Saturday, December 18, 2010

Landing

I
Each face holds something true.
Each face, an idea of mind.
Each face is moving out beyond
its eyes, its cheeks, its mouth.
Like an earth, layers of atmosphere
growing ever denser, ever alive,
as you approach the surface.
There! Birds in flight.

II
When I have nothing to hold back,
when I am nothing but a keen,
I see a thin blue bonnet
surrounding your face,
then, outwardly another
thinner but darker one.
And finally, a darkly radiant
ionosphere tinged with magenta.
Beyond that your face mingles
with infinite numbers in the deeper
lens of a great camera obscura.

III
There are my hands now
pressing down through the clouds
always approximating the distance
cutting it in half, over and over,
infinitely closer now, but never quite.
But close enough to know I have landed.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Prayerful

Where I lean against a tree and form a lean-too
I hear my voice saying words that are wishful.
I want out of this because it is silly but then
this is preliminary to doubt, preliminary to
the beginning of a resonance I never fully
understand, a conversation that was never
taught me by anything other than wind and
rain, bird and shadow, light of day. Where
the bark touches my temple stray thoughts
settle as a small pressure, pulling ever upward,
crossing me off like the sacrifice I am. Meanwhile,
something is coming to take me down, to show me my
pressing is not necessary. Only the passing of time.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Whale Sounds

My thanks go out to Nic Sebastian of Whale Sounds for her wonderful reading of my poem, "A Wind Disorder". http://bit.ly/crA2cS. Please check out this site for the many recordings of other poems Nic has read. And to Kathleen Kirk for passing this poem along to Nic Sebastian. Thank you Nic and Kathleen!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The candy corn teeth


I opened a can of candy corn when I told Sarah Jane you could do this with the corn. She asked for a picture. I hope this gives you some direction Sarah.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Aloneness

"It is like the feelings you have when you are about to shed a tear. You feel somewhat wealthy because your eyes are full of tears. When you blink, tears begin to roll down your cheeks. There is also an element of loneliness, but again it is not based on deprivation, inadequacy, or rejection. Instead you feel that you alone can understand the truth of your own loneliness, which is quite dignified and self-contained. You have a full heart, you feel lonely, but you don't feel particularly bad about it. It is like an island in the middle of a lake. The island is self-contained; therefore it looks lonely in the middle of the water. Ferryboats occasionally carry commuters back and forth from the shores to the island, but that doesn't particularly help. In fact, it expresses the loneliness or the aloneness of the island even more."

Smile at Fear
-Chogyam Trungpa

Perhaps

Maybe not. So much of history
sinks into this telling.
Maybe so. Every fairy tale
goes a long way to forgetting.
Maybe at its most easeful
it looks to be a sure thing.

Where is the wind when
the kite is in your hands?
Four strands of knotted cloth
steadies the crucified paper.
700 feet of string shrink it.
There is the point of no return:
It has been out there so long
you're not sure you want it back.
All along the tension lies the past.

A neck brace and four robins low.
An ice cream sandwich, in
a notebook, intact.
No one's words matter
when we're sleeping.
A larger scale hears us
but doesn't need to know.
They are rained on, chilled,
sunny sided, grown for,
ranked in a mysterious way.
We are all a meal.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Escape into Life

Kathleen Kirk, has graciously decided to feature some of my poems together with an intriguing painting at an online arts journal where she is the poetry editor. Escape into Life™ | Online Arts Journal | Poetry, Essays, Reviews, Art.
Kathleen also has a wonderful blog at Wait! I Have a Blog?!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Report

It was not a dossier, and
yet it was like a person.
Frowning and looking down.
So I turned it over, staring
at its desert backside.
Such is the meaningful case
with most reports, a reminder
of I thought so, and there on
page five, a reminder it is
time to launder myself.
Findings always bother me,
only because they remind me
we are lost. And conclusions
just bring me closer to death.
But I find hope when I return
To the pre-face at the beginning.
There on page iv I sit facing the sun.
Not finished.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Speed Trap

I ran over two cords on the road today.
One momentarily cut off the water supply
for the city, the other distributed my car's
desire into nearby households folded
back like night sheets inviting.
The current traveled along the argyle
walkways and warm devil strips leading
to snatched space dangling overhead.
Here my hands wanted to hold something
that would draw itself visible, something
that could be planted in the earth or
a desk drawer filled with top soil.
Would something grow there?
A cigar box, a platitude, a piece of fruit?
For just that tiny moment, the water
supply in doubt, my car's desire drained,
I felt like a confused angel, the
smell of television all around me, the
black nudge of my cat's bright head,
the bump-bump, bump-bump.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Barndoors and Ignoblemen

So I went into Barnes and Nobles today in search of a book of poems. Macy and Barrows, Rilke's Book of Hours. After much searching I ask for help in regards to the location of poetry. Not on the second floor with literature anymore. Downstairs in the back next to music/rock. And surprise, all contemporary folks strained out of the section. I asked why but no one could give me a heads up. $. I let both sales people know how silly that was. "Poetry is literature." No one cared. No Rilke except Letters. Sad...

Facing the Unknown

It is like the reason we
back into a parking space,
holding everyone up for
our future security.
It is like the reason I
back into a restroom,
wondering who is behind me.
It is like the reason we stick only
our heads around corners, avoiding
bodily harm and snipers.
It is like the reason we stand at
the edge of the ocean, hesitating,
since there is too many of it.
It is like the reason we count
things with the hope it adds up.
It is like the reason we take away
things with the hope there will be
an answer.

