The Journey

The late afternoon star does not compete: snatches of her
orange haze hatch the edge of the gathering clouds,
rendering the earth a pale, worn grey where once
there seemed lush greenery, recently; or has my memory,
deceived, grown as large as those trees ever were?

I remember a stream through here of quiet horsemen
on four wheels in festival colours at all hours
down the one lane, with quieter boats like mine
set fast at the harbour. Do we heed them all?
I say let the sailless whales overtake us.

We left to the yellow darkness of a storm setting in,
first the sky's bright blue brightening the field's
light yellow, then the space between the darkness
and the brightness. For my soul knows we're going
to the junction of these two highways, the junction
of this and that, to wait for a message.

Ahead, set aside on the shallow-bellied bay and up the
wide tree-lined lane of grass on the hill still lies
the sign: Christ, Scientist, for all to either beware
or mourn beneath, silently or for the world to see.

A million monkeys in the church, each typing a
thousand forgotten genius's lost works
that you've just GOT to read.
And I say write more.

For what more pleasure could a day bring than a day's worth
of pleasure, and what more could we wish for than so many
days like that? Sometimes it's obnoxious how beautiful
it is, the sun through the trees through the window
of our car through the clouds over the mountains,
and the frogs in the fields beside the road.


2011

On Eating Flowers

And what keeps me
from eating flowers?
was posed to me
by e.e. cummings
alone on the lawn
in the straight sun
this afternoon.
and I thought
well bees I guess
(is the first thought:
wasps, sleeping, or even
merely browsing), and dirt
which the wind has neither
blown away nor
the rain carried off yet.

Or perhaps the opp-
osite, too much sweetness.
And that the bees would then
come to my mouth
instead, think I
the flowers and
thus render me
unemployable, worse than
dead -- bitten, swollen,
spitting and cursing:

The fucking kiss
that stings.

To eat flowers and
not be afraid.

To taste the death
of their passing and
enjoy that sadness, to
be just ignorant enough.

And I think of the one
for whom I keep the best,
whose mouth alone
is worth it enough to be that bee.

And I find
even just one of her
blooms.


2011

Galveston Island

I know the seawall, the ferry, the seagulls,
the old bread from the freezer door to feed
the seagulls on the ferry that takes us to the
seawall, picnic bench shanties on the beach,
jumping waves with my brother, the taste of
saltwater and sand: Onward! Deeper! then asleep
in the backseat on the way back home wrapped in
wet beach towels; our collection of shells,
hermit crabs still in their homes, now in boxes.

Drift too far down the shore and it's too far
back to walk; bike too fast down the seawall
with the wind pushing you on and there is no one
coming to get you. My father will say, "When you
get old enough to drive, remember to take out your
car and let it go empty just to see how far it will go.
Keep a gas can in the back with enough to get home
but find out just how far that needle will fall."

Like in school when you take your compass, draw a
radius, pull it through to create a circumference:
this is how much my legs can stretch, as far as my
pencil will reach. I find this advice to be true.
Or perhaps I turn it into truth, like the seagulls
following our ferry for freezer bread, drawing fewer
circles as years pass and living within their curve.

But today we sink our toes deeply in the wet mud,
write our names in the sand with sharp sticks and
watch those secrets wash away in the rising tide.
A circle knows what I wish it to see, and I say
Onward! Deeper! to the ocean: carry me off
to the end of the coast with your drifting.


2011

Thanksgiving Chicken

Nathaniel and Katherine Yardbird
hypnotized each other
in the uncrowded coop
for more less
egg laying,
accidentally let slip
unfortunate missives
-- spicy bits, the
snake pit, the cock
a doodle calling --
and, peeping,
proceeded to bring
into life
a perfect bird
with wings and more
which we now
will eat.


2011

Friendly Cove

Down an overgrown drive, translucent, I can see through
to the muck below but choose instead to search for
starfish and shells in the calm ripple. Seems
a miracle to be dropped here, up until
and including tonight, myself of foreign metal born
and you asleep on the latticework, my head
up in the rafters and your heart tending the radishes
(for the rabbits!) two innocent bystanders trespassing together
the one gate beyond which lies freedom, death, release
(though not always in that order) which warbles somber safety,
set at a distance from the lighthouse rocks, from the
gladiolas, irises and tulip bulbs.

Sometimes it takes a mirror to shut us up, sometimes a wall;
other times the horizon is a carpet lapping at our doorstep,
smoothing out our footsteps. Sometimes we
sit on stones near the white trees to watch the water
unfold and unfold and unfold, then falls
the tides to crease the eyes once more with their churning.
Today the liquid glass, once turned, upends them all,
a crowded beach but none to see them curled along the spine
of this shelf of surf. Take it all away, wash the edges round:
stare at it till you see it everywhere you look, till you
see it on your eyelids. Maybe it all goes away, maybe it
never was -- hope and despair, a book of pages turned --
not by memory but by insistence alone the light's trace
is preserved. The summer cold off the west coast, Arctic air,

is winter somewhere else, but here it means days spent
with the rest of the driftwood, dank and smelling of salt,
writing memories in a notebook, grain of sand by
grain of sand, drawing inspiration from the same
single body of waves that has ever crashed.
What am I but my own twist on this and that,
spending the afternoons drifting in circles, mapping
my footprints, following where they land. The ocean
drowns us out with its insistence: rhythmic, in
a trance; I write this down before we forget.


2011

Flying Lessons

School speaks in tones of devotion, church talks of tests
and both of texts into which I dig, worship more than read,
stare at more than understand. On slow days I

sit by the window, in the corner, as far from the door
as I can to always see it shut and never be passed,
the first to arrive and last to leave. Outside
the other kids play wallball, run footraces in the grass.
Inside my name is called in class, stomach sinks
in-stan-ta-ne-ous-ly. If I could

climb the watertower, I'd see all the way to my home. Just
jump the fence, cross the gate, be a nobody turned superhero
carried on their shoulders. Instead, on the park swing I
teach myself to let go, to send my body through space
using only the restraints around me: I start slow and tuck
the chains against my shoulders, push down hard on the way back;

chest pitching forward, feet held together inches off the ground,
then a weightless moment as my legs come loose, falling open,
rushing forward: pull the chains hard on the way back up.
Zero to flight in no time, high like the big guys and
every once in a while not even too scared to jump free.

Angels desire life, are made to be jealous, as am I.


2011

The Fertile Crescent

We came to the foothills past the lowland, beyond
the river valley, returned to the same cave,
worked all night by lamps and fire, in the hearth,
inside the oven, oblivious to morning, crawled
through holes between the walls, past the secret knives
buried in the corners of our homes. With eyes of science

in the darkness, past the shadows you can see them
sleep, shining somehow, under the gummy layers of packed ash
painted red. Alone and apart, the same as us --
the round castle, below it the stacked
boxes of houses, and under that,
the children who carry heavy loads before they can walk, who
learn to walk before they can stand.

As strangers we came to this village on the plain
and the forked road there: the tell mounds
of their houses, naked inside
small rooms clustered
beneath sleeping volcanoes, the world's first people
built on the ruins of before. Painted ceilings
and a great bull's skull in the clay wall
stand guard over the dead hidden
in pits beneath the open floor, covered with red ochre,

their bodies folded knee-to-chest,
pushed aside each year for new souls with their
skulls removed. And one stranger understood:
inside that mud and plaster, here
is the end of wandering -- obsidian mirrors
in stone corners shine leopard spots as a
goddess gives birth, as beaks of
vultures reach out through her breasts.

Both god and man lay claim to this land,
and they wait.


2011

Old With Is Yet To Be

Baby birds in the yard hide in the bushes, peck
with mom in the dirt, feeder and fences
while dad stands guard.

Last night you fell asleep in my arms and I imagined
I could feel how you feel when I fall asleep
in yours.

It felt nice to be trusted like that,
the first time in weeks it seemed.

And yet I was sad I couldn't explain how I felt.
Then you got sad you didn't understand.

"Grow.. Along.. Me, The Best.."

You are the angel whispering inside my ear
sweet love and gentle suggestions, care and
ways to care for myself: remember to breathe

deeply and smell the earth, as though
you're not from the same place, and into
my ear alone out here in the garden maze,

making the same paths different
each time through.


2011

The Window Washer

We almost didn't get in at first (she said I sounded
like a delivery driver; I was going to yell up but
used the buzzer instead) then to her apartment where
she smokes and works and drinks coffee. Hasn't bonded
with her baby yet. Eggbeaters and happy crabs. His
big, long toes. And watches a kayak from far away.
Still owed a date by a cute boy at Hollywood Video
from a month ago that she's stalking who gave her
a hot chocolate to get her to go away she says.

Then she called herself a milk machine: the nurses
grabbed her breast and stuck it in the baby's face,
she said. Like they were trying to kill him with it.
She was on a crucifix, by god, raised up five feet
off the ground inside a harness, numb from the legs
down like they were getting sawed off, from the neck
down and throwing up down her face, screaming Oh God
Oh God for drugs, and with the other girl in the next bed.

After she related the birthing trauma and showed all
her tiny pictures we walked down, found a taco stand
on 7th -- you, her, The Third, myself; They were still
washing the cutlery -- then took the bag of books to
Russell's, looked for a coffee, ended up in Chinatown
and drank it by the dock watching a kayak row away.


2011

Nostalgia

Mornings you walk around in flip-flops to
remember the days of climbing that hill alone:
the old bare bones is already there, the courting stag
who grabbed your shoulders as you took mine and got
dirt on your blue sweater that time at the lake.

Then you start typing and cleaning surfaces:
talk in tongues to the skink about his sickness,
keep quiet in the car. (And now I'm sure I must have
cancer of the heart as well!) So yes let's see what would
bubble to the surface. I'll keep feeding it sweaters and hats,
remembering the days of climbing up the hill after you
past the big red barn and the swarming hens.

I will sit and pine I will, yes I will pine and you will
see me at it and with a dream in tow this time as well.
Then all will be better and go away, diamonds in a ring,
each note on all six strings, a bedside bookshelf and
my big black hooves dancing like a rooster.


2011

Stupid Dumb

Nothing is worth the effort save genius and decency.
Our mayor was decent, burning a list of numbers

that still keep coming; and married with genius
the king's speeches will endlessly dance.
Some days I'm the first and finest poet in all of mankind:
and then it becomes no thing

beneath a sign flashing Vacancy, nothing, Vacancy, nothing
staggering at the sink; frozen on the sofa
as smoke swirls from a dragon's nostrils
which (in principle) is safe from the judge's arbiter:
but then what remains, mayoral confinement
a little bit -- at all times -- the jungle in tow.

Give me none but what the day brings forth
else I'm unloading a warehouse and breaking down the boxes.


2011

Biking in the Dark

greeting the familiar trail's unexpected lifts
out of nowhere, into nothing, then home
these nights when I watch my shadow grow longer
as it's lost again in the next street lamp
stretched too thin, standing on my shoulders
climbing up the handlebars and gone

these streets sprinkled with evening lawn's spray
in neighborhoods the same sound in and out
this house and that like someone approaching
from behind my back, tires suddenly seeming
other than my own though none other than mine
those too passed and on, awake now and gasping

has this town vanished, its inhabitants refusing that
same instinct which brings me out, drawing away instead
behind shades shuttered batlike, just flickering screens
flashing through the cracks of their chosen lives
silent silenced silence that side of the curb, but then
again the next bend next, tight around the curve

you could ask me not to say it and I'd surely oblige
but that would not mean I forget to feel what I am
the freedoms and fear of cracking branches and
crunched gravel under spokes that sing as they spin
my mind reeling as well under dark heaven
moon bright enough to ride these nights when I fly


2011

Perfect Silent Shapes

yellow green red again
and I sit underneath this canvas
count the leaves on its branches
where every which way is shade
and wet grasses sew shut the earth
under the legs of this certain shape

twenty million pages end to end
from twice ten years spent in halls
book reports, ruled paper. rules broke
renegade collegiate nonsense and yet
twenty thousand folded corners still to go
which brings us up to now where I must
write a letter of some significance
dream up scenes that cannot die

come close to me you murderers
let this beast be its own unmaking
worth handsome words but not much more
let foreign bodies wait in hiding
my perfect partner breathe but longer
and bring us from this place, this cave
burn bridges not given to rebuild
follow me where I then must turn
inside the town of corners edged
under the covers again, unsleeping
twenty hundred dreams to go I hope

this tree, this fruit, these birds and their
worms tell me: better to start pulling
than the alternative, drawn down to a
bed of green growth wrapping veins around
the legs of a sunken bench in the shadows
where winds blow the mornings no more
and genius is seen in pages alone


2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

all the blowings and bangings and noises
like the roof is about to fly off
or the garage topple over

apparently it's just the borrowed lamp
knocking against the wall again
the rusted thing hanging on the back porch

an old tree's fruit rolling down the alley
a building through the branches I cannot see
and the world goes on fine without me

what we did today is gone
only the things we gave away
are going to come back


2011

Started around Four Thirty

I feel like a beat up old crone
in a bodybag

in a town where you're egged for
having purple trim

for wearing new sport boots and
a pink scarf

gimp-armed goblin tombstone robbers
wandering about

there's a cyclone in Burma, cats
in the dragon pot

this kind of weather makes me
feel alive


2011

Sustainable Enthusiasm

look if you don't like it
you don't like it

I'm not going to hold you accountable
for not understanding

hell I don't have patience for some of the
stupid things I have on me to say either

sure back when my nutsy rages were unmanageable
I'd rant and capture every hurtful word

double spaced on pink and blue ruled paper
just like I was schooled to do

but now the person up there is paddling a boat
and here I am floating in the ocean

I said that person is paddling around in a boat
and I'm floating out here in the whole ocean


2011

A Ticket to a Ride

pajama pants and army shirt
on the second cigarette
haphazard shorthand

a breadcrumb trail for when
I need to retrace
my steps

what we chose against
in favor of what
we then did

so that it does not slide into a blur
those branches of this thread
alternate realities


2011

You Can't Scratch It

in this myth I am over
eight feet tall, light
and free, life is well

her laugh, your mouth
you tell me you love me
just like she did

I prayed for peaceful days
again with laying of hands
now look how the moon glows


2011

This Is the Year

back again, and just in time
everyone turns to take a look
there's nothing you can do

a mob coming in from the kitchen
all howevermany candles shining
the whole family from hiding

his best girl and all the guys
the chef's hat and waitstaff
singing happy birthday badly

he blows the candles on the face
of a cake painted much like him
a sloppy portrait, deformed

the wisecrackers are coming
up with their best wise cracks
haranguers with their harangues

like having just wet his pants
in front of a grade nine class
when the headmaster takes a stab

so he grabs the serving knife
and lifts it high into the air
comes down hard on the cake

drags his fist back and forth
with the point of the wedge
across the layers, jagged

"whoever tries first is going
to get it," he calls at them
as the frosting goes flying

he swallows hard, hands now
empty but sweating, there's
no way out of it this time


2011

Little Hatchets

raccoons eat birdseed true
and glow flourescent orange

some nights skulls in the ceiling
or dry bones in the plasterboards

I come across as lecturing sometimes
walking around on birdcage hooves

a hardworker and caretaker would just
take care of the rattling door

but all that means is I get to
find it on my own and stay open

hold on to it alone so I can
feel it when I'm home


2011

The Desperate Struggle

my amiability
a false cheerfulness
is in control and
won't be left behind

a hypocrite's fibs
sweet self-assertion
get better, become
more successful

easier to pretend I'm
not feeling what I'm feeling
than attempt the truth
and take the risk

here we are again my friend
gluttons for punishment
it's a hot morning and I think
neither path is appropriate

then you make a move to fight
and I forget to be overwhelmed
awkward or vulnerable
and start shooting


2011

What Another Person Planted

open skies and storm clouds
flash of light. one, two, three
forearms swiping, spitting
eight feet in the seaweed

crabs on the sand running
climbing each other's back
one hungry family
riding on your shoulders

in that moment a strong
wind whips up the sails
delivers the poison
lips turn purple, blue, white

in the mist before the flood
upon the mud and sweat
my beloved always
earth, heaven


