Daily Sketches II

Here are the poems after round 1. Poem 4 is a finished product. Tune in soon to see more development!

1. Blood Pressure,
The token of gratitude from the heart,
The pulses straining vital veins
And pulling the hair of my heart with care.
I am strong, so my rhythm
Is canonical: Only when important.
A heartbeat with intention,
A beat like a pilgrimage.

2. Flat
Are these dots perforations
Or the coagulation of stitches,
The way blood meanders to crevices?
I want to rip apart the semantics of the words “topical” and “penetrating.”
The nuances I suppose to be the needlepoint
That makes one like a rash and the other like a wound.
Yet as a print, neither are so convincing.

3. Dressed Up

One time I thought nothing of whatever
came between
“Bach” and “Back.”
I thought nothing of origami,
not speaking a foreign language,
how high a squash ball bounces,
only doing things that I am good at,
sleeping on a couch as a vagabond yuppie.

I did think of boys with light blue eyes
that complemented the khakis they never wore,
But that is the evanescence of casual dress:
everyone wears their best at some point,
because that is what really matters,
and their sport coats prove themselves better windows.

I am blinded by bachelors in ecru
That all went to your Latin school.
I toss some crumpled piece of paper you gave me
into the waste basket,
and it lands like a meteor.

4. It Was Sunny Today. (Final)

It was sunny today, for five minutes.
I hadn't seen a solar aspect of winter since coming here a week ago.
I forgot the clarity it had,
Beautiful transience, translucence,
The way it winded over the asphalt and the trees.
The way it cherished itself.
I turned a corner and it dispersed
Like helium in a vocal cord,

How could something so enveloping
Evaporate so quickly, so willingly?
I was watching a grateful suicide.
Maybe in another week
I'll remember to be grateful.
But for now,
I only feel betrayal.

5. Christmas Looks like October

The precision today. I can't imagine snow or other assorted…
Figments of the season.
The dry air relieves us of snow,
Thus of a real winter .
I can still smell the fossilized autumn.
Christmas looks like October.
I had imagined it sticking like porridge
On the ribs of the earth,
But all I see is caprice,
Where the frost touched the lawn,
And left,
A handprint on glass.

6. Gaggle

I watched five or six school buses
As they drove in front of me
And I wanted to honk
Because they were going too slow.
I settled for a lower velocity
And envisioned them as logs transporting sleeping goslings.

I prefer when I must turn back to look
Because I have the choice to ignore
And think myself better.
But I cannot close my eyes now
Even though I am not too fond of geese.

One in the back stares at me with a mucous mustache
And I remember uncomfortable leather,
Hot metal slides,
Clorox on Barbies,
Everything I was too good for.
I get disoriented in traffic
Because I can't help but notice
That we are all going
In the same direction.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre