Thursday, December 23, 2010
Looking for Believers --After Jeffrey McDaniel
If you chop off your arm or a finger or a hand when you are, say, sawing boards, you look at the limp piece that was part of you a second ago and scream, right? Not from the pain. From the horror of the thing-that-was-you now only a thing. I wonder if it is like that on the way to Heaven.
How to Rehydrate an Old Relationship
1. Cut off any rotten parts, freezerburn, or mold. 2. Chop the relationship into 1-inch pieces. 3. Heat a pot of water until you get a rolling boil. 4. Add the relationship to the pot and boil uncovered for one minute. 5. Remove from heat and allow to completely cool. 6. Repeat boiling and cooling. 7. Repeat steps 1-6. 8. Repeat steps 1-7.
Lessons in Housebuilding
I built my house
from my parents’ bones.
Every wall that sagged,
they extracted a bony pillar
to prop me up,
kept my crags from cracking,
crutched me under legs.
Soon I was the roof
over their heads.
They crawled under me,
rolling like deflated tires.
I tripped over their
sad rounded backs
with my bony stilts.
They said they couldn’t
see me way up there,
so I ripped apart my frame
and took the bones to the trash
like yesterday’s chicken picked clean.
I wobbled on the rubbery red
ropes holding me together.
I learned to stand all over again.
They watched me walk with such pride
that I bowed
as they showered me with the nails
that had once held us together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
from my parents’ bones.
Every wall that sagged,
they extracted a bony pillar
to prop me up,
kept my crags from cracking,
crutched me under legs.
Soon I was the roof
over their heads.
They crawled under me,
rolling like deflated tires.
I tripped over their
sad rounded backs
with my bony stilts.
They said they couldn’t
see me way up there,
so I ripped apart my frame
and took the bones to the trash
like yesterday’s chicken picked clean.
I wobbled on the rubbery red
ropes holding me together.
I learned to stand all over again.
They watched me walk with such pride
that I bowed
as they showered me with the nails
that had once held us together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Possible Reactions to a Poem (acrostic)
Vehicle of mouth, lend me your
Open gates! Spew from the tombstone teeth
My every ugly lie and with
It, every ugly truth that lives
There, shaking the bars to get out.
Crack your damn eggs if you must.
Release your deadborn insides, the baby of
Your newborn soul wet and naked.
Lower your bottom jaw on its hinge
And empty your lungs to the sky.
Understand one thing when it comes,
God had nothing to do with it.
He didn’t make this storm. I did.
Sorry to hear about your outbursts,
Lady. My face hurts but yours is killing me!
And mop up the stink you left in the room!
Please. Thank you. Don’t come again.
Crinkle cheeks, stay away.
Raisin yourself in the sun.
I don’t want your sour puss.
Neither does anyone, even
God. You get out the door.
Everyone is catching on.
Open gates! Spew from the tombstone teeth
My every ugly lie and with
It, every ugly truth that lives
There, shaking the bars to get out.
Crack your damn eggs if you must.
Release your deadborn insides, the baby of
Your newborn soul wet and naked.
Lower your bottom jaw on its hinge
And empty your lungs to the sky.
Understand one thing when it comes,
God had nothing to do with it.
He didn’t make this storm. I did.
Sorry to hear about your outbursts,
Lady. My face hurts but yours is killing me!
And mop up the stink you left in the room!
Please. Thank you. Don’t come again.
Crinkle cheeks, stay away.
Raisin yourself in the sun.
I don’t want your sour puss.
Neither does anyone, even
God. You get out the door.
Everyone is catching on.
How the Magic Gets In
It’s here. Right now. Sitting in this room.
Stuffed between these two lines.
And these.
It’s in a photograph
of a smile that’s now
buried under Eastern Europe.
It’s in the Eucharist
when a bell chimes
three times.
It’s in the kitchen
before we blow out
the candles.
It’s in the eyes of lovers
when they know
it’s no one else.
How does it get in?
Does it settle like fog,
or sunlight on a seed?
It comes the way
open pipes breathe
into the kitchen
and the bathroom the earthy
scent of rivers.
