Kate's Typewriter

heart's winter

2012-01-14T09:18:00.001-05:00

Be still in the winter of the heart.
Learn the climate
Learn the rhythm of earth asleep
Learn the earthworms deep, deep under
Learn the sky, in retreat
Learn the sun in chill mourning
and the trees, each alone and naked in glory,
unsure if blood will come back to their roots,
meditating on the leaves that could be
if they survive.
In the winter of your heart, gather your stillness
store it up for that noisy spring to come.
Store up dark dead earth
drink, swallow that helpless sky.
Learn the myriad of white, the hunger of gray
learn it for those too-bright days
which will surely come too-bright and too-brief.
Now all is dim and eternal, an omen of the ether.
Be still now, still in the heart's winter.

and still smile

2012-01-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

I have seen you, oh I have seen you
I have had eyes like stars, scattered
around worlds, scattered through bodies
felt your skin through tree bark
through grasses and winds, I have known you.
Unlocked a place in you,
pulled open a wide door behind which
there is only truth.
I have swallowed
up your truth, spun it into gold
cast it back into your arms,
I have done all this, and still smile.
I have broken through the dry earth of your
bones, the layered skin of your callouses,
the soft belly beneath that you cover.
In, in, I have poured my cordial
in, in, I have looked, and seen.
I have wrapped you in competing winds
I have whispered to you from a tiny urge
when you walked our road at night, but did
not know it. I have hallowed your footsteps
I have preserved your memories
I have flowed past you, a stream, when your lips
cracked with heat. All this I have done,
and still smile.

phantom

2012-01-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

Slithering mob of flesh
I imagine the mind, the soul interwoven and mobile as clay
reaching oozing outward,
gathering stones gems sticks soil
gathering bones of its own, and wisdom
gathering poison too, swallowing it down.
Kneaded and bulbous, I imagine
all our insides coming out
spread, a lump of potential
to be snuffed out or slowly killed off.
Can be molded to anything, can be
folded into stronger arms
stuffed back up wise rivers
melted down into thin angry metal,
or bricked into a shelter, a wall, carved into a god, or an oven
used to bake bread. All of this
promise leaden laden loathsome laughsome
and my own clay stained black from waltzing with the shadow man
putting my nose into that sacrilegious earth,
letting my soul traipse unguided
through the starlit land of uncertainty,
letting my insides warm at
some occasional phantom sunrise.

bewilderment

2012-01-06T10:05:00.001-05:00

The big cat stretches all the length
of the wood and shakes. Puma, the sign says
an advertisement for a bewildering idea. Be wild.
Be wildernized, euthanized, be meant.
The paws are
the size of my face, and carpeted. No where
to go, so another sleep. The cat snuffs, twists,
piles itself into a corner.
Gets up because there is noise-- the little cat next door is feeding.
Is that your baby? I ask.
The big cat turns and turns, looks at me with derision
shrugs shoulders. Not anymore. Not anymore.
Puts her face up to the wire,
licks, grips, chews
and the little cat can't come closer because
of the harness. Well. In the wild, in wilderness
you'd have a hard life, and maybe your baby
would be dead, I offer. The big cat shrugs,
blinks. You silly human. Once they left open the
door of the cage,
and I didn't leave. The cage itself has
nothing to do with my captivity.

fetish

2012-01-03T13:17:00.004-05:00

I was allowed my little ways
when my toes were painted, and
out in the yard they picked up
moss bricks daddy-long-legs
I picked up
the speckled sun and sniffed it.

Turned your crime into my charm.
No one ever told me
what is the cure for all this--
what the cure might be for smoke
born in the lungs
and screwed on black glass eyeballs,
eyes made that never could see the sun.

Yet not a spindle in view,
not mother not demon not nymph
So. Screw off these eyeballs, put in
the new citrus leaves,
waxed monstrous impenetrable organs
they are. When they catch red and fall
at some bilious frost, at least then
I'll remember the painted
foot of the sun.

carpet to wall

2012-01-02T10:29:00.002-05:00

Lines, white on white
a worn washed quilt,
all white and empty

Here is the land of my battle
the stains that could be blood
I have fought the air.

Lines, skin on skin
Once I fought myself
then the suit of armor came

Two ants crawling, lost
through the crack on the wall
and I am bludgeoning no one.

Lines, carpet to wall
this silent land, this silent war
the salt crusting the skin

Drove the sword in, only
the suit of armor had grown a body
flesh and blood

Lines, white blood leaking,
pooling; a man after all,
but without courage.

stopping up roots

2011-12-29T09:33:00.001-05:00

The boxed walls of the vegetable patch
are squatting outward again, yanking up
the soil and no doubt stopping up roots.

I'd pull them back in, but why bother?
The cilantro invaded the thyme last week--
and where the lettuce came from, I don't know.

I had a pot of rosemary, thinned out now
from the stews and roasts. I sit porched in
by the screen, drinking dominican beer.

There is the candle-jar for an ashtray,
and a bobcat out by the red canoe--
now when did he move in? He crouches, watches.

And my contribution here is the wind chime,
by which I count hours in heaves and sighs
--offends my alarm clock but pleases Aeolus.

A bit of ash has got onto my jeans, gone down
into my throat. A cough, and the bobcat flicks his
ears back, banishes me from his kingdom.

I push the boards back into place, and the vegetable
patch looks cramped. Well, why not? I say. Me too.
Why should we be different, as subjects planted?

white noise

2011-12-28T09:58:00.002-05:00

I asked a man I know about the train track
of belief-- asked him because,
through white noise and copper wires,
I read wisdom he gained rather unhappily.
Asked him what to do when believing stops,
a train with no more track, rusted out,
obsolete.
And the folly was in my question, sent out to
one dear stranger, that pitted place inside grasping
grasping, grasping
beyond voids, valleys, souls, bodies,
when will those fingers be still, filled?
The man said (and I thought of him looking
past a desk into a yard and beyond that, the sea)
said, it's shit.
But you have to sit with the emptiness
and let it speak. So here I sit,
where he once sat, this well-worn place.
And the emptiness keeps making noise
like a stomach growling.

adventive

2011-12-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

Not once did I walk that path alone, but
twice did I walk it with you.
On a dim little evening, we would
have forgotten the path altogether if the man with the falcon
hadn't come pattering down it,
a feather in his cap like he got left behind
by a few hundred years. And the bird
on his arm rubbed beak to leather wrist-band,
dropped feathers
and next to me you were breathing
breathing a thunder-wet wind on my neck.
I don't know where the man went,
but the breath all went back to your lungs. I
put a feather in my pocket and then lost it
in the wash. Didn't go back.
After all, it wasn't my path.

the last moon

2011-12-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

Clittering clushing jaws
and the beastly maws
suck a pipe of tobacco
out of blistering doors

Magiclous mournish decay
(what a very fine day!)
and a yo-ho-dee-do
for one unfulfilled road

Tattlebone in pheromones
drop of parasitic kerosene
--for the smoke off the river
--to the stink off the hide

Loverly lidless ladies
on their amble through hades
found a dried up macaroon,
shot down the last-ever moon

winterously

2011-12-23T08:27:00.002-05:00

winterously
look at me
what can you see?
my shivering, frolicking
swarm of a song

pretty one,
my winter sun
my darling gun
blue, mute, and wild
white winterous child

winter storm
sweet first-born
hellish groan
and parting sigh--
interminable goodbye.

let me pretend

2011-07-30T00:10:00.000-04:00

you-- you there!
if you have a soul
that is heavier than mine
if your arms happen to be
stronger than my tattered cloak
if your heart
is thicker to ward off stray arrows
or merrier to soak in more wine
come close to me
and be my shelter
come close to me
let me lean against you
and soak in your greatness
let me pretend for a moment
you are the god i've lost

tender cows

2011-07-29T00:38:00.002-04:00

No gift given
just a drink swallowed
a hunger met
a counter, cleaned
no horizon shimmering
no storm clouds gathering
just a yard, pitched, beneath a hose spout
cicadas, mosquitoes, lazy, relentless
without hope left in the jar
just a list of chores
just a grinding will
to carry on.
There are patient, tender cows
with softened eyes
so different from us,
us impatient, miserable creatures
burning for the end.

my favorite frog

2011-06-19T00:44:00.000-04:00

Me and my favorite frog
sit on the sidewalk with our tongues hanging out
shifting ourselves from flipped foot to flipped foot
the heat is coiled up in the pavement
waiting to spring out at us.
My favorite frog is mostly brown
and feels like a baby elephant's ear--
nubby, nobbed, noodly
froggy froggy froggy
I have to step carefully when I go out
so I don't smash him.

