| Another Fragment |
[Aug. 3rd, 2004|09:42 am] |
I am nightwriting again,
sliding between plot and pacing
and assignations with characters
until they all spin and make me dizzy
inside my own head, inside my own dreams
of what it means to be writing
with a pen on blank paper
with a cursor on blank screen
with a finger on blank sky. |
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| Exoskeleton |
[Apr. 21st, 2004|09:12 am] |
My vision is refracted
as I look at you through glass
shards scattered across my face.
And who am I to question
dirty kaleidescope hands
offering chrysanthemums,
dirty disjointed fingers
clutching juicy chalk-green stems?
Your sacrifice is not flesh,
not sinew, not bone, not blood.
But the indigo blossoms
are more precious, more filling,
and scent my fragile body
with the insectile perfume
of your hungry, feeding love. |
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| Marjor Arcana -- The Tower |
[Nov. 6th, 2003|03:36 pm] |
I will not yield
before the tower
that has tried to bind me
to all the old ways
to all the old faults
to all the old mistaken footsteps
leading me down dark alleys in the night.
We have made our choices
and we will move forward
out of the shadow being cast
on the brightness in our eyes.
You are my pillar
and I will be yours
if you will allow it. |
|
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| Of Momuments And Dreaming |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:40 pm] |
Sharing sleep is more intimate
than the slide of your slick flesh
over my slick flesh
as we play at giving pleasure.
Naked bodies are honest
but when we are awake
we are planted too deeply
in them for giving anything up.
I wake up from a moment’s worth of dreaming
and there is no fog or haze
just my open eyes and the skin of your back.
There are scars there, attached
to stories I do not yet know.
My conscious mind will learn them,
absorbing each one through the fingertips
I pass along your spine.
Do the nerves between each vertebrae
hold the memory of injury?
You are my Great Wall of China,
waiting for signal fires to warn
of approaching marauders.
You are my Hadrian’s Wall,
waiting to break invaders
with your bulk.
You are neither of these, just a man,
which is, perhaps, more
and so I am secure enough
to close my eyes
and release my waking.
What do you see
when you are the first
to momentarily shrug off
the Mongolian hordes
riding the plains and steppes
of your dreams?
It cannot be the image I project
onto the blank screen
of my world’s identity.
Do the Celts still run
behind your eyes as you study me
before morning?
The Tao tells that everything reverts.
Do we return to our earlier selves in sleep?
Is there a connection
that exists with our breathing?
Without modern monitors
or ancient shamans, we must walk
the path alone together,
trusting our feet to the blind roadway
that skims the space between our bodies.
My thigh, your hand, a tangle
that is like every other tangle,
but like none because it is ours.
Sometimes I smell you on me.
It fades and there is only
the chance that you will bathe in me again.
But in sleep my animal brain
feels your scent seeping into the pores of my skin,
my organs, my patterns of thought.
When I leave our bed
there is no my smell and your smell,
only the monumental claiming
to which I never had to consent. |
|
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| A Deity In Repose |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:34 pm] |
He sleeps and wakes independantly
of the hours and tides and equinoxes,
waking only when exhausted
to perform the duties that fate
and the ritual of countless sacrifices
have assigned to him.
He has no real interest in their method.
He goes about the business
of godhood, performing miracles,
ensuring the fertility of the fields,
granting prayers even when the supplicants
regret it. That is when they learn
he can be cruel.
And when he gives back up
on wakefulness, finding it
a meaningless exercise,
no amount of burnt offerings
will sway his choice.
He will find a comfortable resting place
for his newly born body
and funnel his energy
into pulling mountains and rivers
and cities over his head
to serve as blankets and cave
and womb. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:33 pm] |
There is only one way in which I doubt
and that is the way you have of moving
through space as if it were infinite and finite
and curving back into itself
without ever touching. |
|
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| I Remember Fairy Tales |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:12 pm] |
We always say it was once upon a time,
reciting it like a ritual phrase
to conjust up our childhood beliefs..
It is a cold place,
and I am slowly freezing here.
Adulthood is a flat, windswept expanse,
with the low scrub grass of no illusions.
The chill swirls around
filling the empty places
in our minds and clothes
with snow that never gathers,
stealing the fire we stole from the gods.
When I was six years old
I believed in everything:
The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny,
Santa Claus, and all the rest.
Now I believe in nothing,
not even my own existence.
My life is clutter, taking up space,
leaving no room for me.
