20 Something Stories

Self-Cleaning

2011-06-12T15:28:00.002-04:00

Abstraction urges
towards form.
Sleeping children
raise their arms,
subconscious,
towards the ever-unfolding
flower of death.
At our molten core,
we hold the greater story.

Beyond the horizon,
houses lay sleeping,
sucking down
electricity;
automatic coffee pots,
alarm clocks,
flat-screen tvs,
self-cleaning ovens.

There is a sweetness
in the blade
of the flash
of a grenade.
Levelling the field,
new growth comes into play.
Shift the aura
of the landscape.
Fold in the batter.
Melt the butter to a thin film.

In first person,
rememberances of war
become idealized,
steeped and stained
in the tannins of sentiment.
Tea leaf sediment,
left to dry, spells the future
in the letters of the past.
Which came first,
the wheel or the avalanche?

© 2011 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

The Button

2011-06-12T15:19:00.002-04:00

I am an artist
selling shit
is not my strength
consequently
neither is buying
into the loudmouth lies
the world as viewed
via the media's skewed
prison of a prism
casting black and white

lines like telephone wires
still stand against
the rural skyline
meanwhile
fewer and fewer
choose to utilize
the tools which have
stood the test of time
spinning
in lunch hour classes
for the latest
joyless
faceless heartless
version of new

who am I to say
what should be what
or to comment
on what is to some
but not to me
who am I to dream
of a world
where food is truly
nourishing
where a toaster is not
irrepairable
where an Ipod is not
necessity
where friendship extends
beyond text
and instant messaging

this can only take us
so far this can only lead
to its own undoing
which is all anything leads to
but somehow this seems
more pressing
than the natural order
doing its thing
but then who am I to
declare this moment
a footnote
rather the next chapter
or at least a solid page

i'd be lying if I said
the lingering thought
doesn't seat me on edge
that invisible button
not far from one man's hand
its dusty yet evaporative
possibility dwarfed
by the paramount threat
of a hundred million
billion trillion
buttons linking
as many dimly lit
minds to l e d
screens

highlighting
and outlining
the inevitable
deterioration
of meticulously
cosmetically
altered surgically
distorted

faces fighting
rejecting
age and grace
technology
in the name of
vanity's preservation
am i alone
in feeling
torn by reservation

© 2011 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

A Happy Meal

2010-01-19T12:30:00.005-05:00

if i could
i would obliterate
your imprint
burned into my brain
taste sensation
wasting a nation
one number
two at a time

if i could
i would
of course escape
to where the places
have no place
faces finally freed
from race

flag down
the long lost me
the one who had yet
to learn to see
the things we cannot choose
to be or not to be

if i did so
what instead would i see
when i look at you
when i look at me
would i taste the liberty
or would my tongue
still betray me

© 2006 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

One Memory

2009-12-20T14:29:00.010-05:00

you, me
my apparent
inability to allow
what has been
to fall through
my open hand
like sand
passes time
reason loses
rhyme in the rhythm
of the dance
of a dancer who just can’t
seem to grasp the concept
of romance

i try not to
interrupt the flow
progression
of our evolution
personal
interpersonal revolution
with bare-knuckled
lust

is this a tribute
to this love
or some
vulgar insult
this
exclamation
splattered
across a sacred
trust drying to
a delicate crust
like dandruff
like dust
flakes off
blows away

we run like fools
until we learn to stay
understanding
there is only one place
one memory
eluding the years
in the sevens of days

© 2007 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Taxiing

2009-11-11T02:54:00.000-05:00

The plane is
taxiing to the runway.
Engines humming
in the soles of my feet,
I smell bubble gum or
something; faux, fruity.
Take off.

Above the clouds,
I look down.
Land stands still.
Cruising on the horizontal,
air peels roughly away.
Blurring the lines,
we progress
at inhuman speed.

Window seat view,
I stare with morbid fascination
down a mile of empty air.
The world as we know it,
created, distant and miniature;
cars, trucks and buses.
It's easy enough to forget
just how small we are.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Tom Cat

2009-11-06T01:56:00.001-05:00

In the chill,
Autumn's morning
stirs the crows
into noise and
frenzied squirrels
make like boots,
stomping with
their entireties,
shuffling as they go.

Out back,
the tom cat
I sometimes see
when walking the dirt road
is sitting on his back side,
leaning against fallen stones.
Squinting at the glare,
his hind feet pointed out,
Northeast and Southwest,
He is a feline compass,
soaking up prenoon sun.

Nuthatches flit like
dragonflies, back and forth.
Over the stream,
choke cherry to
red-hipped dog rose,
they go, chirping
coffee klatch conversations.

The sky is blue and huge.
Its stance, as if staring
down a black bear,
it holds itself hard;
enlarging its presence
for maximum effect.

I am yawning,
still but content;
thinking, as I will,
of city folk and their
missing these morning.
I wonder what wonders
New York City might be,
at this moment,
beholding; a vague
consideration, as I
warm myself by the wood stove
and through the window,
spy on that tom cat.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Stolen

2009-09-14T10:46:00.001-04:00

When you had
had enough,
you knew enough
to leave well enough alone.

If I had only known
what it was, hanging
about the gate of my garden:
a boy, complete;
painted thumb,
a taste for fruit trees.

In my palm,
I split a peach.
Wrenched the pit
free with my teeth.
Its translucent juices
dripped down my arm,
calling to flies;
the birds and the bees.
I held it to your mouth,
for you to eat.

