To **** a bluejay
Give it soda
Lots of soda
They can't drink that ****
They will try to burp and die in the process

Without a bluejay
Life is so very nay.
Without a brother like you
Dreams are bitter too.
Without a crossword puzzle
Or maybe a toy train
Life is not the same at all,
Life is not the same.

Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry silk
a slant of witch-light; on the pure text
a slant of genius; emptying mind and heart
for winecups and more winecups and more words.
What was his time? Say that it was a change,
but constant as a changing thing may be,
from chicory's moon-dark blue down the taut scale
to chicory's tenderest pink, in a pink field
such as imagination dreams of thought.
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon
for children lost, lost lovers, and lost friends,
what can we say but that it never ends?
Even for us it never ends, only begins.
Yet to spell down the poem on her page,
margining her phrases, parsing forth
the sevenfold prism of meaning, up the scale
from chicory pink to blue, is to assume
Li Po himself: as he before assumed
the poets and the sages who were his.
Like him, we too have eaten of the word:
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge:
and write, in rain, a letter to lost children,
a letter long as time and brief as love.

II

And yet not love, not only love. Not caritas
or only that. Nor the pink chicory love,
deep as it may be, even to moon-dark blue,
in which the dragon of his meaning flew
for friends or children lost, or even
for the beloved horse, for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling down historic bricks:
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this 'man'? How far from him is 'me'?
Who, in this conch-shell, locked the sound of sea?
We are the tree, yet sit beneath the tree,
among the leaves we are the hidden bird,
we are the singer and are what is heard.
What is this 'world'? Not Li Po's Gorge alone,
and yet, this too might be. 'The wind was high
north of the White King City, by the fields
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky,'
where, as the silkworm drew her silk, Li Po
spun out his thoughts of us. 'Endless as silk'
(he said) 'these poems for lost loves, and us,'
and, 'for the peachtree, blooming in the ditch.'
Here is the divine loneliness in which
we greet, only to doubt, a voice, a word,
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost, a face
touched, and loved, but still unknown, and then
a body, still mysterious in embrace.
Taste lost as touch is lost, only to leave
dust on the doorsill or an ink-stained sleeve:
and yet, for the inadmissible, to grieve.
Of leaf and love, at last, only to doubt:
from world within or world without, kept out.
  
IV

Caucus of robins on an alien shore
as of the **-** birds at Jewel Gate
southward bound and who knows where and never late
or lost in a roar at sea. Rovers of chaos
each one the 'Rover of Chao,' whose slight bones
shall put to shame the swords. We fly with these,
have always flown, and they
stay with us here, stand still and stay,
while, exiled in the Land of Pa, Li Po
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon.
And northward now, for fall gives way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, 'and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The 'far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond knowledge, like ourselves;
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand.

V

The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold
in spiral nebulae, borne on the Invisible
earthward and deathward, but in change to find
the cycles to new birth, new life. Li Po
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow,
and, from the Gorge, sends word of Chouang's dream.
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly?
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang? If so,
why then all things can change, and change again,
the sea to brook, the brook to sea, and we
from man to butterfly; and back to man.
This 'I,' this moving 'I,' this focal 'I,'
which changes, when it dreams the butterfly,
into the thing it dreams of; liquid eye
in which the thing takes shape, but from within
as well as from without: this liquid 'I':
how many guises, and disguises, this
nimblest of actors takes, how many names
puts on and off, the costumes worn but once,
the player queen, the lover, or the dunce,
hero or poet, father or friend,
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end;
childlike, or *******; the language of the kiss
sensual or simple; and the gestures, too,
as slight as that with which an empire falls,
or a great love's abjured; these feignings, sleights,
savants, or saints, or fly-by-nights,
the novice in her cell, or wearing tights
on the high wire above a hell of lights:
what's true in these, or false? which is the 'I'
of 'I's'? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

VI

The thousand eyes, the Argus 'I's' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
'Dead pinetrees hang head-foremost from the cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
seaward, over the Gulf Stream.
                                                       The rat
comes through the wainscot, brings to his larder
the twinned acorn and chestnut burr. Our sleep
lights for a moment into dream, the eyes
turn under eyelids for a scene, a scene,
o and the music, too, of landscape lost.
And yet, not lost. For here savannahs wave
cressets of pampas, and the kingfisher
binds all that gold with blue.
                                                  Why here? why here?
Why does the dream keep only this, just this C?
Yes, as the poem or the music do?

