Of Art and Literature

My favorite writing conditions occur when a line of poetry or prose comes to mind out of nowhere and I scramble for a piece of scrap paper to capture it on before the thought is lost. Another piece from the scrap paper collection, written this morning.

This piece can also be found as a response to Thursday Think Tank prompt #8 on Poets United.

Of Art and Literature

Sucking supple nipples
sweet like pears
She lies nude beneath me
whispering sonnets of Shakespeare
as my lips chisel at her figure lovingly.

Her thoughts get lost in a silvery haze
their case lulled in a pillow somewhere
and after minutes of soft and mindless pleasure
She emerges, speaking to me in a silky tone,
"What do you make of good literature to-day?"

I cease my persistence in working over her body
and lay to rest beside her, cradled within her,
I release a sigh,
"I suppose it should be much like this,
an art of the mind, body and soul"

Bleeding Hearts Will Blossom Thanks to You

Written for ABC Wednesday's Letter B Challenge:

Bleeding Hearts by Paul Appleton

Bleeding Hearts Will Blossom Thanks to You

Bleeding hearts will blossom thanks to you

Because of all you gave and all you withheld

You beguiled me from the beginning

And I

In return had burdened you with my belongings

Begging

For you to take me in

Under you your wing

I beckoned for you

For years

Believing that I would bump into you in happenstance

Because I deserved to

Because I deserved you

But in bestowing such an honor upon you

I built you the marble pedestal

That I in turn latch onto

Betraying my instinct to run.

Before I knew you

My boisterously beating heart befriended no one

But you built my bridges

And burned them down respectively

Leaving me effectively

Immobile

Bowing out with global

Understandings

Of our nonexistent love.

And I’ll admit

That in bending to your bidding

It was only the beginning

Of the binding of my being

Which was bursting into bits.

Beyond the bewilderment of your abandonment  

In the grasp of a bothersome body

My blistered digits will one day behold a beam of hope

That in time will breach the barriers of my skin

And bring the breath back to my lung

Blessing me for the timely revelation

That my bleeding heart has blossomed thanks to you.

Remember?

This was actually written more for my own sanity than anything else.



Remember?

Remember?
Remember when I sat there waiting for you at the benches by the tree?
Remember when I read you my writing and you read me yours?
Remember nights sitting on couches or beds watching television series?
Remember Gumi-Gum ice cream with the gummy bears in it
and how we'd count them to see who got the most?
Remember scribbling on scrap paper, using the products as visual aids?
Remember the birthday gift I gave you?
It took me three whole months to plan out:
Michal Negerin earrings and a personalized journal.
Remember sending me weekly text messages with short story prompts?
Remember my piece about Heaven?
Remember one-on-one talks that made us cry sometimes?
Remembering teaching me everything from numbers to what really counts?
Remember forgetting to keep in touch?
Remember telling me that salmon-pink was my color?
(I still love my salmon-pink backpack best because of that)
Remember doing wake-up duty wednesday mornings and finding me already awake to greet you with a smile?
Remember the one time I ignored you and stayed in bed grudgingly?
Remember the morning of Valentine's Day when you found me waiting for you at the bottom of the stair?
Remember the first time I showed you something I had written of you in my journal?
Remember all of our talks about boys?
(who knew I wasn't into that)
Remember the time Shani and I offered you chocolate balls and you looked at us longingly like you were truly proud of us?
Remember all those times you spent reassuring me?
Remember calling me "little sis"?
Remember sitting on the porch of your tiny apartment?
Remember all those unexpected visits of mine?
(I couldn't wait to see you)
Remember the stray cats? Remember Checkers the cat (how you called him Twix because you couldn't say it) and his fucktoy Chess?
Remember when Sonya had yelled at me and I was so upset and so we went out for strawberry icicles as a pick-me-up?
Remember doing my Purim makeup?
Remember Jungle Speed?
Remember the night you left?
Remember how disappointed you were that I skipped ecology class to sit with you and Noa?
Remember sticking our notes in the Western Wall together?
Remember our silly emails and how we used them to get to know each other?
Remember how you said repeatedly that you'll ALWAYS be there for me?
Remember letting me play with your hair?
Remember back when you caught Noy sleeping in our room?
Remember showing me your high school final performance?
Remember "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?"?
Remember telling me that I give to others sometimes more than I give to myself?
Remember me?
Remember ME?
I keep all of these sealed away,
in a compartment of my heart
where no one can reach them
and occasionally
I bathe in the great misery they leave me with
as you succeed to move on.

Sorry: A Companion Piece

A companion piece to "For a Wonderful Woman, My Most Inner Thoughts":

Sorry (aka My Sun Will Set)

I can't bear to read your response even a single bit.

My inbox reads one new message and the system's technology affords me the luxury of previewing the first line.

"Sorry"

No opening, no warming address, nothing really.

Sorry about what, Sweety?

"Sorry but I can no longer remain a friend to you,"

"Sorry that you are nothing but a foolish little girl who doesn't know what's good for her"

or anyone else for that matter.

My urgent curiosity does its duty in creating tall tales lined with seams of spite and loathing. My experience surpasses this,

though,

reminding me of what surely lies beyond the word.

Sorry,

I have been out of touch, lately.

Oh, What a phrase! What a line!

It is one I can recite back to you without flaw.

Read my lips, or my words, I don't care!

I don't care! I don't care!

I am so sick of your sorrow, and mine.

I am an everchanging creature, so don't take a single word of what I say as truth,

especially when it comes to expressions of love.

