WILL POWER by Nicole Barth [9/30/10]

Gelatinous muscles

contumaciously refuse

to galvanize themselves

up

the

stairs

as my vapid brain

sputters and stalls like a broken down car

—the engine void of vitality—

as it grumbles

an unwilling retort

to

my demands for productivity —

or some semblance of creativity.

But what is productivity

at the expense of sanity

and

physical health?

My mind sapped

of imaginative

analyses—its

topography equivalent

to that of a dried prune....

A curmudgeon's countenance.

I write my wrist to death....

Until the nebulous haze

of exhaustion usurps me.

Yin and Sometimes Yang by Nicole Barth [9/28/10]

Picture a drawing of a young woman.

Now give her mahogany hair that ripples like a current—

and blood shot eyes.

Then divide this diagram in half.

Each half ricochets against the other,

—they are grains of Aeolian sand—

perfecting and smoothing out

its neighbor,

polishing and refining

the heinousness

that lingers and loiters within

the self-berating side,

and

caressing the tender cheek

of the quivering, ever-hopeful

child that chooses to believe

—regardless of her nearly quotidian debasement—

in self worth.

For this sketch,

this drawing,

this girl whose anxious eyes

have fought back

the uncertainty

lurking behind

her leaking emotions

is both the lighthouse and the crashing waves that beat against it.

Puerile Daydreaming by Nicole Barth [9/25/10]

Give me back one day

when I was so much younger

so much younger than I am now.

When my eyes were first stained with

the deep emerald of

blades of grass

and my crooked baby teeth

parted my

primrose mouth,

making way for

my

puerile smile.

Give me back that day

                                        where I was lying down

                                         in a maroon summer dress—

the delicately opaque

colors of the floral print

jocundly playing

along the fibers—

                                     as I lay beneath the

                                                  Cherry blossom tree

                                                   in my nonna's garden,

                                                   staring up at the

                                                   clouds that frolicked

                                                   within the vast ocean of air

                                                    above me.

Give me back that day

where the sun's rays

beat down on me,

toasting my skin

as I envisioned myself

as a mermaid—

an updated kind, though.

[One in a tankini and flippers.]

Giddy...despite the gallons of pool water

I must've inhaled,

trying to teach myself how to swim.

Give me back those days

             when being three or four years old

              meant being in awe of the simplest things—

little me would have spent hours staring at the vines

growing on the building's facade next to my own.

Give me back that summer day, twelve years ago

where my pudgy hands would clap for joy because of the smallest things

[a yellow balloon floating between tree branches]

a turquoise farfalla resting on my shoulder,

my long eye lashes imitating the fluttering of its wings.

Cannonball to the Stomach by Nicole Barth [9/8/10]

Like a demon

squirming beneath my taught skin,

I feel its jagged nails sink into

the muscles in my shoulders,

tensing them

as it sends sparks of pain through me—

my stomach churning fastidiously

as anxiety clamps my mouth shut like a bear trap.

A clambering heartbeat

is the only proof that

this body of mine is still

exhaling

as my frantic eyes

dart from

the phone

to this page

to the phone

again.

They tore the clothes right off you,

exposing you—and me.

The keys have fallen off the keyboard

of your flesh.

Like ripping duct tape

off of

bare skin,

they stripped you of your privacy

and left you snarling in the corner.

A beaten dog

whose foaming mouth

screams

revenge.

A flame may flicker within

the cage of your mind

as it rages,

but I am left in a tumultuous

fog,

biting my lip

as I silently stumble

in the dark,

searching for

the right thing to say.

The right thing to think.

I'm standing on uneven ground,

slipping into a torched

dress

whose fibers

have traces

of

panic and uncertainty.

A Smudged Painting [9/6/10]

I'm drunk on the words spilling out of your lips,

like a tattered love note

written on a cracked mirror,

reflecting the outcome of myself

that could have been

that would have been

if I hadn't sucked the water out of my chest

and pulled myself out of the mire.

Like an encasing of sheet-rock

over a stumbling confidence,

like glass that has been caressed

not so gently by the sand paper

on the

ocean's floor.....

it takes effort, darling,

to see through

your secretive smile

to visualize

your

trepidations

writhing and screeching

beneath your polished skin.

Let me be your haven

from the howling

cynics in your mind.

Let my steady breaths

smooth the creases

in your brow

and calm the panic

flashing across your

azure eyes

as

my slender fingers course

through

your silky hair

and run innocently down,

caressing your face

as I pull you closer to me.

My cracked lips won't say a word, darling,

but know that my mind does not rest..

that I long to blot out your negatives

and dip the tip

of a fountain pen into

ink bluer than the sky

and remind you

what you mean to me

in a language that emulates

perfection.

For you are the actor

that has forgotten his mask.

And I am the chest that will store your worries.

Close to Midnight Musings by Nicole Barth [9/15/10]

The muffled thrumming of a heartbeat doesn't

strike me

as something a  computer's microphone could pick up on....

The quickening ricocheting of my heart against

the xylophone known as my rib cage.

No more dreaming of the day

where I can literally feel myself bursting with music

No more dreaming of the day where I can feel my mind oscillating

to the rhythm of maddened hooves,

to the African drums that have invaded my chest.

Seems that I have been held in some dreaming state

by the thread-like fingers

of an idea,

[a memory]

of your glistening,

smiling eyes

as you rub the sleep out of them.

Pools of copper and

eucalyptus green

swim

across the curvatures

of lyrics left unsaid,

etched permanently onto your collar bone

as

they slowly

trickle

down

your shoulders,

floating along the currents

of your arms

until they reach the harbor

or your hands.

Is it dirty,

is it naughty,

is it wrong?

To wish,

to want,

to need,

to hope,

that maybe

those same hands

that cook chickens

could cradle

the girl

filled with

silly fantasies and endless dreams?