antitheses to faucet torture

message,
like energy and matter
evolutions and entropy at
the same time.
information has been
here in matter, prior to our
peering.
expectation
surprise
pattern
redundancy
complexion
some randomness - - - -- - -

favorite shirt

i wash my favorite shirt
by hand. with my hands
it's thin - maroon and clear.
i wear it like perfume
it feels good against my shoulder blades
like skin on skin
like who you wish would touch you. and how you know it would feel.
like a heart under skin
it goes under almost anything.
i wash it by hand. squeezing
kneading it, mostly just looking,
gently. so as not to tear.

april 13, 2007

the mug about hands

pouring broiling water
in
the one about hands
the handle
my hand is too big for
the one
my sister's hands
folded around
rubbed her creases into
white glaze
the handle
useless but for how it looks
pouring heat
pouring english tea
pouring hands
into one another's

april 13, 2007

against the tv

i arch my back
against the tv
bristling vertabrae.
the screams and demons
press in, letting steam
from a stained iron.
and the meditation space
between my ears
can't get out
and chase them into
a nearby sea,
drowning cool, like swine.

writing in skivvies

things that started out as thoughts because the pen writes smooth
enough to keep up
but ended up a poem because,
enjoying the contours of the ink i poured,
they swam
black like skinny dipping with the porch light off.

12-30-06

you remember the Alamo but not my middle name?

you remember the Alamo
but not my middle name?
i take you to the symphony hall
for your birthday
you remeind me that the symphony hall
is what I would want for my birthday
-but that letter
that was all you wanted
and what i so much wanted to give.
we'll make it.
but you still have to learn my middle name.

12-30-06
for r. dennezzz

Panicide

i may have it back
oh i may oh i hope
i was starting
to panick. Panicide.
i'll sleep on it
and see in the morning. but
the sky will not look cold-deep
and endless. it will
look bored
painted on and no more than that

12-30-06

goals gold goals

goals goals goals
list your goals
count your gold and
list your goals
cause you'll have to show him
and he'll want a list
goals goals goals:

wash my hair before wednesday
run a vintage book store
write.

i don't think the list
helped.

dec 30, 2006

for truth

i want your feet to be dirty
i want you to get drunk
i want you to not stop smiling
i want you to not cut -
anything
or dye it.
i want to see you run
i want to hear you pray
i want to watch you write -
on paper.
i want to watch you wipe off your makeup
i want you to not wear layers
i want you to not shrug
i want you to stay
i want to let you go and find it
i want you to want -
something.
i want you to know what it is.

yeah, they go wild

she said, "i love yelling at the ocean
it's so big."
run, roaring, little children
headlong
flail your tangled roots into the surf
and scream
at its power
laugh at your drowning
dance and sing and cheer because the salt in your mouth
means nothing.

oct 28, 2005

dirty, skinny cynicism

cynicism - is the word too rotten.
dry bricks catching on my tongue and -
"that's my girl,
you just swallow and it'll make you all better"-
till my sickle heart beats a slice through the stack of drywall.
Slices up my tongue and crawls out onto my chin.
You're so quiet -
quite uncomfortable at the sight of bloody, skinny cynicism.

nov 10, 2005

chamomile

Can’t decide or see
If it’s oil or seeds
Or stars
Or dust
If it’s tea –
Herbs and water –
Should it sparkle
Like that?
If it’s universe –
Light and color –
it looks right.

February 8, 2007

What I Wanted to Say

that's what I wanted to say
when you said something witty
and I said "yeah."
what I wanted to say
when you said it was beautiful
and I didn't say anything.
What I wanted to say
was why are we talking like this?
like i don't know what you're feeling
unless you tell me
unless you say it
you're witty
you're beautiful
you understand.
"I know." That's what I wanted to say.

feb 2, 2007

Vespa

it whisks
you'll die
it's a risk.
for a kiss
you lick two lips
just imagining
the blurring sky.

1-13-07

writer

write write write
you're not a writer unless you write
scratch scratch scratch
unless it's lice.

1-13-07

when i'm twenty

violent and lush
like Being
like being so lost
when i'm twenty
and supposed to Be
supposed to be grown
when i'm twenty
and supposed to know
who i love
who i own
when i'm twenty
still green,
white knuckles in pockets
strangling doubts and dreams.
jan 13-07

landscape lifetime

like the Delta
hot, warm, and dark
dark dirt, dark shade of trees
dark river, dark shade of valleys
festering,
germinating,
decomposing,

Opening

like the Plains
cold, dry, and hard
hard dirt, hard line horizon
hard sky, hairline through the dark to the sky
parting,
in slow motion
straining,
out of the wet seed
opening.

feb 2-07

Get In You

It's like water with you
slipping away
in between
shaping feeding absorbing
I want a drink
in me, in my mouth
to feel and swish and taste
But you slip
out of hand
or between them and my chin
as i lower my lips.
You run down both
clinging between the pores and wrinkles
If I can't have you in me
I'll get in you.


jan 27 07

Get Up

Get up
It happens in the flood of a movie screen
someone gets up.
It happens in the flood of every note remembered
someone gets up.
It happens in the flood of Monday
in the flood of Mundane
it's the flood of Miracle
and someone gets up.

jan 27 07

we do

your sadness comes out
in skeletons, feathers, and brain blood.
mine in noosed sheets.
we both imagine we are rock stars
with our necks, our arms, our middles insanely unaware of the voyeurs at our stop light.
you, sad man
you, sophisticate
you
and me.
you with your skeletons
me with my knotted sheets
we
do this.

jan 27 07

the drug that makes

Like the drug
I shouldn't take
swallowing, swallowing,
it's nothing,
so swallow.
But my arms begin to shake,
in scrawls and spits
written fits.
It curdles and warms,
kinetic.
And slowly, steadily
my insides rise,
in tender revolt
over and out.
I am warm and neon and inside out.
My blood and water and bile run
as I run for a blank to lay myself down -
smell, taste, see, touch,
out and surreally about.
And after stamping their seal
they double back.
I thank the drug
I should not take
and continue sleeping,
dark and warm and thin.

jan 23, 07

natural verse

tan, brittle leaves
make sound like a waterfall.
how do you do that?

