Ontario Lake

I had been talking to my friend T-money about this poem, before it was even written. I haven't had much time to write now that the semester has really begun, but I had this poem, mostly formed, just sitting in my mind.

Brand new, hot off the metaphorical press (because I haven't got a printing press in my room. That's just a pipe dream):


Ontario Lake

Tuesday was humid

the kind of day
where the dense air
weighs down on your shoulders,
presses on your chest
and your lungs draw in liquid air

the type of day where such tangible air
sticking to your skin
makes you feel heavier,
makes you yearn for a cold crisp Ontario lake

so that you can sit by the dock
and strip
peeling the cotton tank top from your shiny chest
and slip
into thin and cool dark water

Streetlamps

I don't even know if we have 'streetlamps' in Canada per se.


Streetlamps

You had on your mittens,
and I mine
and instead of looking at the cream wool
with the earl grey tea stained into the stitches

we walked with our heads back
snowflakes spinning down, tangling into our eyelashes

looking at the streetlights
seeing each bulb
supported by cold grey cement
glow a yellowy pink
and they were just little fuzzy smudges
set into the deep deep sky

all the streetlamps lined the road
all supporting their own glowing fuzz

a string of glowing gold
of burning pink beads
laced and lying
across the chest of
dark blue smoky sky.

Dry

I feel like this a lot.


Dry

I couldn’t bleed even if wanted to.
If you tore
me open,
sand
would pour out
powder escaping from my seams.

Disco Bitches

The name "Disco Bitches" started as an insult for a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance. She was quite literally a disco-ing bitch. Hilary, my sister, and I thought that me just randomly blurting "what a disco bitch!" at the television was hilarious, and this poem was born. Though I'm not sure if the poem will make any sense to anybody but the two of us, I have to say that I really love it.

Hilary really did find pie in her bra once. That bit is not a lie.


Disco Bitches

Just the kind of girls to marry
a man from Montréal for the gorgeous chocolaty
accent
having moved to Québec in a failed
attempt at growing up

The kind of girls to dash
about metropolitan cities,
laptops and scripts tucked under arms bearing
suede elbow patches, only to realize that
there is … pie… in their bras

Girls who get incredible
hair cuts and then pull those strands into pony tails
because of so and so’s
neck and so and so’s difficult jaw line
and sheer utter morning lazy grumpiness
sparing time for an attempt at reviving over cold cereal

Who are up themselves disco bitches because
they scrawl words in sentences in ways nobody
else really does, and
who just really really love the
French

Lovely

Taking creative writing classes means that you have to write outside of your typical style. It's the prof's job to make you try new things, understandably, how else will you grow? This poem was originally a sonnet for an assignment, meaning that it had to rhyme, and it had to be in iambic pentameter.

It sucked. Utterly.
But in free verse, I really really like it. Lovely.


Lovely

My hand
rests
so that my cold fingertips
are pressed
against your beautiful pink
mouth
damming the flow of words behind your lips
causing the soft phrases
to well up behind your pale
pale green eyes.

It’s not that I hate your words.

(I’ve felt them run
over my body before, like
steaming waters
from Hell
warm and cursed)

But

that I can’t handle the joyful
sounds of your voice…
the melody of your thoughts is such a pretty thing
I have found.

So don’t speak until my jealousy stops
for I want
your lovely voice
but for my ears alone.

Bones

I should say that I don't really believe in perfect. I think that nothing is ever without flaw. This isn't negative thinking, it's realistic, and getting rid of the notion of perfect makes life more manageable, less disappointing and more enjoyable.

The first draft of this poem was so far from perfect it was daunting. I had to fight this poem so hard. This piece was the most work, the hardest struggle, the most revisions.

I think it's perfect.


Bones

a delicate skeleton,
an entire
set of white bones
was found, nestled into the hot desert dunes
scattered like the fine grains of summer sand
arrayed like sterile surgery tools
scalpel. scapula. skull.

ribcage spread
and peeled open
as one would an orange
the ribs curled slightly in
like the slim fingers of a hand clutching
soft swells of desert drifting across
the spiky ridges of spine

waves of glittering golden sand
pooling under clavicles
covering the sternum stained a soft pink
like limestone washed in water colour

hot dry air whistling in and around the spaces
empty sockets
empty mouth decorated with bead-like teeth
empty pelvis

gleaming splintery femur and fibula fragments
caging
naught but hot dust
and stale air

collected by rough hands
and rough men with sun burnt skin
and tossed into buckets
taken
back

In the Street

This is the poem that started it all, really.

I wrote it in my grade twelve writers craft class, and this was probably the first piece written that year that seemed ... real. This was a real poem.


In the Street

It’s raining in the streets
turning butter lamplight to blurs
of vibrancy in my sight
and I pull you out there with me.

I stand
arms wide
head back
letting it pour on me.

Torrents stream down my body
rivers carve my flesh
my shirt now pressed to my skin.

Cold rain splatters my cheeks
and makes my eyelashes stick in triangles

as I feel the sky drop down
on me
and you
in the street.

the goods

My name is Julia.

I'm entering my fourth year of university, and while all my best friends have some semblance of a plan, upon graduating I will be left wondering: what the hell comes now? Quite literally, the only plan I've been able to formulate thus far is: retire. Yes. Graduate school, then move to the beach and write poetry. Sounds nice, no?

So, to perfect the practice of sharing poems, I've started this up. Hopefully it works.

... if somebody reads it. Please read it.