You are viewing [info]matt_williams's journal

Double Yellow

A Poetic Journal

4/10/08 10:41 am

she tells me to “shut 

       up”
   these words

petal, riparian, eggshell, 
sunburned

and 
coffee dazed -
 
     baseball cap
pulled low over his eyes.

rusted
body,

      deconstructed
to engine block,
      to split chassis

the International truck

dragged,
rolled, hauled,

from the pines. 

as I trace
     her dropping

       V neckline,
       look past the bony

knob of her collarbone, see
a flash of red in the undergrowth -

    a flash of red: past.


9 April 2008

4/6/08 10:39 pm - Fall Poem

"Oh the leaves honey, just gorgeous"
Until they fall.

4/1/08 04:21 pm - Images: January 2008 – March 2008

rain recoils
                  off

    the pavement = rain

                         seeps into
          fresh
wood chips = beach
                                leaf

golden
           encased in ice = four footprints 

                       mark

 the footbridge’s tenuous 

         dusting = STOP = look = squirrel
goes inverted
            down through the scrub = yellow

                 birch bark
                                  peeling off = snake

skin on the dining 
room table = screech = flat

         picking the banjo
                          on
                    the stone wall = brush

             strokes = the wrist = flicking

        her hood
                      up over blonde

             hair = rain

beading up on an avocado green raincoat

3/14/08 04:02 pm - North Carolina Sketches

   
    September mornings
starting cold
      
        tempting out sweaters

                  by noon
                  it's in
    
  the eighties again



       __



four footprints and
one heel mark

the footbridge's
tenuous dusting

1/11/08 10:30 am

can she sing?
she can sing
head on the pillow
arm chair critic
reading blues
raining
reinterpretations
on basic cable
you get
what you pay for?
you didn't pay
for anything:
dog laying
on the couch

11/28/07 10:21 pm - Over Butter Gap

watching priming fuel bubble -

                open up the
                gas line

         
      cook refried beans
      for dinner

      "hear that Dragon Fly 
       puuur" John chides

across the shelter cooking 
rice pilaf with my headlamp


   "yeah, at least
                I brought a headlamp"

       burrito wraps in a 
   shelter Vanessa says
             resembles a church

          -

night: four water 
bottles lined up 
by the stove

          -

morning: frozen
mud-coated
bootlaces

          -

cliff face 
through the mist
gone

          -

one 8'x12' shelter
one wooden spoon
gets lost

          -

"Can I have my water bottle?"
It's pink.

          -

rain soaks
coyote carcass
in the median

11/26/07 10:43 pm - Lines

It's frost nipping basil.

It's a conscious decision: fall.

It's saying "back up".

It's watching mist climb a cliff face.

It's seeing rain thinking snow.

It's the first seven o'clock search in the back seat for an ice scraper.

It's Black Friday and "everything in the store is 25% off unless it has an orange tag."

10/4/07 03:29 pm - Something Political

it started in a tailspin
something about
              country blues
              and
              sensibility

      got lost
      got dropped
               down

down like statistical posterity
down like "we need to

          move on now" back

     there

you shaking hands for photographers
you denouncing denouncements
you defending what?

         (backslapping off
                    camera) "we

      need to move on"

9/13/07 11:09 am - Terminal

Experimenting with three am
thinking, sleeping, shower
pouring over CNN: hurricane
coverage on a loop. I'm
hungry. I'm not empty. I'm
blinking. I'm Tom Hanks in
The Terminal minus the
human interaction. I'm in
an empty airport terminal
with a fly buzzing my toes.
Missed. Potted plants reminiscent
of nothing I can think of. I'm
asked to report suspicious
behavior. Is writing in an empty
airport terminal at three in the
morning suspicious? No one
to report it to anyway.
All the lights are on for me.
I'd really rather sleep.
I wonder if someone in
watching me on closed-circuit
tv. All the lights are on.

9/13/07 11:01 am - Some Kind of Dorm Room Bliss

         Vanessa on the bed
         reads spanish,

         peeper riffs

over bullfrogs in
the holding pond out

                      the window, 

            summits in photographs -

the shades pulled down - her
hair pulled back behind

            her ears she

flips the page and blinks
Powered by LiveJournal.com