2011

Catty's Dinner Plate

my screaming blisters and I
went out into the storm
but it turned north not west

running in my army boots
down the gravel backroads
I stirred up a lone goose

who spread her wings
honked and flapped
and flew far away

back home starlings fed
their huge babies in the rain
big hungry molting mouths

as the heavy clouds filled
the blue toadstool birdbath
from my birthday of darkness

and we set a plate for cat
with fish from our dinner
sang hallelujah again


2011

Triptych: A Row of Pots

an ant crawled into your coffee
a big brown spider under the propane tank
but your new flowers are so you


2011

Out of the Mesh, Up Through the Filter

a child in a child's body
you come out in conversation

like the circus ringleader
flared fins and ruffled sleeves

the lion tamer in
a bed high on stilts

it's true, you do everything --
I've got it made

but here's a little lullaby
about donkeys and burros

riding Rhodesian Ridgebacks
on through the desert

a grotesque little tune
it's good for what ails ya


2011

The Workers and the Venture

we were made in this image
hardened in the furnace

given these few words
a mother, a father, a child

dropped on this shelf
naked and upset

fed water, fed food
left for dead

and I'm helpless --
can't understand

what must I do
to get out of this shell

wanting, running, threatened
always on the mend

god take me from this world
if it be in your will

in your perfect justice
and infinite wisdom

take this burden
beg the sun to bring us rain

for the sake of your truth
and our only hope

with faith beyond reason
love outside all bounds

wretched that we are
blind and guilty

the workers and what's promised
men of mixed integrity

bring us home my heavenly father
through your only son

whose name will stand
for all we have lost


2011

Shall I Name No Names?

I remember the first time you
left me on the far side
and I ran home

past black squirrels and beaver
funky honking geese at
Goose Lake

see I've already had more afternoons
than I can bear to remember
more mornings too

we move the lawn furniture, replant
the old flowers, and choose
which weeds to let be

the best thing about dying
is you don't realize
when it happens

but the peach and blueberry cake
was a particularly sweet
and savory memory


2011

Astronomical Intuition

beauty leads to meaning
I'm up early in pursuit of each

at times barbaric and base
like pulling weeds

flowers exploding in
a retching of light

which I can't stomach, need
the means to approach


then a virus echoes
from the dark

in threes and sevens
an exotic power

rhythms and voices
in all directions

dancing shapes come in waves
sun, clouds, mountains, forest


communal music
dots and lines on the page

not the voice or
even the sound that counts

but the atmosphere above
from the ground up

approach the abyss
and ascend to heaven


2011

Dead Asleep

cooking a pot of sadness today
turn up the heat and let it simmer

disturbing my sleep like clockwork each night
taking me over one dream at a time

I fall in love with an angel of death
holding my hand and kissing me sweetly

lift up my spirits you angel of mercy
full moon melancholy drifting me slowly away

I'm not vulnerable, not overwhelmed, not yet
I can be better, more successful, more myself

at least the sweet twinkle tempts me to try
the church, the stage, the actor survives

a devilless world walks with the dead
their pierced faces smeared with pain

hanging from a barbed wire fence
fit for the king's scourges

the mark of the cords
left on her face

swaying, rotting, a warning
beautiful and monstrous


2011

The Bee-Eaters

deer eat flowers
in town when they can

bees stumble stem to stem
all things in ecstasy

me, I paint my toenails brown, fingertips gold
take the kinks from a rubber hose

water the three front trees
so the breeze won't rattle the dry oak leaves

see it's time to visit the cabin by the lake
but with my heart broke I can't do it

there's no bees in the boxes
they've flown away

seems the buzz doesn't need the hive
they see through the smoke

one last time their feelers talk
and then goodbye


2011

Any Edge Will Do

why am I walking around gingerly
fine fleet feathery hooves
naked in my hat?

see the door jumped off its hinges
on you in the laundry room
around nine forty

I came out to examine the hinges
looked at you with concern
in the way I have

that makes you not want to spend
any time around me that day
so I said okay

NPR was on, something about
global food shortages
and about irises

you said I always agree when
the idea involves
separation

we asked Google "how do you know
when you're going crazy?"
but got no answer

later I saw I <3 YOU in my journal
red for the heart, black ink
for the I and the you


2011

On It for a While

focus on work
stately and robust
get banana split stuff
warm fruit from the vine
salad wraps and tomato slices
water in a frisbee for the birdies

feel unheard, unloved, uncaredfor
takenforgranted, endofthelist
by a pervert nerd slimeball
who's toasting the wolf
a gay cowboy with
painted nails

I can take it
but leave room for
self doubt, cause you
might be a regular asshole
sticking your shit in my face
but then I'd have to give it back

translation deconstruction text
capability possibility thesis
consequence cause smile
blow it up your ass
take cold shower
extrapolate


2011

Wholly This and Nothing More

There is a man with a helmet and stirrups
long boots and smiling tall, but saddled
on my daughter's back... for a decade

Riding her around the manor, kept in a separate room
in that remote castle above the cave of his dungeon
where she sleeps with ears plugged with her fingers

And waits, waiting for this part to pass, ten years
I have seen it and believe -- tightens the straps
around her shoulders, across her back, under her belly

The bed is breathing, rises shifting of its own weight
sinks into the corners and rests forever against the wall
all night in the empty spaces of the his and hers house

The taste in my mouth is like torture, keeps building
long after I've nibbled the corners -- what can one do?
what monster lives among these and those hundred acres


2011

A Secret, a Lie

I slept in my green shirt and green shorts
had this dream, can it be believed?
warm again and the skin dances

this little boy was given a dollar
told his brothers but could not trust
so he hid the dollar in a hole in a tree

I told my heart, which went about its work
listened well -- squeezed and released
then told the story to my shadow

soon the darkness was flowing with life
and back and forth they worked it out
deepest fears and the deeper wells

until soon the world was filled with light
yet all inside me was lost in shadows
unaware of the old blood flowing

a mind too heavy throws off its burden
the heart is no good as a friend
yet the truth sets us free


2011

Warm and Low Acid

we fought all night long
untrusting and quiet like

you blondie red thong topless
me anxious at being too forward

on the toilet scared I'm unfulfilled
overwhelmed with guilt and pressure

that's not going to get me high
that's enough for the day

so we had a pancake party late
got all splattered and doughy

see I was made to be exploited
in a sexually derivative fashion

that's why I'm put here on this planet
given capacity for satisfaction

because I am full of semen
and you are full of cotton

with speakers under the
foot of the bed


2011

The New Half Moon

flopping around in flip-flops
my plastic clogs for the summer
with a quick crappy whiskey sour
and some over-sauced casino pesto

then wire chairs under willow trees
cars parked out front of the risers
red-backed roofers in tiny jeeps
yelling at crows on the birdhouse

get out early so it never gets late
mow the lawn between bouts of rain
head up the mountain until it splits
take mirror creek to its muddy end

2011

Year of the Pingeon

followed the pigeons over then
away from the circle of men
took pictures of tourists

hey we're big fans of Starbucks
and we're big fans of freedom, too
so can we get those coffees for free?

see you're a beggar and I'm a thief
that means together we must be
one hundred percent cool

move on even if you don't know the way
the Pingeon says -- pigeons always
know when to go, they risk it

deliver messages, persevere, focus on
security, instinct, following their
voice to find the way home

used to think that words were too strong
now I want to peck at the pebbles
wear the shine on my wings


2011

Seven Deadly Sins

a young woman
cream, no sugar

a retired donkey
moving downstairs

sea salt and Q-tips
swept under the steps

needing peace or torment?
try a piercing appointment

a better mousetrap travels
great distance at great speeds

still my gentle, rude soul
on a dried creekbed ledge

adventurous but timid
loathing, going


2011

Melts Like Wax

holy smokes it's getting
hot once again, the sun
is trying to kill us, I
can't get relaxed, it's
undermining me, inter
rupting me so that
now I've got to com
pletely block you out

because I have no idea
what you're talking
about, you went abs
tract right off the
bat going on about
traffic lights, fines
and croquet mallets
cauliflower and
rooster meat, apa
thy and resistance
tension and nerves
fear of rejection, a
band on ment, talking
when you don't want to
talk, keeping alert
and on the watch