I realize

that I like to revisit old flames

and play with fire carelessly

But once again in my search for you

I found myself

and my self needs me more than it does you

And my sun will set only to rise up again once more

Goodbye

and for all the confusion,

I am sorry.

Life of a Poet Interview

Want to know more about the author behind the poetry of the Not-So-Secret Writings? Great! Your curiosity came just in time! Check out the interview I gave for Poets United "Life of a Poet" interview series. 

Do we have something in common? Is there a part of my interview you particularly liked or connected with? Do you have any other questions for me? Comments and feedback are always welcome!!

Enjoy!

Ashley

Written for ABC Wednesday

Ashley

Ashley begins to look foreign to me,

Her "A" clearly outgrew all the other letters in her name

And what is a “shley” anyway?

It must be some weird kind of snail

with a yellow shell or something of the sort.

Contorted letters pull their tails in opposite directions

only to free themselves of bond that the English culture placed them in

Even now the sight of the word burns my eyes

and I must cover them with my fingertips

to regain my sense of balance.

Ashley?

I have been summoned

Are you her?

Is she you?

No.

Who is she then?

She is a petite blonde girl

who led the cheerleading squad in high school

and kissed her boyfriend Brad on the lips every single day

she wore short shirts

and was never really nice to anyone anyway

but she thought highly of herself most of time

at least until graduation

She disappeared for a while after then

never to be heard from

until the day she popped up again

at a successful law firm

and no one around her had doubted for a second

that she had made it there thanks to daddy’s money alone.

Oh.

Yes that is she.

The asker walks away satisfied

and I mumble to myself.

But she is also a very tiny piece of me.

The Killing of an Optimist

I wrote this piece sometime in February of 2008. I am posting it up now for two reasons. Firstly, because until this day it remains among my prized pieces as it holds what I consider to be one of the best lines of imagery in my writing thus far. Secondly, this piece is now resurfacing, as many of my other pieces previously had, due to the fact that I can once again identify with the topic I had written about back then.

The Killing of an Optimist

I feel like a part of me is dying here
And it hurts more than you can possibly imagine
Like shards of glass secreting from the pores of my bare skin
I want to shout
but I have no voice
I want to cry
but there is no one to hear it
My powers have faded and I can no longer break out of this cage
With every passing moment my heart sinks lower and lower
It's a feeling so sickeningly painful
that I feel myself deteriorating from the inside out
and as I cling on to the very last strand of hope,
constantly thinning as we speak,
I realize two very important things:
that any and all sorts of attempts are useless
and that instead of standing by,
allowing the infliction caused by others to devour me,
I find that infliction of self offers an oddly comforting sanctuary that I can hide in
'til there is no more

How to be a Liar

This poem is to some extent a response to Poet's United Thursday Think Tank prompt from last week: How To.


How to be a Liar

It begins with a pact; a promise

“Don’t tell daddy,” she says

But in all of your childishness

or perhaps rather a premature intelligence

you’re compelled to know why

before entering even a verbal contract such as this

He won’t understand

It’s plain and simple

He’ll misinterpret

and someone will be deeply hurt

And from that point on

there's this suppressed, unacknowledged terror

that lies beneath your diaphragm, as you agree to keep it

a secret

Not for daddy’s sake, no

but but surely for mommy’s.

Because you and mommy

might as well have slashed cuts

at your palms

and touched bloodlines

because, just in case you hadn’t shared the blood bond before,

You now are forever entangled.

And it doesn’t end with daddy, no

(though he is long gone by now)

Pact upon pact

Bond upon bond

they pile up until the stories flow steadily like rivers

and the people

are towns, no, worlds

just settled along the bank

which is merely a pile of your own untruths.

But when she and you are in this together

You are a duo of misunderstood bandits

stealing from one life to the next

Survival of the fittest, it’s called

And the secrecy is your role,

Your duty to the sacred bond

You’re old enough!

The machine can’t function without you

You’re clearly aware of that

And, like that, it’s almost a matter of life or death

And while you did not ask to start over, again,

She reminds you that you probably need it just as she does

And it touches you nonetheless

And it’s all right,

justified even,

and when that’s the case

it almost masks completely

that you’re nothing but a liar.

Just a little author's note: This poem is freshly written, and now that I have it all on paper, I feel pretty confident in saying that this is one of those poems that I never want to read again.

A Reluctant Guest

Ever since I started yet another new journal, precisely one month ago, I am finding myself increasingly happier with my works of prose. Here is one that was just written that I would like to share with you.

A Reluctant Guest

Today is truly the first day in which I feel uncomfortable living in someone else's house. It was only a minuscule occurrence that happened yesterday but it seems to have changed the atmosphere nonetheless. The tea kettle had started whistling, and I couldn't help but think to myself how humorous and almost story-like it was that the whistling got louder just as the argument upstairs had. I was tired, and the thought of tending to the kettle hadn't even crossed my mind in the slightest, and as a result I was reprimanded -- and perhaps appropriately-- as though I was one of the woman's insolent children. While this scenario provides more than enough ammunition to write the story of my dreams, the reality of the incident hits me sore, in such a sensitive spot, that I cannot possible bring myself to put pen to paper and turn it fiction.

Since I had started residing here, a full two months ago, I had often stated that being in a situation such as this is a most meticulous balancing act. One must know when to act as a guest and when to play the part of a significant contributor. One must know when to be invisible and when to remain in plain sight. One must decide when to take action and when to simply butt out. I admit that I took a lousy misstep that threw off my balance and now I must bear the consequences of this disease until the weight of the atmosphere permanently settles.