Seeing Eight

I can't keep my concentration on you.
I feel and almost brush against, see
the breath of
the web of connections
conjunctions
- we're, don't, they'll, you've,
can't, I'd, would've -
The strings bounce and pull each other
pull under me (with you).
They exist. They exist.
My legs and pincers on this tight thread
vibrate under my legs and pincers on
a tight thread four rings away.
A me and another "you" I can see
in kaleidescope
seeing me
then scuttling away
in this sticky constellation
with some another possibility.

5, 24, 08

medicine

When I know I'll see you I cry
with unadulterated remorse
that "I" includes "will"
"will" stands between then,
more than months, than road.
I'm sick with miss.
My throat waters from swallowing
air
rolling into me, empty
bringing months, bringing road.
And any shade of your skin or hair
or teeth in the sunset
only tastes the same as
"will."

may 24, 08

Pale

Every pink thing I try to like, I wear and bear
I drop a pen, headlong onto the front,
or break it on some tree branch
I wouldn't push down and break.
My pink looks like my mother made me
and i still love my father.

5, 24, 08

Drawstring

As she was dying we noticed
she would draw up her shoulders
and stare at her knees.
First, just when being helped
to the bathroom,
then when refusing to finish
her hamburger and gravy pulp.
Then when refusing to stay
awake to sing.
There was so much effort.
This is dying? So hard to do.
Then today, I found my subject of study
the hem of my underwear between my knees
as I helped myself to the toilet,
with my shoulder blades gathered up
by a string on my spine.
I wondered how long she had
put so much effort into
each living deed.

may 24 08

Neighborhood

A window, a florescent moon
cut into the concrete sky
built on a dark giant,
a black farmer
breath to the floor
ebbing to the
skin of his
wife, jade white.

5 . 12. 08

Baby

My ideals were offended in bloody underwear.
A red shadow only stretches after women and death.
And they said "baby"
until it moved up under my ears
and bloomed an apple blossom,
as if blood made apples,
as if blood made petal clusters to hang above babies.

What are women and death
that they should drain so?
The things they treasure, they hide.

may 12. 08

this is

Bread dough
scraped from your palms
someone sweeps together
and points to the beginning.
This pulp of dried sweat,
flour and water - this is
our soul.

may 6. 08

2 madeleine, i miss

What will she look like in heaven?
Myopic.
Neck too long to see her hooves
trip, scattering scraps missing
the wastebasket (a plastic latticed safety deposit).
How will it hurt to bend a neck inside out?
Twist its nozzle upside around
till her head thumps on the floor
smashing into wadded glacier deposits
and filling her lake again
with what is true
- the part she knew had no shore -
and what else is true
- the sand in her lake, the skycap -
Then they'll invite her in.
Fashioned some comic crazy straw immortal.

may 10, 08

madeleine, i miss

She moves me,
a grandmother who never
stopped writing in the dirt.
A woman there to the ones
who come.
And I do these things for her,
to her because
I never sat my
dusty hands over hers.
I imagine her lifeline as a transportation.
I sink rocks into a movement.
That's her - stones
sunk to the bottom of an
aging rush.
Where death is like another
decade
to be insecure and haughty over.

may 8, 08

What Tips the Bowl

They felt alien without
their breaths, their skins
rubbing another's.
Shakily, they climbed and fell
down from shoulders to caress another
with noses.
Re finding the primeval bowl
that pours its contents from
under hips to the base of navel.
They shovel earth
back into houses they made
on the shoulders of the horizon,
the hard floors they made to keep
the bowl steady and indifferent on breath or skin.

