In the city you can smell the laundry
you can smell the trash
you can smell the purple basil
you can smell the balance cats.
In the city you can smell the crazy
you can smell the track
you can smell the sanitation steam
you can smell the linger leaves.
In the city you can smell the waiting
you can smell the go
you can smell the homeless river
you can smell the warning snow.
In the city you can smell the children
you can smell the scrap
you can smell the argue stoops
you can smell the eye contact.
aug 28 09
Thank You for Your Childhood
Dear autumn,
you make even a clean kitchen
into a poem
and his white tee shirt
too old to read the writing
into a childhood morning
and even the baking of city streets
into afternoons of those
same childhood forests.
You make living today
into like never before.
aug 21 09
you make even a clean kitchen
into a poem
and his white tee shirt
too old to read the writing
into a childhood morning
and even the baking of city streets
into afternoons of those
same childhood forests.
You make living today
into like never before.
aug 21 09
Behind My Back
The clouds move over the first autumn sun
and I feel the season
move behind my back
a friendly shadow.
You always make me feel so unaware
I can only sing alto
to all your soaring.
aug 21, 09
and I feel the season
move behind my back
a friendly shadow.
You always make me feel so unaware
I can only sing alto
to all your soaring.
aug 21, 09
Sing to Me of Heaven
Sing to me of heaven
please don't
it hurts personally
as if I myself were going
or have been before
as if I myself miss the place
the city as open as the country.
Sing to me of heaven
I'll sit through it
and swallow knots
as if I myself have been there.
Aug 15, 09
please don't
it hurts personally
as if I myself were going
or have been before
as if I myself miss the place
the city as open as the country.
Sing to me of heaven
I'll sit through it
and swallow knots
as if I myself have been there.
Aug 15, 09
My Little Spriit
My little spirit throws a fit
because my willing limbs are not a dog's
my span not a buzzard's
my bones are not hollow
and my blood is not wind.
My flesh not, like itself, a fire.
My little spirit kicks at my ribs
topples and smashes what's behind my chest
rises and racks the windows.
My little prisoner
looks at its home at the ends of my fingers
and all its kingdom they cannot touch.
because my willing limbs are not a dog's
my span not a buzzard's
my bones are not hollow
and my blood is not wind.
My flesh not, like itself, a fire.
My little spirit kicks at my ribs
topples and smashes what's behind my chest
rises and racks the windows.
My little prisoner
looks at its home at the ends of my fingers
and all its kingdom they cannot touch.
Must Be
A pulse warms me to sleep
and I wonder whose it must be
A dream runs like wild rabbits
through the sleep
and I wonder who it might be
A ghost comes sometimes
folding paper around its words
reminding me I have an appointment
and I wonder what it must be.
I wonder about you
and who you must be.
Aug 1 09
and I wonder whose it must be
A dream runs like wild rabbits
through the sleep
and I wonder who it might be
A ghost comes sometimes
folding paper around its words
reminding me I have an appointment
and I wonder what it must be.
I wonder about you
and who you must be.
Aug 1 09
Spring Cracks
Spring cracks and stirs up its
everything
Draws me out
Older than I should be
Whiter in bone and soul
than the brittle hair
pulled skull-tight on the elderly.
Run harder and longer
to lose the corpse I've been
watching on its pillow by mine,
lose the hot, scar tools
I've changed myself with,
lose my mouth.
Summer stirs up its everything
for me to put my nose
into. Wetting my face.
I ignore its everything.
In fear of the points
of grass stalks
the hot of rocks.
I lie benign on top and
not inside the pandora of
the wild season.
Fall stirs up its everything
untacking the indiscriminate Summer
taking it down like muslin over a waiting work
It stirs up its cold
the reserved love its rocks and yellow grasses
its slender arms of still-warm tree blood
smell of.
It draws me out to work again
lie myself on the cool ground and
swell with the warm sky blood
to change into my wild
to do it reservedly
to roll my dreams on my tongue
and tell no one what I am stirring.
Winter stirs up its everything
the white alchohol of bare
sky, trees, rocks
uniformly ignoring my work
determinedly blind
unafraid of what I am becoming
behind its terrible back.
Aug 1 09
everything
Draws me out
Older than I should be
Whiter in bone and soul
than the brittle hair
pulled skull-tight on the elderly.
Run harder and longer
to lose the corpse I've been
watching on its pillow by mine,
lose the hot, scar tools
I've changed myself with,
lose my mouth.
Summer stirs up its everything
for me to put my nose
into. Wetting my face.
I ignore its everything.
In fear of the points
of grass stalks
the hot of rocks.
I lie benign on top and
not inside the pandora of
the wild season.
Fall stirs up its everything
untacking the indiscriminate Summer
taking it down like muslin over a waiting work
It stirs up its cold
the reserved love its rocks and yellow grasses
its slender arms of still-warm tree blood
smell of.
It draws me out to work again
lie myself on the cool ground and
swell with the warm sky blood
to change into my wild
to do it reservedly
to roll my dreams on my tongue
and tell no one what I am stirring.
Winter stirs up its everything
the white alchohol of bare
sky, trees, rocks
uniformly ignoring my work
determinedly blind
unafraid of what I am becoming
behind its terrible back.
