she is a little more than a little tired of
lists.  And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one.  it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire.  (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
                         wild yawp want it).

More. more (the word quivers at the nub
           like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
               a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor.  More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...

You already know about
                       everything
                    I know about

and because you do I get
                                 to get
lost without my long running
friend: that urge
to explain/destroy      my own machinery
(I mean intrinsic mechanism)
or I mean
               something else and betterer and more accurate and  
                    
                   Who am I without
the ceaseless explaining?

Who are you to come so
fully loaded
            (like Herbie the ******* Love Bug)
?

(Ah) comes the balm of genuine curiosity.
I have been so long falsely
expert.

I am just beginning.  Stupid
and frankly new.

I like to call it blowing on the harp.  Or wailing.
Like how helpless my mouth is
in the throes of translating wind, how I forget to
unfurl into the hot pleasures
of bath, pearling on around me,
that I had previously spent several dimes of
anticipation on,
even the mounds
of afternoon-special bubbles,
even the pleasure of seeing my own
flushed and perfect skin, mermaided
beneath this tideless sea.

When the urge to blow upon the slim silver box finds me
I almost don’t.  Issues of noise and also
whatever it is when you think “I don’t
know how”. I am surprised to see such
reasonable concerns after all these years
of exacting unreasonable responses
from myself in those silvering and hightide
moments that you never see coming.  

As if there were more to
the how of it than lips and hands
and steam and breath and the now weary bubbles
done tired of waiting
and laid down instead, across the water
in flat white whorls,
in a type of peculiar obedience, to the music above.

you say boundary
Like we're in a B&B;
upholding the highest standards
of privacy for guests.

I remember standing outside the tangle of humans,
my friend and her four kids and husband
and I felt like I was in a Wal-mart parking lot and
couldn't wrap my head around the exits, even what
the word exit means.  All those logistical concerns,
but how do you, and what about...

now, with you, my mind can scarcely make out what the heck
you are talking about

I guess it’s fair to say that the prime concern
of those not in the bed
is not the same as those within
nor can you glimpse, from there,
the bridges, canyons
and glens

the sudden cascade of love to wake with a child in
your armpit and a lover tracing his finger over your
******, having been watching you two sleep
and growing so hard with love he can not move

and moving so the boat stays afloat for all
and rolling with the waves that are carrying you to shore

come roll call, all the guests are gone
you’ve come home, or not at all.

she is a little more than a little tired of
lists.  And litanies that go no
where, and
hail no one.  it would be nice to be the
list, instead, being penned, being spun into be
ing, to be the logical result of a strong clear
desire.  (all she can really remember
from that pirate
movie is that the compass only worked if
you could let yourself
                         wild yawp want it).

More. more (the word quivers at the nub
           like something might be actually
happening).
More
magic beans.
Less stirring soup.
More of to fly into
               a rage at the intrusion
more intrusion! less
steady golden eggs that bore her
into a whipless
stupor.  More unknown. More parapets of cloud. More
lovers the size of small mountains. More rumbling
and coming apart at the fault lines.
More lava beneath me, she writes and grows
warm. Oh! How
that would burn...

If speaking does indeed
rob us of our fullest
human aplomb,
than let us be bereft
together, beneath the rafters
where language gives way to
shadows and owls, let us
watch a while
the dancers below,
one couple a little apart
so aware of the Being Very
Near they are barely more
human than music.

He sends an edict into
the small of her back, and the touch is less
than he intended, so full of
ready was she, to be
spoken to thus, that she
spring releases into a secret garden
of lone twirling,
each fold of her skirt
rustling something we can't quite
hear up here in the quiet perfect dark.

Language is an ingredient
in a magnificent soup.
It is not the soup itself.

Don't satisfy yourself with garlic only, that burning smack
is nothing compared with its capacity
to wend and become something brand new.

So get to the kitchen! Stop holding single ingredients in
your hand! You are not as foolish and unsure as you seem!
Inside the steaming, many things appear that are not
here now, in your thin, tired question.