i'm addicted to writing with ellipsis (...)

do you ever feel like the music you're listening to is actually a soundtrack to your life? like, if you were in a movie, that song would be playing at just that moment? i feel like that alot lately while driving, or on the el listening to the ipod. weird...

anyway, it was a crazy few days in holland with the dps. so good to everyone. that's what i miss. all of us sitting around a few tables and a couple of pitchers at skiles, watching the redsox beat the yankees. causing trouble around holland. calling our poetry prof from the brewery....

i could recount the whole reunion, but the people who would really care about the details were there. instead, i'll share what i wrote on wednesday afternoon. i've been so frustrated lately that i haven't been able to write anything since july. i think spending so much time reading poetry for my literary magazine class and thinking about and discussing what makes a "good poem" had my standards so high i couldn't write. but thanks to my dear friend kyle delhagen insisting that i have a poem to share with the other poets on wednesday night, i sucked it up and with the assistance of some jp's coffee and some counting crows on the ipod i managed to write the poem that's been dangling in front of my face for months and have been unable to catch...

Full (or, Still Life)

...and still we are not touching,

like things in a poorly done still life,

where the knife appears to be floating over the plate

which is itself hovering over the table somehow...

-Billy Collins

And in that space between silverward and linoleum floor tiles,

I trace the grain of oak and finger the fraying

edge of holiday placemats, red and green

thread crawling toward me. I light

two cappuccino centerpiece candles (broken

wick on the third); eye

the phone (never rings).

Even flames appear still

against the background of

an empty chair. Through curtainless

glass panes, the last yellow leaf falls.