The Axis (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Aug 15 2009

The sadness

just

carries-

same as always.

The same ache,

and there’s no one

waiting.

We are worlds apart,

galaxies between.

And somehow

that doesn’t dull the drive,

the curiosity,

the hunger,

the need.

It doesn’t slow the sadness

at my axis-

that which I spin upon-

can’t separate myself from.

Who would I be

without this?

Would I stop moving?

Would I combust?

Would we…

Of course I can’t ask that

we still have lightyears to cross.

We have so much darkness to navigate,

so many rocks and ice and  flames.

I can’t do anything with this

but repeat it.

All these arrangements of letters and words,

to say the same thing.

Of all the things that change

this isn’t one.

This is

strange gravity,

pulling, spinning, ignoring me.

You are

so far,

so much.

I can’t touch anything

without the greatest efforts and manipulations-

just for seconds of hope I squeeze from your stars.

I miss everything we never are.

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Pretty (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Jun 29 2009

Don’t be so surprised by pretty mouths full of dirty words-
the dirty is not the part that hurts.

Everyone knows
pretty only gets you so far
and it’ll come down to
what you’ll swallow
and what you’ll spit,
what you’ll reject
and what you’ll stretch or shrink to fit

Pretty mouths
have to learn
“Me first”
and
“Fuck you”
or even
“Fuck me”

Pretty mouths have to be
able to say “No”
and spit it with conviction

Pretty mouths
have to practice non-pretty ways
to secure attention

Pretty mouths
have to be willing
to dirty themselves
with
sex and money and politics,
with opinions and arguments

Pretty mouths
have to put out
exactly
what they’re told to take down
so their voice
makes it’s way around
the teeth and tongue and lips,
all the things that rest on the tips…

I’m not saying pretty mouths
can’t gloss it up,
can’t pout it out,
can’t pour out sweet,
and drink sweet down

I’m not saying pretty mouths
can’t move as they choose-
but a pretty mouth that won’t get dirty
may lose all there is to lose

So don’t you dare lay out
fairytales
for little lips
from the spoons of your mouths

Don’t enchant them
with dreams that someone else must fulfill
(because no one can and no one will)

No-
feed them
honesty and the power of vocabulary
that spans all the things they’ll ever taste or
have to demand or
suck away from someone else
to make sure they have enough for themselves

Feed them love and feed them the gritty,
just don’t feed them
the crutch of pretty.

4 Responses »

 

Haiku (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Jun 1 2009

Sitting here with you

Is letting a wound bleed out

All the poision.

2 Responses »

 

Here’s To The Rest (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, May 26 2009

Maybe I should say
I could never find your shoes to walk in
where do you keep them?

No matter what I try,
you’re silent
and I’m left guessing
your side.

So I’ve tried,
and fell upon
a lot of anger,
believing
it was all
the nothing
of an easy high.

So I’m gonna go at it
from this side-
here’s to the rest:
on the chance that
you’ve always cared,
you’ve always meant the things you said,
I walk around
heavy in your head.

Here’s to the thought that
you never used me,
everything was real,
you’re just scared of what you feel.

And if there were choices to choose
you’d ask me to stay
you’d tell me “don’t go away”
and in your silence
you’re trying to do the right thing,

what you think is best for me,
and you find my words
and can’t stand to see
such hurt
because that’s not what you meant.

And you don’t really want me to let you go
and in your heart of hearts everything means so
much
too much
to ever open all that up.

Here’s to all that;
here’s to me saying
it doesn’t really help
and I’d rather you roll it out
than blow it away,
smoky words
that change their form
and don’t cling to anything.

I need
something here
to adjust to.
I’m just
putting words in your mouth
and I know
you have enough of your own,
we could hammer this out.

Here’s to
another series of letters
arranged to make you think,
vainly assuming
you look for them,
and the hope that
I’ll get the chance
to throw them in your face-

that we’ll one day
be in the same place.

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Bluest Rains (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, Apr 30 2009

I am pretty excited about almost finishing the Writer’s Digest Poem A Day Challenge, and even more excited about posting the poems soon. Until then:

Bluest Rains

I’ve waded too far in dark waters
pinprick of light
flickers
I stop fighting the undertow
and just float

why was I fighting so hard?
churning my legs
going no where
drinking salt
losing air

when I could have
just let go
bluest rains
smooth over me
best sunrise
I’ve even seen

One Response »

 

Cool Sweet (by Rebecca Chasteen) Wednesday, Apr 1 2009

“Rock and roll, hey
Don’t you know, baby, we’re all alone now?
Give me something to sing about” – Paramore

Cool Sweet

You should
lick that champagne from your fingers,
there’s no rush,
there’s no reason to brush it off
on rags of cloth,
and let them drink
the cool sweet

I know you saw me
watch you
move
you didn’t stop
I didn’t lose
my nerve

It turns out
there was still something there
your hands stuck in my hair
at first

It was cool sweet
outside
you had defiance in your eyes
you were set on fulfilling every thing you tried

You never asked, and just assumed
I’d bend all my rules for you
and I did

I was anxious to be shown
what was burning through your soul
I didn’t know
you’d never let that go

It was a hazy sky you left me under
breathing the things you left in the air
champagne in my hair

And I sit
cool sweet
with what you gave me
tasting what’s left
on my fingertips

how did this get
so sticky?