Everything
drains in a second.
But it’s not gone.
It goes to live on:
underground,
in our bodies,
in your pages,
and every other elsewhere.
Stuffed between these two lines.
And these.
It’s in a photograph
of a smile that’s now
buried under Eastern Europe.
It’s in the Eucharist
when a bell chimes
three times.
It’s in the kitchen
before we blow out
the candles.
It’s in the eyes of lovers
when they know
it’s no one else.
How does it get in?
Does it settle like fog,
or sunlight on a seed?
It comes the way
open pipes breathe
into the kitchen
and the bathroom the earthy
scent of rivers.
Everything
drains in a second.
But it’s not gone.
It goes to live on:
underground,
in our bodies,
in your pages,
and every other elsewhere.
When Poetry breaks in
at night, it won’t want to leave.
It will crawl into your bed
and when you go rigid and say:
My mother warned me about you!
Poetry will laugh and say:
Baby, how do you think she knew?
It will crawl into your bed
and when you go rigid and say:
My mother warned me about you!
Poetry will laugh and say:
Baby, how do you think she knew?
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Bellows
I am the faded Mexican flag draped across a window, I am the red and yellow leaves skimming across the pavement, I am the greasy fried food on the corner of Mission, the young man on a bike racing past cars that got the green, the Laffy Taffy wrapper clinging to the drain, the marijuana smoke wafting from a basement-level apartment, I am the piles of dog shit drying inside the white fence, I am the ceramic carousels in an old lady’s windowsill, I am the day-glo orange WIC ACCEPTED sign on a gas-station door, I am the air curling in an empty dumpster and lifting to frost the tips of trees, I am the stones folded into the pavement, so tiny and so many.
Your Corduroy Pants
at it
all day
that noise
all day
you move
they move
one sound
each way
two sounds
these them
you are
out here
cold air
dead here
dark street
one pair
all day
that noise
all day
you move
they move
one sound
each way
two sounds
these them
you are
out here
cold air
dead here
dark street
one pair
Covered Acrostic
Cock calling in the ay-em fog that’s settling
On overlapping blades of grass:
Vespers for the coming sun.
Evening turning its back,
Rowing out to sea.
Even the red barn has
Drowned in this thick lake.
On overlapping blades of grass:
Vespers for the coming sun.
Evening turning its back,
Rowing out to sea.
Even the red barn has
Drowned in this thick lake.
Massey-Inspired Poems
cat, your belly falls
and rises like a bellows
blowing some kindling of whiskers
* * *
every circle in my room
is a clock
when their faces dial on mine
* * *
A desk crafted last century
has its knuckles
cracking. If you listen long enough.
and rises like a bellows
blowing some kindling of whiskers
* * *
every circle in my room
is a clock
when their faces dial on mine
* * *
A desk crafted last century
has its knuckles
cracking. If you listen long enough.
Back to July 4, 1994
Colors bloom in the sky.
I am six years old
and parked in a folding chair
on the neighbor’s lawn.
The hill ahead of me rises
into soft lines against
the black backdrop.
Before the next explosion.
Before I drive past this hill ten years later and go cold.
Before I pilgrim here the next year and sit where it happened.
I am six.
I have never seen the sky
so beautiful
and terrifying.
Before your blood soaked clothes in a paper bag,
when mom showed me the visor of your hat, the splatters there.
This is what happened to Dad. This shirt is green, not brown. That’s the blood.
Before the years of flinching.
It felt like a sledgehammer hit me in the face.
Before I thought of my eyes as popable balloons of fluid
and yours the dice of snakes.
The sky lights up in one final show:
a red beacon back and forth.
My mother runs up the hill,
her chair toppling.
The sky hangs black and silent,
the hill swelling like a wave
that will cap and wash over me,
tumbling my parents
with its muscle
and burying us in its wake.
I am six years old
and parked in a folding chair
on the neighbor’s lawn.
The hill ahead of me rises
into soft lines against
the black backdrop.
Before the next explosion.
Before I drive past this hill ten years later and go cold.
