Amber Tamblyn Poetry

1. Moths

I consider myself flexible in awkward positions.
Not a home wrecker,
but I do knock.
And you and I are pals.
The kind that
open up to each other but keep mouths
at a safe distance.

But I cannot amend all tongues.

I walk the dubious centerfold of your eye-line, friend.
I carry my purse on the same side you walk next to me
to avoid hand.
To avoid saying anything small.
We are the shredded fuse,
the rebound wires commencing,
badly rerouted and iniquitous.
We are the failed test of the emergency buddy system.
Chums.
I am a derelict without furniture or life signs,
painting your posture from distance that
can fit inside the palm of your land.

Though we share ice cream instead of pipedreams,
I know
you'd never be lover to another poet
because you are one.
And the fear of being served a reflection
in the way that you have served some,
is a glass house you are not ready to escape from.
I'll keep liking mint, while you go for chocolate.
Conundrums
I can't seem to get away from.

You are just another sheep
jumping the fence in my nightmares.
Counting out numerical complacency,
a platonic answer with a nod-off.
Like a million hairs you've grown near your mouth
plowed down, rough and sore
my beard too wants to be a little fucked and worn, but

the time is not now, if not never.
Not before, during or after
her, your lover, another, or the next chapter.
So lets just say
lets just stay
friends, forever.

There is no title for our book cover-up,
so I will keep reading like a brood kept laboring.

Take a long walk off my short feet,
my stomach pleads hunger no matter
how much I eat
and its open mouth aches.
Where there should be butterflies there are moths.
Eating through my loins like loincloth.
If there's a map to things spoken, friend
we'll see we are way off.

Buddies.
You're the worst kind because
you wont even reject me physically,
we can't even celebrate celibacy.
I am your dirty washboard
and yet have never had you inside me.

There's no declaration in our country.

Pals.
You tug the one red string
that seems to run through everything.

I seek your flying patterns from behind,
the blue leading the blind.

Friends. No beneficiary.
So we stay.
© Amber Tamblyn from the book Free Stallion


2. Your Kind of Winter

You are that illustration drawn in pencil, where once there was a window.
Now color.
A shape so unrehearsed, you are sprouting unknown shades
referring to themselves in your third person.
Monochromes wait for you to dry.
New color.

A paint truck spilled in summer.

I want to roll in your thunder, dry off
by walking backwards against the rain.

Of all the rainstorms
the world is alive, tasting this one for the first time. Ours.

Leave my chest blushing early plucked, in season, out of ripe.
I am the between-cartwheels-and-summersaults of your
out-of-breath childhood memories.
Catch me

Between
the U
and the S,
the sky falls, we slip into symphonic blues like hula hoop handcuffs.

Your tongue stirs water in my hole, hollow.
I blow kiss bubbles through
to meet your cracked wind pipes.
Mouth to mouth fizz fights.

May I always decorate you without seasonal reasoning

I see my life as a glass half full-squared, when you're in it.
Bring 2 straws.
© Amber Tamblyn

3. Face Me

Face me.

There may never be a chance like it again to
Feel the humps on my hips
Their draw backs and draw ins.
The draw strings
Are the curves of my eyes.
Remember how you tugged them when I was shy.

Not asking for eternity in the lunchboxes of future children but,

face me

when you’re fucking me.

No more imagining.

I deserve to watch your lips stumble.

I want you
to remember every oval on this body
every tremble into their glory.

Face me, so that I may know the man
Who sticks me with goodnight kisses
like a shadowless blade.

Like all the silences
in which we were made.

Baby, my mouth is an exam
you cannot afford to fail.

Take me.
© Amber Tamblyn
(To be published in the "New York Quarterly")


4. Of The Dawn

fast times
running in and out of my temple
conveying the glory
of a youth
and truth doesn’t always stay true
but a lie is always a lie.
past times
dabbling their toes
in my mirror
my reflection penetrating
a deeper thought
so
help
me
God
I am losing it again.
without your hand to guide me
without a word to preach on
and still I dwindle
standing on the surface
of the dawn.
© Amber Tamblyn


5. Plenty of Ships

Long standing
A tribe of the quiet
Carrying in the tide
I see waves I've never seen before
And sounds I've never heard.
Long standing
A nursery of tall, primitive sculptures
Tying the links between their bows
And the primordial waters which keep them afloat.
As they repetitively curtsy in the whirlpool of warm July waters,
I repetitively watch,
A gazer stealing a glance at what the image of God may be like.
I've seen a painting like this,
Capturing what paint can capture,
But forgetting about the distinct elegance in which these ships are riding.
Planting ten toes amongst the billions of grains of sand,
I imagine the journey to be somewhat spectacular
I would be the girl,
A pirate of the unknown fogs that wash out the morning sunrises,
A sailor of imperative winds that shift my ships from here to there.
I would be the girl,
Watching the shore like a distant thread of a smile,
Waiting for the cold-blooded vertebrates to direct me
In whatever way the sea has directed them.
Envious of the closeness between salt and water,
I'm sure I could disappear into the crevice between the sky and sea.
Long standing
I see plenty of ships
Like wise old battle men
I watch them climb the ridges on the tearful eyes of mother earth.
She watches them fade across her deep dark blues
As I stand and covet her view.
© Amber Tamblyn


6. Howls

Where do i begin?
Frantically-
I'm trying to out run reality-
cause the truth is
it's faster than me.
Footprints
2 girls
2 worlds
2 fights
2 curves-
bodies and minds
she has both
and both create her
and then break her.
She howls cause she's pregnant-
with different morals.
she howls cause she is constantly put to the test.
but she mostly howls
cause women howl best.
Changing lipstick to pen-
then again-
maybe it was from lipstick to men.
Either way,
she howls beautifully,
as beautifully as she can be- to me.
© Amber Tamblyn