grazing (koan)

grazing (koan)

not lazy cows or sullen sheep

mulling meadows for grazing

•

he did not care any longer

if anyone at all was watching

his hand grazing hers

as he reached across the table

her knee grazing his

underneath the table

•

what is the sound

of one hand grazing another?

anticipating touching

longing for holding

and then never letting go

relief (naming)

relief (naming)

Tarame was greatly relieved

to learn that the storm

sweeping his home

his family

and his possessions

out to sea

was not a hurricane

but a post-tropical cyclone

that made all the difference

time (all my calendars are the same)

time (all my calendars are the same)

i drive to work into a full moon

the last hour of morning

before sunrise

single-minded

my tide high

i am risen

•

this is the time of year

that my heart fills with you

i am overflowing and charged

my eyes unable to hold back tears

this is the time of year

i am electrified by you

today

•

this is the time of day

i am flooded by the rising waters of you

i am buoyed and enveloped

my body weightless in this current

this is the time of day

i am swept away by you

now

•

prayer is apology

i am on my knees

but not fallen or collapsed

sorry, sorry, sorry

i supplicate with each breath at your feet

i am on my knees

and all my calendars are the same

as if (faerie tales for mortals)

as if (faerie tales for mortals)

i am living my life as if

i am living my life askew

i am living my life awry

i am living my life as if you

as if you

as if you

as if you

like a mutated Whip-poor-will

singing its soundtrack

to my life lived off-center

as if you always had

as if you could

as if i mattered

as if you would

as if planets realign

as if the faeries listen

as if the universe sends signs

as if poems list them

i am living my life as if

i am living my life askew

i am living my life awry

i am living my life as if you

as if you

as if you

as if you

it’s a melancholy tale

it’s a melancholy song

it’s walking a path unfurrowed

it’s believing this is the only true

i am living my life as if you

it’s all i know to be

it’s all i know to do

watcher (these novels and films)

watcher (these novels and films)

i watch the sky now

that is what i do

mainly at night when darkest

watching for shooting stars

a new planet glowing blue

or another tiny moon beside the other

like a Murakami novel

i watch the sky now

a believer looking for hope

some signal that you remain there

and still feel me in your universe

still want me in your universe

or orbiting the gravitation of you

like a film version of a Lem novel

stars against the black night sky

are not words on the page of narrative

but i am a faithful gazer who believes

in what was, could be, and always will be

because i know in the edges of my bones

that androids do dream of electric sheep

like replicant lovers in a Dick novel

on imprisonment and freedom

on imprisonment and freedom

In honor of EVD

the prison guard found this

scrawled on a scrap of paper

in his cell

hours past his last breath:

i'd rather rot

in prison

with the Communists

than consume the children

with the Capitalists

who are free

the guard checked to see

if anyone was watching

slipped the note into his mouth

chewed and swallowed

my zombie life

my zombie life

i am simultaneously filled with you

and fully empty without you

left behind swept aside dehumanized

by one brief utterance “i don’t want to be a widow”

erased like my heart from my chest

my pulse from my wrist

i stagger forward

incessant and hollow

my zombie life

fragile as a balloon filled near to bursting

the skin of this empty thing called me

and the hunger that cannot be sated alone

sirens, faerie tales, & all of my trippings (howl)

sirens, faerie tales, & all of my trippings (howl)

"Did I drive you away?

...But I won't let you down,

(Oh yeah, yeah, yes I will)

"Sparks," Coldplay

---

slumbering labs

one black one brown

cannot resist sirens

just like us

everything else falls away

no rocks no hard places

these dogs howl

raising a chorus against

new emergencies

---

some call me a non-believer

but i pray in secret ceaselessly

like Franny in her world of Glass

self-serving and sincere as blood

crying out in my mind for the faeries

to steal their way to your side

circling round chanting dancing

rousing you from sleep and dreams

reminding you of every every thing

some call me a non-believer

because that is easier than the truth

my bones howl always for you

---

you’ll come looking for me again

(no you won’t but a man needs faerie tales)

and everything will look nearly the same

except for the decay abandonment brings

you will be frantic and earnest and true

like arrows raining down shouts of fire

and i will be well below ground tripped

fallen deep into the hole i dug all along

we could add a soundtrack and slow motion

for others to watch as if this were just a film

and i wonder

i wonder if the howling of all those hearts

would rouse every dog to its feet to sing along

---

cover (crestfallen)

cover (crestfallen)

…saying,Accept all happiness from me.

Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird

sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

e.e. cummings, “it may not always be so;and i say”

\\\

someone sang your song today

every word was perfect

her voice warm true and beautiful

but in the end of course

she was not you

\\\

you came to me in dreams

(the only thing i have of you now)

two nights in a row and then a third on the fourth night

dreams are like spontaneous fireworks

unconscious holiday celebrations

warm and sweet like coconut in a pastry

or the gradual suddenness of this inevitable

i cannot utter face or allow to slip away

\\\

[i am making things up

stitched from thin air memory and dreams]

i draw a line of ants and a dragonfly for tattoos

across the top of one foot and above an ankle

your hair is dyed red or i suppose i should say auburn

like the thing i feel inside that sounds like wish you were here

\\\

some things are not temporary

(a) embarrassment
(b) loneliness
(c) failure
(d) loss

(e) uttering into an open well: i am not the one

(f) the bells you wear on your ankles

no one except me can hear

(g) the eternal recollection

built carefully like a garden

to be viewed from a satellite

or by a civilization 10,000 years from now

[either way there will be no doubt

about this temple and loving ceremony]

\\\

caves used as tombs

require huge boulders

and the power to move them

deserted wells behind abandoned houses

lie in wait unless we take the time and care

to cover the holes we have left behind

\\\

it is fall

i am crestfallen

a heart grown heavy

bends the back

under the swell

of ever-pining

blanketed beneath

memories of song birds

\\\