The timelessness of time takes form in rhyme:
the lotus and the locust tree rehearse
a four-form song, the quatrain of the year:
not in the clock's chime only do we hear
the passing of the Now into the past,
the passing into future of the Now:
hut in the alteration of the bough
time becomes visible, becomes audible,
becomes the poem and the music too:
time becomes still, time becomes time, in rhyme.
Thus, in the Court of Aloes, Lady Yang
called the musicians from the Pear Tree Garden,
called for Li Po, in order that the spring,
tree-peony spring, might so be made immortal.
Li Po, brought drunk to court, took up his brush,
but washed his face among the lilies first,
then wrote the song of Lady Flying Swallow:
which Hsuang Sung, the emperor, forthwith played,
moving quick fingers on a flute of jade.
Who will forget that afternoon? Still, still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book for men or sheep,
before it was a book for words. Words, words,
for it is scarlet now, and brown, and red,
and yellow where the birches have not shed,
where, in another week, the rocks will show.
And in this marriage of text and thing how can we know
where most the meaning lies? We climb the hill
through bullbriar thicket and the wild rose, climb
past poverty-grass and the sweet-scented bay
scaring the pheasant from his wall, but can we say
that it is only these, through these, we climb,
or through the words, the cadence, and the rhyme?
Chang Hsu, calligrapher of great renown,
needed to put but his three cupfuls down
to tip his brush with lightning. On the scroll,
wreaths of cloud rolled left and right, the sky
opened upon Forever. Which is which?
The poem? Or the peachtree in the ditch?
Or is all one? Yes, all is text, the immortal text,
Sheepfold Hill the poem, the poem Sheepfold Hill,
and we, Li Po, the man who sings, sings as he climbs,
transposing rhymes to rocks and rocks to rhymes.
The man who sings. What is this man who sings?
And finds this dedicated use for breath
for phrase and periphrase of praise between
the twin indignities of birth and death?
Li Yung, the master of the epitaph,
forgetting about meaning, who himself
had added 'meaning' to the book of >things,'
lies who knows where, himself sans epitaph,
his text, too, lost, forever lost ...
                                                         And yet, no,
text lost and poet lost, these only flow
into that other text that knows no year.
The peachtree in the poem is still here.
The song is in the peachtree and the ear.

IX

The winds of doctrine blow both ways at once.
The wetted finger feels the wind each way,
presaging plums from north, and snow from south.
The dust-wind whistles from the eastern sea
to dry the nectarine and parch the mouth.
The west wind from the desert wreathes the rain
too late to fill our wells, but soon enough,
the four-day rain that bears the leaves away.
Song with the wind will change, but is still song
and pierces to the rightness in the wrong
or makes the wrong a rightness, a delight.
Where are the eager guests that yesterday
thronged at the gate? Like leaves, they could not stay,
the winds of doctrine blew their minds away,
and we shall have no loving-cup tonight.
No loving-cup: for not ourselves are here
to entertain us in that outer year,
where, so they say, we see the Greater Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union and communion.
Have we come
this way before, and at some other time?
Is it the Wind Wheel Circle we have come?
We know the eye of death, and in it too
the eye of god, that closes as in sleep,
giving its light, giving its life, away:
clouding itself as consciousness from pain,
clouding itself, and then, the shutter shut.
And will this eye of god awake again?
Or is this what he loses, loses once,
but always loses, and forever lost?
It is the always and unredeemable cost
of his invention, his fatigue. The eye
closes, and no other takes its place.
It is the end of god, each time, each time.

Yet, though the leaves must fall, the galaxies
rattle, detach, and fall, each to his own
perplexed and individual death, Lady Yang
gone with the inkberry's vermilion stalk,
the peony face behind a fan of frost,
the blue-moon eyebrow behind a fan of rain,
beyond recall by any alchemist
or incantation from the Book of Change:
unresumable, as, on Sheepfold Hill,
the fir cone of a thousand years ago:
still, in the loving, and the saying so,
as when we name the hill, and, with the name,
bestow an essence, and a meaning, too:
do we endow them with our lives?
They move
into another orbit: into a time
not theirs: and we become the bell to speak
this time: as we become new eyes
with which they see, the voice
in which they find duration, short or long,
the chthonic and hermetic song.
Beyond Sheepfold Hill,
gunshot again, the bird flies forth to meet
predestined death, to look with conscious sight
into the eye of light
the light unflinching that understands and loves.
And Sheepfold Hill accepts them, and is still.