jan 23 07

grocery list

you write an outline
and it looks like a poem.

i write a poem and it
looks like a grocery list.

even hard to tell if i'm
underlining or crossing out.

jan 11 - 07

Things That Are Too Big

Sky like an omen
brushing hair from its face
lacing wrinkles in webs.

it's too far, it's too big
right here, always here.

jan 11 - 07

Things That Awe

Fear & Attraction
Tide in Tide out
Losing you Holding you
Moon up and gone
no wonder i Miss you
no wonder i only Wade
you Push me & Drown me
i might die before you toss me Up again
you might be too late.

jan 11 - 07

A Lament

There is nothing here,
and if you are,
you feel like nothing.
And if you're in the wind
draining through me,
then I'm nothing.
Good Shepherd,
did you lose me?

jan 10, 07

to nothing but

The moments happen in cars
To flooding music
To nothing
To nothing but.

january 10, 2007

just like they say girls do

(i found this in an old e-mail)
i wear little earrings - you notice
i wear little makeup - you dont
i wear little perfume - you notice
i wear little of my heart on my sleeve so you wont see
the truth is
i am a girl, i am not above wanting to be around you
a lot more than i am.

Unravel

Tonight it rains and unravels everything.
Unravels the sky and the clouds that have been sticking and bumping together
Unravels the soil and the streets it runs into
Unravels my tight straightened hair back to its natural mayhem
Unravels today and yesterday and the year and the years
Unravels it back to you
Whom I should have never let unravel.
You, come undone
Opened my fingers, closed my eyes, unraveled

Myself unraveling in the rain
Feeling just like that
Finally feeling just like I should have
And wanting it back, even just the ends

Running my fingers through the strands left dangling
Your smell that I lived in because you stood close to me
Your voice so different, magnifying and understating the things you wondered
Especially the way of your hands. I see them in front of your face
I see your eyes constant and your hands working in front of them
Working out what you didn’t understand
Working out your fear and guilt and pain
Working out your love.
I run my fingers, run myself, through you again
Like walking through a wall of rain
Unraveling everything
Leaving its traces on my hair and skin
I unravel back to you for a remnant.

November 14, 2006

listening

when i'm in the shower
i hear you come in.
a thousand times
i hear you come in.
i hear you come in
i hear you come in.
the water pounds through my hair
pounds through my skin
i rinse out my ears
i hear you come in.
i hear you
i hear you
i hear you come in.

nov 7, 2006

i make the bed

i make the bed
because you like it.
you don't know why -
just a sense of order.
i've started shaking straight those sheets
everyday while you're not looking
and you always notice eventually and kiss me.
because i like it.
i don't know why -
just a sense...
that's why i like you.
because you kiss me when i make up our bed.

july 11, 2006

climbing cold mountain

what will i find
if i find you alone
as i am,
as i am myself
in facing mirrors.
i can ford your flooding
muscled streams.
i can find my footing
on your cracking frozen mosses.
but what will i find
if my hands and feet and eyes
cannot know
what path will lead?
and where will a path lead
that is not made by my own shadow?
i can wade your flexing streams
and make fists around your slick reeds
but when day long fog finds me out
i am lost at last
i find nothing
but myself
in facing mirrors,
the stream on Talula's face.

august 7ish, 2006

breath

at a certain temperature
my mind congeals,
condenses from its evaporating state
back into systematically
haphazard folds.
generating breezes through the grooves,
between the piles.
spirit: biblically, originally meaning
something much more untamed
than wind or breath.
for mills master the wind, just as we wrangle breath.
but spirit:
this is the breeze in the air
the freed breath sliding thru the wind.
i think that temperature is 58 degrees and overcast.

sept 3, 2006

it's happening as you happen

i make this music for you
to ease your soul.
i write these lines for you
on post-it notes.

and whatever you hear,
that's what i said,
it's for you.

septish - octish 06

at the ends

your gift, the life you live giving -
is love
your flaw - that stops the days short -
unsure of perfection -is fear
guilt for your love and guilt for your fear.
you burn at both ends
panicking for the emminent ashes.


oct 24, 2006

the watch

the watch alwys struck me as unsexy
when making love.
black, velcro, plastic geometry.
an engineer student once noticed that our matched.
but you've never noticed
when i am bereft of all but the watch.
usually it's because it's behind your head, your
neck, your back.
right in front of my face
12:15 in the black digits.
oct 14, 2006

under the pulse

i deeply miss that australian beach
screaming belly up
crashing into the pulse of the earth
my body pulling thru the veins
that feed China, that feed my 1/2 acre lawn
crying hard and gargling that freezing tide
until it tosses me back up
slapping my salted back with spray and mindfulness.
i miss that beach like i miss God sometimes.

Sept 3, 2006

only

The sidewalk stabs in through my knitted stockings
The wind blows right through them
Whistling under my arches
I pray that she’s not afraid
I pray that she’s not hated
I pray
To you in only stockings
Standing only on concrete
only

October 27, 2006

In the Department of

In the department of the Odyssey
Where they grind ancient texts
Between stained teeth,
And chew modern authors with
Post-coffee mints.
They drink coffee,
The drink it like connoisseurs,
Purchasing it with professional deft
Then wrapping it in white fingers,
Perfectly smooth except the inverted callous,
middle finger,
Above the top knuckle.
They spill it thoughtfully on yellow pages,
Swirling the type and cream together.
It is fine food.

Spring 2005

pocket change

little girl
picking pockets
of the old.
afraid,
so afraid
she'll never grow.
stealing
and stacking
pocket change.
her treasure.
she counts it
counts it
stacks it
and counts
she counts on it -
pocket change.
the little girl,
so afraid
she'll mis count
and never add up.

oct 13, 2006

tea without you.

i made a pot of tea for you tonite
and in your memory drank it
down to the last bitter herbs.

sept 12, 06

faster

still too early for even the road,
her pavement mouth lax and wet.
the East yawns
rubs dark eyes.
i speed out between them
making out tree lined fields, water towers.
a vagrant moon watches over their disordered awakening.
the land stretches,
unknotting from his dreams,
unstacking his arms from under his head,
and sticking his calves out straight to spread his cool toes.
finally, the road rocks her shoulders forward, then back,
trying to shake the humid sleep from her eyes,
and rests her hand on her lover's back.
i roll down the windows -
not enough.
i borrow my father-in-law's convertible -
less.
i saddle the motorcycle from the book i just finished last night -
less. and faster
i am Jonathan Livingston, wings braced against my side.

august 18ish, 06

a poem i never wrote down so i am trying to remember it.

i lay on my back and found a star -
just a tiny, tiny blur compared to the other glitter.
there it goes -
it glittered itself just a little -
just then.
then trapezed across a giant, threadbare sail
to wrap its midnight prey.
tiny blur of a star,
you have a sister in the shiny spider
twinkling above my head.

july 31, 2006

supporting the habit

she smoked to breathe,
to keep her lips steady as we spoke.
so every winter the back steps
took in her cold body,
supporting her habit as we talked.

