nighttime struggles.

fear is the stuff that dreams are made from.

what purpose does sleep serve?
one third of our lives are wasted away in the lands of the unconscious silence.
sleep is supposedly peaceful, resting, rejuvenating.

then why is it

that when i awake and look upon my bed,
i see the bodyprints of a constant struggle.
the creases display a ship, thrown about by a frightening tempest.
the struggle of a vicious animal tied down, struggling with its bonds.
my bed truly speaks the tale of the battle of the night.

bad dreams alternate between the frightening and the depressing.

old friends.
death.
the past.
vulnerability.

sleep is an angry beast that does not deserve to inhabit my mind.

-Pamplemousse

sphere

the waves blanch the reeds

struggling in the sand.

the waters push and retreat as rabid horses,

pulled by the moon, cracking its rosy whip.

punishing the liquid, beating it until it foams from the pain.

gravity is the only restraint,
that keeps the sea from retaliating against the lunar monster.

-Pamplemousse

Architecture textbooks

I want to read this
eight hundred page/dollar copy
architecture textbook
so I can explain how
buildings make me feel.

I picked up a piano
to understand my ears;
I married a typist
for his perfect eppellage;
I take vacations
to take happy photos.

I majored in engineering
I do use things, after all
now bevels-- revel!

I read this book, I sit in the big X
library to read this book I want to explain
how buildings make me feel.


-Citron

can't sleep

face half our of pillow
like the earth half in sun

think about coffee-- still sending signals
like the lights on a globe at night


-Citron

My high school friends

I always wondered where my high school friends ever went.
Why don't I have them? Grades 9 and 10
None of my friends had friends like the movies either, there was---

My high school friends is a thing our parents say
and I look at you
and think
no wonder!

Without even noticing
(I was looking the wrong way)
I managed a group
that has changed me.


-Citron

The Generation Y Manifesto

I play theorist and comic
and lo-fi musician
I play regular teen
I play mathematician
I play poet and physicist,
polyglot, daughter,
cultural omnivore,
brave hater-fodder;
I play blogger and brand
and hot green activist,
I often pretend I’m
a photojournalist;
And all my imaginings
are quite sincere
and if you want to play too
well I post them right here.

-Citron

teal

i took an online test for fun.
huddled up in my cave
dying of boredom.

what color are you?
was the name of the quiz.
"now what does that even mean"
i asked myself.

the color of my personality?
color? what is color?
merely a concentration of light waves.
they have an aura i suppose.

i answered many stupid questions,
which adjective best describes you?
are you a morning person?
what animal most closely relates to who you are?

i answered honestly.
i began to wonder.

if my personality can have a color, what else can?
can voices generate the image of color?
can music indicate a predominant hue?

yes. in my opinion.

and then i wondered about myself.
is my soul patterned with illuminated yellow?
darkened and burdened with a black, purple or blue?
is it a passionate red lion?

and then the little box appeared displaying the results.

mysterious teal.

am i flattered or annoyed

-Pamplemousse

orange light

orange light coming from my drawer,
blueberry noise sounding from the walls

i have just dreamed of the armageddon.

where i drove off the highway and wept.

for all the dreams i will never realize

for all the newborn babies just born, who missed out.

reaching out for comfort i find
orange light in my hands.

-Pamplemousse

cracking pencils

this block of tree liver in front of me.
dry and cruel, is the surface for my work.

guesswork.

since the odious fumes from the grainy wood
silently expels any knowledge i have learned.

it has left me with two empty bubbles though.

logic and doubt

my two torturers.

-Pamplemousse

the mouth

the light hits the laminated postcard
just so.
in the glow of the broken bulb in my broken lamp.

the plastic concaves and convexes in such a way to create
two-toned rainbows, and hippie retinas.

it looks like a mouth, the way it reflects.

the picture curves in, in the center and in the middle of the sides
two lovely lips.

licking up the light like a hungry fox, it will disappear when i turn off this switch.

-Pamplemousse

at the dry-cleaners

Sometimes I want to tell you
how excited I am
that the rosin for my cello bow
smells like rosin

or that it got all over my black concert pants
just to tell you.

I wait and wait for
a hardcore
metaphor
implore
galore
please come?

But no,
I am stuck wondering at the
finger-sized-round-blue-plastic-tough-pop
dome I press to dispense detergent
and the bulbous shape, big drip, sliding fluid
so greasy it is wet.

