Farrow's Poetry, Prose, and Vignettes

[Farrow]

This is a collection of my most recent and favorite poems, stories, essays, and passages. Most of my work stays short and sweet -- my novels are too long to post here. I always try to challenge myself and experiment with different styles. Although it will only take a few minutes to read, I hope that the impression it leaves lasts hours. Criticism is welcomed.


...


Firebird


the most beautiful bird in the world
is a woman, who lives in a crystal globe


her days are br ok en
oracle predictions, fractured reminders on an unholy calender
that future wolves and princes will consume her


there has to be a loophole, she believes
so she dies again and over at her vanity
and every time out of the dull bits,
she claws at her red hair
an old tear sits on her cheek
the rusted cinders flake off her eyelashes


once every century it will happen again,
and every time she will turn the mirror away

[Farrow]

Love Is Red/Green Colorblind



When you dip her in the middle of the dance floor, it is the color of her dress
When she whispers in your ear, it is the color of her lips
When you make love, it is the trace you want her to leave all over your body
When she places a palm over your heart, it is the color of her fingernails trailing like a sentence never spoken


When you see her in the bedroom with another, it is the color of your breath
When you smash the vase in the hall, it is the color that threatens you to abandon the shattered pieces
When you scream at the top of your lungs, it is the color that pierces the atmosphere
When she hears you, it's the color of her pulse


When you look in her eyes for the last time, it is the fading color of your heart plummeting to your knees
It is not the color you see when she says goodbye

[Albie]

That looks like it could be a song.

[Farrow]

It's not very rhythmic. However, it would sound better spoken aloud.

[Farrow]

Immaculate


you ate stained glass
expecting to grow a rose
window in your belly,
every shard a memory
of color wholly illuminated.
but heaven is a wheel
of silence, her imperfect
eternity revealing the wreck
​rooted in your womb.

[Farrow]

pelican


we were encounters of some other kind


or form, nature. really, i was full of it
like a new baby
dropped on the bathroom floor.


we were stages of development.
a series of giving


empty. a love song with a common name


you grew up with, but never heard anyone
call, ask for.


in the aisle of the grocery store


you were a bodhisattva, hungry & i was
helpless, eager to be.

[Farrow]

Like Someone Driving Away From Her Problems


kinda a mess but more than decent
the same unfurling rope never enough
to ignore and she drifts on
like an argonaut made of paper leaves


everything pretends to anyway
even god doesn't believe in the rusty jesus-saves signs
can't save her from living without landmark or companion
the road a black snake beheaded
it's not real



the in and out most days brake and soft skin
clutch as chimera entire parts
but never herself or her future
an object what happens when found too late
an arm's length from the past fear of being dragged back


to her a forfeit spinning top
her car a chrysalis
you could see through
the mountains immovable in their blue

[Farrow]

Clasped


I am cadmium yellow
explosions,
the bitter smash of bones
in a car accident,
exhaust smoke as lavender threads
under fingernails,
            every internal organ a rainbow.


I am
            blotches,
overexposed splatter and
somehow fully naked,
a tertiary color wheel
of legs and fingers,
thin vomit skids
            jutting out
of the periphery,
my squashed lungs
flung into a gestural
ribcage,
my red cheeks
scumbled onto this coarse
cloth face.


My eyes are black tea
residue in a cup,
            misshapen, messy—perfect.