Triolet
Pieces of you get left behind.
Ripe dandelions on a windy day,
stragglers by design.
Pieces of you get left behind:
your skin, your breath, your imprint on my mind.
Sometimes I wish the whole of you would stay.
Pieces of you get left behind
as ripe dandelions on a windy day.
09 December 2008
07 December 2008
Methodically walking because it’s the only thing I know how to do
as I contemplate leaving you.
I know you’re not the one but I still want you to be.
You’re too different from me.
I just want someone to love;
to love me.
To hold hands with down the street;
recite poetry.
But don’t cover me, nor devour me
or make me feel incomplete.
Life’s just not that neat
even with all the straight lines I see
as I walk from line to line
on the squares of sidewalk.
I gawk at the way we follow lines:
the crosswalk
the timeline, and tick-tock, the clock.
Even the cigarette in the hand
is a line to our death.
Oh nonsense, nonsense, none of this
makes any sense, like the yew and the moontree,
some great powers that be,
an inverted universe
where I am a poet
and the lines follow me.
Samantha Kolber
from 1/17/08
as I contemplate leaving you.
I know you’re not the one but I still want you to be.
You’re too different from me.
I just want someone to love;
to love me.
To hold hands with down the street;
recite poetry.
But don’t cover me, nor devour me
or make me feel incomplete.
Life’s just not that neat
even with all the straight lines I see
as I walk from line to line
on the squares of sidewalk.
I gawk at the way we follow lines:
the crosswalk
the timeline, and tick-tock, the clock.
Even the cigarette in the hand
is a line to our death.
Oh nonsense, nonsense, none of this
makes any sense, like the yew and the moontree,
some great powers that be,
an inverted universe
where I am a poet
and the lines follow me.
Samantha Kolber
from 1/17/08
23 October 2008
I Think It’s Sort of Amazing
With the wind at my back, the points of yellow stars always point to you
as if the punt in the bottle coaxes the wine from the neck.
Sometimes your mind won’t stop, not even for
a moment, not even to take in the shift in color in a cloud at sunset.
They say the whole is greater than the sum
but I wonder if greater is better...or worse.
The sky that just sits above your head as an offering:
some silence is peaceful while others are awkward, drinking
wine the color of crimson and blood, like oceans after
a feed, rolling through folds of a tapestry more colorful than you can possibly weave.
Ruled by ways we can’t understand, the not knowing a weight on our shoulders,
and maybe, just maybe, all that came before, is all that will come to be.
With the wind at my back, the points of yellow stars always point to you
as if the punt in the bottle coaxes the wine from the neck.
Sometimes your mind won’t stop, not even for
a moment, not even to take in the shift in color in a cloud at sunset.
They say the whole is greater than the sum
but I wonder if greater is better...or worse.
The sky that just sits above your head as an offering:
some silence is peaceful while others are awkward, drinking
wine the color of crimson and blood, like oceans after
a feed, rolling through folds of a tapestry more colorful than you can possibly weave.
Ruled by ways we can’t understand, the not knowing a weight on our shoulders,
and maybe, just maybe, all that came before, is all that will come to be.
24 August 2008
Words like branches reach out to the sky;
Poets always walk alone and wonder why.
Poets always stare too long at the beautiful:
a child, the moon, a blueberry bush so full.
A random lady in front of a Friendly's
bends to touch a white flower, its green leaves
point up skyward.
Again, I see that metaphor, awkward
of life and beings all reaching up
as if to grow from bottom to top is not to give up.
As if to write about it makes it so.
My son says don't write about me though.
He asks, Is it about these crayons?
It is now, but way beyond
those four basic colors, red, yellow, green, blue,
which can't even capture you.
The riper of two fruits to my taste
is a man's words that fall from so much haste.
All this desire I try to feed,
my fingertips stained from picking blueberries.
A Sunday afternoon, a day almost done.
A poet almost satisfied with what she's begun
to articulate, to communicate:
a fishamajig on a plate,
a few french fries, the still blue skies
and something from deep within that plies
through the waves of black ink crashing down on the pages through this pen.
As if writing in a booth in a crowded Friendly's is a way to find my Zen.
Poets always walk alone and wonder why.
Poets always stare too long at the beautiful:
a child, the moon, a blueberry bush so full.
