Secret Us

The secret society of us
an organization of codes and calls
When I look at you sideskance,
when we walk a circle in the forest,
things never known about
Word masks we say
not like love or run,
words that mean very little
to anyone
but you and me when
read them in the personals.

Dec 10, 09

The Reflection Caster

The river black
the branches blacker
The sky slack
the horizon slacker
The city cast
the reflection caster.

Jan 21, 10

Temperature

Hearth stones
hold and entomb
The passion of ashes
refusing to cool
to grey
to lessen
Larger than our backs
pressed side by side
turning temperatures
glowing fading
returning
Pull us to
procession
your build and lessen
into only temperature
holding only
willing ashes.

jan 21, 10

Summer Skirt

Summer skirt
its fan and fold
its hem unravel
revel loose
threads and stain
wearing thin
rising like east
trailing like traincar
diving like wave
and bird on a fetter
sheet on a line
Summer on ever.

Jan 21, 10

Envelope and Cigarette

The taste
of envelopes
and of cigarettes
of paper
and subtlety
of scar
reminding
skin reminding
color
what it is
what it isn't
what it tastes like
envelope and cigarette.

jan 21, 10

On the Way Back

Champagne champagne,
you lovely thing,
you bubble my heart
you bumble my aim.
I go back to my childhood,
that bread crumb cord
break it to pieces
feed it to birds.

Jan 10, 10

Light Skin

Lucid skin
light you
Ludic space
not reaching through
the long
channelled labrynth
Lucid sliding
eucalyptus
slew
your lucid skin
across my ludic view.

Jan 20, 10

The Immediate Sense

Layers of smell
traveling through nothing
into into into
what on top of what
on top of what
unlidded, unlashed
undoes
layers of minutes.
Layers undo
layers of in in in.

Jan 20, 10

Parachute

A dark parachute
ties its bows to
all the upward limbs
rises and flies
pulling this
falls, shrouds
this
There is no calling it
away or here
just being where
it's being.

Jan 14, 10

Pride

Rush and rain
sprain my way
away from what?
Your pity
a pry annoying my
pride
yank and fly.
March and mad
letting you have
it all by what?
Yourself, a perfect tongue
in a broken mouth
lunge and run.

Jan 14, 10

The Word and I

In the beginning and before now
was the word
and now
the word was with God
and me, and I,
the word, was God
and me
Then the word came
and I came
unsealed
The word silenced
returned
and I dissapeared
into real
itself
and became and be
and learned the name.

Not Going With You

If I can't get sleep
without some part of you haunting
then I just won't
I'll listen to music
until my deeps swell
to full faculty
squeezing waking
thoughts from off their neatly horded shelves
And the rabbit holes
my waking trembles around
will become pillows cool for a nap
for a day mid-shade sleep
up from which I care not if
I come or don't
Fearless shade transcends my skin
and makes off with my wounds
orders them in a festive parade
grotesque clowns and fortune singers
my dismembered shadows
line-up in mock order
yelping weeping jabbing laughing
at their freedom.
But I won't go
if you come after.

jan 6, 10

Go Crouch

On my knees
on my heels
toes packed like duffels
I expect a bus to rise
my eyes watch windows
wave at blurs
could be strangers
could be me
that I speed happily away from.

jan 6, 10

Cups

Cups shake against one another
feigning breakability
faking sighs - those surrendering breaths
porcelain shivers and clatters
nearly shimmering out of its shape
shimmering into heat
that's no where to be found
the winter should have solidified
and bound their stone forms
too tight for such pretending
but the cups remember their days
as clay
and try to soften.

jan 6. 10

Missing Dream

Chinese ivory pipes
and their white violins
washed on the rocky beach
we cried over them
and why they had come
whose hands they had fallen from
it didn't matter that our own hands
were about to drop everything but one another
just then they were more alive than our own hearts.

jan 6. 10

Tire of Me

Tire of me
wipe my wrinkles
from your face
your knuckles
Forget them and
their paths
so aimless
running never
hesitating in the lines
they were drawing
the permanence
they were leaving.
Find their constant speed
a chore
and their constant diverging
a waste.
Tire, soon, of me.

