Bustling:
The morph of bodies
of viscous crowds,
of pulsing sounds,
indulging mouths
in conversation and conversation
and the traction of
sheets of breath
on teeth;
everywhere, the room
breathes in unison.
And as buoyed stones
the water schisms and unfolds
around and leaves me
to face new currents,
unsure how to gauge
my own tenor against
the choral undertow.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:56 PM UTC
I
Fanciful and then the first notice of
suspended mouth corners,
fleeing gravity with invisible strings,
sloppily synchronize in giggles.
II
A glance at the shore horizon,
widening into chasm,
Erebus leaking
ominously—
oh but the raft
is far too small!
oh and flimsy!
surely the shadows
will ravage
the branches
and pull this
neurotically
euphoric contraption
below.
III
glazed malfunction
blurred and hazed
for lack of clarity
billowing surges
mold as magnets inandout
and in andoutandinandout again
fades in before
melting again to
disjointed gestures
in a multicolored backdrop
IV
Skeletal architectures
return from a hysterical
awareness of ****** intricacy—
And discussion is,
of course,
forever precluded
for fear of relapse
and embarrassment.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:55 PM UTC
morning said cold sunday
and all her hopeless smiles
breathing in the quiet of
dissipated yesterdays left
to hush them both beneath
shuddering blankets
bliss gone with dark
undulations vibrant kisses
long overdue and another
reason for neither
to forget again that
brown eyes
should be the
only measure
and finally noon
wraps callused fingers
around the windowsill
anywhere but inside
but also nowhere else
and somewhere else
they huddle to weather
the stormy day waging
war on ephemerized
memories but only
for so long only
for an hour here
or there will they chance to
remember the opportunity
not wasted
loving and hating that
like stories they begin and end
apart
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:54 PM UTC
My friend said
I talk like another language;
like I’m transposing
all my sentences.
I told him he was right.
But also,
my computer friend said
the sense I make isn’t enough;
like I’m switching instruments mid-song.
I told him he was right, too.
And so dance around the fire
mouthing the words off-tempo,
knowing the set may collapse.
Or instead,
All the ordinary windows
can drop watery curtains
while we sit in the rain.
Feeling the pitter patter
drops percussive
and wanting the next
refrain.
Oh I’m so bad at rhyming!
With such horrible comedic
timing.
And it’s so hard
to know what to say
to different types.
Dante warned against
not taking sides,
but I’m held ajar.
Oh didn’t I cover it all already?
(Burial, Chess, Fire Sermon, Death by Water, Thunder, and the Notes.)
I want to feel
sure that I’ve said too much
so everyone
has a little bit of something.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:54 PM UTC
*More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star
Let me be no nearer*
After The Hours
let’s find our way—
From the greens
to the walks
and up the long streets,
like giddy children;
naïve and visceral.
Let’s find a way to
be in, in it,
Starry and distant
so we can pretend
we’re not noticing her foaming at the
edge of the sand.
The glacial street faces and glassy traces
all amok—
All struck by our buzz;
open wide the rotted door
fuzzed with molds and
peeling lesions—
And the incision
leaks the glow-ing
of inner-workings,
pulsing with all the light
of an oasis, of an asylum.
Besides, there are faces
on the television and singing
from the radio telling us that our
lives are here
and staying—our headaches
should go away—but they ache with
so much wonderful pressure, like a
clenched cradle
in a smiling and contracting halo.
Let us find a way to sleep,
a way to scale the dawn so steep.
And when morning scrapes away
night’s handsome features,
so we awake to fear of losing something
we were quite sure we had—
Or at least alarm at failing
to recognize its face.
And to know it’ is real;
animate,
is to be assured
of who to write for,
who to tell
all the things we now know to say;
we really need it for the dark.
So in the hours between Hours
the cunning man will warn against
putting the minutes in order.
He says:
“this,
your consolation
is one burst
afraid of the next
momentment.”
Let us find our way from dreaming
to the other kingdom,
hoping I
can face faces with
eye to eye.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:53 PM UTC
I think yesterday is years away;
Between one and the other,
Between fathers and brothers.
So sisters and mothers
Blink feathery at their watches.
Hums like a hummingbird
Flails to a shrillness,
And a polyphonic fearing panic
Pulls us all back by chance
To the chancery.
Somewhere after grandfathers
Before grandsons,
Like Robert Frost being a modern
Not modernist—
There’s the last of the conceivable eros—
Conceived by sleeping
Resource and resourceful
Poverty with all the impressionism
of the gardens and allegories
at a dinner party.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:49 PM UTC
Tonight—
I think we should talk
in Black and White.
How else could we?
Stay in color for all I care;
You won’t catch my
scars and rumpled hair.
And we’re being so good
like I thought we would.
Oh, so you’re joining me
in talking shades of gray
and blinking ashes free
like teary embers
from eyelashes.
And we’re being so good
like I thought we would.
Who knew I could be
looking in again on
black and white—
In and in until
that’s all there is
just like I want—
Who knew I could be
missing reddish
blemishes and all
seeing colors.
And we’re being so good
like I thought we would.
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:49 PM UTC
The animals
have always been
mischievous—
the eagle and his prey.
Showers of
orgiastic rain
through cracked soil—
the eagle is no better
than his brother.
The umbrella daughters
don’t feel the rain
but hunt all the same—
the eagle’s offspring
are destined to try for—
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:49 PM UTC
Ten years from now I’ll answer all my own questions
I’ll take care with the brighter lights and sadder days
Even when there’s nothing but the abyss of empty rooms
Of fleeing demons on the swoop and prowl for what’s left
Even when there’s everything under the rug and more
And more reasons to keep the turns and sidetracks buried
Even if I can’t begin to know or try or see or do all the oaths
Of foolish guardians on my shoulder that are fed up
Somewhere there will be a flash or a bump or a splash
Of the best kind of amnesia to remind me to let myself
Forget the silly toobabs and bills and errors of a decade
Spent on the worst kind of expectations and fights
And frights and sights and blighted odysseys of my times
As a hero—Theseus and Perseus know how hard it is
How can all the boxes underneath the bed ever be cleared
Of the things they hold so boldly in the face of the moving
Planets and lonely Pluto waiting not so patiently for a surrender
From the waxing waning pulling straining lifting tugging
Falling and falling that keeps me awake and puts me to sleep
And asks and asks and asks and asks and asks
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:48 PM UTC
Like water—
assuming windy shapes
and earthy sways
So too, we accept;
so easily, could
we plunge hands
beneath the surface and
so in vain, could
we tide a new direction
Mar 22, 2011
Mar 22, 2011 at 1:48 PM UTC