Month: August 2021

the steady holy

rain falls steady as trust 
til it doesn't                    (trust) 
                                (rain)
and flies resume their maddening 
and the sky resumes cobalting sincerity 
and likewise the trees and we resume eating the sky- 
after that rain, which washed our feet dry
and tumbled down the mountain- 

all my desires leaked earthward (like worms.) 
and we unroll vertebrae from desire's floor 
(despair.) 

and you turn over a stone and find my lips 
saying, "friendship is a curiosity (in faces.)" 

and steady clapping it resumes to rain again... 
(irises. eyebrows) sane as time!

Calvino encounters O’Keeffe

flowering black for herself in the desert. 

And he asks her- 
he asks O'Keeffe, expert in doorways 
and illusionary doorways- 

"Which way to the bus stop?" 

And her eyes are a mirage
of home abandoned, 
(but he never had a home he liked.) 

She asks him, 
"what can you give?" 
"a feather, never flown, pocketed 
impossibilities 
is all I carry." 

"Lucky, eh?" 

And her eyes are a mirage 
of orange water. 

So, then she asks him, 
"where are you going?"
"I hear the water of life runs downhill,
I am going to the valleys." 

"Chasing, eh?" 
And she points with her paintbrush 
to the sinking sun. 

"The bus stop is that mirage." 

And never tiring he trudges on his way.

head fake

if a wise friend tiptoes out 
like a melody leaves the mind 

break the ceiling with your pillowthighs 
and rain wine-

quick, grab a cup! 
you're thirsty like a liar 
drink your good luck! 

they wisely have shown you where 
to gamble your roots- 
and not on them! 

once again there's nothing ahead. 
don't look for the future
open us
nowly instead. 

now i won't speak more of R, of us;
language cannot touch that touch.

poem on the spins

my most worst habit is excess. 
when i drink, i drink too much, 
and then some more. 
when i smoke, same thing. 

i invite an exciting stranger, 
Forgetfulness, 
to my lips. 
she beheads me 
but lets me keep my head. 

so i go home so that i might 
offer my head to the Moon. 

the Moon kisses my forehead
she puts a secret inside. 

Moon, how do you stand it? 
bound to the Earth, 
yet you can come no closer. 

and the Moon spins her yellow skirts. 
you mean 
                         like this?
separation is what allows me 
                        to exist! 

how shortsighted is your fear of death, 
that you don't enjoy the spinning days? 

then i vomited.

invitation

to taste
the ear, the tongue's one customer* 
to taste 

but lightly, not insistent, insists
the goddess strange astride solid hips 
astride a band of five hundred horses amassed 

at a river too wild to cross 
my love-madness 
water insistent. I feed it to you

I do not ask to be asked. bring your calamity hair 
bring your sensible tears 
bring your ropes of body and terror 

be souls with me. everybody is within me
already. 
I am the field on which we meet 
empty. plenty. I feed it to you

* Footnote- Rumi said this first, 780 years ago. (give or take.) “A tongue has one customer, the ear.” Quote is pulled from Rumi’s poem The Reed Flute’s Song, as translated by Coleman Barks.

bird advice

chips of light 
fall from beaks of birds 
                                       beadyburp
when the winds fail to blow
do birds plead, 
do they mourn? 

no. be that wide, 
wide as wind above the earth. 

wide as water 
under doors 
surrender course 
seep where you are. 

you are 
humming 
empty 
like a grapeseed 
swells from light. 

my soul settles 
under your skin. 
standing still, we spin 
bright 
midnights 
around us, 
your curly hair. 

who is not bewildered? 
who cares! 

let's be wind now 
wailing, finish this poem 
in the dark.