I drank to move.
I'd shake as I wrapped my fingers around
a mug like the crook of a cane.
every winter gave us arthritis.
so we dealt with the stale smell of dried smoke and coffee,
associating them with endearment,
as long as we could speak and feel.

june 26, 2006

Bread, and Soil, and You

All summer my hands have smelled of
bread and soil and skin.
my eyes have burned in
the longest Oklahoman horizons,
and the sun sets held steady
Even here, in this cracked-skin landscape,
the summer welcomes my body,
one of the children, down into its underbody, rich.
Even in this land of sky
I am buried deep,
smelling only of bread and soil and skin.

june 26, 2006

dirt on our breath

it was dirt
that's what he always says it tastes like.
I agree, sipping in a grimace,
but it's a rite, a silent vigil on this corner
where she and I
first found the best cup ever.
sticky with syrup and spilled sugar.
sticking to our boiling palms
and we whispered with dirt on our breath.

she must have only gone there for me
and I must have only gone for her.
for it seems we never accidentally meet
on that corner anymore.
but the fumes still steal up my nose
and they re-enter what i remember
of her whisper
with dirt on her breath.
march 31, 2006

tornado

tornados call for candles and their accompanying shadows,
flicking mirors to the lightning.
every streetlamp stretches like lightning,
zagging, flicking in between the rain.
we're all like that.
the sideways wind calls us from our walls and holes.
whooping and flicking our bodies
when the lightning licks the ground.
we - flicking mirrors to the lightning.
april 25, 2006

Eulogy for Ginger

Her guitar, like a body
Stays behind in its coffin
Red velvet lined
You don’t see that much nowadays.

April 22, 2006

Black and Browns

As the shades and shadows
Drain
black and browns
The big orange crayon
Breaks in two without its paper wrapper.
The blues and greens and occasional peaches
Go as well.
Now just one white circle waxes West
A hole
Through which the remaining colors fly
Sparing only black and browns.

April 22, 2006

an ant scales my window sill

An ant scales my window sill
It has been on this sill for a week now
I watch it when it catches my eye
Wandering wandering
Is it looking for that sticky drop of juice
That I wiped up yesterday
Fountain of youth and sticky vitality
That I scrubbed off of its earth, its America
Poor Lewis or Clark
You’ll wander this sill until you die
Because you can still smell it
The sticky power stuck to your tongue
Like all explorers
You’ll die with your discovery soaking in your throat.

April 20, 2006

dripping dripping

Drip drip
The trees they dripped
They dripped they dripped.
I dripped too
But didn’t know.
They dripped so much
That I didn’t notice
My hair and my shoulders
Dripping they’re dripping.
They dripped so much
I even forgot they were
Dripping they’re dripping
Until I heard a drop
Of my fingertip hit the ground
Now I am dripping
Like I dripped then
I dripped I dripped
The trees they dripped.

April 18, 2006

another black pebble

her eyes are dark and thin and black,
a wet, brimming black that confuses you
or breaks your heart
depending on if they actually overflow
or not.
she says “i think i have come to believe”
and asks you “how strange?”
and says she is scared.
you are too
you are too.
not knowing if her shadowy ponds
can hold another black pebble.

April 16, 2006

Sleep Apnea

we listen to her breathing on a little speaker
taking turns – “it’s your turn”
barely listening
you barely have to
she is barely breathing at all.
we hear the vent breathing on a little speaker too
and sometimes get confused
not remembering which vibration is hers
and which is the air conditioning
until she gasps.
picking up her rhythm again
we remember
she had stopped for a while
considered if she’d rather not keep stopping
until she could sing like the birds again
remember how to whistle
how to spit fruit seeds
how to kiss.
her pulse slips under the radar
under the buzzing breathing of the vent.
it is still enough to hear the birds
until she gasps again.

April 16, 2006

Still-Life

I am watching the leaf jiggle
Jigging alone in the still bush.
It looks like those fast forward videos
When a still camera records a field of flowers
As time passes.
They jiggle
Jigging along with the clouds
Which stripe over head.
But this evening the clouds are a dusty muff
Coddling a sleeping baby moon
And only the leaf jiggles
Jigging alone in the still bush.
I am jiggling
And jigging along
Under stars that do not stripe
And shaking in a wind
That only blows me.

April 12th, 2006.

On Silence and Solitude

Drowning painlessly into the anonymity of the crowd
Gulping water like air.
Some of us can do it
Some of us cannot.
And then we think, "How wondurful for cell phones."

march 29th, 2006

The author, Anon

Being quite alone

Stirs the whispers

Pools of poetry

Or of verse

With or with out meter

Rhyme

Lines that rise from

Breath and sigh

Making but

Very small ripples

Lapping silent shore lines

Seeing much

Hearing much

That races, screams, and heaves

Standing among it all alone

My ears fold in

to hear the stirring of the

Pools of poetry

Or of verse.

March 29, 2006

God, In the Quiet

God, in the quiet meet you

In the quiets of place

I do not know and that do not stir

My self to leave my space.

God, in the quiet meet you

Fighting back wars behind my face

I do not know and know not what

You can do with such a space.

God, in the quiet meet you

Holding my tongue in a bridled brace

I do not know and do not stir

Until you reach me through the space.

March 29, 2006

the Heater and the Sleeping Morning

The whirring in the morning is the only
Sound the morning makes.
The rest lies solid, lies still
Like it shall never wake.
The house lies stubbornly against the whirring,
I mimic its pretending.
Tired of calling the vents stop blowing
And we begin our sleeping
again.