on being erased

2011-05-24T09:56:00.001-04:00

human existence, I'm told
is a fleeting, finite phenomenon
if you stretched your arms out wide
you could erase our whole history
by filing your middle finger nail
you could erase us
with a flick of your emery board

I have been erased
with words and gestures
on the streets of that old Nile city
I have been curled into my skin
my hair my eyes my body
the atoms and molecules that determined
I should be born white, and woman
the history that somehow placed me
across an ocean of privilege

and these fateful decisions offend
this city... they have their revenge every day
whether they say 'let's fuck' or call me beautiful
whether they grab at my thigh
or cheerfully apply the tax levied
at the color of my skin
we are no more real to each other
than those ages of human history that came before us

I in my sinful paleness and un-hidable difference
They in their power, roving in packs of impunity
We blot each other out under a too-harsh sun
they cover me with acid, venom that takes
the weight and worth out of my being
and I dismiss their humanity with my spit
Across an ocean I might be the powerful one, but here
they can erase me
with a glance of their eyes.

dark matter

2011-05-21T07:56:00.001-04:00

We only know blue for the sky
no other skies have scampered across this
windy unreachable expanse in our lungs
and over our heads.
The scientists have determined there must be
such things as dark matter, dark energy
invisible, unknowable bulk
that keeps the universe from crumpling
like an old shopping receipt
and slurping life's potential away
into skies that are no longer blue--
but they cannot find it.
Well, you can tell them I found it
I know where it lurks
all the dark matter has gathered in
corners of an old Nile city.
On the streets are acres of choking dust
in the alleys, shreds of plastic, fluttering
behind every creaking tin bus, a spew of
such dark matter, it erases the air
and the dark energy, I found that too
mountains of it
in the leer of young men with no future
or the aggressive salespitch of a child
selling tissues.

festering

2011-03-22T16:57:00.000-04:00

anger
pure, righteous, cleansing
creates distance between
right/wrong/good/evil
(such useful things, dichotomies)
sorrow
putrid, passive, helpless
carves me out, all my
swarming innards
sorrow and anger together scrape out
the mallow
I dry in the sun, a husk, partly relieved
a child who has wretched out the poison.
oh humanity, I sometimes say
why destroy, maim, torture, ruin
piss on the seeds of creation
stamp out your own potential?
But there is no why, no because,
no humanity
just husks in the sun
some are we
some are them
and we could never become like them.
we, we are pure
and festering in holy anger.

to run

2011-03-11T06:04:00.002-05:00

The animal can go so far
measured from here to there
back to here
onward, adventurous, to there
the hutch seems expansive
until it remembers what it was like
to run.
The animal snuffs deeply
sniffling from there to here
learning here
catching, briefly, the scent of there
the air seems quite enough
until it remembers something it used to feel--
wind.

the curious wreckage

2011-03-03T03:16:00.000-05:00

to find the rhythms of a breath
the tumbled ocean of a thought
the windy wayward wiles of a word
we tread that muddy field
that borders the sweet void
and barricades us
from meaning
we build our own mythology
to learn the texture of a fault
the blazing penury of want
the brackish thorn of discontent
we speak the olden curses
and spill three drops of wine
to know the ending of a dream
--to find the rhythms of a breath
amidst the curious wreckage
of a soul

shivering

2011-02-17T16:15:00.000-05:00

I am a little
this, this, this
on the outside
outside of a window,
looking into a room bigger than the world
outside of a wall,
peering over to paradise
outside of a crowd,
hearing such magnificent talk
on the outside,
shivering in my boots.

ing

2011-01-20T00:53:00.000-05:00

Running (we are)
Something (towards)
Waiting (in patience)
Looking (in darkness)

Fading (we are)
Glimpsing (barely)
Dashing (tremulously)
Hurting (in all our bones)

Meaning (to do more)
Wanting (to be more)
Sickening (wrongly)
Dying (without)

Learning (we try it)
Growing (every which way)
Softening (to the curse)
Smiling (at the end)

the machines

2010-12-31T09:54:00.000-05:00

I am forever tripping over cords--
cords lying everywhere,
their fanged mouths sucking at every little hole in the wall.
When I go to fill my coffee cup,
or to find out the weather
I am forever tripping over cords
and this, I say, is trouble.
For either my coffee is spilled,
or the weather is turned,
or worst, the cord is pulled out of its machine.
And then the machine begins to yammer at me--
or dies quietly, to my endless annoyance.
Sometimes the cord is snapped
and the machine overturned from its rest
and then I must say, all hell really breaks loose.
My thought is, the machines ought
to take more care where they leave their cords.
I should dearly like to go a day without
tripping over them.

a better race

2010-12-29T10:41:00.000-05:00

I am of a better race-- that cool, water-race
I flow and flow... I never burn
Find a path over anything, and carry much away
as lightly as the dancing oceanspray

See how superior is my formless, glinting face?
Reflecting all, absorbing none-- not one
Break the earth when I fancy, or give breath
to all those slimy monsters poaching time from death

I am of a righter kin-- that distant rushing no-place
I freeze, boil, besiege, linger
Break myself upon you, cursed to be always moving
Find myself within you, trapped, and not-quite-loving

For I am set beyond that humanish disgrace
My essence better than the air, the fire
And holding violence, mercy, truth in smallest measure
I cannot help but live to no man's pleasure.

sea creature

2010-12-26T10:20:00.000-05:00

Seashell: small, curled, skeletal,
painfully drying without
8 tons of oceanwater per square inch
to crush and tumble it
as it used to like.
Agonizingly brittle for a strength that used
to battle such ocean.
Inside-- whatever that means
inside the cave of regulation--
or the house that keeps out the rain--
I am the size of the seashell.
We cleave to each other and create a New Thing--
our yearning infests each other,
we are made grotesque by the weight
of such yearning.

Ohhh... What I wouldn't give
what I wouldn't sell or do
for 8 tons of oceanwater per square inch
to crush and tumble me alive again.

our mother

2010-12-21T09:56:00.001-05:00

our mother
who art on earth
extravagant be thy name
thy laughter be heard
thy peace be attempted
outside us, as it is within us
give us this dark night our untamed feasting
and celebrate us our mistakes
as we celebrate others to bring forth their Selves
and lead us into every adventure
but deliver us from self-righteousness
for thine is the struggle, the surrender, and the mystery
for as long as it should be
indeed.

poemies

2010-12-21T09:07:00.000-05:00

poemish
la-dee-la o poemies!
heatsie, warmshie, brewberry
...mumty frolicky
frilicky!
eagerie heartsie
strawberry tartsie--
ah, stockingish sunnieful
poemies!

thank you

2010-11-25T01:32:00.000-05:00

Thank you grass and thank you sky
Thank you green that meets the blue
Thank you moments whisking by
Thank you hours waltzing through
Thank you tree roots in the earth
Thank you songbirds in their tips
Thank you crackle on the hearth
Thank you sweetness on my lips
Thank you sun that gave us life
Thank you moon that gave us rest
Thank you dawn that ends our strife
Thank you God for all your best.

by proximity

2010-11-07T14:55:00.001-05:00

Is there any soul left in there worth digging for?
Eh, spirit? Wake up and tell me!
Is there any passion or perfection worth striving for?
I admit it-- I underestimated the desert…
or overestimated my sherpa's ability to guide me through it.
All the authors and the painters and the songs and the ideas
have shriveled away now.
My mind is quite naked without it all… naked, yet still too hot.
All my gods and their muses, all my feelings and their truth
got pummeled by the mocking sand and unfathomable heat,
yet this desert is unaware of its power. It’s not even trying to kill me—
it just does by accident, by proximity.
To write, in a whisper, takes too much strength
Now I am reaching for the mirages ahead--
Now I reach, and exhale.

tenderness

2010-08-10T23:58:00.006-04:00

i can't go another moment
curled under the soil
come, Sun, let us burn each other

the salted morning hurls your blackest dawn
into craters from my roots to the feather
of life stretching upward, a millimeter at a time

something sacred happens there, as the
garden lazes on in bloodthirsty
tenderness
as it always, always has

now all is beginning, and the green is
wet with tremulous foresight
but do not worry, Sun

you will have me in the end.