Before I pilgrim here the next year and sit where it happened.
I am six.
I have never seen the sky
so beautiful
and terrifying.
Before your blood soaked clothes in a paper bag,
when mom showed me the visor of your hat, the splatters there.
This is what happened to Dad. This shirt is green, not brown. That’s the blood.
Before the years of flinching.
It felt like a sledgehammer hit me in the face.
Before I thought of my eyes as popable balloons of fluid
and yours the dice of snakes.
The sky lights up in one final show:
a red beacon back and forth.
My mother runs up the hill,
her chair toppling.
The sky hangs black and silent,
the hill swelling like a wave
that will cap and wash over me,
tumbling my parents
with its muscle
and burying us in its wake.
The Afterlove (revised)
is the pulpy red organ
born after love has been
born and died.
Your body coughs it up;
glopping red on white tile.
Nobody talks about it
but it is there.
Not even you know
it is there until
weeks or years later
when you hole your fist
into its cave in your chest
and feel the familiar weight
that used to sit,
hear the echo of its beating.
All this time it shriveled
behind your bed and the wall,
waiting.
You wake up swallowing
something that crawled in your mouth
and slid down your throat
while you were sleeping.
Are you imagining it?
No. You feel it, moving down,
as it becomes a part of your body now,
as it blends with the other red pulp inside.
You can never separate the two.
born after love has been
born and died.
Your body coughs it up;
glopping red on white tile.
Nobody talks about it
but it is there.
Not even you know
it is there until
weeks or years later
when you hole your fist
into its cave in your chest
and feel the familiar weight
that used to sit,
hear the echo of its beating.
All this time it shriveled
behind your bed and the wall,
waiting.
You wake up swallowing
something that crawled in your mouth
and slid down your throat
while you were sleeping.
Are you imagining it?
No. You feel it, moving down,
as it becomes a part of your body now,
as it blends with the other red pulp inside.
You can never separate the two.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Afterlove
is the pulpy red organ
born after love has been
born and also died.
Nobody talks about it
but it is there.
Not even you know
it is there until
weeks or years later
when it slides
down your throat and refuses
to leave.
You wake up swallowing
something that crawled in your mouth
while you were sleeping.
Are you imagining it?
No. It’s definitely there.
You can feel it, moving down,
as it becomes a part of your body now,
as it blends with the other red pulp inside.
You can never separate the two.
born after love has been
born and also died.
Nobody talks about it
but it is there.
Not even you know
it is there until
weeks or years later
when it slides
down your throat and refuses
to leave.
You wake up swallowing
something that crawled in your mouth
while you were sleeping.
Are you imagining it?
No. It’s definitely there.
You can feel it, moving down,
as it becomes a part of your body now,
as it blends with the other red pulp inside.
You can never separate the two.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
How I Drowned
In what box will I place you
under my bed?
At night your dreams
will rise to meet me.
My bedroom door will open as if the wind
called it.
Instead of black empty hallway,
you will be there.
Your chest the soft warm carapace
of night.
Your lips the water that lives
in rivers.
Your siren call will bring me
to you.
I will follow you
to the Sound.
In the morning,
I will wonder what brought me
to this riverbank
as I choke on the water in my lungs.
under my bed?
At night your dreams
will rise to meet me.
My bedroom door will open as if the wind
called it.
Instead of black empty hallway,
you will be there.
Your chest the soft warm carapace
of night.
Your lips the water that lives
in rivers.
Your siren call will bring me
to you.
I will follow you
to the Sound.
In the morning,
I will wonder what brought me
to this riverbank
as I choke on the water in my lungs.
Observations of My Arm
Hair grows out of my arm two or three
strands to a pore.
It shines like filaments of gold in the lamplight.
I am reminded that we have the same
number of hairs as a chimpanzee,
our distant cousin who never learned to stand,
never got that muscle memory deep into her thighs and followed it.
Pigment as dark as earth floats to the top layer of my skin in dots,
like a lily pad extending to the sun.
I am all mammals beneath their fur – pale, white, sunless.
