the sieve and the sand

Leaving the wheat with the chaff. This is not your mother’s poetry.

how to build the worst place in the world

by rcribay

1. hide the sun. put it under the bed, or in that vent in the back of your closest. just hide it. hide that sun better than you hide your porn. and keep it gone so long people forget its color forget its job forget that we orbit the fucking thing.

2. throw a big sheet of depressing gloom over the sky. should be the color of communist-era cement. the uniformity of the mind-numbing texture should be vast and soul-crushing.

3. let it rain. seriously. rain. go ahead and reroute the oceans to pour directly from the sky because that’s how much rain you need and how long you’ll need to let it fall. get those fuckers wet. make sure it soaks through their shoes socks skin so their fucking bones turn to yogurt. let it rain so much their weather stations start reporting the percent chance of sun and make them take their sopping umbrellas everywhere even the bus so when other fuckers sit down their asses get wet as well. standing puddles should be so deep passing cars kick up tidal waves.

4. turn down the temperature. turn it way down. go ahead and bring the atmospheric molecules to a near fucking standstill. it should be so cold skin dries cracks bleeds without provocation.

5. get the wind going. let street signs trees and people stand at seventy degree angles. make it so windy windows shake nearly shattering. do that annoying shit where you make their umbrellas snap inside out before sailing away.

6. call it boston.

haiku

by rcribay

a patchwork of tracks
captured in dried mud–
spring hints.

haiku

by rcribay

splash-
the cat dives in
the pool of light.

Little Exercise

by rcribay

Think of a crowd gathering for an execution
like an explosion playing slowly in reverse,
listen to it inhaling.

Think of how she must look, the sentenced,
hands bound, chin set, stone gaze cast somewhere
indefinite on the horizon beyond gunmetal waves,

where a ship may be disappearing,
its sails filled with chilled wind, waving goodbye
beneath an overcast sky, bored and impassive.

Think of the blade, blood-stained and worn
impatiently hanging, suddenly revealed
as the child’s scapula.

It is quiet for a moment. Then it sighs, slices
comes to a sudden wooden stop–
mortal dam unstopped, her blood reaches short for the sea.

Now the people passionately cheer
eyes alight, fires in smoldering faces,
squeaking and gibbering into the midday.

Think of someone on bent knees in an empty church
hands held in supplication, quivering lips mumbling desperate prayers;
think of him as on a precipice, permanently.

short story

by rcribay

for sale:
new car
bloodied trunk.

haiku

by rcribay

deep winter morning-
an empty chair
on a fire escape landing.

AT LAST WINTER’S PASSED

by rcribay

at last winter’s passed, the sleepers awake
at last squirrels, birds, green emerge
blossoms on branches, rivers run fast and high
movement in the bones, music in the eyes

at last there is skin, bare arms bare legs bare feet
at last black blonde brown hair falls free, words spit quick unseen
people step off the sidewalk, swim in the warm grass
the city has emptied, its concrete gravity gone

I smell life, how I long to live
I smell sky, it screams of coasts
I smell sun, we fill our lungs with light
ready to exhale and create new continents

darkness lost as last year’s dream
all is open, outstretched and inviting
like a frisbee, carried by a strong breeze,
we disappear over the horizon.

by rcribay

:head down lost in thought
:the scent of winters passed embalmed in her scarf
:this morning’s kiss, a beacon, lingering on her lips
she steps softly across fresh snow
leaving pigeon-toed tracks melting in her wake.

i hate finishing novels in public places

by rcribay

overwhelmed with emotion
floored by beauty
i want to appreciate
the soft conclusion
of narrative thread
hold it in my hand
soak in the silence
drink the darkness
at curtain’s close

but

conversations intrude
lights come up

it’s over.

approaching absolute zero

by rcribay

i’m absolutely sure
our molecules are slowing to a stop
making statues
of we who ride public transportation
in boston
rendering our poverty
that much more humiliating
debilitating
and
permanent.

goodnight

by rcribay

atop this hill
i see the city extinguish
slowly
light
by
light
it withdraws like a tide
waiting to explode
and overtake every last one of us
trading each breath
for death.