the answer

2010-06-06T10:28:00.000-04:00

can't fight genetics
and i have the genetic code
of three obsidian rocks
twisted together on a
mountain side
during a kite-flying
kind of day

can't fight the math
and i am the subtraction
of distilled water
without the oxygen
can't catch my breath
can't fight my thirst
to gulp the whole ocean

can't fight the language
and i am the interpretation
of all the words that
mean 'why?'
like truest obscurity
i can't find
the answer to myself

the coasts

2010-05-23T04:09:00.003-04:00

if emptiness caught me in tin foil arms and forced me into
the cup of coffee i drink every morning
why, that would be something
then the kettle would join in the fun and deny me
the progression of hours i watch so steadily
and i would cease to exist
in the rumbling tumbling mumbling city of effort
but i might be born again
into the absolute irresolute magnanimous moor of
infinite churned possibility butter
with a few extra thoughts
such as, why you and i always refused to call our romance a spade,
sailing the cautious friend ship
skirting the coasts of bliss
but never going ashore.

in churches

2010-05-07T03:31:00.001-04:00

the eucharist
is a very strange thing.
i never liked it much, in churches,
in america
never made sense
always seemed a bit foolish
why eat such a tiny bit of bread?
why drink such a tiny spot of wine?
now i sit in a church,
a million miles away from everything foolish
stunned to tears
that the pastor is giving me this bread, this wine
does he know who i am?
stunned to laughter
that there, at the table, a little shadow of God
bends toward me
getting closer and closer
to the point i could probably
lick God's face.

i was out

2010-05-02T06:27:00.001-04:00

I was out to the horizon last night
For a cool spread of thought at the soul
I rarely get such a nippy thought
with a verge so dull

I was out to the window ledge
Getting ready to step off a gutter
Into the shiny coin of an opinion
Pretending to matter

I was out to the distance this morning
Looking at myself from a bit aways
All stickered with adequate learnings
and worn out with days

like me

2010-04-19T17:38:00.000-04:00

oh that breeze
snirking in and swuttering out
little sweet thing
not quite a thing like me

for sure there was a bit of magic
thwicked into a sunflower
and left on my porch
which, recently, has changed smell

oh that shiver
much crusticated and mustified
twitching my nightgown
as if i didn't know my aloneness

i come to think it thirsts, much like i do
against this wretchfull city
toward fragentious lands
and lost sweet lambous things

inked out

2010-04-06T07:41:00.000-04:00

the train comes in
a great flutter of birds from an old hollow tree
and I know how it will depart-- a herd of cattle,
leaving the ground pawed and the little mice frightened

i sit on a plastic chair, my bare toes wiggling in impatience
as i watch the black cloaked lady occupy the concrete yard
of the waiting place, every inch of her inked out
every inch of her, my opposite

the train comes in
a bold chorus of yammering dogs in the desert
and I know how it will depart-- a polyester veil
leaving the men hungry and myself, faceless

box

2010-04-05T17:14:00.002-04:00

When there was, through no fault of the world, a little sliver of peace
That crept out
And escaped
The people in the forest stopped their drumming and their blanching
And listened

And when there was, on quite a fine day, a tiny crest of stillness
That caught on
And grew fat
The girls in the school shushed their giggles and their lessons
And heard

And after the bitter night came, a pinch of snuffed calm snuck in
sat down
and sprouted roots
We all grew a bit somber to think of such calm, so close
We took heed

And after all those insignificant instances
Of sacred smothered silence
I curled into an old brown box
And frantically wished for your noise.

afraid

2010-03-23T16:02:00.002-04:00

So afraid to let go, go on, be free
To fathom those fathoms of sea
So reluctant to grow up beyond this view
Where I’ve ambled with you
Such a great long time I’ve lingered
All my wild dreams I’ve tempered
Putting off old growing pains
Hiding from the summer rains
For a night spent, quiet, alone
Wondering where the light has gone
Can I run without falling?
Or love without wounding?
Are there risks I must learn to take
Before my heart finally learns to break?

a little comfort

2010-03-19T17:28:00.004-04:00

when I came to, just after the storm
I heard that calm voice just outside
I heard that voice in my dreams once,
such a sure, steady thing it was!

Surely I dreamt now, barely able to see
but no, the voice falters, restarts, surprises
and gently guides me awake
uncaring as to the direction, particular
about the view

I came into the world, at last coherent
after such a dark night
and I was certain only of a wish
to hear the sweet voice again,
to hear a little comfort.

short story

2010-02-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time

A time like summer
Only saltier
A once like rain
Only headier
Upon you

In a far away land

A land like lust
Only deeper
Away like chocolate
Only darker
Inside you

There lived a princess

A life like Eve’s
Only messier
The princess, a voice
Only harsher
When she spoke

Trapped in a castle

A castle like yours
Only hazier
Trapped like a rat
Only shrewder
At the game

a wall

2009-11-04T00:30:00.003-05:00

He built a wall around me, a wall so sheer, so strong

I thought I could break it down

Tried so hard to break it down

He’s more jealous than I thought

He built a wall around me,

And every time I beckon others close

They press up against this shield

And find, after all,

There’s no way in

He built a wall around me, a wall without any door

I peer out of slivered cracks

I cannot get out; You cannot get in

He's more jealous than I thought.

gold

2009-10-12T16:08:00.000-04:00

i am standing in water, soft as the day i was born, licking my ankles and toes. the day is unlike anything i've ever known-- it's as though i woke to find everything still, the world stopped, the noise silenced, the colors brushed over with star dust. i'm encased by air or music, i can't tell which. and though i'm the only one i can see, i know i'm not alone.

every time i close my eyes, i wait for life to start again-- i wait for a thundering car to pass by, i wait for that pressing, panicking sense of urgency to refill my chest and make me weary and old. but i am young now, i am new. maybe the youngest i've ever been. i think maybe i am perfect. yes, surely i must be perfect now. surrounded by perfection, who could help but be perfect?

i think back to the old gray fields i used to walk, the moldering stumps that made me cry with their remnant of lost life. i think back to brown leaves crunching underfoot when i was a girl in tights on a dead-end road. i think back to that blinding white winter when i first began to freeze inside. now i am warm, warm as a first kiss long awaited.

oh, the gold! i am bathed in gold, not anything like gold metal either. i have been swallowed up in the fragrance of honeysuckle, or popcorn, or the wildly spraying sea.

i sink into the water, i let it sweep over me, i let it into my mouth and lungs, i let it into my bones and my memories. it is so much softer than the crushing air i used to breath. i could fly in this day, i think. perhaps i am flying. certainly i am singing. or no, perhaps that is the sky singing.

the waves rush out again, i am three thousand colors and just one thought-- you. you've come at last.

a realization

2009-09-24T10:21:00.002-04:00

a realization of need
and weakness
where I thought ideals and dreams
would keep me strong
oh, was I wrong?

standing in waves
stained red by a merciful sunset
I am comforted
by all my flaws
and yours too, friend
yours too

don't cover my nakedness
don't take away this moment
where covenants break
and breath exhales
and all the world
lurches on

you see now, I followed you
believed there in the wilderness
the measure of our hearts
would be made known

so now we're on the same road
together, and apart
sure and regretful

I waited for that place on the road
where journeys pause and truth can be told
without fear

we never found that oasis
so I never got to say the meaningless little things
I wanted to say

I carry them with me now
in case I find you again

things

2009-09-09T17:10:00.004-04:00

what a thing, to be known. what a thing of desire and impossibility...

what is there to know, within me, without me? what is there to plunder, to unearth?

what a thing to be learned, like the cracked back of a rocking chair, much used. or the cool plaster tile baseline of my current existence, learned absently from dancing feet.

what a thing, to be loved. what a thing of desperate, untenable hope. i've gone round the world, i've been many things, but i've never been this thing.

oh such a thing, to be finally seen. like the stars are seen sometimes, trembling through frosted panes, a revelation in a single point of light.

why must we wait, to be known, to be learned, to be loved? what storyteller marks our days and holds us back from that long awaited consummation of yearnings? oh, oh to finally be these things...

God

2009-07-16T23:52:00.002-04:00

I’ve found God in weariness
I’ve found God in old smells
The feel of sheets of paper
everyday and tolerant

I’ve found God
In chapped lips
Goddess songs and Sunday school
The complexities of a friend’s body
The labyrinth of a man’s heart
I’ve found God.

