When the armies of emotion Go out to fight.

Rags

Wicked

winter swirls

and no one’s out

but the 

Spare change beggars

and Shopping cart pushers,

no one 

but the 

worn out

rags

of once before people

bare feet and a

brown paper bag

trundles by  

cart full of possessions— 

raccoon meals.

sitting rags with 

an eye patch and a

disfigured mouth

pleads for that penny

the seams holding his smile up

breaking, falling

garbage eaters,

park bench sleepers,

almost dead

rags

are the dirt 

you hurry through

with sharp heels

Let the snow cover them

don’t look back

or give

them your scarf

some spare change

hot soup

Let the snow cover them

until there is no need

for food

or warmth.

Title Quote: Nick Drake, Cello Song

But listen to the color of your dreams It is not living It is not living

Sometimes she saw green. She would just wake up and everything would look as if viewed through emerald glasses. The pearls in her grandmothers folded wrinkly ears, the sky through her old french glass windowpane, it was all tinted with green.


And then the next day, she would see it all in red. Red trees, red teeth, red cars.


Then blue. Or purple. And so on. She loved it. Loved never knowing what she would see when she woke up, loved how everything that looked one way one day looked completely different the next.


But she could never see what she had seen again, because if she ever took a picture, it was of the colors that everyone else saw, normal people, not the color she saw it in, so the next day she would see the image in another color. She could never preserve these moments of beauty affected so profoundly by the colors.  It was like there was a screen, a translucent tinted slide, that conformed perfectly to her irises, to her unique pupils. And each tinted slide was replaced as she closed her eyes to sleep, to wake up and see a bright new day, a bright new color.


She missed so many of those days, missed with such a longing, like the day she saw in mango orange, rays of sunlight of creamy sorbet, or the day everything was different shades of night blue. It was like night vision, everyone leaping shadow dancers. But even without the chance to ever revisit these days but in her memories, the girl lived with it. She knew she was lucky enough to even experience them once. 


She was a painter, and everyone would marvel at her work because she would paint the most mundane, everyday things, and transform them into, well, art. The girl felt this was the closest she would ever get to having the world through her eyes, so she worked hard. She worked with a passion, the thinnest point of a pencil carving the most precision and life onto a canvas she would be glimpsing in sepia tea color, then salmon pink. What people liked so much about her works as that she might paint one scene ten times, yet each piece was so uniquely different, you could hardly tell they were all the exact same view, the exact same snippet of a life. That was because each one was painted in shades of just one color, just as the girl saw it.


She, of course, couldn't tell the colors she painted apart from the other. They were all just different hues of the same color. So instead, she would have an assistant (mostly it was her high school teacher who would help out) and she would say to him or her when she began painting "Today is turquoise. Bring me some turquoise." And he or she would bring her a palette with turquoise paint, which she would mix to different shades for for the "different" colors of the painting, judging by their shadows, their lightness and darkness. 


People loved her technique and unique style and how much feeling was put into each piece, and the girl loved how happy the paintings made people. And so it went on like this, a painting a day, never the same color. 


Until one day. The two colors she never saw in where black or white, the absence and totality of color. But this day, she woke up and everything was in black-and-white, an old photograph. Amazed, the girl looked in the mirror, devoid of color for the first time in her life. Shades of gray, it was all shades of gray, dusty, creamy, sharp, softened. She ran around the house and outside in a frenzy, looking at everything in stunned rapture.


Then, She took out her tubes of paint, to see them colorless as well. But when she took off the tops, thick, saturated, explosive color slipped out. The tube marked yellow was the creamiest yellow; the tube marked red was the most violent red. The vibrance of each color shocked the girl. She reeled back, experiencing the fact that she could see all the colors--at the same time! Overjoyed, she ran to the mirror, chose the colors she thought herself to be, and painted herself colorful over her black-and-white reflection. She leapt off, leaving the portrait of a colorful young woman painted to the mirror, smiling the widest smile possible.


She ran outside and noticed her feet, nestled in the grass of her front yard. She plucked one piece, felt its soft slenderness. She weighed it in her palm; weren't books always mentioning how green the grass was? The girl uncapped the green, vert and squeezed some of it on her palm. Laughing, she pressed it against the grass. Grabbing a handful of speckled green grass, she gathered it into a brush and painted the grass around her the most lush, verdant green she had ever seen in. Then she painted the waiting school bus a daffodil yellow. Then instead of getting on the school bus, she blissfully lay on the ground, surrounded by a black-and-white world. She reached up and brushed the sky blue, and dreamily began to paint upon it a rainbow, using every color she had ever seen in.




Title Quote: The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows

So be kind And don't lose your mind

Wind

Blowing when

already through.

Reach.

Assume the 

languages, muted

embrace

inner spikes.

Holes in a

sheet, flapping

anger, angry

Rest.

Dark slumberdown

stillness kisses

rage

and the rapture.

