.'"

 

Peter didn't realize how low Jesus would go for him. He didn't realize that in a matter of days, Jesus would carry a cross, beaten and broken, to Calvary and would die one of the most horrific deaths for Peter.

 

That is love. That is what love means. Love is not chocolates and talking for hours on the phone and it's not sex. It's not sexual at all. It is giving yourself to another and putting yourself third in life.

(John 13: 12-15;34-35)

Jesus said,

 

"'(12)...Do you know what I have done for you? (13) You call Me Teacher and Lord. This is well said, for I am. (14) So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. (15) For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.'

....

(34)'I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. (35)By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.'"

 

Love isn't just for one person and it isn't a sexual thing. Love is letting go of selfishness and becoming humble. Humility, self-sacrifice, and "washing feet". We, as Christians, are commanded to love all people with the self-sacrifice of Christ. Regrettably, I can not admit to portraying that amount of love very often. But, I am trying to find love for total strangers and those who aren't so strange through strengthening my relationship with Christ. His example should lead our lives, not sexual desires or little chocolate hearts.

 

Just keep that in mind.

 

 

 

 

Leaving (written to the tune of Debussy's "Claire De Lune")

Forgive me, it still needs a fair bit of tweaking. I guess I need feedback or comments. "I really love this" or "this sucks" doesn't really help me though...


Her head turned ever so slowly to the window,
watching the lights stream by.
They said nothing to her eyes,
as she drifted past on the wet blacktop.
But, their rhythm whispered the same old rainstorm song,
soft and caramel in her ears.
The melody was familiar,
yet, not all the same.
To each new rain its own sound.
To each raindrop its own pitch.
They fell from the moon,
who hung clear and bright in the distance,
like a guardian, a guiding light.
They fell from the heavens,
angels of night-music.
The wipers broke the penny-shisle raindrops
and strung them across the glass of the windshield.
The quiet swiping lulled her to close her eyes
and press her face against the barrier
separating her from her choir lights.
They illuminated the insides of her eyelids in passing,
pinks and orange, red and white,
and they sang their goodbyes.
Goodbye city.
Goodbye to the sloshing of tires on a rainy day.
Goobye city lights.
And when they were all but gone,
fading like a great ocean liner
in the black-drop of her journey,
waving their white handkerchiefs in la belle noir,
only the penny-whistle raindrops
remained.