desperation

I taste desperation
nauseatingly sweet
coating my tongue in fragrant anxiety
stomach churning and little white pills
sitting in the chair
every cell chanting
I need this
give. me. a. chance.
_________________________________
money is different (now)
more than it ever has been
I knew (then)
that I had plenty of options
time
looks
time
ability
time
experience
time

time

time
_______________________________________
joy is draining from the eyes
of every woman I have seen anywhere
at a bus stop
along the paths they run on to stay young
in lines
in waiting rooms
wringing their hands against iphones
worry has become their lover pounding them into submission
gliding over them tainting even the color of a child’s laugh
________________________________________________________

presence and space swallow
fear
as I grab at the nothing concept of freedom
snatching at
the calm of night
awakening knowing
all is going to be alright

alright

alright

as it is
as the fan spins
as I listen to my own
heart
beating through the walls

Twinkling eyes and beating wind

Twinkling eyes and beating wind

seated on the carved stool she sorted them
spread before her on the wobbly wooden work bench
sliding them into small groupings after careful inspection

here
here
and you go here
no here
yes there

she was pleased

the soiled ones were on the far right almost absent her vision
She slid many there

cracked
rotten
those she slid to the back
the furthest away

shiny ones
bitter ones
too too tiny ones
little piles
spread there and there and there
and there

storm
threatening early
clouds absent
the electric smell warning
the pressure
her skin
her dripping eyes

the first sounds now gatherings
as the chill was entering her legs

more she slid
slide
slide
little piles heaped
'til done

shutting the window against moisture sunk air
she reached top shelf by standing oh highest piled book

folded in dusty velvet
she brought down

what it was she kept up
there
away from common piles
safe from sorting


she released...

dancing air
and musing whispers
twinkling eyes and the sound
nothing but the sound
of the beating wind


nsj
october 2010

of another day

she snaps them
clean white sheets
the room’s heavy window is propped open and outside autumn has begun to whisper
the bed is high and she must step onto a small bed stool to reach the far corner
to press the cotton smooth
to fold the edges under
she imagines this bed differently
in candlelight
soft and etched in his shadow
but the leaves keep turning colors
as time slowly creases her skin
and these days will pass in routine
like pinning clothes in the wind
like winter’s howl and hot wooden stoves
like sweet biscuits and gravy and warm mugs of cocoa
all her desires swept through the window of seasons
her hidden aches knitted quietly into the seams of each winter quilt


October 2010
nsj

when we dare, they are summoned

Risk

edges to jump with the heartthump
eternity’s surging pulse
clicks
&
bellows
tumbling down mystery’s ravaged peaks


Deceivers

guised hunters
Sweet cherry voiced and tender eyed
All giggles and cons
With shielded shovels
Ur grave
Open and patient


Drawn to us

I ( am)
Bastille pitted
Scaling up
with newly ripped muscular halo and
Parvati incarnation power light
dark armies pant over pit edges yellow
Puss
Spit
their salivation salvation offerings desperate now
victory smells of sex to Appolyon’s eyes
yet I defeat him


Awake

Triumph is the taste of earth and flowers and the rise of inner powers
Orgasm is the honey of night runs
Love is the seeking and seeing of it all (within)
open

disease me

it is just a page with some markings
chicken scratch
screen of strangers
shopping mall of illusion
I don’t feel it
I don’t give a shit
it isn’t much
not dense like the music
was
like the words
were
like the used to be of everything

art
meaning
voiced
beat
dripping
in
need

It isn’t much of anything anymore

when it meant it was meant good
it was tangles
high as speed
injected in veins
deep like a soul
I used to know
he diseased me
in the only way
one should

want down in between low down

I didn’t want a cure
I wanted it to kill
me
good and slow
I wanted to
die
tasting his
name


1/4/11
nicoleena

Leather Pouch

leather pouch

when I saw him finally
not the lines in his face
but the specks of God in his eyes
the weakness the runs from his tongue
the effort of his muscles to cover the faultering of his heart
it happened


I knew nothing but what I needed
human ripples in ponds of discontent
toned in reverence
lost in his voice
that filled these cavities of the feral souled beast
I was


freedom slides down my skin as I register
and take him in like the first time
A vision of miles away ignorance
it doesn't wound these days
that he takes in air and doesn't know me
that his steps reek of no sadness


