Almost Fall

Love


Is standing

facing each other

on ant infested logs

in water.

Even the most balanced of us,

Can’t go steady for long


…Before the inevitable…



No.

Wait.

I’m wrong.

That bit up there,

never mind it.

In fact,



I admit, eyes down cast, mouth corners curling,

I don’t know what I’m talking about.



But like a finger pointing fervently at the moon

attempting to let you know why we’re about to be soaked

by a swift high tide,


this poem happened.



I won’t distract you with indications or explanations

when I can simply ask:

would you, could you have a loyal affection

for a gradient of being

squeeze my hand

and laugh at the impossibility of an answer?
















Desire


Is it really insatiable longing that pulls arms out from our sides,

turns palms upward, and causes everyone

to be more beautiful in the act?



I feel the light and warmth that pours

from a breastbone forward gaze as

I caress the articulation of my clavicles in response,



yet I hate the need I see in my wet soft eyes,

this drawing from outward that is impossible

to bring to rest with connection to any one particular source.



Eyelids smooth, jaw lax, twirling to feel the swing

of the earth pivoting heavy in my ankles,

I attempt to taste the everythingness I ache for.


My knees sometimes give way weakly or worshipfully.

My throat, on occasion, tightens thirsty or sad.

My shins and forehead are known to press upon the floor.



Frustration or fear always wedge between your eyebrows

when I tear at myself sharply, cruelly,

ravenous to be Enough.



My sweet beloveds, I am sorry

for how I look to your bodies, your personas

to be the infinite I hunger for.



Sucking honey off your fingers,

clenching fistfuls at your forgetfulness,

weeping alone in bed anticipating your death,



I love the enormity of the inseparable

with a mind that must know a penny from a dollar,

fire from water, mother from myself.



I don’t want to wait.

I don’t want to hurt.

I don’t want to trust



in what won’t show me just one face

to relate to, but insists on being

every particle and wave, so I look to yours or mine.



It’s incredibly unfair, but too overwhelming

not to fixate on the form of a person.

Terrified at what cannot be steadfast ground,



new again right now, I pound violently against the

audacity of you or me asking that I be still and know,

when anything I keep is an echo of you, of me, of fullness.



Deep breath.

Eyes up.

I soften in the shoulders.


Unappeasable craving turns to elbow lifting,

wrist rolling, sternum steered seeking to be seen and

your arms rise, round, and reach for me in answer.

North Dakota

Fields of wheat, fistfuls of horse mane,
wide blue arches over arms outstretched get
sky bubbles caught in the throat.

The old school house kneeling diagonal
into space, space, and more space is forced to lay at last
where the bottom tastes of cattail and clover.

Look up and rafters of you throb
the grouse drum swallowed by silence
and the fluttering of gooseflesh.

Anything beyond sunshine slices scattering your fingertips
across the lips of the Souris swollen with rain doesn't matter.
Remember the rush of civilization soiling itself with excitement?
Don't bother returning from thoughtlessness.

You've found the scent of yourself against a great horizon,
let hills inhale urgency and exhaled fuzzy sticky thistles,
grasshopper foot prints, mosquito kisses,
toothy leech mouthed smiles to woodticklish love songs
steeped in chamomile, nettle, and mint.

Now you dream only golden yellow and skeleton white.
You are the beetle rattling corn stalk's spine.
You sway the unfurling ferns green outward always
and match the motions of lovemaking to the oceans of grass.

You are satisfied deep slow
in the itchy pain of utterly alone.
You smell a hailstorm coming like a flax flower.

You are at my center,
and whatever you do

you can't


leave it



quickly.

Spring Again

Hold my hand here against our skin.
Become our strong thighs as we crouch in this field,
solidly holding our fine ankles,
balancing perfectly our smile gooey faces
atop our gentle toes.

Become the green grass tips tossing in the air.
Become infinite points tickling and playing the wind
through each hair over us.
Just hold my hand here against our skin.
PERCUSS!

Become boughs of crepe myrtles tumbling against the sky.
Become so smooth we're giggling all together
with our lowest parts hooked shallow or deep into the soil,
mingling with dust speck,
tussled with pollen's promise,
topsy-turvy with skin cell.

FEEL THE FLUFFY MYCELIUM OF ALL OF US POUNDING!
through clouds,
through nerve endings,
through branches fine and dense as fog,
through cytoplasm,
through oxygen and hydrogen bonds,
through electricity!

PLEASEjustholdmyhandhere against our skin
and feel everything within
become,

ba-
bum,

become
so
close



to song.

Spring

Two Monk Parakeets

Two monk parakeets mating in a tree
with fine bright leaf buds hinting at the season
looks good to me.

Better than good, really.
Makes me laugh hysterically!

The breeze rustling the branches,
ruffling the feathers, tickling the heads of dandelions
into dancing could be from my lungs.
Could be from the sun heating things up
shifting atmospheric pressure,
pushing things into a righteous flow.

Could be from this unfolding in my heart
shaped like two monk parakeets going at it in March.
Their heads two soft mounds atop
their bodies meeting and becoming one pointed
at their tail feathers: heart shaped, jostling.

