I want to be nameless like you
Lost in a wordless journal
Pages begging to be inked
Fold the corner, come back later

There’s a sledge hammer in the garage
Drag it by the wooden handle
Hold tight, use both hands
Squeeze, swing away

When the sunlight hits your face
Stare blindly into the beaming rays
Don’t shield your eyes
Carry on with the demolition

Or build something, make them wonder
About the burning need to blister hands
Do not recreate, forge new
Is your mind wide open?

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

body temps drop and jump.

Can’t find a happy medium in this wave of heat

that has suddenly taken hold of Southern California.

I step outside and the morning air is not cool and balmy,

but a sticky 80 degrees.

I can only imagine how hot it is going to be

in five hours when noon rolls around.

In my car, I can not crank the a/c high enough

as my skin surrenders beads of sweat to sticky surroundings.

We waited all winter for summer to step in

and now I wish it would cool down just a little.

The toasty drive to work is accompanied

by violent sunbeams streaming in through the windshield.

No one can focus on the road,

everyone is slamming on their breaks.

The only release is finally exiting the freeway

to enter a chilly parking garage.

The offices upstairs are being pumped full

of conditioned air, waiting for me to enter.

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

My bedroom upstairs will be calling my name as I climb the stairs.

Pink carpet will embrace my feet when I reach the end of the hallway.

Printed pink hearts and plaid wallpaper will close in around me.

I will flop on my bed and hear the creaks I have memorized over the years from sleeping and tossing and turning.

My arms will open and fall to the side.

My eyes will be blinded by the clang and clatter of cluttered walls and desks, bureaus and vanities, closets and shelves.

So hard to find the words to make it all fit

To make it all sound just right

The terrain gets rockier

My feet start to slide and I just want to stop

I am halfway up the mountain

My limbs fall limp, arms dangle at my sides

I won’t turn around but I need to catch my breath

The tip of the mountain is covered in clouds

My head falls back and stagnant air fills my lungs

The smell of regret stings my brain

It’s a flight of fancy as my feet stab the ground

It starts out slow but then gains pace

The unattainable is fulfilled

I take a brief look at the top of this mountain

Limitless possibilities surround

Marking the end of this climb

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

Wall of fog to the left
No water in sight down below
Mountain cliffs to the right
No sky visible up above

Road stretches, winds and turns
Satellite radio drops in and out
Sun struggles to show its face
Air outside slowly warms

Break for a waterfall in Big Sur
Flowing into untouched beaches
Blue-green waves crashing below
As blue birds eat out of tourist hands

Driving through sun and clouds
Million dollar homes line cliffs and beaches
A spectacular view from every front porch
Carmel for lunch then boutique shopping

As we close in on the Bay area
Clouds subside, clearing the way
For the last two hours of this drive
Along the coast

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

I will hug her and smell her momma smell and let her arms wrap around my soul.

In late August as we exit the air conditioned indoors, I will no doubt be smacked in the face by the thickest of humid air.

My eyes will feast on the New Hampshire surroundings, taking in all the lush greenery as we drive towards Northwood.

I will delight in seeing my childhood home in the distance.

We will swiftly approach the outdoor cage enclosing a Black Lab and larger-than-life-horse-sized-Chesapeake Bay retriever.

Their tails will wag and their barks will bite the air.

Hopefully silence will fill the air as I exit the car and approach the pups while calling their names.

Probably have a couple hours layover in a U.S. city along the way.

I will be tired from trying (and failing) to get sleep on the plane.

I will be smelly from walking around multiple airports over a span of 12 hours in the same clothes.

I will be restless in an aisle seat, waiting for my planes to take off and land.

I will be anxious in the stuffy shared air as my fellow passengers and I tap our fingers and our feet in anticipation.

We will politely push and shove each other out of our way like cattle out of a cage.

]]> http://nicoletaskerwoods.com/blog/2461/coming-home/feed 0 http://nicoletaskerwoods.com/blog/2449/unrefined-wicked http://nicoletaskerwoods.com/blog/2449/unrefined-wicked#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:00:14 +0000 Nicki http://nicoletaskerwoods.com/?p=2449 Take this evil feeling

And that disgusting look

Right. Off. Your. Face.

