In autumn, the trees molt incessantly; dispelling their yellow leaves over the pavement and streets.  She treads carefully when she walks home from school; remembering how fast a fall can happen, remembering how quickly children find something to laugh at.  She will always remember the damp, slippery leaves becoming compost beneath their sneakers and the smell of rain in her hair basted onto her face against the weight of his bare shoulder.  

            She stared down at her dirty sketchers and fingered the hole ripped into the knee of her jeans as he brushed the wisps of hair behind her ear.  Her mind seemed to have escaped the present moment as she began to think about how her grandfather always volunteered to rub sun block on her in the summer, and how she hated to feel his rough, leathery hands run over her twigged legs.  There was a tiny, yellow maple leaf stuck to the bottom of her sneaker, and as she bent down to grab it, she was thrust to the carpeted floor and felt the rush of air being pushed out of her lungs.  He held his hand tight across her mouth and she thought of herself, years ago, crouched by the crack of her parent’s bedroom door, her hand fixed to cover her own mouth so that her breath would not give her away.  Her eyes intent on her parent’s bodies writhing against one another, gazing at their motions in curiosity. 

            When she felt the fatigue in her muscles, tiring from the weight of him, the yanking and slamming of her tiny wrists, he finally entered her with a piercing pain, and the tears began.  And, all she could think was that she had always hated the feeling of wet strands of hair sticking to her face.  She wanted so much to be able to tuck them behind her ears.   

Sambandar

“As a child, Sambandar was left alone by his father at the temple water tank crying with hunger. His father returned to find the infant with milk running down his chin and playing with a golden cup. When his father asked him who had given him the milk, Sambandar pointed upward to an image of the goddess Uma (commonly known in northern India as Parvati) beside Shiva on the temple tower.” – Bhakti: Devotion, Bronzes, and the Poet-Saints Exhibit in the Asia Society

We are walking through the dirt and crowds. 

I cower from the bark of the street dogs,

and trip over crouched women and their wares,

desperate to keep my husband’s pace. 

I have been following them since his birth. 

My son’s cries would will me through

The space between us

When I would lose sight of them

My body as the current of breath

Across a cup of tea to cool it. 

The panic lifting in its billows

When I am close to them again. 

His sweet arms around my husband’s neck

reach for me, seeing me. 

Our son is hungry, find food for him. 

He heeds my words, without hearing them. 

He leaves him crying on the floor 

His delicate heels caking dust with each kick. 

He will not suckle, how can he?

I am not dry, I am not wet

I am the expanse between us. 

I place in his tiny grip a golden cup

It takes all of me to leave him

His mother as his shadow, all this time.  

The River

Rows of elephant families

Some dead, some listless

Lie huddled by the river
Their looming masses caked in a red mud

That wrangled their skin

Running rampant within wrinkles

Trembling as sleeping rocks do

Under the delicate steps of children

The roots of the tree grow into the dark water

That has ended all sound. 