XI

The landscape and the language are the same.
And we ourselves are language and are land,
together grew with Sheepfold Hill, rock, and hand,
and mind, all taking substance in a thought
wrought out of mystery: birdflight and air
predestined from the first to be a pair:
as, in the atom, the living rhyme
invented her divisions, which in time,
and in the terms of time, would make and break
the text, the texture, and then all remake.
This powerful mind that can by thinking take
the order of the world and all remake,
w

I like the sound of the rain
washing away the silent day

And the lonely call
of a home-bound train

A mournful morning
kind of pain

....Give me the sound
of a blue bluejay

over the busy noise
that mocks my ways

I want to pack my bag
and fetch my dog

Whistle a tune
while we walk along...

Come on girl
It's starting to rain

I hear the sound
of the lonesome train

and the blue bluejay
calling my name

(Here's where yer sposed to whistle)

Dearest daughter, we are told as small children that little girls should be "sugar and spice and everything nice." Don't believe that! Here are a few lessons I've learned thus far.  Take them or leave them. I am here only to guide you and protect you on your chosen path.

1. Never let anyone degrade you or cause you to feel bad about yourself.  You were born perfectly divine and deserve to be treated as such.

2. Don't compare your body or looks to the women in magazines, online, or on T.V. Technology can erase any imperfection with the click of a button. We are all built differently and uniquely.  It is a woman's inner beauty and confidence that shines.

3. Don't get caught up in thinking trends, fashions or name brands are important.  It's the person behind the designer watch, under the highlights and perfectly fake fingernails that will or won't make her mark on this world.

4. Choose girl friends wisely. A true friend will defend you even when you aren't around to hear it. Keep company with people who lift you up, not bring you down.  There's nothing more inspiring and centering than spending time with other like-minded women.

5. Never intentionally hurt or degrade another human being.  Words can be as hurtful as weapons.  Your words have the power to lift a person's spirit or damage it beyond repair.

6. Don't be afraid to question authority or take a stand for something you believe in.  The world has enough followers. BE A LEADER.

7. Your education has a powerful influence on your future.  Take school seriously; knowledge is power.  Learn as much as you can when given the opportunity no matter where you are at that time.

8.  Just because a boy says he loves or cares for you doesn't mean he does.  Pay attention to what he DOES.

9. Don't ever stay with a guy who hits, controls or cheats.  Love shouldn't hurt.  Get rid of him immediately!

10. Take opportunities to travel, meet new people and have new experiences.  Don't be so focused on getting married and having children at a time when you are still discovering your talents and gifts.

11. When you are ready to settle down, choose your husband carefully.  He should be kind, generous, and loving.  These are the qualities that make a good husband and father.

12. Stop and take time to notice a pretty flower when you see one. Feel the cool breeze when the wind shifts.  Be in awe of the millions of stars at night. Enjoy the melody of a bluejay outside your window.  Notice beauty in every person you meet. For these are the ways God is revealed to you everyday.

13.  Know that you are never alone even when it feels like you are.  This one will try to trick you throughout life.  Call its bluff!

14.  Don't be so concerned with acquiring money and things.  You came into this world with nothing and you will leave with nothing.  People are often disconnected from spirit because they are so concerned with material objects and status that they start to believe they ARE what they DO and what they HAVE.  When you can't do anymore or lost the things you had, you will be left with nothing but spirit anyway.

15. Realize the power and influence you have just by being a woman.  Women are the mothers who shape our future generations.  If we protect and educate girls and women, we save the world.

I am sure I will learn as much and more from you as you learn from me.  Welcome to the world little one.  Make your mark and make it a big one!

