tHEY WERE SOLEMN

they tossed in their sleep

They were the shadows cast against monoliths
when elbows and knees failed to crawl
hostile for the weight of gravity
annunciated through colors and their own speech  
graphitized in the name pagan underground punctuation
under ***** nails!

they made routine
of always casting long spells

that dirtied and dripped
with

“oh my God”

It wasn’t a place

where I could look for different spellings

of the same sentiments

meant as alternative

ways to lay into sleep

fashioning new dreams…

even the Palmistry techniques

I learned

by experimentation

wouldn’t allow

the creases of my spread hands

to divulge the truth.

It was weather

like seasons attempting to sing

obscure language

shapeshifting unwanted punctuation

churning body of impulse

writhing against stains

and coils

that foyer crested and stared down

kaleidoscope sheets of milk

eating ankles and sweating

turning sunken into just a hallway

a corridor of only

as many sides

as were meant from inside

the head scratching

to be necessary to just breathe

to quake, to shiver

to remember training

ghosts

to the root I set my sight

to know the future

I must know the past

and of the earth is the origin

my first embrace must be the tree

where rugged bark shields softness

guarded from extremes

thrown by the world

just inside cambium hides delicate

whose cells are of two worlds

both bark and inner wood

both dark and ethereal at once

I must come to love the sapwood

nourishing the whole system

like ventricles offering out blood

here I come to know the heartwood

as the soul of the entity

although at it’s core

there is fabric death

this death is the strength

serendipity structure centered

a million fibers of cellulose

glued together

lignen bonding the wide

branches of the family

Let me toil a moment longer

in the honesty of the woods

the humbleness of green

behind my small home

as clouds circle their wagons

sweet pungent zing in the air

a storm impending on the horizon

I ache with joy

as the backs of pines crack

in the sway above my heart

Today I place palms

in partnership

let the raised mazes

at my fingertips

interlock the hemispheres

of soul, of my body,

and of my metaphor

let the leash of time

slip to the floor

freeing my grasp

so my hands may be

liberated to face the sky

kiss goodbye

the culling clockwork

swim gradually outward

to thin the clutter

with silence

let sensations dance

percolate if they must

taste of them

with the tip of my tongue

allow the blossoms of thought

to heave

their tension my way

and just as quickly

watch them fall away

to evaporate from solid

to liquid

to vapor in my own lap

settled just beneath

the fuzz on my nose

feathers are

what become of me

my lungs waft

like cotton sings

whispering on breeze

my strictness

is weightless armature

is stillness

and momentum one

my posture is centered

above in-breath

my attitude finds

altitude of out-breath

I watch my own evacuation

lightness

spreading to stratos

gravity hugging

darkness unconditional

eyes closed

I become the distance

reached for and embraced

in the grasp

of my own depth

I witness open flame

I peel the onion

I caught the kiss of the weekend

throwing my paper plane

into April’s surreal refuge

philosophizing from a tattered

hammock stitched of rainbow

legs let sway pendent

toes feather touch dusting

lapping as brush strokes

tickling blades of tender Fescue

where unruly plants

begin to heave

haloed vines at the Sun

tongue jutting from pucker

sprouting at lip’s edge

swift nimble fingers cavorting

under cumulonimbus explosions

origami romance slouched

geometric in the backyard

letting the symmetry of the mind

crease the leisure of the day

into colored paper

all of those delicate planes

all of my tiny moods

each an intelligence

spanning the spectrum

fashioned the moth to the flame

then unfurled came the Buzz

The Sprinter, The Stable

a Sea Glider in eight folds

the Hunting Flight of epic distance

then acrobatics of the Royal Wing

psychedelic parchment for The UFO

100% bond paper persisted

for the Eagle Eye and White Dove

enraptured in the moment

my mind came to insight

before the wind up and the pitch

before she can split the winds

I must know the sinews intimately

before she may bathe her

formation in the sky

spread wings and dance the distance

I must delve to atomic intricacies

search further like an arrow

to the soul of her dynamic

watch her parallels unfold

between Earth-measured aspects

and the indispensable

prism of her goddess shape

my hands began to weave

stories in foreign tongues

melodies I’ve never had the voice to sing

knuckles Mamboing sign language

in rhythms the Universe has yet to show

the dusk horizon eclipsed

by stars and a paper wish

blessed trajectory

through the tussled hush

that hugs the wilted pergola

a well-folded fantasy

hung up where the faded pinwheel

spins it’s humming silver

the season’s scents

standing in a prayer circle

amid ice cubes slumping

collapsing in mason jars

ales foaming in pint glasses

hugging the shifting night air

melting and mending with the metaphor

of God and the cacophony of frogs

these days finessed from fingertips

that lock hands with shapes

built by children

hideaways kissed with dreamers lips

folded secret love notes

tucked between privacy fences

there were said prayers

upon those movements

upon my lawn

unfolded suburban satori

hands bent to mudras

giving imagination’s cursive voice

and it went outward that day as such

a breath, a meditation, a spiritual gesture