2 AM [final]

Night hangs over
the city and below
the sky the side-
walk stretches on

and on and
at its end and
in orange lamp-
light he
stands silent,
smoking

2 AM-- version 5,831,382.4... beta

[I can't get it right!]

Night hangs black above
the city and below
the sky the side-
walk stretches on

and on and
at its end and
haloed in
orange lamp-
light he stands silent,
smoking

2 AM

[A poor imitation of William Carlos Williams-- for class]

Night hangs silent over
the city and below
the sky the sidewalk
stretches on

and on and
at its end and
in orange lamplight
he stands silent,
smoking

2 AM Apollo

The night is cold, the night is dark
and he is there.
Distant
He is there
Smoking
He is there
Silent
He is there
I want no more
He is there

Adonis [rather old; fragment]

She was enraptured. She launched herself up the stairs two, three at a time. Barely touching the floor. Oblivious to her backpack, its weight, twelve pounds, thirteen, ten? She was aware of shapes moving around her. Adonis. Sweet Adonis. Wavy black hair, chilly marble skin, dark eyes—she’d seen him.

Contain it! Can’t! She needed someone to tell; too much to keep inside—growing, impossibly soft feeling-- freshmen moving so slowly up the stairs! She slammed herself violently against the wall. Don’t care who sees. Nothing outside of-- she only knew him by sight, from the hallways, yet she felt she intuitively understood his innocent heart, his refined mind, his guileless intentions, his sweet demeanor. Such beauty—such beauty—

He was originally from Eastern Europe; his parents had immigrated for science careers. Other people didn’t see what she did, something she knew too well. Xenophobia? Blindness? Or clear sight? She didn’t particularly care about other people, though… to her, he was a fairy-tale knight, tall and rather thin, but his sinewy arms and beautiful broad shoulders suggesting a latent physical power, a suggestion that kept her awake sometimes… such a fine-boned face, deep brown eyes, delicate, pale pink mouth, white skin, black curls. Yes, to the others he was quiet, unobtrusive, someone to simply overlook, but to her he was aesthetic ideals incarnate, and she preferred to use the elegant word “lover” in her thoughts, even if it was technically untrue…

Friday

If there’s a god in heaven

or anywhere else

please bring me my poet

please send him to me

International Fragment (3 of 3)

The daughter was really quite young, very short, in rather dowdy clothes that contrasted with her apparent jewelry-consciousness. She had very dark hair. .. Why were they speaking English? Why would he want such a conversation publicly comprehensible? She made it to the door and should have gone out, but, thinking this might confuse her mother and sister, she instead stood by the window, waiting, watching the people outside, very conscious of the distribution of air and matter within…

She always felt very powerful around men with ornery children. The women just depressed her; she saw her future in them, but the men… she felt they became self-conscious, almost apologetic, when they saw her, that they were embarrassed by how ridiculous they looked. She felt she reminded them, with painful gentleness, of how their lives could have turned out differently… Oh, she had to stop flattering herself with these delusions! He wasn’t interested in her; it was just a passing look between strangers, a reflex, the body’s way of observing threats without bringing in the cerebral cortex too soon… I wish I could turn off my cerebral cortex sometimes. Although overthinking got her in far less trouble than animalistic instinct would… but at least animals don’t think themselves crazy! She always felt so vulnerable in those brief glances, like the other person could read her thoughts, when really she just hadn’t had time to hide them from herself.

International Fragment (2 of 3)

Well, he’d seen her already, so she could take her time… still, she needed to get to the front of the store. She didn’t want to end up trapped in this back corner, tripping over the delicate displays… and trip she would, like that time she’d nearly fallen down the stairs during a college tour as a Russian family, including father, came up behind her. For the love of God. Why couldn’t it be the mom? What was a dad doing here? Mom… I wonder if there’s a mother in all that… Shut up! Of course there was a fucking mother! It wasn’t that she felt any attraction on a personal level, it was just that accent… accents inevitably triggered these chaotic thoughts and burning feelings she couldn’t make sense of…

Safely out of the back corner, she took a curious look back. He was much taller and somewhat older than she had expected, and had that arched, erudite, uniquely Slavic expression on his face. Yes, somewhat older… when Eastern European men weren’t peasants, when they were scientists or businesspeople like this man probably was, at his age, with graying hair but still physically intact, ah, they were so wonderfully—I deserve to be shot. Nothing less.

Miracle (version 2)

I wonder if I'm sick, or seeing things.
They talk constantly, laugh loudly; all of them are unaware--
A quiet miracle’s unfolding here.
Wild-eyed, I watch the beaming apparition:

Your blond head bent over the desk
Your shoulders tensed in concentration,
And your beautiful hands,
writing.

Miracle

I wonder if I'm sick, or seeing things.
They chatter loudly, all of them unaware
Of the quiet miracle unfolding here.
Wild-eyed, I watch this beaming apparition:

Your blond head bent over the desk
Your shoulders tensed in concentration,
And your beautiful hands,
writing.

Loss [emo and shitty]

I wanted to be alone forever.
But before I could think, and almost against my will something happened and now--
Half of me is gone.

The sick muse's eyes glare weakly, piercing, accusing, begging, leaking darkness;
A sadistic higher power contorts my angel's brain.
I do not suffer the way he does,
Suffer though I might.

I am further and further from the people around me.
The happy voices are distant and blurry, the laughter jarring, irreverent.
Worldly things are gone for me, or fading fast.
All I think, all I see, taste, smell, breathe is the cloudy dark blue of his pain
And my own.

International Fragment (1 of 3)

She stood in the back of the store, aware of her sister and mother’s voices, staring blankly at long, plastic necklaces painted shiny to look like gold, feeling suspicious under the cashier’s observation, waiting. Suddenly she heard a man’s voice, then a young girl’s, both coming closer. The girl was whining, asking for something; the man was responding, annoyed, asking what it was for… heat searing upward from the center of her stomach, she realized the man had an accent. Helplessly, she let her burning face droop towards the floor; without turning around, without even thinking, she had placed it and was now trying to find an unobtrusive path to the door. They were still approaching; the bratty little girl was practically crying now over some piece of plastic, dear God… she looked up involuntarily and glimpsed the man’s face just as he glimpsed her. Shit! Russian, just as she’d thought. Run!

Amour [title changed to preserve anonymity]

No, not again. As I read his poem, I feel it—shaky but getting stronger with each line—gravity, pulling me, pulling me. Familiar, final. I close my eyes and picture his long honey-colored hair, his broad shoulders. There is no fighting. I assume the familiar position, teetering, and gravity pulls me, pulls me, down.