The Watches

I watch you lay your hands on daily things
a handle, a table, an apple, themselves
and can only remember how they laid on me
Can only see the shape of bones and not the impression
of dead things on skin and tissue
Can only see the space where something of mine belongs
and not these useless things of late.

I watch the shape of your mind waves
rolling in and out under the predictable and unknown tide
kneading and sucking
knowing where they're going, they won't stay there
knowing the space they leave and all the things
it leaves space for
and what you fill with it
crushing the space I breathe in,
it just won't stay there.

nov 23, 08

Not Rorschach

Re creating a world where breath is possible
and every haphazard spill takes shape.
Measure and cut time as I like
fasting from it
until I no longer need its flesh
until hunger is the only appropriate sensation
for such a world.
Every orange tree transliterates
"breath."

nov 23, 08

I'm Apart

I'm measuring the water that has washed me since you watched me.
I'm measuring the hands I've held since you taught them.
I'm measuring the rush in my ears since you began speaking.
I'm measuring the temperature of ashes since you burned in me.
I'm measuring the air I'm trying to breathe between you and me.
I'm measuring the heart I'm trying to leave between you and me.
I'm measuring the smell that leaks between you and me.
I'm measuring the distance between here and the floor.

nov 17, 08

Hello Again

Is this what blood tastes like
eating years like this
eating your own misplaced fear
eating the only regret you ever carried
around long enough to redeem?
Is this where you can turn in tickets
for time,
some lottery of minutes
turn in silence
for everything you tried to say in it,
turning in your ears but never in your mouth?
You must have your heart lifted
into your throat
till you can taste it on the back of your tongue
while you say "again."

nov 17, 08

In Circles

perhaps you don't know why i should ask for you now
you gave such all in all and i walked away
in the broken word "ago."
you don't like the past to loop, perhaps
but that's all i can remember
that now i love you
and once i did
and i can't find the middle. i think
you have it.
I'm sorry, I forgot something here,
I think I
left something here.

Lose Such Things

We used to make out in shameful fashion
and it's some of my fondest memory.
I used to never sleep and I
learned more from all that loneliness
than the books that have since befriended me in swarm.
I used to catch cold, and not resist with tea
or honey, saltwater, or positive thinking
except, "you're welcome to leave, voice,
return as you please. I'll be waiting."

I'm waiting to lose such things again.

nov 11, 08

Wok

The rain spits
and I am disoriented
in its hiss
are these bodies
drops of oil, shiny, almost clear
sliding over iron woks
soaking searing blending
what falls on us?
And is the rain not haphazard sweat
from some over hand
accidentally whipping us into flame,
and noticing only then?


nov 6, 08

Through the Window

I crawl through the window
just to give that a try
does that make me amoral?
To see how a unused way works,
feels, is?
Am I in some danger
of breaking those ever-gripping spikes
on my conscience gear?
Possibly, yes, but If so I'd better
remove the apparatus entirely
from that soft nest.
So nothing can burst its vital skin
so nothing will dig where there's no hole
No violence will be done to its infant flesh
Or cause premature hardness
of scars that blood no longer feeds.

My child heart and I shall climb
through the window.

nov 6 08

will it become this
o o o
did the Lord tell you really
o o o
he was keeping something
from you o o o
what did he tell you o o o
o o o
o
you can never be this
o o o
but how you long on days
on long days
when all you need is night air
night sound night touch
when all you need is
o o o
what did the Lord tell you
that he'd give it to you o
that he'd give you o o
only what you o o o
ask for
plus everything

Stir

Stir
won't tire
of being this shape
of creating this shape
of being this wrong
out of line
stirring
blue parallels with their perpendiculars
wash
reality in poetry
you in poetry
your fear in
anything but that
washing
the iris from the eye
the eye from reality
until i don't see i am you
are we are we stir we wash
we stir lines we are out
of line we poet we poem we
won't tire.

nov 5, 08

Get Away With It

River in ears
May be hearing clearly
maybe drowning
in a river moving on
in a river never staying
never stopping by
never holding.