Its sap has poisoned the communal river

Roots snarling dark clouds within its murky currents

The young boys of the village tread lightly

Along the death of the shore

Carrying severed limbs of their sisters

Encased in banana leaves

Their tiny, cracked feet march

To congregate beneath the tree’s shadow

Gorging themselves

Holding high, their meals above their ravenous gaping mouths

The limbs leaking streams of jet black

Meandering down their dirty necks

Satiated and passive

They toss the arms and calves into the river

Playfully running from the splash

They were children once

The eldest kneels in a cloudy stupor

Humming loudly among them

He notices an infant’s hand, still dry, lying beside him

Nudges it in with his fingers

And hears no drop upon its entrance

Rising, he clasps his throat

In an effort to feel sound

In an effort to remember

Happy Hour Repercussions

She is lost among the blended drones

Streetlight simmering in her satin blouse

Hugging her figure

As the excess of it billows in the breeze

Scene screaming in muted fog

Glazed over gazes through cigarette plumes

Mouths propelling darted smoke ribbons

Through the chilled Autumn air

As their flat-ironed coifs of jet black sheen

Bob and weave amidst the bushel of business casual

Clumsily chasing the cherry with her heel

She saunters into the dim lit bar

Ginghamed hips and burnished lips

She’d make out with a doorknob

If the opportunity presented itself

A cocktail of cologne and beer breath waft

Around her

Loosened ties adorn the sea of suits

Frantically yelling over open bottles

Keep her mind from wandering

Wandering eyes beadily skim silhouettes

Running the length of the room

Like greyhounds along a dirt track

She’s been made

Custom-tailed Chaminade owns her

Looms over her as his eyes linger on her soft recesses

She cocks her head back in her gaiety

As he feigns enthralled

Doting words and drink drive her inching

Compulsion warms her cheek

Soon they crouch together into a mustard cab

Laughing in a mutual understanding

Her fingers tracing his tie

Mimicking trite scenes of romance

When it is surely anything but

And, she knows this in the morning

Her ritualistic swabs of her fingertips

Dab delicately at her eyes

To wipe remnants of last night

Alone, her left hand covets the leathered backseat

As her right remembers an undone button of her blouse

The shadowed smears beneath her eyes betray her

As her driver judges through his rearview

Feeling the heat of his gaze

Her almond eyes pool

As she promises and swears in whispers

Lids shut, allowing the tears to escape

Running her cheek

Running hopes that this will be the last

Field of a Home

I could smell the mulch gripping the soles of our sneakers

the leathered foliage crisp beneath my light steps. 

My fingertips blanch in his grip

toward the coldest front door I’ve known. 

He turns the keys in the familiar manner

of one who knows. 

The locks might have protested, if they weren’t

as mute as I am, as I have been since. 

I can remember all the scent of wood and tree

in that field of a home with carpets that creaked with us. 

He pulled the wet wisp of hair sticking to my face. 

He would never be gentle again. 

All I know there, a leaf quivering

as though, I should have been.  

I must be beautiful in my weakness.  

2008

Cordially Invited

the ability to see beauty defines us

appreciation in perspective defines our own beauty

i allow myself to honor those with my love

only when i find an admiration for the way their mind works

to crack a smile when i hear your thoughts

is my loudest, physical act of my love for you

verbalization of the mechanics of your brain

subtle, slow, whispered expressions of your opinions

even in screaming frustration

acts as a leaking of who you are

and the drips of the stuff your soul is made of

provokes my desire to crawl into your head

live to be deafened by the shouting connections in your mind

more simply, in the desirable process of getting to know you

you assist me in getting to know myself

break me, break my walls, break my foundation

i depend on you and you and you

to stretch and grip my malleable form

within you demands my motivation

help me peel my faults

and layer me with what you will

let me decide what to keep

drag me, walk me, carry me

to where you are

"expression" beckons criticism

"cordially invited" is understanding

ideas and thoughts, i am grateful for you to share

drive me to comprehend

and not to comprehend at all

i live to feel your words

i live to feel them shape me

8/4/2008 oldie

A Handshake, a Fist

i believe. 

i believe in the muck, sweat, and grit

of a youth trying to find any truth

or validity in whatever desires

they suffer from. 

whomever

whatever it is

that causes desire to feel like suffering

acts as the foundation

of the emptiness of our world. 

we are all bound and connected to this. 

yet we will always be strangers,

bound together

in a questioning, furrowed brow

of righteousness in our motivation. 

trying is a statement of belief

driven by boredom, panic, pursuit, life, and relief. 

the boat that holds us

as we consider our weight and each other’s

mindfully balancing, mindlessly cooperating

treading lightly in each shift

treading disturbances in ripples along our drift

the same boat we are all in

the boat is empty, if we are not happy

someone find me

tell me what to do

tell me how to be

i will listen

i will heed

i will crave

give me a goal i can feel, a goal i can conceive. 

a goal more tangible

than these endless, fleshy reams of thought

dank and crowded bindings

sparking synapses in a cat’s cradle

Angst Reeks.

reeks of lemon rubbered naivety. 

the only resolution is found

in a handshake, a fist

a gesture of beckoning

aimless direction, but direction nevertheless

finding comfort in a handshake, in a fist

let it find me

tell me what to do

how to be

i will listen

i will heed

i will embrace it. 

treasuring a faceless future

tracing your form of shapes, shaping me

i welcome you and greet me.  

It is the eve of my lacuna

Atrophied down to chiffon cartilage. 

I am a ghost

Or even the empty chair housing  a spirit. 

It was a fair trade. 

He clings to me like a child to his mother’s waist

His face pressed to my hollows

His is the kind that possesses. 

Soon, my shape in the doorway will be gravel

Weighted by his fever

I am drained of all invention

Having been masticated by every mouth

We are the glint of my long, black hair

Fanned out like his breath across my back

His is the petrichor, which yields me. 

I may have always played the dilettante

But I made use of my butterfly net

Among the blades

A tribute to the one who has pacified me.  