A random lady in front of a Friendly's
bends to touch a white flower, its green leaves
point up skyward.
Again, I see that metaphor, awkward
of life and beings all reaching up
as if to grow from bottom to top is not to give up.
As if to write about it makes it so.
My son says don't write about me though.
He asks, Is it about these crayons?
It is now, but way beyond
those four basic colors, red, yellow, green, blue,
which can't even capture you.
The riper of two fruits to my taste
is a man's words that fall from so much haste.
All this desire I try to feed,
my fingertips stained from picking blueberries.
A Sunday afternoon, a day almost done.
A poet almost satisfied with what she's begun
to articulate, to communicate:
a fishamajig on a plate,
a few french fries, the still blue skies
and something from deep within that plies
through the waves of black ink crashing down on the pages through this pen.
As if writing in a booth in a crowded Friendly's is a way to find my Zen.
20 August 2008
05 August 2008
02 August 2008
Red Dragon Breathing Flames
No one says the word baby and I
Place the box of tissues over the magazine cover of a round belly
I know she saw, the one unsterile detail in the room, the
Red dragon breathing flames,
Like the suction hose and speculum full of blood.
Her belly licks of stretch marks and scars,
Some fullness holding tight to walls
In that high tower, as if waiting to be rescued
Is a bad thing. No one knows the strength
Of princesses: women concrete in naïveté
Until it’s time to swim away
On white, fluffy clouds. On bubbles.
And she holds my hands too tight
And we fill the room with chatter
Contracting to anything
Born from the night and given to the light of day.
No one sees the curls of her hair stuck to her forehead
Or the brown bark in her eyes turn to water
To nurture the severed roots
As her fingers spasm in odd waves with the pain.
Definitely no one sees the secret muscle
Too deep inside layers of anatomy
Being tugged and pulled to almost weeping, and
Kahlua-colored iodine cold on thighs, which
Even the cotton balls can’t soften.
No one says the word baby and I
Place the box of tissues over the magazine cover of a round belly
I know she saw, the one unsterile detail in the room, the
Red dragon breathing flames,
Like the suction hose and speculum full of blood.
Her belly licks of stretch marks and scars,
Some fullness holding tight to walls
In that high tower, as if waiting to be rescued
Is a bad thing. No one knows the strength
Of princesses: women concrete in naïveté
Until it’s time to swim away
On white, fluffy clouds. On bubbles.
And she holds my hands too tight
And we fill the room with chatter
Contracting to anything
Born from the night and given to the light of day.
No one sees the curls of her hair stuck to her forehead
Or the brown bark in her eyes turn to water
To nurture the severed roots
As her fingers spasm in odd waves with the pain.
Definitely no one sees the secret muscle
Too deep inside layers of anatomy
Being tugged and pulled to almost weeping, and
Kahlua-colored iodine cold on thighs, which
Even the cotton balls can’t soften.
01 August 2008
Origins of Sweet and Salt
Sweet sap of Earth and trees
of land-locked lines rushing through
the orange plastic, running into
buckets, oh fill thy cup with sweet sap of Earth
boiled and taken to holy shades, cooked
and poured raw over fresh-baked buns.
Salt water of Ocean and cavernous depths
of the space between what land we see
what lands we don't, oh Mother Ocean,
borne of her amniotic waters, pulled into her
tides, her mouths, her great, powerful surges
what salty dangers wash us clean, and what do we offer her
but littered shores?
If only we could combine the two.
It would be like a chocolate-covered pretzel,
we'd suck and bite its sweet-salt pleasure just to enjoy
that moment.
Sweet sap of Earth and trees
of land-locked lines rushing through
the orange plastic, running into
buckets, oh fill thy cup with sweet sap of Earth
boiled and taken to holy shades, cooked
and poured raw over fresh-baked buns.
Salt water of Ocean and cavernous depths
of the space between what land we see
what lands we don't, oh Mother Ocean,
borne of her amniotic waters, pulled into her
tides, her mouths, her great, powerful surges
what salty dangers wash us clean, and what do we offer her
but littered shores?
If only we could combine the two.
It would be like a chocolate-covered pretzel,
we'd suck and bite its sweet-salt pleasure just to enjoy
that moment.
