HAZY

June 14, 2012

Hazy face, hazy dreams.
I am never what I seem.
There is one, and there are two.
Both of which are me, not you.
Though your shadow casts its gaze,
Upon my weak and weary face-
You cannot reach me.

One of me is stronger, harsher still.
The world is hers, but she herself, has killed.
A hard exterior, soft within,
She breaks so easily beneath the skin.
With your knife, you graze her wounds,
You chip and cut and make blood ooze.
But there is another.

The other, she never bleeds.
As hard as rock, her heart as thick as orchid leaves.
She wafts through life, so stoic and still.
You can't break her; you never will.
She feels no love; she feels no pain.
Her every experience feels the same. 

It's her shadow you must watch out for. 

Blackbird

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
-T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"


April 18, 2012

The smell is overwhelming,
As last night's carnage hangs on the bedpost-
A testament to his conquest.

It wasn't the bird's fault, of course.
She wasn't aware she couldn't sing at night,
That singing was for mornings only.

The woman touches her soft feathers,
Sees the vacant look in her eyes.
She wonders if it would have been better,
Simply to imprison her-
But he would never allow that.

Suddenly the room is spinning.
The wings disintegrate between her fingers,
as the sun shines through the glass windowpane.
She's trapped again today.
If escape were an option, what would she choose?

Thread

Thread
Katie M. Moss
1/17/2012

She said I don’t’ know when I’ll get there, to that place I’ve often seen--
To that place inside my dreams,
A little thread, within the seams.

Every day I hear its call, a little fainter
As I watch the snowy sidewalk,
As I gaze into the street.
To that place inside my dreams.

There it’s bright and never cloudy,
It is silent, warm, serene.
No one tells me anything,
Stitched in that place inside my dreams.

To be sure, you’ll never find it
‘Lest you drink this potion down
Says Irene the white angel,
Who flies without wings.

She flutters around me.
But she cannot wield my dreams.
If she could, I wouldn’t let her,
For they are built especially for me.

Night falls. I crack the shutters.
I ease my way between,
See my harried, troubled eyes
A product of moon beams.

They will never touch me now
With their filthy hands of hate
With their potions, ties, and keys.
I will fly into the night,
I will whisper softly, please.

I will slowly drift away,
Into the clouds of misty dreams.
To the place of in-between.
Say goodbye to everything.

Embers

EMBERS
Katie M. Moss
October 8, 2011

The circle never ends,
It always begins
From a point of no return
From the last place you felt heat.
From the time you felt peace.

Those fires burn dark and smoky,
Stone red and embers crying
For heights they’ll never reach.
For a space they’ll never breach.

Fingers clasp at the nothing
That surrounds you and embodies:
All of us are essence
Slowly drifting and dispelling.
Slowly fighting as we’re fleeting.
Disappearing while we sleep.

A dark hallway shrouds your coming
Where keys no locks will fit
No doors will open for you.
No lights to show the way,
No home for you to reach.

Cobwebs and shadows growing
Surround you ever nearer.
I linger there before you
In places you won’t reach.
…A life that can’t be breached.

I knew you once,
I knew you.
As your shadow,
Oh, how easily I seeped.

Your life you’ll spend forever
In search of those who’ll know you
For hands to clasp in the darkness,
For a cool breath to ease the flames.

Memphis: A Prose Poem

By Katie M. Moss
September 1, 2011

She sits in the corner, there.
A misty fog glazes her down-turned eyes.
A fly buzzes above her unkept hair,
And a smile grazes her parched lips.

She sees me looking now, catches my familiar gaze.
She gives me a hard stare.

I loved her once, in a different time, a different place.

She was better kept then. Her eyes still had the hope of years to come,
Lingering around the not yet wrinkled edges.

Tonight I can’t see the spark of memory in them.
The summer days, floating on that drawling Southern river,
The nights filled with fireflies and moonshine.
Things were simple, then.

She left for Memphis once, a long time ago.
She was gone for two months.
No one ever knew what she did, who she met.
But when she came back, she wasn’t the same.

Sometimes she would hum strange melodies,
A faraway look in her eyes as she stirred the dinners she made for me,
Once I finished in the shipyard.
I liked her best at those times.

She was a different woman then, mysterious even.
Her brows would knit together, and I couldn’t decide if she was trying to remember,
Or if she desperately wanted to forget.

Tonight I can still taste those homemade pies
She filled them with fruits so sweet,
I almost couldn’t bear it.