A moment here,
A whisper there
A little girl, angry with life
A blanket
In need of a wash
Dinners and conversations
Drinks and cigarettes
Tasting like God
Tasting of God’s sweat

I’ve found God
Still looking, always
Still waiting
And God is still hiding
Somewhere,
manywhere

the you

2009-06-18T01:17:00.001-04:00

There are thousands of snow flakes
Hovering, pink and perfect in this
Blinding brilliant kiss of a storm

You are trapped in heat
And bustle
You are trapped
Within yourself

But I am a snow globe
Waiting to set you free, shatter you free
Into the wintry world
Of wretched western twilight

I am a shard of glass
Leftover from the accident, the incident
That set you free, and found me trapped
Within your heat

Marble man, obsidian eyes
Embrace me
For I am so cold
I will not last the night

And this snow globe ocean
Placid as rain
Tender as the ocean tossing ships upon a feral storm
Drowns me in eastern heat
The kind I’ve been thirsting for

The you I’ve been thirsting for

follies

2009-05-13T00:06:00.000-04:00

Maybe if I escape to the rain and the gray
The empty and the wild
I wont have these questions
These old silly questions
Standing in my way
Pretending to be important

Maybe if I learn myself again
Like the twining rims of cedar root
Always underfoot
And fragrant
Maybe then I might sidestep
These vain passions
And follies

For nothing endures of the night
Not even the crusty silver moon
I am so fond of
And nothing comes of my plans
Or forthrightness
But stiffer follies

Oh man with your black eyes
And hyacinth words
You are zilch
And I am the whole thing
Oh man with your irregular desire
Your wisdom is so much less
Than my cherished follies

shhh

2009-05-02T23:09:00.000-04:00

All the noises
Echoing noises
Red and impolite
Fragmented whispering things

My ears are mutinous
And seek out these little friends
Amplifying,
Jumping back
Latching on
Hearing

Sometimes I put
My hands
Over my ears
And listen to the sea
Listen to a false created
Silence

all mothers

2009-04-09T23:11:00.004-04:00

And we were all mothers
In a town a little farther on
But here we were chipped voices
Chipped old mugs
Patient in the sunshine

A lot of somethings
Tickled us to stay and stay
And trade in our beaded beauty
For the strange delinquent pride
Of counted values

And we were all sultanas
In a life a little bit ago
But here we were edited chapters
Edited papyrus
Waiting to be found

Some kind of nothingness
Wiped away all those secrets
As we took off our shoes,
Made ourselves comfortable
(as we could be)
In hell

I think once we were gardeners
Or something quite like it
I think we knew how to sing
In those days

difference

2009-03-23T20:04:00.001-04:00

There is no philosophy for life, no philosophy for pain, no expression for misunderstanding and difference. There is no way to appreciate that which we cannot touch and smell and feel and be inside of ourselves—it is one of the glorious, ridiculous, and bizarre aspects of our being and of all of creation—our difference. Our existence that is defined by our separation… from each other, from the earth, from God. And it appears that there can be no full reconciliation, only brief moments that do not last. We look in from foggy windows and grate against one another like gravel and iron. If we passively support, we are weak; if we challenge and question, we are cruel. There is no right answer… only wrong action. Speech that condemns us and some utopian precedent that mocks us. Sorrow and weariness. Confusion and pretense. Heaviness.

I have learned only to flee. To run. To escape. Those very words bring a smile to my lips. I understand them. I appreciate them. They mean life can continue. They mean everything’s not lost. Running from exile to exile, from hope to hope… all of this beautiful action means I do not stand still, and I can someday come back and make things right when I am wiser, stronger. I wait for the wind in my hair, rushing by outside the train, sweeping through during takeoff, carrying me to a blank fresh page, promising me I can be fixed, assuring me I can make myself better. Teaching me that life is worth living.

Issa

2009-02-09T21:20:00.001-05:00

So many names, wrapped up in you
So many ideals, so many sensations you startle up
When you wisp by on a breath, when you
Dance through the day
Free of time, free of our confusion

Oh beloved, we cry and we cry
Whether we drown in our action
Or our tired dirge of silence
For friends beyond reach,
Life bereft of value

The fires of this world
Are more hell than you could have conjured
In your studio, long ago
When you dashed us into being

The fires of you
Are all the cure we long for
And all the quenching we lack
For your cruelty
Is love
And in this puzzle
We must wonder, and die

untitled

2009-01-18T21:27:00.002-05:00

Everything’s beautiful
Everyone, the face of God
So much to see
So many paintings
The One we chase
Becoming many

And you, you are beautiful
So beautiful
As memories, bright and elusive
Burned into perfection
The dross forgotten

The message is unclear,
The future, meaningless
And all about me the stars
Are shrill and
Wonderful

Their song holds me in place
In noise, in charred sacred noise
And the sky is crimson
With dreams

What if we couldn’t see
Anything but those stars?
Then I would kiss you
And let it linger
Loud in the noise
Of the sky

allowed

2008-11-17T23:03:00.002-05:00

It’s been a long night
Full of advice
But advice that is just a little heavier
And condemnation cloaked so politely in smiles
And self-righteousness

So we all confess to blogs
Not priests or friends,
We know they don’t understand
And it’s really a shame

What would the world feel like
If we were all allowed
To just be?

To just be where we are?

Tonight I would smile, really
Instead of this tired old frown
I’ve worn in concentration and frustration
In trying to explain my journey
To those who won’t see

What would it be like
If I had the freedom to say,
to whisper,
I don’t believe?
Or more true, my believing has changed
Has grown
Like me
Like Us

How relieving it would be
If I were allowed
That grace

old night

2008-09-18T00:21:00.001-04:00

Oh the long-drawn, horrid night

The stars that taunt, the songs that haunt

All dreams throughout this visage blighted

Wronged and yet, so sweetly righted

Oh the soul-less, chaste to-do

Of comings plain and goings vain

In black-stacked coaches plunging through

The oak and beetled, barkled yew

Oh the monstrous calm that clings

With fingers chill upon my sill

And lingers in the frettish formings,

The lost old bones of many mornings

Crackled on the clew

Unutterably Bright

2008-06-25T00:29:00.001-04:00

I see a destiny

In my mind’s eye

Burning away, a thousand nights of fire

The dross itself becomes a precious metal

The fire sacred in its purpose

The artist terrified

In the laughter of the Beloved

I became holy

The instant he touched me

Being little with substance

And much with yearning

I became broken

And the fire felt cold next to the skin

Of the Beloved

So hot I could not recoil—

So unutterably bright.

meryt

2008-06-11T23:41:00.003-04:00

They are called beloved
The little half-dead weeds on my sill
I know their pain; I am their pain
As they enviously watch the rain
From inside
I fall into their frailty
happy to
give up
Together we number three

Together we are called Meryt

on looking at a waterhouse painting

2008-06-06T00:27:00.001-04:00

The bell clanged

Unexpected; and the clocks began ticking again

At last

Long last

They were stopped for many a year

The moldering gray of dawn

Became golden

While I blinked my eyes, presuming the invariant ennui

Would last

It didn’t

The pink feathered morning

Is coming

To what end, I dare not guess

To what light, I cannot imagine

But the shade pulled itself back

All revealing

And hungry, as if called

I stand in the dust specks

And the frail novel warmth

It’s a new kind of waiting

bayou

2008-05-29T00:31:00.001-04:00

Heavy in the bayou and fragranced like lotus she dwelt, curved into the landscape and grown over with lichen and moss, a part of the constant half-darkness, a part of the flickering shadows and pressured humidity. Long had she been there, long had she sunk into the earth. Grudging had been her lesson in patience. Yet learned it she had, with none but Old Man River to whisper babbling wisdom to her through the long solitary nights. She learned the slow sonorous spreading language of the soil, the ticklish patterns of birds, the strange beauty of solid earth beneath her feet. She learned the texture of skin and hair and fur and feather, the voice of the creatures, the devastating harmony of it all. Grudgingly her heart changed, split, unfolded to encompass more than the jealousy of the sea… unable to possess the power that had once defined her, she found herself fitting into the fragile balance of life in the bayou. The understanding was a gift, the last gift of betrayal that saturated the symphonies called eternity. She accepted the gift. She accepted.

Her mind was beginning to be like the hut. Strange forgotten memories appeared here and there in visible form, fragments of past lives and threads of the time she had believed in love. Trinkets and tapestries, laced with the burning chemical regret. She began to think she would never escape. She began to wonder if she wanted to.

can He know?

2008-05-26T01:18:00.003-04:00

Deep, deep, deep.

It’s all for Him, He’s the one. The instigator, the perpetrator, the reason, the torture and the survival, all because of Him. Deep like a thousand steps into the heart of the earth, deep like the pressure of the sea, deep like thoughts in a dark night, a night the moon has already fled.

Rough, rough, rough.

