invisible

for his part
the fish was faced
as if he wished to drown,
down the imagined green
running through nothing.

when the words stop...

...you know that you've gotten too busy for your own good.

being too busy is what most people i know do very well -- their layers of busy build up out of need, then out of desire for distraction, then simply out of routine. it happens to everyone, obviously, and i'm no exception. but being too busy is a sure way to crush poetic instinct, or any other artistic expression.

i know that i haven't been practicing writing regularly for very long, but after i tried to take just a few days away (which became 2 weeks), it really hit me that there is a reward for everyday practice -- the words will not abandon you.

when i don't write every day, words devolve into lists, a sense of freedom lapses into the default of routine -- and it gets more and more difficult to practice poetry again. we all know there is some peace to living with head full of white noise.

it's not writer's block. it's a very delicate scale that weighs experience + sensation against expression. and when one side is too heavy the other side has to battle for balance.

poetry to come soon...
love, bree

new posts coming your way wednesday and friday

hello there*
we're in the process of buying our first place, and wow, there's a lot to do! all of the paperwork hasn't left a lot of time for other work i should be doing...poetry, of course. so please check back tomorrow and friday for new posts. ciao!

[overlapping]

thoughts were not overlapping
just light ending,
looping back around,
the world a swirl of freed fireworks.

the self not overlapping.
the self completely contrary.

the world never seen by me,
it has been busy looping,
being something other that it seemed,
and so content, outsmarting.

and every digit i count on
not mine but a sculptor's,
a stand in.
more powerful.

living is so common,
given to me and to you, denied
to another we never knew
but forgot and grieved

without a gift.
life, it's just like you to say
i am nothing true,
i taste like a doll or a meal.

this is a moment.
who cares if it's not, or if it's now.
they say something,
to have it despite them.

[i opened the door]

i opened the door
and in with me came a soft moth,
clinging secretly,
along for a ride through the night.

a secret pulse
latched to my spring jacket,
delicately camouflaged
as the dusk is.

it part of me,
it hidden from me,
it part of me,
it hidden from me.

until it let go from me,
and i could feel it --
the flutter and the flight
lifting as if from me, outside of me.

a soft self,
its silent exclamation of freedom,
flight mastering its volume ,
suspended in the blue of nightfall.

[be gentle, don't tell me]

be gentle, don't tell me
that five is too many,
that forgetting's not helping,
my heart is this empty.

it was supposed to be dark here,
a place to dream,
to skulk into and make places,
witness the rumor of my future.

your eyes were fall's long shadow.
bar stools may be better than bed --
depends on the company, we said,
there in the center of it all.

shadowing my darkness,
your tenderness a pale test.
your heart there save mine
from direct sunlight.

while the broken are mending
they are still broken.
and so we played together,
sometimes with the idea of us.

of course i was no good for you,
you were so good for me,
so good to me,
a grand man on a blue horizon.

unlike the oracle,
in a blank trance in between
i loved the lick of raindrops
forgot the weight of water on you.

for matthew.

[we are what was]

the blue haze of her,
a silver cool shower
from her wrists and ears and neck,
chime in wake of her walk.

her easy smile,

cheeks like

a smoothed bed

fitted with flannel.

she's someone's daughter,
someone's mother,
someone's gran,
living these many lives at once.

all of her
became the world she walks,
the conduit of time and creation,
her bravery seems reckless.

i try her softness on,
the way she hums along,
another way to breathe,
and to be.


[about this poem]
this poem was inspired by a woman i saw walking down the street in our old neighborhood. a lot of older folks live in the area, and are not always as at ease with the speed and tone of city life. the woman i saw seemed really satisfied with the world around her, which made me think of her as taking a tour of the world she orchestrated into being.