5- 8 -08

to the Touch

Naked to the touch,
I shiver to a cymbal crescendo.
There is an eye at the thick of a needle
to slip into, and then through.
Nothing fits but the bloodiest muscle of self,
that slick, compact drop
which cannot sacrifice one glint.
It curls to your touch,
it glints like that thrashed cymbal.
We two are made of that, are squeezed as that.
Too self to bring apologies, anything
but the memory of a needle we came through
to touch.

may 8, 08

Upturned Umbrella

A body bowed up
spine through crown
with everything underneath
a terrorized nest. The warm birch branches
rolled together, against one another, unable to hold
air water matter.
Rocking between a squat and a kowtow
barely tipping the silky web of an upturned
umbrella, filling
as if for a bath.
Everything outside that tipsy arc
lands on it.
A bath is just the world gathered
into an upturned umbrella.

may 8, 08

Self Addressed Envelope

If she sent her shoes
would you put them on and walk
away from whatever
you're writing
and just say it in words that
breathe and disappear?
Would you put her shoes,
toes to toes,
blue scuffs to what ever she's got on,
and tell the truth?

ap 11 0 8

A Nose Does This

Close your hand.
You're not here.
All that shows is a nose and
why should it be all that's left?
Nothing to land softly against
but a nose.
It will not land like that.
It will slide over what ever is left,
breathing between our skin
keeping it apart.
And only landing
after all is exhausted.

ap 11, 08

Playground

I forgot
I almost
forgot.
I'm not supposed to keep
being this insane.
I'm supposed to love you for it,
then go.
Wander some distance from this play ground,
this sunrise field.
Take a walk to some disaster noonday.
You take a smile at it.
You play so.
I peek over the shoulder of such a short shadow,
and you've rolled our place into a knapsack;
you're coming with all the ludicrousy of rose embryos.
And I stay this insane.

ap 11, 08

Between Others

Am I on the earth,
sticking up from it into something other.
Or am I under it, in it, a cave, arching and dark.
Or an egg, close and almost translucent,
almost the almost of something other,
close to picking a chink, close to collapse.

ap 10, 08

signed

What does it say when it
says fuck.
What does it say when it
says fade.
What does it say when it
says all
and not another
(not come or stay)
except signed,
someone here.

ap 11, 08

Baritone Ring (another Her Ring)

her ring against porcelain,
some tall, thin shape,
and the ring silent there
is wide and dark, wanting to be violent
over something.
It shadows long, thin fingers
so thin they rest on everything
without lifting or holding.
They are so unable that this very mug
is holding them,
and they show it.
But the ring does not care.
It will rest so deeply on something
that it will be like holding.
Its finger gives a start at the thought;
the ring gives a low but clear ding.
ap 11, 08

Her Ring

Her ring on a mug,
some country blue lattice,
cool under her natural manicure,
under cool red fingers, never chewed at.
Her cold ring, loose, hanging between her knuckles
clinking, beaming
with a dip where a diamond used to clutch.
Beaming like that's better.
The porcelain alters to a low burn,
molecular, dull, like boiling something live.

ap 11, 08

Settled and Gone

She moved the plants higher, dug a ditch,
froze the deli tray, thought of Charleston,
of May, of next May.

He thought I have you again
of coming back to the house with
her in it only,
of Charleston, of summer tomatoes.

She heard settling
of pages, of water ruined and well massaged pages,
of the still, of distilled metal to quiet,
quiet sheets,
her own breath.
The quiet parts between her own.
Of space and often
the things not in corners.

ap 10, 08

Handwriting Analysis

Skinny,
but not a liar
and not an architect,
though stretched like a derrick
hanging over something underneath.
Blue coordinates measure only breadth,
unwavering as a graph,
braced,
to pull something from the depths.

ap 9, 08

No Romance with Glasses

There can be no romance with glasses on.
They are trapped and twisted in a kiss.
Industrial laces, glass
concaving into the space
two faces should lessen, and then erase.
But they are there so you know where to find my lips.
A blurry posy X would not do.

march 18, 08

Relief

Don't go away when
I won't come to you,
or do and let my loneliness stand
in batik relief
to faces and clover, vulnerable requests,
to sunlit bugs, to kaleidescope limbs,
best intentions.
Let it last.
Let me unravel my end
until there's nothing here but your end.

mar 18, 08

Upside Down in Heaven

The leaves are confused
when the limb snips them off,
and they fall, sudden but peaceful.
They heard heaven was up,
that white glare they turned to,
turned their faces to.
They heard fall already happened;
they were spared original sin.
And swept shimmy-shackle,
reds on greens and seams all in between.
They only compare old songs
and consent, heaven
may be this way.

march 18 08

No Convenience with Poetry

London fog, an earth breath,
an earth beat, earth sweat.
My own poetic
lost in, following it,
away from light bulbs
and hardwood, away from
cold drinks and lattes,
away from going, getting some where.

