though wish and world go down, one poem yet shall swim.

optimal experience

2008-09-03T16:51:06Z

last night, arriving home from work, i left my bike outside against my better judgment. i sensed, with my body's smallest voice, the utter likeliness of rain. yet this is not happenstance. i seem to ignore, more and more, any self apparent hint of truth. i wade over these waves of numbness and feel, at times, as if i am not even alive. i am a block of petrified wood longing to be a tree again.

the baby is sick.
idle hands.
he needs to create something.
the flow of optimal experience.
but the tv is always on.
the computer continues glowing.
tune out.
lets work hard. softly.
process, progress, procedure, practice.
may this be your pill.
take it.

ape-trill

the letting go.

2008-07-30T18:48:53Z

every day i go through the motions and feel like my stomach is bleeding. feel like whatever it is we could have been is rotting away inside me. i cant eat, i barely sleep. i am ruined with sadness. one of the greatest loves of my life has moved out, leaving me surrounded by the pulsating residue of "us". baby, this is our furniture, its all in the same place, all smelling the same. the sheets are all full of your skin and the times we embraced in them. and i think about the good things, your boyish charm, your huge blue eyes tearing in the morning, your excitement over james brown, and the way you'd play with my hair in the car. i wish i could be angrier, because sure, there is plenty of shit to be angry about. but late into the relationship i learned to have faith and to try. and possibly, this was my downfall. you gave up a long time ago, and i'm not good at the letting go.

i pretended i was making love to you. i'm not kidding.

2008-07-18T16:19:39Z

this morning, i leaned over and kissed you. i was surprised that you received it so well. for a moment it was as if nothing had changed. i felt unordinarily comfortable. suddenly i realized, with a stifled gasp, that it wasnt you. it was somebody else with your same facial hair when you're too lazy to shave. it was somebody else who could hold me like you do and mean it. it was someone, who, like myself, lacked love and needed it. anyway, the point is, it wasnt you.

you are my totem pole. my favorite tree in a forest full of them. you are so tall with such a little soul. you are smiling in every dream i have of you. we are children and the lawns are freshly mowed. we are small people with no past and i never have to act callous, as though i dont love you. as though, with all my obvious might, i could renounce these tears. in my memory of us, we are hiding in my most secret place. we have just discovered each other, and for the first time, realize the possibility of love.

my website

2008-05-29T02:19:10Z

please check out my website, it's got a lot of my work on it and it's special to me.

http://aprilgastinger.carbonmade.com/

only the lonely

2008-05-16T09:09:16Z

i am holding everything in my hands. i am seeing huge objects from a distance. often i realize....just taking it all in. sometimes i am so slow, with lobster hands, grasping at this or that. sometimes i am feeble, stubborn, ungracious, thinking god knows who understands my this or that. i think sometimes only you understand me, because when i was young (only you and only then) you could express the thick air that i couldn't break from. this sauna, like a big brown cloud tinting my view, skewing my neighborhood, this thing that words nor big thick books could ever tell. this thing like a loneliness that squeezes tight letting little room for deep breathing. this big black far wide empty that sounds with all its openness like a radiator hummmmm. i am holding everything in my hands. the smiles, the trees, the sorrows, every airplane that flies, and the wish that i could have done something...god, what a big breath i should have taken, what a broad arm i should have reached. but nothing could have held me, nothing could have caught me from the inevitable slip, the wide open fall. in my dream, you knew me. in my dream, you don't have to say anything twice. i know.

for the first time ever on television.

2008-04-15T06:53:50Z

im a little egg again.
a tiny embryo that no one else can see.
i won't ever know how to be two again.
i guess forever
it's just little ol' me.

all this time spent wishful thinking.
now it's spring and i can finally see.
i promised not to let the lull of hibernation
over-comfort me.

oh god, i say,
please let this tiny bluebird
beneath my lungs
be free.

consider this a meditation on every spring and every relationship i become too comfortable in. consider this an attempt to reconcile the fact that i really am in love but i don't want to be here, feel weighted, cant seem to get my dinosaur ass out of this stinking tar pit. cant really believe in myself worth a shit. never could cuz mama never did. sometimes even clouds feel so heavy around me. and he says maybe its over, and i say nothing, because i love him, but maybe this is the only way i can leave. i think maybe it has to be.

if you dont want me, let me go.