I don't wish to be
erased, don't need
to be tended to, I
want to die, well
no I don't really
want to die
but I do want to
go crazy thinking
about how we need
space to look at birds
space to breathe, space
to find our words and the
confidence to speak them

I washed my hands twice
then broke the plaster
while hanging up the
wax iron dye painting
with a bent hammer
but it was worth it
because I learned
snow and calm are
two different shades
of white, and then I
washed my hands twice


2011

The Summer of Fun

pancakes with strawberries and cream
saw chipmunks on the beach and deer
watched people cleaning their catch
pulling their boats out with trucks
got Starbucks, showers, new clothes
and headed east with the boombox

chords, strings, we brings -- melody
burritos, bras, even a new laptop
Bugaboo burgers, gas in Cumberland
heaping cones outside outer Bowser
(I dared to pick up my Rolo chunk
and caught a falling caramel hunk)

found grasslands down that road
then the habitat path to the lake
childhood stuff in the tall reeds
crouching low, mouth clamped shut
Mediterranean pizza and spinach pie
from Oliveri's at night in the garden


2011

My Own Enemies to Contend

what broke me out of my silence
burning up in the great wildfire
where no one remembers to find

crept into my secret room to hide
and see if what I love loves me
still and wants all that I am

drink them away, smoke them out
lighting up the sky at night for
the world to count the stars by

I will covet what I covet
corner what I do not own
get lost, stay lost, and die

I left through the back
same as before when we
broke in unannounced

went running down the streets
no more shoulder to cling to
my own weapons to holster


2011

The Forest Has Two Eyes

two church mice went into town
across the crosswalk for coffees

or was it we were angels as humans
wrapped in rags begging bread

geese on their way before seven
kids on bikes and in wheelbarrows

good energy blowing in at Windy Creek
hummingbirds and orange winged doves

we camp in folding chairs from the trunk
dine on the gum I found in the glove

the last spot out down by the water
or at least within sight of it


2011

Something Wicked This Way Ruts

crashed into each other, feeling fat in our pants
a bed full of cats meowing from the card
you got from your mom

lady hawk in a white mini and ponytail
why that's a perplexing hawk
was a dog at fourteen

see we got hot dogs in the hotdogulator
plus ashes in my carpenter pants
propane grill and dryer

combo pack and a coke, lawnmower for one
eighty six, a stolen pair of sunglasses
Tae Bo for five and two Led Zep

wild again, beguiled again, my heart singing
dreaming of losing memories again at
sixty five and seventy six

you put the lawn lights out and up they lit
shrieked at the fly on your arm
and a phantom in the hall

egyptian cotton bedsheet brown and shamwow
the new shower doodad with nipples
medium UV risk ready

are you still the right girl for me even
though I didn't quite like the
screwy louie fork?

the way I see, kissing anyone else would be gross
defend not your life, you are loved by me
what, a body pillow for fifteen?

well then you can tell them they can go to hell
I ain't payin' - no seriously thanks
I'll take care of it a s a p


2011

Will You Catch Me If I'm Falling

on Canada Day on the 4th last year
I saw death with my eyes closed to
the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

an overgrown eagle in a pot of birds
a bowl of fruit at the butcher's table
a white dog searching for truffles

a beer on the porch after the rain
a man in a jacket up the tree
lamb's ears on the doorknob

don't ask me what's wrong
just tell me what I can do
else I'll give you a

straight up substitution
forty-five minutes easy
emotions for details

the only man on the property
and I am not a train
I'm all you get


2011

Greetings You Nasty Nocturnal Daze

I got up early to throw a stone
at the crow in the hanging tree

dogs were braying, yelling bloody
hell at each other every hour

a wasp was in the living room
getting angry and very buzzy


I fell off my bike on the trails
dropped a burger in the coals

kissed your pink slippers goodbye
the ones with the little roses

getting smarter than you were stronger
the man with Richard Nixon power


it's at my fingertips, in my blood
or am I such a fragile thing

"hold your hands in front of you son
keep them up here in front of you"

no coach, I have to keep them down
around here and flinch you son of a


2011

Praising the Fallen

first the needle, then the thread
dismal sin, may thee wed
little babies from a stork
today the spoon, tomorrow the fork

I sat alone on a pedestal bench
in the unforested woods beyond
spooked by trees creaking and
four wheelers roaring

up to my knees in fallen branches
edges cut clean, sliced from the trunk
shifting faces swirling around me
in the hard horizontal sun

I turned away, my stomach pulled
breathed through the breathing
lungs rising and falling
rocking me slowly to sleep

saw shining diamonds in a row
breathing fire from the abyss below
first the stool, then the chair
enjoy it now, we'll soon be there

the schools that swarm upstream feed
our nests and nets, but today I cast for
big dwellers at bigger depths instead --
dig beneath any and there's dirt


2011

Foolishly We Go

the old chinese man with big round black glasses
walking a little boy in an Adidas coat
asked for this much more space

held tight to his hand as though
stooping was not unusual

we caught on and understood
in our own waiting way

you were a hip beatnik in a black turtleneck
that day
and I got my sneakers from your trunk

you honked at the haunted world with me
the german shepherd on the steps
a hummingbird at your side

I said he doesn't want to eat you
sometimes the grizzly just removes a threat
in defense a predator attacks

in those days I learned to fight in
ten steps
leaned on you to accept my crutches
and can
remember embracing the excitement
fully

then it misted like firmament
and the day turned winter cold
up jumped toothed daggers

dark and whooshy out now
baby bison and herds of caribou
roaming the tundra outside

and I'm typing in all caps at
night when the sun
never sets


2011

Total Eclipse of the Cat

sun sets behind the cat
resting in the window
around her fur

cold smoke rising from
behind the mantle
and out

windows and walls

you nuzzle my shoulder
in the theater


then you loiter
and I fall
like
salmon spawning


Thank god

for

space...


Mastery
of helpessless


the voice
out of the quiet



2011

Narrow Eyes

I put on your glasses
looked at you
tonight

set a time limit
as not to go
blind

my dirty glasses

dusty and smudged
obscuring more than they
magnify

Magnificent dust
my god
how

And I see

myself over the rims
long on my nose
like I like

is it April or May again
I forget
This year or last

Men, my cup
try and see if you can't
There, now

stained black
along the mouth
and deep inside
the well

with milk if and when

let's just say
you can't see me
through my glasses

and I say
bury me with
that box

take this and run


2011

Two for One Tuesday

summer poetry
smells like sausage
my scalp
roasting

top down
masochist
shine

full forward
farmboy
raising hell

fire and burn
'til ashes

the work of an artist

the metaphysics of
time
on earth

and how best to use it

wind
on a bike

then you put down your sword
and I put down my spear
and you put down your cross
and I put down my shield

reaching
and turning

two pinwheels
one then the other


2011

A Year Turns on a Dime

you and me are two for one
banana bread with extra sugar

special coffee from the last
of the non-coarse grinds

talking about tulips and
coming over anytime

truth and honesty
and illusions

you're sporty sweaty
and I can't stop staring

park at your own risk and
take the shortcut home


2011

A Self-Contained Unit's Blues

Walked down the tracks to
the run down mill, stood
under the gazebo as robins
pulled worms, a lone goose
in the stream behind stones.

I held your shoulders, you
asked me to let you go and
sat on the red brown steps.

What if you weren't in control of getting away,
couldn't just go get the fix and drive with it.

I take in folders, sit at my desk
and send them back. I reflect, in
the comforts of civiliation bred.

I don't climb through trees or
wrestle with nets. Instead I
have leisure and ledgers,
feel tension at rest.

What must the boxer or the pro wrestler know that
I haven't felt about being oneself in violent ways.

You finished your bear attack book.
She killed herself five years later.
I did a sudoku in record time.

The library felt cold and lonely,
the restaurant noisy and stuffy.
I stood up early, got out my
house keys in the parking lot.
Like always like we do now.

Holding back the truth is so cool, letting them
hang themselves while staying savvy and safe.

We were both creative, then
my legs got stiff and my body
started feeling restless.

I spend a day in my head, it can get a bit weird.
My body heads toward yours -- can you blame it?


