Tuesday, December 31, 2013

one more fucking post

all resolutions are wanting
she got peed on in a sex tape
oj simpson's lawyer
at an advanced stage of media fame
13 minutes, 8 minutes, what are you guilty for
what have you done
best moment? 
shall I say my regrets?
my friends, let me light on fire the room
the volcano under yellowstone pompeii is brewing
who will be our cicero
new pope old pope
venting time, venting time
"let's play the game!"
minutes til the dead were dead in another year
until a beginning
which isn't a beginning
everything is new to me
our friends who followed us to other states
and stayed there while we returned
are on speaker phone
and soon we'll toast 
laugh
breath in
out
wait 
ever

Monday, December 30, 2013

tonight, tomorrow

It's two days before the new year 2-0-1-4 (decimal. 11111011110 binary. so 2015 will be a binary palindrome)
anything but to the point (decimal. point. hah.)
two days and this day mostly done, tomorrow and the end of that is a change, which feels final, like a wall
which, really, walls are everywhere, hardly big news but some walls have 
something else on the other side
and its greener
and there's only so much time
to climb over
before
you can't

Friday, December 27, 2013

when I lived we showered ourselves
in hot water on cold days
for an hour if we wished
the wind that burned brown leaves from old oaks
could not penetrate our daily rites

church bells sound like clock parts
tick and coo -- keep regular time:
"all's well". Go bout your busy-ness
the Muezzin must be like that too
somewhere
but here it's rare enough
to be heard, and keep
meaning. Come away.
come away

this watch she gave me two years in, her grandfather made it
and she wanted it to stay in the family
lived on my desk when we stopped
over a decade made precise
til someone she never met spilled coffee
like the great flood
someday a rainbow

barnacle bill

been knocking at your door for-tea five minutes
breaking to stand back look up squinting
through the sun glare on your window
is there movement
were you expecting me
there's a cold breeze marks the hour
and a church bell
only part of the scene
more normal than the muezzin
calling someone - not i, not you
there's a bar not far off
warmest place to pray
"if only"
next year in jerusalem.

at the diner -same old thing with faces

server a table down is so much like
this girl from high school (which for me lasted 40 years in the desert)
she moved to new york became an actress in the promised land
this server wears seafoam colored T not actual seafoam
and our server is just as familiar but
not like anyone I can name
so I spend my time wondering who she could be
like casting a movie
when she danced though no one else was dancing
and I breathed harder than her though she sweat  from the effort
who had come with me there? who did I leave behind me to chase her star
and who else waited 
as though these women were cities 
and I was exiled
because that one night
you were leaving to travel
and your homeless guests were fighting
we mediated, when all I wanted was you alone
for a while we slept close together
and the city when I wandered home
seemed alien

at the door

































                                                    stand here everyone's up there
                                                    their backs the same in suits
                                                facing front books to the same
                                                     page

stainedglassotherside



















                                                                                                                                      silver tablets
                                                                                                                                      yellow lightning
                                                                                                                                      a mountain on fire

stainedglasssides










                                                                                         











clear star above                                                                  
green field
blue red lions
fill with the sun
or reflect candles

churchmiddleroom

















                                                                panels and a heavy top
                                                                covered in velvet or linen or probably not denim
                                                        someone left a pencil last time they stood here
                                                                  accoutrement inside some candles mostly
                                                                             

churchtop

                                                               wood and shadows and accumulated smoke
                                                  if you could climb and press your nose to these beams
                                           the history would fill you

Monday, December 23, 2013

i'm furious - probably
furious about something
i suppose i am furious here
stewing alone
about whatever

Friday, December 20, 2013

winter's scoured the fields
the grass is powder dry and low
and hungry trees are aiming in their wills their seed and root
to fill the waste

a crow counts one and gets no second call
so scatters his scavenging where he hops
and watches more than speaks

parked cars could have been left a thousand years ago
without a sign to mark the time


measure for measure should be done in tiny claustrophobic sets
with barely room to move so every actor has to squeeze and squirm to pass another
and the very environment strangles and stifles the life out of the cast and audience

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

a dissapointing vice
is cowardice
not half the fun I think
as love for drink
and far less grand an affectation
than predilection for flirtation

Sunday, December 15, 2013

shall we dance
oh shall we
you in the moon, i'll follow
to the ends of the phrase

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

describe something

Snow has gathered on the trees like cherry blossoms

The light of sunset
turns the snow on tree branches
pink like cherry blossoms

Through his window a stand of trees could be seen, swaying lazily in the evening breeze, their branch tips coated with snow turned pink as cherry blossoms by the sinking sun.


Friday, December 6, 2013

gray weather days dislike me
chattering the windows while the shedded tree sways
all one tree all one field all one cloud canopy
what passersby go - go with head nod down - no face - all one passer in one red hood
wolves, behind concrete embankments can't be bothered to spring slathering from brown leaf piles
steam heat furnaces refuse to smell of wood fire
neighbor windows dark or covered white - block any voyeuristic enterprise
snow fails to crystallize
perhaps that roiling cloud is born of doom - the horseman of exploding action
one sillhouetted bird before it, fleeing
something to pass or end the ennui

Sunday, November 24, 2013

so damn

difficult being
human
leaning back on a wall
easy elbows
smiling
"yes, tell me more"
not saying "can i lick your face" or "i'd like to punch... some.."
drink a beer, relax.
sometimes... sleepless or hurt
 I tell stories: who was i, what went right
or wrong - what could have been
done better ...often
your name comes up



Monday, November 18, 2013

chance poetry


you told me you like chance poetry 
i closed my eyes and threatened your nose
punching, blind, part aiming, part trusting: chance
you shout - the words are not my own-  new words have come by 
chance
"no" "stop" a laugh
 "don't punch" "this isn't how it goes"
sometimes fists find you
when they don't
eyes closed, 
nothing tells me where i am
where you are
laughing while i am lost
without your nose

sitting in bed

sitting, i sit
nested in: blankets pillows soft slab mattress - patterns
of knit and fabric print and the wall familiar
further out the sea )the floor is lava( and stars - glued lovingly to ceiling in 
other days
i'll get up
in other days I'll get up 
other days but now the wood floor must be cold, and laundry needs adjusting
laundry needs more than i - sitting in bed
further in: consideration: options are weighed, an unholy See )should i Rome(
options are weighed without argument. no merit. hamlet sits.
sitting. i sit. there is an impulse to rise, to walk, to go forth, but it is not an impulse
what is it? not an impulse. a thought? a possibility! there is a possibility.
why a possibility? a possibility does not move, does not become.

sitting, i sit, become aware of possibility, empty space where i am not
not standing not dressing not in the garden
nested in blankets with folds which are dry river beds where the floods rise
i sit aware i am not standing in the cold room where drafts are complaining at windows
howling angry shaking trees the winds which are pressure, air too big for staying: air becoming elsewhere
which i am not - sitting - for hours as the light draws in negative:
shadows on  the wall which are not the light; apartments in the neighborhood which are not the light;
i am not the light have i got it in me, any of the light is it in me
is each possibility equal to each other:
i am not in the kitchen as i am not in the clouds
am not the air though
i am bigger than this place -
i do not howl or shake the trees
though i imagine that door
beyond which i have greater possibility
i am not
i sit

