99.5 and Rising

An intoxicating halo in my vision—
The almost sickly assurance of truth.

I am fevered. So fevered in you.

Time fluctuates and undulates
In a manner I’m not sure I understand

Sometimes I feel my mind floating
Rippling the surface of reason--
Yet each expanding ringlet
Confesses I am not mindless

You shocked me into swift submission
Which I farcically attempt to justify
But my heart appeases my scruples
Like a hypnotic I am drawn

Chills like a cold sweat crawling—
I catch your coal-fire gaze

I am fevered. So fevered in you.

If true love is a spark in the air
You’ve electrified every sense I know

11/19/08

Ink Stains (for Honesty)

I pause to press pen to paper

The ink staining the sheet in a fine circle

Hovering above the thin blue rule

As I hesitate to find the words

My brow knits blankets of frustration

Searching for what I could say

The faucet to my creative mind

A constant downpour these past weeks

Has suddenly clamped to a drip

Squeezing out only dribbles of eloquence

I know the cause but even better know

It is no cause for worry

The heart now so enraptured with new joy

Cannot express a passing coherent thought

In it's blissful state of logical confusion

The world's vast beauty seems meek

When held up to a paramour's eye

Yet even to describe such an eye seems impossible

Perhaps my words fail me

And an untroubled poet is rarely the case for remembrance

Rather this rough artist would embrace that shattering emotion

Than remain miserably untrue to become truly remarkable

10/13/08

Gravely I Sing Unto the Night

I said all the pretty words already

Thought them

Sang them

Chewed them in my dreams

Sealed them with a kiss

Clichéd just for you

Each with their own special flavor

Let them languish and roll

Off a ready tongue

They stream forth with good intention

Only to dissipate

And die

Desire is the common flood

Never finding an honest destination

You, my errant mystery--

Someday you'll slip your coordinates

And pretty words will find you

Till then, I make them tidy graves

Among a thousand others

Unearthed for withering fantasies

10/01/08

Without Eyes

We see the world on two legs;

Frozen in forward motion,

With scant periphery perception

Casting off curious angles

That mere renegades dare to measure.

Yet you could chance to yield

To the pull of unexpected urges

Still unexplored in popular propriety.

Slaving to gravity's sure persuasion,

I greet the ground so fully;

Rooted in expansive relaxation.

The pressure of an entire life permeates

Through layers of loose resistance.

Vice-held twixt truth and logic,

I explode into everywhere,

Raining furious rationalities

Thunderously through cavernous thoughts.

The spectacle behind my sight

Transcends the theater of my body,

Hurling beyond the abysmal barriers

Of the barren black box.

It is I in infinite inner Truth

That surely consumes this supple space;

Entertaining the world without eyes.

9/29/08

Finding Center

I walk the path between comfort and truth

As pretty nothings brush past burdened ankles

Upon knees bent for a life's challenge

A body protesting its abuses

And a head held cautiously high

My senses are swiftly suppressed

By a blanket of air and calm

Wholly filling my mouth and nose

With a simple suggestion for my strains

Just

Let

Go.....

9/20/08

The First Post

Greetings!

So my name is Amanda (though you'll notice I sign out as 'Sparky', a nickname I'm fond of), and apparently I have decided to join the world of blogging.

Mainly my goal here is provide for myself a convenient and easily accessible place for my poetry and "poetic musings" (as I call them) as I produce them.  I want to use this as a means of storage, back-up of my work, and a chronology and anthology of my work.  I also am interested in any reader response or feedback.

I am by no means a professional poet--this is simply a hobby.  I have had one very short poem published thus far in my university's literary magazine and I won't hesitate to say I'm a bit proud its the first poem of the magazine!  The rest find their way to computer files, random scrawlings, and Facebook notes, which I've found is not the medium I would prefer. Thus, BLOG! 

You will find my poetry and musings are very random in nature.  I very rarely adhere to a meter or specific poetic form, unless I'm REALLY in the mood to write a sonnet (which is rare....but it has happened) or something of that nature.  Sometimes I rhyme, sometimes I don't.  If I do rhyme it could be specifically patterned, it could be a random occurrence. You never know!  My musings could be anything from a description from a scenic drive to a long hypothetical question about something in society. 

I only write from inspiration... so if a long hiatus from updating occurs... it's because I haven't been struck by the poetic stick for a while.   

Again, criticism and feedback is totally welcome.  If you love it, hate it, think its trash, hell let me know.  

Thanks, and hopefully I can get some of my poetry up and dated (if possible) soon! 