2011

Sing Through the Part that Resists

I'm a bear, do you know what that means?
It means I like to eat honey, I like
to scare campers

I felt terri-bull
horri-bull
awf-bull

you stomped off to do yoga and
lock yourself upstairs for
four hundred years

my scream knocked down the curtains
yours made the doorbell ring
no cops came

Thank you Lord I lay down
my sword for you
Jesus



2011

I Guess the Answer Is Me

Who will hit the ground first,
leave the other.
No more.

Is the question, that time goes
forward. That seasons
never change.

They're out there lurching
around their yards
for spring.

So I swept out the shed rafters,
broke the hammer on
nails.

Had an apple ale, frozen chicken burgers,
sticky rice with greens,
salad.

Used lettuce for the top bread.
You asked if I was on
a diet.

That tuna toast I took to the shop.
Moved the dropped chunk to
the neighbor's step.

I remember how I used to eat cheesecake
in very tiny bites, wrote so small
that no one could see it.

First a quick round. My secret weapon,
the bounce serve, still works.
Son of a whoor.

In bed we sleep. In beds we dream.
Everything comes back in
colors.


2011

Like a Windchime Inside

 
I put the phone on your side of the bed
you thought I was predicting your father's death
mistook a letter from my mom
for one from your dad
said what was SHE going to do with some
corpse in the house?

you play tennis with grace and placement
I serve like your old man
and trap the ball with my racket
two best of fives
plus some

a man who couldn't command
and wasn't trained
didn't know how to study
properly
and liked junk and was still trying to
pawn it
who vacuumed the street
to get it clear of dirt

bracing for the punch
expecting me to start yelling

instead I said
how he's probably more dangerous
now than ever

it's wrong to lay into the dying

Dad, I'm
not upset at you anymore
for not having what I needed

but I just don't want
what you got now

Your email said simply
"Has something changed?"

asterisk:
order flowers


2011

Yet but Kept Looking

but I couldn't see the screen through the sun
and what I wrote came out
in weird colors
and not what I wrote, but
what was unsaid
squinting

you held me from behind in the doorway
which was nice
and my breathing filled the alcove
like we were the
same person

you have orange hair now
the canary singing in the sun
pink hooves on the futon rug
sunset to the south

gets hot upstairs
I put the screen back in


2011

Joan of Arden at Logjam Lake

How much abuse can a cracked gasket Pontiac take?
Still with white smoke from the exhaust pipe, though
at least the red radiator light went off. A sign.

You guessed black jack on the black joker face down.
Check that air tire, check that spare tire, gas up.
Nobody around for K's. Breathtaking beautiful.

We had two life-altering moments then. Going on,
not knowing if anyone's looking or not. And taking
the initiative to walk toward me instead of waiting.

Spurned the neighbor's garage campfire. Stayed home
and brushed and parted your hair instead. Looked
at the new backroads map in bed. Born for trucking.


2011

Like the Scene from Halloween

Nights like these we
wake up gasping, calling
for the light, looking for
our glasses. But this night
you were on the sofa
muttering

"I can't go down like this,
can't go down like that, I
don't have the stamina for it,
I don't got the heart" and
you started singing your
little honeybee song.

When it comes it's a flash
of being cold and alone outside
touching cold metal, a cold metal
bar, being alone outside touching
cold monkey bars. Falling asleep
rolling down the home stretch.

Then the second flashback
which goes straight to
your parents' bedroom.
Because you could kick in
the bathroom door. That's
exactly where I'd hide in.

Then a spider climbs down the
white eel curtain from the dark
while you're looking out the window,
so we play backgammon instead. You
win the match but I take the set
and you come back to bed.


2011

Maybe if I Was Stupid

Hoot hoot hoot
here comes the news
hope you like it.

Your girlfriend is crazy
you got a wild one
how could you have known?

Got nervous, got upset
got all hot,
cold clammy hot.

Causing all this attention
tits were probably flying
rode her fire on the rail.

Yellow flowers on the sidewalk
whiskey cup by the sugar jar
who is king at rocking it PG style.

Nothing nobody thinks matters
I answer to the one armed bandit
and I've got my safety fingers up.


2011

Daddy Approves

Weevils in the mantle.
You fall on your face,
bleed off cycle.
The senator calls,
recovering from unknown surgery.
Your stomach turns.
Meeting soon to sign papers.
Husband renting a room.
A vessel,
flat on your back in a field.
No locks on the bathroom doors.
Therapies, panic attack.
Going to the lawyer.
Ambivalent, not feeling stimulated.
Help, reassurance, to be heard.
Lied about the garden show.
Spider in the shower.
Got your period for
the second time in a month.
Cleaning out granny's apartment.
Two cigarettes.
Raccoons in the tree.
Love to eat the mousies.


2011

Magnolia and Hyacinth

Used to be there were
toads everywhere. I could
go get a toad anytime I wanted.

Then we killed the red
ant scout.

Now I'm tentative and you're
cautious. And I

don't really want either
of those things but it sounded
like a bargain so I had to
take it.

I'm not something to cling to
in the storm, baby. I'm
something that runs.

I hear ducks. I must be
hearing things. Here they
are again.


2011

A Fresh of Breath Air

Dark clouds above the jagged treeline,
only a thin ribbon of clear light. But
I know there's aqua and white above it,
gold with red behind us. Purple, pink
and blue along the sides for miles.

Crisscrossing wires intersect clouds
below mountains on quiet streets after
the rain. Low full moon with a shy face
for this morning you had me going you
were pregnant, an early April's fool.


2011

On Went We, Fairly or Very

We saw the angel, smaller than remembered,
two pennies for two of us in her hand
held on her breast over her heart.
You had a shoelace untied,
got right up on things.
I was a field mouse
and a doormouse.

You couldn't decide which you liked best --
wind or rain, but probably wind.
Then it started to snow and you said it was magic.
Picked up a pack of cigarettes, kept two
and threw the rest away.
And I saw you look at me coming out
but not going back.

What if the short phrases in the scheme of things,
clear and direct, do the best at keeping up
with imagination and life and the rest,
strung together like arms of geese.


2011

It Was the Best Good Friday Ever

You had bran with banana in the morning,
I took another bite of your half brother's
expired Christmas turtle in the foil wrapper.

You were feeling clingy and asked to play
Backgammon. Rolled a Hellraiser, we each
took a game, I won the tiebreaker.

I'm chocolate and you're fruit. Flavored.
The leftover chicken pasta with bonus cheese,
salad with the nasty goddess vinegar dressing.

Friendly shouting, uncontrolled laughter,
echoes of singing loudly together. If you
hear this in the woods it's probably us.

The actual thing out there. Heard and known,
then pursued or avoided. I don't know what
it's like, I'm just doing what I think.

Like a lizard with eighteen tentacles
crossing a river with thirty-six rocks,
getting fussy when getting its hooves wet.

Alright, Business Mode On. All business, take
my goggles off and try to avoid distraction.
Ah fuckit, we like to have a good time.

We ate almond barkmilk and beef dip with
swiss chard and yes more caramel turtles.
Read a book about the otter who died.

It's a difficult thing to look at and name,
confusing though plain to see. Yet the rest
means naught. Only this, our only option.

Else it all dries up, it all fries up, it all
goes away. And then you and me will pick the
weeds and eat the weeds and eat the weeds.


2011

Itching Your Neck with the Knife

The stars are bright pinpoints of light
across the dark, wide, Leonard Cohen sky.
The moon wears her full length halo as
the darkness walks the water, saying:

You're running away from your pain.

I get up, turn on the light and
stand by the foot of the bed naked
with my hand over my eyes asking
what you want from me, the Voice.

All the memories in the world, babe.
I'll never get to all of them. Besides,
if you're in a torn down place you can't
deal with the past effectively anyway.

If you move on, it doesn't mean you're
running away from your pain or your past.
It doesn't mean you can't live a little.
I'm running toward what I want.

Still

I'm glad I wasn't too scared
to look under this rock.


2011

Funk & Fauntleroy Haggis

Narrow like a bat, fast
as a swallow and with
thick eyebrows drawn.
Hawky, all beak, with a sash.
Fluffy legs, a kitty hawk
pulling a dog in a cart.
A one man band and I his
sole audience, conscience
and blessed better.