Poem Spring Semester 2009

Settling Crowd

- Maggie Mendoza

Standing as a series of silk screened tshirts

A legion of expressionless lemurs curiously staring

Into their barricades of mirrors

Hooking their thumbs and anchoring their elbows

In gingham printed looms round with a wailing child

Standing without a hint of difference from the next

Handshakes pregnant with doubt

Words uttered timid and mimicked

Every One becoming a crowd

The air is bland and odorless

I want them to wreak, to balloon

Flesh out their matter

Into something more tangible than

Crevassed hips traced onto thin opaque vellum

I hear them as mere echoes, sweet reverb

These ghosts drip from saturation

Dyed under a heavy current

Floating balsa, ruined and useless, settling. .

Like Atlas

This is a short story that is still in it's rough stages, but participating in a reading of it was a fantastic experience. I'd love some feedback.

Like Atlas

In between the frustrated bellows of smoke leaving his lungs, the sound of her blood dripping onto the rosewood floors could be heard. Stooped, like Atlas, Marshall sat nervously puffing away at his fourth cigarette in half an hour, flicking ash against the cold brick wall in front of him. His eyes were wide and unfocused, as the expanse of his mind was limited to one thought, “how could it have gotten this far?”

Lighting another cigarette, he suddenly grasped the curtains shut, with a flourish. He had shut out all the orange, afternoon light that was beaming in through the wall of windows, after reflecting off of the metal and asphalt rooftops of Gramercy. Without the light, he could barely make out her silhouette lying lifeless on the bed sheets, her long, light brown hair covering her face and leaving only the glimmer of her glazed over eyes beneath it. And as he stared at her, he knew that he could love her now, now that she was quiet.

He felt heavy, walking toward her Macbook, the adrenaline had passed, leaving him exhausted as his fingers trembled as he opened the laptop. The glare illuminated his face, and his eyes adjusted to her desktop picture of the resort where they had stayed in Bohol, Philippines. After a few minutes of staring at the screen, he decided to wash his hands again.

The bathroom only had a sliver of window, but it seemed to be a portal in which all the noise of NYU students bantering, taxi horns, charming hooligans rapping, hipsters droning boredom into cell phones, and the squeaking deluxe baby strollers rolling across the pavement would filter through and reverb against the tiled walls and giant, porcelain bathtub. Marshall violently scrubbed, without looking once at the mirror. His eyes still stared at the two razorblades sitting on the drain long after the soap ran off of his hands.

As he let the cold water run over his olive skin, he wondered what she had wanted him to do for her next. Of course, he had to call the police, but there was something tugging at the back of his mind. Marshall walked out of the bathroom, and into her enormous living room, where the walls of mirrors centered on him, willing his eyes to look upon his reflection. Running his fingers through his unkempt, raven hair, down to the scar at the base of his neck, he traced the rubbery tissue out of habit. She had put out her clove cigarette on him as he was heaving into the cool toilet of an anonymous hotel room, jarring him before he had been able to pass out into his own vomit. Breath thick with vermouth and tobacco, she had whispered into his ear, “so you will always think of me.” As if, even if she hadn’t branded him as her own, he could ever stop thinking of her. She was forever in his mind, and he breathed her in everyday from the moment he met her.

The crinkling of paper in his pocket as his body shifted, stirred him from the memory, bringing him to the present, bringing him to what he had let happen. “What if she had wanted to live?”, he wondered aloud. And, as the waters began to pool in his eyes, he quickly blinked them away as if they stung. Shaking his head back and forth, he pulled out the piece of paper from his pocket. Marshall unraveled it gently, pulling at the corners as if they were the wings of the butterflies he used to torture as a child. He smoothed the creases and left the grainy sheet on the suede couch and sat beside it as he lit another Marlboro Red.

Upon seeing her heavy, slanted handwriting, her shrill voice came into his head, as he remembered one of the many nights they spent arguing outside of a nameless Lower East Side hole in the wall. “Marshall, I’m so sick of your fucking face looking at me like that. Like, you’re ashamed. Am I embarrassing you?! I should be the one fucking embarrassed to be seen with you.” The familiar words shot through him, filling up and smoothing out the folds in his slouched torso. She was haunting him already. “Slumming it with an art school drop out who can’t even score me some decent fucking coke.” The outcome of the night weighed heavily on the coke. If it was decent fucking coke, they could have a decent night, sometimes having sex after fighting and drinking and dancing, sometimes waking up to her crying and slamming the bathroom door in his face in the morning. If it hadn’t been decent coke, it would be an endless stream of tears, and the endless effort for Marshall to talk her out of jumping off of the FDR Drive overpass.

He felt the patterns of up-brushed paisley on her silk coat draped on the arm of the couch, and smelled her familiar scent.