Love always and forever (even when you forget these words of advice),
Your Mom, Mommy, Mama

Two bemused birds encounter beside an oak tree
they notice an abandoned nest
Ross the Red Breasted Robin affirms it as his own
Bobby the Bluejay suggests they share it
"NO!" says Ross. I bolted in first. It's mine!"
"I believe I can squeeze in too", claims Bobby
"Wait! maybe not; you're quite fat."
"Shall we take turns utilizing the nest to sleep?"
"NO" says Ross the Robin , "Never!"
"Per chance", queries Bobby, "How can we settle this?
"Who can fly there the quickest?"
"Never" says Ross the Robin, "I own it!"
Bobby the Bluejay's anger surges to send a secret
message to his cousin Boris
Hence, Bobby collects his bird army
attacks Ross the Robin
whose obese body lay motionless
as he mutters "I shan't yield."

When the moon finally meets it's ceiling
Ahh, I wish I could describe the feeling

The countryside gives me a terrific peak
Early sun illuminates an anacamptic creek

The cricket's intuition ends their rhythmic chirp
I can see the dew glisten on the grass and the dirt

All silence - besides the wind and the bluejay
They spin through the sky for a game the two play

Warm waves of air push over the hills
Goosebumps ensue but I welcome the chills

This is a moment that an artist might draw
but he simply can't because he's part of it all

This is a setting that our memories reluctantly dilute
Though recollection of chores are crisp and acute

Try as I may - I can not pocket this instant
For when the day emerges it all becomes distant

One's grand flights, one's Sunday baths,
One's tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there. Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are comets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.

i'm not sure what to do with all the distance
it's been months that have felt like years
i can remember when you came into my life in the winter
and I can remember when you left in the summer
arrival and departure
the distinct difference between the two
i'm only at the thin line of division
the way my emotions don't add up
like miscalculated algebra
all to your advantage
i kept your love letter
the letter where you plagiarized a novel
because i wasn't good enough for your own words
that was my only closure
i wanted desperately to burn the stuffed bears from the carnival
i could only part with one
when i hold it close to me
i feel like how a child would
expecting prizes only in fabric and cotton stuffing
not words of affirmation or love
i almost drove by your house
but i knew i would only go mad thinking
of who has been touching your new furniture that i helped pick out
leaving their fingerprints in place of mine
i miss my t-shirts that you still have
i hope when and if you wear them
you can feel me close
my heart beating where yours is
sometimes i feel like i miss you enough for you to show up
as if my pain could teleport
the craving of a complete closure
one where i don't need liquor or a lighter
others bring up your name
as if i'm not in the process of misplacing the letters
or dismissing the syllables
i've been trying to forget your face
your face of sharp bones
flaring nostrils
and nostalgic lips

i've been trying to imagine if that night would have never happened
when that veteran couldn't take himself anymore
he chose you to be his last interaction
it was all in hints
he was screaming for help without making a sound
how were we supposed to know
i still wonder where that blue jay is that he buried behind the building
i just couldn't bare to see it
now i wish i made a map
X marks the spot where our love died
i remember when you had to bury your own blue jay
you never saw it coming
you took the wrong step and it was under your foot
just like he said his bluejay was
fidgeting and fighting for life
i'd like to think it was a sign from him
to let you know it's possible to move on and forward
so you did
you moved on to scabbed skin and worn-out lungs
i moved on to scholarly headaches and false pretenses
back then i could never fathom my days without you
now i find it difficult to recall how we were
it feels like our romance was a dream
because it only felt real when i was asleep

painted frowns on the sunday town
peddling backwards on the underground
sinking slander
thunder-strikes that planned her
slap up shower towel
bloom-faced scowl
kissing kissing kissing i turn my eyes down

beautiful sunlight
road sign canvas
hunger and caffeine fix
walking towards to busier stores
oxford street in the middle of october
remembering my birthday wasn't just for me

relaxing on the submarine
escalator down blue and brown
blue change to black
southern bound
dishwasher sandwich
tea cup bandage
the simple and effective afternoon

bound by thought posts
wandering from my host
tormenting and enlightening
silence and the noise she keeps
playground heartattack
softly spoken words are back
forget to smile on sunday
higher in the afternoon
monday brings a chorus swoon

bluejay on the roof above
sinking in slumber of my forgotten ...
what you did is yesterday
let go of that and this moment underway
forgive forgive forgive and sigh
smile upstairs and wave yourself bye

all i want is to see is myself through my mothers eyes

hey little bird you dive in the ocean's waves to exhilarate your tongue
you swim through the clouds, feathers a-flutter with joy
you hide in the trees and bushes, all winky and coy
i'd love to fall hands-first along your side catching my little bugs and my little birds
i wish i could fly
i wish i could fly
oh ** oh i wish i wish i could fly
no wings, no plane, no parachute
so thanks, bluejay, crane, pelican,
all the birds,
for letting me come along

