Sunday, December 4, 2011

stone birds nest



stone birds nest
in the creases
of my heart

they sing
the emerald song
of the mountain
from which
they were made

a ghostlike herd
of granite horses
pours into the valley
of my spine

an equine avalanche
with jeweled eyes
like embers

with steaming manes
that swallows hurtle from
to the directions of this world

dark swallows that carry
the stone songs
to the trees

and the tree songs
back to the mountain
beyond my eyes.

Pink Flag



this town has been dead for generations

a diagonal sun casts corrugated shadows from the slumped rooflines


here we find our work ravelling the rusted intestines

here where we reassemble ourselves

our place of vision       so to speak





two kids following the train tracks like a dry stream bed

pick up a pink umbrella left inside-out by the wind

taking turns they wave it overhead     their vibrant eviscerated flag

another dream to collapse into another evening



I light another cigarette to prolong my vigil                          

the calculus of this place cascades over the ledge of observation

no one is entirely still or isolated

the death that comes is what daily divides us.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

seeds break


seeds break
as the cold rain
seeps past

japonica
forsythia
are sweet now

and the green
curtains
of the hedges

where
the wind
pushes me

but the sparrows
chase me back
out into the rain

back into
forgiveness
and longing

I resume my
resistance
to gravity

I cannot
continue
to collapse.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Measures


beside the rock
the lit perception
or what I call
            measure



how to speak of
this world
of gestures

of fluent
figures
           


and to find in
the alyssum’s
cruciate bloom
the hidden
finitude

to find the limits
without madness



but when you say
my love
the words flicker.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Rite


mute
mutations


poet’s
poetry.

Tryptich


Kiss me as the dead have kissed you
your cheeks, the backs of your hands
the bellies of the crows you love so much.



Where they find openings the dead bury markers
a knotted snakeskin, a bloody dewclaw
a freckled hollowed cicada shell.



I wonder if the dead recognize the change in seasons
how the shifting sun and wind move them
if mud is a question or an answer.

your lilac note


your lilac note opened this shadowed burning house

and exposed the blindness                  the stubbornness
                                    the emptiness of me



I watch myself burn
and accept the homecoming

I awake to release another ghost



and when you hold me
like a child to your breast                   I listen
to your heart
binding us together.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

this is the second


this is the second
full day of mist


last week’s snow under
thickening ice


ashes float       flicker in
the light like snowflakes


this is the time to bear
your body’s stillness


the crows overhead
are barely visible.

Ellen


yes I miss
her       one
I can’t ever

reclaim
            lost
to our

dimensions
of regret
and blame

so soft
your eyes
and breast

clearly there
had to
be fault

            clearly
a loss in
pressure.

DIA Beacon


in this house
that was once
some sort
of processing
operation
            is still
some sort
of cannery.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

we hear heartbeats


                        we hear heartbeats

in our awareness

            feel in our connection

the weight of another shifting

                        in the distance

we listen from the lonely ridges

                        of our memory

perched on ledges

selfishly carved into the mountain

                                    in order to

separate from the world

                        in order to dissolve.

The Truth


you can’t deny what happened to me
                                    what I witnessed
every night      after the bars closed               you can’t
act like I didn’t hear you begging for the end of it all
to be killed once and for all
you can’t ignore what I haven’t been able to ignore
what still clutters our relationship

(
the motherless child of a motherless child
                                                                                    )

rippling sheet of white emotions
that hovers between us
guilt and regret
of bitterness and dry tears

the anger I haven’t been able to shed
                                                your anger
what a man will do to a woman if she lets him.

Custody


with one arm I circled you       lifted your thin corrugated body over
the rocks to give you
your true weight
to the river

                                    then


watched the years vault up through you
volcanically                                          your resistance humming
like the rusted edge of a wind-rubbed bell                  memories
of the violations against you surging until your fists shot open and


you erupted screaming
as if suddenly swallowed by fire


and I sank to the bottom of my own fire                     roamed
the glowing coals         looking for shadows to shroud
your ruptured molten sanctity


I was useless                           lost in this custody

my ashes settling between the stones settled between us

my smoke following weaving your echoes.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

so begins the


                                                            so begins the harvest
as deer nuzzle and browse under the hardening moon
as passerine rhythms shift to the muted drone of migration
when with the leaves I am brought down to words
in an open sun-shafted room


prayers gather on the crop stubble
as we suckle from the bending breast


so begins the song
of the bone-white dream         the approaching days of etched grace
the calligraphy of bare trees against blank skies


                                                            so the song begins
with the thinning gusts of autumn
laced with corn stalks left like batons by the harvest
left for the dying wind to defend itself
under a sky about to explode.

common enough


common           enough
            the gestures

that ignore time

                        we eat
                        history

midsummer mornings

            dew-drenched

c r i p p l
      e d
fruit
trees
           
                                    coiled
berry
                        vines

snake haunted

            tourniquet heat
                                    hope
                        for rain
                                    steady
                        rain fall
                                    before

(until)
            walnuts

                        & pheasant flight.

go back


go back
            to fix
what’s to come

            her turn
to collect
the ashes

as I sink
            under-
            water

the whole house
is having
            trouble
            breathing

and the rain
falls and clogs
            the air
            outside

            outside
on a hook
in the yard
is hanging
the mobile
she was asked
            to build
            so long
            ago

she made it
in minutes
this morning

            our lungs
still labor
            in this
            weather.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Gale


to take apart
what remains
of a coherent life

is to decide
which stillness
could contain
your fluency


the many things
that you’ve made
and collected
like scattered
emotional centers

you arranged them
as if you were
feeding them
with memory


these artifacts


these footprints of
a life of
meaning how
to dismantle
            it all
            after
            you
            go.

a pool


a pool
of night
opened
in me

for ballast
sadness
sways in the
uncharted
heart.