2007-10-25T05:38:55Z

there is a valley beneath my heart where anything that tries will never fit.
and it makes every breath feel like the smallest tear.
but i've built a house within this round valley.
and soft dark birds land on it, and dirt and countless vines cling to it.
but nothing enters.
tonight, i put everything in it's place, and washed my hair, and invited you in.
but it seems that i am only one quiet whisper against the awful darkness of night.
and,i guess, you will never really know how much it meant to me.

ferreal

2007-07-08T19:17:50Z

i dreamed i was walking through a zen garden in thailand while three tornadoes came barreling at me from opposing directions. and i wonder, is it me or everything else that seems so out of control?

i feel the adventure rising through my bones. breaking through my heart. there is something untamed that has been captured years ago. and i am finally here to set it free.

i miss the smell of photographic chemicals on my finger tips.
i miss waterfalls.
i miss mountains.
i miss half-off day-old chocolate bread.
i miss blankets on grass.
i miss knowing all the words to your song.
i miss the chirp of seagulls.
i miss when we loved each other, certainly.

there is something he said to me once, and i'll never forget. he told me, "ooohweee child, things are gonna get easier."

new name

2007-06-22T09:08:29Z

my dog sniffs me as if to say, "do i still know you?" walking down the street in the day light, i hear noises from a distance. as if the trees have grown radios. there is a coming of age in my kisses. there is an adolescence in my conversation. nothing i do can satisfy the way my heart thinks. i'm telling you that right now, i want to call somebody, to ask them to cuddle, to put the high life in my miller. i have been alone for so long...i suppose ive become one of those girls that have nothing but herself, and thats apparently not good enough. the whole world blinks and looks downward, thinking its not drunk enough to spin round. tell me. i wish you'd tell me if i've grown too old or too large to redeem myself. tell me. is there something that this fly knows and i do not? its whole life has been lived in this room, just for today. see me something with your so many eyes. lay me something special with your so many eggs.
ape-trill

there is

2007-06-17T08:44:54Z

a slight shifting of the wind. the way the sheets slowly come out of their creases. the fitted sheets aint so fit anymore. sometimes i think i'm the smartest person i'll ever know. sometimes i indulge too great. sometimes i feel bad cuz one night my indulgence saught other indulgences. your dick is a rocket ship... my whole body wants to blast off...and has. space cadet, and i'm sore. but anybody to whom i've shown anything is gone. i feel like the most brutal nine inch nail song. i'm so sad that johnny cash would have covered my sad soul song in his old age. five minutes later he would have died. ill metaphor my ass off but you still dont know me.....i was the fastest runner in first grade.
apreal

massacre

2007-05-26T18:48:31Z

i try hanging with my girls. pussy time. fem fatals. lovely ladies. but somehow it always turns to boys in the end. where are they? what are they thinking? he's looking at me funny. what happened to us? since when did the affections of some fucking drunk losers take hold of our minds and steer? i guess since high school, eh?
i met this other girl that he did the exact same thing to. first, obsessed for weeks, and then faded out. anyway, she is so fucking cool! i can't believe the chicks he's passed up on.... he tried talking to me a little last night and i just walked away. but behind all this anger are hands that want to touch, a mouth that wants to kiss, and a heart that just wants to say awwwwww.

i had a dream that i cocked his penis like a gun and shot him. i shot everyone. i went on a prick rampage.

smart went crazy. but where did you go?

