written and typed 2005.01.07
uploaded 2005.01.09

This was written during my AP Euro class after our teacher had told us about some footage of that tsunami in Asia-ness that he had seen the night before, where a man was standing (just standing) on the beach in front of the tsunami while the camera-people were watching from the third-story floor of a café/restaurant/shop thing. No matter how hard the people screamed for the guy to move or get out of the way or whatever (no matter how hopeless that might’ve been), he couldn’t hear them (apparently) and was pretty much swept away. I don’t know if he was facing the water or if he had his back to it and wasn’t sure what was happening, or if he was even frozen in his tracks, but I used that mental image to write this poem in a more Romantic-ish point of view.

As with most of my poetry, I don’t quite like it as much as I did while writing it, but—hey, sometimes you give and get, and with others you are squatified. n.n (And in case you’re kinda brain-dead like I probably would expect you to be if you’re reading MY poetry, this is one of the squatified ones.)

Now go ahead and “enjoy” my early-morning rambleness.

“Savior”

Calling my name from that third-story floor
Bagel-cream cheese sitting half-forgotten on a porcelain plate
Your name engraved, elegant script, at its core
Streaming locks of chestnut—gold—
Battering your blue-hued, viridian, hazelnut gaze
While frozen lips cry hoarse smoke-ridden tones
Of escape and protection
For loved ones?
You pretend you know me
Just because there’s that possibility that I’ll
Bring humanity down
With my contribution to those
Endless statistics
Living versus the dead
Sane versus the artistic
Runaway minds (not runaway voices)
Leave me alone to my peace
Let me love this wall before me
This pillar of representative meeting-ends
Foam-crested icing on saltwater-biscuit sweetcakes
Soft on my lips, sugar-laced taste buds
Sparkle-salt dust tearing at my tearing cheeks
I embrace it all.

Damascus Ochre