Sunday, November 17, 2013

the urge
 to search
  not understanding
   my desire
    hate everything i find
     for being not that
      grab hungrily
       another mouthful
        of sand
         turn another rock
          type another name
           scan faces
            love memory instead
             chew my biley cud
              leave steak to rot
lay on my right side room winter bright 
heard my laugh short sharp
why did he? noticed - dresser drawers: 
10 all open, some an inch some two, and so on,
not one matched nor any sealed - i think - this is who i've 
been lifelong, and am on waking, he with no drawers closed
and laundry spilling into 
tomorrow 
the hours are equal each, the hours are unequal every
one from the next divided holy from the unholy waking from the
unwaking each from each and next from next and those
from past
"veni" from "i will"
and with whom from with whomother from the
lonely ones spent not waiting - thinking merely
looking at the stars

Saturday, November 16, 2013

no views today

few hundred packs of words are in a barrel
back of store behind the nuts
most come for flour, eggs

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

nothing left
to write
words acrostic or sonnetina
shall we dance
but i never did learn the steps
and how i'd like to ask
you
round the ball room

Friday, November 8, 2013

stopped he so at the stop bus or booth ticket exit parking
ask to 'your age' or ' like bananas'
got them talking: minute 45 out window car on story life

every day a chance walk by why feller
you what happened
me tell you
all bout it


red right hand has old scars
 like strips of someone else's body
i rub and think of blood pulling out old
skin bringing new cells like
       baby cheek material
still old right hand has scars like red
blushing fool
that time i fell i could have still
been anybody
 next day after
because another day.
hot eyes are wetter than
 afternoons in the sun - two boys in boxing gloves wax and wane at the treeline
at night no such distraction
trees in the dark and are you.
blue gloves and black gloves
was a month yesterday
i can jump rope or sleep
forgot though how to call
say 'please', 'yes', 'please'.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

your only -

 if old things
someday
have not been
but are
then please
forgive

 - to whom it may

The one about expensive flatware

These two guys walk into a desert, right?
First guy says, sure is hot
Second guy says my arms sure are tired
He was an angel
First guy says let's bury our gold
Second guy says shouldn't we profit?
First guy raises an eyebrow
Second guy smirks
They high five
second guy flies away
Bartender says nothing over four percent
First guy marries the bartender's wife
everybody high fives
Second guy loses five gold plates in vegas
Works the late night circuit
as an inspirational speaker
Gets a lot of working girls pregnant
Swears he never touched them
looks at a cloud sometimes and
Winks
or he says one time - i remember - in theater no
accidents are boring - make a choice.
so when at night i get to bed just after
you have gone
the bats know where they will roost  but
i was brought up on the 40 year plan
coming home is a cue to start over
wandering.
damn god damn
its always a flash
remember flinch explode god damn
that
one time - zigged
 instead of
left or right or didn't lean over...
or groped when the door was a way to a home i had
or snows fell every year and i wasn't born most of those
and certainly made no angel - even the best man melted dare i
look now sideways
see the green grass where my mammoth's
gone
red faced and high pitched
or
eye jelly shines in the light - brightest thing in the room
should we smile? shall we hold to
this expectation or that old habit

in a dream, close photos of faces, mine and ?her - who?
a series, like strobe capture - had we been - yes - but was it secret
and the photos gone missing

something less of a dream - glances through the curtain - or -
that first time seeing you lit on the steps
of a diner or was it? that long
night cleaning and letting you go
to sleep in a car on broad street

i had a moment wanting to follow
a long tattoo
but I have a shell here
where the tide doesn't break

at night i listen at windows for coyote calls
or some jack london sign
i should be on my way

Sunday, November 3, 2013

kicking ^ screaming = the only way to bed
drag oneself \/ another /= the only way to bed
we say "perhaps"
tomorrow we will
will we?
what waits
if it waits
we wait
are we waiting
and between us
nothing passes but time
Squirming as he is placed within a box, the cat once placed
sits comfortably observing with his various faculties the history and declension of the times
often a period of transition demands resistance
he kneads clean laundry before settling to sleep
because like me he knows perhaps
ghosts reside in familiar things


Friday, October 25, 2013

i hate that rascal
for this and that folly
the moreso he's never in reach
clenched teeth and half breaths
return like -
i fear they'll kill me
like cigarettes in a statistical manual
minutes at a time and none of the fun
and the answer stares me in the face
but who wants to be stared at
even liquor's unappealing
time to make room for

One damned shoe has followed me
while i sort, organize, clean
once found its been, without a home, like a stray
to be found everywhere
and each time i uncover it in a basket or box or by the bed or in my forgotten hand
the same dumb thought : is this the other -
no -
damn -
throw it aside and resume my busyness
it waits again

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

rocking chair. brown.
forehead scar. nearly gone.
bicycle. round wheels.
rain falls.
maybe pancakes.
one thing to do.
meanwhile, remember to breathe.
hands badly scarred. but not red in some years.
back never straight as i'd like.
used to sneak light from hall, to read
never been to London bar.
in spring I'll plant
if winter doesn't make another man
from soil and snow
and wanting

Archaeology

Artifacts are unreliable
find a crumbled paper
its exactly what it was
but i am not
be now where then
and don't fit.
the reactions are wrong
the shapes are ugly
a photo which borrowed love
doesn't return it
after
and all the digging
doesn't show
truth
just objects
which were then
as now
incidental
digging only finds
what dirt has settled over
scatters it
as though it weren't the only thing
true

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

identity case b

others,                                                                            
never having been,                                                                                                
are perfect.                                                              
they never were perfect
now they are perfect.
thus now they are.    
the many sunflowers, thick-painted
can be seen  - or - not seen.
can be seen again. not not seen again. not-seen-yet. yet not unseen.
and seen? are wholly seen.
no seed grew there.
flower/not flower
paint / not paint
what, spirit?
to see other's
one must bow.
and be no more
or be no more
i am
not of the World
the great works
were not as mine
imperfect
made

identity case

others,                                                                            
never having been,                                                                                                                
are perfect.                                                             
never were
thus now they are.    
sunflowers, thick-painted
can be seen  - or - not seen.
can be seen again. not not seen again. not-seen-yet. yet not unseen.
and seen? are wholly seen.
no seed.
flower/not flower
paint / not paint
what, spirit?
to see an other
one must bow.
and be no more
or be no more
i am
what i was
imperfect
made

Sunday, October 20, 2013

will i like tomorrow
what i like this poem this love
if i have lost the last thread of this morning's dream --
red face blond hair rocking chair jeans a fear --
will i have become
another? thus
will i like, tomorrow
this question
shall i endeavour now
what i may find tawdry
because it is grand
and i am so
grasping

must i recount

I'll narrate my self
to fishes
blub face in pond streams silver words go up
pop if it is raining mix with those ripples
if not the sun will catch above a leaf in gold fire


Saturday, October 19, 2013

These little scratchings
left on roadside posts
who is finding them

I/O

stand in a shower:
wait for the water to hit the brain
wash all the accidents,
the little noticed nothings
the binges
follies
out
make room
make room
make room
be again
that old

drink all every even soap
shit everything
rid of the old problem

aha - of course Krapp's constipated, he can't let go

and then
when you go, new baptised, to the flowering meadow
and run - arms open (slow)
who will collide

even made whole
one may emerge naked to an empty world.