I Haven't Been Blogging Because I've Been Writing

It's a shocker I know... not to blog and actually write, but now I have time on my hands and how I miss this world! And, how I love to be up at 4:00 AM when my Poetry Portfolio is due at 5:00 PM today, but I am purposefully procrastinating by blogging, it's very odd. Anyway, I plan to at least write on here a little bit in the journal sense, but primarily share my writing as it is plentiful and dogeared, as well as strewn across my bed and desk under jerky wrappers and diet coke cans. For now I shall share some recents!

1. Unemployed for the first time in 6 years (Don't worry, I hated my job)

2. Today, I thought of my friend Ana Maria or Nani as I like to call her, and found out through various social networks... ok, ok, FACEBOOK AND VIMEO!!! Anyway, I found out she won two awards at the Dusty Awards for Best Director and Outstanding Achievement in Film. And, Kevin Kline presented them to her!! It's like when you haven't heard from people in awhile and you hear how good they're doing you obviously are happy for them. But this is beyond good! The point of mentioning this was that I went to her web portfolio and under music videos there is a music video of me that she shot years ago called Quince Anos for a band. And let's say I never thought it would surface.

3. So, on this spurt of looking into my friend's creative progresses (and I don't mean friends I see everyday but friends I haven't even talked to in years), I decide to look at ALL of David Hochbaum's blogs. Well, I'll be honest, not all, but a good many, enough to keep me from doing my portfolio. And I stumble upon one done two years ago that I didn't see before and it was a thank you to everyone for making his show at Corey Helford Gallery possible. He had thanked me. I can't explain the progress that hes made and all the things he has done, the unbelievable works, the success and the impact meeting David has had on my life. He knew me just when I started writing, when I discovered art.

4. I flew some falcons in Vermont. Yah, that's right. I went hiking with a hawk. Two actually. Do it.

So, people and friends... I should probably do my work.

monologue female early 20s

Saturday March 29, 2008

Monologue – Female, mid 20’s.

I am unsure. Wholly and surely, I am unsure. About everything. I am unsure of myself, my opinions, people’s perception of me, fabrications of my self-perception, everything. I used to know myself. I think I may or may not have been aware of what constitutes knowing oneself and will have just assumed I did. I would like that bliss again because being unsure is weak and makes you think of excuses – “its okay to feel this way, its healthy, its normal, everyone goes through this” – And, what are you really thinking? Everyone does go through this, but that doesn’t change the uncertainty of your own mind. Uncertainty of your whole being defines nothing about who you are, only who you aren’t. He is not what you are looking for. Why can’t you bring yourself to believe that, Carrie? He drips of perfection in the most mediocre of means and will worship you till no end. You don’t see what he sees. You don’t see yourself in his eyes. It is beyond trying to make it work, you are unsure of him and that is enough.

I don’t want to see myself in my own eyes nor anyone else’s. I’m suffering from uncertainty to hide from any truths and boring truces I have with myself. Blissful ignorance makes me the dusty static of insignificance wasting in a world full of better things.

this is dedicated sarbehr.

pressure building awkward angels weaving floorspace jumpsuit shorts disco ranchero festival signal keyboard favor market boston cleaver skeptical lost couch pharmacy face boudoir british popcorn daring sun short man tubby fat bubby cat rubby dubby puppy cubby corn flake sits away escaping flounders breading wedding resolve impact aware stupendous meow fuck basket denied scarf staple very interesting hello goodbye forget dream sickle longevity upon devise frost poem cake birthday gone forever clever generation demise playful kidneys very small sounds very buddha timing mime fringe proposal total global annihilation departure film alive banging upstairs downstairs underneath in between above behind straddling smacking whacking smooch down under because it is bubbly and coarse and designer clothing fashion meow barista flouncy mocha chino beano fart tart art laugh again together we deliver memories and guitars and pizza smelly king fringawawa chooch merry cheekbone ants dormant slumber poop shoot root loot poot.

You're wondering why I haven't blogged in a bit, a bit being since November.
Maybe since November, I've been extremely busy... Think about it. There's the plethora of holidays followed by the new year, and I started my present job in November. What does that say to you about my job? It's definitely not the end all be all of my career. I'm a secretary. I have yet to be inspired by paperclips and staples, but hope that one day office supplies will become some sort of inspiration. You may start your installation piece of rubber bands and swinglines when you're done reading this, but if you must, you make come back to this later because I'm boring myself just talking about my job.