Jan 6, 10

Disaster Watching

Watching the fire
witnessing its disaster
and not touching
just feeding it, and rearranging
the beautiful.

jan 6. 10

Holding Hands

Our hands can't hold one anothers'
they are full of space
full of themselves
full of holding on
meaning threatening
to give up its service
to our holding hands.

jan 6. 10

New Year's

Hair cut
take off
what falls
unhurt
cut
just sound
just weight
how small
just past
just time
the same
cut
it's been
all wait
all want
no bind
cut off
proof of
year gone
cut
new space
for time
to grow
neck long
what comes.

jan 5. 10

Teach Me

Teach me how not to touch
all the pretty shelved things
and no chance of hands too small
dropping all the glass cups.
Teach me what are pockets for
and how to ball my fists up
and no chance of nails too short
scraping all the glass up.
Teach me how to wash my hands
of all the pink crystal blood
and no chance of smearing them
mixing blood and tears up.

jan 4. 10

Undoing Pattern

Woods crosshatch and steeple
in dizzy repetition
until pattern is a static
light is pixel
branches and trunks and dead nests
black run and blot
sky and horizon color
blink and scatter
wrists that would reach it all
flatten and iron
lumps of rust undoing matter.

jan 4, 10

Edge Runner

I need to run into your edges
let me bump into your hands
don't blow me apart with your joking
this is the stuff of us, we small ones
this is all we have to run after
so at least stretch a ribbon across the end
let us know where we can stop
where you stop
where the wild begins.

jan 5, 10

All I Had to Say

Quiet breaking answers
is that all you had to say?
and I'm apologizing
and I'm insincere
because I'm not sorry
that it's so little
it was all.


jan 6, 10

God, More

God, you die
you ask me to
God, I die
I ask you to
do more
don't leave a part of me
not memory
let some sand absorb
more.
God, you die
you invite me to
God, I die
and I
like the dark you.

jan 4, 10

Words and String

Our bodies are the words
but where are their meanings
we search in the connection
in the in between
the covers are worn
the edges rounded
all the soul and the message
is straining to be seen
with or without our bodies
with or without their strings.

jan 4. 10

Of the Earth

All our words from the earth
burned high in my head
all our smoky temple prayers
rose with me
And all our questions drowned
mute under tides of cloud.


dec 22.09

Up to Something

Tonight I flew just above the clouds
wetting all my hems
I found our moon our stars
We didn't miss each other, did we?
They stood stock still
Had I caught them at something?
The're right up there all the time
We were feeling up to something
They were just up here
not caring to catch us
not wanting to be caught.

dec 22.09

Frank Baum

Frank Baum,
you broke my heart
right across your knee, your lips
your pen, your ink.
You took me down your roads and then
took me straight back here again
And that is not where I wanted to be
I wanted to stay where hope is brave
and days are lean
If what you say has become true
why not leave me there and you
fly home, beg home, clap
your own clappy shoes
pretend it's your dream
leave, and forget me.

dec 22.09

Roof Chlorine

The roof with its chlorine vents
that cleared my sinuses
that cleared my senses
that cleared my walls
sit and hold me
breathe your chlorine
in and out of me
until I remember.
Stay under me until I can go.
Bring me here when I can't come.

dec 22.09

Strayer

Strayer
always strayer
always loving strangers
coming backer
always backer
always loving you
don't worry her
you'll never stop her
but you'll always have her.

dec 22.09

Life Inside

Insides reflect
landscape of
woods cloud
path no-path
words and
punctuation show
all the walks
you've ever taken.

dec 22, 09

Go Back to the Girl-wood

First child,
all you say is new and yours
you've not known a hand-you-down
and no expectations but your own that
all your days will be great,
great as the ones you wound your childhood around.
Go back and find that forgotten yarn, first child.
Go back for it
and be great.