Friday, October 18, 2013

mouldering in the grave
but so is that other
he's
going to glory
all matter
is great
no evil
is
 i think of you
excited
hate not having
later will i sleep
you'll sleep nomatter
all my frogging croaks
you'll live
i had my way
i'd hand on hand
smile sweat hear
"yes"
but then
no next day
"maybe"
harsh
sun

no grass holds me down
first wind
i'll blow you over
we'll find
the ocean
to settle
love
feed fish with me
love
swirl whirlwind
love
shake off
this ground
we'll not be planted

nor who i was
nor will be
here i
in michigan dolls looked down from shelves and shelves 
heads and bodies in repair
was there awindow
there were ducks in day
and a dog
here the air is different air
no water to blow over
the old quilt is dissolved
if my feet go bare in the dark
the old grass is gone
and the grandmother
and the iron for waffles
and the living room
and something of iron
i've never shot a buffalo
but still
they're shot
and i'll never belong
raised outside like a wild wolf
when the wolves are gone
but the old men still had beards
truth is,
closed windows don't stop the coming
air's not so cold
but the bugs aren't round the light they know
it's time
if i fly naked to the next light
i'll never stop wanting til
i can remember having
and shudder at being parted
every fire has burnt my wings
but there's no fire ahead
the lord has hidden behind
his mountain
all the truths 
won't stop me spin
ning
oh
ram
rama
rama rama
ram of darby
those old songs
spin on records
even when the table's turned 
its last
the ducks that nipped
have died
the labs that swam in bass lake
drowned in dirt
the graves are standing
where no visitor knows
who filled the pit with soil
by hand
grim faced
davening in bedrooms
driving the interstate between fish sandwiches
i remember walking 
barefoot
on the wood dock
into the lake
and sinking in the dark cold water
walking by fish
and seaweed
under the boats
bubbles rising across my cheeks
tickling
father swimming the surface calling "GIL"
but i 
walked to lake michigan
with the trout
and under the mud
i stayed


Thursday, October 17, 2013

i know songs i have heard
once
all our words must come from song
long ago we sang like birds
and settled for talking
i'd settle for
the right song

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

whether i touch myself
with beauty
or fingertips
i quiver
and regret

these eyes
 are strange devices whose workings are necessarily alien to kenning
though we may know rods and cones, and structure
we can not know all these in one moment
what magnificence! beyond a simple understanding, porous jellies, transmitting fragments of the universe
to our fingertips, our shoulders, our small backs, and coalescing those transmissions into tears

any understanding, which comes upon us in a moment, and grows too large to hold,
brings tears
wash us clean

NOISE IN LIFE

a little plastic
bin
off-white/cream/yellow/where the shadow is black/where the glare is bright
and marked "
grade A pequea valley farm
plain yogurt
32 oz (1 qt) 914g
bar code beautiful, melody of thin, thick, medium dark lines, white lines, silence and noise
10011010011011101010    1 0 10 OH ONE OH... two

Now we are in a red box.  The package ink is red and black.  Yogurt Red Cross. Yogurt Stendahl
ALL IN A RED BOX DOES THAT MEAN STOP

Nutrition Facts:
Serving Size 8 oz.
Servings Per Container 4
RED LINE THICK
Amount Per Serving
Red Line Thin
Calories 200 Calories from Fat 100
ReD LiNe MeDiUm ARE THESE DIFFERENT RED LINES A NEW BAR CODE OF SECRETS

% Daily Value (*!!!!!) (* TO BE REVEALED AND PERCENTAGES TO FOLLOW)
Red Line Thin
Total Fat 11g                           17%
Red Line Thin
   Saturated Fat 7g                   35%
Red Line Thin
  Trans Fat 0g                          NO INFORMATION HERE NO PARADE FOR TRANS FAT
                                                  gay pride is bought and sold now keep it pretty
Red Line Thin
Cholesterol 40mg                    13%
Red Line Thin
Sodium 105mg                         4% ((Sodium's molecular density = 0.968 g·cm−3 please calculate molarity
                                                              per serving below)
Red Line Thin
Potassium 330mg                     9%
Red Line Thin
Total Carbohydrate 18g           6% (heavy man, heavy...)
Red Line Thin
  Sugars 10g
Red Line Thin
Protein 7g
THICK RED LINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vitamin A 6& RED DOT Vitamin C 4%
Thin Red Line
Calcium 25% RED DOT Iron 0%
(now... surely many things are 0%, what makes iron so special here - convention - culture - history)
Thin Red Line
Not a significant source of dietary fiber. (nor a significant source of dinosaur dna, nor of meaning, nor of meaning, maybe only of meaning? words? nutshell dreams.. all meaning is in...)
Thin Red Line
* (at last the secret) Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 Calorie diet. Did you know Calorie was capitalized?  Calorie Johnson. Calorie Rappaport. Calorie Hardin. Calorie Cohen. Calorie you.) )
And end red box.

HOMEMADE (RED TEXT)
with golden creamy milk
from grass fed
Jersey cows. (thoity joisy cows)
(that's quite the pitch, cmon but, hey, they are good yogurt)

Ingredients: Pasteurized Whole Milk (Louis Pasteur saved lives but made milk taste terrible) and Live Active Cultures (Vaudeville though is still dead)

                 
                                  No Lid.
And the scent from the open crater
Flowers of Lemon Basil I have collected fill what once held something white
and this room is fragrant
perhaps I'll learn to sew
a sachet
of course
for you



a rule or two

The sky = all skies = sky
she = you = one she = all
and also
all shes are that one she. you she. for whomeIwrite
and all skies are this sky. which I can smell with these letters

the maya which makes all things seem not all but things
lives between letters
lives between lines
and the knowing moment which makes all seem one 

so? 
so. 

so: 
I may write for one she, but later read for another
or wonder: "who"? 
or "why"?
but did I wonder then?  and wasn't it glorious, when we danced
and I sang to you
under the light of
all lights
that one yellow 
then

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

if you go to class bring
pencils
and
extra time: saved from earlier years
do the reading before you're
born and write according to
guidelines
but be creative
don't plagiarize
cite extensively your own ideas
accept praise
and go forth
certain Moses' math, like yours, will keep broccoli
in the icebox.
At 9 : 0 6
exactly
words in the next room
and a closing phone
and soon a place to go - an outing - but the nature not wholly clear
tooth hurts where
food always jams under the gum
and flossing is like
civil war surgery
haven't had a drink in weeks though
no desire
for
a number of pleasures
waiting to return
and find the lights have
been

Monday, October 14, 2013

there is something lives in the blowing wind
behind those trees which fill the night with their shaking
over the sad flats of black vinyl which no one has bothered to etch with music
something blows which has tossed your hair
and left it behind
without regret

there is something lives in blowing wind
behind those trees which fill night with their shaking
over sad flats of black which no one has bothered to etch with music
something which has tossed your hair
and passed on

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

do you know why the caged bird
chickchirper does not go out at n
ight when alone without watching
eyes beak open the gate then tree
to tree the dark may be too much
dark even the rent-free room new
papered floor and seed it should b
e nice some time to go see others
have experience a lake or puddle
why not go just on occasion times


no no 
I'll rebel!
this 'no' 
doesn't match
the photo
make noise
if only i believed
i should

terrible smells

cat, scratching > innefectually > the old instinct useless without soil all round
and
need to change his diet
smells of death

-- and from outside

burning rubber or some
awful thing wafts in on the newly cold breeze
nothing natural makes that smell
so many generations never knew it


Monday, October 7, 2013

fear not (2)

someday:
             a new man wakes
             shakes off our old dust, which we dreaded spilling
             treads us barefoot. goes seeking.

impressions

I don't know why
the back of this desk
warms my feet.
no fire there.

--

one room has a bed
another a desk
     I
can travel to where
my function lives
or wander in -- be told -- here : sleep ; here : write; here : chewcudchew
       
can bodies be rooms
      this one : love
        this : depend
           this : discuss?