Title Quote: Rent Soundtrack, Take Me or Leave Me

I am your mermaid Tangled but blissful

When I grow older, I want a child. And I know what he will look like. He will be my little boy, dark Caribbean skin, glowing from within. He will have long kinky brown hair, that I will back-comb for hours until they form fuzzy swaying caterpillar dreadlocks, that hang to his shoulders. And he will have dark, glowering eyes, and a round, button nose, that I will rub in greeting. His dark wide lips will smile slowly, revealing happy gapped teeth. He will have the most perfect toes and fingers, that are continually filling pockets with the treasures of the earth. 

I will teach him to make music, so he can bring emotions into the air, and then my wild little child will run, screaming off into our backyard. I will smile and make cinnamon cookies, and when I'm done, I'll go looking for him, and all I'll hear is the throat songs he will have left trailing behind himself for me. The trail will lead me through a hole in our fence, and into the woods, into the thickest part. And I will be standing there, with a bag of warm cookies, and I will look up, and there he will be, his naked brown body swinging from the rough bark, his miniature clothes piled over the roots at the bottom of the tree. He will sing a taunting monkey song to me, and climb higher. So, barefoot, I will climb myself up up up until I reach him, and we will find the biggest branch there and I will lie upon it on my back, and he will curl up on my stomach, and we will fall asleep, naked monkeys high up on a naked tree bough. 

When the night tickles us awake, his eyes will open, luminescent beacons attached to a body with grasping fingers that pull me down and forwards, back to home, where he will steal the bag of cookies from my open palms and run off to my bed, to warm it for me, and when I come back after retrieving our clothes, he will have eaten all the cookies but one, for me, and there will be crumbs in his hair. I will sing a little song beneath my breath, until it swells larger and larger, and he will get up and dance to it, his little arms akimbo, his hair reaching up and outwards, and he will spin and spin and spin until his eyes will close mid spin, and I will pick up his soft skinny body and deposit him beneath warm patchwork covers. That is what will happen when I grow older.

Title Quote: Elysian Fields, Mermaid

River of Orchids, winding our way Want to walk into London on my hands one day

Roadside Thistle

She leaned over the

roadside, and found

a flower

snipped it gently between

thumbnail and forefinger

raised herself and 

delicately placed it

between the fold of her ear

a curve 

an overlap

a furl

purple petals

pushing against the

edge of pale skin

with the

flower

secured, she sighed

the wind blowing her raven hair

back, away from the 

flower

its bloom     pushing

up for air 

amidst this sea of dark

just a roadside

thistle, purple petals

bloom even when 

there's no one to see

but she saw

the plain beauty of 

an ordinary unique

creation

purple speck

amongst so many other colors.

Title Quote: River of Orchids, XTC

Purple haze all in my eyes Don't know if it's day or night

There was a girl. She must have been around 17 or 18, and she had skin the color of coffee with rich cream mixed in. She had a small nose, which must have been like a button when she was little, but had now grown to a point, giving her whole face a defined manner. Her lips were darker brown than her skin, and she wore no makeup. Her face seemed without a mask. Her eyebrows were pronounced, yet they were soft at the edges, and her eyes were the color of a black cat's at night, sparkling with a secret. The girl's face was made even more vibrant by the scene of her hair behind her. It was wiry, and tightly curled, hanging at different lengths along her shoulders and back. Each ringlet was a different color, one the color of honey when light streams through it, one the color of a dusty antique oakwood cabinet, and one the color of rich amber beer when held up to a window. Her hair was only just held back by a colorful sash, full of lapis lazuli blue, eggplant purple, and a dull ochre, woven with binding silk threads. The sash was wide as a headband at the front, and crinkled thin where it was tied at the back, trailing down to the girl's hips. At the very bottoms dangled little worn brass bells, about three a piece for each end. They must have tinkled like a dream does, if only people would stop to listen.

  The girl was wearing a baby blue cotton shirt, worn at the edges, the sleeves coming down halfway between her shoulder and her elbow, and banded at the bottom, with the tops blooming out slightly. The neckline had been, presumably by her, cut into a ragged V, and there was a symbol, or writing on her shirt, in black, though the way she was twisted there was no hope of deciphering what it said. The bottom of her shirt dipped low in in the front and the back, and the sides were shortened to her hips. The bottoms fell over her skirt, which was a beautiful gypsy piece, hidden with patterned patches, stolen from mandalas and persian curtains. It was a tiered skirt, but it was not the kind where the tier evenly circles around the whole length, it was more each pice for their own, and the effect was of more shingles than anything else. Where the patterns flapped up, you would catch a glimpse of fuchsia silk from a sari, and bits of it trailed and fluttered with he rest of the skirt in ringlets. The hem came to about her calves, but just then, the girl ran over a subway grate, past crowds of people, and because of the breeze, the skirt hovered around her knees, exposing, long, thin legs made for jumping on trampolines and dancing the tango. 

