Chatham Station: A Tunnel

 
It's every morning, I said
over breakfast, tossed and turned.
Platform littered with humanity
dragging by suitcases, briefcases,
head cases. You're one of them,
you know, nose upturned and
fork mid-dredge in eggs,
yolk runny like soaking sunlight,
I told myself. I was right.
Morning,
six-seventeen
bound for
wherever.
Heard horns,
saw but
couldn't reach
a blue hand
out to her.
Wanted to
spring up,
but glue
held strong.
Settled for the words' consolation,
theme park ride for those
who couldn't get off their surface,
dance to love. Stuck rigid instead.
Wanted to dive, roll down cylinders
after her, broad portals held open to
bring me somewhere new.
Sighed and threw a line to fish
for something bright, the lustrous way off.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Eagles, New York Minute

Chatham Station: Words

 
Last night I decided I would do something I've never tried before: writing a poem series (that is, tell a story through a series of poems). The series is going to be called "Chatham Station," and this is the first installment, "Words."
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I spilled down the inside curve
Waited for the edge to catch me
Hopped off and upward
Leapt from pillar to pillar to peak
Slid across icy flatness
To columns almost silent
Tipped the spike and landed
Tumbling into 13, the valley.

Struggled then to the hiss sound
Mitigated on the roads' surfaces
Despite the barbed obstruction
Impending like pinnacle through clouds
Stepped the single notch
Lurched off the bow of the earth
Barely grasped the last ledge end.

But still,
she remained unacquainted
with my fervor.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Brand New, The Archers Bows Have Broken

Foolproof

 
Enjoying the vantage?
They say the fall
kills before you even hit the ground,
and I imagine
the plunge from the ivory tower
is no different,
just a thousand times
worse.

Previously you worked for it,
a motive
almost visible from space.
A red trail burned in,
dug deep and burrowed,
wide swath.
Sherman to Savannah
or a dead broom
sweeping
paths on the spotty linoleum.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Grizzly Bear, Ready, Able (craaaaazy video)

Clear the accounts

 
The view outside my window is
nothing. Raylessness.
Vague and lifeless like
that pitch-black happy feeling you get
halfway down
a glass of your favorite liquor
the moment after.
Lights on my side of the pane
13-watt
halogen-high making it
impossible to see through.
Can't seek solace
in reflective glass, empty
or full.
Just your world standing rapt
mid-dance in tiny twists
like backyard fencing.
Inorganic nonsense inside
a beautiful redundancy
sparkly-clean and empty
enough
to make you sick.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Nas, Can't Forget About You