nov 5, 08

P r o nouns

Stop breathing for amoment
like to stopbleeding
can't continue comingwhen y o u c a l l
can't play
can't w a l k now
Put yourhands away
Put yourlips and breath
farther away
I can s m e l l you
Didn't want to allow my
ownpronoun in withyours
P l e a s e, go farther, past theriver
past those trees.
Are youin the grains of air?
You don't sticktoskin like human skin
water, notoil
you don't lienext to ...
but youwon't leave ... let ...
l i e b y ...

nov 4, 08

Kin Experiment

Who am I apart from you
let's try it, stand
over there,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't mean
to laugh, I can't, I'm sorry
I stretch! I blur!
let's draw a line
good. more. blacker. scribble!
That feels funny
I arch I bend.
Put a knife there
I don't know, I heard about
it somewhere. I just want to
feel that. Oh, feel that?
What is that?
I'm sorry, it feels like you took
my arm off, and tickled the
plastic joint in my armpit.
I think, I-
even if you were one of those green butterflies
we'd be together
like this.

nov 3 08

What Dissapoints

So happy even the sun is a disappointment
after weeks of rain
Rain connects, becomes the matrix we move in
Fragments of that, run together
like wine
to m a k e p o e m s
or at least joy.
What a big word. What a small feeling.
How sincere reality is.
How we distrust it.
How we scar ourselves to feel it
How we look up to Heaven and envy.
When God sent us here out of Heavenly
loneliness. The trinity
visits, to feel our sincerity, to feel
our scars, and joy, our fragments, our
smashing into sand daily.
Then they make a star
out these small sounds.

nov 3, 08

Notes

Making notes for when
I come back -
don't forget
you were asking,
this,
it was important
Stare into shades of night
shades of cloud
What was it
was important
(cross that line
re write the same)
I don't remember
(insert care)
(cross it)
Find the line between sky and all
There there there
You'll never forget the difference there.

Nov 3, o8

Preoccupied

What happens when I'm not preoccupied
with my own hands
on you
on your spine and hips
on your hair and ears and lips
What happens when I simply love you
with you or not
caring or not
if you kiss me good morning or good night.
I hardly know them from one another.
Preoccupied with my hands sliding down this pen
till they are gripping the inky triangle
and soaking dark dye
that will not wash off.
And you'll know what I've been doing
That I can't eat with such fingers
And I cannot touch you
until I've bled the rest of this pen
until I can't feel my own blood
warm or cold
I'll love you without feeling
that is love deeper running than this illness
I'm so proud of. So devoted to.

nov 3, 08

After You

I take your room after you
looking for what you might have left
what might have broke in here
a piece you missed in your tidying.
My hands over the desk, the bed, our clothes
a chair, you're so tidy.
you're so gone.
And I am startled to wonder
were you ever here?

nov 3 08

Children

Almost angry at the children
the kingdom of God
the blessed
Almost violent to such hearts
that beat and bleed
wild and tame
but not hard or heeding
that do not know what hits them.

nov 3, 08

Fisherman

What a fisherman knows,
that life is watching water
losing focus as his pupils recede
back into his own water.
The cityman squeezes his
black spot tighter
against its glint, he makes a rock,
a pavement, over his well.
thinking to himself as his shoes
clack
"I am I am I am here I am there"
his lips smack the prayer.
And the fisherman holds
a steady bamboo and line
to plumb the deeps of his green mind.

nov 3, 08

Fall Parade

You are the beauty
of life which is passing
the weight of its passing,
the way we can't take our
eyes off you
our bodies off you.
You shatter us till we
shine in your sun
chimes in the wind.
You invite us where we cannot go
to lie down in beds
not ours
to hold bodies
not our own.
You only laugh as we sigh
at such a god.
You flush, we drain.
You taunt and say "I am here and you are not."

nov 3, 08

Dedication:

This is the quietest the city has ever been
as I sing to it.
does it listen,
does it wonder at my polaroid image,
all white and blues with yellow corners?
The florescent window that always blinks in the left distance
doesn't,
The growl of the rain in the river
doesn't gnash tonight, this night.
I dedicate this quietest, this singing, night
to loneliness
Bless-ed breathing room
Bless-ed open-air
Spin, around, spin and fall
on no one
around here.
This is the quietest the city has ever held my hand
not afraid for itself,
holding breath
holding hands.
Not afraid to show its trees are graying, dying
its people are lying down, dying
its river is rising and falling, dying
its throat hurts from screaming life.
my throat hurts from crying...
holding breath
holding hands.

nov 2, 08

Breath in an Envelope

How will I ever lose the image of you sitting by a window
and the window expanding ever as you fly?
How will I remember the way you say my name, you
can't, except with everything you say, you let me say it?
Your face too uncomplicated to wonder at, or even look for,
I won't remember how your lips fit your chin,
I won't forget it was like always holding a warm hand
even in winter when we were stiff with cold.
How will I ever lose your head in my arms, your
hair under my hands, black and forever?
When you sing I've already left you, you're so lost.
I can't listen to your child's voice airing a song
I have to breathe it. How will I remember
to breathe like this?
When you hold my hand, when you are happy
not speaking, I've already lost you,
I can't keep such an ache,
it is enclosed in this moment.
breath in an envelope.

nov 2, 08

Hands in Position

If I can't listen to you, I just
won't listen, I'll keep my eyes closed
my hands in position, to hold yours
when you're ready, you'll say something
obvious, and I'll stay steady,
We don't need to know
now, we don't, it doesn't matter
somehow, but I can't
help but hope it does and will,
and I'll keep my eyes closed till you say so,
you're ready.

Nov 2, 08

You Nervous?

Does she make you sweat, nervous?
It's a been a long time since she has
been able to know it.
She remembers the night she first had to sweat
for someone else.
She had lost the talent for stringing him along.
And some fish line, invisible, yanked her a direction
she had never fallen.
Head over damn heels.
Somewhere she never wanted to be
when the bait was cheap and showy.

Open

even sneezes satisfy more
when alone.
when open and flat
and rolled out
with no curves or corners
no seashell shape.
nothing protecting
nothing catching
just rolling
rolling rolling rolling
off.

Into My Legs

I knock the wine down
into my legs, get it where
it always goes faster.
Re calling every night
I have ever nursed wine,
white or red,
and the few mornings.
All the tastes of dry fallen leaves
of redorangegreenbrownyellow
of the feeling that
I could make love with anyone
this warm
Anyone that goes into
my legs this fast.

nov 1, 08

Sidewalk Chalk

I need to offer every word
pressed warm between moist folds of my brain.
I need to spill
-how-
in brokEness, light, and revolving -
and anywhere.
don't hold your nets under me
I need to land
on whatever concrete is below me
and laugh it off
leave my blood batiked in skin
like sidewalk chalk.
like clear oil and dirty water.
To break all bones
either before I hit, or after
to come undone
to come open
Thread of all these seams trailing me.

Nov 1, 2008

Difficult

Sit in the cold
and breathe something hurtful.
Graceful
only when eyes are closed
tight and difficult
like gravity just turned inside out.
So that pure feeling
without senses is a martyr.
Graceful
only when knees are
touching some stone
accepting something difficult.
A blessing
leave the grid of home
with electric heat and lights
Sit in some cold
eyes closed, knees flat.
Graceful


nov 1, 08

Where Is My Thorn in the Flesh?

You will absolutely not hurt me.
And sometimes I am sad
That I won't despair
That I'll love, I'll laugh, I'll bore.
And not bare.
But even if your voice rises against me
your heart won't.
I am fearless and fogged in.
Where is the horizon that would
strangle me
That would beat me back
from the sky
Where're the waves (oh Oz!) that would
pin me
Against rocks sunk in the chalk
of their past strength
Where's the one who would refuse me
but want me
Tell me no
and come anyway
only after breaking my hands?
I have a God to mutually adore
I need an antagonist
or to be one.
I have a God to always love and bore
I need a suffering
or to be one.

Nov 1, 08