I’m sharp around the edges, jutting and defensive. And He loves that, He is not a tame lion, after all. He takes the challenge, bloodies Himself, we beat against each other like bystanders of needless attrition. We meet over guitar and coffee and photographs, over emotional driving gales and dear-bought midnight clarity. We meet over the second glass of wine where I remember Sabbath and laughter, far away, taken from me.

Mad, mad, mad.

In every sense of the word. Angry, crazy, hilarious. Hands are already wrinkling, skin splotched and eyesight poor. Choice of words becoming redundant and repetitive. Mind happiest when dull. Waiting. Endless waiting. Endless survival.

Oh, I wonder, can He possibly know how much I want Him?

in and up

2008-05-23T00:50:00.004-04:00

A little further
we go
in and up
deeper and higher
the rushing and the whisping and the noises that used to terrify
when we were children

shadows are growing things,
unfolding on a crocheted spring morning
after heathcliff went away,
when all the days were open linen stretched
musical and brazen
in their possibility

a little sadder we get,
understanding the roots and the soil
pulling our muscles taut
while hyacinth and lilies, summer bliss, are torn up by the much-prayed for rain

the nuts and the charcoal burrow
and we are brighter
further out and further on
woven with plastic shreds of another people's genius
the realities that used to puzzle us
when we were children

moths at my lamp

2008-05-14T00:53:00.002-04:00

I do not want to be insulated from life. I look at the flies and moths (a few little ones) hovering over my lamp and think, I am glad they are there. What would it be to be so rich, so well comforted, that flies didn’t get inside? How quiet, how lonesome that would be. I am reminded of how much life there is around me, how many there are trying to survive in such near proximity. They too struggle. They too feel pain. I am not so alone.

Faintly I catch a whiff of genius that could be mine if I but focused, worked, struggled, perfected. If I had the patience and the stamina to make it through the building and the making and the perfecting. I do not. I do not. I watch the genius flicker and pass me by, I watch it and I can do nothing. I can do nothing. The roots of the tree have taken my strength; the branches of the tree have held me in place. “Without a vision, the people perish”. There is no vision in the valley, in the desert, in prison. I perish. Oh yes, for a thousand nights I perish in a slow quiet way. It is less than a song, less even than a line of poetry. And yet it is precious to me, it is all I have, it is all I am.

I ache and shudder and push, but I find what I have produced is not the bounteous, beautiful harvest I dreamed of. It is a pitiful mound, scarcely enough to live on, wrinkled and ugly and so much less than it ought to be. My fingers rebel and say, we will not fight this fight for truth anymore. We will not suffer to bring the darkening clouds onto paper. There is no beauty here. Nothing worth writing.

Sweet is the night that brings me to bed. Sweet is the thinning air of survival. Strange is the loss of memories, emotions, variance. And bright are the moths at my lamp, drawing me out of myself again.

summer and train rides

2008-04-18T00:10:00.000-04:00

If I spoke to you of summer, of sweeping green meadows or warm baked twilight, if I spoke to you of bicycles or sparklers or beginnings, how could you refute me? How could you twist those words, how could you dim them?

If I spoke to you of the train stop I remember, the platform, the quiet hum, the clock cards twittering and the cement rattling, and coffee from the machine dripping, why would you fight that? Would you try?

If I asked you about time passing, about age growing, about years frolicking off into nothingness, how would you explain it to me? How would you explain all the potential staved off and stored for later? How would you explain the shavings that had to be lost?

Why are we always arguing, then? For really, all I am saying is I want summer, I need train rides, I am growing so very old…

magic circle

2008-04-16T23:18:00.000-04:00

I stepped outside the circle

stepped beyond the wall

out of the light

and into the morning

I strayed a little too far

in my wondering

passed the garden wall

all covered in ivy and bracken

Beyond help, beyond all

I ever counted precious

the landscape changes

and I am wicked

with delight

sinfully drowning in an open moor

i am

2008-04-13T12:09:00.001-04:00

I am

That dazzling void

That trumpeting call

That passionate need

Of weeded, thimble colors bright

Coursing through alcohol and blurred sight

I am

Everything you can’t fight, or don’t want to.

I am

That pristine dream

That boyhood fort

That summer secret

Of too-young transport lost

Meddling with branchless exhaust

I am

The old ache at last wearing through.

I am

That magnificent noise

That anachronous pull

That proliferous bent

That beats like forty wings

Alighting on destiny’s spring

I am

The old coming gin sling, that had to end.

morgana

2008-04-13T01:03:00.000-04:00

I am what they make me.

I am what you make me.

I bend to the dance, and I shudder.

Undeniable you, unacceptable me

Unattainable you, Unresolvable me

I say what they tell me.

I say what you tell me.

I sway in the shadows, and wretch.

Morgana, Morgana, just let them go

Morgana, Morgana, their blundering dreams

Spit out the poison, you’ll go on fighting

But they will stop here, Morgana

I want what they give me.

I want what you give me.

I break on the wind, and I bleed.

Unforeseeable you, unimpressive me

Unsatisfied you, unplanned me

Oh please, let them go, Morgana

fallow period

2008-04-04T00:51:00.000-04:00

Empty, I’m empty. I’ve written everything there is inside of me, pushed it all out. Now I sit alone, calm, at rest. I wait for the words begin to grow inside again. They will come back, there will be another harvest.

I have been conquered and re-conquered until there is nothing left to claim. There are only squabbles between my variant blood for control of my body. My mind is a lesser land, shadowed, indistinct, stripped of most of its power in recent years. The gypsy laughs and says, leave the mind and take your feet. Take your feet and go. Where, I ask? The gypsy frowns, regrets that the blood was intermingled, regrets I should ask such a foolish question. The german says, rope the mind in and write the paper lying half-finished on the desk. Finish it. Finish it. The jew says, why finish what you could discuss, mull over, poetify? Why dot the end when you could leave it open for later? And the indian says, bother it all. You’ve been inside all day. Why is that? I try to look innocent as I point to the window. At least I opened it, I say.

firstish

2008-03-26T00:03:00.006-04:00

Blue wall,

cracked enamel porcelain blue

like the absence of you

a twittered Madame’s darkling hue

and inlet tides

I can’t swim through

Little though we see, much we seem to know

Of silted muddy flats, fresh covered by the snow

And soulish beauty patched deep for the fallow

Sweet remains of what can’t grow

Riddled in the blue,

The salted, pining milk-fresh white

Of winter like rags in the rape of night

Of silence like shrapnel in the mouth of night

From a drowned-almond height

Wicker bare box,

Empty on the view

Snapped, packed, winterly you

Thyme on the ridging slew

Of a blue wall

sincerity

2008-03-16T21:04:00.003-04:00

Sincerity. Honesty.

Questionable, subjective. I strip things like a chemical, needing to break it down, tear off the layers of politics, emotion, memory, hope. Wanting to get past the layer of what people need to believe in order to survive in the world they have created for themselves.

You haven’t changed, I suppose, but I have. So you have changed position in my galaxy.

My fresh-painted wall is forlorn.

After great hate can come great redemption, as Khaled Hosseini reminds me. Redemption means great shaking sobs and the tiredness that comes after. The tiredness that might be peace. It is hard to tell. Peace is not something we are familiar with.

He takes me on the dark roads, the long empty hopeless roads, the confusing roads through fen and creek and mostly, the untrod road. The lesser trod road. He is taking me on these roads because in a land of sunshine, I become obsolete, a repeated sentence void of meaning, void of purpose.

He takes me on the roads because truth is a person and hope is an organ in my body, made up of cells and connected to my heart and my lungs and my stomach. He takes me on sandy roads whose chief crime is that of monotony—the road repeats itself a thousand times, the world around the road is tiny and painfully known. He takes me on roads that are hazy and lost in a deeping forest that sometimes becomes a battlefield and often proves the last tread of the wanderer. This road is not my last tread. This road is perplexing; it strips away my past like acetone and tears away what once made me strong. The person I become is decidedly naked, free, and the freedom is baffling and frightening sometimes. It is not comfortable. It is like Him.

He is the road, and the road is my deliverance and my destruction. Both are beautiful. I do not mind which wins out in the end. I love walking the road. I cannot stop now.

Masa Al Khair

2008-03-10T23:23:00.000-04:00

A dark tree grew in the forest, roots black as the oily black water of the Tigris, weaving and corrupting their way through the forest soil, graceful as a dancer. If the tree were a man, the girl thought, he would drink absinthe and brood, he would be tortured and cynical, he would be a soldier and a prophet. But the dark tree laughed at the girl when she said this, laughed his esoteric laugh out of the tips of old dead leaves and crumbling bracken. The dark tree stood obsidian black against a plum-brown sky. It pointed to nothing in particular and drew attention away from whatever watery stars dared to shine at night. Night was for the tree. Night was swallowed in the tree’s laughter. The girl loved the night. The girl loved the tree.

