Free Poem

I'm sort of at a loss for how to explain this one, aside from that it was very loosely inspired by Elena Georgiou's "Book of the Things I Put Down My Bra" (yes, there's a title and a half for you).  I love poems that make pop culture references, poems that don't pretend we poets live in a loftier world without awkward and uncomfortable realities, poems that quote other poems or songs, poems that aren't entirely in English.

So, here's one with pop culture references, nasty food references, quotations, Latin (I knew those four years in high school would be useful someday!), science references, gambling references... in list form.  Trying to evoke emotion without being excessively emotive with very little success.  And with a title! At long last!

YOU IN A MOMENT (ODE TO THE JUNK YOU LEFT BEHIND)

I.

The mix CD full of music

I only loved because you did-

George Harrison hugged

Dylan song after song on that

long November night,

14 hours of charged company

on the car ride home.

II.

Your cloud grey sweatshirt

still hanging next to my jackets-

warm on the

long November night

spent in quiet, charged company;

the interpretation of nightmares.

III.

The lingering imprint of your

love- love?- on my mouth- tang of

coffee and onion rings, aphrodisiacs on that

long November night,

entangled in charged company,

only place still serving at 4 a.m.

IV.

Three unopened jars of peanut butter,

nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love-

donations to the feed-an-affection-starved-college-student fund begun on that

long November night,

hormonally charged company,

sticky mess we made and have become.

  

V.

The hitch in my throat, catch in

my breathing- your face reappears

in my dreams and my photos of that

long November night,

thunder-cry charged company,

black sky flashes of you.

VI.

The aromatic white goo, formerly

freshening air- clinging to the seat of

your old jeans and your old words, brought out for that

long November night,

hazelnut charged company,

sense of a memory.

VII.

A deck of cards, played so close to the chest they

were covered in blood with each

beat of my heart, hands clean of hope that

long November night,

secretly charged company,

whispers of disremembered pasts and futures.

VIII.

The shiver of your voice,

sweet wispy hums, vivamus atque amemus- drama,

as if those nights were inexhaustable- those

long November nights,

aggressively charged company,

cavern collapse, colony disorder yet to come.