Mother took the quiet child
and taught it to perform, dad
took the wild one home to silence.
Trading bristle blocks from the
shared bedroom closet like
cagey market keepers.

The rock sculpture creek
where I go to clear my head.
To see and hear that
my head is not clear.
To put my thoughts in a
bubble and hold them afloat.
My senses in a pebble with
all else rushing past.


2011

Like It's a Funeral and Somebody's Died

You were pouring cups of freezer chicken fluid,
made a mustard marinade with blackberry compote.
Meat ends and bread heels, the blue cheese pork
tenderloin lady. "Do you think my grandmother's
dna is in here?" Yes, I said. It's in the stone.

Nothing scares me like the words Renal Failure.
I do not know what it means, entails, requires.
It gives me the qualms, and I'm set a'qualming.
Do you want to face the fact that you're dying,
that I'm dying? You'd want to keep pretending
for as long as you can. Up until the very end.

When a deer hears something, she stands. Ears up.
Do they know better or are they up to something?
Myself I don't feel connected to certain things.
To this day what I remember is my own agenda.
Still love means you shine a flashlight into the
dark corners. And this is why we find each other.
So that it's part of a whole something instead of
part of a whole nothing. Ah it's good to be crazy.
Health to the delinquency of progress. Which has
its hold around life's neck. Slovenly and haunted.

You saw the leaning tree and the trees in bloom
by the fire station. I climbed across the banister
to hang the wind chimes and we sat on the steps
in the sun. Birds checked out the box with straw,
got all excited and pecked the roof. Then some
big robins came, landed softly, and flapped back
over the hedge. Soon they had changed their tune.


2011

White Room Waterboarding

Four score, full boar, and seven paralympics ago
we set out upon this great Norwegian furnished
land of incomparable merchandise and delights
as adventure and experiment with no probability
of success, no sustainable beliefs by which to
suspend our claims and incoherent dreams.

Come Donner, Dasher and Blitzen 'til the Anti-
christ's arisen, you fornicators fixen ta feel
the true christ's derision spouting ridiculous
blunt logic with a sword and a diamond in a
diadem slanted forced entry freely and solemnly
sworn in as soon to be forsaken testimony.

From the shadows of fundamentalism I come, an
emasculated iconoclast pseudoscientific zealot
complete with the naturalist name change and
Renaissance Man makeover brandishing mirrors
and threatening immolation, again seeking to
become now a man. A new sign along the road:

Will work for pleasure.

I sprung up like a woodchuck and took out the
trash, a multilayered eighteen bagger, and said
"Ohska wahskas, I'm still watching you Wakeezie,
Ohio to liken ohahno to take in ohaka Obamaskin
osama bin ladistan with razor sharp hornistans."


2011

Telic Recursion

The sun is an eye in the sky through the white
haze outside. Mailman wears a yellow rainjacket.
My tiny little head in the big computer chair.

You were a sweet demon in bed this morning, then
read a whole book in your three hour cramp bath,
made sticky rice with angry panda spring rolls.

A sensualist and an essentialist,
good together like chips and Coke.

The sun was out but you were sad and cried
about the Ladysmith garden, couldn't see
the light at the end of the tunnel.

You washed the floor and walls for Easter,
thought it was Tuesday. Then your eyes went
blurry and it was fresh, pink blood.


2011

Plausible, Possible, Probable, Inevitable

I must look like a sad badass after
too little sleep with my ginormous
Wranglers and scruffy hat but feel
like I'm getting back to something.
Maybe it's good to destroy brain
cells, maybe they're unnecessary
and perverted. They're like cancer
and can be allowed to be removed,
given permission to release those
elements once they're received.

I think I'm actually looking into
the mechanism workings of my brain,
my biochemical networks lit abnormal
like organic red glowing fragments.
That bird out there, no seriously,
that one chirp I just heard, I'm
serious, this one beautiful song,
this is how I shout. This is how
I access truth, by pushing words
out from that ocean of the void.
That old tightness, that squeeze,
and I stand here enlightened yet
frightened to report, for who
would believe it? Not even me.

I don't know what overtakes me,
maybe the spirit of Jonah, Lord
God save me through this blowhole.
Because I've got this and I've got
the other option, and that one
means not doing it, so I'd better
place it in that position, point
the laser in that direction, for
paranoia begets paranoia, and I
want to live to regret something,
to take a chance when it mattered.

The blinds glew flourescent blue
behind woody orange, then after my
eyes burned I saw dangerous drab,
a lifelike warm, the rest already
forgotten, flushed away in the rush
of fresh sensation. Then that bird's
song appears again as though lower.

I almost lost my balance, not tied
down by a cord like it's something
important that I try to remember or
keep from forgetting or reword or
associate somehow as to save it.

I am the only eyewitness of my own
life events, thus sayeth the Source
Unquestioned, and write an epic poem
like printing a book in one copy by
hand, channeled through he who was
trained to remember the words that
feel like they're suspended above
a glowing radiance. Watching lights
coming out of the page, drops of
focus appearing like tears that
hover briefly on a window pane.

I can trace a graceful garden line
across your face, blue on green
glass tint tilted while I continue
in weirdoland and you just keep
right on sleep sequencing darling.
Weird dark force matter energy
clouding up and passing through,
patterns upswelling yet static.

I'm very insecure. I get nervous
and I speed up and I get out of
sequence. I've gone split brain
again, both sides far across the
crosshatches filled, left to right
oscillating. I look ahead like a
goddamn train conductor. Next time
I'll throw some goddamn boulders.


2011

You Blowdried Your Hair

Coltrane alone
is not Coltrane.
Save that
in
memory.

Jimmy Garrison,
bump bump.
Elvin Jones.

You're on my belly
nuzzling like a cat,
stroking my ankle with
your foot, pinching me
with your monkey toes.
I'm following my hand
up and down your side.

Tyner's walls
and keys.
Pharoah, Dolphy.

Ascend
the ladder.

Four or five
will take you all.


2011

Perfection in Those Odds

The old Chinese man
at the corner store
drops my change
to count it.

I take his advice,
believing it true, that
action makes reality.

I flip a coin,
it comes up tails.
I'm going to die.

I flip a coin,
it comes up heads.
I have a soul.

Another head,
a soulmate.

Everything else
was easy.

I follow
the soothsayer's jive
believing it to be true.

How can I not, since
I see it and feel it
in me and as me.

It speaks truth
of my experience,
lives and breathes
through me.

I trust enough
to roll the dice,
ride that inside line.

When I've got
what I want
in my hand, I
run those cards
through to the end
every time.

Unafraid of losing.

Time is short.
Decisions will be made.
Might as well be me
who makes them.


2011

Busy Downstairs and Out

I loved
how the rice tasted
with the peas

and we admired
how it looked
in the wok.

I fed cat
sweet potato with lime
and fish cake.

She clinked
her teeth
on the fork.

"If I say I love you
twenty-five times today
will it make up for
the time I said
I hate
you
yesterday?"

The woodsman,
a prince
in disguise.

A steady
stream
of voices.


2011

Sun Stays Warm but Keeps to the Side

Foolish to think my clarity
would help when you were sobbing.

You made a face about the tiny frozen
fucking child you have to be
so as not to upset me
then punched
the back of the couch, said
"Look when people feel threatened
that's what they do. They fight back."

Under the brambles to the grass
conspicuous in my lost black hat
I drink coffee like I'm thirsty.

You come back with sipping tequila
and look for the worm. Turn away
a little, then all the way.


2011

Slalom Through the Crossing

In dreams I see caribou,
stone faced serious with
rowdy black hearts, too
exhausted from sickness to
concentrate on confusion.

You wake up scared twice,
see red lights, ask me if
everything is still okay,
beat your leg through the
blanket as disgusting and
though I did not love you.

So I speak about the owls
in the room and the prince
who enters and asks advice.
A large, flat owl on the wall
tells the truth with a "hoot!"
and a small, round owl in the
box with a "hoot hoot hoot"
sounds comforting too.

