Metrosphere 2012-2013

What do I find meaningful?  What do you find meaningful?  What is the definition of meaningful to you?
Is meaningful a moment of happiness that may last for a couple laps, and end up crash burning as it couldn’t squeeze through the gap-
Do meaningful things consist of joy and pains, struggle and strains as the outcomes [...]

I clack words into my phone
so I won’t forget that dog
hiding behind an umbrella, his tail
sticking out into the drizzle.
I don’t want to lose the sound
of birds’ calls echoing through the parking
garage on a Saturday morning, reverberating
as in a cavern or abandoned cathedral.
 
I glance up in time to avoid
collision with a man.  He smiles,
and I [...]

What else could a writer want
but pencils made from ashes of the greats?
A Tolkien pencil, a Joyce pencil,
a Shakespeare pencil, one for every favorite.
 
I’d find the locations of those hiding in their urns –
a great-great-granddaughter’s house
or a museum – and steal a bit of time alone
to scoop some out, perhaps with a spoon
or a coffee [...]

I.
 
I brush back my hair into a clip,
slip earrings through my ears
and tap the button on the stereo
 
with my toe.  Duh, duh, dun, dun;
duh, duh, dun, dun—
the notes slip out of speakers
 
and curl into the figure of a man.
He wears a muscle shirt and pants,
both black.  He glides a dance
 
across my room, notices me swaying
to [...]

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,
my king reminds me of my duty to him
(give to me what is mine, is what he really meant),
to murder hundreds of his people or lose
his love and my head. To him this errand
is just that, as though I stepped out to market
for bread and cheese and milk. Punishment,
he [...]

I tap you against lined pages,
a rough-scrubbed table
or my poised and parted lips.
What does my writing look like?
It’s so cliché I ignored it.
You watch every word
ink chases from my brain;
long, smooth, thin
you slip between my fingers
like my tongue between my lips
or my eyes beneath their lids-
part of my anatomy.
 
You dangle
tangled in the knot of my [...]

Cigarettes really are pretty bad for you.
But they’re so addicting.
One minute you’re smoking one
Every now and then,
For social events.
Then BAM.
You’ve finished the pack you bought yesterday.
It’s scary to think that every cigarette you smoke is killing you.
But no one ever thinks about that when they’re smoking them.
So you light one up and think,
“It’s just a [...]

Trish, a scrawny pale-skinned 20 year old with bushy dark eyebrows, approaches hesitantly.
“I wanted to talk to you about the upcoming schedules you’ll be writing. Well actually really just the Christmas and Christmas Eve one I guess,” she says shifting her eyes to the ground.
“Ok,” I respond with a hint of irritation that proves I’m [...]

Pulsating patterns of lightning pain exacerbate each subtle twitch of my eyes; sunlight  threatens  irises-burning – sure to wreak havoc if I were to open the lids completely, boulders of tense muscle at the base of my skull are heavy and beg for release, pressurized to the point of near-explosion. If only I could just [...]