Looking good. Looking better than good.
Splitting my sides so green, so new, so natural.

Summer

On All Sides Sharp and Impossible to Embrace

On all sides sharp and impossible to embrace
A pine cone is a precarious starting place
For life in this wilderness
Some only to a forest fire spill their love: You.
Seedling, you say they didn't prepare you
They forced you free
All of a sudden you knew their coil of darkness
Because they opened to the light
Drawn out by a curious fear
Only to see a burning world
You escaped as soon as you could
On the hot breath of the breeze, never looked back
They turned to ash and then earth
The same earth upon which you feed
It was a rough childhood, but you are far from it
You don't remember much now that you're a tree
But you find yourself sharp and impossible to embrace on all sides
And this is natural somehow
It is how you came to be

Menstrual Litany

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.-Billy Collins

You are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
But you are bad magic in the belly
a ripe tomato crushed out of its skin
the sloppy morning mouth kiss
and a river stone worn to the size of a fist.

You are also not a beam in the roof
the grass gone to seed
a spoon in the silverware drawer
nor spider with the fly.
Nope. You are none of those things.

You are always a strange pop in the joints,
the wet fruit slice in saliva,
thunder with no flash of light,
and a shadow cast by a rolling ball.

But you are never a daisy behind the ear,
a stray balloon,
the of tinkling cuff-links,
nor snowflakes falling on a campfire.

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.


Lake Travis

The sky was not blue but lavender.
My heart rose up with the water
floating on my back singing to you.
My eyes squint like a drunkard in your light.
But you never answer.

"Oh God, are you there anymore?
I was certain looking up. Now I'm not sure.
The sky seems empty like it'll never rain
and pain rattles inside dry as a bone,
yet I remain..."

.... nothing.

I wade in the shallows smiling
at my own sounds leaving.
Singing country style angry isn't enough for you.
That night I cried on my bed thinking
magic is dead.
I am never again to be winsome
thinking of invisible beauty.
Everything's ugly.
Only dirt and algae between the toes left.
Just minnows nibbling scabs off.
Droning motors boats going round
and round the same old shit
with assholes blaring top 40 hits
everyone's sick of exist.

God... ?
Are you the pause... between waves?
The wind? The space between scattered shells?
Do you hide in the water?
Are you on the other side of the penny or
at all with the clouds?
Which one of us is not lookin' for the other?
Do you notice me picking my bathing suit
out of my ass?
Can you feel me swallowing that fifth hot dog?
Why do I look for you as I flush my trimmed off pubes
down the toilet?
You don't care.
How could I expect you to answer?

Obviously, you were under rocks with the spiders
laughing your ass off the whole damn time.
Or something
And I just didn't find you out on the water.

Rest assured I'll find you
while you're busy not lookin'
at all at me lookin' for you
not lookin'.

You'll see.

Winter

December 7th 2009

Love Poem to My Heart from My Mind

The machine of Me is many mouthed
Chewing the ends of whatever I place within my understanding
Love of My Heart
Your shape I fondly nibble every which way.

Your blood, marbled within me paints
Universes that illustrate
And foreshadow the plot of my life so vividly
I cannot close my eyes
From the pressure pounding behind them.

The great eminent darkness
You cause when you stop
Gives me enough mystery
To contemplate every paranoid thought possible.
I can never truly be bored,
But I imagine it’s terrible.

This certain uncertainty you give
Warms Me, gets Me humming in the morning
Cleverly avoiding everything leading up
To what you’ve cooked up
OOOO oooo OOOO!
Stimulation!

The KNOWING of us together, my heart
In spaces of thoughtlessness
Vast timelessness where there are no machines
Because there is no work to do,
No where to go,
And no use for you to beat on
Your march so fuddlesome and delicious!

I still haven’t quite figured out
Where this knowing comes from
When I see how we work together
But, I trust you
You let me be Myself:
A machine that goes on and on
My heart, My heart
I love you so much.

February 20th 2010

Tiger Woods

Such a naughty fellow
Popping into the most desired mound
With one small hole at its center
Grass rolled over tickles the lower half
Of the spectacle sport

Bystanders never hear the sigh of the wind
Through the ever watchful sky
While one white insect eye lidless, silent, eternal
Flies through the great green trees encircling

With sandbag heavy fingers sifting from the slightly underside
I give one swift crack up the back
One big hit with that clubfoot stick
Of my swing-hipped smile and
Verdant celadon stretches the curves so far beyond
The boundaries of our sight.

Over Easy

You get to know the pleasure it is to swallow
As I glide down your throat so
Over easily

Much like your own insides
Simply moisture, solid, and space
I gush all over

Poked by the tine of a fork
Plumped by the heat of the skillet
My heart a tame and yellow yolk
Runs all directions unpredictably
Across your plate

Slowly undoes itself

For the kiss of your tongue
And the fullness of your belly

February 23, 2010

Snow Day

Quiet, cold, white bits of cloud fall on the ground.
Everyone is too afraid to go out.
No work. No cleaning,
Just movies, cooking, kitty, and hot chocolate
Wanting enlightenment is a mistake.
If I sat in the snow concentrating
On melting it, I’d only be prone to illness.
Whether it liquefied or not has little to do with me.
Ice turns to water every day. No big achievement.

