"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed"

Sometimes looking backwards helps us move forwards. If we perceive things as simply as we did when we were children, things may work out easier than we expect.

Click here for the book.

Poaceae

"Work in progress"
All living things grow. Like Poaceae, there are points in life where you just have to diverge from the stem and go in your own direction - but luckily you can always turn around and find your way home on the path from which you came.


Node: The point along a stem which gives rise to leaves, branches, or inflorescences.

"Because it only takes one"

Impart your knowledge unto me and I will wave with hands graciously
open to you - facing the sky,
endless
(like you)
in the air, open to receive your wisdoms,
beautifully crafted (like you)
Your empowering words - so courageous and confident (like you)
Sometimes brazen and relentless
they move mountains from right in front of me
Your words are honesty and immortality at its finest hour,
I can never be thankful enough for your words
And like you, those words will stay with me always.

-Dedicated to a great friend, Marina Terteryan

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

-Mark Strand

Homely.

There is a house built out of stone
where everyone goes to be alone
Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall
No one really knows anyone, at all

A house of tiles
in the graces of weak grout
Small enough to guard thoughts
So as not to echo about

BIg enough for everyone to keep hiding-out
But small enough to hear the next person shout

There is a place in between sticks and stones
where you can sit still
but let your mind freely roam
Windows face outwards so that you don't have to face each other
Framing a view of the stars and skies
instead of your mother

Door ways open slightly, if even open at all
Darkness returns before cars do
Say hello to fall

And summer - oh summer
Goodbye to you
And your flaming concrete pavement
and all that you do

Goodbye flaming orange-blue skies
and hurtful worn-out goodbyes
and bloody summer-time wars
Somebody said we're ready to open the doors

So Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
Leave us alone no more in the backyard of green and chrome
In the moon shadows between that place far away and home
You can find us somewhere in that house built of stone

L is for the way you look, to me.

"There is no perfect love" I heard that somewhere today.

Nothing on earth is perfect- everything is imperfect. When I create something i do so to the extent that I believe it in itself is perfect, it is the most perfect it can be. I realize imperfections do exist and to all other eyes anything that passes through my hands is flawed or can be - but to me it is the intent of putting together the piece in all of its beauty and glory and having it complete that makes it so perfect.

It can grow old, yes. It can lose color, yes. It can become modified, yes. It is vulnerable and helpless and cannot withstand even the slightest bit of an earthquake...yes.

It can even disappear, but it will never cease to exist in my imagination and that is why it is oh so perfect to me.

Who needs syntax when you've got kisses.

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

- e. e. cummings

Cien Sonetos de Amor: XVII

"...I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul..."

-Pablo Neruda

[06][19][09] - 2

In a place of many
only 1 remains
bring in the new
remove the stains

In a place far away
you keep yourself hidden
to give you my heart
is wholly forbidden

In a place of choices
how does one go about choosing?
when inevitably
one of us is losing

[06][19][09]

You're my source of poetry
from now on,
through my fingers you bleed

from now on,
its a city under siege

because you're my source of poetry

everywhere i glance
i see you
could it be
you see me too?
could it be
I've stolen parts of your soul
impressions like the wind
have taken a toll

impressions you left
when before my heart you tore
impressions you gave me
leaving me sore

everywhere i touch i feel you
could it be
you feel me too?

from now on,
its a blanket over the breeze
how do you inspire me with so much ease?

and how you leave me
you're such a tease

the city wont stop
it's under siege

White Nights, Dostoevsky

"For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!"

-Dostoevsky, White Nights

letterstogethermakeprettywords

i'm writing words
words of writing
words of fighting

what are these words?
sometimes alive
sometimes dying

what are these words?
words are speaking
words are leaking

loose words
tight words
wrong words
right words

what are these words?
steering left
steering right
never seem to be just right

only to you these words
mean something

only to me these words
are nothing

these are just words
just words I am writing

Dr. Seuss is a Genius

Oh, the places you'll go

Do you dare to stay out?

Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose?

How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters?

Or, maybe, not quite?

You can get so confused that you’ll start to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place……for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go, or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go, or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow, or waiting around for a Yes or a No

Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants,

Or a wig with curls

Or another chance...

-Dr. Seuss

sun shine

that's me reflected in your sunglasses,
hair all crazy
smiles all wavy

that's the kite flying above us both,
keeping a distance
staying a float

that's sunshine pouring out of our eyes
that's sunshine pouring down from the skies
that's the ice-cream dripping down the cone
all over my hands
that's the funny looking hat
on the funny looking man

i know your leaving but let's just say
you can call me if you ever have a rainy day
I wouldn't trade our fun in the sun
with nothin' else
nowhere
no one

pink & blue

Impulses run through deeper veins
No time for clean-up
They generously leave lover-stains

Kind of like Pollock's paintings
Splattered all pink and blue
Like the ones you often tell me "move" you

Impulses aren't strong
But neither are the weak
Often leaving a picture
Of a future so bleak

They only come to go
But they leave us much
Taking away certainty
Giving us back a dated crutch

Impulses are generous
Just like you

You see you're just an impulse
Tattered all pink and blue

You steal serenity
Always so unsure
and in return for peace-of-mind
You hand out the cure

A paragon of perfection
What a beautiful mess
They leave you lonely
They leave you distressed

They have no mercy
They leave you thin

And just like you
Impulses stand on fragile limbs

Trust me

You and your impulses are more easily broken than you know
Try to undo the damage,
and then it will show

Like everything, your impulses beat you
time and time again

If you could see the power they hold over you
You wouldn't trust them, my friend.