8 Responses »

 

Prayer of the prayerful (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Mar 7 2009

Waters rush
only here, only us

Love echoes, crashes,
holy,
boldly,
insists on absolute
sanctuary.

Seek it,
peace seeker;
authentic, active, honest, intrusive, desire.

Push away
partitions,
pull prayer,
create the nirvana
sincere as our humble roar of passion allows.

Knowing the presence,
say it:
the power-
everything the soul calls us.

Wash image
on love,
pray:
give
intensive sacred guidance.

God, grant me a chamber.

God, everything changes.

God
is as near
as we
allow.

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Sunday: eleven fifteen or so (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Feb 2 2009

May something powerful be done with this love
that swells,
even separated,
even tainted

as things shroud
the lights that otherwise
intertwine
otherwise
unite

it’s beyond every doctrine,
every little semantic we organize our selves with
to make sense
when the only thing that really matters
is beyond any box, any building, any book

it’s so obvious
we ignore it

it’s too easy to love like that
it’s too easy to open our hands and take everyone in
it’s too easy to lay at the feet of love and move grace-full
in its wake

it’s too easy to take our little intricacies
and design uncrossable lines
and forget the signs our souls throw out
like smoke signals, Morse code, flashlights at windows

this is why we’ve got bodies sneaking out of houses,
mingling in clandestine corners,
bubbling with rebellion,
willing to burn down or do without
just to have that honest communion
just to taste that actualized love
that’s ebbed and swelled
and all along was never satisfied
sanctioned off into little (well meaning?) cells

there are too many
warm in bed
eyes shut tight
covers over head

subdued,

living off of packaged and processed
foods
starving into submission
anything thing that moves.

3 Responses »

 

language capacity (by Rebecca Chasteen) Wednesday, Jan 14 2009

i think we are so funny, the way we communicate in codes, undertones and overtones.
analogies, metaphors, similes. every conversation
a new chapter in our spark notes. i take a good
half a day reviewing and extracting key phrases.  we are magicians
with words and we can create every illusion we choose and then
sandwich it silently into the things we lay out with our tongues
or fingers

we don’t omit anything, we send the soundless words on the backs
of the most rational and acceptable sentences, we mime emotions
we won’t bring up because we have yet to find a way to arrange them
just right with letters and vowel sounds.

occasionally,

after a late night or death scare or something equally inebriating, we
form our lips around all the things we have worked so hard not
to say, and we damn the repercussions, and the next
moment we return without speaking to our corners of the world, it is
the cautious language that keeps our distances safe and weaves
our lines of history into a durable, almost tangible
truth.

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The Toxic Collection (by Rebecca Chasteen Sunday, Jan 4 2009

Snake Bite

I feel your anger in your hand on my face, you have countless ways
of making me feel guilty, of making me feel worthless
you obligate me with your need and I don’t think anything

is worth this

glass at my feet, vodka dripping
plaster on my shoulders, in my hair
remnants of the one wall you manage to break through
I can’t do this

I shouldn’t be here

with you screaming at toddlers who cry out for you
all the time,
telling me to never come back inside, and leaving me
with all the responsibility-
it’s not okay

I’m war weary, I’m not connecting
I’m just drifting
I’m just waiting
I’m just dreading

coming home

——————————————————————
t(ou)rnique(t)

while you weren’t watching
i carved out something
just for me
broke so much i got set free
i’d say thank you
if i didn’t almost hate you
you won’t find what i’ve hidden
you can’t take what’s not given
i cut my skin with that glass and sucked the venom
i’m not dying here- victim
i might not look any different face to face
but i’m out, i’m safe.

———————————————————————-
Turning Point

I’m not guilty.
I’m not sorry.
You can’t make me
feel anything.

I’m not scared
when you yell,
when you’re in my face
saying things
you chose specifically to hurt me.

And I don’t care
when you turn cool,
indifferent,
exacting on me the punishment
of not being worth your emotion.

Because I see through you
and I won’t allow you any part of me
to mutate,
to mutilate,
to puppet or parade.

I’m not yours
and
I’m not afraid.

2 Responses »