This was written 8 years ago in a style I had never written in before or since. It was influenced by a classmate at SLCC who had a R&B/rap style that transcended the typical dross of the that genre and … Continue reading
In Deep
Waters surround, swallow sound
refract the light and I
am light
Heavy here
weightless underneath the weight of seas
Lighthouses ashore, assured,
left unseen
There is an ocean to wade through
though, first, one needs to sense
up and left
downside and right
but the sun is set
while gravity can’t lend itself to
the one situation where it would be of use
That’s physics for you.
Covered in deep
Lost so long as to think those navy ripples
could be sky-clouds
Trying to figure out a shape or figure in them
to pass the time
perchance they’ll assemble themselves
into some sensible meaning
But they’re no product of conscious consequence
Just chance patterns subject to a need
for gleaning
It becomes tiring
fighting the cold and numb
I’d drowse, succumb
but lungs won’t allow it
considering a resumption of their employment
inevitably comes with sleep
That’s the pons, you see.
So, rather than rest and drown
I’ll retain my breath
Someone must love the suspense
Fits hand-in-glove with the tension of
static
Pulled, quartered, evenly, so, stilled
as the will commits to simple existence Continue reading
A day can go by where I separate the moments we spend “together”, we’ll call it, from myself. My breath, I catch, and relieve my consciousness from the attempt of reaching ideal: our satifaction. Together, we’re supposed to be, to … Continue reading
The Place to Revisit The place to revisit is familiar the place I must go into that tunnel of abstractions, horrors, delighted depths — a roadway directly toward the center of the earth, having watched the humanity it houses on … Continue reading
The cards you sent faithfully,
blue ink, sweet words; matched your eyes.
Certain songs take me back to that talk
that February night you consoled this distraught mind,
my torment you
eased for a moment.
A cavity creeps into my chest by
small triggers of memory. In a hike
alone, your face flashes, those eyes
pang and pierce while I step over every stick and stone
that you cannot.
There is no reception for my idle thoughts
suspending themselves at the edge of my mouth, ones
I’d love for you to listen to,
to listen as you respond to,
but you cannot.
Archetypal wants and rue about
you, I know I’m not alone in – it all
points to premature departure.
It hurts how willful; I am not enraged or affronted, just
wishing you could have fully felt the cumulative affections
of each soul, every smile you provoked: not without meaning.
I would that words could soak and seep into your
cracks to fill them,
embraces could have pulled them together and tears to seal
them.
The dates on
your headstone:
October 20th, 1972
April 19th, 2014
41
Not even halfway done, I don’t think.
The mark you made here is
amplified in absence; that’s how we identify reality.
It still is.
You still are.
The lighthouse you shined to your sons in life,
may you also be through sorrow. Continue reading
Curious: about the place I’d grown up in.
Hometown visit
tracing the route I’d take,
juvenile on bicycle or blade,
or foot with my childhood best
friend, sometimes alone, out to the swimming pool;
railroad tracks, sugarhouse,
the park,
all blue
sky,
seas,
green aground,
chlorine, adventure between
classes; the library,
new as it was to me; infinite
then.
It used to be on a corner across the park on
72
but now, a neglect of nook within
that field we’d fly kites across. Gone.
The change I
cannot justify. Continue reading
A sense of guilt comes
with being unable to follow through with one emotional reflex
quip –roll back
born – beam
offense – steam
decease – grieve
but there knelt on the steps
I propose: it was the bleach
on my tear ducts
as I sliced those steps.
Those steps I sped down
countless times to race to the family room
(a nominal appellation for the place. Like saying, “home”)
Those steps I skipped up
to see how much of a gazelle I could produce out of myself
I think I got to six, once
Six steps skipped, with carpet burns, too
from sledding down the blue-sea slope
that was now pared down to plain wood
sharp moguls.
I kept slicing at them, the bleach kept punching
at my throat
moreso than the recollection of the view further along
another case of bare stairs to the basement
where the sheet rock held storm
clouds, one-dimensional charcoal blotches
that, thankfully, never fully surrendered
alongside the two-by-four framing
only charred
above the mound of liquefied plastic that contained a
now-diffused substance,
I’m not sure which,
but which failed to combust the propane within the once-gray tank
Placed there for a failed purpose
And that image
juxtaposed with what could have been:
Could have been a “home” fire
Could have been I did not need to slice
since the flame would have cut the blots and steps right through
feign to consume whatever – all’s a lollipop, and what better flavor to boil than cherry-red,
fitting of a way for something to be rendered away:
the way it insisted on being: boiling
Not a stain or step left.
Yet the intent was not to save the toil of tidying up
just to all-else destruct with self-destruct.
A clutched crumpled reason was not enough.
Maybe relief should have met me, then.
But Plath did, instead,
and I said to myself
about the extinguishing, impotent:
“You do not do, you do not do,
Any more, black shoe.”
