Remembering how I used to exchange poems with strangers. This is from a college student, November 1994.
mark,
haven't seen you around in awhile :(
i'm hoping that sometime you will send me another poem or a
story or something, i really liked the first one. here is
something i wrote about a year or so ago.
I stand alone and you're in a crowd laughing,
laughing and dancing with the flowers that
scent the wind
I mourn in the mist in my circle of black candles
burning, stars collapsing over my head
My green eyes glow from this surrounding gray, piercing
your soul,
emerald pools swirling with meaning as they
go liquid on me once again
Standing on a cliff, the waves crashing an eternity below
all frothy
I contemplate the beauty and aching wrenching power
of the ocean which cares not a wit for us-
petty symbolic rulers of the earth
And you remain on the beach picnicking with the
friends, glancing up every now and then
to see if I'm still here-
which I always am
Seeing the sunradiate around you as a god
your blond soft hair glowing before my eyes
Standing by the kitchen sink I listen to you and the boys
screaming as the Giants score another touchdown,
and I wonder vaguely how they are giants when
they are nothing
The shabbiness of this place forces itself on my senses,
ambushing me without preparation-
peeling wallpaper, stained linoleum,
the stale smell of old beer
Every detail of this moment is branded into the soft
tissues of my brain
steady hum of the refrigerator
the blaring of the TV from the front room
I hear you holler for more drinks so i bring you a 6-pack
and hope the game will be over soon
I return to the kitchen and pick up the knife with
which I've been peeling the carrots
Its glinging silver, caught in the drab sunlight filtered
by grungy curtains, catches my attention,
and I hold
and caress it
In all this ugliness and barreness, the knife
is clean, and beautiful
Slowly I look up at the black & white photograph hanging
on the wall from a nail and some wire
The beautiful young face stares back at me with all
the hope of innocence
and I shudder at what she has become, suffering
a painful gradual death
My attention falls again on the knife clutched
in my clenched fingers
I turn it over in my hand, fondling it
And I draw it gently over the back of my hand, staring
at the narrow line that magically appears
I turn my hand over and stare at the blue veins
beneath mottled skin, and
Casually,
I care a shallow groove across my wrist,
and watch the red well up to fill it
a river
Then again, deeper, and the red flows out of my arm
cascading to the broken linoleum
beneath my feet
-and it is beautiful-
So I do the same to the other wrist, and I
press my hands together,
and think--
Now I am my own blood sister...
hallelujah.