There are no magic words for this,
no true love's kiss to bring us
all back to life.
Instead we walk
around enchanted, blind mute beasts
with only glimmers of our former royal lives.
And when we blink there are too short moments
of wakefulness, remembering when we hid
from dragons, then flew on their backs
to watch the land pass us
through transparent diamond membranes
streched between bones made of conviction.
If you find me with my eyes closed
it is because I am staring
at the years I have spent
in a vacuum without wonder.
If you find me with my eyes closed
it is because I am believing
in the things I left behind
and am working to reclaim.
This is our kingdom.
This is our castle.
This is the only magic that counts.
Fifteen wicked stepmothers
have tried to poison me.
Corset laces and hair combs
and apples have all done me in.
Spinning wheels turn gold into straw,
prick my finger and send me back
to sleep where I open my eyes
and go to work and have
faith in nothing. |
|
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| Life Preserver, Thrown Too Late |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:10 pm] |
Once upon a time
you were light on waves
frothy, clean.
But now you are breaking
on rocks.
I am sitting on the shore,
cold on the beach,
and the undertow
is too dangerous for swimming.
Will clinging to you drown me
or save us both? |
|
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| A Temperate Climate Year-Round |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:03 pm] |
The web of her design
is no place to raise a family.
You will be trapped
by the pleasure
of our landscape,
gazing on the horizon
of her imagination
and travelling the mountains
of her never ending will.
You will not escape
the sticky silk dunes
of our beaches,
black sand streching
for miles in the dark.
What is it you want?
Everything will be given
as long as you continue
to struggle for your freedom.
It is the struggle that feeds us.
The web of her design
grows tighter
until you grow cold.
Come for a visit
-- a vacation from
all that you know.
We are her children
and we will welcome you
forever. |
|
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| Again I Check The Time |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|09:01 pm] |
Can we take a snapshot of every second
and record it for the minutes that come later
in the hours and the days and the years that will follow?
Digital clocks wind down
and slow
and stop
while I am watching
and waiting for the time to change.
If my brain cannot contemplate eternity
or infinity
then perhaps I am not capable
of contemplating your absence,
instead experiencing it in animal fashion
with instinct and no logical sequencing
of events or the moments until your arrival. |
|
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| A Vocabulary Test |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:55 pm] |
Does every definition change with usage?
Words run through me
and they fill my lungs with oxygen --
each molecule a syllable.
When I inhale,
the aroma of the alphabet
creeps into me like a comfortable cat
sleeping in the sun
while dust motes swirl overheard.
When I inhale,
the aroma of the alphabet
pulls me under bright green waves
and leads me to dark blue ice
like the sonar of whales.
We will eat language for breakfast,
raw and cold,
fresh and sweet,
the juice of it dripping
through our fingers onto our clothes.
I am sticky with accents
that I cannot wash off.
We will eat language for dinner
spicy and rich,
fragrant and hot,
sauteed in the east wind of exotic lands,
seasoned by a liberal hand
with latticed windows and glimpses of oceans.
Meaning gains nuance
when animals with human faces
open their mouths to speak.
My kitten sings lullabies
to birds outside my bedroom window.
Our exchange of stories
measures taller than my father,
a tall man, a teller of tales.
With each phrase we dress
ourselves in soft fur,
twitching ears, and swishing tail.
With each phrase we grow
dark trees, snaking vines,
and deeper reaches crying for exploration.
We will eat language for dessert
soft and tart,
creamy and drugging,
treasuring the texture of each slow bite,
the pleasure of discovery after exile,
like early morning promises of love. |
|
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| My First Word Was Never. |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:40 pm] |
There are not words in my tongue,
my broken, motherless language.
There are not words in my mouth,
my bruised, fatherless voice.
I am speaking and I am silent
before the rushing stream
of your accusations and apologies,
scrubbed over hard rocks and hard sand
until we are both clean and worn. |
|
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| Ring |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:39 pm] |
She calls to tell me
what she thinks I should know
(I just thought you should
know...)
but she disregards
the all-seeing eye
that glows in the middle of my forehead.
What does she know of enlightenment? |
|
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| In Between Times |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:30 pm] |
There are long days
spent doing nothing
other than basking
lizardlike
in the sun
disregarding doomsayings
about skin cancer and sun burn.
I have forgotten what day it is.
There are short days
spent sleeping
like a bear in winter,
waking for meals and love.
