end of the month

end of the month,
time to check my pulse,
check my bank accounts,
sort and organize,
put it all in some kind of better
order.
take stock of things and
clear the clutter.
time to move forward,
get rid of what isn't coming to the next month,
keep what is defining.
time to change the poetry project,
time to change the situation,
time to get out,
before it pulls me down,
time to diagnose,
and listen to what the good doctor says.
it isn't there, baby.
it isn't there.
you want to spend six months or a year
running in a gerbil wheel,
be my guest.
your legs will get strong,
for when you turn your head,
and realize there is a desert out there
and your legs are going to carry
you from one end to the oasis.

0.68 seconds

He asked me if I were free that afternoon,
or any afternoon,
and then added mornings and evenings,
even midnights or sunrises.
My pick.
At one time, I waited for his offer
with the casual indifference
of a cat watching a mouse
catch his breath behind a heavy piece of furniture.
Eventually he's coming out,
it requires a certain amount of attention,
but not so much that he feels he's too closely guarded
to move again.
Lick my paws, wipe my whiskers, but
never turn off the radar in my ears,
every hair pointed.

He tapped me again. He was on the move.
I hedged between two heartbeats.

A heartbeat.
What damage could be done?
Who would ever know?
I've got my pride.
Another heartbeat.
But I also have someone,
even though he doesn't love me, true,
but he might. One day.
If I don't do stupid things
like entertain old friends
in inappropriate tete a deux.
Another heartbeat.
Didn't I want this once?
Don't I want to be a Helen?
Didn't we have fun, you and I?
Aren't all things pure to the pure of heart?
Another heartbeat.
Another.
Another.
Point six eight seconds, sir.
Another.
Another.
Another heartbeat.

Sense came back.
I played my card.
I'll think about it,
(meaning, no).

I'm coming over, he said. Half an hour.

No, no, no, I said. Don't.
I love him.

My love, a shield.
I was safe. The tide ebbed and I tread(ed)
calmer waters with
The phone returned to its holder.
He was gone. Who was the cat now?
Recovering but rattled,
my heartbeats faster and shaky,
breathing in gulps of air.

(Of course that day,
I wouldn't hear from you,
because I am what I am to you,
no matter what you are to me.
I wanted to tell you but
how could I tell you that it
took an android's eternity
to know my own feeling
for you was much
greater than)

on mouse feet,
love came,
and bit my ankle.

Melange

I have no problem with confusing love and sex,
as I've been told that they can be the same thing
for some people,
just not for me.
Let's mix it up, you and I,
a little love, a little sex, and make it
something extraordinary,
the kind of thing everyone envies.

untitled

he left behind
an empty bottle of
dr. pepper
and a copy of the Montreal Mirror
open to the page with
ads for transsexuals, massage parlors,
and sasha's sex advice column
for a woman seeking
breast implants.
i fell asleep on the pillow
where he didn't nap
on my couch and woke up
at 2 a.m.
thinking that it would be
nicer if he left himself

3 Witches

There are three witches in the back of my head
Brewing trouble, making trouble, always trouble.
They whisper there, you don't matter to him,
why be such a dumb loyal dog?
He'll eat you alive, and leave no bones for
the collector, they say, and you will have
to be reborn again in our pot, given now
a criminal's heart, a murdresses' spleen,
and you will be a monster of our making.
Then they dance around, their arms wild and high,
laughing and blowing fire out their eyes.
Poor me, poor me under their spell,
uncertain and afraid, curled in a ball,
no defense against their torments,
Save for my righteous conscience,
that would rather I suffer indignity
than do indignity to another.
I've always loved you Socrates,
my unkempt brother through generations.
It does not help that you do not give me your words,
the vaccine against witches' poison and
defenses against their dark arts.
It does not help that you might,
for all I divine, feel nothing for all I feel something.
It does not help that you purr in my ear,
on torpid afternoons, too hot to move,
but leave me in the clutches of witches,
when you go like a lover back to.

authorial pause

Hey there poqueteers,
Anyway, I've slacked off on sham's muse for some reason or other. Poetry projects can be really tough to sustain because I am not much of a poet and I'm embarrassed how bad of a writer I can be. It is very discouraging to read drivel and think to myself that I'm just being self-absorbed. On the other hand, everything comes with practice. Writing is a practice. So, each poem is a practice, and also kind of an exercise in my writer's mind. If I don't exercise my writing skills daily, well, I feel it. So, I have to write every day, whether here in Sham's Muse or in my own fictional world. I realize the public nature of this blog means that my "practice" is visible to the world at large. So, I want to apologize to anyone who happens upon this blog and thinks that I would be better off storing this stuff privately. Trust me, I write far more than I scribble down here -- I just put little poems that come off the top of my head and seeds of poems I scratch out on scraps of paper here. The more serious work (not poetry, but fiction and such) is safely stored on my hard drive.

