January 1, 2012

The garden, with its plush leaves, locked. Only tree
tops peak over. With wry grin we rush to chop
down sticks. Pray if you wish. Brush your forehead to ground

begging forgiveness. Or gush and sing
our story. Thump some twig to hush far
off sighs of parent or thrush. But scoff
not at paintings, lush thoughts, plots.

What to do with a bruise

Let it sink
in
to your skin.

Go slowly purple
out the back end
and deep.

Then begin
to knit skin over
skin, and heal.

Leave a scar
far below
the surface.

Where no one sees
kept where you beat
where you breathe.

Where its mere presence
prevents you from ever
being new again.

Being innocent
and honest
and free.

In Exchange For Having

You cross paths with a man in a woods on a search that he claims is for lost gold.
He's been told you can match this map to a point where a sycamore bends, then turn left beneath an old grey stone.
You see the tree, and the man; course, disheveled, a mess. He turns from left, goes on right and starts to scavenge.

In younger days I would help him, tell him right, or maybe dig, and upon success, take my leave.
I would walk the long path prided in knowing that my jaunt made someone richer for knowing.
But to be true I must tell you something deep would resent the dumb man, and my giving and knowing.

Today, I might well wait, see what happens, not to misdirect, but to meander on a chance for comfort (happiness).
No more that kid pleased by the memory of an old man who knows nothing of right or left, but sleeps well tonight.
But what voice tomorrow might I regret in passing? What’s left speaking which I tamp down in exchange for having?

Kiss Me...

Kiss me. On the lips. With the shore of your pursed
mouth. What more could I ask than to be left out
from the cage of my fears, the store of my wants? Home,

in concept, is a door closing. When
you are closed, nothing more escapes. Who
stops to find my body, tore to drops
of flesh, sees your lips hover.

You Said Say

God. I lay prone in my bed to pray. It’s odd,
but you answer in my head with quips that
would sound biting from a kin. Instead, we share good

bellyfull laughs. You tell me my will
keeps the tension that weds us and leaps
of faith are fay. “Don’t dread the fall, love,
or rising.” You said. “Leap more.”

Veteran

A man walks in, obviously a veteran,
to the shop I work in. Obvious if you
notice the nub and skin on his left hand. Some hiss

from a bullet in a chamber, some
shrapnel spinning. We are the lost selves
of our cells, of our quests to win. Love
and flesh living in our hands.

Ends

What will you do when the world's not spinning, stuck
awkwardly on it's axis, when all objects
stop shimmering and the light around them flip-flops

no more, when you see the walls plateau,
each a land of objects within reach
resting peacefully in 3d? Best
if you then kick a fresh riff.

For Marley

“Get up.” said the Rasta. Said the faith healer. “Git.”
said the rube on the porch to the mutt he met
sleeping. Don’t be led to your resting in a heap

of blankets. Forget who you laid, loved,
lost, who you freed or fed, at what cost.
Life is best lived feet below head. Strife
and sloth are useful dead. “Stand.”

In That Key

Someone improvs a few notes, and what’s been done
cannot by undone. Emotion taps a hand
as an ear, that just wrote the riff in neurons, has

an epiphany. It totes the band --
bass, snare, keys, the lead’s coat -- in a case
smaller than a pick. It can quote all
the changes by rote. Two. Three.

Towards Stillness

Asleep on your pillow, noses close. I keep
my breathing slow. Move not a muscle lest I
break the spell that holds. All night, the effort I make

tends towards stillness, calms the folds and bent
muscle-blankets, elbow uncrinkled
only if I know this: You, holy
gift, won’t go, won’t leave, won’t shift.

To Ankles

Fear faced at the mouth of a river, the sheer
weight of rain and melt, thick waves native to great
cold-snaps, laid by an off-kilter sun; olive, old

as untold sin, as death, as the hiss
of wind whispering to our motives,
soaring round in an octave cursed (or
blessed) to outlive forgiveness.