A continent of ice collapses, and the winter
is pleasant.
The swaggers of the season
do not spin the room.
I sit, collapsing,
mild,
with still breath, still sweat.
Pleasant.

Earth Rise

The audience are crowded
planets rising, "earth-rise."
Stage lights sun
their foreheads down to the tips of their noses.
Their nervous system expanding
in the heat of the stage lights,
and in the gray color
that black turns when it's magnified,
and in the light blue spittle
that the earth turns when
resting on a pixel
rather than an axis.

mar 17, 08d

Down, Dawn

Dawn with a cocktail I'm ready
to drink.
Lick the rim of the glass, the rim
of my lip.
Sip the clear, clear portion down
to the mellowing red syrup, down.
Dawn, my day-long order,
My dull paper cut from licking the rim.
Day long until the just blue glass remains.



also marchish

A Fast Drying Dream

The sun rises, a tooth,
dull, sharp, not white
encoring a fast drying dream.
Everything in dust -
the boy's dirty kite tied to a handlebar, neon,
the rainbow an oil leak runs, neon as well,
small talk of music and letters means
be sincere, often neon.
In a place like this,
all covered in dust,
pixels so small they squeeze
between our own pixels,
dried then blown away, neon and dust probably.

marchish

Bad Habits, Bad Hearts

Came short of the benefit of the doubt.
Bad habits, bad hearts?
We accuse ourselves, but refuse our guilt.
I wanted to be, I still do, I think,
a good habit, a good heart,
with ears good enough not to believe themselves,
especially when they hear rumours of
my bad habits, a bad heart.

Mar 16, 08

Things that Can't be Helped

When the dishes we soap are warmer than we are, it's the same
as when she held the last tablespoon of
her lemongrass tea
with both hands out to me,
so that her "You're welcome" spoke
first and clearer
than my "I thank you,"
even when tried in her language.
It's something like bells that say more than a poem.
It seems like a failure that helped.

Mar 16, 2008

try it

Don't smile, you're prettier when you try it with your eyes,
and they grow older just trying it. Just lifting the weight
from the corners of your mouth.
But face, oh face, they are so good at it.
They turn ancient and unborn at once, trying it.
And the corners of your mouth are weightless
with ripples, away from the pebble i dropped.
the pepple i drobbed.
the pebble i dropped.

feb 23 08

american nails

Nails are clean
like the money
and floors
White, translucent,
Red triangles in place of loose cuticles.
They touch no one but themselves.

feb 21 08

snow dying dream

Stiff hands, alone in a lowered sky at the end of a daily matinee
Becoming more unable to move the longer they stay that way
Brushing the velveteen folds of the heavy drapes
In a snow dying dream a girl comes with thin dry fingers, cold as well
But moving, and she brushes them against the dying pair in the folds
And makes the velveteen move against two faces instead.

feb 21, 08

asking

The night when I was cold, it was a good thing
because that wasn't why I shook,
but you thought so.
And that night, instead of opening a music box
with the ballerina broken off,
you told me "don't do that,"
like you knew what I was asking for,
but you weren't telling.
Like you would if I asked again,
but were asking me, don't.

feb 21, 08

in the dark

I wanted to show you the way a hand glows in
the dark,
and shows up in the spaces between stars.
By that, I wanted you
to understand that you glow in the dark
and you are as interesting a place to
stare into and point into and open my mouth to
as the space between the stars.