06 April 2008
My Two Selves or Like Having Two Seasons at Once
The scope of winter things:
the baby in the bed,
frost on the windshield;
a low pervasive hum is Spring
as silent snow falls and gathers unseen.
Just last week the moon hung low in a pale blue sky
still and more silent than night.
I wished for green
instead of last night's dishes in the sink.
There was the sun showing,
my rhythms, like plants, turn to its glowing,
a miracle on the brink.
I used to gather sticks for my survival
now I buy four loaves of fresh rye,
an engine idles nearby,
a street corner's revival.
There's stasis in the daily shuffle:
people, kids, papers, things, dust and dirt
move back and forth like love and hurt,
move back and forth between home and work, it's awful
how a Self can be divided.
It takes a child to show that life's alright
look at the shadow of the spider in the flashlight
it's here I am mom and poet, united.
The scope of winter things:
the baby in the bed,
frost on the windshield;
a low pervasive hum is Spring
as silent snow falls and gathers unseen.
Just last week the moon hung low in a pale blue sky
still and more silent than night.
I wished for green
instead of last night's dishes in the sink.
There was the sun showing,
my rhythms, like plants, turn to its glowing,
a miracle on the brink.
I used to gather sticks for my survival
now I buy four loaves of fresh rye,
an engine idles nearby,
a street corner's revival.
There's stasis in the daily shuffle:
people, kids, papers, things, dust and dirt
move back and forth like love and hurt,
move back and forth between home and work, it's awful
how a Self can be divided.
It takes a child to show that life's alright
look at the shadow of the spider in the flashlight
it's here I am mom and poet, united.
14 January 2008
Stolen Kiss
Time can always have blue,
the night star,
the white anchor above my head.
But not my heart
or my feet that leave the cobblestone
to jump into your embrace.
I curse time!
I want the weight of you.
Not just your hand like a delicate shadow
on my belly.
Not just your open mouth on mine,
your scruff on my neck,
no, this won’t do.
I don’t want pieces of you.
I want the cool finger of vision,
your hands down my spine,
our bodies wading shallow,
naked in a reflective pool.
Like two puddles coming together,
the meniscus of our
crescent shape
droplets
returning from the waterfall.
On your lips I tell you this,
taste our stolen kiss.
You don’t hear me
through the rush.
Time can always have blue,
the night star,
the white anchor above my head.
But not my heart
or my feet that leave the cobblestone
to jump into your embrace.
I curse time!
I want the weight of you.
Not just your hand like a delicate shadow
on my belly.
Not just your open mouth on mine,
your scruff on my neck,
no, this won’t do.
I don’t want pieces of you.
I want the cool finger of vision,
your hands down my spine,
our bodies wading shallow,
naked in a reflective pool.
Like two puddles coming together,
the meniscus of our
crescent shape
droplets
returning from the waterfall.
On your lips I tell you this,
taste our stolen kiss.
You don’t hear me
through the rush.
09 January 2008
A Place to Curl Into
Recently I found a dead mouse
in the toe of my son’s ice skate. No, I’m sorry,
dead isn’t the word for it: Decomposed.
Forgiven any semblance of a life form or body, just
Dark, downy fur in tufts and
tiny, white dollhouse bones. Dried,
papery shell-skins of maggots. And, oh, the smell!
The stench was deafening, or whatever the word is
that means impairment to your olfactory sense.
Deafening and maddening yet I inhaled it
so that now the mouse is part of me.
Particulate pieces of its body
now inhabit mine.
We all want that place to curl into
be it a shoe, warm house, or someone’s
pair of lungs with its many winding passageways.
Recently I found a dead mouse
in the toe of my son’s ice skate. No, I’m sorry,
dead isn’t the word for it: Decomposed.
Forgiven any semblance of a life form or body, just
Dark, downy fur in tufts and
tiny, white dollhouse bones. Dried,
papery shell-skins of maggots. And, oh, the smell!
The stench was deafening, or whatever the word is
that means impairment to your olfactory sense.
Deafening and maddening yet I inhaled it
so that now the mouse is part of me.
Particulate pieces of its body
now inhabit mine.
We all want that place to curl into
be it a shoe, warm house, or someone’s
pair of lungs with its many winding passageways.
