Crush by Richard Siken...a review

“Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
                                                                                and dress them in warm clothes again.
          How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
                    It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
          it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
                              how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
                                                                                                                        to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
          we're inconsolable.
                                                            Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
                                                                                          Tell me we’ll never get used to it.”

I love this poem because it has a  more abstract meaning with lots of visual and sensory descriptions.  Reading this poem makes me taste fresh cut apples and cold lips. Every word is like a clue, a little piece of a bigger picture. 

" the horses running until they forget that they are horses"  God I love that line. 

Love in Earthquake Weather

I’ve written enough about ruined lovers
I’ve talked too much of things slipping through fingers
Painted desire on this visceral canvas again and again just to
See it all melt down into something I no longer recognize
Something I can no longer relate to
Rage and clinging and longing and fighting for things I have given up on over and over
I have woken up in pools of shallow flesh and returned to your emotional deserts


Wait until the sun goes down this last time
When a cool breeze exhausts this flame but keeps it smoldering
I can hear all of the cars whisk by. Feel the heat of their engines
I can hear kids play solitary after school games as they wait for their dinner


Things are calm for now
But under it all there is desperation
Building up under layers of dusk after dusk
Dusks after days so hot you can smell the asphalt
Hot days after a winter that lasted too long
Makes people pack their cars with maps and good walking shoes
Blinding days turn into iridescent nights
Nights when you kick all of the blankets off the bed and flip your pillow again and again
When the bedroom turns blue with implied sunrise
I see you glowing with sleep and your dreams reaching out for me


This is earthquake weather
These are the parts that ill take for granted, cling to feverishly
These are the images that my mind recreates
But this time sprinkled with the pain of time that passes too quickly
So quickly you begin to doubt it ever took place


 In an instant it has all collapsed
The devastation of love does not equate to the actual act
It is not worth it when in the end no one can be saved.

Riding a bicycle on the beach at sunset.

This was one of those moments where everything was perfect. These perfect moments tip toe up to you . They shyly romance you.

I just breath deep and pretend that this was how every moment has been spent. I can imagine that my life is only a succession of fuzzy moment after fuzzy moment. A string of memories over flowing with the calm of well being. Everything fades away..I have never been cold or hungry or poor. I have never been alone I have never been sinking alone lost in the blackness of living . Where it feels like my chest is breaking and crumbing inside. No, I can never forget that slow ache of loss but at this moment it doesn’t matter and with every night like this one it will matter less and less.

The carnival lights were pulsating slowly in the near distance. Faint screams of enjoyment, the sound of wind whipping through young girls hair. I can feel them smiling the kind of smile you cant quit no matter how hard you try the kind of smile that makes your cheeks sore. Those bright golden lights red green gold. Blinking like sleepy eyes in the retiring sky. These fuzzy electric bulbs glowing like soft laughing eyes All of the machines were oiled with care to cradle these children tonight. They swing them around and around like your fathers strong arms swung you through the air so long ago.

The sound of seashells cracking under the black salty rubber of my bicycle tires. I can feel the slight resistance and then the release , giving in, cracking quietly. The muggy night was warm and heavy like a blanket from the dryer. Gliding through the dusk along the breaking waves. My skin speckled with tiny grains of sand at salt . The breeze turning into wind as I’m slicing through the heat of this summer night. There is nothing like the sound of the oceans waters crashing upon its self as happy tumbling children do. Nights like this I cannot separate myself from my surroundings. I cannot tell where I end and the night begins. Warm as a lovers breath on my bare neck. I am wrapped in it, so protected, so encased in this enchantment. I am hypnotized.. a young girl in love. I am being courted so slowly by this warm southern night. My troubles are being sung to sleep by the sounds around me. The sounds of endless expanses. The sound of happiness that doesn't end but just evolves. I am being swept across the powdery beach by the soft arms of June. My hair is tangling itself in the wind being lifted and coaxed by its smooth invisible fingers. Everything is buzzing around me so gently vibrating with possibilities. I can live like this forever. This is something that I wont let go of. Its not something to chase after it’s gone, it's something that sinks in deeply. It soaks in and infiltrates all of me. This moment this night this memory is my life. It is happiness.