ant

A little pre-LCCMF musical musing...

Seldom can I find the words to express my true intentions, and I often let phrases slip from my lips like little bullets to shoot the conversation dead. I'll watch the subject matter fall to the ground and in one last attempt to resuscitate it, I will apologize for my inability to be a social butterfly. In doing so, I lodge another bullet deep into the heart of the matter. I make a promise to myself to be silent, observant, and to keep any ideas contained. This is a vow I keep for all of three minutes, until the topic changes again and I find myself bursting to add my voice. My lips once again become the smoking gun, and I the shell-shocked girl whose finger slipped on the trigger.

If it were up to me, I would speak in phrases solely musical. Throbbing chords and drawn out bass notes and flighty arpeggios that pull bystanders in and drag them under, all expressing my intentions perfectly. Excitement would be expressed by a trilling flute rather than high pitched chatter and my melancholy complaints would be written in the air by low, slow cello strokes as opposed to choked whining phrases. No fumbled bullets here, just truth, and everyone would always understand because the international sign for happiness is a C Major chord.

Sadly, I was given vocal cords instead of a symphony, predetermined notes that always seem to fail me when I need them most. Instead of a graceful melody, the only noise I can make is dissonance, a sound remarkably similar to the shot of a gun.

It didn't rain today.

We all thought it would.

The whole village stood in the square,

between all the houses,

waiting

for the sky to break.

The clouds were black there,

swooping like vultures

and eagles,

but giving us nothing except empty hope.

One drop.

One drop

fell from the sky.

We all watched it sail down

slowly Read more »

Perhaps it was the clams

who stole the

burdensome pearl

from the loner green oyster

who couldn’t hold a note underwater

if its place in the sand depended on it.

Perhaps it was the solemn starfish

who choked on

seaweed Read more »

Sit down.

You're in trouble, kid. Busted. Grounded. Toast.

Maybe we pushed you forward but it's you who crossed the line. It's you who've been shut up in your room all week doing God-knows-what, coming out God-knows-when but never when we were around, coming out to eat and use the bathroom but always slinking back into what you shouldn't have to think of as a refuge. A refuge from what? Your family? Read more »

The only thing that kept

me from bolting from that

church was him

his hand in mine

his smell

and his face

and his smile and his shoulder

his shoulder that I rested my head on.

The only thing that kept me

from excusing myself and

politely sprinting from that room

was him sitting with me while

everyone else stood and

sang, and sat, and stood, and

sang again.

His body

never moving away from me Read more »

My sunburn skin is peeling
alone and I thought you'd be here
to pick me fresh
in the mid-afternoon but

the bed is unmade again
and our wine glasses, flutes and stems
that soaked in and made patterns on the carpet
blood puddles
like when you nursed me back to health
in a Saudi compound in 1991
kissed my bile clean as dirty love
(or was that just on the television?
but aren't we every late night black/white film?)

I'm no innocent Read more »

 They say when you die all your lost loved ones come to greet you. But do they mean the people you love, or the people who love you?

Because here I am, lying on this floor, scribling out this one last message to you, and I hope it's not a mistake. 

Don't be afraid by my words; actually, I hope you're comforted.  Read more »

You know how there is an infinite amount of numbers

that stretch on forever, and then,

in between one and two there is another infinite amount of numbers again?

Well, driving down that water-logged street I could feel all of them

           --along with every pot hole between you and me. Read more »

I found it
in stray shoeboxes
left on the floor until someone
stepped on them,
breaking the cardboard shells.

Written words
and smiley faces
with extra dots that turn into
accidental noses,
awkward alien smiley faces
written down on paper
next to the words.

These are the things
I kept in those boxes,
along with the names
of the days
that were either good or bad.
Names of the people
who are either good or bad. Read more »

You were probably too
fastmoving for windows
positioned in a corner
locking you out
locking you in.

(i think) it was in the wind the rain
on black days that
you wrote the sad poetry
(yellow paper running ink a blue-eyed boy)
and (i think) i loved too much &
too little (things and people and hearing my name) to
worry or
to leave

the faces i need are not
the places i need
nor are they in the places i need
to be in

i'll (maybe) sit in melancholic universe-threads
while you tell me which
new york school to
choose and be (and live)
as if i'm breaking little parts
to get the bigger ones as if
we all deal in and
fear consequence

i just put the broken things (always) in
my dresser or
my pockets

You like me, 

I like him,

He likes her,

She likes you.

She likes you, 

But you like another,

He likes me,

And I like the other.

I think we're friends,

You think we're more,

He thinks they're friends,

But she wants to be more.

Confusing, understandable,

Annoying, and crazy,

The whole situation's a little bit hazey.

  Read more »

 my younger childhood years sit

gently on the rack,

waiting for more plesasure

to be had.

now being more grown up

is fun and all,

but sometimes it just gets boring,

so I put my childhood on.

my childhood is pink and purple

with swirls and designs,

with a twist of bananna,

now ain't that just

devine!

With some beads here

and there,

and some

doodles and scetches,

EVERYWHERE! Read more »

I have been climbing this staircase for the past ten years

The winds still howls through the cracks brick in that same lonely way.

You think you'd get used to it. Well-

You do and you don't

Still that same song that wakes you up at night

Almost- almost a comfort sometimes.

They say a lot can change in a year. Funny, how they never say

How little.

I have learned even less

about these new types of love and loss.

And I have hated, and gained Read more »

Early Sunday morning, hushed

by the air-conditioned chill of her grandfather’s flower shop,

she, no longer a child, but still so young

she has never been kissed,

watches rare blue roses fan open their fingers

like ultraviolet ghosts.

Amid their more conventional cousins

(Christ’s Blood red, Virgin white)

they are surreal, and

it would be easy to believe

what her grandmother told her:

It’s unnatural.

Dishonest knives and tainted tinted water

made them like this.   

The shop is still, its ceiling heavy and muffling.  Read more »

Night Dancers

Swooping,diving,flying.

Who Who,Who who.

They begin there ballet.

Silent they are as they prowl Read more »

Fools.

Uncross your eyes and the stars will align.

There are no starcrossed lovers;

only crosseyed stargazers.

  Read more »

  Read more »

I Talk Softly

for fear the wind will hear me

and carry my voice

whispering it to the trees

The birds listen in

flying my words to the mountains

dropping them

setting them free

They float softly down

nestling in the snow

staying there forever

So I talk softly

Mimi Templeton

Grade 6

Sherburne Elementary

In the chipped paint & overgrown violets
of half-abandoned houses;
I'm dancing at the fringes,
trailing my fingers along
peeled
railings
and neglected vines. Read more »

It was a

Warm summer day. Not those days that
Are unbearably hot, but
Simply a lovely temperature. I had

Gotten a frozen smoothie,
Orange flavoured.
I was sitting against a tree trunk,
Not having a care in the world. I heard a
Gong ring in

The distance, and
Of course it made

Me think of you.
Already I missed you, and I
Knew you would be back in two weeks, but
Even one day without you was Read more »

She said:
Stories are just that,
stories,
the bones of poetry and secrets
into which we build our lives.

Do you remember
the stories from your childhood
do you -
ever let those musty books
take purchase in your mind?

Do you ever let those figures
reassemble,
the bones of creation,
the archetypes of nascence,
to be filled in by the
flesh and faces
of real time? Read more »