I was never scared of you.
All those spark-inexplicable attempts at explosions
and I am not reduced. Still.
Plume-stained and burned in places,
not consumed.
Just need to slice away your DNA from the steps I walk.
Better, replace the slats, clean slate.
The light fixture, too, with the bullet hole you put it through, like your own chin and skull,
can be new overhead.
Let tints and ways incandesce over their cold fluorescence
Fade like a Doppler noise
an unaccompanied memory buffered by clocks and ticks and tocks
and talk of your insanity,
for which I need not feel guilty; the release for which I need not feel guilty. Continue reading
Midnight, I fell asleep three hours ago. She takes
advantage of my vulnerability and at
first my mind rejoins myself disoriented, the
grog releasing; its precedent is my knowing that
it’s only her; false alarm, this is not quicksand
nipping good…night (? I don’t know what time it is to her) to my right cheek.
Eyes closed and about-face, another direction, reposition into a cozy
orientation.
She shows her affront, or persistence … both by
stepping on my face with both
paws.
Again, the grog keeps me still and the familiar enables
me to fall asleep until slowly,
I can’t entirely breathe;
a fluff a white is clogging my nostrils. A chuckle, muffled, bemused at the
flashback of a paranoid paperback character –
Pertinence!
I barrel-roll to
the left to dislodge my feline assassin friend.
To cuddle with her is to stay up far too late yet to
neglect is to suffer threats to suffocate. I
usually pick sleep,
so she attempts to take me out in the
fashion of Huple’s cat versus
Hungry Joe.
I’m darned if I do.
Darned if I don’t Continue reading
The key to winter is finding meaning in grays, clouds — absence of sky amongst the smog and bare twigs; life in the suspension thereof. Warmth within, despite the biting cold strolling along the sidewalks. Embrace frost, see its intricacies. … Continue reading
A Windy Night
A cowered form hugs its head
to protect from impending debris.
Pitch-black, none of it can be seen
only heard and felt as the broken air vibrates and whirrs past eardrums.
Knelt down next to flowers,
which were stirred with a knee,
but couldn’t know it
due to the aforementioned blackness.
And the flowers, with their heads bent down in synchrony, too,
As if their crowns, growing heavy as they do,
tested stems’ tensile strength
to the point of snapping.
So these brightless suns dangled and quick-whipped with the wind
as did the limbs of trees;
although to a lesser degree, their sounds were all the more hectic,
nature’s undulated static;
their unseen leaves sung enough of a picture
for their hearer to be afraid,
again there, in the night,
with no white-scarred sky to emit
and no yellow moon to reflect any light whatsoever.
It was stupidly dark.
Made moreso (stupidly) by the nips and pelts of passersby,
even less aware of whom they were impacting
than the impactee, being formerly inanimate themselves.
And it was stupidly cold,
such that one could not know whether it was a bit of bark-mulch
that the gusts just threw
or if it was Jack Frost, and the unfriendly way he bites, that caused
more stinging on the right thigh.
It was probably both. Continue reading
He was at eye level now
and I listened while he spoke, engaged with the ground
low and smooth and easily, said to me
“Sit down and rest awhile.”
He stood, hand anchored light, guided me to a piece of wood fit for sitting
I said,
“I can still carry. I’m not tired.”
“It’s alright,” he said, “sit down and rest awhile.”
So I obliged and let me be lifted a small inch or two
Once placed, I stayed with feet swaying in unison. Continue reading
Hebrews 12:1-2 on my mind today: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that … Continue reading
~October 2008. Still pertinent. Nichole Sanderson Caught up in cacophonies of conflict and quarreling Ensnared in strongholds of pretension, insubordination, the vogues of my generation and conjoined; I can’t cut the link between who was and who should be, yet … Continue reading
January 25, 2012 Nichole Sanderson I’m pummeled by imposters Lord, I know You’re not a scoffer So why are my fears so close to convincing me That You won’t really love Unless I prove my offered place above is well-deserved … Continue reading
October – December, 2011 Nichole Sanderson I remember starlight October strolls through a season, heard cello moans move heartthrob throws; low, steady and slow low vibrato impress lashing elations walked under arced bows over avenues swaying formal full of meaning, … Continue reading
The question has sparked a lot of controversy lately. It even made The Chronicle’s list of 2011’s top 10 religion and politics stories, citing Robert Jeffress’s public assertion that presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasn’t a real Christian. The matter continues … Continue reading
Kids say the darndest things. They’re more perceptive than they get credit for, and their unfamiliarity with (disregard for?) established norms frees them to make unfiltered remarks. (This is part of why I don’t want children – they will tell … Continue reading
They say one characteristic of a successful blog is having a consistent topic. Something unique where you can find a niche, hunker down in a dark room with a coffee pot, hype up on heart-palpitating doses of caffeine, and write, … Continue reading
