Perfectly Imperfect

by: Stacy

You look like a calendar
with all your lines and perfect font.
Separating life into neatly packaged
squares and days.

And you drag pens
across your days,
murdering them one by one,
so easy to divide past and present.

Chaos scares you.
But write me in,
in permanent marker,
and don't cross the T in my name.

Let me be your windstorm.
Let me be your disaster.
Let me rain until your lines melt down the page,
and your papers disintegrate.

And you're left with nothing
but you. No more black and white.
So bare. So natural.
So perfectly imperfect.

Self Portait

by: Stacy

I never "got" art.
Like I never "got" you.
So abstract and hidden.
I'll hang you on my wall.

You'll be my focal point,
and my source of frustration.
Lines. Colors. Dots.
Yet still nothing to see.

But you could read me
oh, so well.
A stick figure with no
lines to even read between.

I'm the one with the ears, hands,
eyes.
And you're just a splashed canvas.
Somehow I'm the blind one.

A Few Poems

by: Stacy

Low Fat Pages
My notebook laughed,
my pen tickling it with nonsense.
The ink used to scratch and massage,
but now its touch is shallow and lazy.

And the pages delight
in carrying lighter loads
than the thought-soaked
words I used to write.



Untitled
Yesterday I chose
to be a typical big sister
and snoop through
your nightstand.

Beyond layers of old
school notes,
beneath foundations of folders
filled with loose leaf,

to the wooden bottom
of the drawer.
And still I found
nothing.

You've got no
secrets,
while I have a whole new world
behind my drawer pulls.

What's it like to have walls
that need not talk,
because you do all
the talking for them?

What's it like to crack
open your lips and let
thoughts pass them
to taste fresh air?


You have no
buried treasure,
while my veins are packed with
secrets in forms of gold coins.






Sara's Mirror
Mounted on your bathroom wall,
my whole surface made of eyes,
I'm studying you
studying yourself.

You're counting ribs,
while I'm counting minutes
until you stop staring at
your skin-shrouded skeleton.

This isn't condensation,
little girl.
These are tears to
mourn your dying eyes.

Because surely you
must be blind if you can't
see how beautiful you were
before your addiction took hold.

11/09

by amy lipman

I was born without a chest
Wooden eyes and dirty specs
I flock to you
A lamb inside your coat
That you will carry home

Some nights I do try to rest
With my feet bound in a tree
Tried to climb and found that I
Would rather run incessantly

Fellow poets,
What kind of poetry forum is this where no one ever comments on anything?
I think this should change.
I myself contribute to this speechlessness.
There is no exchange of ideas or room created for expansion if there is no feedback.
Should this not change?

But Tonight

by: Stacy

Our lips met
like ocean waves and the shore -
chaotic peace, a warm shiver.

The feel of your palms on my spine
pulling me closer and holding me tighter
when I arrive

like clouds hugging sunrays -
instant warmth,
edges on fire.

Winds of warning sweeping in
from the heart,
howling through red lights and sirens.

But tonight I'm blind and deaf.

So Long

amy lipman

Baby boy, be my homage to youth
Steadfast as a tree
The radio in my old room between palms and thighs
I planted death just to scatter the seeds
See them spring faster than I could as a wolf

Remember my birthing
Bottle my ashes
I am a mother inside of a spark
I am too young for taming and breaking
Of tombs and bones that I scold in my sleep