feb 21 08

The Size of Apples

The apples in the backyard are
the handful, mouthful size, no more.
their skin is pale and matte, catching
not even the glint of lipstick or teeth closing around one.
There was an apple, at least one, that
she needed two hands to measure.
And when she noticed that its skin was
as deep as a kaliedescope, she used her two hands
to pull it to her face,
staring across a glossy red world,
her face magnified to a perfect likeness.
And the deciever didn't have to
tell her how perfect it would
be to eat.
To shake clinging green placenta that reflected nothing,
to injest and be injested
by herself, by the image of
the original.
to know his blood as he
knew hers.
It seemed only natural, only
deeper love.
It was not until later, she was
decieved that her image in the glossy skin was
the original.
and nothing is too perfect to know.

2 25 08

sincerity

losing worlds under microscope
shoulders collide gently and firm,
the lens catches
thousands of worlds knocked into orbit,
meteors in reverse, stars in
the birth canal.
hands crush gently and firm,
reducing a thousand and a thousand
worlds
into new boulders, only boulders.
song flys gently and firm,
splitting a liquid iron core
shaking all worlds and their moons,
their rings, comets, satelites, their suns
into a divine tumble.
the worlds shake free,
fall and float apart, under foot,
shivering with delight of diaspora.
gently and firm, sincerity.
worlds fall
from our shoulders, our hands, shed
from ourselves, shed from God.
we fall apart into a thousand and a thousand worlds
until God and I are reduced
to crystals of sand lying
next to one another in the shadow of a tide.

2 23 08

times

searching hands and ankles and even
knees
for clockwork,
for the angle and interval of a second.
under the skin a timex rises blue
and spills its glow under
wrinkles and over deposited calcium, through hair cuticles.
until she is aglow, under her sheet,
and curled into the face of a timex.

2-20-08

lobster

my mint chocolate square melts in
a puddle on the curb of the tub.
my hair itself, the bundle, is sliding off kilter.
floating on the surface,
i'm boiling my epidermis
turning red like a fresh, white meat
lobster.
turning tender inside until
you can peel me open, joint to joint,
and float those shiny parts in your mouth.

feb 21 08

under your breath

how can you take the question i
thought was mine only
and ask it from under your
own parted lips as
yours?
now between
us, neither owns one answer.
our
tongues catch and roll looking
for that sweet tart, that
seed
to spit in one of
our hands, and press it to the
other's,
a spit shake
a vow of silence.
then, really we will lick our lips,
under our breaths,we
will both rasp the
other's answer.
stolen out from under our
own two lips.

feb 23, 08

Off a Line

One of the dozens of twigs an ant takes
and commits the afternoon of her life unto,
we didn't.
The unworldly blank above and below caught
us by the hair
as we fell from one dozenth of the possible world
onto the outline of a galaxy of bare twigs.
By the hair.
In between the dozens of twigs an ant takes
and commits the afternoon of her life unto.

feb 23, 08

What a bath can do

a bath couldn't wash the red stripe
from a bra worn too continuouly,
the red web of wrinkles refolding, refolding,
the red stain of quieter
and quieter while
she watches the days talk.
all a bath could do was cut the ropes
floating her eyeballs in a cloud, air balloons.

nov 13, 2007

Sun on our backs

the sun made her sadder, a broken beast of burden
those days she remembered how she used to smell
the people realized it was still on them
the mindless man with dreaded hair was dirtier in the sun.
everyone wanted to buck again but the weight of pavement
has two left feet.

nov 8, 07

Low-fat Butterflies

The mountain shaman, my neighbor, knocked at my door,
"Do you have half a cup of poetry and leaves?
I'm baking my famous early autumn.
The crust is just right and will make you miss a home you don't have."

nov 8, 07

Dog City

The mountains do their job and the light is shy.
The city trots between its walls,
shedding dust around its paws,
pushes life and steam uphill in rolling stalls.
And all the people ignore
their ribs, the walls
and just see faces, just smile like sun is
an elderly friend they have a date with.

nov 7, 07

Moon Cakes

They read the moon like the China Daily
rolling dusky ink between a finger and thumb.
And every particular mood, every percent of full,
is like a long-time wife.
you remember her birthday, her period, her melancholy.