(what a way to die)
so happy i can fly
so happy i can fly

a bluejay recently passed away
outside on my front lawn
i tried to help him best I could
but now he is long gone

i have a pool of tadpoles
sitting right out back
the tiny little froglets
making me an insomniac

a new cat showed up last week
with a short shiny black coat
along with his appearance
my mother left a note

"please do not feed him, darling
for he is but a stray
and you've taken in three new cats
already yesterday!"

Life starts out each day
In colorful waves
From the purple mountains majesty
To the white caps they display
As the suns yellow rays
Captures the forests dark shade
Life is a colorful display

From the sheen of green leaves
On branches of brown
Above moss covered grey rock
On top of mud red dirt ground
As the bluejay gives way
Richness abounds
With natures most colorful sounds

The green and gold of the seas splash
On the sands mixture of beige
With a backdrop blue of the sky
Giving way to the ache
As the Crayola of colors
Leaves the box to come out and play
On this most colorful of days

Red lipstick (I think),
but your hair fell soft around your shoulders.
You had this smile, but I could tell
it wasn’t for the camera-
you weren’t even looking at it. You-

You were on his shoulders like a bird,
little bluejay, hummingbird, raven-
sun on your shoulders, wind in your blouse,
eyes spilling sunlight.
His were looking up at you,
swearing everything,
swearing on the universe and his father’s grave
he’d hold onto you.

I was going to write you a poem stating how your sound is
long, and arching like
leaves to the sun. How it
curls and soars like a bluejay taking
wing from an autumn aspen tree
or how it can flit, like a hummingbird
back to the columbines that bloom
violet, and sensual as May

…But I felt like a ******* idiot
comparing your sound to birds of all things.
birds are too easy, anybody
can write a ******* poem comparing
a singer’s voice to birds, for godssake that’s too
easy

I want to compare your sound to a cigarette, but I’m afraid
that comparison might offend you… what I mean
is that your sound burns
at the end, like
leaves, if you light them, and I breathe it
there’s not a better way to say I
inhale when you sing, and what comes back
out, to the air is an echo, but it looks nice
and in response I wave and clutch at the sky
piteously, but your song
pats my back, with heavy hand and says
that things are fine and good
and your sound
can rasp like flipping book pages
your sound can roll down a grass hill in June your sound
can rope the ******’ moon down to where I lie
with stars in my eyes, and nothing on my tongue

And like poems about birds, your sound is impossibly easy
but like birds is nigh uncatchable
and, like the moon,
its light is fleeting
and like cigarettes, your sound
is likely killing my insides.

A man lost his leg in a dark spell
and a dinner plate sits in a dry spot
30 years of love soaked lung choked,
"I can't live without my eyes" life!
It's a tied or be tied world
a king prays in the morning
and stars connect his wishes
tasseled, sparkle, with
blood of shaking soft hands

A man lost his leg in a dark spell
a caravan station unfolds its carpet
a pegged ***** grinds for metal
and a sandpaper shoe floats in the creek
a bluejay whispers to the soil
and a soul catches an eye
hunger taken and a spirit flies
to morphing masses and flowing skies
flowing skies

A man lost his leg in a dark spell
as a green legged woman fell into the moon
a clasp of a watch was finally won
with fevered letters and hammered guns
filtered suns
filtered suns

There are certain hours / when we deteriorate / our mouths go hot and / the acid lining our organs finally start to burn / the bone / I wish the hours that wearied me the most / were in the middle of the night / all the black ickyness which sticks to me / and drags on the ground behind / wouldn’t clash with the geometric sun beams / but it’s the late noon sun / dull and filtered / and my meds wearing off //

Instead of being made of matter / I wish I could evaporate myself out / into a water vapor room / with all the warmth trapped in / I like the way that it almost looks like a hazy beauty queen evening / with dreams of perfectly pinked skin //

But instead I center myself around that spot where my ribs push into my stomach / I’m a creature of humanity / deteriorating into the soil //

I want to write a poem where I’m a bluejay / or maybe I just want to be a bluejay / I’ll sing while i fly for no reason at all / all matter and air / maybe i feel some need to escape / but mostly I think blue is a pretty color / and I want to make something pretty //

Cheap Decorations

Falling from above,
splattering on the sidewalk,
bluejay - no longer.