But these freckles remind me that I was there and back again,
that every memory within me has its place.
strands to a pore.
It shines like filaments of gold in the lamplight.
I am reminded that we have the same
number of hairs as a chimpanzee,
our distant cousin who never learned to stand,
never got that muscle memory deep into her thighs and followed it.
Pigment as dark as earth floats to the top layer of my skin in dots,
like a lily pad extending to the sun.
I am all mammals beneath their fur – pale, white, sunless.
But these freckles remind me that I was there and back again,
that every memory within me has its place.
Letter to t he Boy Who Taught Me Stars
Cody, you were always ahead of me
and when I started kindergarten,
I wanted to know how the teacher
made stars.
Our mother tried to show me to draw them
Our brother tried to show me to draw them
but you brought me to our bedroom window,
exhaled clouds onto the pane,
and wrote with your finger
in the dissolving language of the sky.
and when I started kindergarten,
I wanted to know how the teacher
made stars.
Our mother tried to show me to draw them
Our brother tried to show me to draw them
but you brought me to our bedroom window,
exhaled clouds onto the pane,
and wrote with your finger
in the dissolving language of the sky.
The Bad Tea Party Room
When I misbehaved as a child,
my parents never punished me.
They never hit or spanked or timed out.
Instead, they dressed me in a tiny Victorian suit
and served me tea in gold-leafed china
and sat me at my short, plastic table
in the Bad Room, saying into my ear, “Is this what you want?”
“Do you know what we had to go through?”
my parents never punished me.
They never hit or spanked or timed out.
Instead, they dressed me in a tiny Victorian suit
and served me tea in gold-leafed china
and sat me at my short, plastic table
in the Bad Room, saying into my ear, “Is this what you want?”
“Do you know what we had to go through?”
The Study of Cycles
I heard of a cicada whose eggs lie dormant
underground for seventeen years.
I don’t know why it is seventeen years
but a molecule of carbon will
be alive forever.
A rock will be alive forever.
Today a rock tomorrow mineral in the soil
and then next Tuesday a wisp of cornsilk on my kitchen floor.
You can never step on dead ground
and even the beginning of Spring, with all its flurry of seed,
is the end of winter
and the draining of water
across a bare ribcage.
underground for seventeen years.
I don’t know why it is seventeen years
but a molecule of carbon will
be alive forever.
A rock will be alive forever.
Today a rock tomorrow mineral in the soil
and then next Tuesday a wisp of cornsilk on my kitchen floor.
You can never step on dead ground
and even the beginning of Spring, with all its flurry of seed,
is the end of winter
and the draining of water
across a bare ribcage.
Piano Love Ballad (For Mom)
The mother’s foot
squashed a rat eating corn
on the basement stairs.
Nobody ever told her
the groundwater was poisoned
that she pushed between the lips
of her fat-headed colicky baby
or that the spit-rashed boy
who tore off his clothes
would grow up like a tree trunk
and have hair that shines
in the late
October sun.
And that before she knows it
his hair has filaments
of gray
and he has burrowed himself
deep into the lakebottom sand
to wait for whatever flood comes
squashed a rat eating corn
on the basement stairs.
Nobody ever told her
the groundwater was poisoned
that she pushed between the lips
of her fat-headed colicky baby
or that the spit-rashed boy
who tore off his clothes
would grow up like a tree trunk
and have hair that shines
in the late
October sun.
And that before she knows it
his hair has filaments
of gray
and he has burrowed himself
deep into the lakebottom sand
to wait for whatever flood comes
Love World
The population is nearing 20 billion? you ask and I say
Shhh and run my hands through the digital cables
running from your skull and kiss your radioactive forehead.
I will always be here for you.
Shhh and run my hands through the digital cables
running from your skull and kiss your radioactive forehead.
I will always be here for you.
Winter Fire
It’s eighty-five in here.
My father
lit a fire in the new fireplace.
The tea’s gone cold.
The dog’s run off.
Everyone around me is smiling together
and rattling ice cubes in high-ball glasses.
I look for a safe place to stand
among these statues.
I land in front of the fire, the heat shrinking my skin.
