(Source: thdreamsharper)
She pole-dances to gospel hymns.
Came out to her family in the middle of Thanksgiving grace.
I knew she was trouble
two years before our first date.
But my heart was a Labrador Retriever
with its head hung out the window of a car
tongue flapping in the wind
on a highway going 95
whenever she walked by.
So I mastered the art of crochet
and I crocheted her a winter scarf
and one night at the bar I gave it to her with a note
that said something like,
I hope this keeps your neck warm.
If it doesn’t give me a call.
The key to finding love
is fucking up the pattern on purpose
is skipping a stitch,
is leaving a tiny, tiny hole to let the cold in
and hoping she mends it with your lips.
This morning I was counting her freckles.
She has five on the left side of her face, seven on the other
and I love her for every speck of trouble she is.
She’s frickin’ awesome.
Like popcorn at a drive-in movie
that neither of us has any intention of watching.
Like Batman and Robin
in a pick-up truck in the front row with the windows steamed up.
Like Pacman in the eighties,
she swallows my ghosts.
Slaps me on my dark side and says,
“Baby, this is the best day ever.”
So I stop listening for the sound of the ocean
in the shells of bullets I hoped missed us
to see there are white flags from the tips of her toes
to her tear ducts
and I can wear her halos as handcuffs
‘cause I don’t wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
‘cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go.
And I want to grow
strong as the last patch of sage on a hillside
stretching towards the lightning.
God has always been an arsonist.
Heaven has always been on fire.
She is a butterfly knife bursting from a cocoon in my belly.
Love is a half moon hanging above Baghdad
promising to one day grow full,
to pull the tides through our desert wounds
and fill every clip of empty shells with the ocean.
Already there is salt on my lips.
Lover, this is not just another poem.
This is my goddamn revolt.
I am done holding my tongue like a bible.
There is too much war in every verse of our silence.
We have all dug too many trenches away from ourselves.
This time I want to melt like a snowman in Georgia,
‘til my smile is a pile of rocks you can pick up
and skip across the lake of your doubts.
Trust me,
I have been practicing my ripple.
I have been breaking into mannequin factories
and pouring my pink heart into their white paint.
I have been painting the night sky upon the inside of doorframes
so only moonshine will fall on your head in the earthquake.
I have been collecting your whispers and your whiplash
and your half-hour-long voice mail messages.
Lover, did you see the sunset tonight?
Did you see Neruda lay down on the horizon?
Do you know it was his lover who painted him red,
who made him stare down the bullet holes
in his country’s heart?
I am not looking for roses.
I want to break like a fever.
I want to break like the Berlin Wall.
I want to break like the clouds
so we can see every fearless star,
how they never speak guardrail,
how they can only say fail.
—Pole Dancer, Andrea Gibson (via cloudyskiesandcatharsis) from the book Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns
it’s on but
i don’t know
whether i want
to be
her, fuck her
or borrow
her clothes.
—The Frightening Truth About Desire by Daphne Gottlieb (via cateyesindisguise)
The Banquet Thief: A Poem for my Pops
A Poem for my PopsI know I just posted this poem in April for my dad’s birthday, but I wanted to post it again today. For the past year and a half my dad has been battling (remarkably successfully, I might add) a brain injury sustained after suffering a massive heart attack. Recently he took a fall and broke his ankle and is now in rehab. He is sad and tired of the process of healing. I hope this poem can let him know how much his fight, grit, and determination has meant in terms of who I’ve become and how much it continues to mean now to who he is becoming. It is never too late to become. I love you the most pops.
POEM FOR MY FATHER ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY
This poem will be easy to understand.
It begins with a baby crying (I am the baby).Eyes wide open, yet still asleep, dreaming who knows what,
some wraith remembered from within the mother’s womb, or perhaps
a nipple moving further & further away.
It begins with a pair of good, strong hands (these
are your hands) lifting the baby from the crib.
It begins with a voice, tuneless but steady, singing
If I were a rich man, yubba dubba dubba dubba
daidle daidle daidle dum… like a washerman washing the dirt from a window.
It begins with a child playing with a nose that answers all questions
of heritage - a nose like the spine of a Torah, what did the kids say to you,
as you ran around, skinny, in the schoolyard?
