Amanda is the quintessential Gemini, floating in and out of the Albany poetry scene since 1998. A passionate woman, an unabashed workaholic and an insomniac, she previously hosted “Alchemy of the Word” open mic at the old LionHeart and has been featured at Mother Earth’s, Changing Spaces, Valentine’s & Poets Speak Loud at the Lark Tavern. After 10 years of writing mostly about the chaos of love (be it romantic, sexually deviant, platonic, spiritual or familial), she realizes that she still has a lot of learning & living yet to do…and a lot of tales left to write.
POEMS
I SING THE BLUES
I sing the Blues
because Jazz is in my heart and you are on my mind
Etta & Ella and I are one in the same, soulful and lost, singing the standards with Louis and Frank
So I sing the Blues
because Gospel just wouldn’t be right at this time in this life
but Dear Lord oh Lord please forgive me my trespasses, a good Catholic I am not but a spiritual lover I am
This blackbird singing, saxophone love jones clinging to ideals and fantasies
I will make my communion with you
While I sing the Blues
smokey and hazy- foggy, you’d say…I will sing the Blues while Koz jams away
I really ain’t misbehavin’, just in a soulful mood- I’m Dizzy in Memphis and I need to Krall on through
to find the Miles inbetween the mood…of making my love instead of fucking you
and I sing the Blues
because finally I have your thoughts
because At Last I have your thoughts
and baby, BB svelted it best with 3 o’clock Blues…
3 o’clock in the morning, and I can’t even close my eyes, can’t find my baby and I can’t be satisfied
So I’m singing these Blues
waiting for an open mic at Sculler’s
to wade through these Muddy Water’s and ride the Okahumkee
to get it through my head that you will not- cannot- choose not…..to love me
LOVE FANTASY
Kissing you…
slow
FAST
Moving…bodies in circles, looking
for that button or that hook
a strap that slightly falls off
the left shoulder
teasing
gently
intensely…
Pouring the mouth over skin warm and pulsing for a taste
Thrilling…
it is, to arch the back and thrust the legs in the motion of ecstasy
and desire in desiring the anticipation of hands interlocking with hands
or a soft, pink belly lightly rushing against another surface
and
Falling…
long, brown hair, flowing
each strand a numb tingling
part of enclosure
THINKING
Thinking…
deeply dreaming, pondering the what-ifs in my life that fall upon me like
lightning crashing within my mind
I’ve got no time to waste and perhaps in my haste I come to you – me, tempting fate as you say,
stirring the pot, as he’d say – waiting but never waiting for this thing called love
I Am…
5 foot 3 and a half inches of bullshit, my Gemini sun, Leo Rising ten feet tall allows my wall of injustice to stand firm and I am…thinking…
Should I take you within my body, does this mean that I trap you within my walls?
This dream, this intoxicating train has ridden my rail thin heart bare, my tracks are wrapped in the icy havoc that is serendipity
Will you call to me?
I Am…
Feeling organs drenched in break up ~ will I make-up to myself these 5 years lost or ponder in contempt your words that arrived at the right time on the wrong night
I Am…
Lost.
Full of lust and previous philosophy that it’s all about me,
Baby
It’s all about me ~ and He has given me divine intervention and love-making prevention and soul searching redemption upon a place in the sun where hearts are crisp burnt and cadavers are born not what’s leftover in the end and I am simply…
Thinking
YOU ARE
You are so cruel
silent like a contract killer
hired to build the trust and then to make it all go away
You are playing this all too cool
haven’t I any effect on you,
have you any respect for me?
You are so cruel
6 days and nights have passed since last you have written me
How do you define soon, because 6 days later is just too late to be caring
this Cross that I am carrying & have been bearing for you
You are a Priest taking my confession
then making me recite penance for you
You are so cruel
the world is so unfair and you have been searching for its meaning
while I was revealed to you
and you chose to stop, to run and leave
after promising me more, after drinking from my love
making Communion with me as I confessed in you
You are so cruel
I will never understand how someone can lay naked and bare with me,
in mind, soul & body
then return to someone who does not appreciate them
I want to endure you
To spend my days and nights with you,
even if I must first pay for these sins in Dante’s Inferno, in my Catholic Purgatory, in my intensified mind
I need to endure you
To give you the missing shard to the stain glass
to listen to everything forming in your head
to always park where there is enough room for you
I have created a parking lot in my heart for you
but you are so cruel