We work hard for nothing, slum
for the next big gamble to come,
accept what's worthless in us,
the filth in our hovel, prove
something about our nothings.
Flocks and herds of caribou
traveling much of the time,
eating only when they stop.

You ask the bookshelf owl
how best to get comfortable,
hear only "hoot hoot hoot."
So next the mirror owl who
grabs hold and says "hoot!"
Then turn back against me
and fall right away.


2011

The Lawn Is White but Not the Stone

"The mother was not injured for life
because she made it a lifestyle, but
I am the daughter of it, which means
I was injured for life..."

You closed your old pen and journal
with a flourish. We marveled at the
features of your new Moleskine and
planned the next notebook.

Most people don't accept their pain.
They live on the intention to. Make
demands, feel guilty for it, keep
track of "positive" actions.

Seems strange to take what we want
and discard the rest. I think I could
handle an expression or two of truth
and pain. It would hurt but be okay.

Walking back along the edges I heard
the creek and a foghorn, decided we
should go down to your family's home
at the total eclipse of their moon.


2011

Nirvana

Error is life.
Swerving holy circles.
We learn and grow.

Wise men turn from evil.
Turn it away at the gate.
Take it slow.

But I'm a flower in bloom.
In the sun.
Male and gracile.

I go out back with you.
It's sunny.
We take off our morning coats.

I call you Blondie, say
you could call me Dagwood.
Say you are the Bomb.

I call myself Will.
You call yourself Donaldson.
It means Nirvana to me.

Do you know
how lovely it is
that you love me?

Buzzards, that's what
humans are, and
dinosaurs.

Circling, waiting
for the thing
to drop.

But my friend
takes me up the tower,
gives me a hug.

I wanna hear her sing.
Why can't I hear her sing.
That's not fair.

"Here's your book sweetie,
and here's your hat
sweetie."

Salt crackers turn the tide.
Stand the test of time.
The world to me.



2011

Under the Cape

The starlings find the feeder and toss
seeds on the steps. March rain comes in
sideways, in pellets, in buckets, or not
at all. Back and forth. More, then less.

Your hairdresser says the cherry trees
will have pink blossoms come Spring, is
pregnant and puking in a bag and the bush
at Silk Road. I carry your product back

to her new place downtown with bricks and
fake owl, the walls painted Clinton brown
and ice cube white. She opens the window
using a harpoon as you squint at yourself.

This time you want to be more involved,
she wants to listen more. I take notes,
work to give your hairdo a new name. She
shakes her tarp at us, does a slide cut.

Our dog itches as a hobby, stays on leash.
And in the end I can't take my eyes off you
in the mirror in the chair as your brand
new bleach blonde hair's being blown dry.


2011

Hawks and Doves, Doves and Hawks

We had a smokin' hot time together,
didn't we darling, didn't we this
darling day. We did therapy together
this day dear with our questions, and
now it seems come the answers. First

you must give voice to what you
haven't voiced before, calling out
words and names in séance obssession
until you're down to the bone, limbs
pale, the pain real. Fleshed out,
safe now, ready to feel this. Then
sober is the new high. Chasing rainbows
when the sky rises and clouds blow away,
as birds nest in birdhouses and pink
suns set across western ranges.

"This plant's not growing. I give it
love, maybe it needs more love..."
We hold toes as we talk, then
bring out the red pen.


2011

Leaky Eye Valves When You Read

I look down Rudlin at the last of the sun
in the clouds above the buildings below
the trees as you let the dog sniff around,
taking his time. At home you and cat are
lying there the same, both voluptuous,
both content and not content, both really
loving me. You say you're glad she's had
a happy life. My olive arm is on your rosy
skin. We laugh, alone here as only we know.

For years I was a writer with one reader,
you. "I don't need to read books anymore,"
you said, "I just need to read you." And
then how my skin looks nice, in a soft and
quiet, peaceful and loved voice. Today I
say goodbye to the third person and accept
the fourth wall. Even drink water like you
now, in big gulps, wear your fur-lined coat
upstairs where I go when I go to write.


2011

Burn It to the Ground Tonight

Sunday news is the worst. Getting questions
from a hoot owl tonight ladies and gentlemen.

Prove yourself to me, be real with me, be
cool with me, play with me. Roll the dice,

move your piece. Tried to control it, fix
it myself, not speak my needs. The onus is

on us. In the end we played duo no-board
game show secret trust double-card Trivial

Pursuit, final answer is termites, final
answer is pelican. No I actually know, can

make an educated guess. Nope, I was wrong
wrong wrong. Is was and always will be.


2011

Castles Made of Sand, Eventually

What if there were caramel flowing like
a river? It's sticky and would pick up
all this detrius. Giraffes and daffodils.
Owlaphants. I don't know names anymore.
They're meaningless and interchangeable.
They could be anything. Like a good fire
rat in a tank. She made the best fire rat.

"Let's try and communicate using our eyes...
I see this big old rifle, double barreled
shot gun... I see you as a person, I'm not
making stories... I haven't blinked yet..."
Big eyes, like deer about to be splattered
in the windshield eyes. "Are you thinking
about other girls? Making music?" Only time
an eye looked at me, for me, so intently.

We fall asleep like accomplices in sleep
that first night in the new house. Then
the cat jumps down from the windowsill
upstairs late. I'm thinking something
is on the roof, not sure what upstairs
sounds like yet. We sit at the sofa window
making sure the town isn't circling us.

Remember that all this is happening because
we're more aware of our emotions, slowly
sewing the body back onto the head. This
needs to happen, these needs to be accepted.
You sketch a house after an earthquake as
Chile falls to pieces, scaring Hawaii and
the whole coast. The robins have returned.
You hear them like I heard them ealier.


2011

New Brain, Old Brain, Spring Summer

The days of half price baked goods Friday,
lemon square, Mississippi mud, peanut butter
and poppyseed at Rocky Mountain are done.
Now square pegs go in round holes, the
USB goes white-left, black-right. Jenny
sends a quick note at five fifty-five that
makes you cry. Catty's feet under the fence.

Forget about the downspout, the dirt by
the hose. Give her some turkey and she'll
sleep while I pack the stereo. Tumbleweeds
of hair blow through the empty living room
and you proclaim: "Dirty people live here."
I find the gold Chi pin, puzzle pieces of a
fence, an old popcorn kernel, some nuts
and this pen. Then I do indeed leave a
hole in the floor when I drop the box.

You wait by the flute and duck from
your lawyer, get turkey at the Roost
and fling buttertart flakes from your
'78 sweatshirt. The ladies take silver
in curling for Canada. I freak out
and smash up the kitchen trash can,
dance to "Blame It (on the al-a-a-al-a-
al-cohol)" and you put a wet towel over
my puffy eyes in bed. Neil Young comes
out of the ground singing, wearing white.

We watch The Descent with the lights out,
imagine a cave monster sleeping on the
book shelf by the aloe, hiding in the
laundry room. You dream your childhood
friend tried to kill you with a scalpel,
then get jumpy thinking the police are
coming to take us away. Faith takes Hope
to the hotel to catch her husband with
the Chinese violinist. I head down to
the hydrant and swear I hear airs.

Impulsive yet overly cautious, predicting
unrealistic threats to react to. First lives
and then souls on the line. You arrange my
Faulkners in an aesthetically pleasing fashion,
I keep Cornel West but let them take the rest,
eat cold pizza from a box on the ground and
chug OJ from the carton. Finally Harry Crews'
tattoo "How do you like your blue-eyed boy
now, Mr. Death?" starts to make sense.


2011

You'll Know Everything About Me in Five Minutes

I believe the battery is dying. What we have
here is a failure to, uhh, batterate. Hey
when you saw the driving car what kind of car
did you saw? I didn't really see a car, I saw
the road. I said You'll have to forgive me,
I'm a writer. Bird screams. Woman flies away.

Holiday House Motel, U-turn at High Street,
Trans Canada to nineteen north to four west.
We went out for a wicked salt cup and shared a
red wrap with fiesta cheese and bacon tongue,
saw pumas lap water at Shadow's and watched
the cross country kids, one with a crown, one
with a torch. The porch lions were together,
one behind the other. Boswell and Johnson.