Somewhere in the beginning they fashioned cakes.
They cooked cakes with every unforecasted smellure, texture, and flavor,
like her.

so usual, my wife,
so unknown a woman.
The moon and her cakes
Madonna and child of revelry.

oct 19

Gretel

Followed a moth's shadow to this place
followed by nothing and hoping
its wings will shed crumbs to save the way.
But it is only a shadow, unsteady and small,
on the pavement.

oct 19

Cyprus

Cyprus, a conical beam of shadow dusting
bare stars, pale-skinned stars.
First cold night, a lacquered table
wiped clear
the finish reflecting full faces,
a string of moons all escaping
the sweep of a cyprus.

oct 8, 07

image and icon

stare into the wash
where the oranged asphalt fades to
everything
like a taoist question
repeat until you understand
that the wash between
the lit asphalt and the invisible is
everything
even you

8-15-07

letting the night back in

it's not the matchbook
or the smoke between your teeth
it's not the book of mists and clarity
open on your knees
it's the dark
old girl you left
she is your deep teacher
even welcoming the last dregs of your mind
to curl around her feet.
you watch her
between the bitter smoke and the chronicles,
her waves roll on
roll under your watch
behind your fumbling hands and tanned skin
roll up under your ribs and curl around
your insides.
old girl you left. old friend.
she welcomes your sun-stained heart
into her waves
deep as a teacher.

aug 15, 2007

fluency

you look at your hands
hoping mine will not look the same,
i do anyway.
there is a lot like that to say to you
but instead you take your curled hands
and cover mine
silky and cool inspite of bolted knuckes and tissue wrinkles.
and i'm the one who feels unhealthy
without hands that can say their admiration.

aug 10 07

longer to linger

it is like i am not here,
but she knows that i am
like i know what her sounds mean
when i dream
and i can wake up and answer her
- the iv does the stroking
i might do to your cheek
the smoothing
i might do to your blanket -
but I'm here
and she knows it.
she tells me i can start singing any time.
she starts her new verse: i am resolved
no longer to linger.

5-13-07

tilling her in

Suddenly, you are heavier than i am used to
towing a deeper tide
suddenly, the pale gold sliver is just a cane
as you heave out of the corner of this window.
i can't see a thing.
just a grey sky against black leaves
and her white body like paper
like the tissues she twists and spits in.
And you out there, worldly, the great traveler
tilling her under in this room with air conditioning, tubes, and dripping.

5-13-07

what's eating you

i sound my barbaric - belch -
well, almost as poetic, i think,
wishing i hadn't got the chick beer
wishing i hadn't cheaped out, bought a good
bottle of dry white whine instead.
thinking about the city and how i will
forever
be drawn to it but forever
hate it
for licking its lips at the sky and belching in the presence of stars.
i concentrate on a dark space between street lamps.
let it lick its teeth at me,
take another sugar swig.

4-22-07

hearing things

what could you want now
four a.m. could be alaska for all i've seen of it.
it would be easy if you would just tell me
from the start.
and you know when i'm talking about.
crashing in a hot bed with too many covers
(that was way back at twelve a.m.)
a lot easier.
but i don't expect you would tell me
or say anything.
you don't, or i never hear, but either way
whether you or would not
i had faith
preached out of me long before twelve.
i already had it preached out.
so i stick to my doubts, quick on the draw.
at least now i believe you could or would
just not to me.
so if not to hear a dismembered voice
what then?
was it for the story
or for the sweep sweep of his breathing
or to notice my headache,
or to taste lethargic honey?
you must have a reason
you must.
it's four a.m. for your sakes.

