02-18-2017, 04:08 AM
Hiatus
Sweet beer is a lampshade askew
in the corner of a must-scented
room, blue for the evening,
with a blue stained sofa borrowed
years ago from one of mom's
work acquaintances she hasn't seen in years.
I mean a poem is like a dream
in that you don't remember most of it.
Or the moon is like the broken
record player I got as a Christmas gift
in middle school, which was not
broken but delightful when I got it
and which now looks cool as ever
with its crocked up lid and needle,
with its dust, only it plays
records wrong, a little too fast
or a little too slow, rending it unusable.
False plants curl in the shadow
of the windowsill, and the dog with an odd
occasional grunt rests on the rug
at the foot of the stair.
The typewriter I rarely touch
rests beside me on the desk,
loaded with paper, gleaming in the lamplight.
I've written some good poems on that machine.
Or the drafts that later became
good poems, or the bad poems remedied
bit by bit on my laptop until
they became not-quite-perfect
but at least themselves. Years ago
this was the desk in my bedroom, and over
the years it hasn't changed.
It is red mahogany—blue in the dark—
covered with scratches and cup rings.
This is the same house, rearranged.
Cold moon tomorrow.
I mean December's full moon.
I've got work, and also
I think I'll lose my mind.
Just a little. In spring I'll move out.
Leaving my parents and sister, and
most of my things, until my parents also
move and my sister goes
to college, and then this place
where I sit, so familiar in its proximity
will drift forever from my life
and become the stuff of dreams.
Sweet beer is a lampshade askew
in the corner of a must-scented
room, blue for the evening,
with a blue stained sofa borrowed
years ago from one of mom's
work acquaintances she hasn't seen in years.
I mean a poem is like a dream
in that you don't remember most of it.
Or the moon is like the broken
record player I got as a Christmas gift
in middle school, which was not
broken but delightful when I got it
and which now looks cool as ever
with its crocked up lid and needle,
with its dust, only it plays
records wrong, a little too fast
or a little too slow, rending it unusable.
False plants curl in the shadow
of the windowsill, and the dog with an odd
occasional grunt rests on the rug
at the foot of the stair.
The typewriter I rarely touch
rests beside me on the desk,
loaded with paper, gleaming in the lamplight.
I've written some good poems on that machine.
Or the drafts that later became
good poems, or the bad poems remedied
bit by bit on my laptop until
they became not-quite-perfect
but at least themselves. Years ago
this was the desk in my bedroom, and over
the years it hasn't changed.
It is red mahogany—blue in the dark—
covered with scratches and cup rings.
This is the same house, rearranged.
Cold moon tomorrow.
I mean December's full moon.
I've got work, and also
I think I'll lose my mind.
Just a little. In spring I'll move out.
Leaving my parents and sister, and
most of my things, until my parents also
move and my sister goes
to college, and then this place
where I sit, so familiar in its proximity
will drift forever from my life
and become the stuff of dreams.