Voyeurs


the mother is beautiful behind the glass shower door
bent over her growing restless daughter

she moves quickly       constantly        to keep
ahead of the feverish temperament                her long
dark hair spilling over her thin shoulders
she gathers it again at the back of her neck as she rinses
her twirling daughter in the light spray
                                                            and I watch
as she washes her tired bending body impatiently
                                   
her daughter sitting under the spray also watching.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Compositions


a choreography
of ghosts whirling
on the stage of
my morning tea

the acrobatic clouds
that tumble from
snow-lined branches
grazed by dry wind

how the silent music
surrounds us how
the dance appears
to just happen

the way that memory
constellates us
with it’s tides with
it’s residue.

as simple as


                        as simple as

            no
            notions


animal sense
                        awakened


rolling field in
            tall tanned grass

hidden child
still hidden

wait for light                wait
                       
for sleep
           

            enough nights.

Instruction Manual


circle yourself

            your perception

compress yourself within arm’s length

sift what you remember

                        out of what you know

                                    then sift your known self

through the hoops of your being

            through skull
                        and skeleton                organs
                        fluids and tissues
            through synapses and sphincters
                        vessels pores follicles
            through your last orgasm
                        your last dream
            through your current breath and
                        the salt in your mouth
            through the fatigue and the aches
                        that affect you

            through what exhilarates        humiliates
                                                                        you
what annihilates you
                                                and what remains.

Friday, January 21, 2011

I am in


I am in
the open
field again
waiting for
the answer
I was told
to find to
find my way

and so I
find myself
lost looking
for who I
was before
I began
to become
who I am

I try to
remember
try to find
the soft hands
that held my
infancy
at the breast

the gentle
song of round
musical
motherly
nourishment

a song of
permission
to be here

but instead

why are you
crying what’s
wrong with you

all you think
about is
yourself you
never think
about any-
one else you

you little
bastard all
you ever
think about
is you how
do you think
I feel on
my feet day
after day
to support
this house you
selfish brat
how do you
think I feel
for a change

remember
I brought you
into this
world and I’ll
take you out

is what I
heard as far
back as I
can forget

up until
I cut the
cord with her

her response
ended with
“you stupid
bastard” and
I ended
the phone call

“and that’s why
I . . . goodbye.”

if the waves


if the waves
in the river
are blue
            then
it is
a shade of blue
I want
to be

            and if
reincarnation
            is true
I want to become
the wind that peels
off the hurricane
to sail over
the mountains
            to be here
           
to be
the hand
drawing blue waves
out of
this ticklish
muddy river.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

to weld


to weld

stillness
                        to stillness


to dig
            with miniature lightning
furrowed congealing edges


to stitch small gaps with immense resource
volcanic shorthand
of elemental dynamics


attention is critical as the ancients atomize
as electricity becomes ore becomes molecular
                                                            bond

                                    nuclear
                                    stride in
                                    between
                                    breaths


                                    as if
concentration can stop time
                                                yet not
                                    without gravity.

Insomnia


                                    Rain,

your soft footsteps crossed the thin
threshold of my sleep and we danced
like old lovers  celebrating
the wreckage of our bond
                        two gray creatures
your filigree of movement stippling
my rounded stone
and we danced
featherless in the hovering sunless air
covered in your cold canorous tears
your song that flows over
                        and into all bodies
that stirs the silt of dreams.

the fox nipped at my back


the fox nipped at my back
seated as I was
                        waiting

she danced behind me
cantering sideways from
my left to my right
swinging
            back and forth
grabbing at my shirt in
the passing                  once
catching my collar
and I could feel the small
determined teeth on the knot
of bone jutting from my neck

I waited as the dance turned
from nervous to playful
                        still cautious
and spiked with warning

I continue to wait to face
and nuzzle this fitful
            magnificent being.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

as though it comes


as though it comes
from a remote mountaintop
few have ever been to
this slight afternoon
breeze moves me as it moves
the maple leaves         lifts them
up to show the red stems
                        the eyelashes
of a red-headed warrior          drifting
from the ripe edge of the viking stride
eleven-hundred years after his fall
floating
here on the ancient exhale
                                    the eyelashes
translated between leaf and limber
arrow-like branches.

give me a crow for gawd


give me a crow for gawd’sakes
like the one I saw with a white
patch under the wing
                                    one like that
don’t need to be perfect
                        rather that a crow
could ever be perfect
or anything else but right there
when trouble comes swinging
her greasy bag a lollipops
                                    sensational
just the most sensational tongue-
tied way to live for gawd’sakes
                        I ain’t kiddin’ dammit
give me a damn crow like I asked
one to drink out of or else.

where a seed once fell


where a seed once fell a determined oak
took ground and forgave silence like the sleep
of birds           
and through
the oak signature it grew into a tower with the same
slow accumulation of stillness or indifference
that intervenes over time between lovers.