Was Eden this simple?
But the threat of reality returning
looms and there is no escaping
the weaving of hum-drum and ho-hum
back into my waking mornings.
Even so, I will carry this with me:
The heart beat is all you can hear underwater. |
|
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| The Tide Is Coming In |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:29 pm] |
Time crawls on its belly
across the sand
toward the ocean
and the certainty of graceful flights
on currents.
It is not governed by the hands
of a watch
or the silent counting
under my breath
while the seconds
move too slowly.
The struggle is the future.
Time will reach the surf. |
|
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| Blink |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:25 pm] |
If you are finding
yourself in odd places
in the in-between moments
of your day,
it is because I am carrying you
in my pocket
and you are gazing on foreign vistas
through my eyes. |
|
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| Your Compass And Map Are Useless Here |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:25 pm] |
Everytime, I miss you:
There is no easier goodbye.
But though poets and playwritghts
both have written partings
have they ever written our difficult hello?
The first kiss comes easily enough,
strong tongues sliding, welcome.
What do we say after?
Sometimes there is silence.
I will come to you,
only to find you lost.
You will search for me,
and stumble upon my encampment
on the edge of ancient civilizations.
Excavate the fireplace,
uncover pottery, broken fragments of pottery.
Piece them together,
bind them as best you can.
The remade vessel will tell you a story.
The story is large,
spanning the dawn and the dark.
Only in the noonday sun does it rest
and that is when you eat and sleep,
waiting for the elusive moral.
I am a much better writer dead than alive.
The tale ends,
is resolved
and it is time
again for goodbye.
We will kiss again,
until the next quiet hello,
when I will track you
through forests to forgotten temples.
One day we will find each other. |
|
|
| Calendar Day |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:24 pm] |
Today I am clear --
not bright like water
more dark like a shadow
cast in the corner of the bedroom.
Today I am clear
and I move slowly
through the solid world.
I am feathers suspended in honey,
an ancient mosquito in amber.
Yesterday was freedom and fire
and the flash of brightly colored people dancing.
There was only air to breathe
and food to eat
and water to drink.
Yesterday I knew how to swim.
Yesterday I knew how to fly.
Now I am struggling to breathe
water, lungs straining with foreign fluid.
I have eater the air
for breakfast,
going hungry in the midst
of the banquet.
Now I would like to learn how to walk. |
|
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| Vagrancy Is A Natural State |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:21 pm] |
The world is made of boxes,
stacked in the corner
of a dark doom.
Each of us live
in cardboard boundaries,
sleeping under overpasses,
breathing to the rhythm
of the cars passing overhead.
A little bit of rain,
blown in through the window,
and our realities collapse,
sagging and disentegrating.
A bit of paper tossed in a river.
The flood carries us
past the corrugated wreckage
of things we never knew.
Suns we never watched set
are extinguished.
And still the cars continue --
our heartbeats as regular
as the spin of their wheels.
Our eyes are learning how to see
the new limits of our lives. |
|
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| The Dawn Breaks Like Glass On Stone |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|08:18 pm] |
I have only watched the sun rise twice.
Once we stayed up all night,
sitting on the beach,
watching a meteor shower.
Other people said it rained stars,
but we knew the truth,
saw the lights streak
(not like water)
like alien ships
invading, bringing home
to everyone who was ever lost.
That morning the sun seemed foreign
to me, from another world,
and you were the only familiar thing.
The early light was pink
and the water turned green
and I learned a new language
on the purple sand.
Now you speak to me
in that language from space
and your words become the night skies
growing red and orange in the morning.
The individual grains of sand
are the alphabet only we can write,
a grainy ink on the scroll
of the continental shelf.
We continue to speak and remember,
reinventing grammar when the old grows
cold from disuse.
We go to sleep before tomorrow
and wake in the dark of today.
The sunrise, and all its new vocabulary,
are lost in electricity.
But this morning I woke up
before the day began
and watched your skin come to life.
Your veins traced letters
and I read the secrets of my interior,
finding a pathway through the maze
back to the quiet moments I found in you.
This morning the light was a cave painting,
still-bright colors outlining our dance.
This morning you were the sky,
reflecting the universe.
I watched solar systems form
and planets fly out of alignment.
Your regular breathing governed gravity,
and when you stirred, opening eyes
that hadn't seen the Creation,
we invented speech, whispering
secrets of entropy and chaos.
I understand the galaxy. |
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