sigh in my ear, dear. sigh and sing, beautiful darling.

.

.

what aftermath?

.


wash my whites.

take my pill.

"don't forget your shirt"


hungry to reminisce
my bad deeds
the things i've done that would make my mama hate me
determined to earn it
she hated me for no reason
never once made it a secret thing.



i hold my breath
i don't want your death around me
i'm familiar enough

but put your hand around my throat

i want to feel a real fear for once
it gets tiring
being afraid of nothing.


keeping busy

chasing all the ugly names.

some type of hurt that is honest and sure.

some type of hurt i can't explain.


.

these inconsistencies (don't cry)

.

(Maybe it is true that I am an ugly girl.

An inconsistent, selfish woman.)

There is a mirror in the corner and it is watching.

There is a mirror in the corner

and it is a tape recorder.   Your step-father will know everything.

I look at my chin in the mirror and see it is too big.  Too big for you to love me.  Not big enough to keep you from fucking me but definitely too big to keep you from holding my hand on the street.  I am a simple and inconsistent woman and such an ugly girl to boot!  It’s true!  Don’t argue, it only makes you look stupid.  And every now and then stupid is worse than ugly.  Ask anybody.  My sister and I learned early that the best thing we could ever do is win the love of a man.  Our mother beat it in to us with her big curls and big lips.  Her big lips all done up in Yummy Plummy lipstick.  Don’t forget your push-up bra.  I was never beautiful when I was around her.  Who would have thought so?  Look at her.  Look at her lips and her hair and how tall and thin.  That isn’t me.  That was my mother.  I didn’t even come close.  And then she died.  It wrecked my eyes and my heart and all of my soft, aching insides.

I look at this man

his blond hair

and think    don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry

Such big, beautiful words falling

from his big, knowing hands.  Hands

that have turned so many

pages of the sacrosanct and

fell so gently upon

the nipples of so many

aching women.

How I ache!

How I ache!

Where are you?  Where are you now?

When there is nothing I’d love better than to waste away below the sweat of an angry hand. 

Let me shy away from your gaze.  I want to feel afraid of you. I want to be crass below your touch, say all the horrible words that embarrass me later in the day and cry your name out against your tangled sheets.  I want your fist in my hair.  I want your cock up my ass.  I want you to slap my face and smile against my hot cheek.  I see myself becoming a corpse and so I want to get fucked as hard and often as I can.  You seem like a man who might see the necessity of all this. 

It’s been so long since I’ve cried in front of anyone.

.

as always, critique is welcome.  angelasimione at gmail dot com

i want to be good at this.

a way to write:

.



untitled
bleach on kingsize bedspread
angela simione, 2012

writing

" ...Don't wait for inspiration. Push yourself to find the poetry lurking in the ordinary corners of a lived life."

- Dorianne Laux



i found this quote scribbled in one of my notebooks from two years ago when i re-committed myself to learning about writing. i had set my writing practice down when i entered art school. not consciously, just the case. the level of focus required for painting at the time was something i had to fight hard for. i wasn't able to flip the switch and move from thinking in terms of images to thinking in terms of phrases. now, i see they are exactly the same thing. but in school, i couldn't see that. the writing i did was either essays or acts of secret journaling. nevertheless, the call toward poetry presented itself in those forms and i read Ariel and The Journals of Sylvia Plath my last semester in school. A month or so later, i was here in wine country, waking every morning and immediately reaching for my notebook. sometimes i'd walk to the center of town where there is a lonely green bench and i'd set up my writing studio there. one day a man passed by and in the most gorgeous european accent he said "look at you! look how wonderful you are! writing like that right here! i hope you get a million dollars!" he made me giggle and blush and his wish for me was a bright, much needed encouragement right then. right then that exact minute. i needed to know that someone else saw value in the act too. still so awkward in it but so so hungry for it. two years later and i've gotten a little better. two years and i still reach for my notebook as soon as i wake up. i haven't gone down to the green bench in a very long time. maybe i should start that up again. there was a valuable innocence in it. and a valuable resistance too. an act of privacy right out in public. my humanness.

i didn't read the notebook very long. 10 minutes at the most. and it wasn't the hard events at the time that were painful to read, but rather my descriptions of myself- fresh out of school, driven to chase down a life that felt right, strong in spite of my autobiography. shortly after those words were written was when i really started to spiral. when the loss and pain of my life became too heavy and the madness of a huge depression really started to sink in and crawl around. i put the notebook down. i can remember all those things just fine. and for now i prefer to look at certain things through the lens of time. the rawness of the language, the youth of it, embarrasses me a little. i can describe those events much better today. i can be more honest about them too. and i'm sure i'll say the same thing two years from now about the things i'm writing today. and that's okay. but waiting for masterpieces is a waste of work and a waste of life. growth never stops.

and i'm glad i came across that quote this morning too. i think artists live their lives as beginners in some ways- that sense of wonder about a how to make a poem or a painting is an important thing to hold on to. to never claim that you've got it all figured out. to ward of formula and resist the allure of your own tricks.

i worked right up til bedtime yesterday. i wrote an insane amount of words. the back and forth, erasing adding redacting eliminating coercing dance of the thing. choosing what stays put and what to kick out. the sacrifice inherent to the job.

it's exactly like painting.

about

my elsie project has no time line, no real structure or end-date or expectation other than to know her shadows. the portraits are hard if i try to force them and so i allow her to show up when she wants. this way, the portraits move fast, furious, fiery, and with an intense sadness too. but also appreciation. also play. and while i work on these, sporadic and unexpected as it is, i also write about what it's like to make these portraits.

this is an excerpt from that collection- your poem for the day:


a bell peals the hour-
a ringing cupid
hung low.
a cup for the well-kept.

this cup is not for you.
your floor is covered in holes.
mice and the smell of them.
a sour mattress shared and dinner forgotten.

hard crusts and whiskers
in the sink. the horrible thing
that whispers in the morning.
eyes creaking, breaking hinges,

and mama still sleeping.


the bell goes on pealing.

you better run.
run run, little one.
run
run
pretty pretty
peeling peeling

speaking of which...

why i think paintings and poems are the same thing-

ed ruscha's enormous work "Nothing Landscape"




if you're in LA, the MOCA has it in their permanent collection. GO SEE!