02 December 2007
I am now the proud parent of a myspace page. She is about a week old, and so the soft spot is still open, the bones still forming, and the reflex to suckle is still new. She is very cute and her mood changes drastically, her cries are always different. If you'd like to meet her please visit her at:
http://www.myspace.com/slampoetsam
or click on Link below.
http://www.myspace.com/slampoetsam
or click on Link below.
28 November 2007
Poetry Slam Winners 2007!
So it has taken me this long to acknowledge last week's Poetry Slam at Langdon Street Cafe (Wednesday, Nov. 21) because directly after the Slam I flew out to San Diego for Thanksgiving. Anyway, the Slam was awesome, lots of great talent, the Cafe was packed, and, can you believe it, I won first place! Hooray (and finally, I've slammed enough to land a win!). Thanks to Geof Hewitt for acting as Slam Master, one of his many talents. A good time was had by all. Here are my poems I read that night:
The Affair
It's not the pure, gold baby of hate
We relate to, but the wire mother,
The one void of softness in her cage.
It's the metaphysical, terrycloth other
We crave. We dig into each other's flesh
Hungrily, though our lips never meet.
You think it will lift your depressing crash,
I use your body to fill my sexual need.
I'm aware of this, our using, our skin
The hard grab of your hands, first on my feet
Then up to my calves. Here is where desire begins.
It knows nothing of wives, nor can it see
Our crimes. We close our eyes to this, but we know.
It's why we don't kiss. Oh sure,
You kiss my hipbone, you bite it on the way down to where I want you to go
To kiss the dark, wet part of me so pure.
Pure as that gold baby, or the Macaque
Tested and tested for its warm longing.
The same longing that gives you back.
The same longing that keeps you here 'til morning.
Golden Spiral
The toil of its symmetry and complicated simplicity haunts me
the learning of it's so daunting, the form and curvature
of each fraction's metamorphosis into the Divine, that 1.618 and so on
translation of perfection
to say you are Golden is just an expression of mathematics
the Sacred Geometry matches the birth of the seashell, the wave, the unfurling of a fern in the dampening of spring, and any rectangle my eyes desire.
They are all one, the one true form of beauty
the one the Universe handed down to us as she kissed the moon's forehead goodnight,
and turned on the stars, a night-light reminder of who we are, and of who we will still be when the sun awakens.
Let us not forget, we did not invent ourselves
a Universal language, it was already here. No amount of adding or subtracting
will ruin it, no matter how divided we become.
So it has taken me this long to acknowledge last week's Poetry Slam at Langdon Street Cafe (Wednesday, Nov. 21) because directly after the Slam I flew out to San Diego for Thanksgiving. Anyway, the Slam was awesome, lots of great talent, the Cafe was packed, and, can you believe it, I won first place! Hooray (and finally, I've slammed enough to land a win!). Thanks to Geof Hewitt for acting as Slam Master, one of his many talents. A good time was had by all. Here are my poems I read that night:
The Affair
It's not the pure, gold baby of hate
We relate to, but the wire mother,
The one void of softness in her cage.
It's the metaphysical, terrycloth other
We crave. We dig into each other's flesh
Hungrily, though our lips never meet.
You think it will lift your depressing crash,
I use your body to fill my sexual need.
I'm aware of this, our using, our skin
The hard grab of your hands, first on my feet
Then up to my calves. Here is where desire begins.
It knows nothing of wives, nor can it see
Our crimes. We close our eyes to this, but we know.
It's why we don't kiss. Oh sure,
You kiss my hipbone, you bite it on the way down to where I want you to go
To kiss the dark, wet part of me so pure.
Pure as that gold baby, or the Macaque
Tested and tested for its warm longing.
The same longing that gives you back.
The same longing that keeps you here 'til morning.
Golden Spiral
The toil of its symmetry and complicated simplicity haunts me
the learning of it's so daunting, the form and curvature
of each fraction's metamorphosis into the Divine, that 1.618 and so on
translation of perfection
to say you are Golden is just an expression of mathematics
the Sacred Geometry matches the birth of the seashell, the wave, the unfurling of a fern in the dampening of spring, and any rectangle my eyes desire.
