Here’s a few of the poems I’ve written recently, or am working on. Tell me what you think.
Goodbye
I caught my breath
as it rushed from my heart.
Running away
from the hole you left.
Damn you
For leaving me
to wonder
what might have been.
A.H. 2003
Jessi
Do you know
all those years ago,
how your academia
goody-2-shoes
perfectionism
annoyed me?
You were always my other.
Compared unfavorably
by teacher, aunts, my mother.
She lives half a life
I would think,
a model student, her books safe.
You weren’t even
an intellectual,
not a bit
conceptual.
Just a girl who
never showed up
high in history,
drunk in geography,
slept with her PE coach,
back ally smokin’ a roach,
disrupting class
with her cackling laugh.
Your skirt stayed
white
and pressed
all day long.
Didn’t you ever
want
to be
dirty,
bad,
lazy,
or strong?
And now, all these years later,
I would give anything
to be more
like you
were
then.
Your life of the mind,
with fewer scars
and more gold stars.
A second chance to credential
my intelligence,
to prove
what I could conform to
if I chose to.
But we both know I won’t.
No more than you,
working toward tenure,
will grow up
to be wild.
A.H. 2008
Lessons Learned
Don’t forget
to close your eyes
before you jump
and remember your landing.
Don’t forget
you’re only
as valuable
as sexy
as strong
as you tell them you are.
Don’t forget
your dreams are real
your mind is a toy
time is not space
life is a game.
Don’t forget
to love yourself first
be gentle to you,
you’re all you have.
Don’t forget
to forgive.
A.H. 2007
der nahallac rood
They come to you,
Seeking absolution,
in your eyes of blue,
praying salvation,
at your wheel’d pew.
A comfort to know
existentialism
and
your soft blue toe.
A priest of mourning
who does not grieve.
By the morning
they do always leave.
A.H. 2007
Somedays
All I am
is a rolling pair of breasts,
every little boy’s favorite toy.
Somedays
All I am
is a reminder of death
(but don’t hold your breath).
Somedays
All I am
is an uncompensated poster child,
another of Jerry’s bastard retards.
Somedays
All I am
is a white line
on a blue sign(don’t park here).
Somedays
All I am
is the latest taboo
someone wants to break into.
Sundays
All I am
is your token crippled friend
(She went to school! And she doesn’t even drool!)
Somedays
All I am
is gasping for air,
grasping at my words, my swords,
fighting to slay all
I recognize in your eyes.
A.H. (in a deeply embittered
moment in late) 2006
Always on Time
The dead Borges
fucked with my mind
all through the night
and the dirty streets
of Buenos Aires.
Buenos fucking Aires.
In the morning
I lay pregnant
with a head full of cats
and the surity
I need no excuses.
A.H. 2006
———————————————–
For You
You feed on your assumptions
consuming ideas
like juicy sausages
Plump, and full
of vigor and thoughtlessness
Can you hear your echo?
I wince at the sound
of
one thought running
away
with all the power of your mind.
A.H. 2005 pub. ‘07
Arie
She’s bumbled through
her extraordinary
life
with surprising grace.
Today, she stands
before me
a stranger
in her own country.
She blinks,
and with her own
peculiar naivitity,
asks me why
people are still cruel.
She’ll never see
through
that cruelty
to their frail bird
inside.
She only sees
a bright shadow
of our actions
our intentions
are much too dark.
This country
remembers her
as just a child.
We can only see
her cane
her defensiveness
her iridescent blue.
Tomorrow, she’ll
return
to adulthood
and a life
as a peacock
just outside
Prague.
A.H. 2007
Stillagain
My heart drops,
a lead bucket
full of butterflies
As you
come into view
How dare you
own me
in this silent way?
You’ve made my day
with a shrug
and hello
After you go
I’m still
glowing
butterflies
escaping
with every breath.
A.H. 2006
Mr. Wonderful
It’s such a shame
you are not your name
Once
A kind boy,
wishing 2b every1s toy,
blue hair, blue eyes,
Now
nearly dead inside-
his heart full of
glittery lies.
We all wait
with baited breath
smoking our cigarettes,
will he find the prize?
Before it’s 2l8,
game over.
A simple truth,
in fact a riddle.
The holy grail,
the search, the fail,
not a cup, not an idol,
nor a woman fertile,
but a goal you feel.
So, the bets are in,
will you yet win?
A.H. 2007
Shirley
Some leaves hold on
until the last
of their friends
are gone
When Fall
has cloaked her garish orange
in gray
(I did it my way)
Until the first morning light
of that day
When you came fluttering down
a burning ember
the last colorful death.
(A memory of Shirley Imber, May 1924-November 2007)
A.H. ‘07