----

cold air where was warm air
that open window
where the rooms with no function have no doors
my right body colder than my left body
warm feet
crickets call
who calls me

----

we'll write our stories
and include others
if they sign off

---

jaw's tight
teeth meet teeth
holding one another in
each open mouth risks spilling a weak word
an admission --- I AM -- am not --
imagine : the burning bush... "I'm not that" "I want to be"


ramble

even metal screening
can be worn threadbare
 or worn as clothes, with bending
  what bends us more than the clothes we're given
   high heels in the hall at 3
    but ! sneakers at 10
those holes in the screen let through the world
but too small for me
like the mesh of metal over grade school windows
to keep them out or they in but I'd lose hours caught in them like spiderwebs
placing gravestones in the grey diamonds
or birds

to previous poets

and thank you,
 yes,
for permission: this arrangement
word : word -- word (word)
without which I'd be inventing
instead I swim in
your
um
I'll learn to read your alphabet
your shoulders' accents I
long at rest to be
taut, under your arms
the conjugations of your mouth
whose smile with foreign grammar
i'll be instructed in that tongue

lemon difficult

sit wait - know "should" - not know "will"  - know "word"
not words.
not which.
paint white on white - see endings - make none
who knows or do other thing
tomorrow
instead
motorcycle answers crickets
saw two foxes... one skunk... chasing
i.e. seasons/dreams/
a dragon - rounds the sun -
design our end : look forward to hindsight. what to remember, then
which photos
who to regret
who to have at bedside (boughten, satisf_)

want is
common.

we recognize it. like crickets
don't mean they should be motorcycles
if we kiss it's not "we knew" it's
"yes"
and the many "no" bring cold air over
"yes" the first snow.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Lesson, class:

We'll read caesar.
You'll be where I've been : I haven't covered my hole
Let's explore.

Oh. Swallow
Coals, my countrymen
Or are you rebel stabbing thug forgetful nomoremen
Will you reject
who loved this canon
Each canon from the civil word
Dead lines
Obscured in smoke or
Moneymakers wardens mayorpolice have read the bard
On a horse --  
eat your spinach : president someday
Not crooked
Be wise
Chip off the block
Cameras on corners uphill both ways in the snow sled rosebud ways down to the word 
all say the word with flag behind
country
men
lend me your 
lives 
due friday

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

please wait
a little longer
til I've made the necessary
measurements
ensured we fit
well enough
made room for you
or wait
til I've waited
too long
then

----

please wait
a little longer
til I've made the necessary
measurements
ensured we fit
made room for you
or til I've waited
too long
then
please wait
a while longer
til I've learned to say thank you
and you'll be fine
we'll both manage
hasn't it been
swell

stay just

please wait a while longer:
til I've learned to sum you up
and how to be who misses
rather than who means to visit
the sky distinguishes itself from wires and trees
now
I'll learn to read
the alphabet of you
the accents of your shoulder
at rest
or taut under your upraised arm
the grammar and conjugations of your brief smile
which is to show a joke
or to release what's gathered
under too long a gaze
shall i return again
to one or another crawlspace
under one or another stair
scratch my words between the cobwebs
in the soft mortar
listen, huddled, to footsteps
gloat at my secrecy.
announce to the spiders
'i am unfindable'
wait, as passersby cast shadows down the little beam of light
through the keyhole of the old wood door
and ask of each
"is it you"
"have you discovered me"

secret messages

Could we look back
after passing? Would others see?
Would you understand? I hadn't seen enough.

When we were young we would fight to be last to hang the phone.
Phones still hung then. We still cooed. She married and I went on.

Now I glance over the mirror and wonder if I'll be last to look.
I imagine you also wonder.

At night walking by this or that favorite
tree
will the branches drop fruit
for my delight

not even in my dreams
is it so
There are holes in my teeth
go all the way up to heaven
down to hell

Once someone called for help
but it was too deep
for rescue

In the light one can see glimmers
of silver, gold, geodes sparkling

in the night
one can hear
bats and forgotten creatures
from the old time.


cat litter (wartime)

I've seen a poop
hanging from another poop
by hair

I've seen
clumps on clumps
I've seen
grains kicked to the floor

I've seen
the prints of paws
where are those feet which once
there
stood

Monday, September 30, 2013

hurts 2 laugh

it's only taking deep breaths
late at night
while thinking of regret

the doctor says "well, don't move your arm like that"


2 possums fought
barking
then went their separate ways

when considering
she brushes her fingertips
on the skin  above her v cut collar


Thursday, September 26, 2013

no net

we catch eyes
laugh together
eyebrows

later:
that's a memory
til next

wanting it
while a distant siren passes

couldn't I be in that place

or would you then be strange to me
as others have been strange

these fingers glow like charcoal paper
erased where the shadow parts

words conceal meaning
like walking too slow round the moon to find the sun

certain things aren't butterflies
certain things are the air the butterflies fly through

old gray sack 1

I'll travel the long road in this old gray sack
full of geese and whatever else ordered in it
Bumped on rocks sometimes
but same old musty sack. Peek out
through the weave
like running past a wood fence to see through it
cinescope
who's carrying me
might pick me up again
shake off the dust
blown in after rain

standing still

Varieties of cricket sing
here is an article on crickets
this night is an extension of another time
I could look out this same window
The apartments over yonder
beyond the grassy hill and trees
beyond the sometimes farmland
sometimes weedy field
one cat or another might sit with me
now I wonder how I will be carried to tomorrow

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

song for woody

Hey Mr Mozart, I wrote you a song
Beethoven came to see Amadeus, study, play - not to be, for W was mad in New York dying
That man had written all the music that ever was his,
and at the end of a day all the notes can't be heard from the moon. Every day, any day, go there:
sit in the craters and listen to earth, as the men crawl dropping bombs shit curses making
no noise at all.
'Spleen' has been written. There's no need to write it again.  No one new need suffer your whims,
take joy at home.
on the keyboard, pick out old songs.  take joy.
gloria on high, on high.
there are mountains on the moon


one boy's a boy
one bird
cicadas heavy this year
squirrel's never seen a hawk. doesn't know to run.
ran a marathon once
in different shoes.
two boy's a half a boy
brother lost my bobber in the weeds one day
i never forgave because he said he'd get another, not understanding. it belonged to the dead
in those days i wanted one thing at a time
two and three magpies together, though
because i knelt weeping, asking 'please'
and still would ask, if i knew how
no boys at all
four birds
wing away

Friday, August 30, 2013

What kind of a man are you
with your hands around your knees
strangling them helpless knobs
they ain't even got
tears for you
What kind of a man are you
with the neanderthals gone
and you not even mourning
what kind of man
sees every day someone worth loving
and stays at home
avoiding sleep
Alright, of course: the moon.
Orange, large, over the houses and the trees, made of rocks, and cheese.
We go on.  Tell stories.  Because of course. The moon. Above.
The moon, of course, is
dare I go on.
The fucking audacity.
The moon's alright without us.
So. Stretching. Tired. Awake.
Avoiding sleep.  The moon remains.
On deathbeds, all around the world
the moon observes.
We say: "how beautiful."
Of course we do.  We say we're blue. We say death comes to trees and houses, orange hospitals.
Love comes under the moon,
sweaty and knowing, or secret and pining.
We can't escape it. Most of us don't bother trying. I try reading, but my fingers cross the page
and hide the text. Eclipsing it.
Crickets, outside singing. Being eaten. Eating. In the snow they're silent.
The snow, of course, is white, and pure.
The moon is cold.
These words make fun, but even in passion, yearning for the words that make moons,
am I embarrassed at my inadequacy. Or glad to reflect her.
Pale ghost of a pale ghost,
I'll sing. Like a cricket.
Call my mate.
Summer's closing, and I haven't once been lower than
the grass.