Monday, September 06, 2010

The Jambs

Into one another we go,
unable to know what has
become of us.
There is print and photograph,
past voice and memory.
But still the alterations-
say children, that silk shirt,
numbers on a scale-
bring us no closer
to the confluence.
Every doorway is a gate.
Every window, an eye.
Look and pass.
Then wait and touch.
We've already arrived.

Desire

Today reaching is all around me.
Like Shiva my first impulse is
To burn these ramps
And see just how serious
These reachers are.
A glance, my left hand.
It's done.
Flowers, bees, cuckoos, mangoes.

Today reaching is all around me.
Like Shiva I see the possibility
Of union, not annihilation.
An embrace, not a dispersion,
That will go on for
As long as it takes.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Noticing

I

In that moment it's just a matter of forgetting
her and you will be busy inside yourself, identity-
laden, the way you launch yourself into a moment
of fear, or embarrassment, even congratulations.
At the end of the street is a pause where you look
up and notice it's only a two way stop.
Be careful.

II

A small boat made of the heat and
far-off sounds carries us upriver.
There are villages amongst the green leaves
and docks stretching like hands beckoning.
I wish for oars and rudder, and the motion
of my arm throwing rope toward wet wood.
But my hand is cupped over my eyes. It seems
the sun doesn't want me to see the humor in all this,
the smile on your face, the color of your hair.

III

Now the rain passes over you, a curtain, light,
like a soft shadow. You hear her voice and
notice rain has its own color, not quite this or that.
She is singing then. You remember this moment.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

meme o weis

Sarah Jane over at The Rain in my Purse tagged me to take on these memes. I thought hers were ridiculous, as they should be. I will shoulder on...

1) Is half a stone still a whole stone?
Laura Nyro liked to write about stones. Stone Soul Picnic and Stoney End. It is clear she believed stones have souls. So if the soul is just a hologram than it is clear the whole is contained in every part. Therefore, based on Laura Nyro's belief system, I would have to say yes to this question.

2) Do grains of sand get tired of being recycled into mountains?
Grains of sand are tired of a lot of things I think. Such as people trying to draw out some kind of competion between stars and the grains. Actually most grains of sand would like to position themselves into becoming mountains because there's a lot of rest inherent in that position. As opposed to all that slogging on the beach. Occasionally a bird's wing lightly grazes the mountain but that's just a so-called barometer for enlightenment.

3) If you crossed a bat with a mushroom would you get an umbrella?
No, this crossing is not a prescription for rainy weather. An umbrella is not needed.

4) Do the glasses one wears in a dream require a prescription?
Most glasses in dreams are cheap reading glasses off the spinner rack. Why? Most of us lack the navigation skills for lucid dreaming. Without lucidity we are prone to forgetting where our glasses are and sitting on them or stepping on them. This is costly. Drugstore glasses gives us one less thing to worry about. It 's hard enough not being able to see who's been chasing you for years.

5) What songs do they sing in a school without windows?
I only know of one song that is sung in these kinds of places. Gene Pitney's Town without Pity.

6) Do the daisies love us or not?
No they do not love us. Daises are sick to death of this so-called romantic amputation at their expense. Leveraging love by killing a flower is not funny.

7) Is there any reason to believe that we'll have working mouth parts in the next life?
No. I have believed for many years that ventriloquism is an evolutionary process and that eventually the binaural nose will come front and center as the new mouth.

8) What kind of cartilage connects us to the stars?
Most of us are already stars. Therefore cartilage is nothing more than congealed comet grease.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Ghost Deer

A little light was left,
enough for the ghost deer.
We stood by the fallow
corn field, she and I,
listening until they appeared,
blinking, two, four, then seven
or eight, then fewer, finally just
the color of evening, muted, stretched.

Now it's late afternoon, two hidden birds
screech across the head high corn.
I stand where we stood.
The finches drag yellow over the
soft open thistles at the back of the field.
I mosey through an alley of green thinking
of Cary Grant in North by Northwest. In the
thistles, I kneel, listening to the woodpeckers.
The ghost deer are still here.
Maybe we were asleep that cool night
Maybe we dreamed of the ghost deer.
But I remember them now as
I experienced them then.
As a memory, that quiet, moving out into
our presence-- As if I recognized them then
the way I still see them now.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Separation

Steam from a bowl of oatmeal rises,
dimming the party hat mountain.
The plunger falls in the dark waters,
settling on the murky grounds.
Something orange, something wrinkled,
something sprinkled, something soft.

I want to come around to your side,
kneel by your arm, offer myself.
This is my prayer, this is my sign
here at this table. Close by, the
apex of trees continues to climb,
The distance varies, the sun
crosses the room, searching.
The chunky bread is browning, there
Is a moist piece of sun on your lip,
butter is melting in the bowl,
and I hold your hair out
like a bolt of Egyptian cotton,
like a gift I can barely manage.

Everything is always rising and falling.
The temperature- not as steady
As one thinks: A cloud shadow, a
yellow wing, the wind, your breath, a fret.
Pauses.
Tiny separations that blink and blink
again, even as you finish that sentence,
that spoonful of raisins and oatmeal.
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