Moon

The night the moon
Lost its light

Something it never had
From the beginning

Silence has a sound

Foreign words speak
From tiny, helpless lips

Foreign actions speak
From strange, marred bodies

A small, red grain
In a field of tan

The eye's corner catches it
Where most aren't looking

The only sounds are heard
Through queer ears

As people shout creaky protests
From steel pipe vocal chords

She lifts her head...

from the thin fabric,
tired of hearing the rustling
of microscopic men
on her pillowcase
and the constant touch
of the sheets draping themselves
across her arms,
legs,
breasts

more than he’s touched her
in two weeks
“alone with the alone”
except the alone is not with her
only herself,
and trivial things-
needles from the fluorescent light
stabbing her eyes,
and the long, stiff armrest
of the dried-dirt-colored chair
she sits on

picking balls of concentrated lint
off the gut of her sweatshirt,
she wonders if it would be different
if they lived in another era,
she clad in a long gown,
and he in a dark suit,
drinking red wine
from extravagant stemware

or in another world,
her the
purple, dancing, feathered leaves
to his
liquid, gyrating trunk

Series Johanna VI by Alexander Bergström

October '09

Mimicking the letter “O” with lips
An invisible person in a bathroom stall
The harsh S’s of whispered voices
A red plastic cups sits at the end of a row of glasses
      as if waiting to be washed with the others
The wrinkles around her eyes
      match the crinkled tissue in her hand
“Sparkling coffin”
Feel for the right grooves
Peel away layers of skin



Holy kiwi

Literature for the young mind

It’s twilight.
At the west side, a young artist’s dog has a curious look to him,
Waiting for night-time to arrive.
A piece of chocolate sits dangerously close to the edge of a table.
Behind a portrait of Romeo & Juliet, an invisible war
Is stirring between the ghosts and the angels.
But it is merely a game, a game of different worlds,
A story of what happens in a young man’s home
When he isn’t listening.

Stranger

Strawberry-blonde hair

A relative stranger,
Other than a few
Spaced-out sentences
And stories of
Fallen bra straps

September '09

Scribbled lists and thick-rimmed glasses
Two identical cars
      parked next to each other
           in a parking lot
Emotion needs no grammar
Black trees against a backdrop of storm cloud-peach
Beehive ceilings
Stagnant goodbyes
That curious fluttering feeling
      when a stranger walks close to you
Her body moves like air, as if born from the wind
Swimming in burlap
Daylight fades like an old photograph
Linear bruises against white skin
The awful crunch of an apple between sensitive teeth
A guy with a limp and a girl with hair as long as she is
Taking blood from the vein of an arm
      like siphoning gasoline from a car
The feeling of walking at night
      when no one is around
           as if humankind ceases to exist
The sudden impulse to taste or smell or feel a person
      rather than see them
The soft, sultry way smoke rises from a cigarette
     like a question

August '09

Ripples on water // Reflections on cars
Wet hair, tangled sheets
Water splatters the windshield like blood exiting a bullet wound
Walking with dream ghosts
The urge for something new

July '09

Yellow walls and a bottle of pills
Ugly pond, old memories
Eviscerated tree
Shadows on mushroom clouds
The cacophony of a dog’s claws clicking on tile
A discarded boot
Vespertine eyes
Heavy raindrops pang on gutters like stones
Staring at eyelids
Headless bodies above pits of diamonds
White plains of concrete
Speckled moth
A cigarette peaks out beneath a white mustache
A single candle’s vibration

May '09

In a bubble of rainfall
     traveling to nowhere
Drifting limbs
“Hiding under water to avoid the rain”
The smell of unwashed hair
      naked arms
Colonies in fluorescent lighting
Pulling bones from the woodwork
Old on the bottom, new on the top
Rainwater that brings childlike notions
Chairs with heartbeats

April '09

Dancing newspapers.
People who move like ants.
“The child confronts the world with wondering eyes. He is always drunk.”
Sassy skeleton.
“The human soul is a harmony.”
Malleable spines leave little for the insides.
Painted lips the color of sunset.
Look at me with eyes like cushions.
Drink me up and swallow me down.
Organs act as wrenches, twisting the insides.
Take me in facets.
Living with robots that have more personality than your friends.
Rainwater saturates the world in color.
Like a teenager, with living room eyes.
Seeing the world through inverse vision.
      Blood rushes to the brain.

March '09

Eleven empty seats. Two taken.
Deserted classrooms and a sliver of a moon.
Drowned worms in cracks.
Teeth grinding in soil.
A kiss mark with parentheses.
A grey haired man with the top of his convertible down
      and a huge smile across his face.
A spoon sits next to me on the bus.
Roll me around on your tongue and spit me out.
Remnants of lipstick on a glass.
A new and spontaneous love for skeletons.
Leaves tremble, anticipating the fall.
Swing toward the sun
      when plastic glints like diamonds.
Homes over hills / hills over homes.
Step into the swamp and sink into muck.
Detach, detach, detach.
Pulsating corners, pores in the walls.
Cook the sun until it turns cold.
Illuminated corpses.

January '09

The sky is split perfectly in half
Snow clings to the underbellies of cars like barnacles

November '08

The hood of my coat lies on the bed, like the severed head of an animal.
Gelignite.
Music stops, leaving nothing but two paralleled sets of breathing.
The snow turns everything to a single shade of white.
So near to his face that everything surrounding is a blurry haze except for the glimmer in his eye.
Our cheeks meet like a kiss.
White trash girls buying condoms at a gas station – “Well, at least we’re being safe.”
The feeling of being wrapped up like a baby in the womb.
I take your body, your voice, your organs, your soul, and swallow them whole.
Balancing on wooden planks in the rain like a child. “No one came looking for me.”
Sticky fingers and pastel green hair wax.
Green necklace, green sweater, green water bottle, green tissue box,
green shoes, green shoelaces, green shirt, green pajama pants.
Red toe nails.
Bury yourself in the wrinkles of my skin.
I think I’d trip over my head if it weren’t at the top of my body.
Twilight pink and early afternoon sex.

Lethargy

I'm feeling rather lazy right now and don't feel like writing/revising/posting right now. But I will post some of my work up soon!

-Erin