am I really real,
if I want you to see?

by your soul tell me,
am I as shallow as the sea?

I sit up and try them-
the names, all the parts of me

to find them longing
to be run over, pilfered considerately

by a discerning eye
wise, auspicious hands

oh tell me, please tell me!
who am I? what is this land?
how may I save my heart?
Do you- do you understand?

oh stone of my heart, can you blossom beautifully?
can you let your cracks heal even incongruently?
can you take a seed, and by the sunlit sea
watch the unfolding: lilacs and daffodils, on earth gray and green

the blood rushes through the body, seeking natural reprieve
cascading world upon world, dawdling as it does please
until it's caught carelessly like loosened lightning in sea
a marvel in majestic malady, i witness; wait assuredly

some days are like long nights
swallowing the bitter pill -
we strive to reach the spring

Longing and losing
lost in the sacred hours
I wonder if I sleep
my dreams screeching will scatter

sleep, the world cries
beyond that divide
a dreary fireside
ever increasing, eating alive

like a summer sprout
dancing in the wind
daring these ends
to unroot again

the times are tumultuous
if you rest in the day
the sun's searing rays
can pick you to flay

the moon a guiding light
searching through the dark
for people falling into
it's reliable ark

a foot, a step
the ground is solid somewhere
don't give up yet,
sleep
for the day carries light
you can sometimes just see it clearer by night

sleep because it's real
for a reason
it's real so dream,
dream so you can wake up
in the morning's glorious squeeze

a picturesque portrait nailed
over the glass askew;
you're running, always running
from the truth of what you'll do

under the glaze of morning dew,
a burning numbness in these bones
can't help but remember back,
to joints frozen in fallatical fear
of harsh quakes and subtle lacks
greased anchors lumbering
never dodging any attack
lodged bullets long missing
crashing craters in a hollow back
and I too awkward and dumbstruck
too shortsighted to fire back

(wake)

jolts jitter these bones every so long
reminders of the cavities mentioned in song
carved harshly inlaid
structuring your days
even if you thought they had gone

(look)

you were the same body who
cracks and curves too
the world is itself
you can't be anyone else
so live now by moving you

(remember, reason)

to sail the ocean blue,
tides turning in every hue
you must seal the hull,
drain your skull
learn to trust anew

(move)

he was a painter once-
in the sense of a duck, waddling
augustly chin up mild fingers
engraved with acrylic rice paddy
mosaics

his deft strokes, steady against
barn yard hum dry ruby in
watery crevices, between the skullcap
and cerebellum, between ages of semantics

his cast net he stirs
the mud-clodded ponds and
rasps, cane cracking leather,
I clasp on the waterlogged eyes out the window
airborne for some lost jungle to
salvage some sliver of a canvas

he turns to me on the wooden planks
and hand in hand we plummet into an abyss of
our own creation

the location is a library between Oz and Timbuktu
with sections dedicated to Atlantis, Narnia, Kalamazoo
rummaging through the directory, notes tucked in my shoe
then, Off on the way to Makkah to pray, I've no time to waste in true!

we sit and try to name all the stories we barely remember:
supposedly, as if you have rolled your tongue like that your whole life.
it is march and as much as it pours
I still grimace as the truth rises
out, lustful for air and understanding

(don't you remember,
every dreary november
that girl, meek and bolder
with a chip on her shoulder
unsteady, not ready
to fall down, heart out
shattering onto the muddied ground
reaching out, then
deep down inside
no tools
trying to hide . . .
but how long will you choose not to see?

don't you know, young one,
then there was nothing you could do,
don't you remember, her, that girl,
that girl she was you?)

the rain drip, drips on the lawn
and I hold the handle tighter. take a sip and sigh.
the soft rays gleam on the walls, our hands, where my lips just touched
and we watch them dance in the occasional light,
and we sit reckoning with the wisps in our hearts,
to be unafraid of the morning, and when the water rises

why not
ear n nothingham
why not
fall deeply in
why not
sleep not open
why not
dream off clock

I gather myself tightly
and charge at the horizon
for I know no other way
to carry this heart

slowly, clumsily
I shake off mud when it's clinging
sharpen my spears
I learn to make art

wanting to reach out-
but Don't want to know
how will we love
after the first stone's throw?

i sit crooked in a lonely corner
trying to shock weary sockets to cry
weakened pulses beat in faithful order
electric tears ravage with dignity, undenied

as children we learn to write,
learn to read
things important,
things we need
but sometimes
in the thick of it all
we cry and chatter
crumble and crawl
lose sight of how do
we best through it all -
no, straightened with grace
noise crackles through
darkened halls
to we learn to write to speak our thoughts?
do we learn to read for dear knowledge sought?
It's important, we should ought
ourselves forget others eyes and
seek the beauty our hearts call for inside
we have hands and eyes and ears
time to learn, time is near
burning questions, waters clear
Oh God, let us have the patience to seek the truth, the dear.

swallowing the meaningless to feed the inner-
not expecting to find our courage has withered?
(can you look at your soul, see how it's bittered
and say: come let us eat something good, indeed)

yes it is fire-
and yes, it does burn,
chokingly, smothering,
draggingly, churns

smoldering, always shivering aspite
yearning to burn to live through the night.
I hold my hands, attempt to encircle
my biting friend's desperate plight
squeeze like a heartbeat
and I pray and pray, I need this home tonight

grasping memories
real as they can be, holding
hot stones of hope and melody

the oppressive sun
bludgeons away weakness
melts off my fingertips

a gleaming android
ruby red and autumn gold -
a human unfolds

under the riverbed
the moon scatters silver
you carefully gather

whatever you can hold blue
shadows hang heavy
as your waterlogged pants
you still scoop, smiling

full pieces of our dreams
lodged between your fingers
water streams down your face
both sweat and tears ever sweet

i ready the basket
poised like a midnight crane
barely stirring in wane

several moments of pause,
and you look for me and
gaze with bottomless eyes
searching, for me asking
any reason, any sense, why
why won't I swim in the moonlight?

sleeping softly in knickered wood
watering bamboo running wild
in leaf paddies lost in the memory
yes, yesterhours gleam
the clock is broken, the shopkeeper
broke- it was yesteryears problem anyways.
loving of all, the curtains quietly draw close
the windows hold steady, not softly shaking with the wind

the night is long and I am a short woman -
moved by the breeze, gazing at the stars.
the night is long, and at length unknown,
but as a holder of giants, and the planets afar.

a pink peony
brusque summer breeze
grounded, with quiet contentment
Oh, what could be more delightful to tease?

when the eyes fail to perceive
and the heart lessens to drink
when the brain tap nozzled
drips slowly in a lonely sink

when the owls shriek
in melodic tunes
when the moon quickens
like a lightening noon

yet it only a midnight draft
the floorboards creak
the shadowbird laughs
and yet ceases to speak

when the door swings open
and shingles screech for the moon
you think it's early
the crickets mumble in tune

when the night is up
the sparrow has yet to speak
crowing on a metalled fence
glistening powdered bleak

when the night is up
cows bury the dune
the night is, up
the mare is looking for the groom

to be deeply buried under the sea,
stringing the years along in sickly slumber:
how many layers of darkness are you wrapped in
when the gravity so thoroughly pulled you under?

holding them to the gentle light,
steadily swaying like undaunted thunder
if you name them can you emerge then -
shall you do or shall you wonder?