Wait and wait,
for a poem to come. But maybe
the outside of the onion can crackle
like turning an old page of a poetry book,
before my love does or my hate, before I tell you all about Ge and Ares
in the armfuls of clean soaking laundry
maybe waiting can be.


-Citron

12/21

Today it rained; I took a walk to deliver letters and to breathe better. I often do this. On the sidewalk,
a few cars did a spittake in my direction. She's walking? In the rain? To deliver a letter?
I know.

So my shoes were soaked, and there was no reason NOT to jump in puddles.
Adults stared, or avoided staring. But see, there is nothing wrong
with an almost-grown person marveling
at the speed with which her volume
is attracted to the earth
to displace
deposited
precipitation.


-Citron

A Morning in Haiku (104 Poems)

[Note:  I understand that these are not haiku.  They are, however, meant to be able to stand alone as well as work together to form a cohesive narrative.]

12:47

bad days are

fortunately

unused.

Hope is God

I hope today is not like

yesterday—not bad.

8:23

I wake up to chatter

my own babble:

hungry, light, white

tissue paper

you. In it, between, over it all

I wake up to thoughts of you

like cloudy white tissue paper over life.

Someone below yells

for me. The holler runs up

the stairs, and I reach for the hand of

calm + quiet.  I twist in.

From my pillow I scream good morning

to avoid a scene.

I always have to be prepared

to walk down my own stairs.

No morning light is safe.

Still cloudy eyes I remove hard plastic case from

teeth cloudy too with

my own night saliva.

I run my tongue while

fiddling with its orange box.

Every morning I rediscover my own

alien teeth.  They are so smooth it

feels like kissing.

I’ve answered the yell three shattering

times, in contrast to the soft sun lighting

my room like a fairy crystal. 

I wait to go down. 

I’m hungry, and food is there, but

I write first.  Hello. 

8:49

As expected, I padded into the kitchen with the

bent back of teenage grogginess obviously mantled

over my body and hair and I was treated like

an awake person.

Emily Emily Are You

Please Hey This—

Dishwasher Going To

Church Wi

Ah! They’re going to church and it’s way too late to get ready

deep like I would need to pull.  Of course they still

try to convince me. 

please do says mom and “This is a

DeHority Family Day of

Obligation!” –Danny

I often want to go to church.  Alone. 

I hate that it gives her a smug

sense of correctness to go as

a family.  I am horrible. 

Danny, of course I will help you with some

personal project or another

later.  If I don’t you’ll ask for hours. 

mention of ukulkele recordings brings forward an old story

downstairs it is cold and as I sit on the chilling toilet I

count goosebumps and recount eloquently to an imaginary audience

her son had a beautiful but ponderous Hebrew name—

After several tries I got the third sentence right.  Ponderous.  It began with J…

I galloped up the dark staircase again to the brightening oasis

with a fading expo I wrote in curled hand over several panes of window

9:15

I pick up my silver can of

fizz-on-the-way-down

I marshmallow on my way down

puffing a soft barrier like in a microwave.

They all left for church, mom in a nice hat and Sam still in the recliner

in a disapproved-of ball, even worse than me 

because he doesn’t own an island

They left. I no longer wanted to eat so I made coffee with one cartridge of Morning Blend and a white hot chocolate set to medium. 

Instant coffee makers do not understand the words

STOP YOU’RE OVERFLOWING

2 concerned eyebrows

1 surprised gasp

1 set of mechanical problem-solving skills

1 turkey baster

1 sippy cup

1 spot of

2% milk

6 minutes

After the ordeal, I had the perfect cup of coffee. 

It woke me up.

The issue with the word “cute” is its ambiguity,

as the sunlight hit the disassembled newspaper in my quiet house.

Context means compliment or condescension.

These are not haiku,

my vocabulary is like a minivan.

I listen to my CD, which Danny left in the laptop

next to an apple juice box

in his haste.

This song is incredibly juvenile. 

I hope nobody I like hears it. 

Everybody I like was forced to hear it. 

Did that have a setting?  Of course it did!

The word juvenile means slight non childhood.

That’s a setting, right?

I will never be able to scribble forward

the things I tell myself.

9:36

I remembered then doing practice recording in the yellowing light of a song gift for someone.