I have a small kit that contains leather, needle, thread
to sew up what is left of my madness into a neat leather pouch
a pouch that I will shove into an empty bottle where
bitter sour remains of what I drain onto the sand will stain the leather dark


off to sea I will cast it/him
tied to tide his hold ceasing
as gentle waves salt my calves
as sunlight warms my bare back


gulls will sing their casting song
as I hum along
waving to those who await me high on the beach
ready to run to meet their arms and eyes



nicoleena
january 17, 2011


what "I" deserve....

North of Santa Fe

sprouting through clay was of its being
beaten but glorious as it emerged
the creatures eyed the slender stemmed
virginal flower
absence of voice they turned to the light
death & life is woven through such flourishing forests
as leaves flutter in aspen chimes
a melancholy opera north of Santa Fe

she might have heard their song if not for dancing hope
she carefully bent down in her thin hippy dress
swollen with life's purpose
to the small delicate flower
purple souled
she was charmed
how lovely
how small
what an exquisite little bud you are!

brushing her lips
he placed the bud softly behind her ear
enchanted hearts wrapped in southwestern mystery
you will still be beautiful at thirty-five
whispering hair to heart
& she pictured them
with the child
in a forest tree
away forever
in
love

the leaves sang
louder
longer
insistent
but they were dipping their hands in shallow water
ringed
linked
she never heard their mountain warning
royal flower in her hair

you always see the small things
he told her
but today she saw only vast blessings

& tonight
child grown
she can recall
white bark stretched to golden heart leaves
how they screamed
but
she would change not a thing
not a moment of that day of New Mexico dreams


nsj
February 11, 2011

no pulse

deer are free from what it is that locks me into this space of ridiculous torment

I want to be a deer in the forest if only to affirm that an orange vest and a shotgun might be better than this

pills and talks and long mountain walks have yet to bring digestion

that it did not matter where it came from as long as the sender had tormented eyes and a lusty heart

I.  Will.  Not.  Be.  One.  Of.  Them.   (on the fateful day)

because I will have died years before, decades

(iceycold)  I spent my days and nights buried in piles of words, wooded trails and the embraces of my offspring

covering the dead parts with too much mortician makeup

forgetting that my replacements are just a string of hearts &  pussies with no pulse 

Jack the pleasant  Ripper incarnate will not get one tear upon his death from this dead girl.

Feb. 2011

nsj

disgraced at the dump

disgraced at the dump

She held me up a mirror with a fierce juttin’ hand

"Lookie see?" grime beneath her nails and grinnin’, "see?"

pink plastic frame, cracked glass, smeared gloom

we stood atop a pile of discarded life

"you ain't nothing but a toothless goose," she cackled

"just like me you is!"

nappy headed and stinkin I seen she was right

Feb 2011

nsj

Yonder

yonder 

He drew his breath from stones as they threw them

“Hey Faggot, them books heavy?”

the way the light shone snatched his gaze

voices in the distance always faded away into a bird’s flight

a synapse orgy

a breeze scented of death

Pa didn’t let him own pages

tasked with crop and barn

the horses

their foul aftermath and the Bible

his body worked fields

his mind worked plows chained to cloud shapes

fluffs of octagons

dimensions and time machines

the discourse of family madness

his nightly sobs and grasping of sanity

an intricately patterned harvest

blankets and coverlings of crying mouths and empty flattened teats

the horror eyes of creatures the second before slaughter

the ants marching along little trails of crumbled crackers

Pa hollars

    as the woods and songs called from

yonder

he planned to leave Pa and this land where earth gently graced sky

where feces gift life and dark is for resting spent bones

he would live smooth handed and walk scholarly halls

with hushed whispers, spectacles and sleep deprived eyes

His body would soften

Eventually

he would send a book he wrote to his Pa

Who would burn it in his evening fire

Who would never read the dedication

Who would feel no pride

devoid of what he had seen when he flipped the pages

denying the life and mind he bred

concentrating fiercely on the Lord's verses

reciting them especially loud that night

nsj

march 2011