I realize I’m older than I’ve ever been
as I watch the clock wind down
and the snow stack on the eaves.
Even the birds know when to leave.
My father
lit a fire in the new fireplace.
The tea’s gone cold.
The dog’s run off.
Everyone around me is smiling together
and rattling ice cubes in high-ball glasses.
I look for a safe place to stand
among these statues.
I land in front of the fire, the heat shrinking my skin.
I realize I’m older than I’ve ever been
as I watch the clock wind down
and the snow stack on the eaves.
Even the birds know when to leave.
Slipped Disc (for Dad)
His gasket blew.
He was running fine,
hoisting his body to work every morning,
bending at the waist and
reaching above his head,
until wham!
A transmission slipped
along his spine,
a deteriorated disc
caked with rust
finally skidded
to a stop.
It took every doctor
to check under the hood,
to bleed his brakes,
to test his fluids with a dipstick.
But they finally
built him back up
and all it took
were the right parts.
He was running fine,
hoisting his body to work every morning,
bending at the waist and
reaching above his head,
until wham!
A transmission slipped
along his spine,
a deteriorated disc
caked with rust
finally skidded
to a stop.
It took every doctor
to check under the hood,
to bleed his brakes,
to test his fluids with a dipstick.
But they finally
built him back up
and all it took
were the right parts.
Heirloom
A team of seamstress crows
takes to wing,
seaming the two halves of treetops together.
One side of the road to the other.
Repairing the wound
left
to unite us.
takes to wing,
seaming the two halves of treetops together.
One side of the road to the other.
Repairing the wound
left
to unite us.
I have been writing like a fiend.
Oh man! I have two poetry classes this semester and a fiction class. I'm reading so much that I'm writing in higher volumes, and producing higher quality work. Hopefully I will keep it up. As it is now, I write about a poem a day!
Monday, June 21, 2010
We all know love is not like in the movies
but that doesn't stop a million players
in a million roles from saying their lines
on cue.
Cupid's aim is horrible and his bow bent.
More of a little devil than a little angel.
We know love is not like in the movies.
No serendipity.
No long-lost-reunited flames.
No kiss at the end that means they can be happy now.
No soul mates.
Yet when we watch these films,
we still think that with enough wishing,
we will all feel Cupid's arrow
and the world will be right.
We still feel the piercing blow of jealousy
in our Achilles heel
like when the birthday girl gets
the impractical gift of a pony,
ripe with a fluffy pink bow,
even though years later
the girl will be grown
and have to watch her pony die.
in a million roles from saying their lines
on cue.
Cupid's aim is horrible and his bow bent.
More of a little devil than a little angel.
We know love is not like in the movies.
No serendipity.
No long-lost-reunited flames.
No kiss at the end that means they can be happy now.
No soul mates.
Yet when we watch these films,
we still think that with enough wishing,
we will all feel Cupid's arrow
and the world will be right.
We still feel the piercing blow of jealousy
in our Achilles heel
like when the birthday girl gets
the impractical gift of a pony,
ripe with a fluffy pink bow,
even though years later
the girl will be grown
and have to watch her pony die.
When I watched a documentary on factory workers
in China
I wept
less than three dollars
for fourteen hours
I think of Ginsberg's America
his two-dollars-thirty-seven-cents
this was the girl's bright future
a girl my age
twenty-one this was her
better life
away from the farm her parents keep
with arthritic knuckles
sunrise to set sunrise to
set
they believe
our American dream
I read once that a liter
of diesel fuel
does the work of a thousand
hands
how many now
hang idle
like the stars glittering in the gap
between now and later between
someone else's world
and mine
littering the road
or stepping stones to
salvation
I wept
less than three dollars
for fourteen hours
I think of Ginsberg's America
his two-dollars-thirty-seven-cents
this was the girl's bright future
a girl my age
twenty-one this was her
better life
away from the farm her parents keep
with arthritic knuckles
sunrise to set sunrise to
set
they believe
our American dream
I read once that a liter
of diesel fuel
does the work of a thousand
hands
how many now
hang idle
like the stars glittering in the gap
between now and later between
someone else's world
and mine
littering the road
or stepping stones to
salvation
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Art
Art is the ugliest word, isn't it?