Concessions

I saw a leaf this afternoon

On a mindful walk to purpose

The reel crept up to slow

Clicking away and captured

But a minimal broken leaf

Holed, brown, and decrep't

Pierced like a sacrificial body

Unto the fine sharp swords

Of a hundred green warriors

Armed, anchored, and alert

To their confident wooded purpose

Victory's claimed over dubious virtue

The lamb being perhaps scored

Long before it found the skewer

Numbered among a thousand

Little different from their crimes

Anonymity is its final mocking cruelty

Forcefully reeling back to pace

As daily music fills my ears

I remember the leaf upon the hedge

Who wailed for brief concession

9/13/08

I Think, Therefore I am Poet

I write poetry because I can

I write poetry when I don't know what to say

I write poetry to overcome shyness

I write poetry because it's mine

I write poetry when I overflow

I write poetry to make a point

I write poetry because it's cathartic

I write poetry when beauty strikes

I write poetry to forget and remember

I write poetry because you hate it

I write poetry when hurt is in the air

I write poetry for self-satisfaction

I write poetry because you can't take it away from me

I write poetry when and only when I feel it

I write poetry to understand myself

I am a poet because I say I am.

9/13/08

I am my own Fortune Teller (Peering into Palm)

A shrill sodden sensation crawls its way across life lines and heart lines

Alarming to life old sentiments sought and misplaced over time

She is open crying for the jig-sawed suitor that knits her into new happy tangles

A twitch of anticipation for her elusive mirrored moment in a second of forever

For right or wrong she can never know until the leap is leapt and done

Then long after discover happy tangles are cruel knots bound by hastiness

There is only now, now she's open crying for her jig-sawed suitor

Whose sacred duty is to keep life lines and heart lines immeasurably true

Though she falters cautiously an expectation arises in unabated view

8/31/08

Insomnia

Can't sleep tonight

My hips want to sway

To the beat in my brain

Every fiber tense with motion

For the lack of expression

Because the hours tell me no

Churning songs

Ricochet in my bones

Tangling my sheets

It's nothing deep

Nothing special or unique

Just a desire

To move, to groove

Carving out something

That's purely inspiration

Without inhibition

Just gyrating my body

With the desire in my head

That sees no reason

Blame it on the hours

Forcing clamped tight eyes

When pliable minds wander

Too wild for the ease of sleep

7/8/08

This is Your Mockery

I see you, lurker

Launching your hot lungs

Exploding through your horn

The herald of oblivion

The lemmings we jump

The sheep we follow

The clones we regenerate

jUmblingtoGETherwITh

OUTmeanINgSINtentions

Static ant races

Blur with antic faces

Never dripping traces

Every one is blank

I see you, lurker

Trumpeting your Truths

The herald of oblivion

Ears stuffed to listen

Lips stitched screaming

Paralyzed in motion

I can still see you, lurker

Heralding your oblivion

5/5/08

"There is Something Dripping in my Head"

"There is something dripping in my head"--Hamm, Endgame, by Samuel Beckett

There is something dripping in my head

Drips, and taps forever

Tapping its way along the stream

Consciousness rippling in protest

Oh, but how willful an eye

Glazing for its moment

Lost, and wandering depths

Pool upon pool, forever

Can I stay in this place?

Can I stay and inquire

The iridescence of an idea?

Oh, but how inconstant a drip

In its nature, mocking and cruel

Slips away, like a naughty child

Stalks away, like a scorned lover

Yet child and lover alike are pulled

As gravity begets the drip

And again, again, without regard

There is something dripping in my head

3/26/08

The Weight of Days

Fine line teetering

On the brink of raised eyebrows

Question like death

On the long wrist of passion

Heavy

Core of my Agenda

Breeds disparate isolation

Gnawing at the cords

That bond to fulfillment

Heavy

Finger in the air

Curving graceful orbs

They glow like neon

Fading to absence

Heavy

Droplets collect in pools

Splintered from their origin

Shallow reflections beg

Invitation to their depth

Jump to sink, and so

Finding my conscience

Heavier

2/17/08

A Moment of Discovery

I carelessly glance

Through the grease fingered window

Framed by white-wash scratched walls

And indifferent patterned furniture

As I'm sitting in my cold bare feet

Itching at dry winter skin

I chew my neglected lip

I stop to notice the snow

1/24/08

*Published

The Seams

I've always wondered about my childhood

The weird things I did

Seemingly innocuous moments remembered

Whether other kids were as strange as I

What I've come to realize

Is that the flashes of my formative years

That play so vividly in my mind's eye

Are only half real

I know some of them exist

Memories that actually happened

But there is this vaseline lens outlook

I wonder if what my parents and friends have told me

About who I was

What I am

Become memories from my overactive imagination

Conjured for posterity's sake

There are other recollections

So strange and wild

That others question their likelihood

And a seed of doubt

Springs into the memory

It could have easily been a vivid dream

Reality and the imaginary

Are difficult to separate as a child

I can't help but wonder

Why I can't remember any of my childhood birthdays

But I can recall the exact details

Of a particular occasion

When my mother specifically asked

To remember to buy milk

And I remembered

Just as we passed the store

Or at a soccer field

As I tried to run to my mother

Eyes closed tight

And I accidentally hugged another woman

Such inane memories stick out in my mind

Perhaps strange abstract building blocks

Of who I am today

All of this brings into question...

20 years from now

Will all my distant memories

Of all my experiences

Be just strung together pieces

Of strange dreamlike images

Odd and mindless moments

And imagined impressions from others?

Even my memory is not my own

So it seems.

1/24/08