apreal

aprilmayhem @ 2007-05-24T17:20:00

2007-05-24T21:31:45Z

i feel like taking drugs and going somewhere nobody knows me. drunk driving far away. i was walking down the street crying behind my big sunglasses, knowing it's me who is fucked up. waiting on an angel cuz i'm too tear torn to get myself back home. calling my best friend, i ask here to save me in a voicemail. repeat repeat. save my message. press 9 for pure weeping. i picture my heart on a telephone wire, perched next to some sparrows...so exposed. it's thinking about jumping. now its splat on the windshield and a knee jerk stop like a busted apple all over the road. there is no corrective surgery in the world that will put this back together. i feel like licking it up just to get it back in me.

swallow.
swallow.
so many swallows flying away.

aprooohhh

are you fucking kidding me?

2007-05-24T14:23:30Z

the cuteness died, i suppose....something died... not even a kiss...and the quotations "i'm not ready for a relationship." well. fuck no. who said anything about that? i almost thought about saying, "i'm one of the coolest girls you will EVER meet!" and i believe it. i do. but i also feel sorry and lame and strange. we saw each other last night....bowling....he was so stoned he hardly looked at me...i kept staring at his thin frame, picturing the way he fucked me, all wirey and "you feel so good." so i left and he asked me where i was going and i told him and he never came. i remember telling him to grow a mustache and he did. now it's finally filling in. every detail is filling in. no secrets. i cant believe i am dumped.

no sleep just masturbation

2007-05-23T07:13:35Z

i get so lonely. i need a roomate. all i have is this big tv and i just want to play scrabble.

i stay up late because trying to fall asleep is depressing. why do i have to try so actively to do this very passive activity?

i feel like the shittiest fortune cookie. i cant even see beyond 5 minutes. its so murky in this place. my passions drifting from one boy to another. swimming idealism. got to keep my head above you, love. breath release, and i'm another balloon against the blue sky. its so tragic to see it float away. maybe he'll tie me to his wrist. cuz with him, its too cute. riding bikes and watching cartoons. basketball and making out in public. he says "PDA, PDA!" and giggles. but i don't see myself sticking around once the cuteness dies. prolly won't even attend the funeral.

i wish he was here. i want to cuddlefuck.

this morning i lost my keys.

2007-05-16T19:57:34Z

oh, i just want to cry.
i wake up for the first time in a week and he isn't beside me. i search the house. i feel so singular and troubled.
so i walk to his apartment half drunk. he lives two blocks away. right across from the school yard.
his keys are still in the door knob. i sneak appologetically into his bed.
says he is rethinking our relationship.
i am so sour to his sugar lips.
i put the vinegar in his sweet tea.
somehow i know, even if he is blind with drink, that he would never hurt me. i cry. i cry for my rotteness. he wasn't supposed to see that yet.
like a fruit in the shade.
but now i want him more. want his pure heart, his scabbed hands, his too wet kisses. all i can think of is poetry, recording something profound as i lay there.

i must have brought this on, i must crave this drama....they are all right about me.
but i don't want to hurt you, baby, i say. he feels as sacred and fragile as mi abuelo.
so i get his dick out and lick it, crawl on top of him and fuck him. it's a sorry fuck. its an i'm-a-fucking-shit-bag fuck. it's a please-dont-hate-me fuck.
afterwards, i fall asleep. but not without noticing that he won't lay his hand on me.
you see, he has this way of touching me slightly as we fall asleep, even if he is facing the other way. but not now. no, no. not now.
as i wake up, he is getting ready to meet his mom. i search for my flip-flops and head for the door.
he doesn't reach his lips out to kiss me five or more times as usual....
and i feel so akward that i close the door in his face and don't look back.

iiiiiiii

2007-04-18T07:41:38Z

boy,as you get dressed to go outside, to smoke a cigarette. i wonder how your body is so different from my own. how this flat chest and protruding lower region effect your personality. because i've seen boys who seem like girls and i've seen these creatures that are you that make me question my own species. how are we classified together? kingdom, philom, genre,sex. i want to understand what makes meyou?