My to-do list is in red ink but I will do this first. 

I practiced. Now I worry

I am offending.  Only give songs

to forgiving friends. 

She is one. 

Who isn’t?

Who expects their friends to be immaculate?

I expect my friends to expect me to be immaculate. 

It’s funny because they have no reason to. 

I only hate my own mistakes. 

I really like seeing complexity in others.

Only send forgiving friends to this poem. 

It is offensive.

Or maybe all friends are forgiving.

Do I lack learning from my learning?

Do I write bad sentences? (I do)

I live in the South.

Southers hate and have lots of bugs,

so I have double-paned reflections.

I’ll record that song now. I will mess up and possibly offend and

then thoughts of you reenter.

I have to stop working.

I have to lay down and revel in

your existence.

Somehow you are anti-offended by my complexity.

It is too much to hold

while writing haiku on a double-paned window.

I saw green trees and morning-blue sky,

brown grass and cracked windowsill paint

I thought and thought

My head was in a square of light.

My veins lit up like they had windows too.

Optic prisms up and down my body.

A cloud flows over the sun.

The dark blue sprawl on the windows appears.

I practice more. 

On the top panes, blue words

texture the blue sky

interjected by dark-trunked

bare winter trees.

Sir Thomas Moore said God puts metaphors there.

Creation is not a second Bible.  It is something else.

They just share archetypal morals.

Matter and energy are fun to think about.

I have physics to do.

If you were free today I would ask for your help not because I can’t do physics.

We don’t kiss in the hallways or hold hands in front of our friends.

I no longer wonder or sneer at those who do.

It is a strange time to be attached to another person.

My window hosts small plastic tiger figurines and adult syntax.

Shape and decoration do not decide the thing.

It decides itself.  Who are we?

Why am I spending my morning this way?

What do I expect to mean?

Out of love of what do I love you?

Do I love anyone? This is stupid.

The window sends glossy-leaved trees into sparkle.

My face is hit by a thousand moving pinpoints

of light.  Were it a watch and wall I would understand.

I remember finding the sun-watch-wall dance as a child—

chasing it.

This is something else entirely.

I often wonder if I am normal.

Unique but not unusual.

The word for us all is else.

You will not write a hundred haiku today. 

I will not run.

I can not.

I noticed, though the curves of the word will,

trees still have yellow leaves. 

Why did it take this long?

I have to work.  This is

an else day—free Thursday for Thanksgiving

I thank my brain, for you and for the sure did

that is not unusual.

However, I am not fiction

as I must keep reminding myself.

Were I this poem, I would have no homework between thought.

My English teacher says literal observations before symbolic,

but today I need to do college applications and care for children.

+I need food too, unlike my nonfiction which just needs ink.

They were home again

I picked up a box of crackers and

sat like a dejected person while she

explained how her children were

to learn a quartet

out of the Adoremus hymnal. 

If reference to childhood is not

setting, it should be. 

childhood is a time for haiku.

She set the hymnal down on Sam’s

combinatorics textbook; the red leather

and glossy blue a usual contrast

at this old kitchen table

She set George in a chair so I could

share my crackers with him.

He inarticulately asked for

cheese, so she set a cutting

board and large knife and block

of cheddar on my other side.

George and I munch quietly while

the printer spits, Danny asks for

the television, Brian obeys

a command to do dishes immediately. 

If nobody resists, nobody remembers. 

Where’s the top of my coffee cup?  Dad

asks him.

I can usually track the confusion here

but explaining it is worthless. 

You bit your lip!

No, it got trapped!

Your lip is bleeding! 

It had been chapped! 

Is it a -------ffsxedmmctionsnj

Danny—this paper is not

Blame Sam

Sam—We Have More

you used-----

No I Didn’t

Dad closes the crackers. 

We’re eating those. 

We’re going out to brunch soon. 

George and I stare at the closed packages. 

I write on.  He admires the window. 

Danny ponders over to do his portrait. 

There is complaint. 

Dad was on his hands and knees

cleaning this dirty floor just yesterday. 

mom’s chemo makes her feel crummy. 

Her voice is stark, logical, happy

on the phone with her friends. 

She worries about them like I do. 

Sam worries about his 2380 SAT score. 

I was writing and forgot to talk to George; I am not effective happy company. 

