poetry or bust
"there is nothing outside the text" ~jacques derrida, De la grammatologie (Of Grammatology)
there is nothing outside the poem. derrida revised by natalie.
"portrait of the artist"
under the brim of a brown cabbie pulled low
she hides her impossible eyes sunk in the hollows
of their own darkness behind plastic red rims
she couldn't recognize your face without them
unless you were six feet under her.
backed into a corner
she's so close to the window
she's almost on the street,
and you wonder which is the reflection
and which is the skeleton of the live-wire
hard-wired inside the mannequin
that sits in the glass and the sleet.
all her props set on this scene
arranged in still life:
coffee in a paper to-go cup --
she likes chocolate and espresso --
water bottle to aid in the problematic
swallowing of pills hoarded
in a tiny plastic ibuprofin bottle
next to the coffee next to the heartbeat.
it's her self-help regime:
coffee and pain-killers,
water and writing.
down into the water you'll go
if you can get into her head:
it's this coffee shop on the corner
of nowhere that pages and pages
of poetry are produced and read.
most of all, it is a meditation on love --
love as outrage and hallucination,
madness and transformation . . .
lifted off the back cover of Lolita.
"ghost on a nightstand"
please, ghost, come back,
i almost had you
i felt you *almost* love me
then you slid between my table legs
across the floor and under the door
dragging my heart six feet under you,
and i'm resentful that you took
what wasn't yours --
if you are going to break my heart
then you must give me yours.
so please come back to me,
lovely edgy ghost,
if in fact you are more than
a bedsheet, a bad trip, and a cheat:
i'll smoke you out
with my burning prose and poesy
and ashes, ashes,
we all go down.
there is nothing outside the poem. derrida revised by natalie.
"portrait of the artist"
under the brim of a brown cabbie pulled low
she hides her impossible eyes sunk in the hollows
of their own darkness behind plastic red rims
she couldn't recognize your face without them
unless you were six feet under her.
backed into a corner
she's so close to the window
she's almost on the street,
and you wonder which is the reflection
and which is the skeleton of the live-wire
hard-wired inside the mannequin
that sits in the glass and the sleet.
all her props set on this scene
arranged in still life:
coffee in a paper to-go cup --
she likes chocolate and espresso --
water bottle to aid in the problematic
swallowing of pills hoarded
in a tiny plastic ibuprofin bottle
next to the coffee next to the heartbeat.
it's her self-help regime:
coffee and pain-killers,
water and writing.
down into the water you'll go
if you can get into her head:
it's this coffee shop on the corner
of nowhere that pages and pages
of poetry are produced and read.
most of all, it is a meditation on love --
love as outrage and hallucination,
madness and transformation . . .
lifted off the back cover of Lolita.
"ghost on a nightstand"
please, ghost, come back,
i almost had you
i felt you *almost* love me
then you slid between my table legs
across the floor and under the door
dragging my heart six feet under you,
and i'm resentful that you took
what wasn't yours --
if you are going to break my heart
then you must give me yours.
so please come back to me,
lovely edgy ghost,
if in fact you are more than
a bedsheet, a bad trip, and a cheat:
i'll smoke you out
with my burning prose and poesy
and ashes, ashes,
we all go down.