dec 22. 09

Company

Day, I will pull
you like adolescent limbs
You may grow in pain
or come along
willingly build a house with me
stay for tea
and stay for fire
stay for Christmas
keep me company
while there's still snow.

dec 21, 09

the Word was God

everything is god.
don't write it
it will rob him.
everything. Everything.
never less. evermore.
expanding as my
hell expands.
god cannot stand your hell
your creation.
he has stood in it
eaten and rocked
and sang to my
destruction.
everything God,
please everything me.

dec 21. 09

Keeping to Myself

Keep fields inside
keep snowdust
and treeshadow
keep cloudshade
and walkingache
inside.

dec 21. 09

Shut Eyes

Eyes open for all to see,
all that's falling,
all the ask, all the see.
Shut them, shut them up
wrap them, lock them.
bring nothing forward
for all the world.
it will be just the same-
the earth and its lovers
will also say
shut them.

dec 21. 09

Poets' Teeth

The pull of those
exotic hands
bashing our skulls
softly between their palms
bashing our ribs
skeining breath mute
grinding the color of our eyes
into dye for their
self-cut tattoos
white framing scars
from all the poets' teeth
before us.

dec 21. 09

Shortest Day Emptied

Shortest day shortest day
quieter longer
stiller thinner
the less air changed
the more daylight has to burn
up up morning
up light
damaged as you are in our sleep.


dec 21. 09

Cover

Covered in my clothes
and nothing else
Covered with a gift of words and space
eyes covered with new lights
mouth covered with new hands
new prayer
new faith
covered and full of ways to be

dec 21. 09

Looking for the Moon

I'm always looking for the moon
it's always fake:
dashboard lights in reflection
streetlamp rain magnified
dog eyes
the whites of your eyes
turning from me.

dec 21, 09

Remember the Mess You Made

You can play with your wounds
worn out in the service
remember your bones
chased out of the attic
out of the cellar
no sign of the mess I made there.

dec 21. 09

Hush

The planes rub the windows
rub my spine
Morse 'hush. don't. move.'
I rub the windows
rub my spine
Try. to. hush.

dec 21. 09

Ounces

Never say 'you' right
lips love and freeze
in the middle of the night
teeth tangle the 'n'
pour the sound
ounce by ounce
pour it right
between teeth
pour the night.

dec 21. 09

Icarus Dreams

Don't say it's bad
there's something to be hoped for
in the sun
and that once we did have wind for wings
that took us out of this weather
right up into the light
so close that they dried up
and we nearly broke our necks
in the crash
Nearly.

No Gretel

Love cornered me
locked my child heart
and it's hard to grow up
while some one's loving you
so close
it's hard not to go into the woods
or not too far
and not scrape the moss off the trees
for your dinner.
When if you die out there
too far in to find
some one's heart will be
breaking wide open
without a body to bury it in.

dec 18.09

Held On

My fists held on tight
to hiding
held on to my clothes
they wouldn't drop in a pile
to be kicked through
held on tight
to my hiding insides
so they wouldn't
be found out
scattered.


oct 30, 09

Trombone Slides

That one
time
when the air
came
up to meet me
in the clouds
The limbs went
bare bare bare
I saw
the ribs of the sky
Mine trembled,
trombone slides,
trying
to be filled with such
air.

oct 09, 09

Gin Better Than Water

Gin
not water minerald
filtrated
pretending
it's nothing.
Here with my everything
the sweet bitter
that smells like an honesty
not water
with it's integrity
of empty.
Count my contradictions on both hands
put them together
taste them. pray them.

oct 30.09

Marigolds

Walking past marigold embers
November embers
the first to go
to give to burn
its thousand chambered hearts
lay in pieces
at passing feet.

oct 30, 09

Knitting

The stretched yarn sky
waiting to be knit up
into something warm, something
to hide under
When she's satisfied with all she's unraveled
She'll knit up something like that sky.

oct 30,09