Hey Phil, if you stand sideways, you’ll look like a zipper!
It begins with a holy noise pouring forth from that nose, not unlike a zipper
the size of a river, opening, I thought you must have been the engine
moving the moon across the night. It begins with Robin Hood over & over.
The sheriff & the jail! A celebration of foxes. A son more wolf than boy.
It begins with wrestling matches in the living room, you, on all fours,
taking an elbow to the center of your back, a six-year-old Randy Savage
flying off the ottoman. It begins with long drives to Disneyland -
How many frozen bananas do you think I’m gonna eat?
How many, dad?
A Hundred!
Sometimes you wouldn’t even have one, but I did not doubt
you could do it, bottomless man.
It begins with pancakes & fishing & catch in the backyard,
with end, with divorce, & middle school
approaching with its ballet of chemicals
& high school doing what high school does, with its mouths
& unsayable distances. It begins & continues
with sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice
every day. It continueswith a son who would not move, a daughter who would not eat,
you, wondering what you did wrong, wondering if love
is not a sack of stones sewn into the belly, a leash
the color of roses, snaking into the fist of a home. It continues
with a real wrestling match in the kitchen with the shape of your son,
who you will continue to support years from now, how could you
have known that at almost thirty, he would be living
still in the same room, borrowing your credit card for meals, shoes,
that you’d be paying his phone, gas, car, everything,
you are paying for everything, & how little I’ve let you know
how much I know.
I said this poem would be easy to understand but I don’t understand it,not this next part, the night your heart tried to leap from the bridge
of your ribs as if your last, best lesson might be Do not hoard your thank yous.
Do not muzzle your love - it is not the mad dog you think it is. Let it loose.
It will not injure anyone. It wants only to lick the doubt off of their faces.
It continues with gratitude, a feeling that has been turned into a wordthat has been hashtagged to death,
that is the thick & leaden lump in my windpipe
every time I’m reminded how close I came to losing you, the moments
the brain damage walks into the room:
when it takes you too long to tie your shoe, when you slick your hair
but miss one whole side, scribble 3 orange juces on your shoping list.
Gratitude, straining to climb up my esophagus
& get born from my mouth. Let me say it now, no matter how heavy
the silence sits when I pick you up from work, no matter how exasperated
when you ask me again, who is who or what is what, let me say it
in a fit of ululation, yes, because I grieve how many times it has died,
stranded in the back of my throat.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
My own heart, yes, I wear often on my sleeve, but yours, I wear
over my entire body. I live inside it like a ruby turtle. An armor
made of your softest parts. I have been a sack of stones
sewn into the belly of your love, but papa, these stones,
today, they sprout wings. I know you are uncomfortable
with the word miracle - the way we are uncomfortable
when our name is repeated over & over again - but I have proof:
A moment ago, I left you to your nap,
& you called me back into your room & said
Hey Jeremy! Did you know your dad is sixty years old?
Sixty!
This poem ends with survival:
Something you speak better than I can, every day,
by getting in Kayla’s car so she can take you to work,
by eating lunch with friends who love you like water,
by taking the dog for an evening walk,
by falling asleep in your chair watching golf,
by kissing our foreheads & saying
goodnight, & have I told you today that I love you.
‘Beautiful woman rise from your knees, claim intimacy. Sit on my face!’
Every Sunday FuckYeahSlamPoems scours the wilds of tumblr to bring you Sunday Funnies! Proof that slam poets have a sense of humor! And are capable of expressing Joy!
(via wonderdave)
Over 2 years on T, and decided to reward myself for being alive. The quotes from two different spoken word artists, Andrea Gibson and Miles Walser. Both awesome and inspirational people you should check out.
Slam Poetry Tattoo.
There is a way in which the specific pressure of being judged on one poem in three minutes can incite a level of performance like no other. This is not exclusive to slam of course, but knowing that the fate of your night or your team rests in the hands of three to five random people is a bizarre kind of adrenaline boost that has helped me unlock new kinds of performance and understand things about my poems that I don’t think I would have discovered any other way.
“Halloween Suggestions for your ex lover” poem by T. Miller…performance at Babson College
Today’s Sunday Funnies presents T. Miller saying a few things to her ex. Enjoy