They are all one, the one true form of beauty
the one the Universe handed down to us as she kissed the moon's forehead goodnight,
and turned on the stars, a night-light reminder of who we are, and of who we will still be when the sun awakens.
Let us not forget, we did not invent ourselves
a Universal language, it was already here. No amount of adding or subtracting
will ruin it, no matter how divided we become.
08 November 2007
01 November 2007
22 October 2007
Though My Seals Don't Require Tools
A life half-packed
in closets
and storage units
my friends' garage
mom's basement
a box older than my son
labelled Sam's Bedroom
has been picked up and moved
to each of my bedrooms
year after year
yet never unpacked
it could be said
that Sam's Bedroom
is that old Organic Grapes box
with four air holes in each side
it has gone so far as
to have its top folded open
a few things
are visible
a black velvet pouch
wads of white tissue paper
something precious, perhaps, inside
a strand of garnet stones
meant for jewelery
I had another garnet piece
an engagement ring he stole back
so I wouldn't flush it away in anger
As if I let anything go
insignificant things
packed away
a trick chamber
in a tomb.
A life half-packed
in closets
and storage units
my friends' garage
mom's basement
a box older than my son
labelled Sam's Bedroom
has been picked up and moved
to each of my bedrooms
year after year
yet never unpacked
it could be said
that Sam's Bedroom
is that old Organic Grapes box
with four air holes in each side
it has gone so far as
to have its top folded open
a few things
are visible
a black velvet pouch
wads of white tissue paper
something precious, perhaps, inside
a strand of garnet stones
meant for jewelery
I had another garnet piece
an engagement ring he stole back
so I wouldn't flush it away in anger
As if I let anything go
insignificant things
packed away
a trick chamber
in a tomb.
12 September 2007
18 August 2007
There's a rhythm to that one that is so crucial
he says
and goes off to the bathroom, where,
if you listen hard enough
you could hear his pee stream
in a tinkling rhythm
similar to the one in my pantoum
Jewel Tones
the one he refers to
a handful of Goldfish in his hand
sits on a creaky couch
in my living room
what could be more perfect than this
old friends
crunching on junk food
new friends reading poems
I got it right there
he says
and goes off to the bathroom, where,
if you listen hard enough
you could hear his pee stream
in a tinkling rhythm
similar to the one in my pantoum
Jewel Tones
the one he refers to
a handful of Goldfish in his hand
sits on a creaky couch
in my living room
what could be more perfect than this
old friends
crunching on junk food
new friends reading poems
I got it right there
31 July 2007
Apple
Red, round, and for all we know
you could be a womb, for contained
inside your sweet flesh
are seeds to bear more
fruit.
It's no coincidence
the phallus-ness of your ways
the penetrating pollination and
theft of your babes
by cold ground or hungry mouths.
I
too, am guilty; a whole bag of you
sits in my refrigerator
I even oblingingly nip the skins off
for my own offspring to eat
naked fruit
then fetch from his hand
to eat after he's chewed through with your
waxy persona, skimpy skin of false self
no real protection from our teeth, our
Knives.
Is it no wonder a fantasy of mine
is to live among an apple orchard?
Miles of sweet fertility all around me
screaming Earth Mother! Earth Mother! from early spring
to late fall, the harvesting
a death to you, apple tree, Earth & Mother,
the winter your respite
the spring your great renewal
rise up from the stake
transform to Mother, bear fruit, again and again.
Red, round, and for all we know
you could be a womb, for contained
inside your sweet flesh
are seeds to bear more
fruit.
It's no coincidence
the phallus-ness of your ways
the penetrating pollination and
theft of your babes
by cold ground or hungry mouths.
I
too, am guilty; a whole bag of you
sits in my refrigerator
I even oblingingly nip the skins off
for my own offspring to eat
naked fruit
then fetch from his hand
to eat after he's chewed through with your
waxy persona, skimpy skin of false self
no real protection from our teeth, our
Knives.
Is it no wonder a fantasy of mine
is to live among an apple orchard?
Miles of sweet fertility all around me
screaming Earth Mother! Earth Mother! from early spring
to late fall, the harvesting
a death to you, apple tree, Earth & Mother,
the winter your respite
the spring your great renewal
rise up from the stake
transform to Mother, bear fruit, again and again.
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