When you're limited to your one road then
it doesn't matter if I'm the man who dipped
his fingers in the lake, or in the ocean as
though to stir it. When the world burns to
hell you'll be seeing that gorgeous napalm
until the big bang takes us from our living
sleep. And that's the real problem, we don't
dissipate. Nor make it easier on ourselves.

So go ahead and touch that lake with your life
if that's what you desire. If the sun's out, it's
quite pleasant, quite pleasant. We create, and
we revel in each other's creation. Come with me,
there's a van outside and we'll take you away,
you'll only wear this blindfold a short while.
On the twenty-fifth day they'll say what do you
remember. Say nothing... just peace and love.


2011

Are You My Baby Love Dragon?

It was the day they shot the spy sattelite down
that made you feel doomy. A headache that spread
into your whole body. We watched the yellow moon
turn blood red after seven. You said, "I am awash

with memories that take me out to sea. And we
float together there peacefully, 'Me' and all the
other 'Mes' until we remember we can't swim...
And then I panic until I realize I can float." We

caught the magic show at the food court. You
remembered the open market there before the five
burger chains moved in. At Zellers it smelled like
microparticles. You said I was your magic horse.

Waved bye-bye to Hillside, goodbye to plush turtles
and donkeys, changed our address twice at the bank.
I put Frogamander in the Dutch chair, the dog in his
cage. He raked his claws like a cup on the bars.


2011

The Five Obstructions

Cloud light through the transom
like whiskey from a wine glass
with my eye on celestial seabirds
making rainbows, not marking time.
From the doorway you said, "There

are some songs that never go away.
Like a photograph, like a book, a
possession you take with you when
you move. Some you leave behind,
Bob Seger is one I took with me.

Night Moves, getting wasted alone
in Tofino after I met you. Expansive.
Running on the beach, standing in
the ocean ecstatic. Crazed talking
on the cell, picking up hitchhikers,

some lady thinking I'm a mother
earth surfer, like I've been here
all my life. That relaxed and calm.
When really I'm just a hippie redneck
blasting Canned Heat on the road again."

Wish on a star, two names in a heart.
Finding love like peas in a pod. "And
if you don't like Walk on the Wild Side,
there's just something wrong with you."
Now to see what tomorrow will bring.


2011

Above Conscience, Below Conscious

You went to the back room with your black journal
to be by yourself. I put our song on repeat
and waited to hear your voice.

Being apart is harrowing, like having kids, takes
scaly skin like a Gila monster. The people who
do figure it out keep to themselves I think.

I was like a stone board at the sink, less man than
scullery maid, when you hugged me and said, "My poor
sugarwater, I'm worried about you."

Your hair was unwreckable above a white kabuki mask,
eyebrows bleached death maroon, lips black purple.
We embraced like moths, boldly and quiet.

I said, "Look Chrissie, I've been doing it this way
my whole entire goddamn life and it's been working
for me all this time." Except it hasn't, so

you started loosely on loose leaf, "Look Nathan,
nobody cares about us but you and me. Nobody
thinks about us. I am alone in this world..." And

it was all of it true, still feels weird seeing my face
so lizardlike and nerdy, yet loving myself now like
you loved me then. All the time and nothing more.

Straight teeth, lip curled up at an angle almost
like a cat, I said, "Those aren't bad terms. I'm not
uninterested, and I am NOT uninspired."

Later I watched you dig through the bottom cupboards
in black star panties and blue striped tank top.
I said you were in trouble. Catty meowing outside.


2011

Longing for Freedom, Joy of Captivity

"Maybe I'm dying. God, stop with the morbidity.
Am I so despondent with life that I think about
dying over and over all day?"

ten to four, five to ten, five to five
the saddest, soberist, most serious
thing I've ever heard said civilly

body and bones hurt from stress
bad reflux early that burned your nose
washing your mouth and gagging

"Paranoia?! Anxiety?! Terror?! Prostitutes?!"
you're in a good mood, I'm nonverbal
containing my energy to the room

you said in bed I was your favorite movie
I brushed your hair, you nearly had a headgasm
cursive looks messier but writes quieter

I long to run away with you, our shared
dropping off the face of the earth fantasy
and leave the rest of the world behind


2011

Blue Valentine

Idling trucks sound like water running
when you're up at four a.m.

I'm on about going away, drawing back into
a dot, shutting out all sense and thought,

you're off doing yoga in turquoise pants
and a black stitched nightie on a hot pink pad.

Then we watch stars to the northwest
as light makes lines on the closet doors,

me in my cords and cardigan, blue on brown
mismatched slippers, too cool for school,

your long hair on a square pillow.
The brown pillow with turquoise leaves.


2011

Better than Silver & Gold

White grass, sun through fog
clear and green along the edges

and I have so much love
inside just waiting. You say

Tomorrow you can have me
and How could I not want you, you say

Elephants are grand in Bali
teak tik kiki kaykay Kayla, then we

get Chinese from the new place, eat
from boxes under streetlights.

As we take the final corner I see
kids flash us the peace sign.


2011

What Happened to Me When

you were flooding, a black rose rising
driving out on the same road for hours
in the moment, in your body, saying

"Where was I? I was in here somewhere, in this
shell, but where? Was I somewhere safe or was I
terrorizing myself in some lonely, dark well?"

and you said there is nothing left, and put
perfume on a tissue, lotion on a pillow
so to smell something different

drew a sparrow in a curly, sturdy tree
ate cold pudding, sipped Coke from a straw
took the screen down and washed the window

I simultaneously forget and remember to forget
like Christ shedding the skin from his heart
writing now in a new way unused to pain

I woke late to a robin, your soul, singing
got out as the mountain turned pink
spent an hour alone in your words


2011

Natural Music

wind chimes blowing
always a different song
always the same tones

a gentle stirring
broad strokes
pin points

first notes unfold
drop like stars around me
close my eyelids

awaiting the elements
all vibrations open
here we come again

each other's whisperer
alone and apart
joining a chorus

I have your hand
we walk the path
I will not leave


2011

She Burns with Her Truth

never has noiselessness
meant such silence
that would overtake the moon

freeze my wings, stay
the elements, til the downpour
takes too my voice

never have you looked lovelier
than on Valentine's Day
squelching the rage

give me true words not nonsense
bring daggers if you must
thorns for a rose

and I will moan
your name, your name, your name
through fog and dust


2011

Egypt BC

in this corner
where god hides his eyes
and the lone ones howl, man

is made in his likeness
with two hands and
a dozen hours

is named
He Shall See What
He Shall Choose to See

he who reads hearts not mouths
loves peace not war, loves
more than he hates

but from a faraway land
so he may return one day
seeking forgiveness

Pharaoh mocks Moses
holding seventy million strong
says we shall see


2011

Random Melancholic

noninvolvement, the Prince of Oblivion
the great master at not seeing
comes out of the dark

let's hold an umbrella over his words
watch what falls around them
in the rain tonight

he cries longing craves suffering
and pride is like weakness
stealing the days

that we don't have to slide
as the worldbuilders did
from life into dying

give me peace now
forever for everyone
home all along


2011

The Twin Foals

silent partner
since day one

sisters by choice
patiently firm

thank you for pinching
and buttering toast

thank you for laughing
and giving her hope

thank you for being a
friend to my heart

the day is good
is going to be okay


2011

The Harbour

twelve blocks down the mountain
straight shot to the water
the final stretch paved and wide
a third of a moon winking me by

there was this seagull
and there were these signs, then
there was a ship
like a notch in the sky

the Panama Rebel's
reflection dance
below the horizon
above the lights

picked up where I left
and hit the street running
in February stride
these days in the night


2011

Tuesday, February 8

and then there he is
bald bearded Brother Nathan
greasy and foul, spouting
dyspeptic stuttering nonsense

eyes darting, cheeks twitching
smiling dead unsmiling falseness
visibly worthless, emotionally corrupt
always the layman the world around

still god grants me mercy, says
as only he or she can
you're not that important
even beasts not that loathsome

shows me the big darkness
where you and I are weightless
the other voices, shapes
holding no thoughts

the humble floating self
in touch with the One
compass point bouncing
and again smiling

I suppose the next evolution
is to become giant beasts, confused
trusting only one's own braying
all elk horns and shaggy necks


2011