i cant stay here anymore

2007-02-17T05:37:29Z

"oh krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding. i consider it as hard to subdue as the wind." -bhagavad gita

last night, i dreamed that i traveled a long way to meet your father, just to ask him where he has been all your life, and tell him he is still needed.

last night, a cold wind came up through the floor boards and blew my mind toward the ceiling. i held it there as if it were a bird on a leash.

last night, i dreamed that the jeweled night had squared me up and pummeled me dearly, but it felt as though Klimt had kissed me.

last night, i buried myself in sand as small children ran by me. i wanted to run along with them but i couldn't because i was sunken and dirty, and also naked.

last night, i realized you aren't who i thought you were-- that i am the bird and you are the the handler.

johnny plays guitar

2006-10-13T22:44:07Z

the first time in months i've been alone....this moment, you are witness to it.

my love has found me. a parade around my heart. and now, i believe in god. because my boy was an act of god... in the movie theatre we heard some one say that love stimulates REM sleep and people tend to have more dreams when they are in it. we looked at eachother and smiled because every day we wake up fast and full with words of dreams like sparrows' wings flying from our tongues. coffee every morning. dark from mexico, just like him, and his voice makes the sweet sweet cream. he domesticates me but sometimes i don't understand. i'm a puppy learning new tricks. i cut him a little rat tail and we laugh cuz everyone thinks its the coolest. i feel like john and yoko...the whole neighborhood knows us by our walk...together, we are so free. and they want that. i paint my dresser bright green while we watch cnn on tv and somehow it's the most perfect thing to do. i am willing to forget every other lover for the truth of these moments.

when you have everything, you have everything to lose.

april almond-picker

not even kidding

2006-08-22T16:27:31Z

katies, kates, katherines and any variation of that continue to fuck my whole life.

beware.

malachi

2006-08-06T02:15:12Z

if i remember correctly....
he washed up on the shore, a little boy. i said, where did you come from? he pointed to the peninsula barely showing through the distant fog. how long have you been there? he couldn't recall. i took him in, fed him, but something was strange. when i looked in his eyes...all i saw was that peninsula where his pupils should be. i knew that he could stay here no longer. not here, with all its moving parts and flashing lights. it seemed that at any moment my world would break his sweet porceline face. so the next day, i put him in a small boat at the same spot i had found him, but i was not happy to send him back.

days passed, maybe weeks. when i went back to the shore, i looked out across the dark water and could not see that peninsula. but there was no fog. it must connect somewhere to this land, i thought. so i walked through city, town, country and vacation destination, until finally the width of the land began closing in, the terrain became rockier, and i had reached the end, the tip of the peninsula. i did not see that little boy, until i turned around. behind a large rock i saw a little limb move. each step i took nearer to him filled a hole in me. it kept filling me until i stood right in front of him, reached out to him, held him in my arms, and was full. it was a feeling beyond holy, and there was nothing more satisfying than that moment. i told him, it's all okay, i'm staying here with you.

after i woke up, i knew he was the son that s and i almost had when i was 19.

apearl

the littlest birds sing the saddest songs

2006-08-01T18:46:15Z

the bird died. got weaker and weaker, then died. i wasn't sad.
i don't love anything.
i want out of this swampy air-- im suffocating.
and the air-conditioner makes my throat scratchy.
i have two dollars to my name.
its liberating. but im still numb.
walking around with nothing to do. can't even go outside....the air....licking and swallowing.
the sun doesn't notice im gone. haven't gotten a call from him in weeks.
he didnt answer my phone calls on his birthday.
i guess i always knew i had sexual issues....and these days im so afraid of them.
i know no other love but yours.
and baby, i would quit these rambling ways if you told me you felt the same.
so i'm still calling your name.
oh, no.
never found anything else to say.