Here is an uncropped picture of a print done by Russ Jensen in 2005.
Short, weird poems
These last four poems are not something I usually write, but I was on a bend the other night. I rather like them. I'm trying to be more concise.
I want to move to Scandinavia
without telling anyone.
and throw my phone in the trash.
Then at least the garbage
will have a new friend.
and throw my phone in the trash.
Then at least the garbage
will have a new friend.
I heard your grandma died.
I’m sorry.
I liked her.
But you’re here now
And someone
has to empty
the house.
I liked her.
But you’re here now
And someone
has to empty
the house.
If you have to read a book
I have two bookshelves of
things I used to look at
and used to like.
please don’t add
another.
things I used to look at
and used to like.
please don’t add
another.
If you are going to get married
please don’t do it to me.
don’t dress me in that dress.
it’s too white.
and anyway,
you make the coffee too strong.
don’t dress me in that dress.
it’s too white.
and anyway,
you make the coffee too strong.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Here is where I grew upwards; Here is where my roots grow down
My dad lit a woodfire
before going to bed.
In the sighing quiet
of the night, I decided to
let the dog in to warm himself
while I read by the
living light of a treestump
that had sprouted a hundred years
before I was born.
I stepped outside the box
of the home I grew up in
to call the dog in a whisper.
My body weight packed the gray snow
as I waded away
from the orange-lit windows.
Farther and farther
with quivering skin.
My breath was the only fog
between me and the black, black
distance of the extinct starlight.
I heard every whisper
uttered by the bare purple lilac branches,
the waist-length grass of the field
burdened with snow,
the centenarian cellar deep below.
My dog approached me, having heard
my footsteps.
He watched me for a moment,
both of us sharing the same
cold air tonight,
both of us revolving
around the sun.
I smile and he trots over,
wagging his black tail against my thigh.
I want to stay out here and do
as dogs do,
running from field to field,
sniffing low to the ground
and finding the woods behind
the house an alien planet
with a familiar geography.
But I’m cold. I will never
live here and my dog’s
brown eyes wait for me to move.
We were both born
into an old world,
yet you can hardly
call us children.
How did we begin
to call this place ours?
before going to bed.
In the sighing quiet
of the night, I decided to
let the dog in to warm himself
while I read by the
living light of a treestump
that had sprouted a hundred years
before I was born.
I stepped outside the box
of the home I grew up in
to call the dog in a whisper.
My body weight packed the gray snow
as I waded away
from the orange-lit windows.
Farther and farther
with quivering skin.
My breath was the only fog
between me and the black, black
distance of the extinct starlight.
I heard every whisper
uttered by the bare purple lilac branches,
the waist-length grass of the field
burdened with snow,
the centenarian cellar deep below.
My dog approached me, having heard
my footsteps.
He watched me for a moment,
both of us sharing the same
cold air tonight,
both of us revolving
around the sun.
I smile and he trots over,
wagging his black tail against my thigh.
I want to stay out here and do
as dogs do,
running from field to field,
sniffing low to the ground
and finding the woods behind
the house an alien planet
with a familiar geography.
But I’m cold. I will never
live here and my dog’s
brown eyes wait for me to move.
We were both born
into an old world,
yet you can hardly
call us children.
How did we begin
to call this place ours?
My Body is Named With It
My joints creak with your
absence as if I am years older.
Bones meet,
crippling themselves with their
own mechanism.
I click when I walk,
the pocks in my sockets
rap a staccato rhythm.
Aching marrow inverts the
dark hollows of my body—
atriums, wombs, cavities,
sick puss suddenly released
into my blood.
My tongue tastes
the bitter vinegar of loneliness.
The cool spackle on white drywall
feels like diagrams
under my fingertips
that map my biology—
Pelvic.
Bowls and floors.
I can no longer eat.
My stomach shrivels acidic and dark.
These sockets are empty.
