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