The Honorary Poet's Page


         Welcome to my Honorary Poet's Page.  These beautiful 
         poems were written by a dear friend of mine, Kelly.  
         Kelly is a student at SUNY Albany and does poetry
         as a hobby; some of her work has been published.
         Read on to be enticed by her written prose.

E-mail Kelly with comments or questions

"2 am"

I forgot to ask you. That morning the daisies, they were so pretty and the sky so tranquil. And the privilege of sustaining this, well at that time it was just so much more essential or at the very least, appealing. I don't recall asking for the darkness and she both conceded nightfall and reconciled with dawn. I suppose I should thank her now. Then again, I never offered much of myself and she took liberty of tearing away pieces and the dawn, well for that, not apology enough. I couldn't tell you, that night the silence was my accomplice and my comfort was deeper in my alibi than in filling a hollowed presence. Maybe I should have tried but in words I could not find exactly what. The confusion made so much more sense. And I knew that I could find solace buried in your arms leaving my tear stains on your shoulder I no longer fear the allure of night.

at dusk

Anchored. Cross-legged. Precariously dangled from the brink of a cracked concrete fortress. Flicking inanimate MB Lights, stale from the effort to acquire fashionable preoccupations. Darkness invades the hallowed pulpit her monopolisitic contract to obscure the evening. Celestrial artists outline the space Fantastic likenesses of the curve defining your left jaw, your right jaw en route to the taste, detouring the spirit fervently teasing my profile, my left jaw, my right jaw. North, toward the brightness. Promises made official, etched in the clear magnitude of darkness. Feeble efforts to ignore the impatient eastern sun providing my peace. Smiling, for sleep is momentarily deferred, to be alone is to never be alone, to define the dusk-dream.

Losing my hair

This seemingly innocent genocide of what was not life in the first place and it began where life begins. Only the gaze or touch of he who walks my life's most intimate path has witnessed my secret struggle and provoked the song of a warrior maid. Days provide space for this wrath to rage forward and sow havoc with more measurable respect. Reducing beauty to strands draping my woman curves, pieces of me drawn toward the Earth, a return to birth decorating the small of my back, clinging for wet breath stoically relinquishing beauty and woman. I am Dying in the bathroom sink. Beauty is inner and so I believed at a time where outer was comfort. Watching her escape between my fingers leaving behind beauty harder to find. To define in a smile or a heart some innate purpose or reason some explanation for what I have gained and crying for whether or not I truly have lost so much more. Days have again provided space for a body war ravaged to accept peace for new growth, a baby twinned with a strengthened soul, a new warrior song plays more triumphant. I Feel, I am Whole again.

May 22

I'm trying to remember how things used to be when you were happy and I was young Parades and fireworks every July 4th. I laugh now, thinking of the year we set the backyard on fire shooting bottlerockets. I'm struggling to recall baseball games and Christmas Eves How you always strung the beads up and down on your plastic tree. It wasn't so long ago. Not until some evil illness took control of you and drained your spirit And me- I backed away in fear. I want to scream because nothing seems fair Not fair to steal all the happiness from my memories, Staining them with pictures of the shadow you became A person I never knew and even though I try- all I hear is the sound of silverware hit the wall.

Blushing Apples

Keys left dangling in the doorknob once again sense of urgancy glows on florescent green post-it notes. Cradle the phone on a black and blue shoulder blade- so tired of this half-empty, half-full, Make up your mind. Smile, wave, this weekend pencil me in, for you somehow, time. Managing well, my dear, color it is really sometimes good. Swallow your drug because I chose the prettier picture, a starry night caught up in the first time blur. Always cry and smile, easier that way to ignore the truth. Streaks of brown among hunter green sleeping it away simply to feel. And it feels right and so circles become circles, once again.

Hang

One day we'll have it out. Some foggy eyed morning over coffee and classifieds. Expect me to cry over not only tipped cartons of since soured skim milk but of grown up tributairies born of a river's source at seventeen. Like usual intelligence has flown South. I think Global Warming is a crock of shit, We have spent our lives escaping the cold. Layer upon layer of fake fur lies. and the wind still sings, from the inside playing softly, music tests the limits of fire. Flooding has begun as boundries melt into kiddie laughter over the funny way I belt my jeans in reverse. does it really make a difference? What takes precious time to grow strong, in the end tears so easily at the roots. Quaintly dying, leaving only superficial stains. Between blinks for one 60 second space... Can we just pretend this happened?

peripheries

It is May 27 and all that I have offered my attention to are blades of soft green velvet delicately ornamenting my thumb and forefinger. Glaring at discouraging symmetry begging for inspiration to manifest itself, feeling the sun scar behind my ears, sifting for some deeper thoughts. In intervals the time darkens my perspective with meticulous seconds, moving a universe like clockwork. What if some ordinary early evening/late afternoon with an iron sigh she aged? Slowing fingers and tired shoulders, Time, she takes a coffee break and us, we scowl. You and I, we'd curse this interference. Even though it is us who defined dark and light and what goes where. Shaping some historically appropriate concrete itinerary forgetting to live and to Be. Somewhere hidden in this race we yearn to sleep the days and translate night into an illuminated parallel, offer some color to those we delegate to the black and lose without ever possessing. If she took one day and escaped, would we emerge an oblivious mass? Fossilize the present or take favor to seek out new and untouched, breathe night with open eyes, linger at unseen shadows, ponder hibernation and extinction, and the pure contrast of it all. Think nasty thought in the sunshine and stroll miles of uncharted footprints to rivers that live as much for the night as the day. Find a place where you and I, where we can become. Where we can more than fade into this groove, this perpetual motion. Where detours never take longer, they simply reveal more. Somewhere where there is sand, dirt, gravel, yellow brick roads left incomplete, take me to your wizard but if we get there, I have failed. Somewhere a place where circles are not circles, they obscure the beginning and the end, but they are never round and uniform. What exactly is circle, anyways? If the end always meets the beginning, why should it matter the route we take? Maybe sometimes I'd prefer to be rectangular. Have you ever considered that? Just so occasionally I could pull those ninety degree surprises simply to keep things interesting. What about soemthing to the effect of trapezoidal just because it's fun to pronounce. I'd love to be your trapezoid, your polygon baby. Take me to your puzzle, I have you solved even if you don't believe it yourself. Seeing from the outside gives me an unfair advantage. Take the handicap and let me win-you have no choice. Sometimes I serve bullshit on a silver plate and I live to plagerize only because, in those particular instances where I coose to be what you want me to be, I have merely sucked in your thoughts and acted them outward. Interwoven them into that immortalized agenda that I believe is dying, or I wish it were. Without knowing time we know she is aging. She is sickly and she hurts and wrinkles and Aloe vera-you can't fix this so put your limbs back on. Stop making me wish I could slow this down, when you know you can't stop this, or even start it because the unintelligable union between beginning and end is more than just a slap in the face.

[untitled]

Floating. somewhere above you, lipreading YOUR assurances of how good I FEEL. You have taught me to segregate sex and emotion and I can now OFFICIALLY label myself FUCKED. In a different breath, between another heartbeat I would have told you to STOP instead of only whispering how much it hurt. Instead of begging you to COME, closing my eyes, I surrender you are taking TOO LONG and TOO MUCH and I have given ENOUGH.