I swung wide my shutters this morning at dawn
To witness the beauty as another day was born.
Too early I’d risen for the cool of night yet hung there,
Her eyes still sparkled and indigo graced her hair.

Slowly as her cheeks flushed with rose,
And periwinkle adorned her face at night’s close,  
In a frost covered bush a fluffy bird stirred,
A rustle, then a flutter and soon a chirp could be heard,

A flurry of wings and the windowsill bore a Bluejay.
Proudly, clearly, these were the words he had to say;

“Goodbye dark velvet of night,
Sink lower and be gone from sight.
Up now golden yoke of day
Cast your diamonds upon the expectant bay.
Arise too folks of Sleepy Hollow,
For the sun has risen and gone be your sorrow”.

when the sun turned purple
our secrets fell out of our lips
by 7, our bedsheets became forts
my fears came like rain, dissolving into your fingertips

at 8, the bluejays sang outside your kitchen window
“are they mocking miles davis?”
speak like velvet
“if you listen hard enough.”
feelings of linen

by 10, we are alone
you speak of heaven
while i watch heaven speaking to me

it was a sunday when you asked me to live outside the city
“the only thing that would exist would be me, you, and time.”
those words convinced me
“do you think time becomes slower out there?”
“out there, time can stand still. you just need to stop for a second, and look.”

when 12 arrives, the trees become louder
autumn winds crackle
window panes shutter
“do you think wind would be scarier if we could see it?”
“it would only make it easier to hide from.” i say
“i hope the bluejays are okay.”

at 2, we see the moon
spilt upon a September sky, waning
your father died when it was full
“remember that poster that used to hang in your school wall?
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
i hope he landed on a star.”

the clouds flood above our heads at 3,
we are between bedsheets
the moon curtained by cloves of gray
“we should have let the bluejays in.”

when it turned 4, we conspire shadows of animals on our wall
rabbits dogs and wolves danced amongst framed stills
“what if we’re just shadows of God’s hands?” i ask
“if i’m a shadow, then you’re the light.”

we count thunderclaps until we forget what time it is
until it stops
they become echoes
clouds break apart
we stay close

you walk out to the porch
“poor thing”
“it’s like a piece of the sky fell out.”
its wings lay at attention
“do you think we could have saved it?”
“we can’t destroy ourselves for the things we could have saved.”
“we could have let him in.”
“yeah, we could have.”

at 6, the sky turned orange
the clouds pallet mixtures of purple and violet
i like to think there was no space for blue in the sky for the bluejay
i search for any trace of cerulean or aqua
the only blue i could find was lifeless on the ground

“what do you think happened?”
“maybe it was trying to shoot for the moon.”

you ask if there was a way we could bury it in the sky
it’s unfair to bury something so brightly blue in the dirt
we spend the rest of the sunset searching above us for blue
we watched orange dissolve into the violent violet night sky
we stay outside looking at the stars

perhaps the rest of the bluejays managed to make it to the moon
some may have landed on the stars
i want to believe that this still-blue on the ground is just a shadow
i have never felt more shaded
we were all shadows
shadows of something much bigger.

Miserable, reading a newspaper, sipping coffee on the villa
Cold front omens, bluejay noise
A bank robbery, an ocean tide, the smell of gingerbread
None could make him shift or smirk
Self-importance breeded in this host, with minnow letters swimming on the paper

-cj

The Miss, Misters and Mrs.,
And the St. Joseph's Sisters,
Made me a Bluejay,
Jay- jaying and soaring
Over Wrens and Robins
Below in five rows.
Teeth marks on Ticondarogas,
Initialed pink rubbers,
Toothpicks and fingers
Solved all those problems.