grey bird green

2006-07-27T17:14:30Z

when i got home yesterday, this was on my door mat welcoming me home. he was just sitting pretty, as if he had been expected me. i approached him and put my fingers in front of his chest like i hear you are supposed to do, and the litte guy hopped right on me. s says i romanticize everything, that i think im so special. well, i just cant help but think this is some sort of cosmic sign....i mean, what the hell is a cockatiel doing on my front porch? i don't exactly advertise as doctor doolittle.

so, i set him on my shoulder and went around to all my nieghbors houses trying to see if anyone had lost a bird. nobody had, or even knew anyone who had. but, what a great way to meet nieghbors! one lady came down and explained how she was nursing a bladder infection and had been on the toilet all day (she delivers mail). another two ladies had at least seven little dogs and a huge collection of buddha and angel statues adorning their yard and home. they worked for the shamrock foundation which rescues animals and they gave me a cage and contact info. my niegbor, star, who feeds birds and animals of all sorts, gave me plenty of bird seed. and i discovered to my disappointment that my favorite house on the block, a blue one with a bright yellow door, shelters a nasty old man in a wife-beater who i just know was mumbling something about us dirty hippies under his breath.

i guess im going to put an ad in the paper, i dont know what else to do....i've never really understood the whole bird-owner concept. it seems so sad to cage and ground such an creature. does he have dreams in which he is flying? i can see that his wings are already cut... and here comes that bukowski poem again...it won't leave me alone.....

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

-apreal

vacation

2006-07-19T23:28:09Z

the drive lasted long enough into the night to cause make-believe deer sightings and incomprehensible fits of laughter. also the wondering of how strange a word is when said repeatedly and slow, how easily it becomes an unfamiliar gargle or mating call. we were greeted by a small hairy middle aged boy who called himself "Bear" and who bowed and prayed upon meeting us with the most exaggerated and suspicious grace. immediately, turtle became fearful and stayed away from him the whole trip.

but morning braught light to things as it does and it was off to the farm. plants dug into the ground in the shape of spirals and horse-shoes. to see mike's proud face as he looked upon his land. we jumped into the lake naked and with no regard. i thought how beautiful my new friends were--amy's dark indian skin and small round breasts, doug's long pale body and feathered straw hat, mellow's wide pupils and bare black feet, julia's large hanging breasts and broad thighs. there was no question that i belonged here and always had.

every day was bread and cheese, chocolate cookies, swimming, walking, basking. and in the evenings, beer and poetry, tofu and vegitables. eating under the pear tree, admiring the old paper mill, thinking how tiny and stunning and important we all are. questions and haikus. what kind of tree are you and would you allow me to climb you? and later... the silence of the stars.

for an hour or two, i saw him. it was mostly funny blank moments and default smiles. also the urge to say, "i still love you" and the reassuring touch that told me this was already understood. down deep through his eyes i saw him recognize me. yes, you are the girl i fell in love with and now you are a woman, his silence whispered. all amends were made in those brief ceremonious moments, yet the mutual forgiving only encouraged our curious souls. at last, i held tight to restraint and left him with only a hug held up by eternity and the air expanding needlessly between us.

and in this same way, i relinquished the berkshires.

aprilhousatonic

yeah so?

2006-07-07T16:39:48Z

make the love, paint the picture, write the song.
the player met a virgin, made a virgo, named him sean.

i love you. don't ever fucking question that. that's probably why we'll never get along. if i was better at finding the right words to say, i wouldn't need to write these motherfucking songs.
-atmosphere

my my birdie

2006-07-07T15:46:45Z

pumpkin chocolate-chip muffin...5 days old. my legs somehow hold up my torso. there is nothing i can pretend to say to you besides, don't you know that i fucking love you? you refuse to look at my eyes. even when jesse told you "its cool, they are different colors." but you cited it as being "too weird"...afraid you might see something. i just want some one to take care of me and you know you can. thats the reality of it.
that's it.

down for the count.
seriously, rock died in the 80s,
what the fuck is ted nugent doing?
and the new platinum wierd sux monkey cock.

lllllove ya.
moi