My own poetry

I can't conceptualize my work into one category, so I'll place it right here. I'd particularly like criticisms/comments on this piece because I feel like it's inordinately missing something. All comments and whatnot appreciated.

"Constantly risking absurdity"-With Ferlinghetti in mind.

I risked a breadth of a fortune
To come full-circle into your receiving
Arms, and I felt the world
Drop beneath me, like Jesus forgot
His cross to bear, and the soft down
On your arms provided no
Comfort as I watched my life slip
Through the gaps in my toes.
It's absurd for you to love a girl like me,
With eyes so gray I call them blue
And for mountains of white knees
And puckered grasps, I only wish
Yours matched mine, and that the
Embrace of your arms around my waist
Felt little more than a bond.

I must say, though, I can't help but touch
My fingers to your cheeks whenever I see your
Heart beat in your eyes, to see a soft ripple
Pull across your collected self and your gentle
Smile; That hard kiss like you were branding your lips
To my own and your fidgety fingers at my neck.
The quiet way we would breathe out of one set of lungs.

Softly, we would watch the world drop beneath my knees,
Slipping as quietly away as if it had stolen your soul
While you were sleeping, and the sharp longing
Fell over like a jumbled child
When you asked and I said yes.

Autobiography(My Reply to Ferlinghetti)

I am leading a quiet life
In a high chair the size of heaven every day
Licking mashed potatoes
Off a silver Mickey Mouse bowl
And smiling at the flecks and whorls of white
Stuck in the crevices between my stubby fingers.

I am leading a quiet life
In an abused ugly school desk.
I am an American.
I was an American girl.
I read fairy tale collections
And became a fairy princess
Trapped in a 2-story tower of bricks and chalk.
I thought I was Rapunzel
Swooning and dreaming only of escape
And my one true love
While my teacher was a one-eyed witch
That hopped about on one foot
Screaming, 'Rumplestiltskin! Rumplestiltskin!'
And forced me to do math problems.
I had a fairy wand made of deliriously weak cardboard
And a plastic tiara that glowed like the sun
Underneath the chandelier lights of my imaginary ballroom.
I woke up at 8 o'clock every morning
To capture butterflies with a cool elliptic net
And tell them the tragic story of my cruel mother
And very ugly baby sister.
I still can feel the beat of their fragile wings
Against my palms, entrapped within the sanctuary of my steeple.
I had a happy childhood.
I saw the inauguration parade for Carter.
I looked homeward
And saw no angel
Only pockets of disorganized flowers
And a grubby slash of weeds.
I almost stole a trapped mermaid
From Toys R' Us when I was too young to know better
But my mother stopped me when she heard
The crinkle of plastic in my pocket.
I wore a shirt and short set decorated with peaches the day
I kissed a boy behind a trash can in his garage.
I kicked my mother in a hotel room in London
And screamed that the world was unfair.
I have seen a pretty smiling boy bounce his calves
To a song only he could hear.
I have seen my father's company picnics
Full of people I do not know that ask me questions
And exclaim that I have grown feet inches miles.
Chocolate brownies and barbecue ribs
Snatched and eaten by hairy thick fingers and dry mouths.
I am reading the future on the pink nail polish
On my toenails.
They tell me that cracks and crevices might show up tomorrow
With a forty percent chance of soap-smelling rain.
I have seen my sister parade in front of her mirror
Holding her sandy strands of hair away from her slim face
Worried over an oily complexion.
I have not been out to a park
In a long time
Nor to a bakery
But I still keep thinking
Of going.
I have seen small puffy children parade
When it was snowing
Glad the streets were white enough to prevent public transportation.
I have eaten salty peanuts in ballparks.
I have heard the cry of a woman
Who felt she deserved three extra cents for her time on earth
And the whimper of a mangy dog next to an open guitar box.
I like it here
And I will not go back
Where I came from.
I too have written poems poems poems.
I have walked alongside unknown persons.
I have been in Asia
With an anthropologist on the Discovery Channel.
I was in India
When A Thousand and One Arabian Nights was written.
I have been in the Manger
With straw in my hair and a wrinkly little body
Pressed against my ribcage.
I have seen the Eternal Distributor
From the outside of a Hallmark store
In Memphis
And a kind bum with tender blue eyes
Outside a drugstore in the middle of January
Pleading for radio listeners to hear his song.
I have heard the sound of revelry
By night.
I have wandered lonely
As a throng of rubberneckers around a car accident.