Monday, August 12, 2013

in south philly
the traffic from snyder sometimes carries
sounds of wheel and horn
people shouting
a block away, through the window you can
hear the neighborhood ebb, flow like quiet night tides
and a white door hangs crooked in the bedroom frame
in the hall the cat sometimes charges
like cavalry up stairs

in bed in the dark

two leaves on a twig of the pear tree
resemble a butterfly, landed and stretching 

i realize my glasses are on
take them off

the shapes of the world diffuse to grey cloud

in bed in the dark
surrounded by murk
like a fish in the deep ocean

the ghost of other lives



as i remember,

My parents divorced, they told me - maybe they said "separation"
and I wept for an hour or two
and then was fine
a pink book on divorce "for kids" had terrible cartoons. Worse text. I took it for amusement, let it go.
I had a new place to walk - a mile or two north. new routines, imposed. as the old routines were imposed.
I lost no control. gained no control.
what love was there remained, or didn't fall.
fights, arguments, thrown furniture, drunk slobbering hollers continued.
escapes were the same. time was slow.  sleep came uneasy.
I remained myself.

as I remember

"no way in hell" her father said.
I'd never visit. and I wasn't strong enough (so I remember, so I told myself, so I remember telling, myself)
to dissent - which this time occurred to me.  (so here it's special. as I remember.  I'd imagined rebellion, as a life choice, not kicking, but living it)
nevermind though. thought of moving up. never asked if I'd be wanted. stayed at home. wept sometimes.
became more distant from myself, as I remember. here. I wanted to be someone. I lived outside that want.
We never spoke again, after we last spoke. she and I. or that old me.  as I tell it now.  from what I remember.
there was a day spent in her town, we met and saw swans, and I didn't understand, how what seemed like a lovely day was not a sign of permanence. smiles and ease.  I've never understood, as I remember.

Then the jobs came and passed.  before and after. always fired, or disappeared one day, embarrassed, too much lateness, or argument.  One place I'd cleaned and would later pass, walking, daily, glancing over, not approaching. exit myself.

at least one river, called me in, to stay, as I remember. didn't do it.  or I did, and doing so, split, the body that drowned, the body that stayed. ghosts split apart, as I tell it.

as I remember it, I was baptised there. Immersion, mikvah, ritual drowning, shamanic practices cut you up (as I read, as I remember reading, as the words became a way I had been, as I remembered while I read, for I can remember remembering.  So doing, writing new stories, climbing the ladder to

in that river, I drowned and was reborn, never having leapt.   so lived.  so died.  so each day, as I remember, passed.

There was a time, as I remember, wholeness was me.  I'd think and do. I was myself. These days I am not myself. I am not what I would do.  This is adulthood. As I remember learning.
Respect for the wish of others.  Or for plans.  As I remember being taught to understand. Being proud to learn.

Outside could be any weather.
I could be any name.

As I remember wishing, I sit.

Poor israel.  No return will make your eden green.


Friday, August 2, 2013

i could have hugged
i yelled.
or left
or blamed
maybe I wasn't there, but
wooing
or swimming in a pool
of gin
i could have
but
where are you
i am writing fragments
another you
painting
another you
a party
another you
will marry
i'll make it right
we'll live
some other life
the dirt won't know
who's buried
be my grave
and I'll be
born

and by the way (wherein I wish I were a 'better' writer)

I've been gardening.
the handles of the hoe, fork, rake
have torn my skin to blisters.
on my right, on the thumb, just below the web
the skin is gone
is dark, is shining wet
and if I stretch my fingers wide
the skin splits.
cracks.
whole skin stretches
this, beneath, this partial skin
breaks like utah plains
and oozes
the breakfast I've wolfed
has let me leak
through a patch
of burned lost paper
red.
some people grow bone when wounded
a genetic defect
I leak, which is normal
and I stretch my fingers
breaking and tearing myself
which is normal
old scars dot my hands
around the new break
and perhaps minerals in the soil
perhaps my own chemistry
the wrecked layer sparkles
like rumpelmintz

no dignity in counting

I wrote 100
now a big deal: 101
but I'm standing over a bowl of water
observing my own urination
and I want to spin words around the pee stream
how the light catches
one side smooth
the left rough, beading
gravity and light and surface tension
time, processed through cells
the water of romulus and
what tornado took away rome's first
cumulonimbus
Coriolis
beauty in the small things
words to catch moments
flies in amber
101st poem:
inelegant words
for an elegant moment
100 miracles in a watery fall

jade plants drop leaves
those shrink, send roots
what's the interplay?
those tiny hairs, the dirt
do they welcome one another?
resent the water lost?
or
like so many exchanges
is someone eaten
is earth waiting
for the moon to sleep

I don't want that blood in my mouth
One learns to ask permission
before that, what?
Hug; kiss; send love notes. Real cute when you're four.
visit? eat. run, explore! and somewhere
sinks in: "ask first"
"please" = magic
which is bullshit.
magic = life.
love maybe.
please is devil's music
when you say it, his horns grow
but they don't tell you
so you learn
bathroom hands get raised
"may" precedes "why"
and in the night
at 2 am
you don't send love notes
without asking
please

I'd like to put my fist through
lots of things
punching air feels powerful
no resistance - present
no resistance - possible
so punch through
doors
walls
time
there's no resistance
walk back to paradise
the angel's gone fishing
eve's lonely,
like you

lyrics spin, repeating
lyrics spin
outside's a stoat winding branches
think's he's smoke
sings lyrics
repeating
"go back, go back, wait"
he sings the words I want
the weasel
trees in a rubble hill
mid city
left by accident, by oversight
til someone finds an opportunity
trees get to sway
and host stoats,
in my dreams the trees can rustle a capella
the weasels can whisper
(eat eggs)
but I'll hear (go home)
when there's no home left

arsonists burn down the places they most
wish to live



Thursday, August 1, 2013

the thing was milk white
it slid and curled,
 in and out of sight
round the base of an alanthius
 up the bark
round the branches
like light on water
I saw it
because I would not sleep
afraid of another day
cycled like a dream
when those hands
whose grip meant place
were gone, and I'd gone drifting
on the chop cold lake
with boats on the bottom from the dawn
of colonial time
and small boats from before and bodies
of believers, of the damned
of holy water love
all drowned like
clouds
dream mud dreams
forget their first morning
knowing the difference between tomorrow
and smoke

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

In patches I will strip my skin
And roll in soil
until the flesh is stinging
dark
and I am of the earth

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Black plastic bag: as used for corner liquor sales
just lay flat and died in the last green patch of grass, ragweed and mugwort
on the block north of Rising sun and the Boulevard.
All round that area treestumps blossom with stuffed bears
named for the dead, sacrificed and offered, heart and bone
to the gods of american automotive excellence
turned to meat like possums or deer
ground like burger
after being raised so carefully
and taught their figures
1 and 1 make 2
and hourglass makes a wolf whistle
grass drinks sun and rain
all the seasons pass in sequence
over the row home roofs
and the asphalt, cement, brick tile metal world
makes dens for young and old
to huddle in, til the next warm quiet day


Thursday, July 25, 2013

I'd learn french
for Brel
bengali for Tagore
persian for Rumi
music for bach
for my history, yiddish, russian, swedish, hebrew, cherokee.
welsh, for the sound.
chinese for chen taiji.
german for weltschmertz
and still
there you are
impenetrable.

copout

existing is easy
but damn I wish
a lot of things



Brick houses stand
At ridiculous attention
Like buckingham guards
Tourist trees and cats
make giggling attempts
To shake them out

Imagine the world
On fire
houses burning
Tar streets ablaze
eager seeds on updrafts
Spreading

