Verdigris
Little bits of colored plastic fall on the carpet
Twisted, funny shapes - my fault, my doing.
Oh, no. I have hurt something
Besides you or me or the both of us.
I ran away to do something useful with myself
And instead took twenty silly pictures of the same thing
While the sun let its hair fall in through the windowpanes.
Me and my childish wiles and whiles
Could have taken me anywhere,
Built me a road like an unrolled
Spool of ribbon atop all the neighborhood fences,
Into the branches of the local trees with
Friendly bark like puzzle pieces,
Into the center of the world itself.
But now we come to breaking toys,
Breaking glass and plaster and china and bone.
We light matches in the darkness -
Specialty red velvet, orange sherbet, alcohol like flowers -
And go into the bathroom, holding the little flame up
To the mirror, finding myriad new ways to covet ourselves.
And when matchbooks run dry, we use locks of hair.
Back by the water soft and still
When none of the cameras could focus properly,
I thought we had something.
Sheened and shy in our stiff blue uniforms
There was music playing from a long time and place
Away. We could not see the bottom of the river,
Only felt the mossy, muddy depths with our feet.
Out behind the trees weeping like poets,
We lowered our kaleidoscopes from each other
And saw. The sun, a singular agony, through the
Blackened leaves (whose color could not stand)
Illuminating our faces. Nothing what we looked by the
Night. Our eyes were embers, dull and burning, throwing
Shadows. Lips cracked, gaping, wounds. Hair cutting itself.
We breathed in dust and smoke, both
Secondhand. Attic air, we breathed in the same
Air we kept breathing out. Cameos like crayons, melting
Slowly in the heat, in our mouths, in our heat.
Cheap and vintage, like we aspired to. Humanoid and
Polaroid, on the floorboards, then underneath. We lost
Our teeth on the spiral staircase. We lost it somehow then.
I put you in an old pickling jar, stood you in the window.
I plucked out your eyelashes. They fell like a bird's plumage.
The wings of your shoulderblades. Limbs, and limbs,
Tangling in my head, and heat, and sweat.
Lockets mock me so. Delicate, yet so acid.
Perhaps one day I may know you. Perhaps one day I may
Release my fingernails from their servitude in my palm.
--
Note: This is an edited version of an earlier poem titled 'Delicate Mockery'. I still have the original version up because I feel like the two poems are as much their own entities as they are a single entity. Personally, I'm happier with this one. However, the original still had this simple, fleeting charm to it, while this one is more elaborate and grittier. Wow, I'm all analyzing the two now. :p
Twisted, funny shapes - my fault, my doing.
Oh, no. I have hurt something
Besides you or me or the both of us.
I ran away to do something useful with myself
And instead took twenty silly pictures of the same thing
While the sun let its hair fall in through the windowpanes.
Me and my childish wiles and whiles
Could have taken me anywhere,
Built me a road like an unrolled
Spool of ribbon atop all the neighborhood fences,
Into the branches of the local trees with
Friendly bark like puzzle pieces,
Into the center of the world itself.
But now we come to breaking toys,
Breaking glass and plaster and china and bone.
We light matches in the darkness -
Specialty red velvet, orange sherbet, alcohol like flowers -
And go into the bathroom, holding the little flame up
To the mirror, finding myriad new ways to covet ourselves.
And when matchbooks run dry, we use locks of hair.
Back by the water soft and still
When none of the cameras could focus properly,
I thought we had something.
Sheened and shy in our stiff blue uniforms
There was music playing from a long time and place
Away. We could not see the bottom of the river,
Only felt the mossy, muddy depths with our feet.
Out behind the trees weeping like poets,
We lowered our kaleidoscopes from each other
And saw. The sun, a singular agony, through the
Blackened leaves (whose color could not stand)
Illuminating our faces. Nothing what we looked by the
Night. Our eyes were embers, dull and burning, throwing
Shadows. Lips cracked, gaping, wounds. Hair cutting itself.
We breathed in dust and smoke, both
Secondhand. Attic air, we breathed in the same
Air we kept breathing out. Cameos like crayons, melting
Slowly in the heat, in our mouths, in our heat.
Cheap and vintage, like we aspired to. Humanoid and
Polaroid, on the floorboards, then underneath. We lost
Our teeth on the spiral staircase. We lost it somehow then.
I put you in an old pickling jar, stood you in the window.
I plucked out your eyelashes. They fell like a bird's plumage.
The wings of your shoulderblades. Limbs, and limbs,
Tangling in my head, and heat, and sweat.
Lockets mock me so. Delicate, yet so acid.
Perhaps one day I may know you. Perhaps one day I may
Release my fingernails from their servitude in my palm.
--
Note: This is an edited version of an earlier poem titled 'Delicate Mockery'. I still have the original version up because I feel like the two poems are as much their own entities as they are a single entity. Personally, I'm happier with this one. However, the original still had this simple, fleeting charm to it, while this one is more elaborate and grittier. Wow, I'm all analyzing the two now. :p