I am leading a quiet life
Outside a high chair the size of heaven every day
Watching the old and young walk past
In pure white Keds or blood red heels.
I once started out to walk around the world
But ended up in the middle of nowhere
With an empty jar of peanut butter
Drenched to the bone and wishing for my mother.
That journey was too much for me.
I have engaged in silence
Manipulation and cunning.
I flew too close to the candle
And caught my wings on fire
Because there was no steeple to protect me anymore.
I am looking for a reason
In the juniper candles I have lit around my bed
But I accidentally tip over one and scorch my carpet.
I erase the spots with my bedsprings and move forward.
I am looking for a frog that has trapped itself
Between a vacuum cleaner and a cardboard box
But every time I try to direct it one way
It jumps the other.
I forget about it
And find it later flat as a chocolate chip pancake in the street.
Young women should be adventurers
Going wherever their hearts take them.
But Mother never prepared me for the real world.
Home sick
Womb sick
I return
I have traveled.

I have seen Las Vegas
With neon lights the size of small galaxies.
I have seen floating Thanksgiving turkeys
Choking on smog and bobbing into office windows.
I have heard my father moan through tears
While I hid myself behind a half-opened door.
I have heard children stumble
And crack and cry.
I have slept through a hurricane
And woken up the next morning
Surprised the sun still shone.
I have heard a mockingbird
Mock my mother's calls.
I have worn a dress
And not been afraid of the trailing hem.
I have dwelt in rooms with locked doors
And hidden in corners with a blanket over my head.
What futility what unhappiness what strife!
What men and women with unseeing eyes
And jeweled fingers lost among the
Endless cycle of supply and demand!
I have seen the statues of heroes
Adored only for the artistic patterns
Of gifts left by inferior pigeons.
Kundera dancing at a metro station
His skirts held high above his head
And a vulgar man beside him clapping.
Columbus in the middle of sea
Pressing his temples with feverish unhappiness
Basing all of his hope of life on the flight of a single seagull.
Lincoln in his stony chair
Solitarily baring the grief of American sorrow
On his own Herculean shoulders.
I know that Columbus did not invent the future
But only took the credit away from the Mayans.
I have heard a hundred broken writers
Trapped in their own cycle of fear and rejection.
They should all be freed
But then they would all kill themselves.
It is long since I could claim innocence.

I am leading a quiet life
In an empty shattered house every day
Reading a constitution I bought at the Smithsonian two years ago
For five dollars and a lemon slice.
I have read American Girl
From cover to cover
And noted the close identification
Between beautiful parental relationships
And complete and utter happiness.
I read the Want Ads daily
Looking for the lost family
That is searching for me
Because they accidentally left me in a grocery store
Twelve years ago.
I hear America singing
But it sounds just like Cyndi Lauper
And America seems to have lost its message
Two hundred years ago.
My fourth grade teacher could never tell
My soul wears shiny black tap shoes.
I read a Goosebumps book every day
Enthralled at 10-year-old couples and prickly monsters.
I see where the pond I once caught frogs in
When I was a delicate tom-boy
Has been drained to house another American family.
I see an old couple, small and squat like trolls,
sashaying their hips to the blues.
I see another war is coming
But I am too afraid to fight in it.
Mother never prepared me for combat boots and camo.
I have read the writing
On the stalls in the girl's bathroom
And I now know phone numbers and addresses
Of beauties that must have left them here
For me to find.
I helped the sun go down.
I marched up to high school on the first day
Blowing air in and out of my lungs
As the big kids drove by in Hummers and BMWs.
They never knew I threw up my breakfast
In a bush beside the door.
I see a similarity
Between love and complication.
Love loves complication
And complication cannot live without love.
I have walked down alleys
Too jagged and sharp for anyone
and come out on the other side with just a paper cut.
I have seen a hundred scoops of vanilla
Plopped into cones and placed into the hands
of mawkishly happy couples.
Rembrandt never painted thin women
But they are there
Trapped within a carcass of flesh and bones
Aching for anything more than just a saltine cracker.
I have heard garbage men sing.
I have ridden highways
And read billboards promising eternal salvation
But only giving me a telephone number.
I have seen them.
I am the woman.
I was there.
I suffered
Whenever I thought it proper.
I am an American.
I have a passport.
I did not suffer in public
Or so I tell myself.
And I'm too young to die.
I am a self-made woman.
And I have plans for the future
That would make my mother weep lemonade.
I am in line for a new license plate
And the woman beside me smells
Like smoke and death.
I smile at her and she smiles back.
Her mouth is as vacant as her eyes.
I am afraid to check the obituaries
And see her face there.
I may be moving on
To Ohio.
I am only temporarily
A civilian trapped in a civilian prison.
I am a good person
Especially at night with the sheets tucked up to my chin.
I am an open book
To anyone that isn't afraid to look me in the eyes.
I am a complete mystery
To those that only touch my hands and pass.