This coupling of bone
on a hinge has grown hard.
Two moving planes that
meet in one place—breaking.
absence as if I am years older.
Bones meet,
crippling themselves with their
own mechanism.
I click when I walk,
the pocks in my sockets
rap a staccato rhythm.
Aching marrow inverts the
dark hollows of my body—
atriums, wombs, cavities,
sick puss suddenly released
into my blood.
My tongue tastes
the bitter vinegar of loneliness.
The cool spackle on white drywall
feels like diagrams
under my fingertips
that map my biology—
Pelvic.
Bowls and floors.
I can no longer eat.
My stomach shrivels acidic and dark.
These sockets are empty.
This coupling of bone
on a hinge has grown hard.
Two moving planes that
meet in one place—breaking.
Nature's Laws are Constant
and this has always been always.
When I was a child,
I was afraid of thunderstorms
at night
and I would look to the
purple horizon
as it quivered with lightning
and think it
was a hand reaching
for me
out of the soft
veiny folds of the night sky.
I was aware of my wet brain
and spindly limbs
close to the ground.
Now, I want
to stand exposed to the storm –
the clash of thunder
the thrill of being so small,
just a wet brain in an empty field.
Now, I want
to feel those arms around me
and forgive them
for what they have done.
For lighting that first fire
in all of us.
When I was a child,
I was afraid of thunderstorms
at night
and I would look to the
purple horizon
as it quivered with lightning
and think it
was a hand reaching
for me
out of the soft
veiny folds of the night sky.
I was aware of my wet brain
and spindly limbs
close to the ground.
Now, I want
to stand exposed to the storm –
the clash of thunder
the thrill of being so small,
just a wet brain in an empty field.
Now, I want
to feel those arms around me
and forgive them
for what they have done.
For lighting that first fire
in all of us.
A Funny Logic (Revised)
Summer made you drip
and sing wind
like a leaf on a tree
like a leaf on a tree
Your body has to run inside these colors
It has to exhale
flocks of sparrows
from a bough
that shudders
Sand in my hands
cupped like the bowl
of your hips
Our bodies have to ripple into waves
You chose me
You chose me
to jump with
and hold our breaths
like a leaf on a tree
and sing wind
like a leaf on a tree
like a leaf on a tree
Your body has to run inside these colors
It has to exhale
flocks of sparrows
from a bough
that shudders
Sand in my hands
cupped like the bowl
of your hips
Our bodies have to ripple into waves
You chose me
You chose me
to jump with
and hold our breaths
like a leaf on a tree
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Treatise
A found poem
I.
I carried Wordsworth in with me
and carved it onto the walls
of my dark prison cell
so we could surround ourselves with love.
II.
We: me and the others
who will live here after
I am no longer on Earth.
III.
I want these words to revolve
around the sun
like the moons of Jupiter.
IIII.
Even though no light
could ever touch these walls.
I.
I carried Wordsworth in with me
and carved it onto the walls
of my dark prison cell
so we could surround ourselves with love.
II.
We: me and the others
who will live here after
I am no longer on Earth.
III.
I want these words to revolve
around the sun
like the moons of Jupiter.
IIII.
Even though no light
could ever touch these walls.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Nature writing
I just read the personal narratives of Alexander von Humboldt, an early 19th century naturalist. Now I'm reading Darwin. I'm starting to understand how views of the natural world have changed - in two hundred years the earth went from a force to be conquered and used to a force that is part of us, an awe-full force to be nurtured.
I'm embarking on several new "nature" poems that examine the interplay between the internal spirit and the exterior world from which everything originates.
Coincidentally, I have three already about my dog, which snuck up on me. He's 11 now and he broke his hip this summer. In many ways, I know him better than some people in my life. "Man's best friend," they say./More like "Man's first love."
I'm embarking on several new "nature" poems that examine the interplay between the internal spirit and the exterior world from which everything originates.
Coincidentally, I have three already about my dog, which snuck up on me. He's 11 now and he broke his hip this summer. In many ways, I know him better than some people in my life. "Man's best friend," they say./More like "Man's first love."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