In case you are wondering what the poetry project as of late is, I am trying to write poems that do not really end or that end with a discordancy. If you'd like to try it out, please join me. Misery and amateurishness love company :)

old diary

i travelled so many places alone,
putting one foot in front of the other,
on the road, thinking i would come to know
something more about myself
or the universe or why
I held onto you for so long.
carrying a book you bought me
that i read and re-read,
like it was the kabbalah
and the codes would spell out
the right thing to do for us.
i read and re-read
your letter written in my diary,
diving our future together,
like the Delphic oracle that no one
understood until a mighty empire fell,
King Croesus of Lydia.
now i have a house and a couch,
a dog and a wok,
that i bought with money i saved,
a paycheck at a time.
in my diary,
at one time,
i wanted to say
i did this without you.
i never needed you,
and you could be an ant.
but i dream different dreams,
and i wouldn't throw myself
over for anyone anymore,
not like i did for you.
and i say now
i did this myself,
i need me,
and i love myself.
i wrote a diary once,
when i was someone else,
walking on the road,
and i forgot everything,
until.

For Want of a Good Man

I'm 8 feet up on this ladder,
but I've got good balance
and I don't look down long enough
to feel afraid.
My drill and two bits, a hammer and a bunch of screws
rest on the perch as I manouevre myself
to attach the curtain rod brackets.
Screws in my mouth, in my pocket,
the screwdriver in my sweaty hand,
leaving dirty palm prints on the white walls.
The rod is up, and only I see that the last
bracket is crooked, and
that I couldn't get all the anchors in.
My curtains hang, not really one I like;
I didn't make them myself.
It looks okay. It will do in a pinch.
It blocks the light,
and more appropriately,
blocks my neighbors' gaze.
The free show is over, my friends.
Nothing to see here anyway.
I do so many things myself,
so many things that want for a good man
who can do them better.
But I would gladly continue to do these things,
if the good man
who is mine
can't.

the Gulf of Mexico

I thought for a moment that I would not keep my secrets,
and spill everything out like the broken levees of New Orleans,
and let you help me pile back the sandbags,
one at a time, a single team with a common goal.

But for all that, I need secrets to begin with.

****** (some alternative verses started considered)
I thought for a moment that I would let you in,
and seriously consider your input on the decision,
because ultimately, we're both effected,
and I can compromise sometimes. Just sometimes.

I thought for a moment that I would ask you what to do,
and you could tell me and I would listen,

I have no poems today, Shams,
None at all,
I'm kind of upended and

Good Cup Of Tea

My favorite mug from Ralph Lauren Home has the stripes but not the stars,
an Outlet find from Long Island's Eastern distant otherworld.
The coaster from the box bookstore's attempt to capitalize on everyday luxuries,
soy candles, storage boxes, and Montessori toys.
Not bought on sale, but a considered rarity in my life,
a purchase of delight in aesthetics, in self-love, a practice of giving to myself.
The steam still rises up in periodic puffs, an ant's foggy day,
Maybe a little too much sugar, a little too much milk,
cane sugar crystalized from the plant, organic milk,
which I must hunt to find in health food stores that stay shy of walking distance.
The tea is top shelf, overpriced and imported,
a tea I'd never buy for myself, but given to me as a gift by someone
whose name I forgot and whose existence I forgot,
given when he wanted to flash me his tail.
I forgot about this tea, stuffed behind extra boxes of Nature's Path cereals,
shuffled behind stocked cans of organic tomato sauce and net free tuna.
I never threw the tea tin away, even as I moved,
and so the gesture stayed.

Shams II

Just when I think I have it in hand,
I want to step out in front of a bus.
Will the distance between me and happiness
be a graph that never reaches zero?
The denominator of the fraction growing larger and larger,
so that I can not touch it even though we are a breath apart?
The closer I come, the further away I get?
The destination is the same for all of us.
We all die in the end, Shams.
There is nothing to worry about
succeed, fail, help, harm.
We all die. We all die in the end.
I inhaled a rose,
before it shed its petals,
and I thought to myself,
I care far too much about what the end will be,
I need to know how it will end, lest I worry about the end the whole journey.
The journey is the joyful part, the journey is why we
pick our destination.
We want the journey.
This is a lame poem, Shams. I might have outdone myself this time.

Street Cred

She is wearing false moth wing eyelashes,
and a headband with horns,
because she is in the band that plays at midnight.
And he is plainer than day, so to speak,
but has nice blue eyes and doesn't smoke.
She kisses him with her eyes and he complains
he feels creeped out.
They're on crooked, he says, and she agrees.
What can she do now.
So it is with them, before and after,
the secrets of happy couples.
They hold hands, fingers touching at the tips,
and she rocks back on her heels,
balancing like that, looking at each other
as their fingertips press and pull in opposite directions.
Balancing like that, with the kind of love I envy,
with the kind of love I admire.