I am leading a quiet life
In a four hundred and fifty square foot coffin every day
Contemplating the intricacies of the spackle on the ceiling.
I am a part
Of the human race's long walk to a conclusion.
I have wandered in various neighborhoods
Wishing they were my own because of the pretty grass
And white picket fences.
I have written wildly long poems
That amounted to absolutely nothing
Because I was too afraid of what people might think.
I am the woman.
I was there.
I suffered
When there was pain.
I have sat in rocking chairs that made me feel like a queen
And danced in front of my mirror naked.
I am a moonstone dropped from the heavens.
I am a hollowed out light bulb
Where poets fade in and out of existence behind veils of smoke.
I invented time travel
After watching an ant disappear out of this reality
And appear on the alternate reality of my knee.
I am an ice skating rink in the middle of a desert.
I am the color red
Splashed like spilled cranberry juice beside the sun.
I am a light bulb of poetry.
I am a destroyer
Of naiveté and comfort.
I have dreamt
That a bird pecked away my body
And left only my ring finger and some tinsel.
For I am a kettle
Of poetry.
I am a bank of precious goods
That twinkle like gold
But smell of warm summer nights
And rose perfume.
I am a circus performer
Left behind to fall into a black hole
And come out on the other side
Wearing a toupee and false teeth.
I see a similarity
Between the ignorant
And myself.
I have heard the sound of rain falling
On a tin roof.
I have seen boys on boardwalks
Lean forward for a kiss
And come back with spider webs.
I understand their confusion
But I do not smile in comfort.
I am a gatherer of priceless images.
I have seen how kisses
Cause love and complication.
I have risked security
For the hope of something greater.
I have seen the Virgin
Frozen behind glass
Poked and prodded by sticks in the hopes
that she will spit out the earth's fortune.
I have seen metal elephants hold their trunks above their heads
And say, 'Don't run! Don't jump! Be safe!'
I have seen statues of beautiful women
Pushed aside because their navels stuck out like cinnamon rolls.
I have heard a siren sing
In a small booth outside the Hard Rock Café.
She made love to a sax
And caused the death of me.
I have seen a scared little boy dance the waltz so straight-backed
His partner was afraid to move her feet.
I have seen a beautiful girl drained by hungry purple veins
Shudder in her bed sheets as the moon cooed.
No one spoke
But her hair was done up with flowers
And she wished she was innocent again.

I am leading a quiet life
In a white room decorated with monuments to someone else's life every day
Absorbing the fading glow of pointless success
And I have read somewhere
The question and answer to life
Yet I cannot remember the title of the book of jokes.
But I am the woman
And I'll be there.
And I may cause someone to love me in his sleep
But I hope he knows I never did it on purpose.
And I may make something beautiful
But I hope the world won't be frightened by it.
And I may write my own epitaph
And someone may remark that it is just too long
But I will not mind
Because my soul wears shiny black tap shoes
And Immortality never refuses a dance.

My life: (Summerized)

When you're lost in the wild and scared as a child
and death looks you bang in the eye;
when you're sore as a boil and according to hoyle
to cock your revolver...and die....
yet the code of the man says 'fight all you can'
and self-dissolution is barred.
Hunger and woe, oh that's easy to blow,
it's the hell served for breakfast that's hard.

extraordinary jetplane. I'm impressed.

[db]WOW