March 22, 2006

the Elements

I walk past those two rooms everyday
The art department
First the gallery
Empty but for pale scribbles framed
Under lights
Then the office hall
Where teachers sport
Everyday sweaters
The kind my dad might wear
Then the rooms
One, two
They smell exactly the same
As one another
And exactly the same
As one other
That old room I
Used to stay awhile in
The art room
It’s concrete
Maybe that’s the elemental smell
But I know there are horsehair brushes
And thick paints
Sleeping under the walls and
Wooden easels
Skeletons
Twenty tripod skeletons
Empty now but
for stains
ghosts of tour de force
shavings of divine interinvention
The rooms emit coldness
Their doorways physically coagulate
My goose bumps
As I pass
Same with that old room
Except I waited out the cold
Forgetting my skin so tight
As I sat for two hours
A day
As I sat contorted into position
Stiff as a new branch strains
Against the sky
I smell I feel the elements
I was so familiar with
Brought up in
Raised under
Concrete
Brushes
Paint
The cold
The sky
By those two rooms
The art department
My bark quivers against
The warmth coursing underneath
Quivers at the elements
Still driving me

March 21, 2006

"write it down"

I have heard it is a river
And I a tertiary

I have heard it as a bonfire
And I kindling

What is this that I drown under
Replacing air with water

This that I burst into
Replacing flesh with fire

It gives way to life,
And death

It gives way to sight;
I am found

March 21, 2006

listening for spring

I thought it was a bird singing
But on it went
Stretching into a squeal
Someone’s engine belt slipping.
And Spring has not yet come.
At one fist banging on the sky,
The thunder,
All the car alarms began chirping in time.
In like a lion, out like a lamb.

mar 20, 06

flirty green

The flooded,
the flirty green
ran,
concentrate watercolor,
out of the pallette.
The flood
of flirty green
also flushed
her olive skin,
left her spots
-call them freckles,
left her eyes white
-call them clear.
Washed out in the flood
grows rooted
grows green
rooted in dirt
rooted under ground
so it won't wash out.

march 8, 2006

perfume

the smell that was mine
has now become
a place.
because when i was there
it was the only smell
that was mine.
march 2, 2006

To see the way that light attaches to a girl:

The warm coconut smell

That I knew was tanning oil
but it sealed our closeness,
making us faraway and secret.

Days were dragging us,

Leaving lightly beaten paths.

Strange and timeless.

Strange the unexplained pain.

Strange how we escaped together,

And the strange overbearance of coconut oil.
Somehow we cast an unforgetting spell

However vague and hidden

we opened everything
and looked in.
except each others eyes,

Out of everyone

I will not remember your eyes.

Sharing the uncomfortable pile of yourself

Landing at your feet

Only to forget it until later

Only to forget you until later

Only to remember I didn’t see you in the eye,

That it wasn’t about finding you

But about letting you break apart.

And as you did, I could too.

Something no one had ever let us do

A strange movement we could not refuse

Once invited.

A strange way that we found together

That will never find us together.

And how elusive mornings and evenings crowd around

Unlikely lessons

passed away

I'm imitating
down to your very smell.
I practice the eddies in your eyebrows.
I'm following
in your ever stockinged steps.
But where did you learn?
From that woman dying in a bed -
without her socks
without her eyebrows
without her smell
anymore.

feb 26 06
Is this what we are doing?
Passing her on.

her, as she is

she's always in a tank top
while im still strangled in a scarf.
And though I shed my boots
she's not even wearing socks.
My hair is tucked and pinned
away from the wind
Hers has burst out all curls and chaos.
i watch her laugh, never talk.
i watch her blow along instead of walk.
the sky rolls over her tongue like a drink.
the grass kisses her feet as they sink.
she needn't blink
needn't even open her eyes
the earth reflects her as she is
her iris, her midst.

feb 23, 06

Leaving it

"Did you leave it?"
"Yes, I left it."
"What's it like?"
"Screaming in a library."
"Like a regret?"
"Like you wish your chords hadn't snapped so soon."

1 - 16 - 06

latitude

Lines bend around the seams
marking the border,
marking the time change.
We come home
bending around the seams
and unraveling at the borders -
marking the time changed.

jan 12 - 06

there's a man in my bed:

There's a man in my bed.
But it still smells like me.
He wraps himself in sheets
That stay faithful to me.
He clouds the air with dreams
That I would not have known.
But he tells them to me while he sleeps.

2-22-06

all red

you can tell it was china
because of all the red
and how we look
like we feel -
not there.

i can tell i needed more time
to see all the red
and how it looks -
every detail
in a color.

we cant tell the time
or if its all still red
like it looks
like we feel
not here.

feb 1, 2006

a journaling

there is only morning
and there was only evening
we were always driving,
or you were.
there was always music
or picking music
or this is my favorite line.
in the mornings we rolled the windows
rolled the air through our lips
rolled ourselves out in the open
in the evenings you dropped your stories
like i already knew them
your dead mother
like i knew her
and told me who she was
without telling me what she was like
and told me how you fought that year
because you were a teenager and in love.
wrote in a journal because she left herself to you
in a journal
and gave me one
to leave myself to someone
never sure if you should leave yourself to someone
to know.
but we found what moves in the mornings
and how the dark rolls over life in the evening
sticking to music.

i only saw everything at once
or nothing at all
we only shared mornings
we only found the night
i saw it all at once
getting it all at once
never getting it all.

feb 1st 2006

1st Day of Winter

my favorite version
is wen youre in between
daylights sleepy
your skin is a little paler
and your cheeks hollow bluer shadows.
everything about you looks
drawn with a pencil.
and youre always warmer,
even after driving the hour in the middle of the nite
because u cant sleep.
your chess piece fingers are warm
ivory held in a palm.
All your edges run
so i cant tell where your hair ends
and the wind begins.
you always seem a little taller like this,
a tree still holding the daylight,
warm to lean against
your thin light lines
and let your twiddling curls
drose me to sleep
here for the nite.
dec 22. o5