Let It Show

Let it show, let it grow, nobody has to know

The quicker i do it, the more it comes out right
Some things just aren't meant to be kept up-tight
The more you let me, the better it sounds
Instead of us going round and round

And round and round and round we go
The more i think, the less I know
The worse it feels, the less it shows

The longer you ponder, the longer you wander
Hello, HELLO!
You're doing it all the wronger

The less i think the more i know
The more I know, the less it slows

The less it slows, the quicker i do it,
Somethings
You gotta just get right to it

Let Go

She walks across the lawn
Into the dusk
Out of the dawn
Holds tight feathers of the past
Lets them go
Sails behind the mast

What is this paragon of perfection?
She asks staring into the sun
In it's entirety
She sees a reflection
and thinks
"This is starting to feel fun"
Looking away, she squints to re-adjust
In this new vision she begins to trust
Within this complexity
She finds herself enamored
Putting a face to the name
It feels like home, she finally won.

At last, she thinks of broken wings
And for the last time,
She remembers how it stings.
Only after she has let it all go
She finds the face to this name
and decides to let the wind blow

To Ishvara

I hear the drip
and it sounds like shit
they tried to hide it
but it slipped
from broken hearts and mangled spaces
What is this drip that makes me so sick?
it fills up all the incomplete places
and feeds the virus of worn out faces.
without a warning
the drip leaves its traces
and falls into our devastated graces

That is the drip that makes me so sick.

Abundantly

you'll never live life
abundantly
i don't think you'll ever really see
that what you think you really need
is just a ploy for a mothers good deed.

i tried to help you in your ways
and re-align the track
in your dizzier days

i tried so hard
expended all the words
that would allow you to understand
the damage you've incurred

but you called me abstract
and that
was that

you said i was a good writer.
but that was that.

i tried to show you in those days
when you were moving through a maze
that its not worth seeking someone else's dream
when they get to be the fabric
and your just the seam

i let your sorrow fill my pages
i figured that natural causes would kill it,
as it ages
blood, sweat, infinite tears
we just lost all the years

you'll never live life abundantly
and this I promise
you will see

omnipotence

i know i make it easy to love me/
i know i make it harder to love you.

i know i make it easy to trust me/
i know I make it harder to trust you.

i know i make it easy to hear me/
i know i make it harder to hear you.

i know i make it easy to want me/
i know i make it harder to want you.

i know,
i know,
i make it harder to want to.

i know i make it easy to believe me/
i know i make it harder to believe you.

i know if life was easier to push through/
it wouldn't mean a thing for me to live through.

Dear Em (Pt. 2)

Appreciate life
you're alive
you're alive

don't
don't
don't complain
that he left you
you're mad
you're confused
so you cry
so you cry
and it hurts

don't
don't
don't
complain
about pain
pain
pain that he left you
fuck him, he left you
you're lonely
you're afraid
so it hurts
so it hurts
and you cry


don't
don't
don't complain
that you're sad
you're sad
he left you
you're lost
you're afraid
so it hurts
and it hurts
and you cry

some people dont feel
they cant feel
what's real

some of those people don't care
they don't care
that they're there

some of those people
can't even cry
they cant cry

some of those people
have no choice left
so they'd rather die

some of those people give death a chance
just to feel that they're alive

On the Tip of My Brain

I'm standing on the tip of my brain/
one foot firmly planted on the ledge,
the other is dangling over the edge
in vain/
I'm balancing between the thought of knowing what I'm saying,
and on the ground I'm staying
or the fear of falling off,
the fear of not knowing how I'm playing/
i really don't know how I'm playing
this game.

Dear Em (Pt.1)

8pm.
She's a quiet desperation,
lonely, impatient.
A mess without consolation,
Running into herself,
over
and
over
the Queen of abdication.

The crown she tossed into the sea of frustration
The crown she lost to the sea of self-mutilation.

She's so full of empty,
sometimes it hurts to try resuscitation.
Sprinting for the bridges,
lest to find them in dis
association.

Insincere in determination,
insufficient heaves and throws
and bottomless blows
to capitulation.
She's dishonest;
She's afraid;
Ignores all intuition

Still,
Our little Pearl of habituation
found her throne in the chaotic
speckled,
dangerous,
whirlwind of disintegration.
And there she goes
she goes
she goes

Still,
The crown she tossed into the sea of frustration,
is the crown she lost to self-mutilation.

William Blake

"To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand"
-William Blake

أنت حياتي

Let's
draw
a
line
From
your
heart
to
mine


and
if
and
when
we
break from
this
spine
at least
we'll find
our way back
over time.