Soundtrack of My Summer by Nicole Barth [10/1/11]

I can show you the beauty of open silence.

Run your hesitant fingers over the grooves in the Mahogany tree’s bark.
Breathe me in.

For you are the breathless hummingbird,
the henna tattoo that curves through my skin
and the midnight traveler
wandering through the galleries of my mind.

Let your chest rise in time to the swaying stop lights
as you paint me with your fluid philosophy.

Your eyes are the backdrop of my daydream.

Bring Me Down by Nicole Barth [9/4/11]

Five stanzas, seven aspirations later and my hands are mute.
Hundreds of miles away and I feel you breathing down my neck.

Your shadow eyes hunt for the cracks in the surface.
The trees won’t glisten today,
the rosemary scent is weak within the varnish of my hair
and the Esmeralda you know has vanished.

This mental stutter...

Only sawdust boots and unmade bed sheets.

The dynamics of water figures shifting across a dance floor.
No semblance of home.

Can you feel this pulsating mind?
The owl fixates on you.

Frigid by Nicole Barth [8/14/11]

She never wanted fake flowers.

Maybe it’s the way the dust settles on the tulip petals
or how the sickly stems never seem to catch
the light that trickles in at 4 p.m.

Slouching in the cracked leather of a mistreated couch,
she wonders why no one ever told her that
the loneliest people are the ones
who always speak the truth.

Spindle fingers wrap around
the cord of a silver rotary phone as 

she gnaws on her cuticles. 

Hollow eyes blink mechanically from a gaunt face.
Busy signal.

The Echoes by Nicole Barth [8/12/11]

She’s the kind of girl who will step outside to be alone.


Lost in her daydreams,
her olive oil eyes skim over the sea of concrete
as her wandering heart beat keeps time to the click-clack of
impatient taxi cabs lunging over speed bumps.


Yesterday’s rain water is now  a looking glass
as the girl made of lilac lullabies is overtaken
by the scent of shaved grass that brushes past her lungs.


A rusted pocket watch hangs from her neck.
Within it resides a watercolor sky and a fistful of pennies she has yet to discover.


And all the little screws that have struggled to keep
her restless hands from twitching are coming undone as
she glues herself to a park bench.


Flustered fingers leaf through a never ending stream of
dog-eared portraits,
poorly hidden smirks
and imagined lyrics before finding
a blank page.


The watch’s hands have frozen.
Trembling, she tilts the page and scrawls a confession.
Underlined twice: your smile.

Resonance by Nicole Barth [7/26/11]

Bright eyes, trace the skies and sing me

your hidden soliloquy.

This drumming noise is deafening behind the curtains of my chest.

And it starts when you're around...

My rabbit heart will choreograph

the unsteady rhythm of my breaths as your smile

washes over me .

Your fish eye captures me in an unexpected moment—

drenched in a sea of Birch trees and glass water.

We wrap ourselves around the Lipstick Building

and make our way into the layers of light.

Your theories rest against the walls of my mind

as the constant stream rinses out the chaos of negativity.

Your hand in mine.

Sweeter than heaven and hotter than hell.

De La Vega Dreaming by Nicole Barth [7/12/11]

I found myself in Central Park South,

having caressed the velvet oak

and coal of a carriage horse.

Drunk on the perfume of hoof polish and oats,

my feet carried me behind the hand-crafted walls of the southern entrance—

my fingers skimming the cracks between the infinite Granite stones all the while.

I've been sucked out of the present

and thrust into the caverns of my mind.

Here, in the middle of tar streets and blaring truck horns...
 underneath the towering cubicles and the repression of the daily grind:

a secluded tree.

It's all too familiar as I catch my breath

and picture myself sitting on the green bench
—whose paint has been chipping away for the past six years—

and sketching. 

A tale of two trees so enamored, they'd melded into one another?

Or a rejection letter that had cut him to the quick?

He'd reached out to her and twisted back in on himself,

curving and retracting his feelings down to the very trunk.

A tortured soul, or an egocentric life form?

I'll never know.

A violin sings,

a second-hand serenade kissing my earlobes.
Into the land of Andrea Bocelli love songs and midnight laughter.

And before I knew it, I'd been led into a daydream more lovely than reality.

I'm back in Spain, skipping on the lake in a chiffon dress,

the crescent moon glancing at itself in the mirror. 

Italian Suitcase by Nicole Barth [7/9/11]

I've emptied the jars of myopic dreams

and poorly thought out plans

and given myself space.

Space for flip-flop tan lines and Italian accents.

For gut-busting pasta con ragù in Emilia-Romagna,

for callused fingers running through salty hair.

Escaping from treadmills,

I'm the runaway robin peddling on a rusted bike.

Creaking gears and heart shaped dimples.

Free from car exhaust and garbage trucks,

Nonna Lina's garden calls my name.

A place where telepathy and hand-written letters are 

the only form of communication.

I'm laughing under the Magnolia tree.