Night kept itself cool and religious for the tree’s sake. How much better, how much more effective was the tree when the night was like an empty cathedral: ominous, splendid and corpse-like.

The girl thought, it has been long since I have seen such a part of my soul. Such a dark part, intricate as Byzantia. The roots of the tree are tangled like the black braids of a man; the roots of the tree could hold me down and choke me, keep me prisoner or give me up to the night. The roots of the tree smelled like sugared coffee in a rainstorm. The tree was always damp and perfumed.

In the night the Sidhe rode and Mary prayed, and the spider-hands of the tree branched over both with careless equality. The girl was both and the tree was neither. They waltzed in the dim hour before dawn, waltzed to the plink of a single violin, waltzed to the torrent of doom set against them, waltzed in a way that made the air tremble. And the night, confused and covetous, ended.

cold, night

2008-02-28T00:19:00.003-05:00

cold, night
huddled in sweats
in the midst of my messes
purple socks
and rows of empty water bottles

blood-drained, quiet acceptance
a dull shiver
against the broken fan, too loud
and the fluttering of papers
i haven't finished yet

no more brilliance,
waiting for the soaring sun
waiting for life to begin (... at last)
mere honesty feeling cheap
and it's still february
the days are still dark.

silence

2008-02-01T20:02:00.002-05:00

You’ve taught me silence

in sorrow

in wonder

to speak in your ear

we can’t hear the music

You’ve taught me forgetting

let go to the river

precious rain

the pain will linger

You’ve taught me thirsty

your body

your soul

to reach for your hand

the land is empty

You’ve taught me nights

without sleep

without dreams

to hear your voice

make the choice to surrender

You’ve taught me love

inescapable, love

unforgivable, love

rushing, burning,

and learning to live on in silence

roads

2007-11-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

Roads. Dark morning green, carrying its own fragrance of maturing night-life intrigue to the misty mountain roads. Roads fully nude of the bustle and complacency afternoon will bring. Roads that are paths, paths that are the barest whisping thread of direction, directions that hang on ancient proverbs of journeys and destinations. Roads that Annie Dillard has walked in a faded blue kimono, that steal these brief pre-dawn, primordial moments to lose themselves in the fog of new thought. Long trudgings have solidified them into compact, predictable wanderings, with endings and beginnings. But sometimes the roads rebel.

Something new has been born. The miracle is not the new thing itself, but the birth… the tearing agony, the separation, the emptiness that follows, the too-often survival. This is the miracle.

Everything loses traction. Things that once clung to me with balmy fingers slip free now; old fears, the sharp prick of despair that once may have lured me away is now a shady carnival meant for children. Easily I see through their card-trick deceptions; easily I lid my eyes from their awkward truth. I have come to see that truth is far more dangerous than the little deceptions, but they are both easy to ignore.

A collection of heresies and questions are mixed with straw and form the bricks of my deliverance. Fingers become the slaves of the mind, typing with the feverish delight of roads changing direction. The fingers are tracing charcoal onto the carpet surface under the tree of life, from which they were not to eat. Eve proved more curious. Eve proved more resilient.

Deep the roots have gone, and long it takes them to tunnel back to the surface. Long the wings have been unused. Long the seeds have been dormant. Sharp has been the hunger of waiting; wrenching has been the inferno of change. One by one I watch the companions turn back, turn away, bury their face and stop. Day by day I leave my heart, if there is such a thing, with them in their confusion and their decision. And yet, always, step by step I leave them, I go onward, I go somewhere, I go to find the roads. I go to find the roads.

The road is going to Emmaus, and the Magdalene finds Him first.

My hair is red and in my face. The sun is ahead, beating down on me, making it difficult to see anything at all. I am twisting and unwinding like old thread in a machine just about to break; I am blocked by my own flash of genius. The answers are not easy: they are simple but oh, so dearly gained. Beauty, itself a torturing device, hounds me in heartbreaking abundance.

Small fingers are tracing the face I know so profoundly. The neck with its unbearably sweet contours, the jaw lifting upwards, the mouth parted, always hiding a smile, the nose leading to a creased forehead, old before its time. I inhale the perfume I so lately drenched him with, my hair offering itself. Impossible to see the eyes with only my wandering fingers, I look. I look and the eyes are open, and they are the road.

things i lack

2007-11-03T10:00:00.002-04:00

permanent discontent. this is my state of being. people who are close to me chide me, saying i am not walking in Christ if i cannot be content. perhaps they are right. the most basic questions have the power to change everything... who is Christ? the man of Christ, the person of Christ, the god of Christ, the idea of Christ, Christ in all believers, Christ in all the oppressed, Christ in the poor and needy, Christ in the criminals, Christ in beauty, Christ a compilation of many people? Who is god? The god of the bible i find so arbitrary and human in his touted perfection, the god of late-night emotional revelation, the god who twines himself around my entire life but will not show me his face, the god of justice who kills his son for rules, the god of mercy who torments job to save face, the god of the present who never lets moses see the promised land, the god who refines by wounding, who heals by scarring, who makes beautiful by aging, that god who is endlessly remote because he is beyond me, that god who wants to be close to me but wants to do it all on his own terms, in his own realm, which perhaps he had forgotten i am cut off from here on earth. in making us human he made us innately connected to our senses. but those senses must not be employed in experiencing god... unless we transfer god, as jesus suggested, to the people or atmosphere around us. and then we are back at native american mysticism, at namaste.

here

2007-10-17T22:20:00.000-04:00

here do I live

yes, here till I die

sooner it comes

than I ever could guess

aching I live

in the shadow I lie

at the mercy of things

I can’t hope to express

here do I weep

yes, here till I stop

endless tears flow

with a life of their own

bitter I clutch

at the old mountain’s top

gazing down at the valley

where once the sun shone

there did I amble

yes, there in my youth

shorter it was

than I wanted by far

now do I wander

towards some kind of truth

now do I weep

with my weathered guitar

where shall I rest?

yes, where lay my head?

the road is eternal

as it pulls me along

now here do I scribble

with limbs made of lead

a lament that was once

even Psyche’s Song

soft

2007-10-13T23:01:00.000-04:00

dusky, cool, little breeze
my eyes are watering
i pass over the memories, i have put them away

pleasant ocean chimes
my flinty insides
begin to loosen, thaw towards winter

faint, forgotten, familiar
happiness
soft like fluted candle-wax night
parting with an autumn sunrise

the artist and the philosopher

2007-09-16T10:19:00.002-04:00

it's late. late for me, because i'm a morning person. tonight the moon is bewitching and very new- i've never seen a moon quite like this one before.

we're walking home with banter back and forth, and end up at the kitchen table with jack daniels. he doubts my sincerity, but we're both thrill seekers. we both progress quickly, amongst caravan dreams and an insatiable craving for the God of the mystery. (God is light and truth, and yet also mystery. In my language mystery carries conotations of darkness and almost, an evil sense. But my God is mysterious in the most beautiful and terrible way.) And the word becomes seductive. We roll back and forth, eager and direct, anxious to spill all the treasures we've gathered from our pirate escapades around the world, the treasures that become questions, the questions that become song, the songs that become a sudden need for something real.