So it's March. March of the motherfucking penguins guys. Boy, has it been a march up to this point in my life. Now I call this a point. Turning point? That's TBD till at least a few more months.
Still a point though. I just moved out, the first time I've ever moved out of my house and lived on my own. I'm turning 23 years old next month. I'm late in the game and this is probably the only time I've been late in "growing up" during my life time. Is this really me "growing up" though?

All I can think about is how often Pledging my floors in a week. If I'm supposed to be even doing that in a weekly manner, or a monthly manner. Who do I ask? EVERYONE. My conversations have turned into "how does one put on blinds?" "do you have bars on your windows?" "where are the goddamned spoons?!"

Pretty soon I'll be a soccer mom, I can feel it. I painted my wall, built a coffee table, built a bookcase, and have probably been "furnishing" my apartment every minute I have a chance.

When will this obsession go away? What should I be recycling? I forget to eat meals because I'm so engulfed in HOUSEWARES. I get up at 8:00 AM on Saturdays, why, because my brain is racked with RACKS, SHELVES, NAILS, SWIFFERS. I think my libido is being affected. So this is what it's like to be a soccer mom.

So there we have it ladies and gentleman, I've got my own pad with a stellar roommate and a kitty cat to boot. I've got somewhere to smoke pot whenever I fucking want and I think life is as fucking awesome as it can fucking get. FUCK FUCK FUCK! I love you, world.

Feel the Love

A letter sent to me on myspace from a total stranger, quite possibly copied and pasted to 9 million other girls, regardless, not offended... quite amused.

"Hey madame moiselle.....You have to understand where i'm coming from. So just walk with me for a minute and see what i see. I'm going through the personals, I see some pretty women, then i come to your page, I stop and look at you look at me, and can't understand why you have me stuck. Yes, your beautiful, but i see beautiful women all the time...so why do you have me stuck. Your hair is magnificent, Your eyes sexy, your lips magnetizing, Your overall features lures me in naturallybut rather than jump at you like a lion would a deer, i'm stuck. it took me five minutes to figure it out. i have the biggest "crush" on you". It's as if god made you especially for me. I now know i have to know you. Would you allow me the chance? i'm sure you were given chances in life, so isn't it about time you blessed me with one? by the way, my name is malcolm."

I'm in love. I love Malcolm, he's got a big dick.

Carbs

Did anyone lose a loaf of bread?
An assortment of white bread slices?
Off of Bell Blvd. next to the Seven Eleven and Sullivan's?
I could of used that loaf of bread during the Bayside Bar Crawl... even though Oprah says bread is the enemy...
Anyway, birds, there are some slices of bread for you in Bayside. Kaw! Kaw!
bread. yay.

Sun Filled Room

It's the little things in your days that make parts of your life come into wholeness. To feel somber as well as fulfilled at the end of a touching movie. Only able to respond by eerily whispering to yourself, "That was good." And then, having the end credits scrolling to an unknown song, but a known band, the band your lover introduced you to, the same band your lover is influenced by. Spoon. To sit and relax with this movie after the drive you've taken many times before from your lover's home. The same drive that almost always is at 7:00 in the morning, when the Sun is the most assaulting, the air chilling, and because parking rules are in effect thus determining how you start your day. The drive is spent with squinting eyes, longing thoughts, passing through interminable construction. It was unforgivably heartbreaking to leave him today, more so than usual. He was laying in a sun filled room, all the while exchanging words of sentiment. He had held you well last night, feeling it in the stiffness of your neck. He made you feel good last night, sweet and full, bringing small, secretive lifts to the corner of your mouth every time you revisit these moments. Moments throughout become about you and him, all because you enjoyed yourself with him. His arms feel like a hooded sweatshirt on a brisk day, his demeanor; a breeze in stifling humidity. He feels right making everything about this, right.

Please be a joke.

I came across the worst song and humorously ridiculous music video today on FUSE, thus giving me hope for my own destructive totalitarian stardom.

Mini Saga: Murmur

It was convenient that Daniel was finished with his cigarette when he put it out delicately on her cool skin. She was still damp there. Remnants of her life still lingering. He wished silently that she hadn't murmured an other's name during, and that he could stop hearing it now.

Isn't It?

Laying in his arms, room filled with dusk
What if this is all there is?
Your dull metal aged with perserverence
If this was all there is, then
Contentment is better than happiness
Happiness fades with new aspirations
But you are constant and you are all there is.
To say you love someone
Is not when you think of them consistently,
But when you are proud
That they havent been in your thoughts today
You exist together even in absence.
It may not be all there is
Thought it is enough to fill my moves with reason