feb 27, 2007

dry leaves drowning

Finally Oklahoma's deep in summer
smudging feet and legs up to the thigh
in wildgrass and mud
blurring horizons into mirages
drizzling a deep sky onto frizz
arm deep and still reaching.
Oklahoma drown the rustling paper
milking heat and sweat
to smear the landscape
fat mosquitos smash their lust into
cream puff clouds
and those who bore the winter
wrapping naked bones in dry skins
are satiated as they sink away
in a bowl of sky and land and extra virgin oil,
cream too heavy to be stirred
by their buckled legs of stilt.
june 07

gps

is there a twin road in front of you right now?
take it.
i'm taking the one here.
7-31-07

tin word

recycle this sound
take it from me
empty it
flatten it
drop it in the bin
with all the other shiny aluminum.
july 31, 07

trying instructions

look at that hand
(i'm trying instructions)
close it
open it
this music it's moving through
hanging out the window
this is words
this is our words.
july 31-07

in the little cosmic time

in the little cosmic time we have left
run through a river
until the cold and current don't touch my feet,
reveal that you've always really loved me
with conversation as simple as remembering.
there's not much time,
maybe a day of eternal sunshine,
quickly disassembling eternal sawdust,
and then we won't see for a year
what we haven't seen for the year before,
not the cosmic time or the sunshine,
not the time or sawdust
that we make while we are together,
nor the rivers that can wash the flesh and blood,
leaving only ether for feet.
8-19-07

what i saw in that long neck boy

men and women have long necks to bite through
and you never see a long neck studded
in a leather upholstery, rivets along the seams
maybe freckles crowding against the shade of ear or hairline,
but never a tan.
to put your finger hard against the skin would leave your test in red,
not white.
no, men and women have long necks to leave ungaurded
the stretch is too far to patrol, they leave it for public use
to wipe slimey tears from
to straighten after some wind
to have a nice hollow place for their heart to rise into
as it so often makes need to do.

july 20

the right end of a cigar

a scry of tea and cataracts
half the world breaks down at twenty-one
but if you feel like walking
the road keeps going until forty-five
then it breaks down too.
you stare into her cataracts
behind them
it's the broken world, the last of the road
far behind.
you stare into your tea
trying to sleep, you know you're only drinking the smell
and only because you don't know which end of a cigar to put in your mouth.
you stare as you sip
white face wriggling, shadows like craters
and though it was greenly clear when you steeped it
your tea has become as dark as the shadows on your bobbing reflection
and you can't see a thing behind that big white cataract.

july 20, 07

simile in four and a half poems

1)
ocean like a woman's thigh
wavelet cellulite
and bruises from the shadows of passing clouds.
but still, a man will look and say,
"how smooth and sensual"

2)
love like the right skipping stone
smooth, circular, and warm.
but good to sling at his head.

3)
white caps like white noise
freudian dream in grayscale
shredded by the wind
cremated
and sprinkled into the heartpulse horizon.

4)
the salt on her lip
turns to foam as she sips
and her feet to sea
wear lace and slip.

4 1/2)
sand like brown sugar
melting on an ankle like
warm milk.

july 2-3, 07

no miracles

do i believe in death?
it happens all the time
it's not a miracle.
no, there are no miracles
even when we need them.
only can and can't
(though i only believe in can).
will is not my business,
not my faith.
in fact, it's probably a miracle anyway.

6-10-07

paradise in june

the air sparks, ignites, blows away
the flat rocks drop and shift into place
someone sits on the porch
with tea, with wisdom, with deep love.
we smile back as we hoe paradise
in june.

6-10-07

pulled muscle

i wish our lives held some symbology,
that my muscles pull and cinch
because she needs to die and isn't
instead of because
my backbone needs to stretch and isn't.

june 10ish 2007

overlapping herself

she stood by the sprawling roots
looking up
first at each branch and its tributaries
then through them
lapping the wind
and overlapping.
she meant to move through them
having hands laid on
green, dark, light.
instead she sent her sigh up
through the rippling hosts
and let her toes thread the grass.

june 12, 2007

it's taking time

things that take time:
tea
wine
mail
feeling the difference

june 12 2007

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