We run to escape the place that defines reality. We are breathing hard and his skin is dark like morning coffee that starts out a wild day, and i want to taste it.

we are laughing, because we are ridiculous in a way that could verge on profound and insane. we journey into the insanity and all this is redeemed by the golden violin symphony of 1 AM along a dark english road. the fields stretch out forever before us and the sky on the horizon is pink, as though the sun reached a point and refused to set. our eyes flash and we declare that time will stand still for us.

we climb over the fence, laughing, daring to be caught, daring to fall. a slim line of jagged scrapes show across my arm, and i am delighted by them. spider trees wave and whisper behind us, are we defiant, or desperate? what stories have we left on the dark road, what histories or imaginings?

we wade into the mud, and my brown israel sandals groan to be pulled away. we are children again, leaning on one another, catching a glimpse of the water, aware of a moment of decision. all hangs in the balance, and the night catches its breath, because so often have they wandered away at this point; so often have the travelers journeyed on and left it undisturbed. but we are not afraid, in the infernal heat of the moment, in the expression of all the wildness inside us. if only the world could see us now, thank God the world can't see us now!

we lay in the water, in the mermaid reeds, and time stands still. the slow current carries away a remnent of the control we longed to abandon. free falling, steady through the air, deliciously cold in the water, so close we are almost the same person. i look at the stars; i am reduced to an essence, perhaps the purest form of art, and his arms are the truth.

i break the moment, and the bond strengthens. it will stay in this night, until one day we write our memiors, i joke. we shiver, perhaps we are cold, certainly we are giddy. we stand on the road and wait, we walk in the field and listen. An owl interrupts our infrequent voices, and we drift apart, preparing to re-enter reality.

a woman's ambition

2007-09-09T22:48:00.001-04:00

I will be Maud

Walking in beauty like the night

Swept up in the carpet of desire

A woman’s desire, to be the beloved

The antagonizing fire

The drive, the reason for him to battle and fight

I will be Cleopatra

A fragile robe to scale the tower

Tumbling out of their deepest dreams

The hypnotic cobra

A vine for betraying their worldly power

Never quite what I seem

I will be Juliet

In the East, his only sun

Riddling with kisses and beauty that marks

A brand on his soul;

So obsessively loved, so painfully won

The name that is whispered alone in the dark

I will be Helen

With the men of the world splayed out

A perfumed alchemist, their china doll

Both a sage and a muse

Ancient secrets the songs and stories tell about

Mighty men of the world, at my feet they fall

I will be Mumtaz

And Shalimar shall be the gardens we walk

A consuming fire, a tender magician

A thousand and one nights pass

As the sands of time swallow up our sweet talk

Who can know the depth of a woman’s ambition?

seamstress

2007-09-08T22:44:00.001-04:00

Canvas

Rough, brick, slap, he pulls my soul out with that enigmatic smile

4 years since the day I dragged my hippie dreads through the parking lot

And he made me a Waterhouse godiva

Nylon

Garter, pavement, press, he shape-shifts in with a tragic life story

3 years since the night I broke before his virus vulnerability

And made him my road to Emmaus

Hemp

Ink, wax, light, caress, he Pavlov-s a system to curb me

2 years since the morning I emailed a Pulitzer-winning apology

And he gave me the closure I no longer needed

Cotton

Twang, gravel, slouch, he’s growing up and down and in and out

1 year since I was totally over it, but I’m still terrified of men

And he hovers a little too hollow

Silk

Brush, henna, settle, he’s hardly a memory, just a picture on the screen

1 week since he instigated that dangerous old game

And made me realize how old I’ve become

when we were lovers

2007-09-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

When we were lovers, the moon and I
when passion's inferno lit my virgin breast
when hands and hearts and eyes were one
when my secrets were thick, and rising in the east
of an untempered dawn

When we were lovers, the night and I
though many ancient ways bid me steady
I danced for the moon in the heat of twilight
in gypsy raiment, half naked, heady
with delight in the hidden glow of a forbidden caress

When we were lovers, the earth and I
in the dew of the morn, 'neath aurora eternal
with hearts too young for melting or breaking
when fear was delicious; desire, infernal
yet ever a risk worth taking

But the blood of youth is too strong to flow
and the song of life too loud for a sigh
still my untamed soul searches after the days
when we were lovers, the moon and I

exhile

2007-08-30T22:40:00.000-04:00

exhile is knowing you aren't amongst kin. knowing you are in a strange place, learning backwards customs, forcing yourself to be something you don't even like to survive.

exhile is knowing that love isn't around the corner, that your true purpose is being masked whilst you "make the best of a bad situation".

exhile is waiting, endless waiting, kept alive by the briefest, most torturous moments of hope.

exhile is resigning yourself to letting dreams die, as time goes on, just to keep moving forward.

exhile is never feeling perfectly happy, never enjoying anything fully, because something is missing...

exhile is dichotomous, splitting you down the middle as you ache to just rest and make a life where you are, yet know you're not in your kingdom and can't possibly put roots down...

exhile is psychological torment in the face of near-constant monotony.

exhile is made acute by films or books or poetry or songs or the close whisper of a passing stranger, reminding you of who you are, declaring they see your hidden crown, declaring one day you will come into your own again.

mind in shame

2007-08-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

i fling it away,
the mind is repulsive

when the sweeping strings create an indian dance around my ears
and the candles flicker as only little flames can

the voices start, my hand itches
the paints spring from their bottles
and the paper is no longer white

the words have retreated, shamed
by the glory of the better senses
a single note of music, a spurt of color make words irrelevant

tribal
pulsing
hair in face, hands stained
yes, she is an artist
in her soul, compelled
words are cheap to her, she tosses them around like toys
but the rest are precious,

the colors she can taste,
the music she can drink in
and most sacred of all
the touch of skin
the faint brush of skin
the pain, the pressure of skin
the nearness of skin

I can worship a God I can't see
easily
I can love a God I can't hear out loud
with pleasure
But things become difficult
when I try to worship the God I can't touch...

he said

2007-08-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

she said i was out of control, she said i needed to reassess my priorities.

they said i should have another chocolate, they said i should teach them how to pack.

i said sure. it's nice to consolidate baggage.

you said i looked nice in green, you said you would stay in touch.

they said to let them have a try,

and i said piss off.

he said no, but clearly meant yes.

you said you liked to read, you said you hadn't read it yet.

he said i was seductive, he said i was a child.

she said it was artistic, she didn't know what it meant.

i said i was trying to cut back on words for a while, since they were so prone to misinterpretation.

you said why bother? the world knows of so few other ways to communicate.

i got out my camera and a gun and said, those were the only other two ways i saw used.

you said i should be subversive and try another language.

meteor shower

2007-08-13T04:15:00.000-04:00

i've said my goodbye, and it left me feeling strange. i've learned to say goodbye quickly without a care, but my learning failed me this time.

we've had too much sugar, and our bodies are groaning at us for an herbal cleansing smoothie made out of grass and wheat and purified water. we lay on the floor, glued to a film, escaping the emotions rampant outside.

the cigar is weak and loosely rolled, but we enjoy it anyway, we enjoy the burned taste on our tongues, we enjoy the conversation mellowing in the (almost) cold evening. the clouds continue to blow, and we continue to pray.

the sky clears, and anxiety weakens. we begin stockpiling blankets and plotting a route to the field.

i sit on my hands and am comfortable; there is no desire now to talk, no desire to engage, even. i sit on my hands and am comfortable, but somehow i am making the people around me nervous.

toni collette and her family are on a roadtrip, and the music is stunning, but the story cracks me and i lean against the couch, choked, overwhelmed. i step back from the mess and shrug... someone else's problem.

i take the coffee black, forgetting i am around my countrymen and they think it is "hardcore" to do so. i don't need it, i don't want it, but i drink it anyway, because it's there and smells so lovely. perhaps coffee is one of my seven deadly sins, but i do hate making lists.

the grass outside is already wet, and my sandals are falling apart. i stumble in silence behind them, quiet inside, pensive in the midst of their laughter. some artistic mood, they say, and i don't mind. really, i don't mind. some things aren't merely secrets, they are sacred, and must be treated as such.

we are all close together, sharing warmth, gasping when a light burns across the sky. they are many, and magic. the night has become lazy when suddenly i realize i've forgotten to make wishes on the falling stars.

the first song i ever wrote

2007-08-11T07:23:00.001-04:00

There’s a cut on my finger

There's a cut on my finger

Because I am a fairytale

And you are my spindle

It leaks blue blood and diamonds

But my words are swallowed

In dragon roars

The dragon you slayed still roars...

You are the gold I must spin

And the name I discover

You eat my bread crumbs

And now I can’t find my way Home again

I run to the castle and cast a spell

Sealed in the blood from my finger

One day

I will be Princess

I will be Princess in your eyes

collage making

2007-05-28T11:19:00.000-04:00

Looking through a magazine

And found a picture

Just a corner really

Outside it was almost raining

And the air was black like your mouth

Heavy

I was caught in a wave

I tore it out

The sound

Frighten, shiver, clean and finally

I put paste on it and stuck it in one of my art projects

And I kept thinking I should put it outside

In the almost rain… put it down in the soil

Let it choose to die or grow.