Now, her features had been molded to form a look of defiance, and determination, even though her obligation that she was determined to fulfill was a hard one. Her hair had been blown back momentarily from the breeze, exposing the eye of a peacock feather dangling from each ear, swirling in emerald and the darkest of blues. And now I saw, too, that the girl was clutching a shoulder bag, made of woven hemp the color of beaten straw that was held to her waist. The tip of a book nosed out. Then, the girl continued on her dash past the subway grate, and disappeared in the tumult of people, off to haunt someone else's vision.

Title Quote: Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze

Sit and listen Sub-let your ideas Till they're broken

Atom


Cataclysmic 
words fall from
our mouths.
To inspire;
breathe in.
There is a waxed scarf
tied at  
my heart 
and hanging 
limp, fulvous 
in my mouth;
breathe in.
Where do the words
I speak behind
these closed lips 
go
when I forget 
to open them?
Speak, and all will be spoken for.
An infant's mutterings
betray the thoughts of
ideas untouched by ideas
the world untouched
by the world.
If one atom
can destroy a city
what can one word
do?




Title Quote: Cantinero, Little Princess

The roots are shooting up through the tool shed

Hey guys, sorry to break my rule already, but this post is not my writing. I just want to alert you to this website called etsy. It is this hosting site where all sorts of people--independent users who create all sorts of independent goods--can put up the stuff they have created and made themselves, and other people browse and buy it, thus supporting people who wouldn't otherwise be able to sell this stuff, and buying handmade items. As you may notice from the sidebar on this blog, I have created an etsy account for myself, LolaBellybutton. I am selling mostly jewelry and felted things, so please check it out! If you have to get a gift for someone, this might be it! Or, you might just see something you want. Tell others about it, too! Thanks, please visit my shop.

Title Quote: Vampire Weekend, Horchata

And all that I knew was the hole in my shoe which Was letting in water

Hungry. Oh, am I ever so hungry. And thirsty, too. I would lick the damp, moldy walls that keep me here, but I already have, hours ago, to no avail. Not a drop of water has soothed my tongue for what feels like days. My stomach has imploded. I must sit here, twisted into a fetal position, to try survive the pain, the hunger. I try not to cry, so as to conserve the little water left inside my dehydrated self. I try to close my eyes, but it is too hard not to look, not to watch. Slowly, my gaze rises and I stare, my lower lip trembling, at the table above. At the food above. My eyes stalk the food, the steaming plates set out with a glorious, gleaming banquet—I will die with the food right there, trapped like a goldfish who has jumped out onto the ground, its nose pressed to its glass bowl filled with water. Mmmm. So thirsty. . . With a last burst of effort, I get up, and run at the table, jumping on it, jumping on the food. The food to make me well again, the food to ease my pain. But yet again, like all the other nights, my fingers only touch hard, immaculate glass, sealed over the feast, my feast. I scrabble to hold on, my dry, brittle tongue presses against the glass, and I fall once more. Desperate, I throw myself again and again at the concrete door. My mind watches my body, is startled to hear a wail, an inhuman wail of the most horrible suffering, and watches as I collapse on the floor, shivering uncontrollably. To be the infant in her mother's arms, to taste the strong milk between my lips, to taste anything, to feel my belly full.

"I'll tell!" I whisper. "I'll tell!" I try to shout. To tell is to get food and water, to tell is to get mercy. I will tell them everything they ever wanted, but for a crust of bread. Why won't they hear me? I'll finally tell, I am hungry. But no one hears. My voice too weak, a thin gossamer thread against iron cables. With one final breath, my voice breaks these cables, informing the world: "I'll tell!" No more breaths are drawn. I feel darkness close in, I succumb, just as I hear the heavy footsteps of my entrapper triumphantly storm into the room. My soul—shriveled as it is—rises and watches as the man comes in with a smug grin on his face that turns to puzzledness as he reaches down to check my pulse. His expression morphs to anger, to rage, to the prize dangling there and now, only just by a hair, lost, as he finds no pulse in my lifeless body. I am much the same in life as in death; shriveled, weak, untelling. Now it is time for him to utter an inhuman scream to tell us "So close, so close!" To make suffer, as he made me. Slowly, I smile, and turn, misting through the glass, to feast on the essence of the sustenance laid on that rough table. Yet I am hungry, oh so hungry.

Title Quote: Traffic, Hole in My Shoe

could you please pull over for a second and breathe?

Behind the Glass (train)

Pulling out of the station

I see each painted face

petulant, expectant, grimacing

joy,

perhaps.

then a blur

each face belongs to

every body

we reach the tunnel

enshrouded by the

darkness of anonymity

our window turns

opaque, and my reflection

stares back at me.

I smile reassuringly at her

she smiles back

behind the glass.

Through wordless

nudge-grunts

my brothers make sure

I know it's our stop;

we are leaving.

I see that

they care

though they isolate their

conversations, boyspeak

one's hand grips

an edge of the door

to hold it 

open if

they were to begin 

to close

lest they separate

us 3.

I step from

the metal box into

a concrete labyrinth

we hurry

and I write this poem

in the back of my head

transforming feelings to pictures to words

on the

way

to school.

Title Quote: Summarum, Sky Falling