Aug 1 09
Ghosts
If I think of the way my hand stretches over
space as if it were itself my ghost,
the sun finally rises behind the cloud bank.
Hands like mine want to span so much farther than
the next hand, folded paper, water
And I lose them as they break and wash away
into something they're not.
July 29 09
space as if it were itself my ghost,
the sun finally rises behind the cloud bank.
Hands like mine want to span so much farther than
the next hand, folded paper, water
And I lose them as they break and wash away
into something they're not.
July 29 09
The Difference
Nothingness is not darkness
Even that can hold and be held
Can be walked through and smelled
Its "ness" rolls into open mouths
and opened eyes.
The darkness can be understood
In its values: Seen unseen unseeable
Clearer than Brilliance-studded light
that offers values insincerely:
see see see
When there's so much originally belonging
to shadow and deeper than shadow: spirit.
Even that can hold and be held
Can be walked through and smelled
Its "ness" rolls into open mouths
and opened eyes.
The darkness can be understood
In its values: Seen unseen unseeable
Clearer than Brilliance-studded light
that offers values insincerely:
see see see
When there's so much originally belonging
to shadow and deeper than shadow: spirit.
Act of Worship
I don't believe in the Holy Spirit
In your still birds
who with me are always respectful
of prayer.
We are not seen or heard
as you pray rain
all morning starting with
my unbelief.
I don't believe you exist
or that you draw us out to watch
you pour prayer,
that I can't help stand here in it,
that this is the only way to blur
the lines of skin and spirit,
that I want your rain.
I don't believe you fill me
and make my throat ache
afraid I'll never stop if
you begin like this.
But I'll open my mouth
This is my deed, add the belief,
to swallow your prayer
open my mouth
to your breath
the Holy Communion.
In your still birds
who with me are always respectful
of prayer.
We are not seen or heard
as you pray rain
all morning starting with
my unbelief.
I don't believe you exist
or that you draw us out to watch
you pour prayer,
that I can't help stand here in it,
that this is the only way to blur
the lines of skin and spirit,
that I want your rain.
I don't believe you fill me
and make my throat ache
afraid I'll never stop if
you begin like this.
But I'll open my mouth
This is my deed, add the belief,
to swallow your prayer
open my mouth
to your breath
the Holy Communion.
Exhaust
The things we break in our hands
we do after we part
so you won't see the mess we make
of ourselves
so you won't clean it up for us so quickly
and make us laugh.
I'll only love you in the night
when you're not yourself
but you become so self-conscious
and I dissapear with you
lost
finally holding no conversation.
An old meaningless city street
is all that runs through my heart
pushing exhaustion to its place
Later
My most dear and meaningful thoughts
are my most useless
and they hover in that street
like exhaust.
we do after we part
so you won't see the mess we make
of ourselves
so you won't clean it up for us so quickly
and make us laugh.
I'll only love you in the night
when you're not yourself
but you become so self-conscious
and I dissapear with you
lost
finally holding no conversation.
An old meaningless city street
is all that runs through my heart
pushing exhaustion to its place
Later
My most dear and meaningful thoughts
are my most useless
and they hover in that street
like exhaust.
This is another list poem: What Takes Longer Than Thirty Minutes
Drinking American black coffee.
the rain to stop.
to forget gravity and its new strength.
memorizing words.
listing apologies and the reasons
for not saying them.
enough time to hold broken pieces
kept stacked like scrap
pottery until I found they were really
bits of unlined paper
blown easily in the trail
of trains planes and automobiles.
the rain to stop.
to forget gravity and its new strength.
memorizing words.
listing apologies and the reasons
for not saying them.
enough time to hold broken pieces
kept stacked like scrap
pottery until I found they were really
bits of unlined paper
blown easily in the trail
of trains planes and automobiles.
Replacing the Horizon Line
Want sky
don't belong there
can't keep up
can't stay
and can't stand
the strangeness of space.
Must keep falling and rising
people mountain people sea
falling and rising
until the sky finally crashes
and we can be together
in the space the horizon line used to fill.
june 28 09
don't belong there
can't keep up
can't stay
and can't stand
the strangeness of space.
Must keep falling and rising
people mountain people sea
falling and rising
until the sky finally crashes
and we can be together
in the space the horizon line used to fill.
june 28 09
Last City
You won't stretch me over your machine, City
I won't care for those things in bags
I won't care for the things I tuck in books
or even the things I find there.
There is too much space between bodies
to be sick over the space left by lost things.
And the weight that fills
my body like saltwater, heavy ocean saltwater
can stand your schemes, City,
of untruth.
6 28 09
I won't care for those things in bags
I won't care for the things I tuck in books
or even the things I find there.
There is too much space between bodies
to be sick over the space left by lost things.
And the weight that fills
my body like saltwater, heavy ocean saltwater
can stand your schemes, City,
of untruth.
6 28 09
Sino Coffee
Coffee should always taste this poisonous
and the days should too
then I could take the smallest slowest sips
with some breaths in between
low breaths that barely make it past my teeth
little pains so rich in their tinyness
and I won't forget to love
even the bitterness.
June 28 09
and the days should too
then I could take the smallest slowest sips
with some breaths in between
low breaths that barely make it past my teeth
little pains so rich in their tinyness
and I won't forget to love
even the bitterness.
June 28 09
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