Quick thank you to everyone who stopped by to say hello tonight! It’s always awesome making new friends and seeing old ones And thanks as usual to the 11:11 art collective for throwing this all together.

See you at the next art walk on June 21st!

“Couple #2″

I’m in love with you
means I got lucky

like losing a map
then finding a road

but I love you
forces life

back into promise
decrepit kisses, conversation

the beauty being sometimes
it works

– billimarie
april 2nd 2012

Anyway, here’s couple #11–

“Couple #11″

this ain’t sand
we’re stepping on, but pebbles
polished stone, our bodies warmed
by fires inside

thank you, vodka
and pineapples

we hold hands on the brim
of perlite sea foam
and obsidian waters
absorbing the glare
from adhd stars

let’s reset
our dna. mix-match
molecules, redo chromosomes.
let’s fall asleep
like brothers do–
slip off your trunks and sink
into the warmth with me

- billimarie

Which poem is in your pocket today? Feel free to snap a picture and post it in the comments!

I keep the same exact poem in my pocket every single year. It is one of my favorite poems, mainly because the memory of first reading it is still fresh in my mind…

A couple years ago, I bought a book of poems on impulse back when Borders was still around. Driving, I decided to hang out in a park I always passed by but never actually stopped at to enjoy. There was a lake that was a beautiful disgusting shade of puke swamp green. There were ducks with warts and mean pigeons. A man in the bleachers crooning with his saxophone. I read the entire collection while taking breaks to look up and just be. When I got to the last poem, I cried as I sat on a rotting bench, then simply took in the greenery and smog around me. It’s my favorite poem because of the memory of those moments, and how every time I read the entire collection, it rises and falls like a symphony and ultimately leaves you in a different state than what you were.

“The White Lilies” by Louise Glück

As a man and a woman make
a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening
and the evening turns
cold with their terror: it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation. All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies–

Hush, beloved. It doesn’t matter to me
how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity.
I felt your two hands
bury me to release its splendor.

(from “The Wild Iris”)

“Friday The 13th”

Everyone’s got a number.
You’re either lucky
or you’re not. Me?
I’ve been spinning
off a dime, drenched
in spontaneous time–
caught the last flight out
of Honolulu. Grabbed howzit’s
from strangers with the best intentions.
All this
despite waking
from a dream where my ex
was a dentist, feeding me
laughing gas, prepping
for an abortion procedure.
Sometimes the things that come out
of us aren’t really things, at all–
these are moments you’re shedding,
memories bleeding through
as you thumb your way in life.
A mirror epiphany: it all
ends, eventually. Now how
will you spend it?

–eira (billimarie)
april 13th 2012

Came back to this poem today (the 10th) and here’s my favorite version.

“Couple #8″

giggle-ing
groveling
drivel me timbers
i like it you like it we come
sweet nothings
we recycle
our destinies
the lost art of navigation
what else would we cling to
if not each other

-billimarie
april 8th 2012

“Couple #4″

We shortcut paradise
with an addict
in lightning canopy rain.

Adrenaline thins.
The road gives;
no walls, no brakes,

no dead end to blame.
A cruel sail
beyond sand, clay. Sea vine roots.

And god–how we screamed at each other, then.

-billimarie
april 4th 2012

“Couple #1″

Must have been winter
when we last laughed
over coffee

and my scorched tongue

billimarie
april 1 2012