When you had
had enough,
you knew enough to leave
well enough alone.
If I had only known...

On the occasion
of our genesis,
you had the forethought
to ask 'What is this?'
Before you kissed me,
I was a jelly bean
and then you kissed me.
There was no inbetween.
There never is.

When you had
had enough, that's when
you knew enough to leave
well enough alone.
I never seem to know.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Helium

2009-08-21T02:10:00.002-04:00

"Try to remember
to breathe
and let the air
dance over you."
As I go,
my way
holds a vastness,
one I cannot reconcile.

I cannot rationalize
the needs we super-impose
on one another's faces,
the endless supply
of assumption
leaves us
swollen with regret.

In becoming
men, we leave
something behind
but my boyhood
took its time,
drawing spirals
in the sand.
Class droned on inside.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

My gaze falls to my feet.

2009-07-25T02:40:00.000-04:00

My toes live in a different hemisphere, an alternate reality. Like the ocean that surrounds us all, (there is really only one if you think about it,) it's right there all the time but what do we really know about it?
I sometimes think of my feet as old buildings in an old city; cool marble wearing soft moss, shedding shards of ancient mortar from its crevices as each year wears it a little closer its utter disembodiment.
My feet are a mystery. What stories would they tell if I could bring my ear close enough to hear? If I were limber as a dancer or slender as grape vine, I could bend myself to their invisible lips and let their secrets spill like wine and wash over me.
In Summer, I walk barefoot for miles, crossing the river, climbing and descending wooded hills in loose circles of sunlit afternoon. I look through the treetops at the sky and feel the warmth of the wind's caress. All the while, my feet wince at the uneven ground; stick and stone, skin thickening with each step.
I cut my claws, banishing them to the dust bin. Short and new, the remainder reminds the animal that I am at my very root that what we make of our lives is not what we are born for.
If I could be reborn into myself, alive in my natural state with no knowledge of human invention, no calendar, how would I greet the sun's approach and retreat? What would night be? The seasons?
I dream of an ending; people running frantically from their own means of self destruction. How soon do we forget? How many times have we forgotten?

span

2009-07-19T19:15:00.000-04:00

downtown

2009-07-19T19:06:00.001-04:00

from memory

2009-07-16T01:13:00.001-04:00

I catch myself
drawing you
from memory.
In the margins
of my notebooks,
between poems
and pointless
observations,
your face
stays with me
as few manage.
Frayed with
time's passage,
most are glued together;
concrete memories
of hair styles,
pieces of clothing
and the places we've
seen simultaneously
but now I see you here.
Clear as water,
you sit across from me.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Waxing

2009-07-15T00:51:00.001-04:00

As the moon wanes, I am gearing up. The days, of late, have been full with subtle delight. After Noon, Sun gives and I soak it in. Evenings bring chance showers to freshen and moisten air and soil. I have been thinking volumes, writing comparitively little; reading less.
Finding inspiration in static image, more so than first hand experience, life unfolds. Its latest blooms, fragrant though they are, lack the vibrance of memories past. It is, perhaps, only that my mind has learned the magic of RGB and thus adjusts the curves of recollection as it sees fit; saturated representations of days that were, in first person, overcast at best.
Alas, I burble. Poets are subject to going on. I fear nonsense may be a drug to which no flower, sour mash or painted lady can hold so much as match or taper. Weeks pass. I delve into each, investigating with relish every crevice and fold. Fleeting though they may be, each is its own; as is every day.
Tuesdays have about them a particular essence; one of elegance, marked with a certain hesitation. I first took notice at fourteen, as I tread my earliest steps upon this poets' road. A life viewed through the prism of one's chosen art is a life transformed. The mundane takes new shape. Love is glorious; the smallest things, enormous.
Through written word, I have learned both to turn myself inside out and to take the outside in. Though no less is the Mystery than at its Beginning, Language is a teacher; knowing not all but enough, witholding what it must. Much is there to be diciphered of our own origins. Each word holds its key to original thought and intention, offering its passage beyond the bounds of time and matter.
Wendesday is. Vanilla resonates. Lack is desire is not. Control is illusion is comfort. Bed is sleep. I go.

[photograph]

2009-07-12T23:58:00.000-04:00

sunset stink

2009-07-12T23:57:00.003-04:00

Tonight,
my bones ache
for damp
cross-breeze,
lonesome romance.
Upper floors
of an Old
San Francisco hotel
can afford

my naked form,
stretched
billboard-style
against a steel grey
sunset, stink
rolling in
scenting two days
dirty sheets
for a pre-dinner
dance with myself.

Down the stairs,
to hail a taxi
to some
exotic greasy spoon
in another
but still
too familiar
neighborhood,

the light lingers
perhaps
longer than it should
but that's Autumn
in July;
that's how I've come
to like and expect
the years to fly.
Things change,
though,
as a rule won't waste
a wave on
a fleeting glance.

I am
twenty two,
twenty three,
twenty four;
twenty six;
greying at the
temples.

Experience comes
when need
is long gone
but still
headstrong,
I keep my stories
tucked up under
my hat.

© 2009 N. Chaplin
All Rights Reserved

Sage

2009-07-12T00:45:00.002-04:00

May We
Walk in Light
and Know
Our Shadow.
May We Honor
Mother & Father,
Rejoicing
with Brother & Sister,
in Water & Breath.

Amen