Tuesday, October 30, 2012

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

Monday, October 29, 2012

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

Sunday, October 28, 2012

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

Saturday, October 20, 2012

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

Thursday, October 11, 2012

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

---

Monday, October 8, 2012

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.ecummings, “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

\\\