To be on purpose realizes our vacant efforts
And lack of audience when you give it up
Better to observe my cat’s green almond slice eyes
Slowly closing in contentment, marshmallows
Melting into hot wet chocolate powder,
My head woozy, sloshing like a bowl of water from
Reclining on couches for hours staring at a blinking box.

It’s better not because it will awaken me faster,
Certainly not. Neither will sitting hours on
Well waxed floors and washing bowls with pickle slices.
Nope. If I and a Zen monk changed places,
We’d be equally uncomfortable.


He in my heavy velvet pajamas, me in his itchy robe,
He ignoring the cries of my roommate’s lovemaking,
Me prostrating over-eagerly to his Roshi for wisdom
Serve only to annoy.
Irritation only causes a crisper intimacy of distinction
Between that which bothers and that which soothes.
It is better to do what you don't have to tell yourself to do.
It just gets done. Still, no liberation occurs.

If enlightenment is beyond concept,
It could be that easy to just switch-a-roo
And be done with the whole nonsense,
But I doubt it. Ease and struggle
Must be far away from one who is shattered by the falling of a leaf,
Put back together by an earthquake, unmoved by the promise of death.

My cat side to side twitches her tail
Adding commentary by her unembarrassed purring
On a pillow. For her, the middle way is natural.
Moved by her gentle suggestions,
I wallow in guilt that I was swayed
To pretend frozen H2O will harm me
And truly anxious of whether it is OK
To curl up warm, still, and mellow
On a day when no notice or difference is made.

Fall

0

I once heard a man speak
Of the twisted circuit of infitity
And if it moved me
Enough to remember the sound
Of his voice, like a grass mat
Woven of green shooting universals
Beaten rhythmically in the
Tidying upkeep of thought

I have no reference to compare
The new position he afforded me
But I remember the tone and the gravity
Drying me up

I can smell the crisp scent of the earth
Birthing the blades of his cutting discernment
Bending and looping themselves beautifully
Into a solidness of pattern

I hold dearly to my chest
This concept of oneness
What ever it is
As fully simple as a chrysanthemum is petaled
And exploding into endless death
Emptiness curls my spine
Like the frond of a fern

And yet between the soles of my feet
And the dirt of the earth
No technology of mind
Can promise me the slightest bit
Of straightness from the round
Hungry lips of zero


Grounded

You are:
Slim rubber band man
Stretchy laffy taffy troubadour
Silly little fool
Fowl on the prowl
An emu of love

I am:
Feathers fluttering flirtatious
A hope a hope a hope a hope
You sound like a pterodactyl
Swooping down upon me
Though you’d like to be an eagle
Plucking up an antelope


We are:
Flapping strange flightless birds
Doting dodos of devotion
Playful penguins pulling power
Out of the heart and into the sky
With arduous desire

It is:
Crazy love when ostriches stretch out their wings


And bones grow hollow from the airy lightness
Of your smile





For No Reason

Deep enough to flex my diaphragm into a shallow a smile,
no one has X-ray vision to see I am mostly space
or that my body is one thing, not parts.
Or that this whole place is one thing, not parts.
Everything is effort too tiresome to notice
the electron doe-see-doe the nucleus over and over.
You’re blipping in and out of existence Universe.

I keep waking up with you not knowing who I am or how I got here.
I sit up from the sleep of nothingness as a dog,
an oak tree, a mollusk, a mother, a panther, a god
and for no reason.






Struck

I let out my dog in a drizzle
Twisting the juice from the stem of a flower
My toes turn inward, pigeoned in a puddle
Saturating all things like a singing bowl
The silence of a fog rings in my backyard

Two blue spots hang like tears
In the irises of my companion
As her acrid wetness wafts beneath my nostrils
Drops of water dance in the sky
And dive at their own accost
As she returns from her squat

Looking up at the rain
I find myself suddenly struck
God?
Are you the wetness of my eyes?
Is that why I see you in the plainest places?

There are some who bound you to books
And taught people to read
Simply to show them
Your face, hands, and feet

There are some who took away your name
As it were unpronounceable
And bent their knees to pray in darkness on the dirt
In apologetic utterance

There are some who burned their wives at stake
And gouged out their eyes
Laying on beds of nails until they could only feel you
As the tickling of their numbness

You could explain to them in the sky
Their frivolousness
But you don’t
You could have saved millions
Quite a bit of time
But haven’t

I wonder why sometimes
I try to capture you in a stanza or rhyme
When you wink at me with beauty
In a stormy sky

Surely your chosen

Live with eyes peeled each moment for
Each stone in the soil
Each pore that puckers
Each breath that fills and follows
Fills and follows
For love of you
Not expecting you to be there
But loving the loving of you

It must all be such silliness
Watching people take out their garbage
Not knowing that you’re in it
Wiping their asses
Not knowing that you’re there
Dodging bullets that are full of you
Striving and struggling to find you somewhere
Instead of within and without all of them
Everywhere

Even just now
You have jumped out from a cloud

To pound upon my pupils