I think all of these poems have already been posted in their infant stage, but most of them have undergone major revising since then. These are the poems I put in my final Poetry Portfolio. Of course, no poem can ever be perfectly polished and finished, but I've put a lot of work and "word-time" into these. Enjoy!
September
September exists
in my hands
like a breathless dawn brimming
over edges of mountains;
light leaks into valleys
captively cupped,
kept, like a handful
of sand slowly slipping
through fugitive fingers of time
Confession of an Ocean
Inside I hide an awful truth--
a murderer am I. Because of me,
the beauty of a blue-eyed youth
will wash away. Because of me,
a German prince's heart will never hear
that sound which distance muffles with her blue
and heavy laughter, which is mine. His fear
is everything they'll never get to do.
A notion stretching love
over an ocean,
an impression, a conception of
something imagined,
a fancy, a whim, the separation in
the wasted waves that sin.
I sense no sorrow, but
tomorrow both the lovers will give
in.
Pheasant Sighting, 8:13 am
Peeking out at sunrise,
gradually glowing,
green tail feathers slip
through November,
cutting across 13th.
Crisp, clacking claws on
pavement carry him into
the neighbor's corn.
Announcing his reign,
new day glinting off
a despotic beak,
tossing his head
the pheasant hails
the morning.
Trying to Understand Things
"Things include a lot of
things,"
he said. Dismal drops of July rain like
brushes on a Zildjian,
chink chink-a chink chink-a
things things things.
Silver strings and callused fingers
sing
the song my heart abandoned, and a
satin tear upon my cheek, an empty
chime,
falls in time, as all the elements of disappointment
culminate that rhyming thing.
"Somehow, I seem to know already what you're
saying
behind what you say." He said.
A ping-a-ling, a troo-la-loo, a frenzied rhythmic
dunk-a-dunk
hollow plunk of stripped piano keys,
"And just what is that?"
I ask.
A naked symphony of
misunderstood circumstance.
What is the Possibility of You Coming to Germany?
Swimming to the surface
of an upside-down sea,
in a turtlneck of turquoise,
unable to breath.
Am I drowning?
am I trapped--
bashed between violet and green?
Then let me be lost
in noncommittal limbo,
waiting . . .
for a response, a clue, a smack in the face;
stop smothering me with un-breathable space.
Your silence is screaming:
break me . . . break me . . .
suffocating.
Will you be fine without me?
Will your music fill the emptiness
that used to be us?
Will you find another melody?
Will you forget the tune of me,
the fingering,
the chords,
the chorus, the bridge, the key?
Secretly, I hate you
for being away,
unwilling to dream,
unwilling to wake.
You say, "Join me in Germany,"
but why? You forgot to tell me.
Evening Gown
I long to trim a yard or two
of blue straight from the sky and stitch
the fabric, hue by hue, into
the ultimate and unattainable
raiment of angels--
a fabricated gown with
tamamushi beetles sewn
in sunset stars along the neck,
a band of silky lupines looped
about the waist,
a baby-blue train bustled up
at the hip like a pompous hibiscus,
closing the seams with his claws,
a barn swallow clings
to the clasp in the back, and
ninety-three powdery underwings swing
from the hem when I trip
into twilight.