But I didn’t

They say now, it's healthy to have defenses.

the circus man

2007-05-24T03:35:00.002-04:00

a circus dancer

caressing the crowd of everyman

their charismatic smiles boiling my wounds

what pleasure!

a flint-tipped scourge

stroking the soft of my hands, my back

a punishment to the achiever, to the failure

of awakening

funny how life stops for none

funny how you bend to none

funny how I sing for none

a hummingbird, elusive

illusion

a trickster, and a child

the point of my pencil, the white of my eyes

so tempting, so thrilling

exhausting in the morning

till the melancholy dusk

the knife of the ages, to carve out our shallow husks

a friend

to those who would leak empty

to those who would drop knees

to those I cannot be

all paradoxes dancing together

for the wonder, the breakage of everyman

alone, at best

2007-05-20T06:30:00.003-04:00

moments falter, shatter, mocking

things are drawing to a jerking close

despite our best, despite our wars

In the dark I see you rocking

back and forth,

a child

dangerous and deceived

despite my love, despite my rage

So bitter, drink we in the herbs,

trading wine for poison

enchanted by the heady draft

delusioned by the screaming mob

Alone, at best, we fight our wars.

the earth slam

2007-05-18T03:14:00.006-04:00

The days when you were here,

the faucet was on

and I was beneath it—cleansed, my leaves were refreshed and my roots went on a quest to re-explore the soil.

The days when you were here, it was spring, and I was growing.

The days have changed.

The leaves retreated

I curl and shudder; Winter is Coming.

The flowers have fallen; beauty has failed me.

I sigh, my head bows,

there’s no use in fighting the Winter that’s Coming.

I’ve been through a winter.

God sent snow and it buried me

He sent wind and it froze me

And it lasted and lasted, oh God, how it lasted!

“It’s lovely!” The tourists cried. I shuddered under their feet, and died.

a kiss

2007-05-18T03:06:00.002-04:00

It starts with a song and ends with a kiss.

It starts out like that and ends up like this.

It starts with a fall and ends with a crack.

It starts with your hands and ends with your back.

It starts out with dreams and ends up with fact.

It starts with a whisper and ends with a note

It starts as a symphony; then it goes rote

It starts in the tower and ends in the moat

And I sit here reading these verses I wrote

And I pick up my bag and I put on my coat

It started like that, now it’s ending like this

You were always my song, and I still have your kiss

spider tree

2007-05-17T03:28:00.002-04:00

Spider Tree

In front of orange lamp, in front of night

All is wet and dangerous

Like stumbling into a coven, as the Virgin Mary

Spider Tree

Yellow rain lurches down

The sky is arguing with the shadow behind the lamp; which is emptier?

The Sidhe ride, and Mary prays.

Spider Tree

Forges an alliance with lucid, limpid leaves

They hang and pant and teeter,

Tenuous tribes, hermetic heathens, all of them.

Mary is wiping the tree roots with her hair

Spider Tree

‘s black base outshines orange lamp; it is intricate

and perplexing, (a Turkish rug, or a magic carpet)

the dead retreat, when

Jesus comes to tuck Mary into bed

The rain goes on, and Jesus listens

Spider Tree is singing.

exiled from Eden

2007-05-16T08:52:00.001-04:00

This is the dance of the last creation, and I was in the way.

I rise and fall with the springs, with the water and the rush and the drag and the drip. I feel them through the way the air lands on my spreading, budding fingers… those fingers that burn with expression; they are full of green and life that can not come out, not yet. The plan has changed… all wait, breathless and empty, and none of us understand. We were not made to, He tells us.

I believe Him. There is nothing else to do.

But why has their weakness caused us so much pain?

He tells me I was not meant to experience pain… and I know this. The searing of the sun has withered a leaf, and I watch as it breaks off from me, and takes a part of me to the ground to die, to rot. I cannot pick it up. I cannot put it back.

I move and sigh with the breezes, with the pine fragrance and the warm wet grass; I ache and shiver with the dark noise and the new knowledge, the evil. All is bleak, all is changed. All is mystery.

And the sun has changed, and begun to hide.

We are still. We are planted. Stillness is strange. Stillness. I do not remember stillness. I remember that such a thing must be, but it no longer fits here. Can it have existed?

I flit up and am thrown back against the earth, which weathers in clime of haggard blue, jagged through the rich black water around us.

Fear has caused us to shrink.

We are smaller, minute by minute, drawing into ourselves, blending into each other, desperate to be surrounded.

We are tamer, hour by hour, complacent as we wait, knowing we have had our strength removed. This must be, if They are to be saved.

One day, He tells us, we will regain that strength. We will speak when others are silent.

But it is not that day. And somehow I know, I will not see that day.

Suddenly, death.

Suddenly, endings.

When the first leaf fell I knew. And then I stopped caring.

Drink deep the water, sink into the soil and forget, forget… Stretch the arms away, cover the new skin with tougher bark, search out the minerals with supple facetious fingers. That’s all. Forgetfulness is black like Keb’s eyes, and it is a gift. We accept the gift. We accept.

There was a thing called beauty, but it has shattered. Now there are tiny fragments of it, all about, too small to notice much. A shard came and pierced me, poisoned me, penetrated me. Sweet for an instant, tragic for eternity.

How shall we go on? I ask you, Avi. This is your earth. I am your Tree. You have called me by a name, and given me a purpose, and set me in the garden which now, we are exiled, exhaled from. How can you ask me to go on? Can you not draw the curtain on us, put us away, gently break us in two and wipe us clean?

He comes with strength, a tired strength, the remnant of what You gave him. He comes to kill me. I know this. I know this.

Avi, must I die?

Avi, have I served you well?

His strength hurts me, and my branches are being torn off. This pain is fast and flurried and means nothing, nothing after the first instant. I must die.

The leaves are trampled and crushed, my leaves, pieces of me, each worth a lifetime, each precious, each a bit of my life, which Avi gave me. I let them go. I let them go.

Avi, you will remember those leaves.

I don’t mind the pain. He is weeping, he is always weeping now, and I will die.

He chose the knowledge, and now its curse has infected us.

Avi, lay my leaves in Your garden. Lay my leaves in Your garden.

Green like Your breath, saturating the symphonies you call eternity. I don’t want eternity. I don’t want to leave you.

The leaves are gone, and time is an enemy. Oh Avi, be merciful. Do not let time kill me. You do it, yourself. Do not leave this rubble to stand, a mark, a stain upon your earth. I am dust of deep color, sweeping across your earth.

And I will know endings before They know endings. And I will know. Avi. All I know.

reflections on a homesick night

2007-05-13T17:31:00.001-04:00

I learn what home is

Far away, grown up, alone

My heart always burned away, to get away, to be away

I didn’t belong

Now I belong, and I’m gone.

I find out what love is

Three steps out the door

My mind always twisted truth, to find a better way

I couldn’t decide

Now I’ve decided, and you’re gone.

I know who God is

Now that I’ve scorned His Eden

My body always wanted to find a way

I walked away

Now I’m far away, and He’s still here.

I didn’t belong, I couldn’t decide, I walked away, and He followed.

the wind

2007-05-13T04:20:00.002-04:00

Rush, Rush, Rush, says the Wind
creep through doorways, slip beneath glass
to carry songs to the lips of men
who sit in silence on the wayward grass, pondering

Wish, Wish, Wish, blows the Wind
Give voices to the creaking trees
Murmur to the crashing waves
Carry the Earth’s undying pleas to the ears of unhearing men

hush, hush, hush, sighs the Wind
Mingle with the breath of lovers
Dry away the streaming tears of children
Lift the ancient graying hair of those who once were fair
and flying

Fly, Fly, Fly, cries the Wind
Fly upon the wings of beauty unattainable
Rest upon the fresh and hazy morn of timeless days
Circle the globe with your deep and ageless fury
For we who live are not ageless,but alive

calm, calm, calm, quiets the Wind
Linger in the hollows and soothe
The restless rustling night
Perhaps everything will be all right…
I do not know, I do not know,
whispers the wind

when did the writer grow..?

2007-05-04T12:40:00.002-04:00

When did it become so easy?

When did all those years of struggling with the pen and grinding one’s teeth to the marrow melt into the melancholy relief of scribbling down a few words and finding they were magic?

And when will it become hard again?

And when will it become impossible again?

When will all those careless scrawls become worthless, and empty, and dead?

(Those careless scrawls that even now are glowing with the perfection of true genius.)

I laugh at words, they have lost power, as the years scratch by and cynicism gains a fortress. I laugh because crying seems too good for me, me with all my mistakes I cannot overcome. I laugh because I am old, and tired. I laugh because it seems polite, for this shell person.

When will laughter turn back into tears?

When will despair not end in a drink?

When will these days of empty, bleak, feeling-less thoughts

Become a garden of glorious blooms— anguish or vivid hope,

Anything to brighten my cool white windowsill.

When did life become so easy?

When did death become so dull?

Was it something that happened, to make me not care whether I wore black silk or white cotton, whether I were seen or saw, whether I lived?

When did the writer weaken?

When did it become so futile?

When did the writer diminish?