She’d slowly kiss me after,
The taste lingering on her tongue.
Then we’d slide into the front porch swing.
Our motions swaying in tandem with the wind, the trees.

We’d stay outside until sunrise,
Until I carried her inside.
She clung to me at those times,
In the same way she clings to that dirty, old suitcase now.

I nod at her, a nod of knowing
Of recognition.
She blinks her eyes.
They clear, only for a moment, as if the cobwebs of the present are broken,
And she can live clearly in the world of her past.

She walks over to me,
Steady, determined, stone-faced.
She says, “Funny thing, seeing you on a day like today.”
I shrug. “Life’s funny like that,” I say.

“You going somewhere?”
“Yeah. Thought I’d take the next train. To Memphis.”
She shifts her feet,
Glances down at her scuffed-toe shoes.

She begins to walk away, takes a look back.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “that you never knew me.
That you never knew Memphis.”
I shrug again.
She doesn’t know I’m going there today.

She takes ten determined steps,
Counts them out in a whisper,
Her voice trembling.
“I’m sorry,” she says again,
As she steps onto the tracks.

***************************************
The 10:40 train to Memphis arrived right on time.
She went right along with it, as she hummed a little tune.

(Found @ TerraGalleria.com)

Aura

Aura

By: Katie M. Moss

18 February 2011

Distortion--

It's what I feel as the static of the day crashes around my brain.

Around my hands the aura is deep red. Survival-oriented,

With a dirty brown overlay: the color of my Insecurity.

The season is changing again,

But my fears never do.

They shadow me- seek me out.

They know where I live, sleep, love.

I will never reach my ideal self.

I will strain, and strain, and strain for perfection.

I stand on my parched, cracked feet,

Balancing my weight on my two largest toes.

Tomorrow I receive the news,

My life in another's hands.

My heart as designed by others does not complete my soul.

Does it?

Terabithia

Terabithia

01.26.2011 

Walking into the woods behind my house in the golden summer south,

I see them as much more, because I am a child.

They provide another world where kings, queens,and fairies dwell.

In each leaf is a story— one that I can tell.

I grab my younger brothers by the arms and coerce them into play.

The light through the trees warns us of the end of day.

But we will not retreat now from our lean-to castle kingdom,

for magic happens as the sun meets earth.

We will never be as free as we are now,

Where we make our own laws,

and we're protected by the trees. 

**One of my favorite books as a child, Bridge to Terabithia, inspired my brothers and I to make a secret fort by the same name in the woods behind our house. This is a poem dedicated to that place. 

The Other

The Other
12/3/2010

I’ll open my eyes, she says in her head.
The sunlight blurs, sharpens, focuses.
She stretches her torso, tells herself today is different.
Her brain doesn’t know it yet. Only her body.

She tries to run her fingers through her tangled hair--
Looks over. Remembers.
She sees a reflection of herself, only different--
A mass of blood, bones, a carved-out shell. The Other.

The birds outside don’t know it.
Birds go about their business, disregarding ours.
But inside, there is a war.
Of power. Of wits. Of corpses.

I’ll close my eyes, he says in his head.
It’s too early for birds.
He spins into nothingness.
His body doesn’t know it yet. Only his brain.

In his dreams, he sees a mirror.
A reflection of himself, only different.
He has her eyes, but what they reflect is only himself.   

Grey Lady

Grey Lady
October 14, 2010-- Edited December 2010

I flow through grey space

Like a t.v. screen

Like a misty dream

Grey space is grey matter. I float. I cling.

But that one thought I can't escape.

It chases me— by night, by day.

I see his furrowed, harried face--

In triumph then it merged to hate.

I tell you now-- he lost his face.

For every line just disappeared,

and was replaced by own fear.

The energy still flows through me.

But from above, and down below

is not the same as possessing.

My face, I know, It turned to stone.

No longer then, the dew did kiss--

My body formed of emptiness.

But still I stay, so in-between.

The body's gone— but still I cling.

His cast his lot,

He knew his fate.

To choose torment from me by day--

and night I lay beside him still--

wedged in between he and his wife,

for whom I used to serve, in strife.

Shadow Twin

Shadow Twin
10/03/2010

Heavy weight of freight car trains presses down like

Winter winds, like woolen blankets, like damp foreheads,

Akin to your late-night words.

Sometimes  I think I hear you on the muffled line,

Strangling your words—oppressing love, hate

But then I realize that you’re right in front of me.

Shadows never really go away.

They creep around surfaces. Fluid and agile, they slip through cracks

They slip through time, space.

They risk detection.