Bleach tie-dyed wishes

Wash them from his brain

You can not fake

This polish

This paint

Or make it want to glitter

Cuticles will not recede

Ratty hangnails pull and puff

Legs: no shave

Brows: no wax

Popping knuckles, dislocated

Joints cannot bend

Take out the trash

Take your medication

Your vitamins

Your turn

Your chance

Make a decision

To chance

To change

To jelly rolls

Gliding over recyclable

Lines

Words

Rhymes cluttered

Over creamy, spiral-bound pages

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker

I graduated from Wheaton College as the first to major in English with a concentration in Poetry. In addition to writing poetry, I also studied it and analyzed it and broke apart words, lines and stanzas and wrote pages and pages about a single piece of work.

My favorite poet (until about a month ago) has been Lord Byron. I mean, seriously, how could you go wrong with words like:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies:

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies

Or how about…

So we’ll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving

And the moon be still as bright.

I always loved his simple rhymes and meter, so easy to read with a constant beat. And how he talked about beauty and love? It could make any girl look upon this master with dreamy eyes. Well, me at least. That is one thing about me that some of you may not know–I could fall harder in love with someone because of their talent than because of their looks. One of my high school beau’s was a creative writer. We met in a creative writing class and he serenaded me daily with a new page of prose or poetry that I hung up all over my bedroom walls. I was head over heels for that guy because of his words. Granted I was dramatic in high school (as well as young and stupid) and burned the pages when we broke up, but it was great while it lasted.

When I was watching the Country Music Awards, I was awestruck by Jason Aldean singing Big Green Tractor. He’s not super hot, he has a boyish cuteness about him and the curly hair that I can only imagine is as soft as silk, but the way his mouth moved to sing that song–that totally did it for me. My heart skips a beat whenever I hear that silly song…the images in it of him taking a girl riding on a tractor around his land instead of off to the movies our out to dinner is kind of ridiculous, but I think that is why I am ga-ga over him. He made something so simple sound super SUPER romantic.

Anyway, back to Byron…

So, last month I tivo’d a documentary-type movie about the life of Lord Byron and when I finally got around to watching this three hour melodrama, I was utterly disgusted. It started with Byron living abroad in Greece, intimately engaging with young men. Then when he returned to England, Byron had a secret, sexual love affair with his married half sister and it is portrayed that she birthed a daughter from the affair. Then the half sister insisted that she and Byron stop their unholy meetings before someone found out and she made it her mission to find him someone to marry.

After the wedding, Byron continued to treat his new wife like dirt, despite her being totally enamored by him and his creative talent. He even sodomized this poor girl (which was a big no-no with the Church of England and was lawful cause for a divorce). She was so young and innocent and did not know what he was doing to her. After she birthed a daughter to Byron, he sent her and his new child away to live with her parents and then it all came tumbling down.

Byron’s wife explained to her parents what he had done to her in the bedroom and almost immediately divorce proceedings were under way and Byron fled England, going back to Greece.

He was a disgusting man who not only had an incestuous relationship with his half sister, but fathered illegitimate children and did not take responsibility for any of them.

After he died, England refused to bury his remains at Westminster Abbey in London, where other noted poets are buried. But over 150 years after his death, a memorial stone was placed on the floor of the Abbey, which I saw and lovingly touched (gag me!) when we were in London for our honeymoon.

Now, I’m the first to tell you that after studying poetry at Wheaton, the personal life of the writer does not matter. It is his/her talent, words, style, rhyme, rhythm—nothing else matters. But, I was so disgusted by Byron that I am turned off of him, probably forever. Every loving rhyme was about his half sister, whom he claimed was the only women he ever loved. Vomit.

So my mission in the next five months is to find a new favorite poet. I had my mom send me the 2000 page Norton Anthology of Poetry that I studied while at Wheaton. I made a list of every poet in the Poets Corner at Westminster Abbey and flagged them in my book so I could read and study their works:

• Robert Browning
• Geoffry Chaucer
• John Dryden
• Thomas Hardy
• Samuel Johnson
• Rudyard Kipling
• Edmund Spenser
• Alfred Lord Tennyson

I anticipate by being moved by more than one of these great men and hopefully after reading the rhyming verse, I feel that flutter that once belonged to Byron and currently resides with Jason Aldean.

Numbly apply clothing
Tie shoelaces and plod to the rhythm of a
WAKE UP morning buzz

Over-cream my coffee
In a call-your-mother mug drinking
WAKE UP morning buzz

Copyright © 2010 N.E. Tasker