Do I forget to talk to you?

He grabs my pen and grins.  He grabs

Danny’s cereal spoon, the cheese knife too sharp

for cheese’s needs. 

George grins.  He eats Danny’s cereal from a reach of my lap. 

He could talk

and I would still like him. 

Did Music Paper Print Out Of The

Printer? mom asks from a room

away.  I wonder what of me others will see

in my way of saying

my family. 

George found the sound of spoon

and bowl to be shocking

but nice.  Sam tells Danny his eyes are white

uuuhhhh bluish greenish says Danny. 

George tries to put the cracker box

in a cereal bowl.  Then vice-versa. 

He reads the R     I     T    Z letters

Sam applauds.  George says my name. 

Danny asks if Everyone In The Same Family Always Have the Same Eye Color

Not Always says Sam,

but we do. 

Hey Emmie?

Yeah

Can You Write Some Music For Me

the hymnal is placed on my lap.

Blank white paper, a forgettable opportunity. 

Transposing is no fun, but zen

I just can’t haiku concurrently. 

I want Diet Coke. 

Mom made a dinner/supper pun

that also commented on

George yelled after Danny did when

Mom pulled his oxygen off. 

You were distracted too. 

George yelled again for effect. 

We laughed less. 

In Danny’s portrait book, his own face is the only without color.

I am thankful says Mom

nothing else

I am going to transpose quietly. 

11:03

We don’t have any Diet Coke

I thought and thought and saved myself about two hours

with a photocopier. 

Explaining my idea to mother made her offer the

last line of transposing work herself

because music is her gift to her children. 

I was problem-solving, not complaining. 

I don’t know where Brian went. 

George is screaming.  Sam hands

him to me and he clings to my neck

fast, like a mast or magnet. 

Quiet, but tense.  George breathes

two heavy upset breaths

We sit and talk for a moment instead. 

He wants milk. 

I hold him while Sam brings some. 
We’re out of Diet Coke. 

The morning accomplished nothing

besides taking a vial of now

for later me

or you. 

I lay in my bed.  Come up with the pretense

of getting ready for brunch, I need to though. 

My bed, as it happens, was once the most comfortable place in the world. 

(Then I tried your arms.) 

To he honest, I Holler Too

I Holler A Lot.  I almost did this morning. 

People listen to me when I holler.

I do not frustrate.  I work,

or holler.  I hold, I breathe. 

I say I did nothing.  That is not

true.  I thought and held and held

my holler.  I did no physics

textbook work, and those

are not

the same.

I doubt this is my hundredth haiku

but every poet needs to eat

and hold small children while

they breathe. 

Every poet wastes a morning

by the value system of their mothers. 

No poem ends as expected. 

Nobody wants to read others’ poems. 

I read poems like my life—my poems

but by someone else.

I will spend the afternoon typing this

in case someone else wrote it too. 

Then I will call you

from the phone by the window. 

It will be dark, and all these words erased. 

You will be calm.  I will tell you I love you

and smile. 

-Citron

domestic disturbances

the headband, swarthy and lemony
has painted designs of trees,
 rotating
violently in an invisible breeze
from some unknown tempest
in an unfamiliar dimension.

the picture,
frozen in time
a fist clenched
a scowl held
for eternity.
in the acrylics.

-Pamplemousse

three spoons

three spoons lying on the table
all identical, all different.

rusty from the years of solitary confinement on the shelf,
they are ready.

the first spoon:

the fog from the sighs of lilacs
it contains the smoke of the mind.
one tastes it in odd places
the gas station ladies' room
during a large assembly

it is a pleasure to feel the fumes burst into your mouth
and fill you will verdant thought and emotions.

it comes in unpredictable moments of peace.


the second spoon:

a paste of toads and doorknobs
it is the moment of shock.
not surprise, but shock.
this sudden punch in the stomach can be good.
but no one likes to be shocked, breath becomes scarce
sweat becomes present
and the mind goes blank

the acrid taste fills the mouth for just an instant.


the third spoon:

a liquid of metal and fungi
it is that moment of self-realization.
you become aware of yourself.
so difficult to describe,
it can be good or bad.

you feel yourself breathing
you blink and comprehend that you can control those windows to the world
an alien sensation fills you

and you either feel child-like wonder
or unwilling emptiness

-Pamplemousse