I tell you every day you’re disappearing.

Your shadow sticks. No need to sew it back on.

You wish it wasn’t so dark, messy.

You wish it didn’t make you so fragile.

Your other half, your coup de grâce.

When life fades, you merge.

You were always your darker twin.

Strawberry Heart

Strawberry Heart
September 4, 2010


Sometimes I feel my heart has the consistency of a strawberry frozen fruit bar.

It’s frigid, and hard. It melts under pressure,
but can be delicious to bite into.
I imagine I have a fork, digging out pieces one at a time.

I eat it myself. It refuses other lips.

It’s more delicious that way.

My brain I imagine is made of foam, like the models you see in science class.
It has different colors and labels.

Things like “memories you want to forget,” or “nights you can’t remember.”
Its foaminess expands with the knowledge I put into it.
I again hold the fork with the label “one night stands.”

                              It tastes semi-sweet, like dark chocolate or red wine.

They both taste so good, it’s hard to stop eating.
So I gorge myself on the crumbs; I bite into the rinds.
Soon, there will be nothing left to consume. 
Soon, you know, I will run out of time.

Ambiance

Ambiance.

By Katie M. Moss

July 29, 2010

Ambiance.

Dark night clouds form shadows of the legends gone before,

Of the anger from the shore,

Of the seas that part no more.

Crisp green meadows full of dew,

Full of shadows,

Full of you.


Ambiance.

Colors undefined. But unlikely. Rest assured.

You are welcome yet aboard.

Welcome to the stone-turned-melted-glistening night.

Without a fight.

You have a right.


Ice and fire. Cold, dark night.

Ship is sailing out of sight.

Out upon the onyx stone ocean.                          

Outward from the white-washed shore.


Ambiance.

Eternity. Within our sight, yet out of reach.

The ship sails on, our eyes can see,

But never touch. The ship is never tangible.

It's empty. You can't reach it.

It's not even real.

Upon it sits your own worst enemy.

@moonriverphotography.com

TommyGun

TommyGun
By: Katie M. Moss
06/10/2010

He drags her body across the sandpaper/hardwood floor,
Scraping her knees as her body fumbles to bend back to life.
“Take a look in that mirror, doll,” he says.
“You’re covered in soot.”
He places her before it. Glances twice, looks away, shakes her.
She mumbles as she stares down at the floor.
“Pull yourself together, baby, we’ve made it this far”
She only mumbles more, as she stares down at the floor.
He sits her down on the hardwood, grabs his coats as he leaves,
Tips his hat.
“Nice meetin’ you, ma’am,” he says, as he stares down at the floor.
“I’ll be seein' you next Tuesday at four.” 
She grabs the gun he’s left on the sofa. She can’t take it anymore.
“I’ll be waiting for you some other place, Tommy.”
“I’ll meet you at the door.”

(Image from "KillKissBang@blogspot)

The Young Man's Barn

The Young Man’s Barn
By: Katie M. Moss

The red-yellow-golden brown flakes glide across the earthen crust of a barren wind-chilled day,
As horses shake their tasseled manes in the painted-fire sky.
Groans of hard-pressed use flows across their chocolate-brown-honey coats.
Today the wind is changing.
They can smell it, fear it, taste it.

Red-necked skin-scorched man stumbles out of a wasteland-grey stump of a fluid-filled home.
“Every day’s the same,” he chants.  “Every day’s the same.”
“Nowhere left to go,” he says, as the horses shake their manes.

May 22, 2010

Virtues of a Poet

Virtues of a Poet

By: Katie M. Moss

April 28, 2010

Fate is like the wallflower sitting next to me at the cafeteria table.

She sighs, she mumbles, but she doesn't affect her surroundings.

She's there, without really being there.

Love is the same way.

It's what I feel when I sit on the park bench next to the dumpster, next to the bus stop.

It involves a lot of waiting in a period of time that smells like waste.

Hope, don't make me laugh.

I killed it this morning in my garden. It took awhile, but the spade won in the end.

It's all crusted with dirt and worm intestines now. Thanks a lot, hope.

Patience.

I don't have enough to finish this line.

Charity. I'm supposed to clothe my neighbor,

but I'd rather go shopping. Hope that clears things up.

Faith. Because trusting in ourselves isn't hard enough.

The only human I have faith in is my dog.

And he's Canis lupis familiaris.

I wish I had a cat.

I wish this list were longer, but that's enough of that. 

