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I take salt shakers to the water spicket and I make my own oceans.
Tide lines have eroded themselves into my waist.
I know all of the sea monsters by name.
I don’t want to submarine again.
I don’t want to grow sea **** in my lungs again.
There are cyclones I have made with my red and pruned toes because I make what I am.
I scratch at my skin.
Clammy and white.
I peel off layers.
I am only trying to baptize myself again.
I am only trying to baptize myself again.
Salty and stinging my eyes.
I am only trying to clean myself off again.
I am only trying to clean myself off again.
Sitting in my own oceans.
I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.
“Palm trees do exist”
And like that I’m speechless
Because palm trees are the definition of serenity
And she can’t find that serendipity
because in Idaho we have pine trees
And fathers who are like attics
Attics have ladders to climb so you can reach their expectations
And sometimes his are too high
If I had an attic I would cut every rung to its ladder and build my own
Because I know where I’m going
It might not be as high as you’d like
But let me assure you I’m headed toward palm trees
When I was young,
I thought
that the only artists
that there were,
were the famous ones
that I heard about,
because there is this
illusion
in our culture
that the famous people
are the only visible people,
so I thought
that if I grew up
and became
an artist, poet, composer,
musician, dancer, photographer,
etc.
that I would be
one of the famous ones,
but what I didn't know
was that for every one
of the famous ones,
there are zillions
of people on the bottom,
who can't get anywhere,
who work at the arts
for their entire lives
and their stuff winds up
in the dumpster,
and I found out
that there are very few of us
who wind up
like Van Gogh, too,
like that our art
becomes famous
after we die,
so it's the one percent
and ninety nine percent
law
of our culture
that applies to the economy
and also to this thing
that I am involved with
called art.
Good Luck!
Hands are paintbrushes
Intentions the colors
Splatter your soul
Remember the memories you lost in the sink
People are paintbrushes
I’ll make you my masterpiece
Never bought
Never borrowed
Stick you in my gallery mind
My heart contrasts your hues
Hands are paintbrushes
Fingertips the bristles
You can use up the red
Or dabble in blue
Whatever makes it true
Souls are paintbrushes
Leaving marks on door tops
And in white sheets
We colored the rainbow
with romantic gestures
Despaired minds are paintbrushes
Without any paint
Any voice
Never changing the black and white universe
Refusing to touch the world
You bring the brush
I’ll bring the colors
So broken paintbrushes find hope among the paintings.
Secrets:
My daydreams cradle you

when your voice is raspy
you are still the miracle of music,
tapping my eardrums

autumn rebirth
smoooooth caffeine highs and your eyes
***** afternoons

as the sun sets:
taking pictures of a row of benches
shadows caress the corners of the frame

slowly persuading my shadows to blink
blink
you're stretching out my midnight mornings
I'm swelling, my heart is a sand castle
that could stand to be built up and broken down and built again into
something more beautiful.

Sunshine settles in...
We need no filters

Take my hand without asking, please
take my eyes and kiss my skin with your warmth
take me - me -
do you know what it means to give you my body?
a plunge into the future through fears of the past.
Jump with me.
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