unfamiliar

by rcribay

i’ve kept friends like apartments
changing every year or two

and when i return it’s not the same

the walls have been repainted
and redecorated with pictures of smiling strangers
the large oak table we carved all our names into
has been irrevocably replaced
so i leave
my memories and faith
unstable.

senryu

by rcribay

my prayers
are feeble fists trying
to squeeze water from stones.

turn it off.

by rcribay

i can’t watch this
suffering
let it scream into my consciousness
burning reality searing sorrow
i can’t read this

i can’t do a goddamn fucking thing

my life choices dictated
by a dedication to help others
render me helpless

i can’t fly there
i can’t donate
i can’t do anything

for anyone

carpe sweat pants

by rcribay

if i lived life
as fervently as i do virtually
then the world would twice be mine

instead:

i feel productive if
i watch that netflix movie i’ve
had for one month.

maybe today’s the day

but it’s not likely.

by rcribay

in the soft instant
when shadows shape
our words
the length of your
sigh may as well
be my life.

by rcribay

watch closely:
you don’t know what
you think you know.

haiku

by rcribay

want to feel
murakami’s writing?
step into this foggy evening.

haiku

by rcribay

on the wet sidewalk
a crumpled umbrella:
was it yours?

nowhere to go

by rcribay

on this saturday evening
when winter has finally
arrived
i’m sitting in the cafe
reading a book
admiring falling snow and headlights through
the foggy storefront window

while behind me
a disheveled man
unshaven
sits on the couch talking
to himself

Sam. You can’t sit in here and talk to yourself.
You need to get out of here,
says the barrista
to the man

but Sam continues
sitting there and talking
to himself

Sam. Beat it, says the Barrista,
with words thrown like punches over the espresso machine

Sam slowly stands
and amidst his perpetual babble
says something quiet and coherent:
I’ve nowhere to go,
then without missing a beat slides back into gibberish

he shuffles by my table and
out the door (which, when opened, jingles
and lets in ephemeral snatches of hissing tires)

through the storefront window
Sam’s lips continue moving, muttering
curses
incantations
or

prayers.

the moon rests

by rcribay

on the horizon
in the fading daylight.

let those who are cold go inside

by rcribay

but since this sun’s shining
i’m stepping off this sidewalk
i lie flat on my back on the grass
let the wind light leaves
kiss sweet my eyelids
until compelled i open them
and view the vast blue sky through
these tangled branches bared bravely for winter

on the horizon:
i aspire to be those contrails
to drift and disappear

molting

by rcribay

like skin
i shed friends
annually.

almost done with autumnal poems i think

by rcribay

having lost their leaves
these trees stand bare
and bronchial
inverted lungs invisibly inhaling
radio waves and other
slow moving atmospheric
molecules.

on trying not to write about leaves in november

by rcribay

damn you, fall,
your atrophying arboreal appendages
colonize my mind
every time i try to write
words like
crisp
scent
apples
amber
cool
dusk
breeze
rustle
harvest
haystack
chill
rake
march onto the page
and plant their autumnal flag
(which, much like that of our
northerly neighbor’s, depicts a
self-satisfied leaf).

november 1

by rcribay

sober morning sun
illumines the recycling bin:
a robot’s torso.

8:41 am

by rcribay

through the night
rain fell thick and thunderous

by morning the sky was clear
blindingly scattering photons
sharply at a watery wavelength

by morning the ground was as dry
as the fallen leaves
leaving me pajama’d and wondering
what i’d dreamt
or not.

timing

by rcribay

soggy and large
with determination snowflakes
surprised us
falling
before
the leaves.

tanka

by rcribay

preparing for bed
lights out and under covers
we hear a trumpet:
outside and darkly distant
weaving a blue narrative.

wild things

by rcribay

this should
be absurd
these beasts composed
of giant, furry costumes
and CGI visage
but I’m crying
numerous times
since my proclivity
is sensitivity
to beauty and sadness

and i reclaim
my desire to
do the same
only with words
will i pierce
your hearts
and open your eyes
to light
until your tears of
sadness and tears of
joy mingle
to become indistinguishable
and inextinguishable

and you’ll look up
from the page
bewildered,
baptized.

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