 

Grime

Grime
By: Katie M. Moss
April 28, 2010

This is another piece of love-struck poetry brought about by rapid change.
This is the feelings I relate within my own grey walls of space.
This is today, tomorrow, and next year.
This is more the instant. This is modern language.
This is a type 2 personality profile of a no-good-very-bad day.
This is a gift of pure hack and bullshit poetics covered in grimy mis-matched fuzzy socks.
This is the now. This is rhetoric slime and run-of-the-mill modern style.
This is life. This is a toast to the good, the bad, and the static in-between.
This is to moving on. This is to the fuzzy-headed feeling your dryer sheets bring.
This is monumental, unchanging, unfeeling, and uncertain.
This is you.
This is me.
This is the neighbor in my basement who verbally abuses his spouse.
This is my friend with an eating disorder.
This is to the beginnings of addiction.
This is to long nights.
This is to thinking you're unique when there are millions of others just like you.
This is for humanity.
This is giving a shit.

Cement

Cement
By: Katie M. Moss


Arc of the white bird’s wing frames itself against the circumflex sky
As my thoughts wander freely over the stone-peaked mountains--
Over the chimney-soot houses
Over the color-purple stained sky.
Sheen-golden slanted lightening of the golden, ripened sky.


Knots of the warm-pressed masses pass--
Past windows, streets, doors--
Heading towards a folding destination--
Line forming is a lackadaisical river bend--
Serpent-weaving, marred out of consciousness of thought.


Bands of color brace against the love-stained sidewalks--
covering the relics of the people left behind.
Of war
Of peace
Of in-between.
Of exploration never found.


Of dreams never reached .
Of generations left to find the work again. 
Dropping commodities and cares in the sea of stillness that will never wash away.
We will simply fade and weave--
Like a bird’s white folded wing.

FreeWrite

So, a group did a presentation today in class and asked that we do a "free write" based on being in the following situation: You're on a mountain alone, snowshoeing and you come across this terrifying creature: how do you feel? It was an activity about translation of texts. Now, I can't find the exact picture, but it looked something like this:

---Except facing the camera more, looking more vicious, and surrounded by snow. So, this probably doesn't "translate" well itself since you're seeing a different source than my original. But, to my thoughts:

FreeWrite
By: Katie M. Moss
07 April 2010

Walking on the desolate, snow-frosted mountain-- full of ethereal white beauty and thoughts of the sea,

I hear the steady thump, thump of a heartbeat other than my own.

I am no longer alone with my thoughts in this wasteland wilderness--

My new self is now clearly exposed.

Chills crawl up and down my arms and neck as my breath freezes like a block of hard, rough ice in my chest.**

What I see is a monster---

What I see is myself.

Myself reflected--

A version of myself.

Nature's own version:

Green-yellow eyes and blazing white, rock-shard teeth.

Do I stay and face the beast--
or retreat from nature's mirror- into the snow-covered tangles of branches I should have never left behind? **

My fear consumes the heat surrounding my ice-blocked chest.

My heart melts.

My body remains. 


**BTW, I'm extremely frustrated that I can't fit all of my longer lines on the same line in this format. Please ignore the breaks. 

The Chamber

The Chamber
By: Katie M. Moss

The warmth sustains me in my dark, lightless chamber.
The rays slide effortlessly through the bars of the window--
Leading me, begging me, to come outside.
I smell flowers, and spring, and heaven‘s dew upon grass.
I open my eyes, and  see the four posts of my own bed. 

The birds sound the same, in this still room of mine.
The flowers still flowers, and vines--
--wrap around the posts of my bed.
I wish I were dead.
How I wish I were dead.
For but to live, as happy as this--
Is quite surely bliss--my soul’s own new bliss.
Sustainable bliss.
From one little kiss.

Le Parapluie

Le Parapluie
By: Katie M. Moss

I forgot my umbrella on purpose today--
I’ll wash him away, I’ll wash him away.
Le parapluie, le parapluie
Quand il était avec moi, il y a toujours pluie.

Mais, tu-- Tu as apporté la soleil--
Mon cœur, Mon cœur
Mon coeur t'appartient.
Your energy--- it covers me.
I left my umbrella on purpose today--
I’ll wash him away, I’ll wash him away.

Every day, decisions faced, can go this way or that.
We choose, or not--- we cast our lot, into the world of men.
Agony or jubilance, triumph or defeat--
All this rain, not unlike tears, will wash all over me.
But life is fair, good fate is kind--- yet only you control your mind.
---Our rainbows now are intertwined.
I ignored my umbrella on purpose today--
I’ve washed him away, I’ve washed him away.