Thirty Seven Thank Yous

Thank you for this body that is still working.
This body is thanking you for still working.
That is a thank you for this still working body.
That thank you is still working, for this body.
For still this body that is working. Thank you.
Thank you for working this body, still.
Thank you for this body. That, is still working.
Working is this body, for thanking you, still.
This still body is working. Thank you for that.
Thank you for this working body, that is still.
Still, that body is working for this; thanking you.
For this still working body that thanks you.
Thanks. For this body is you, that still working.
For these workings, this body still thanks you.
Thank you for this, a body that is still working.
Thank you is working for this, that still body.
This body is still working for that thank you.
Is that body still for thanking you? This it is.
Thanks; for you, still body, that is working this.
Thank you, for this body is still working it.
Thank you body, for this is still working that.
Is that thank you still working for this body?
Thank you for this body that is still (working).
This still working. That body. Is for thank-yous.
For-still this working body that is thanking you.
For you this body is still working. Thank you.
This, for-still working body, is thanking you.
Thanks for working this, You that is still body.
Thank you; for this body is still working.
This is a still working body. For thank yous.
Thank you working body. For this is still that.
Still body, thank you, for that is this, working.
Thank you for workin’ this still body.
Thank you body, for still working, that is.
Still for this body. Thank you for this that is.
Thank you four. This body is still working.
For You: this body; still, working-- thankful.

Three

Three does not divide equally
but when the obsessed is faced
with the last tic-tacs
that must be eaten in pairs
and gets stuck with three
she does not take two
and hand one to me
but bites down hard
and passes me her half.

One and a half is not even
and so when the obsessed
makes sure that between
the pair of us the tic-tacs
are split equally her lips
are my lips and we
are more than two people
separate. We are done
searching for the one.

After the work

After the work, in all its usefullness and emptymaking
I could argue with no/ones in traffic, tossing cursewords
only to arrive home horse and exhausted and laydown
for something like a nap, approximating giveinsurrender

I could, but when I get there, arrive dead in that statehood
you smile and dig my back muscles with themlovenails
and I sense your want/to dripping into me, as in an IV
and whatever anger I held for them no/ones goesout

You smile, and lead me from that frontporchangry in
to where hands/squeezed and backpetting catlegs
absentminded thigh kneading, our limbs like saying love
and crawl onto me curling up and asking for comfort

To where we tie up in that thickhug at our neckmeets
where nolight flickers and we see smell lumps of candle
batting off our eyeshine, which can't spot eyes, but
your head buried in my neck teeth dug of moon and stars

Where nolight is wrapped inside but each other's heart
that beats away whatever stupid/dumb nothing done
coworker customer again today. Who cares here?
where we pounds of flesh, we godinlaws try to get back

That beats away like wings thee thick gravity and lifts
our love bodies into something approximating heaven.
After the work, desire for giveinsurrender, your silt grin
settles in, awakes me for goodwork to begin, and for better.

Tripping Fields

What we thought of as our rooms,
laid out in rows, our beds,
our mattresses, our feet
sticking off the edge was none of it.

The halls could best be described
as belonging to those who cut
a yellow ribbon or first
tye-died clothes in our sink

or belonging to the first to groan
on our mattress, spill love
when they were new, belonging
to the state. We, as Rockefeller's

children, who belonged
to whichever farmer sold the land
or to the natives or the earthworms
or simply to the earth.

We called it ours. Grew tan
by the gunk, thin in the limbs
of a dead tree, ran like bats
along a starless evening.

They paved the tripping fields.
Made soft the slope that felled us
and hung lights so the incline
would never, again, come as a surprise.

Tore up the tree and its roots.
All that's left is a patch,
or a pennant, or a hoodie,
some embellished aberration

walking back to us down a hallway.
Ah-Ann, who may have been
that lovely, worthy of our lustful
admiration and our youth.

Womb and Surrender

Sometimes I view sleep;
that covenant between the body and sheet,
between a mind that requires rest,
to cool down, come down
off the mountain into a darkness
with one light small enough
to bay the fears of childhood
but not too bright to penetrate eyelids
or keep away those sweet sweet fantasies
of flying in peanut butter castles
or endless shadows chasing.

Sometimes I view sleep
as giving in to the worst of lazy
habits and sometimes, like a shaman,
as knowing when to pray
and when to rest and when
to breathe. Sometimes
as womb and surrender,
that dark heartbeat of sleep.

So you've come home...

So you've come home
having spent a lifetime alone
on a raft at sea
or on a park bench, or at war
or simply walking a mile (or more)
in someone else's too tight shoes.

Now what do you do?
Set up a desk by the window?
Paint the walls pink?
Sit like a mountain and think (on the floor)
of all the silly things you can hang
and grow and coddle and adore?

You lay down your weapons
and strip to the bone,
decide what sound a good life moans,
what echos bounce off the walls,
that this is all you need to be done:
a drum, a hollow space, taut skin you fit in.