Sister Lucille showed me Sarnia
On the Neilson Wall Map,
With the Malted Milk,
Crispy Crunch bars staring back.
They looked too delicious,
Her reprimand was contritious,
I'm doing time during recess,
Ninety minutes til lunch.

We stood in a crooked line,
Like a snake, to get marked,
With her drawer a crack open
We'd get a peek at her strap.
Black or red, correctively cold;
Sister Roseangela, we'd heard,
Cried, Quid Pro Quo.

We had football baseball,
And hockey dreams,
Volleyball, basketball,
And funeral teams;
Field Days, Holy Days,
Days needed at home;
Teachers were coaches,
With little time to complain;
But the kids back then
Just weren't the same.
There were skirmishes, fouls,
Strike outs and time outs;
We were sliced white bread,
No rye or whole grain.

We'd march double file
Once a week to the Church,
To genuflect and reflect
At the Stations and Cross.
To confess, get redress,
Display penitent remorse,
Though keeping a secret
From the Confessional box,
A comfort and curse.

Their objective succeeded,
The lessons went deep;
Using the three Rs,
The ABCs, 1, 2, 3s,
To impart and ingraine
How to carry one's cross.

I remember by name
The Miss,  Misters and Mrs.
And St. Joseph's Sisters
Who gave their all,
Each day, and always.
They've gone or retired,
But recalled in tranquility
For the life-lessons I admire.

The sunlight during summer,
the rain of late, late may,
the sound of ocean waves smashing
up against the bay,

the droplets falling slowly,
the moonlight shining thin,
the feeling of your hair blown back
and tucked beneath the wind,

the ticking of a school clock,
the smell of fresh baked goods,
the feel of running freely, alone,
straight through empty woods,

The sweet call of the bluejay,
the wish upon the star,
the hours spent talking as
I drove you in my car,

The peacefulness of heaven,
the sound of soulful blues,
this is what it feels like
to be in love with you.

What lies above the tops of trees?
The field in which the bluejay flies.
Far-soaring through invisible seas
With white-foam clouds; We call the skies.

Can birds deduce the here and there?
From breezy-field to where it lies?
For when it flies up in the air,
Oh, does it know it's in the skies?

Birds care not for the 'next day'
They bend not to anxiety's sway
Be like a bird and you too may
Be happy wherever you lay.

My heart is tabletop -
the rest of me is the filled-in border
of jigsaw pieces, hanging teeth
around a maw; the middle is missing.

I am also the beheading bluejay
slicing the tendons of greenery
that waver in the rain lens
imprinting on glass and shadow.

I wait on street corners
for specks of truth, beauty;
"That is all ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know" and all that.

But I have a quicksand heart -
step and drown.
Wreathes of blood shiver inside
in murderous curtains.

I vanish in front of you:
This world has no middle in it,
& what little remains is draining out,
teeth strewn in a garden.

There is a little lad inside my head.
He sits in his arm-chair critiquing with lead.
Posting pages of notes upon my walls,
Of moments where I wish I saw:

The way she looks and stares with grace,
A broken down car and the man who waved,
The bluejay who perched upon the sill,
And moments that I could never fill- again.

With a marvelous triumph I give him praise,
For the things I have learned, improving future days.
If it were not for the little lad inside my head.
I would be cold and empty and without a worthy head.

Imagine powder blue , morning flowers ...
Green clover nestled beneath swirling eddies , enraptured by Summer hay and sunflower fields , the chorus of Mourning dove , Brown Thrasher and laughing Crow ..Village church bells announcing each daylight hour , quiet Sunday mornings broken by Pileated Woodpecker and Bluejay ...The smell of Honeysuckle and fresh cut grass , burning leaves and Sassafras ..

Henderson's had plaid failure citzens
Bust cow pie chart retina
Moldy bluejay penitentiary
May may may

Granite and marble talismans , sugar white sandbars and felled Oak
bridges .. Smallmouth bass explode with hunger at the surface , soft shelled turtles in meditative bliss , fill driftwood and sun drenched rock islands , dancing waters and bank head flora lend a thousand different colors to the afternoon palette of a Kelleytown Summer ...
Water striders communicate with dance to the ballad of a bold Bluejay .. Young anglers test their skills with creek minnows in search of Yellow Perch and Black Crappie as the last hour of daylight swiftly begins to pass ..