A heat wave has broken and
colder winds carry another august
Stores change signs
Pretending, behind glass
they belong to the seasons
mannequins wear
" Your fall fashions "
In bus mirrors I wear thinning clothes
My face narrows without fat
With fewer teeth
Tonight I saw a dying raspberry
New planted
Later
A cab honked, still got stuck at red
A bartender carried her bottle opener in her right jean pocket
Like a gunfighter
Pistol ready
Took many shots
All hit
Tonight I saw the slow river
flowing in a movie paced with
The brown water
Next to me a friend
We dated in high school
Stole kisses in auditoriums
She aged like a mirror
I see her fifteen years
And more to come
other years not taken
she touched her leg in the theater, sighing
People want things in their own time
you may be inches off
they don't want you.
you're a witness
I saw billboards
Tires spinning
Drivers eager
Their best shoes useless
I have made myself a passenger
can't disembark. Can't backtrack.
to the summer
Your arms
I heard tonight a stampede clap of dress shoes on pavement
Short black dresses running
White skirts running
The whole 10th and market
Like a marathon race
From mystery to mystery
a hundred strangers
with a schedule
keeping time

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Another message typed and  left unsent
Another night of dreams of discontent
We speak, we kiss, occasionally I search for where you've gone
But always, you. Which makes my waking hours seem wan, pathetic, wasted - but - instead of dying to a final "no" I leave you be, and die in silence, slow.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

burials.

the cat's brought in by a nurse
borne high, raised in the air
like royalty
draped in a deep red knit shawl,
bedded on a blanket
produced from the corner of a pristine lab
nasa for the insides of dogs
blinking ultrasounds; shining chrome; white plastic;
rows of screens, and rolling devices
and somewhere in that, a pile of old blankets
for the king.

He's placed with ceremony on a steel slab
looks around weakly, panting
the nurse has learned eye contact
and offers "all the time you need"
but if he could "give more time" -
well, it's a cruel joke, if not meant to be 

it's a very small body under the fur.
so where the catheter and tape are wrapped
the leg's too tiny, doesn't fit the whole

the vet on call is shaking,
she's put down two of her own this year
she apologizes often, to us, and to the patient
and explains like "Naming of Parts"
"this is to flush the catheter"
"and it will be quick"
"and he may stretch"
japonica in the spring and cock the rifles
he'll be gone, 
unless we stop her pressing a plunger.

well.
it's been fifteen years
of yellow eyes engaging, disengaging,
meeting mine, or studying walls
intensely
which seemed to me uninteresting

those animals we sometimes see, meat by the road
they weren't ours
we have not seen the world with them. 

It's practice for our own mortality
or we're practicing all the time
and maybe the cat says fuck you
cause he's not practicing anything
but mostly he's grey, like the vet's two cats
and mostly he's panting
until all at once he relaxes.

There's a lot of joking
held back for the sake of strangers.
A claw catches as I lift the limp body, on that strange regal cowl of a shawl
in life he never could manage his claws
and would catch
and plead to be released from
screens, and carpets. sofas. skin.
"help".

I spoke for him often.
gave him a deep, curt voice, that said things so matter of fact. 
and as the needle goes in the catheter, full of milky fluid, and the poor vet 
allows herself to act               -           to proceed
I hear him say
"what's that thing do?"
but I don't voice it

for her sake.

Of course he's been dead for verses now
but we replay things.
trying to find what we've let go

most of my writing is moments of wish
ing back 

shoveling dirt in the height of a hot day
sweating
all the emotion is lost
muscles engaged elsewhere
lift, turn, lever, push
perhaps I'll plant a tree
I know one, still small nearby, that may be movable.

Announcing the moment
is an action 
like brushing one's teeth when one would rather not

"friends" 
with whom I never speak
now know.

the dirty secret of mourning
is life - everyone knows it - 
elephant at the cocktail party, trying to look prim
of course we see our lives still pass
still want another bite of lunch
even when our loves have left us at the altar

those deaths sting like wasps
the living leaving us
keep leaving daily
bees sting once, drop the stinger, have done
when the dead are buried, really we've let them go

pat myself on the back, for letting go.
instead of snarling.
"you weak so and so - go try again.

we're so strong
when we dig a grave
spoon dirt over it
leave rocks
tell stories... drink.                  oppressed,
by time, who leaves us standing, when we say we'd go.

but the living give us chances
to go first
we cower              -             or are you not like me?
I cower, then. the water's cold...
so after all, I'll live.

he slept like the dead, so often, I observed
teeth bared
paw in the air
curled oddly

here he is with no heart
and of course all those times
I was correct to say so.

when I have no heart
someone will bury me
and who might look for me in my old bed? you'll be looked for - not by me,
but:
someone will stand by; affect a funny voice, to mimic mine.
"Why didn't you come to my funeral"?
Didn't he always sound that way? Wondering why people had gone?
He couldn't stay present - accept what he had. Wanted someone new
or old 
or happier days.
he was a funny sort of cat




Thursday, July 11, 2013

minor edit

because you've not asked me
I have nothing to give
these words must float as clouds, like fog, obscuring light
because you must be looking past them, for the meaning
or for me
and I can't offer those
except through words,
and those not chosen but found, not arranged but scattered,
like crumbs
what would you even ask?
what answer?
if you read aloud, perhaps?
but even then. the worlds around you
are louder than these words.

Monday, July 8, 2013

listening to beethoven

at the crescendo
I'm terrified
the end is near
Remembering thirteen years
gone by in a memory
which takes no time at all
no none
how many times I've cut my nails
learned one new thing
forgotten
how I was young but old already
and hadn't met
the ones I've lost
did not know 
they were ahead 
if I'd learned to better read the road
I might have steered with confidence
and should I fear blinking
to wake with Alice's White King
or:
 hold my eyes closed?
the real terror is:
taking one slow breath
and peering past thought
to be aware...
   a moment, fully felt, is less than air
not even cold
but empty



Thursday, July 4, 2013

another new project - novel

what did mary see in her rear view?
as a car passed
3 buses lined behind hers
green the closest, then blue; red the furthest, keeping pace
as a hawk wheeled ahead and the road curved left
engines singing barbershop with the brake and gas
the mobile university
out of dickinson
onto 94
toward billings

Sunday, June 30, 2013

revisiting old work - 11/30/12

trees blossom in the brushstrokes of the world
roots unpainted
rooted in the brush
those who pass under their branches
have always lived as color
flecked into motion
if we are out of sight, behind the houses collapsing into perspective lines,
we will be always out of sight, even when those houses have crumbled
to the dusty floor of forgotten museums

Saturday, June 29, 2013

The dentist has stabbed me again
We talk of gardens and weeds
my cheek tells me it is dying
Imagine the whole body numbing
And the sound of an eternal drill

A poor swimmer

Next to you
And naked
I am too far away
Though you press
there is a river of regret
And I am on the far shore

A weed in the garden

I have worked to excise you
Though the memory is like knotweed
What should I do with you
I have not done alone?
Perhaps only enjoy more
My failing body
And laugh at how little
Wasted hours matter,
Which now seem so urgent

Friday, June 28, 2013

iambic couplet.

The schemes, it's often said, of men and mice
aft angly gang. But why? It isn't nice!

Written while sleeping

All night I've sat awake
The room too hot for rest
Now, finally: a cooling breeze!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

fragments - fish caught in the pond

indigestion at 4 am
the magic, repeating hour
how would I shape my words at 7am?

my feet have tread more carpet than rock

I should work to honor what I have

If I ceased all the activities I secretly regret, as wasteful:
what would I have left?


this cluttered house is closing on me..

