you are riches unbought
you grew
into this world
and brought
with you
the good things
i yearn for
all the fleshly passion
and all the
sacred feelings

you should know
the way of the world
before you learn to avoid it
or learn not to care.
you should know the way things are
whether or not u wish to change it.
you should understand the sky
and grass
and trees
and spinning suns,
and you should know at least one person beside yourself.
you should know that life cannot be bought
it happens
in a way
we call miraculous
which is to say
no one knows
and everything
in life that matters comes
into it like we do
and goes the same--from places unknown
to places unknown.
you must know
and you will at some point
as i do
that money buys comfort
aand no more.
I found you
like i found myself in this place
and I didnt let go
of either of us.

things you should know

you should know that I know more than you
If you are a man, you should know that
this is obvious because I'm a woman and you're not.
you should know that the sky is blue
and the grass is green
and that soccer moms drive mini vans
and boys with small dicks drive sports cars
middle aged men who feel useless and old and are scared of death drive them too
you should know, tho you probbably don't
and if you don't you never will,
that its no use that I'm telling you this because you will forget and you never listen.

you should know that cheeseburgers are ground up cows
with bad cheese on top.
you should know that people with endless amounts of useless facts about the world are considered smart, so I'm making you smarter.
you should know that smart people often end up forty in suburbia
and unsmart people and people who don't abide by laws
and unmotivated people envy subrbians
you should know that all suburbians hate themselves and want to get out
you should know that money buys all the things that can be paid for
you should know that nothing you really want can be paid for
you should know that most of the things you don't think you'll even get(aside from fame and money and the head cheerleader or the football captain) you get eventually in life anyway

what do I have to tell you, teach you?
and I have all the right to teach you
I am twenty-one years of human experience
twenty-one years of feminine perspective
I know about
abuse
sex
love
guilt
fear

needs
wants
desires
dreams
food
cars
plants
college
high school
kids
adults
animals
chairs
computer
brain freeze
writer's block...
And men, I know about women.
women, I know about men.

I know about
where I started
and where I am
better than anyone else on the planet
and this is stuff you'd want to know
because it will expand your brains
and horizens
and that's mostly a good thing
on the planet I live on.

Fortress (second draft)

"...Part of the crew, part of the ship..." (Pirates of the Caribean, World's End)



I’ve been
waking up angry
from billowing sheets of cotton
and silk
and walls of alabaster brick
Feeling trapped in happiness
—Not mine
I’ve been dreaming
of parents and siblings and lovers
beneath ceilingless
covers

And me,(trying not to stain my skirt),
always in corners
judging the height of smooth cream walls
I built
for their necessity—

my rib-stretched
palace
of
love-bones.

“You,”
They (my sheltered) say
“you,"
and then “it”
till I’m a place
—a faceless source—
for being there.
My own white dress is the fabric
of this.

peace or passion (from colors)

what is this human mammal?
soul or flesh?

I think we are born
into this aliveness
but I dont know
where (or if) awareness
starts or ends
in blue or red

what I've seen of heaven
is green with earthly life
and red with human passion
human need
human fulfilment

mangoes
melting on the tounge
and you melt into me

why not
when death's black looms
imminent

flesh ends

we are
forever ending

(in little
deadlines with
heaven blue
afters
in their skies)

peace, blue peace, away from here.
is that not the most carnal desire
of an anguished soul?


flesh ends
or
soul forever

I don't think we know
the concept
of either
does it matter?

carnal existence

carnal
material
worldly

(enter connotations)

carnal--this flesh
hungers

And this life
is in this world
so I think
I'm fine
with being a material woman

worldly
is knowing
what earth is

immersed
in that definition,
taken by it.

I am taken by This
whatever this is

this carnal existence

I promise myself to be
as carnal, material, worldly
as I can.

you said I got to learn to write
3-D

I see--
my poetry
is medival art
and
I need

to be Michaelangelo
If I'm eyeing chapel ceilings

well
I've been sketching everything
in the same shade
of black

but
I am learning to see the steps and layers
of language

words
said
unsaid

like
shadows
and light

red (from colors)

if I could fall into
a color
I think it should be blue
but my heaven is the passion red
I fear
and seek
and sink into
a sexiness
so sleek
a red so thick
so slick

admired
revered
formidible
almost black

Fortress

I’ve been
waking up angry
from billowing sheets of cotton
and silk
and walls of alabaster brick
Feeling trapped in happiness
—Not mine
I’ve been dreaming
of parents and siblings and lovers
beneath ceilingless
covers
And me (trying not to stain my skirt),
always in corners
judging the height of smooth cream walls
I built for their necessity

“You,”
They (my sheltered) say
“you,”
and then “it”
till I’m a place
—a faceless source—
for being there.