Musings

Love is just a word someone carved on the street
people walk over it, cover it in dirt
they don't know what it means
and I thought that sweeping it clean
would make me complete
that planting would cause the red earth
to grow
but instead of smiling daisies
I got a dried and hanging rose.

Witchgrass

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder---

If you hate me so much
don't bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything---

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy---

I'm not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
is a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost everyday
and you can't rest until
you attack the cause, meaning

whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion---

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don't need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I'll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.


---- Louise Gluck

Getting There

Love is carved into the street
but people step over it
they don't know what it means

Under the Lone Star

after Gerry Murphy

I lay awake under the lone star
green light on my face
3:33 AM.

I can turn the minutes into days
that measure the distance
til the moment of your smile.

You, somewhere laying awake also,
are always just out of reach.
Always an hour, a hand,
a state of mine, ahead.

(Yet, the punchline -
actually a year behind.)

Restless I switch sides
leaving the left and
settle right where your body
would be.

I cloak myself in the sweatshirt
of your memory, burying my face
in the water that leaks from me
and dive into the reservoir of reverie.

My skin tingles with the echo of thunder.
My cheek with the cool of breeze.
My lips reminisce about the hiss
of rain falling softly through trees.

And though, I'm not entirely sure
whether this cerebral cinematography
is a dream or mixed up memories,
it's a beautiful picture.

Myself, sailing across an ocean
like the sea warrior I used to be -
before I became landlocked
before I left what is dearest to me -
but the salty hydrogen and oxygen
nourishes synchronicity.

In my vessels, the rose
of the compass always points North
and though I wade through nautical imagery
my heart doesn't belong to the sea.

It is where there are Adriondack lakes and rivers,
It is where deep brown water encompasses me.

And it's blessed FACT!
not fiction, that sings me to sleep.

I do not know what about you
it is that undoes what about me
I was convinced was so - I don't know what
I was thinking because

You are looking at me
and suddenly I can feel red
and my eyes are no longer - I don't know what
I was thinking because

Your eyes are so deep
and suddenly I can feel brown
as I am sinking down into - I don't know what
I was thinking because

things that used to make sense
suddenly won't do and all this
hard-earned negativity doesn't
seem to be true because -

I've forgotten the words.

I know that there were names
of the things and people that were here
because suddenly you're closer
and I can only feel you're near.

My skin prickles with the electricity
in the air before the storm
and like the hush of rain across water
I can feel my goosebumps form
All the magnets that hold me together
are now pointing to your North.

And I've forgotten what I thought
about the stuff that used to do
that other noun I used to verb
because you're holding my hand
and 'love' is the only appropriate word.

4 AM

Hard twist of fate -
first bed big enough for two
but only A body.
The word is cruel.

Lie supine I
stare at the reverse of you(s)
waiting for sleep
to cover me in numbness.
My comfort is a white sheet.

Then, inevitably, I
will dream a grey smattering
of secret fantasies and fancies,
cerebral cinematography

but good fiction always makes me cry.

Patrick Creevey, II

It's a game of dice for pour young Pat,
waves crash and make boots wet
ivory holds a great surprise
the dice, they say snake eyes.

So it's twelve months more for pour young Pat,
least a full year 'til he rows on back
she'll marry him when his ship comes in
and Creevey's baby be.

Well Jack, that man dressed all in black
made port while pour young Pat
was working of his debt, you see
Jack found dear Molly McGee.

Jack teased her with bags of gold
her father he asked, too bold
for her hand which was promised already
to pour young Patrick Creevey.

A year went by, Pat bought the dye
to color Molly's dress white
and when he came into port
there was a thing or two to sort

So, it's a duel on land for pour young Pat
if he wins this fight, he gets his lass
draw your sword and let it be,
dear young Patrick Creevey.

"Women Who Run with the Wolves' Excerpt

We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the Shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.
-

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Phd. Foreward.

Separate Universes

Two forces collide
ricochet
two opposing rays emerge
bounding like deer
across the caves and truncations
over the waves and exclamations
hey!

You!

follow ME!

it's a mystery of physics
or magnetics
the way that the dances diverges
realign, meeting at the poles of opposition
laughing at the ride.

Picturing Pronouns

She wants to make movies
hold her eye to a glass
and capture a world (that she directs)
in a lens, frame it in black.

I know her through pictures,
one in particular, but it
doesn't move the way she does
and I provided our soundtrack.

Our stories are similar
but have different interpretations.
I have cliche characters, plots, and theories-
she twists expectations.

We have parallel histories
(though I'm the only one who survived the dark ages)
the branches of our family trees entwine
leaving echoes in the bones under our eyes
coursing under our skin
cells calling to their counterparts
to the steady rhythm of hearts.

Mine beats a little faster,
Hers a little harder,
but our blood inevitably bleeds
the same color red.

She wants to make movies
show the world something new.
I write cliche stories, because
no one listens to what's been said.

Around us, the universe whispers
unsure of the consequences, or knowing the rest.

Inside me, the verses flounder
unable to determine the words which are best.

So,
I rearrange letters and
p
l
a
y
with pronouns.

She is ME.
I AM.
Together, WE.

Our 'us' is a pronoun I trust,
though the sentence is incomplete -
Because it's the beginning of something,
something I'd love to read
and what the world needs to see.