If I returned myself to stillness
how long til my brain ceased begging for 'more'

I'm disappointed in people
can I still love them?

my teeth are trying to die,
are they sending signals to my body?
or receiving signals from my heart?
or are they only teeth?

I'd love to dip into a cold lake
naked
NOW
and emerge, to lay and sleep drying in the hot air

So many memories cause me to curse aloud,
surprising myself with the violence and sound
what kind of a person
builds such a history

I love gardening
digging
planting
shaping
learning the names and nature of things planned and accidental
I love it
but avoid it routinely
barely do it
habit trumps love
evolution is not progress

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

words like rain
philly's been soaked this june
I'm often surprised
by time.

inconsistency

"but I know what I like",
the old joke goes.

My likes, I discover; forget; remember with doubt.

Were you beautiful yesterday?
Was I?


silent night - edit from 6/19

My head's tucked in my arm
like the wing
of the bird who even at 4am is singing in some tree,
I feel the bicep press my temple,
my tightening jaw
but not the blood in my body
not the healing of wounds:
blisters gained in gardening;
burns seared brown while baking bread,
holes, from being, finally, left behind.
If the sunrise is coming, it's silent
if the night's slipping past, it isn't so loud as my hair rustling in hand.
and the voices that filled my ears for three decades
make not enough echo now to drown out
anything

examining a painting

I know enough to look for symmetries
blue in opposite corners
green in the others
I know to look at color
warmer colors as the eye moves in
toward the center.
Look for the center: I know this;
look for light, I know - and pools of white
prop up the thick material greens, and reds
blood in the water
or fire, hemmed in
Imagine what stories the abstractions tell: I've learned this.
And, I know what comes naturally: pareidolia,
finding faces in the fire; the sea; the mountains of paint
I've learned to find god in the mountains
burning
too great to frame
I've learned that the author is dead
or beautiful
And if figures dance in the textures of the paint
I've taught myself to dance as they do,
embody their sinew and motion
I'm discovering how to dissolve as they do


Sunday, June 23, 2013

hammering forms - slow work - sonnet attempt 2

With free verse,putting words down isn't hard:
whatever comes to mind, I write. The speed
of writing lets me drop my critic's guard -
the product though, might not be worth the read.
With structured verse, the words are hard to find
and once found, often wrong, or weak at best
I mean this exercise to stretch my mind
but so far it's my patience that's most pressed.



Saturday, June 22, 2013

learning form - slow labor - sonnet attempt 1

though we together might an hour spend
at length conversing, or in company walk
a while, we'll afterward in separation end
and be no closer for the shallow talk
we've shared. Why, then, continue stealing time
to meet, if all we gain's a few forgotten hours
that make of true friendship a pantomime
and make of us two vacillating cowards
who neither build, nor cease, but carry on
the sad charade - for habit? or for want
of imagination? should this wan
farce end, and we no longer one another haunt?
Would that our lives were once again entwined!
Else part, and each the other leave behind.
blood's slamming in my jaw
blue lines in hands
scars, years old.
disused legs shrunk and shrinking 
underwear stretched half off
genitals loose hang out
and I slouch
sweating over right words

siren's song

the cries of men
whose wood boats break
on rocks, time,  promises,
little things

How beautiful!
delicate, strong-grasping,
bodies taut at oar,
on rigging, nimble-footed
shining in the salt sun




 my dad worked in a psych ward
did wood cuts
of the patients there - he'd been sentenced when he wouldn't go to nam and they pretended not to see his objector card
so one night some guy attacked him in the hall
he wrestled in school
so he pins the guy, but is scared to let go.
and one autistic or something, stands and watches, and he shouts at him go get help
and the guy wanders off
and he just has to wait for hours, pinning, wondering will someone come.

patients

400 lbs of fury
like a demon, arms and arms
whirling

or the hallway at night, where you wrestle
he's found a knife
and you pin but hours are passing
and you've sent someone for help who only says
"eggs"

they all look so desperate
but hungry ghosts never stop eating

someone else's dream

green eyes glitter
in the dark, all on you
you've got them
lifting sticks like rain
so when it falls
every night you can
remember


go out in the woods tonight.
devil's walking stick
your cane

bears may surprise
but 6 oclock
they'll go

you can stay after
but the dark

closing round you like
 rot                                       cold
plants                                                      
lakes                                     wet

 the sun
in the morning
warms what it sees.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

door to door work

the winter was ending, and as I canvassed alone, forsithia bloomed
I'd sing "forsithia, for scythia," and I've forgot the other lyrics.
my favorite was being invited in for coffee
though the walking was pleasant too 
when it wasn't too cold.
I think I often didn't want the doors answered
when I knocked.

a bag from an art supply store
but she came to us for blue paint
and I was struck dumb
and still remember it.

a history

a deaf woman babysat
this was at the first house, so, before I turned 8.
because on the walk outside the door, there were houses all round - later, we moved to a corner.
As we struggled toward the street
she and I were angry, and whatever our conflict, we could not explain.
The weather was clear, and perhaps we were grappling
and one of us cried
I have wrapped my head in my arm
like a wing
I can hear a bird:
distant, or muted by the noise of house machines
I feel the pressure of my arm
and my tightening jaw
but not the blood in my body
or the healing of small sores - incurred in gardening or baking bread or being, finally, left behind.
I can't hear tomorrow coming - sunrise is silent.
the dread of it, or of night's slipping past, isn't so loud as my hair rustling in my fingers.
And the many voices that filled the space of thirty years
are silent though I summon them
have all my strongest passions been alone?
minding spent coals?

"it's over"
but her words were "yes".

moments of courage

soles grip ground
back fills
air to dantien
avoidance avoidance.. light
open
beyond fantasies of glimpsed beauty
or regret of lost possibility
or bitterness of time passing - no child - no second heart, arms empty or holding what is not mine
by any but my own admission
which I lack
beyond, beyond.
there are patterns everywhere.
form, collapse, wave,
I have been made to this moment
what shall I write

what should I do, to fight?
my clothes are off.
outside a bird.
inside, too many walls, with sharp corners: soul traps.
outside, no landmarks.
I  am too clumsy with weapons.
here, the hum of machines
I have no words
outside, the deep oceans, and the dark stars
how should I touch you
my legs have shrunk
there is blue in my feet
I can not earn deserving.
will not bow to beg.
there are too many raindrops.

I am grateful for joys
and I regret grasping too greedily
for those I could not hold
which was all that I've grasped for
so that now I let joys go
perhaps too easily
or orbit them making eyes
wondering might I just
once more


fear not

this ancient dust is settling with the rest
like snowcaps
it smooths the world
someday first man will wake
and find his bow
shake off the old ways
put his feet many times on our dirt
to discover his words

---

someday:
             a new man wakes
             shakes off our old dust, which we dreaded spilling
             treads us barefoot. goes seeking.

rambling

Electric light's a tyranny - how can one choose not to illuminate the night hours?
Light pollution's no wonder except that we can see the stars at all.

And at the same time I struggle to darken the white page.
Are ideas light or dark or particles or waves or shadows of quantum spin...

Am I darkening the page (darken my doorstep) or lighting the night?
Certainly not with anything too bright... I feel like a monkey flapping its lips

"Abadabadaba said the monkey"
But that means I love you...  (and oh how I do)

"Down there where the monsters lurk in the depths of your internal being", vamps Jean Shep over radio static, his words bouncing back from 6/18/65, ringing in my ears around the early hints of inherited tinitis...  my father calls the high sounds "crickets" but I don't detect enough range.. more like a wine glass someone played 20 years ago on the table after dinner, the sound remembering to echo again.