Straight and Narrow

Face the day lean
stretched out
long in the heart and arms
let the day spill over you like a spout
get out ahead of the curled and the slow
know the Way is straight and narrow
keep below the false drama and sad songs
be lean and long (what some call mean)
for stealing all the lights
and all the beams
all the heat and all the dreams
of the sun
that great warm embrace
across the sky
behind clouds or in front
of the race we run
coming home to our lover
our family and the One

All The Good Sun

The rain stopped, so I dragged to the porch
the chair we plopped down in when spring was popping

curled my legs up to listen to the resilient bugs
ones left now that all the good sun has south run

to you in your bikini and me with my tanned feet
to you by the river and me in your swimming

to you with the top down and me naked running
to you in the tall grass and me in the weeds.

Now, onto this harvest, this bounty, spirits and feast,
thanking you for summer with winter impeding.

On This Straight Earth

I can’t see the ice-caps melting, have no love
for concrete. I’ve felt the heat every summer
and my skin browning. I’ve heard the yelping chorus

of crickets belting out melodies
from trees, helping themselves to a hum,
sought myself outside myself, stayed straight
on this straight earth by tilting.

The Cicadas

Off the beginning of summer cicadas would come
and eat the leaves that spent a spring budding.
There would be articles on the news about how horrible
the infestation, that left our trees bald as politicians.

I couldn't join the consternation. We had no plans
to use leaves for food, nor fuel. Simply our aesthetic.
The buzzing sounded like noise, a song we hummed,
one we sung about God given rights to our life

our country, our homeland, to beauty.

But no one wondered why the cicadas come,
hungry and singing, horny and ornery
why they lie dead on our sidewalks,
serve themselves up for oak or poplar,

what love drives them most to death,
what breadth they passed, what distance
and why the chorus sounded like laughing,
what they knew of happiness.

Summer

Graze in the field and I'll shield
my eyes from your eyes, from how
they drowned out other light,
how even in sunlight,
bright bright light,
I have to squint at you.

You ask how someone loves so easy.
To be baked by you, tanned
in your presence, retina panned
at the sight. It's right. The tune
played in my head since I knelt
by the bed and prayed as a child,
a small child, a small and pious child.

It is not easy to love you. But to not to,
to let go and watch you float away
as any warm summer day
must end, would be the end.
With my last breath
I would rumble towards the horizons
at top speed, up the mountains

to chase you at fifteen degrees
across the land, to the oceans,
exhausted, but never able
to calm the wanting,
unwilling to be without you
for a moment, to never
stop moving or leave.

Of A Life Like This

It's all script, the rend and rip of person
from person, lyric from rhythm, notes
from their home on the page. We're separate.
If I can accept this, then the longing
is simple, chronic, expected.

It was only when I imagined myself of you,
that loving you was coming back
to taste my own flesh. If I could settle for less,
nap and get fat, be content arguing,
investing, hoping in earnest.

All day I could fend off demons,
pretend you're listen behind the windowpane,
that as I wait you wake with eyes open,
lips parted, that I'm not the only one
up early and alone.

If I could bend my will to a paperclip
and forget, hold on to none of it,
then I would not need you,
would not miss you,
would be a fine citizen of a life like this.

Death Is My Pose

Death is my pose, where I run,
where you can't follow,
that shallow river
in which you dip your toes
and realize, (no, where you really know)
you can't cross, can't catch me
where I am washed
clean and pose
on the other shore,
smirk on my face permanent,
wiping old blood from my nose.

You thought you could keep me,
or that I was gone.
The shock on your face
at my existence shows.

Try, stick in a foot or a toe.
It looks shallow. Like you could cross
to reach me. But by that time I'd be gone,
on a new shore where the wind blows,
where we live separated by a creek,
by an ocean, by the rills
that wind between
our deepest connections.
Until you die with me,
cast off this pretense and these clothes.
Who knows? Death I suppose.

Curtain

Cross the grate,
that gate of iron-moss,
links that won’t stop flame
but make a falling log
or flailing corner
come up short of escape.

I hold your heat
and stare into your deeper bed
and deep, let letters I long to write,
rhymes and reams
meant to singe
your eardrums come.

I bask in your petals,
yellow and orange
swishing out to taste me,
to leave a mark on each spot
you touch, blister
promising to never heal.

Meet me at the edge
at the curtain's kiss
shish your scar of a story
whispered in the dark
wish it were lit brighter
by heavy breathing.