A PacRim Poem:

open the gates, my hometown
open the gates, country
open my sight, and ears, and mind
open myself to this wind.
Climb, we strangers, in together,
alone in a very crowd.
our insides rich
with jingling cries to hold us comfortably low
jingling next to doubt of purpose-
if i lose my feet, is there rili a sky,
a cloud to put my head in?
Above the land ive torn from,
above the clouds that curtain,
is there a sky that doesnt blink
but only stares in blinding light,
that doesnt welcome or reject
but only throws a sharp blue
against our fears, our dreams, our eyes.
Up, we strangers, in together
to face, to fear, to pass
through this unwinking plain,
this indifferent measurement
of what our green lives mean.
will our travels erase horizons
or escort us politely back to land?
wen we, strangers, make our descent,
to draw the curtain
and reflect behind the shade,
will our open eyes hold that sky,
that sky that never blinks?
nov 23, 2005

flying

ther is a point on a plane when your eardrum retracts
the next point is surfacing the shallow sea of cloud
for a few horizonless hours the sun shines only on you.
how do i fall into you like this
nov 18th 2005

around a cup

tongue comfortably burned
branded by that delightful shot
of cloudy black tea
which i only raised to my lips
to warm my doggy-cold nose in its steam.
nov 23 2005

ALONG

the earth slinking past
out of rhythm
contrary to the illusion of
days and numbered days
what we've often suspected -
that the constellations
are pinpricks in a paper curtain -
like the field trips we took to the gymnasium in elementary school...
a bobbing black baloon kept sucking the line shorter
and from inside we could tell it must be amazing
- a different sort of place -
because the entrees were silent but for ooohhs and aaahhs.
they were staring into the paper abyss trying to count the billions of flourescent twinkles.
and thats what fools us
when we notice the earth,
notice that it jerked a little to the left just then
we look up to measure the shift
and discover that the stars are painted
exactly where they were
and the only meter, our entropy,
has already recovered.
i cant put it down as i travel
the night sky doesnt keep a steady hand on me.
these nights tho,
its been raining.
so im wrapped in that black paper curtain,
wrapped up dark and sensitive.
i feel the familiar jolt again and ride it like a wave
glad the stars are not out to wink at their joke.
i put my palms to my nose and suck in wet air.
it is my place that smells like home
it is my place.
oct 19th 2005

from a room upstairs

under 11 floors
the steps and engines and chat
slow burn into crackle-embers,
ricekrispies in milk.
inside its cool enof to ice a coke
my 70% water vessel
shifts to make room
for the hard packed particles
making fizz in the vent.
sept 18, 2005

cold mountain:

the ocean is a salty is a cold
seperation
and the sand beside it is an accepting
and a fickle
page
you are my hearts landing
you are my hearts blindness
you move your roots behind the horizon
and i chase you cold mountain


oct 4. 2005 for cami

first night about midnight

who who who are we to you?
fingers?
to bleed and sweat through
to touch and bend and crack
are we these things?
inhabited intempled inDWELLED
who who who are we?
unevenly raked
boarded up but oozing between
and who are you
using watching being.
sept 3rd, 2005

the PREVIOUS PRESENT FUTURE buddhas

search the grain
search the red
seamless.
search the ridges
and the pressure
swallow it.
cant hold it
and cant find it
and cant leave it.
sept 7th, 2005

from the skies:

in the nite
before the 7 sisters of pleades
saunter back to more
appreciative audience galaxies.
when its hurting to be human
and the senselessness feels
quite surreal.
into the unformed
plains i climb. into a
slate blue snow.
closer to the lights i fly
seeing the inky nite
is not so.
but blurred beyond her
starry cinema
she is a-fade
like a deep, cool bog
i wade into deep
the wiry sunrise spreads
feathers.
but its the skies
the ones that match
my unformed dream,
my unformed womb,
my eyes.
i take to these skies.
sept 1st, 2005

tucked away melonchocky

i wish i paid attention to things
like where birds go when they fly away
and why a half-blown dandilion
doesnt just giv up.

somtime in 03

from me to you

from me to you and its not
giddy and exciting
like waterguns and giggling
its like the dark wen i feel paper thin
against you
too lightweight to stand away from you
it feels the dimmer, deeper
corners of me to you.
the important and forgotten and startling
ones that take their thrones
when tickles and teasing and kissing
has all dropped tired off of our faces and hands.
more important to kno than to understand,
to see the shadow running along
the ground when we cant even find the stars.
in love is lost in
the darkness from me to you
that we should listen to on a long drive
and turn up too loud to talk over.
and live our part of love
apart from in love with you
i cant stand apart from you.
july18, 2005

underwater

if it rains
spattering panes
the tree tips brush by
behind the frames
the underwater comes in
under doors and under windows
when it rains again.
our dry bones lie together
sipping from the movie screens
rain that smells like
the same new things
we lie in state.
the word of love
and what it means
and why it has white around the black
doesnt fit here
it doesnt fit with the view
as we are together on floors
in cloudlight coming in under the window
in piles of arms and legs
unsure of whose is whose
not breaking just finding out
we're dry and it may be too late
to find us if it rains.

july 13 05

when i come around

Trying to sink my belly button into my spine
So it will settle into place.
Summer wraps around me, around my hips.
But the skiddish cold afternoons hold brittle fingertips in place
Hold internal lessons in the bottom of tea mugs
And in the bottom of hearts that hibernate.
I’ll go walking for you, cold weather
Taking the long way around
When I knock on your window again,
dusting off a peephole,
I’ll bring the tea.
July 9nth 2005

shock & awe

as computers line up
doing jobs
we cannot do anymore
the middleclass grovels in front of neon
shots of American royalty,
becoming imitations of the same gilded bareness.
the more therapists graduate
to stack us on couches
and stack us with orange perscriptions,
so that we fall in love over desks instead of over dinner.
the more
exhausted girls and boys
claw one another until frantic death
feels like love,
until they wail bent lyrics
dying in darkrooms
aglow with hysteria.

july 2nd 2005

morning ponds dissapear

not yet aware that
her heart is a nymph
resting as a pond
and in the morning
while the sun rises

she lifts

and dissapears.

jun 28 2005

the night - human

the night - undeniably

human

animate

lures careless minds

off pillows and sheets

up to windows

cool & warm

smooth & fleshy.