The Day the Universe Changed (written on a paper scrap)

I was wrong.
Inside is not a crystal forest,
But a solar system,
a universe,
expanding, unending.
My interior not closed
like an unopened geode,
But filling the interstitial spaces,
and so big beyond my comprehension.
Somehow I evolved,
from simple to more complex,
but still beautiful,
more beautiful now,
and the subtle vibrations,
are in every atom,
in every cell,
and I might be someone else
by the end of the day.

Thief

I would like to kick this house of cards over.
I built it so carefully, so slowly.
As I contemplated the best place to plant my foot,
A theif came,
and stole all the diamonds.
Didn't expect that one, did you?

For Alexandra

Alexandra, you stooped to kiss his ass,
And took a hoof to your face.
Your face will recover,
but he will always be an ass.

oh shams

Shams, Shams, Oh Shams,
I hang my head in shame, dear dearest Shams.
What is it with me, with my stupid stupid heart?
It goes all over the place, like a stray dog,
looking for a cut of meat that it can sink into,
with its fangs and claws, tearing off strips
and licking its chops with glutton's delight.
Why can't it just sit and be still, like the mystics,
and meditate on the nature of God,
or whirl in place in its own ecstatic dance,
white tent-like robes and ruby crusted sleeves?
Shams, Oh Shams, Shams,
My muse, my poet, my inspiration,
I would like to gouge it from me and all
the trouble it brings, bubbling and pulsing,
clutching and conniving, all those pains.
So much better I would be if it were caged,
if it weren't allowed to pounce on my chest,
and look me in the eye.
Dear dearest Shams, I am made of the
dust of time immemorial as are you,
as are we all,
so why can't I have that perspective instead?

Pain

The spike in my shoulder is an old injury
a blocked channel, I am sure,
even though I believe in Western medicine,
and take Ibuprofen to mask flare ups.
But there is a deeper wisdom of the body,
a knowing of injustices,
a containing of toxic spills,
a place where the not forgetting, but the learning to live without,
must be contained.
Radioactive decay in my shoulder, as particle by particle,
the pain breaks down over a lifetime and a half
unless I find remediation for my own superfund site to speed
the healing.
The clean up is simple: the drunken forgetfulness of infatuation
anesthetizes me, while the good doctor does his work.
He wrings my liver of its mistrust, my kidneys of their rage.
He incises the cancers of sorrow and suffering with deft hand,
with a love that does not end no matter my pessimisms.

Dyads

He works two jobs,
Has two girlfriends,
One English, one French.
I ask him if they know each other,
and he ignores the question.

I Don't Believe in Atheists

Transcendence means nothing to you,
and miracles can be explained by
sound principles, calculated in logic and reason
and the math to back it up.
Religion is an opiate, and
we don't need God to be good.
The meaning of life?
It comes down to a formula.
Probabilities, perhaps.
Life after death?
Consolation.

(bleh, this poem is so bleh. I had an idea, but I lost it...)

Bitch's Mind

I breathe you in my mind, your spectrum of scent,
Nosing along the grass, among earthworms and
leaves returning to humus.
Pushing in close to the junction of the fence and ground,
Tasting the minerals as I inhale you, a light on my tongue,
and I scratch the dirt with a paw, pushing away
everything that is not your flesh.
You were here, but gone.
And I breathe you in my mind again, temporarily
calling up the touch of your lips to the pads of my fingers,
spiraling along in a slug trail up the stems and through the thorns.
I don't need to see what I can smell.
Hermes gave me a bitch's mind, cunning and yearning,
And the gods rained gifts upon my head,
Aphrodite charm. Athena dextrous hands.
Lovely in body, lovely in voice,
At Zeus' request,
a curse for fire's theft.

(end with translation of Hesiod's W&D -- a few lines???)

Divinity 1

The crystals inside are the salt of the earth, the salt of the sea.
My Eden, guarded by two angels, impassable guardians,
targeting their sharp points as they follow the curious onlooker's gaze
as he peers inside the wall. Statues not, not marble, but of aether.
Aether angels keeping watch, never sleeping, never ceasing.
Generation happens here, all generation happens here.
Protected by its visible invisibility, my little Eden, a dimension so small
you can hold it in your hand, so large it renders you irrelevant.
Could a wolf sniff it in the wind? Its old age of the time before man,
the time before he took sand in his fingers and let it run through them,
piling it up, planting a seed, planting for the next season.
Older than that, older than anything, made of the
first universal stirrings, the first universal dust.
The first universal unsleeping, unburdening, awakening stirrings.
The crystals inside I carry, you carry.

Sham's Muse

I created Sham's Muse back when I had aspirations to write a poem a day. After posting these two ransom notes, I think I have aspirations again. They're a kind of poetry, I think. Poetry is not exactly my best medium, but I've been reading some Hesiod and my mind is super saturated. I need to drain off some of this mental fluid or I may drown myself.