My teeth are rotten.  Those that still have feeling hurt.

But I still want new lips to kiss, if I can't have the lips that fit (not enough tar to keep cinderella)

Blank pages are infinitely empty.
I used to be across the street.
Many nights at the neighbor's house.
Days in school. How many? More days than I recall.  Which is to say I recall so little...
Mary had a little school - it was full of horror.

They're closing them now.

Perhaps if the prisons burst we'll learn the new laws.

RIP the black rhino, whose horn is now more valuable than ever... whose call, if we could only emulate...
but we'll never be a rhinoceros.  We're just monsters now.  We'd like to change but we can't.

I'll stand at the asterisk, and put my head into the outdoor air, and hoot.  You do it too.

*

It wasn't a very good hoot.  I'll never be an owl - I'm the last human left.

I and you.

Was it unfair to place demands on you?

Well.

Here we are.

Perhaps we'd best promise to call, and you can let me out in the morning.

I'll find coffee somewhere.  I know how to do it.  So don't mind turning the page.  You'll find work to do.


Monday, June 17, 2013

those 60s bond girls now are old

watching someone walk in an old home movie

they aren't walking now - if they're even living

but we see them - smiling, opening some gift, riding a pig

maybe we see them stare, catch a moment of stillness

I have some nights, up all night churning words to butter,
nevermind if it's fit for bread

other nights, like this one, spent writing one word and deleting it,
repetition like a mad man,

breaks to pace the hall and think "when this is read, who will I be"


Saturday, June 15, 2013

I want to consume what I see: 
                                                       she's tall
                                                       her angles spell "touch"   
 c'mon, the reason comes after
we know what we want

                                                                             
                                                   I don't pursue
 I have done, but that ended.
                                                  
haha.
         I can show you a porch where tears dried in a bubble
            but I still want to conquer.
                                                                           there's kinski on his raft, surrounded by monkeys.
                                                                                   had herzog threatened him yet, with a gun
                                                                                          
all this desire
without end.                                                                            without aim.

                           it's easy enough to be hungry.


critique

these poems
I think, are vague
because of cowardice.

which was the first hospital?


there was a visit I had to be snuck in
because children were infectious
a bed against a wall
another smaller bed more centered
one on wheels
aunt laughed in a metal frame
another slept bloated.
grandfather in tubes
mother down a long hallway
bald or maybe bald later.
I don't remember ever holding hands,
not once, with anyone.
that's something people do though
and they cry
I don't remember, not once, entering, or exiting.
I'll pay attention next time, I'll remember.
whichever school it was
outside was all cement
fenced in
vast
with no dimensions
and we pressed our fingers to our eyes
calling powers from beyond

much later I said "remember"?
and he laughed. "scorn. that was pretend."
i didn't answer - but mourned.
i'd thought we were pretending together.

dim memories of play

i think in an office                                        
a girl made me clay                                                a game.
and formed me after                                  
into flesh                                                       did we reverse then?          

if she had waited                                                 many years
we could have been flesh together


(this is a true story, though I'm unsure of it)

on the schoolbus a friend put salt in my hair
the seats were green                                                  maybe it was all indoors
many drivers different years -
then ran his hand through my hair
and the salt fell and fell                                                  did it happen at all
been falling ever since
eew he said
and I think,
when my eyebrows flake,
or my ears leave layers under my fingernails
if he hadn't thrown salt,
would I now be dissolving

I stole your name
but names are old magic - I did it quickly, desperate,
and you stole something of mine




many times, my clumsy feet traced the steps I saw you dance
 that night
in your living room my face grew hot
and I'll try to dance now
but staring at the far night
I grow quite still
tonight
your ghost again.

I'll seance
and discover you
summoning me in the dark
all along


let's have power.

you spoke like an ape.
    some repetition of another's words
I thought you were
wanted to tear you apart
 with my teeth
    hear you ask "again"
there on the table

 if your leg had brushed 
mine.
mine, again,
I'd have done it.


Friday, June 14, 2013

sleeping woman on the train


Her eyes are closed - just so -
The corners of her mouth are smiling
eyebrows arched
hair piled
she is kitesvara
When her head nods forward
the sun sets
When she disembarks
another incarnation boards.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

fever. restless.
 think of names like mantras, now unspoken, now rotten, in the recesses of old pulled teeth.
scratch at bug bites.  lick them.  who has touched me there?
 is it the old touch or the absence that itches

when a voice in the night is thinner than radio
"goodnight" not even so warm as a blanket
I hurl myself into cold rivers, old depths, but one can't drown in thought
not peacefully.

torn letters


I'm cut by "time's old thornes"
but really just by cruelty: mine and theirs,
really just grasping - nevermind too tight or not enough
just me now.
                   hearing the same old pulse.
wishing on it - like one learns to do, on hairs, and on bones,
 on things that break, and blow.
I've followed my heart to dark places
and it's racing ahead to the end
and I can't let it go.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Yes it's pulsing. I think of you often. Nothing to do with you. Though. It could be.
If I say your name like a mantra
If I draw our meeting
If your shoes are filled with voodoo
but you're off again, away, like
that morning we drank coffee, after
I'd slept under your creaking floor
wishing the bus still ran.
even face to face, you lived too far off
Like visiting an
Aquarium, glass clear but firm,
Made of lost time, or many betrayals, or youth or strangeness, me with hand on...
Glass again, very wet behind, and if I joined you, drowning
Always the trouble with yous,
with mermaids, with holding too tight one's own hard demands
or fantasies
Easily exploded by the suck of time
by more than waiting
memory has you always smiling
never with your back on me
a smile that first smile or
an ecstacy if we got there
never leaving me at the door
in the morning to find my own breakfast in the rain.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

some faces haunt
or I haunt them
one passing sight prompts
yearning for a year
one gone with errors
 leaves me guilty, waiting to apologize,
will you forgive me, if I return?
if I don't leave?  If I meet you, for the first time, saying
"I have wanted this?"


certain ideas take root like weeds.
"control".
perhaps one prays,
or builds a house, or reads.
perhaps a certain god can answer.
maybe spirits come,
or protests in the square bring change,
or letters to the officers keep bombs from falling.
at night, if sleep won't come, then,
tomorrow, maybe,
wait.

ancestors

above oklahoma
one was adopted.
in kiev another fled a czar.
someone tailored for a king
our rabbi spoke in yiddish, I listened for the english,
words like stray dogs, wandering.

I'll feel foolish, even in the fog, even under an eerie moon.

grandfather sat in his chair
napped when tired
I struggled for words
if I found them it was after cancer wasted him
and he was buried in טלית and a box.

If I try to remember the other grandfather, grandmother,
it's ducks I remember, by the porch, or dolls, in the room I'd visit, piled high and watching me
or the dog nearly eating rhubarb leaves,
or a boat.  It's a window I could climb in, by the lawn, or half a dozen other broken fragments.
I can dance on the shards
in the old graves,
sing old songs at midnight,
but they'll stay buried.
leaves fall like coins,
I may follow their path
or see the bare branch
or the pile on the ground
but in spring, what will they be.
with me, many leaves,
my father fleeing one thing to another
I led through old houses,
refusing to live at home
wondering which ancestors
will open their arms

Suddenly.


Spit catches in my throat
rain overflows the garden.
choking, I sit, stand, sit.
Birds will flap in the street.
wingbeats like drums.
I'll inhale, exhale, rasp, refuse
a man in the clouds plays violin, sans bow
pulls a strand of gut over the strings,
sings, over the narrow streets, and chagall's cows, and the moon.