breathdrops

glueing the blindness

to my face.

luring out fright

to face

and not ignore

undeniable.

too afraid to sneak across the threshhold

and unable to unlick

my flashlight eyes

from the blindness.

stretching periphial sites

to distortion

watching out for the night

to break the rules

break its fast

and steal my eyes

right through the window

cool & warm. smooth & fleshly.

june24th2005

criss cross

the needles lay down
criss cross
on the ground
deep
so i do too.
the rivets run strait but
criss cross
with logs
crushed
i stretch like their moss.
the sap drips heavy laden,
criss cross,
octagons of spider string and sugar,
i taste and get caught.

may fifteenth twothouzandfive

microwave woman

ive always needed sombody to sleep with
i never sleep here
i walk and walk
and make frinds into enemies
just keeping warm but
i hate those dream bodies because
its alredy hot
and im so tangled
strangled
and hanged.

simply thats why i insist
on eating all your savings beforehand
with chocolate cake and lemonade
(instead of mints and a water).
so our bed will be cold enough
to need sombody to sleep with.
may 4, 05

like tar

sinning like Chinese Christians
sinning like feeling up side down in heaven
sinning like shell shock in the trenches
sinning like knowing the way around a morning city
like sticking tar
like blind people
like sticking blood
like widows
shining like too many stars
like too many wars
shining like skinless bodies of scars
like sticking tar.

April 14, 2005

between glas:

pressed flower wilting and blushing
coming apart at the seams
coming apart so it seems
in see-through

apr 7 05

green chocolate mints

green chocolate mints soothe the raked scars behind my heels
from running and skidding in thin shoes.
i pick at one more thread snapping loose of the newest hole
creeping up the thigh in my last pair of unpatched blujeans.
i switch the playlist to an echoey Moby
from swiveling absently to every Mariah Carey remix.
the shadows in the mirror catch and sillohette my fuzzy-cut hair.
i couldnt cut the nochalance off, even by six inches.
Moby keeps overusing overused images.
but yes, i feel it too, Moby-u catch it all in the echo.
i start to wonder about how my chocolate lotion must melt
and bait the mosquitos to my lazy rivers-
puffing their ribs till their frantic pointy wings breakdown in xhaustion.
my shabby cage with dust stacked neatly under the books
under flourescents my roomate has tacked over with cheap red papers
trying to warm it up because our windo leaks the hard liquor nite
into our milke thin lungs while the awol sheets strangle ankles and legs
and we, "stinking with the virginity of 15 virgins",
shower and brush our teeth morning by morning right before sifting yesterdays socks and tee shirts
to cover todays indiscrepancy.
back to now, i try not to wish too hard for the day me and my boyfrind
dont hav to fite out evry swollen nerve but can just
take it to the kitchen to fall on one another in violent kissing fits.
still, i allow a grin at how naturally that hyper-awkward image
pleaded its own blamelessness.
stretching backwards over my chair i experienced the creamy surge
of my chocolate soaked pulse.
i tried playing my roomate's guitar last nite
its been a long time and i found myself nodding to an unconscious
lullaby threaded by my carelessly wrought fingers
three chords agin and again.
i learned the captivation of simplicity from Moby.
but that was thirty minutes ago,
Postal Service chalks out bold pastels under the red construction paper.
i get excited leaking onto this fourth page
anxiously rubbing down that fresh scraped scar behind my ankle
and readjusting my tennis shoe so im no longer really wearing it.
i jot a few notes on my front teeth and lips with the back of the marker,
inquire of my mirror muse again,
geez, she looks so confident of my progress
like she always knows the other side of that first line
the fridge sighs open for another handful of those tickelish chocolate mints
i slip one out of its crispy wrapper and onto the back of my tongue to sink,
slip my shoe back over my heel and date it.
3-26-005

culture shock therapy

so country at heart
so backwoods downhome
country
so sunstreaked
burnished gold tan
so hypnotized by sunsets across cemeteries
ritualistic leaf burnings across neighborhood ditches
so lulled by the carrying on
of mutt dogs, crickets and ancient truck engines
struck profoundly by dirty boots and hard cowboy stares
wrapped eternally in white sheets on the line
shucking garden corn, and damp paths that run secrets thru the woods
so deadgum country
unable to escape into chicd-up, slimmed-down
stream-lined, chrome-finished sky-line scraped sky.
cut off all my wheatfield hair
piled like ashes on the alter to modern woman
and wat do u have
a harvest, baled and stacked
impatiently urging the country summer back home.

mar.20.05

careful

if the hinges wernt so loud i'd escape
ur cage of concern i'd slip thru
ur preoccupied grasp and be free
of care and of carelessness.
feb. 2. 2005

keeping secrets

sneak out,
keeping secret
secrets secret,
breathing like moths do,
moving outside to
see the secret and
whispur back
"i wont tel"
smiling at the shiver
between my collar bones,
i grit my teeth like moths do,
keeping secret
secrets secret,
and hushing hushing
with brown wings.
3rd -4th -2005th

finding her asleep

you look so pretty so early up
before you start to perform.
you look different - formed
your hair floats
the muscles under your skin show
they gather and smooth.
and you watch
like you never have.
your hands quiver
stencilled calligraphy
self-conscious shoulders - dont relax

i believe in you now
i believe in you.
i want to keep you.
i kno im about to watch you go
but i'll stay up tomorrow nite
and meet you by the mirror while we sleep.
3-4-05

blood blisters

under my skin
the blood runs a thin
network undercover.
and betrayed by a lover
whos never known a sin
whos made his mission
to slay wat i suffer.
but trustblu eyes blacker
from blows dissapointmint
and bruise the outside in.
weilding some salvashun altogether
the destruction of my effort
and the smile i smiled in his so often
lays shivering in a velvet coffin.
i explode
i explode
in delicate blossoms-
blood blisters-
trappd tears, so disguised,
decorate my eyes
and bleed for my unsung sahara of fears.
1-30-05

