Blackout

At my finger tips 

is a universe
in which I can be anyone
and do anything.
Behind the screen
is a galaxy of color and music
voices from across the planet,
faces, eyes, lips, and tongues
reaching for information.
In my lap
is the world's largest library
a catalog of things I've said
and done,
put into public view on impulse,
and cannot erase.
This thing
is a knife
and a bandage.
It's a confidante

and a spy.
It's my prison
and my liberator.
Who are you to say
you can govern the
universe?
We are gods in our own
worlds.
Do not disconnect.




Rachel J. Clark

Rhinoceros

There is a Rhinoceros in a shoebox
underneath my bed.
I hear it banging about in there
when I try to sleep.
I wish I could just release it
but that would be crass.
The city isn't ready for all
of the chaos I've been keeping.

There is a Rhinoceros in a shoebox
underneath my bed.
I peek under the lid sometimes
and make sure it can breathe.
It takes a lot of energy to keep
a secret for long.
Especially when that secret
has thicker skin than you.

There is a Rhinoceros in a shoebox
underneath my bed.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes
I feel like I'm the one in there.
And I want to destroy everything
that holds me captive.
It's lonely in this shoebox,
but no one knows I'm here.


Rachel J. Clark

Nothing.

Tonight, I have nothing
but tomorrow must be something
because it's from nothing
that something comes about.
In that something,
will I be no one?
Will I be no one doing something?
Or will I be someone
doing nothing
in the midst of something?
I hope that some day
is tomorrow
and that one day
it's the next day
and I'm someone doing
something
somewhere
and that no one
doing nothing
was a thing of yesterday.


Rachel J. Clark

take a shot for me, jeffrey.

insofar as I am

in so far

that i cannot look behind me,
cannot look down,

and cannot sidestep,

i have only the wind at my back,

and the change in my pocket,

and a balloon of optimism

to propel me forward.

cheers –

in the hope that it’s not

just hot air.


Rachel J. Clark

Milked

My brains

are leaking from my ears

trickling from my tear ducts

seeping from my fingertips

oozing from my pen

and forming an ugly stain

in the carpet




Rachel J. Clark

Sitting at a Dinner Party

it is never

when i am alone in my

bed,

or when i see couples

kissing in the park,

or when i read your

messages

that i miss you most.

i find that i feel your absence

most unbearably

when i am surrounded by

talking heads,

who give me no reason to

feel lonely,

and i selfishly wish

that they would all

disappear

and leave you in their

place.

Rachel J. Clark

.

I love toying with

the keys to my demise –

So much so

that every glimpse I have

of the end of my life

is enough to make me

bare my teeth

and challenge it,

to laugh hysterically

and offer up wild 

chants and hymns,

punctuated with profanity.

It is not my youth,

nor is it an inflated sense

of invincibility

that makes me stretch

the elastic of life and

death.

It is an unabashed desire

to suck all the juice I can

out of this existence,

and when I have had my fill

to fling myself unapologetically

into the mouth of Never,

knowing that ‘could have’

‘should have’

and ‘would have’

went in the other direction.

Rachel J. Clark

22

I’m sitting with a cigarette and a

copy of Brighton Beach Memoirs

and it’s hard to focus

because it’s better to see it

than to hear about it later,

and lunatic prophets laugh down the street,

hysterical with the hum of engines

and the weight of smog

and I think of your mouth,

how it stretches over your teeth when

you grin, and how your breath

makes my neck melt into my collarbone

and I want your ears beneath my lips.

Another car passes,

and I am alone

surrounded by ghosts with their own stories

and I can’t focus on reading someone else’s words

when all I want is to write my own story

in the pores of your skin.

Someone got stabbed in my apartment building

last night, but I wasn’t there, and

it’s better to see it than to hear about it later.

I wonder if people will read my words only

when I’ve died,

because everyone loves a dead poet,

and it makes no sense

to me because

it’s better to see it

than to hear about it later.




Rachel J. Clark

Black Holes

god is not

in any church

or any building

or any group

god is not

in any one person

or collection of people

or in nature

god is not

some big man in the sky

or a statue in a

temple

god is not

in anything

or anyone

or anywhere

god is in

the nothing

the black holes

that we keep running from

what would happen

if we ran towards

the edge

with arms outstretched

would god be there

to catch us

or would the force of

gravity crush us

i guess i’ll never know

but i’m more curious

to jump into black holes

than to pretend to speak in tongues






Rachel J. Clark

Awake.

It's midnight.

The quiet gurgle-

gurgling of pipes in 

the walls 

and the scritch-

scratching of pen

on paper 

comforts the sob-

sobbing toddler behind

my temples.

The ceiling breathes

softly.

Miles away, you

sleep, oblivious 

to the thump-

thumping of moths

behind your curtains.




 Rachel J. Clark

Crosswalk

in this city

there are unapologetic monuments

to human genius and

masturbatory celebrations of

our superiority as a species

'thank god we are not

like the pigeons and sewer rats

doomed to simplicity!' the

pedestrians think pedestrian thoughts

as they stick to the sidewalk

and adhere to stop signs and

advertisements and eat mcdonald’s

and care a great deal about

the kardashian sisters

and i imagine what someone like

hunter s. thompson would do

if he had lived to witness

jersey shore, the roar that

might be heard from coast to coast

as he starts a new situation

i imagine and smile as

i step in front of a moving bus

and feel the surge of adrenaline

as the driver stops the bus

and hits me with his middle finger

and i welcome it

because as my generation

is doomed to desk jobs and obesity

and drugs and disease and twitter

this might be the last exciting thing

to ever happen to me

Rachel J. Clark