————————————————-
My name is Nicole. I am not the same
rusty-kneed little girl with braid ends sealed
by fire who asked you how to reclaim
her dead mother through words, how to reveal

her shining little girl memories of
the woman before junk rotted her
away from the inside out, how to shove
the pain out of her little heart and turn

it into a poetic scream – but I
have the same need: I want to remake,
reconstruct my father through words, and I
can do it now, thanks to you. I’m awake,

and I am here, and I will not wait for
someone else to rebuild him anymore.

I cannot ignore my early teachers:
Langston taught me how words are beautiful,
bountiful building blocks with features
of our own souls. Maya gave me vital

knowledge of rhythm and rhyme, and taught me
how to beat poetically in time
with one of myriad rhythms in the
ample, open, cosmos. Poe taught nighttime

and darkness to me, and how to embrace
them as I would embrace light. I cannot
ignore my songwriter teachers – their place
in my lessons are unique. Reznor taught

me the language of screams, and Stipe taught me
the language of lyrical mystery.

But Ms. Smith, you helped me remember what
I wanted to reconstruct most – my dad:
his smokestack and seaside Jersey laugh, the
way he could rip apart an engine, add

more spare parts, and rebuild it into a
work of art; the blacks, grays, and purples that
he penciled his whole wardrobe in; and the
good times with him, before the darkness that

overshadowed our family, before he went
away forever. I can reconstruct
him and never lose him again, cement
him in words that will never die, destruct,

or fade away. Thank you, Ms. Smith; I can
now rebuild the memory of a man.

Written 7/2/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

-Nicole
—————————————————-
You want this. You want this secret burning
connection as badly as I do. In
the stairwell we dampen this shared yearning
with looks saturated with words, unspoken –

we don’t dare raise our voices, even to
share a whisper. But still, you want this. No
matter how much you fret and complain, you
can’t deny your desire, doctor – so

just give up. You want this. You know it. I
am a nurse, a caretaker – I can sense
the pain in hidden dark corners, denied.
Our clandestine telephone parlances

and this roll of film with photos of us
prove me right. Confess your love – stop this madness.

Written 6/26/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This poem is for Poefusion’s Monday Mural, written as a Spenserian sonnet. Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————————-
I try to decode the mysterious
message written in the half-random lines
scrawled on the subway wall like delirious
poetry in an unknown tongue: no signs

of meaning are immediately mine
to understand, no obvious language
to interpret from this summit of lines,
squares, and jots. Did screams of pain not assuaged

by comfort become hopelessly lodged
in the drawer’s throat? Was this a love poem
rewritten in frustration from dislodged,
secret affection? An unknown custom

captured in subway cave art? I don’t know;
I’m out of time now – to work I must go.

Written 6/23/08
©2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

-Nicole

If you want a boxer, then why don’t you
go punch someone else? My skin is not
a leather casing which contains a few
million grains of sand inside! You forgot

that I stand before you as a human,
bruised, battered, sore from all the times you got
angry and I was the first one to stand
in your way. Don’t give me that bloody rot

about how I supposedly made you
lose your religion: believe me, I’ve got
your number now, and I now know that you
have no self-control. I’ve taken a lot

of abuse from you, but no more. Time’s up.
I’m not listening anymore, so shut up.

Written 6/12/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

-Nicole

Dear Mr. Kinney: thank you for giving
me Excalibur – the knowledge of great words
and how to use them. You showed the living
soul of advanced vocabulary heard

never before by sixth grade ears: words such
as “potentate”. You called them “college words”
and gave a weekly list to study, much
to the chagrin of some – but I loved words

with power and meaning. They were weapons
of mass creation, language swords which spurred
me to arrange them in poetic configurations
and proper prose. So what if I’m a nerd:

For I wield a vocabulary sword.
Thank you, teacher, for an ageless reward.

Written 6/10/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This was a prompt poem written in response to One Simple Impression’s prompt this week on pets. Instead of a haiku, though, I ended up with a triple sonnet using the rhyme scheme I accidentally invented yesterday (yes, I am going to call it a Nicholsonian sonnet – it’s a takeoff of the Spenserian sonnet form). So here it is. Enjoy.

-Nicole

Long ago in Nippon, I, sitting, waved
a sword at a landlord of great wealth
and caused him to approach me; thus I saved
him from a lightning strike. The man himself

thanked me and christened me Maneki Neko.
In Nordic lands, I enjoyed a fine health
of being sacred to Freyja; for lo,
in service to the love goddess herself,

I pulled her chariot, it is said. I
have carried lovingly the spirit self
of each Siamese king upon death. My
purpose: to ensure that the king himself

would be present to see the coronation
of his son ere he traveled to Heaven.

I also walked with pharaohs, head erect,
a walking image of Bastet herself,
nose held high in the hot air of Kemet.
I wore ornaments of gold, not by pelf,

but as grateful gifts from my admirers.
I ate the finest cuisine that their wealth
could buy. Now, I imagine that inquirers
wonder what happened. I’ll tell you myself.

You see, I cannot be easily tamed,
though you perceived me as just like yourselves,
domestic. I aloof, unreachable, became
wicked, the symbol of witches and devils

because you could not teach me. So then you
christened upon me dark legends anew.

First, you called me the witch’s familiar
and burned my cat kindred en masse. Your health
you naively destroyed; a peculiar
effect which you all wrought upon yourselves

was the Black plague, for we cats killed the rats
that carried it. You knew not what dark health
you called upon your cities. Then, we cats
suffered again, accused of the ill health

of your babies and children. Supposedly
we stole the breath from their lips, and a wealth
of doubt, fear, and lies were enough to cruelly
condemn us as thieves of juvenile health.

You’ve left off all that madness; now a pet
I am, but my history I’ll never forget.

Written 6/10/08
©2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This poem was written for Scott Wood’s LiveJournal writing prompt (“Write a poem inserting the phrase: ‘I love you, but I can’t see you right now’”). The subject matter was partially inspired by the prompt on Simply Snickers, but the poem specifically for that prompt needs to be written still.

-Nicole
——————————————————-
I love you, but I can’t see you right now.
You are an enigma from beyond the grave;
the facts of your life you never allowed
yourself to reveal. In order to save

your image and essence in my mental
hard drive, I stare at your photographs. They’ve
given me, though, no clue to your parental
absence. I have nothing else of you, save

those pictures, your legal paper trail, and
Mom’s and my memories; I am a slave
to stories passed to me like second-hand
clothing which I still sort through. I forgave

you, but I still need to know – who am I?
Decoding you is where my answers lie.

Written 6/9/08
© Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!