2 red hands

communism, our government
we serve and lov and liv
within
with one another
...
we share our pillows and our hands
and the hands that govern
dont let go
...
we gro
never old
...
sharing pillows and our hands
our "great equalizer"
our great governor
not swayed not stayed
by our plans
...
allots our pillows
8 hours a share
grants our hands
16 to spend
...
hail, mighty communists!
reign in blindfold indifference
distributing the shares
greatening and lessening our life
reign, great hands, eternally red.
1-27-05

recyclable paper secret

please shh...
please close ur eyes and stop listening
and stop reading
i have to tell you somthing u can never hear
or see
put ur head down and wen ur ready, i'll write it all out
ready...
somone drug down all the trees and scraped off the grass
and strung up this beautiful mansion of origami swans
i sit inside making kites, folding paper
sailing origami kisses out of my castle
but while ur eyes are closed i think i'll invite
the moss and limbs back into my courtyard
to gild my folded paper heart and mansion
to leech my kites to the ground
to encrust my life and grave
and wen u get tired of shut eyes and ears
ull look up to the most gorgeous shrub sculpture
of my mansion, kites, and me
the lotus flower of the paper courtyard,
all fertile mulch for a postmodern amazon.
and the blooms that hang from my eyelashes will
whishper the secret of flying,
moistening the fuzz on your earlobe.
where a vibrant vine will sprout
and begin to trill its stillness over your origami existance.
dec 22, 2004

city lites strung on our christmas tree horizon

what makes the sky
christmas wrapping gold
glaze into
beginning of time blu?
the same thing that changes
your eyes
strung across the sky
in mine.
i dont kno
i dont kno
i dont kno why
i dont care
i like it
i like the changes
i like the fading
the glazing
the waxing silver rock
blinging at the top
of the sky.
one day will u take down that silver rock
slip it over my 2nd knuckle
and we'll wax away the nite?
we'll wrap the beginning of time
up in golden christmas ribbons,
write our own names on the tag,
and wait for shy, virgin dawn to open.
nov 30 2004

analogous

there was a place i knew
we'll call it loved.
there was a taste i yummed
we'll call it wet paint on brush.
there was a temperature of bathwater
that gave me goosebumps
we'll call that ancient poetry.
there was a statement i made
we'll call it ice in milk.
there was a dream i slept in
we'll call it naked with socks.
november 25, 04

saint starbux

two ppl sit stretched out on the floor
discussing smoking and God
thats all i can hear besides that the girl’s voice
is cautious and somhow condescending.
she must have authority to xplain down to him.
so i want to learn from her.
maybe shes dogtailing her way in and out of morality
to keep the boy from chewing his nails
completely off his fingertips.

the metrosexual at the next table is eaves-dropping too.
i can tell by the ever so forced-casual tilt of his hed
gathering a visual on such a divine oracle.
hes reading “India,” and next to his cell fone is his purified water.
somhow her condescending mother-theresa lov of the damned to hell
appeals to his stubble-jawed, leather jacketed world-view.

he’d wish he could follow me
as i pretend to sleepwalk,
wander blindly into their midst,
psuedodreaming next to their discourse,
lay down by the nail-biter and join the lesson
in my sleeper’s guise
from this insecure martyr.

nov 19, 2004

the backstroke

hav u washed ur hair lately, he sed
bent over my hed with a half sniff half kiss
which i never understood-how he bends over me
we are the same height.
guess he'll find the answer to his own question.
wat do u think about my mom?
he goes on picking the frosting off his muffin
she likes me, i say
i lean into his side bc he's coiled his fingers around my hip
it makes me a little cold bc his arm is blocking the heat from the furnace
i hand him the remaining whip cream from my frapichino
and stik my hands behind me

somtimes im not in the mood to gaze into your eyes
i wonder if somhow that was the wrong thing to say
i take the time now to search them for ur reaction
possibly i should explore them more
bc i cant read anything in their shadows and glints
do u understand, i finally ask
yeah, but ur not in that mood bc uve still got my hands and ur lost
somwher in me, im not even there rite now
but ur in there backstroking thru my ponds and rivers
im off somwhere outside, not in the mood for getting wet.

nov 19 04

flashlight

the early setting sun
illumines evry particle
polluting my breath.
and the windo is so grimy
a glass fog over the sun
so all i can make out is
the pale orange glaze.
im holding my hand up
to the windo
so the lite catches
evry hair, wrinkle, scar
and glows thru my fingertips
like burnd out transparencies
glowing red and pink and yello.
it wil set soon and the
grey moon will attempt
to set me on fire like this
but only ignite my veins
dark blu under my
skin moonwite.
11-5-04

friends even though we're roomates

my roomate is the guitarist
i am her mexican
she tilts her hed
i could outline her cheekbones
aginst our blank dorm walls
the cd is distorted
she has playd it too much
the guitarist
stops to blo on her burning fingers
i am her mexican roomate.
watching her out from underneeth
my fringy blanket.
9-29-04

me, my soul, and i

hed hurts hed hurts
where is she
thro the pillos off
tear the blankets
where is she
try opening her books
asking her children
hed hurts
shes not here
with me.
sleep and soul plz com
bak to me.
ur arms and legs need u.
they dont feel passion
only weight
they dont feel growth
only distance
where is she
if i sleep in her bed
maybe she'll
wake up with me.
9 29 04

moth dust

dirty moth that fell from heaven
melting on my shower floor
do u kno the secrets i hold?
and now tho u drownd under my feet
do u flutter on the higher ether?
hav u watchd me evrynite as
rivers of suds and filterd water
flood the egg shells from my feet?
and hav u from such lofty heights ever
felt compassion to trade spots...
to in my place melt in the nite?
to drown the dust that makes u fly?

moonward

rain comes on
breathed in and drownd
it flattens the ground
it changes the sound
from bak porch evening philosophers
to fly moonward flock
if the moon can be found.
6 16 04

God save the day

purpose is filled
do i stand here for
peace to fly home
and anger to cease
i dont and yet
my other heart prays
God save the day
til i can smile on with eyes
not bitterly staind
6 16 04

gate and chain view

wil there always be gates and chains to paradise
wil u, God, reserve scenery and landscape
for the determined
who see no gates and chains
while the sunset nuzzles the grass
of this gate and chain view
as it mutates the dried up brown stalks
into miniature torches at dusk
the waves of your breath sigh gently around me.
over me you burnish my dried brown hair.
i cant seem to draw a mystical message
but maybe its not encoded,
maybe the point is a simple
whispered
adoration
as if u share this
with only me.
10-24-04

gossamer

you kno those tangled kites of silk
that you can only notice in the lites of a baseball field?
they mean that one of us hasnt forgotten.

