I, a mouse
His eyes seem to grow and grow,
Yellow like the moon overhead that reveals me.
I do not run, I
Am falling in,
Will sucked away
Desiring to stay
Curiousity growing.

Then my fellow nips my tail, hard,
Spell broken, I saunter to safety,
Remembering that I am not
A mouse,
I am a cat.

Edna St. Vincent de Millay

There are some days when nothing will do but some ESVdM. Like Dorothy Parker, she is brilliant at flattening the compulsive male ego. This has been one of my favourite poems since I first encountered it as a freshman. Oh that someday I might elevate my poor musings to this level:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

-Edna St. Vincent de Millay, 1923

april haikus

Feet on ground, head in
Mist of daydreams, memories.
Traffic flying by.

Someone was leaning
On the remote control: Snow,
Sun, rain, fog, snow, wind...

And now...

Breathe.

Proximity teases and even his warmth
Crossing the inches between us makes
Me gasp and--

Breathe.

This heat builds and builds and
Screen zombies and vampires and lightning
Are unable to pull my attention from his
Arm, hand, leg near mine
I want only to --

Breathe.

His scent makes me feral, squirm, but
I sit still, and refuse to direct this, just
Count silently and wait and

Breathe.

And when our lips touch finally
Finally
All the air
And light and heat
Explode and I can't

I can't

Breathe.

Spun

22.3.09

Quietly in this cone of silence,
Web of solitude,
Your reflection teases from a thousand shards
Of bad-luck-broken mirror but
I can't see you,
Though I turn and turn, looking.

spring sotted

It snakes around trees awakening
Silver sliver through grass turning verdant
Slips in through a newly cracked window
With the whoosh of moist fresh air.

It finds me here, strapped to my
Weekday concerns, even on a Sunday,
And coils up to my ear, whispers
Of open roads and apples

The infection shows in a hunger
I can't fill, a thirst unslaked, a
Restless itching desire for these soles
To find pavement, and trail, and go.

Half-realized exotic visions dance in
My head, mangos and prairie and car
Rides and flying to where you are
Greeted by natives in batik or grass skirts or furs.

I want to be anywhere but
Here, anyone but me, anytime but
Now. I twitch, unable to untie the concrete laces
That keep my home shoes on, wed me to reality.

I am drunk and must riot in the streets
I lack a mission, an aim, beyond anarchy
and change, but I am beyond caring.
Break these chains, spring, tidal currents call me.

No matter whose orbit I
throw myself into it, no matter
What zenith, what nadirs I reach, it's
Here I find myself, now, then,
Beginning, end,

Here, ground zero,
Naked mind, heart, alone, with
The cold wind whistling through me

Cleansed of intention,
Torn from pretension,
Building no myths, just
Clinging to the rocks with my toes.

Stretched to the sky.
Me myself and I.