October chill, but not now
her unexplored body like a
unraised objection withers
in the silence, the dead
rise from their beds as funeral vines
winding over stones, through cotton
no more utility
in their dry tongues
they will not touch
their domestic steps
move apart, she cannot
hold the lord of exits and is left
where she was felled, dainty as
a white-bellied petal underfoot
into the microphone, pink
in ASMR valentine, a wispy
stimulus, the other woman
lightly scraping shelled nails
across a dry palm leaf, she squeezes
her coin purse into the king’s ear
we hum the fruit of what
it all amounted to
Happy to have a few poems up at Rabbitbrush: A Literary Journal for Outsiders, Been a while since I had anything published for general public consumption outside of my little ol' blog :)
Be sure to check out their first issue.
Thank you Rabbitbrush!
snarling, smiling, human and non
and one leaf saying why must I be
yellow or green, dress me up
in cell phone blue, let me giggle
on a popcorn beach or befriend
geodes bathing in soapy lava
or let me nap on the tail of Godzilla
Azul, be careful who you listen to
some will say leaves are always green
and Godzilla doesn’t exist in poetry
but, here we are, a continent away
screwing up our eyes to see
the monster in your tree
and the world
trembling at his feet
i.
slow there, and here expand
common strands
run steep and wide, the strange
vocabulary very academic
like the smell of an ink pen
your finger, use it to trace
the craftsmanship of a cube
then cup the sphere
where you stand
strain and maintain, turn
to your neighbor and explain
the endless
compulsion to explain
ii.
fractions are soft, a loss
without total loss
the algebraic expression
is an opportunity to set right
the brokenness in the world, to reveal
and make known the exact question
know this and then gaze
into the brain of incarnation
a notion now in breathing meat
iii.
think of what you
expected to learn
this is the how
I leave you
to solve for why
to tease the snap, to blow up
the likes, the secret men
by the tens
scrolling by, stopping
for twelve beats
to pinch zoom the titles
of books on her night stand
they run their eyes over her
mother’s heirloom quilt
fashioned in times when to turn
a man’s head, all one needed
was lace and churn
it’s what she does
to curate imaginary
numbers, those viral
passers by asking
to see all of her, working
the long division
of labor illuminated
by a ring light, she calculates
her next move under a skin
of their adjectives
Friday Writings #243: By the Numbers
on which some amoeba, a stamp
of lichen, a stray cat hitched it
until that boop of life met a drop
of ocean and coughed
so here we are, milking it
laboring it to the molten core
biting down and tickling Sisyphus
until under his rubble
we decompose, waiting
for our cosmic dust
to surf a germ onto another stone
for an encore performance
at its feet, speak
only of the raw materials, how pure
they must have been, imagine
the maker’s tilted eye, speak
only of skill and the years
in the studio chiseling
at unforgiving stone to create
such intricate medals
how the solid ribbons
seem to sway, marvel
in the details
of its heavy boots
how the proud creator
must have bristled
as he finished
in time, you will sculpt
two hearts in the contours
of a more precious art
to tiptoe into a kitchen, you know
where they all keep their Sunday knives
the drawer of fast food forks, a distorted blue
sippy cup collapsed and weeping
warm milk like a Marian icon abandoned
by progress, stop and care enough
to dissect the tea towel draped
over the counter–Mystic, it’s the Key West
wadded up on a Wednesday morning
landscape that betrays the lateness
of their exit, the hieroglyphic Cheerios
and lukewarm scrambled bits
you suspect that in every house
with laundry there is a damp apron, the breast
pocket open, asking you to enter, to touch
your mother who slipped away, and in that way
you won’t leave
empty handed, or alone
really you, and you gunned it
like a false start, leaving
your belt unbuckled
which was a blast, your bow
was an empty bottle slung
from the hip, which hit the ground
and the glass became shards
which is like stars for people who
never look up, which means they wont
see you up there dancing highway
to the danger zone or the three dots
you left in your wake, twinkling into
exhaustion or wasting away in
the overwhelming dark, which is
love in a dead language
of perverse suspicion
flooded the summer
and thus we fell
among cryptic texts
unanswered calls
and nights turning
into suspicious morning
routines of angry gardening
together tearing
at the hearty stalks
and thus the bed
became cold in absentia
and rich with fingers
and thus a thin fire culled our lives
vigorously, almost professionally
so therefore Jesus spoke
a new wood, sending me
a preserver, a new soil
my impoverished angel
tossing seed, so I could eat alone
be punishingly alive
tending to a new shoot
Friday Writings #240: Despair and Delight
can you weather, or shiver
with outdoor angels
they are in you, above you
that feed, the play
the force
is the same as a chime
waking from its stillness
to trill its voice
as it remembers
yes, the morning
is a cold hard color
slip it on, the earth
will have its noon
with sunflowers
steeped in gray
you’re not of this pillow
drag your coal outside
feel the sound
of today’s wet lips
pecking at your skin
maritime fog envelopes stuff
full O slow train, O head lamps
O workers decked out
in reflective orange and hard hat
safety trained, bobbing breath
O, Oceanus breathes wet
slips away to blue, to gulls, O bellow
horns, drywallers crack jokes
below, the concrete men
screwing around between task
and the wrapping up, resorting
to resolve, spending time
through yule and aching hands
the open present
O children, behold!
_______________
Friday writings 207: in between