i cant watch the ghosts traverse the sky
and forget your ghost is out there too.
i cant watch the silky kites
while doubting u are flying one to me,

gossamer
10-17-04

for juelz in the forum

in the flawless lite i put asunder lov of patternd shawdow.
in the flawless lite i see u as a surrealist painting ur toes, ankles, calves...
in the flawless lite your shawdowd corpse breathes heavy air on fire
in the flawless lite i bear witness to the first shed ash singed leaf sheaved for the harvest
in the flawless lite i bear witness to the sinking of the sun, of your grave, of last nite
in the flawless lite i squeeze your hand, i smooth your hair...
in the flawless lite i believe u are surreal, u are so real without your shadows
in the flawless lite i wrap your shape in my arms
in the flawless lite i move the earth i move the season i move the wind that bears ur ashes
in the flawless lite you stare up at the two faced trunks of dulling groves
in the flawless lite i find the harvest is your shadow, is your corpse, is your hand
in the flawless lite i harvest the birds -the sign language of gods
in the flawless lite i remember exactly how your toes fit your ankles, calves...
in the flawless lite i find the flaw is emptied of its power, the pattern of its shadow
9 27 04

i would say it

i would say i lov u
but u always beat me to it
i would write a poem about me and u
but it would be jus like the rest
i would call u
but u'd rather me write
and i wouldnt mind that either
but i mite let it slip
that i lov u
and wat could u do about it
8 22 04

cut short

would it be ok
if i drew blood
if i drew boundaries
could i be ok
if i never learn
if i always lack
if i cant find my way in the past
should i be alrite
wen no one lovs me senseless
no one shares my bed
no one rubs my hair
and wakes me up and lays me down
wen no one stays
no one believes me that im ok
no one ties me down
takes me out
holds me close and wont let go
wen no one steals my pride
kisses my feet
wen no one sings in my shower
dances on my toes
listins to my sleep
turns off my alarm to turn me on
no one finds out my secrets and
keeps them
no one needs me most and
makes me angry
wen no one misses me
leaves me alone
sees me laid bare
no one holds me down- while i fight
no one holds me closer -holding me crying
no one claims me commands me
needs me
no one is convinced i wont be ok.
sept 20 04

sitting pretty

put the water bottle to my templeout of the corner of my eye seethe golden dash inside plastik domeBEAT BEAT BEATpercussionthe piano is a BEAT more than a noteit weakens mesitting helpless-sitting bitterwomen cross their ankles butriseand fall upon a mantogether they use the helpless violenceof their sitting injuriesaginst his protocolaginst his white smilethick hairaginst his angerthat we deserve to reclaimaginst his attentionthat has wanedtogether we attak him withour brokenfistsour wrists.solid angular handsslipped golden ringsover our senseBEAT us senselessthe piano the percussionBEATin ceremonyin cadencewe rise and fallwith our sitting resentmentsept 19 2004

better

Getting drunk
On the tea
And dirt
And smoke.
My intention is noble
Not for u to sneak away with
All I eat evry day is blood
Blu blood
Red blood
Blu blood
And wat does it become
bent lips
Bent wrists
I squirm in my daze
before my day collapses on top of me.
I need a nurse
Get me a nurse.
Feb 15, 2002

acension unto nap

Past the trash can with my name in its shadow
Out the swinging brik walls
Down the ravine of trip wires and booby traps
Over a Dali terrain
I plannd my first dream
And the colour of naptime.
I didn’t plan this salvashun serenade from
The manyblinds
I didn’t plan this verb-noun announcement.
I didn’t plan this pay fone
In my guts to ring so soon.
I only thot of resisting slightly
To make sure my head wouldn’t hit
The bottom of the ocean too hard.
Passing the wide and shallo traks in powder shallo dust.
Planned the long decenshun
As I climbed slower
And slower up
Into bed.
9 15 03

cracked verse

Crakd skin
Staindglass
And hair that hasn’t been washd in days
I go downstairs
To see wat I can make of today

Guitar
Poetry
And tears that only drip inside
I watch gray clouds
Slide off the other end of the sky

4-6-04

date

five numbers tel u today
do they tel u hurt and hate
do they tel u im always too late
do they tel u comfort is vain
do they tel u God listins close
do they tel u His answer is no
do they tel u i saw His ghost
do they tel u birds fly from storms
do they tel u the day i was born
do they tel u the prison ive joind.
do they tel u how slo the earth turns
do they tel u how slo the heart burns
do they tel u that living is learnd
five numbers tel u today
do they tel u more than this page
do they tel u hurt and hate
do they tel u the next five wil lie and say now its ok
6 16 04

dejavu

in the dark u look like ur crying
and I cant see ur lips.
their gone.
he took them didn’t he?
left u with a face and blurry eyes
all I can smell is that ur hands stink
from hugging ur sweaty feet all nite
theyre cold
-ur feet
ur wearing wool soks
but bad circulation
I kno doesn’t make it easier
To cry.
Wen u put ur hands up to hide ur face
There u smel ur cold feet
And u cant feel ur lips
Anymore than I can see them
And, doll face, I cant see them.
00-00-00

early

the lites are heavy
but i keep my eyes brite
the horizons die down
pinpoint stars throb minutely in the nite.
out here in the grass
theres not much besides me.
lying here i feel higher,
stil i cant look into tha face
that looks so often into mine.
even in this silent place
theres too much between me and that star flung sky
1 26 04

en progress

mother
nature
are we all orfans?
do we break in our shoes?
our cars?
our guitars?
or do they break us ?
the buzz is defening
geometry unbreakable
call me prodigal
in a tangle of logic

7 1 04

fine line betweeen love and hate

the shirt runs flat across my bak
to prove a hardline point.
i lov too much ur hiddin disgust
to appreciate such open scorn
lying folded in the severed dark
i hear it crush my spine.
u went way too far to smile that way
for me to trust ur eyes
300 thread count em underneeth me
a draped shirt over top
find ur way too far proving me too wrong
so i can only lov u and never stop.
1-19-03