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Locations: Home.
Listening: "Black Coffee In Bed" ~ Squeeze.

Just woke from a late afternoon nap after running errands all morning and then watching The Matrix with Peter. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that film.

So far, this weekend has been a mish-mash of random thoughts. Friday morning, I had a pleasant IM with Jenn about writing. We discussed Peter's recent progress on Violence Engine and she asked "How is your writing?". I answered that I wasn't writing right now. She then asked "What is it that you write?" and it occurred to me that she didn't know.

This surprised me somehow, but I'm not sure why. I've never shown Jenn any of my work. Peter has only seen several poems and snips of my prose. I realized that I haven't shown anyone anything I've done in a year or so. I began to wonder why and concluded that it's resulted from a mixture of shyness and a lack of confidence in the work itself (typically, I never feel that it's been polished quite right).

I discussed this with Peter over dinner Friday night. I mentioned that Jenn and I had talked about my writing again and, since everyone around me is currently working on fantasy pieces, I was considering trying my hand at fantasy for the first time. He was encouraging. When I mentioned my hesitance to do so in the light of not having really read any fantasy aside from the typical Arthurian standards, he replied "Bah. Jump in, write a few stories, get an idea of characters and what you want to write about it and do it.". So I've promised myself that I'll sit down this weekend and try to outline a fantasy piece. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, my conversation with Jenn moved me to rifle through some of my older poems and post a few here. I'm not sure if I've still got Peter's courage to mass-mail my stuff for critique. There's something more comfortable in the idea of displaying it here.

Several of these are simply pieces of poems--all but two are still in progress.

Untitled (3.2001)(fragment)

I don't need to chase you now
Out into the street light
Just to be there when this turns,
Bends, slides figure-eight to
Catch me in the curve back
On the same ride. Different eyes.
Skin from a sudden memory.

I saw this coming when I saw her.

There will be time enough to describe
Your hands; the way your mouth moves
Around the words, carefully, so as not
To break--them, me, your stride--with
An unplanned pause, a misplaced syllable.

Untitled (11.2000)

8:10 AM, Monday morning
Early in what will be a cold spring.
Sunlight across a room much quieter
Than I expected when I thought to expect this.
Which, I find myself thinking,
Wasn't often enough.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen
This place, this particular hour, this date.
My birthday is in sixteen days.

I can speak again, but instead,
I watch your hand, moving gently now,
Lifting a towel from the hamper,
Pulling the door closed behind you
Like you do every morning.

The shower sputters.
The alarm clock ticks once before shrieking.
You are singing something.
I can't make out the tune.

Untitled (5.2001) (fragment)

Something made of denim and ash,
Cigarette smoke clouding in a closed room,
Is what I what I want to lay in front of you.
An ordinary sonnet because there can be such a thing,
Just as there can be laundry,
Dishes congealing together in the sink,
Cat litter on the bathroom floor.
I can manage a rhymed couplet, but not the ironing.
I can follow a-b-a-b-a like the thread from your shirt
That I follow to the button, to the buttonhole,
To the skin beneath, and up to your mouth.
But always before work.

Not Writing (a response to Cleopatra Mathis) (5.1997)

He is satisfied.
His steel frames, his glass--
And not my words--
Will support us,
Will carry our weight.
Again, I rise from his side before dawn,
Stumble over the space heater,
Lead his whimpering dog to the yard.
I am playing my mother game of check,
Double-check: the hamper,
The locks, the pantry shelves.
I know I am forgetting something.
Three chapters fall, sheet by sheet,
From torn files on the cabinet shelf.
I tell myself it's only temporary,
That they are safe behind the glass doors
As I will be safe behind his glass,
Behind his steel,
Behind his name.

Untitled (2.2001)(fragment)

The sound of friction from another room,
Cotton that I know to be the color of water
Is moving against your skin--falling from your thigh,
Running around your ankle, pooling
In the hollow of your spine.
I sit, cross-legged,
In a red suede shirt and nothing else,
Monitor-lit and suddenly inspired.