Gerry Murphy

"Under the Dog Star"

Imminent synchronicity wakes me.
I open my eyes as the digital clock
displays 3.33.33. a.m
Beyond the windo
a gleaming curve holds up
the dark weight of the moon.
Further out fierce starlight
glitters through from 1347,
Even the dogs are silent -
shot, knifed, and bludgeoned into silence.
Thinking of you,
I begin to imagine you
slipping out of the satin hush
of your underwear
into the chafing din of my arms.
Trouble is, you are probably awake also,
busy in the sealed-off archives of memory
shredding this fiction.

Finally I admit to myself
that you will not call
and apart from burning offerings
next to the silent telephone,
apart from racking the postman
until he snaps and coughs up
all those letters you insist you sent,
I can do nothing.
So, I sit in the gloom
unravelling steadily,
the gleam of a demented smile
growing brighter and brighter
as I disassemble the rose-
shelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshe-
reassemble the machine-pistol.

This is where I peel your name
from that much battered, much travelled suitcase-
the heart.
Where I dissolve whole reels of memories
which played and played
in that obsessive, all-hours cinema-
the head.
This is where
I switch off the individually-lit photographs
and burn down the dreary warehouse of regret.
Where I walk out
into the sweet empty air
into the desert of myself.

More fragments.

Open Mic at BJs

Nevada pours over his notebook
twirling his pen as
another name on the list
is crossed of. Ink over ink.
Pen top over ball point.
Ink over ink.

A cycle of BJ's Good Grub
Eat.

-

'Eros'

Like the stiches that make my pocket
you hold me together and
my keys (to keep others out)
the broken cell phone, I can't see the screen
but I know I can put it to my mouth
and dial --- 8233 and you'll answer,
asking if you can find me.

Find a self-proclaimed poetess
at 4 AM throwing plates at
the wall because it's blank -

like your smooth white skin
I mouth punctuation on your spine
the question marks drip off my lips
and turn into exclamation points dotted
with your freckles.

We speak in smoke colored sentences
punctuated by sin but the only pause
is an ellipsis ... for good taste.

Dashing and dotting eyes, spillings Ts
our relationship is gibberish that no one
but us can read.

But, y9ou always strike me classically.

Your lips a bow, tipped with
an arrow of nose.

struck

I whisper your true name,
Eros
into my pillow.

----

Monday doesn't like school
the other days of the week tease her
so she applies herself extra
diligently to her studies, turning
her books and pens into
surrogate buddies.

At night, she looks at the moon
and wonders what about her has caused
other to focus on its dark side.

Mondays remembers the days before
classes began, when she and the other kids
played together.

Friday used to braid her hair,
before Saturday and Sunday came between them.

----

A Poem for Alarm Clocks

Destroyer of Dawn
you mutilator of morn!
I hate myself for turning you on
that fucking beep I scorn!

Everyday at 7 AM, you take me away
from my lover
leaving me longing for PM,
when I can crawl back under the covers.

--------

I need to update this more often. Blech.

"Paper is Poor Company"

Paper is poor company
these letters, vowels
meant to be read aloud
but silent, without sound
bloodless ink upon the page.

I write poetry on napkins
bathroom stalls and to people
words dribble from my pen
all lost and disconnected
without a set of eyes to see

But some see, then don't read
so all that is left are holes
in the body of me, my corpus
a line of footprints in the snow.

The poet wanders -
Sandaled, chucked, always bound feet-
with no place to go.

Haunting

Trees whisper down Elm Street
with the crackle of speakers
the whisper of treads
I walk, humid curls
halo my head as my smoke
trails ring behind
wisps and whispers

the buzzz
of you on my hips I feel it
like the scent of autumn my pillow
the imprint of love on sheets
rustling leaves and water drips
echoes and echoes

I write short silly sentences
with the tips of fingers
and linger on send
wisps of willows, whispers

the anachronism of technology
ties you to this
memory of full and thin lips
lingers, haunts, the pavement

tonight we walk together
if I listen with my ribs
the rhythm of your step
entwines with mine, accent on the left
behind wisps, whispers
echoes and echoes

Spring 2008 snippets

"With this on one hand
and that on another
I could never find the words
to get across the boxes
I only knew the letters going down
and in the space between
each note, the silence between
the sounds my heart follows
the beats of the songs and poems
never read, meeting a dull ache"

-

A tornado is formed by two things:
cold and heat
the frosty cold front blows from the
North and dances with the warm dust gusts
from the South waltzing in a circle
the hiss of steam on the
cold lips of the Canadian front
as they kiss releases a vortex
of rain and wind, a whirling dervish
loose across the prairie,
chased by vans and satellites

-

The worms weave themselves
over the magnolia leaves
glistening like ribbons from the ground

moon light hits the sodden boughs
creating fireworks around the dying
flowers perking up for one last kiss
from the rain.

But you don't see any of this.
You're asleep, away, alone.
And I am awake, aware, alone.

Watching the worms weave over
the magnolia leaves, pulling the
petals into the ground.

-


Like a dug up miscarriage
you're nothing like you could have been
concieved in shame and born in sin
your half formed bones peeking out
fomr your skin, half human
half reptilian.

Yet as I stand above your little mound
hands colored with the grime and ground
my curiousity is sated.

You're not the beautiful baby I've been mourning;
You're the monstrosity I hated.

Half torn, half born
rotting in the ground
half formed, half born
you'll never be found.