The sun is setting on a hot day, he hides coyly behind tall sycamores, his reflection playing on the undersides of trees on the riverbank. His warm breath is the breeze that kisses my cheek. The river carries me on, over pebbles and rocks below the glassy surface. Dragonflies dart around, flying gems that glisten in the sun. The heron, with diligent patience, hides seamlessly in the trees awaiting his next meal. He takes off when I get near, his frame is much larger in flight. The sweetness of honeysuckle is thick in this warm air. The trees on the riverbank are laden and dripping of the sweet flowers. As I gently glide through the water, the waves lap against my boat, almost making the sound of kisses. This is my river time. All these beautiful things, I love. There is passion in Nature, it is in birdsong and in the breeze. It is in the river as it moves along and the swaying of the trees. This is where I breathe.

Most peculiarly of most things was that I thought all of this very fishy, daudry, drab, and boresome. This is where I turn on the second table lamp...

In a muster I arrived to the home of my aunt, where at once she drew me into the back of the house, down a flight of stairs made of tusk and bone into a catacomb where she kept a alive collection of wooly mammoths. She said the upkeep wasn't awfully horrendous as she had an invisible backdrop which led to a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe sort of thing. I stood in the gangway behind 10 foot high thigh bones waiting for one of the monstrous red beasts to come greet me, but what arrived was a very large elephant with longer tusks than usual. None of the red sillyness which I had dreamt of seeing in my previous years.

She could see I was not that impressed, and so I was led to another part of her home. Around the corner walked in my uncle in is superb and luxurious dress, reminiscent of 18th century British military fatigues. He said, "I bought the E.T. ride from Universal Studios, but as bringing the whole ride to my home I had them adapt a more suitable version to fit the property. A hangar opened and inside there were four chariots of orange and blue, diamond shaped school buses with their undersides aimed at withholding a V-shaped street. Then in two and two single file order all the classmates of my K-12 years arrived and took seat into the strappings of this 'ride' we were to take. Music played, John Williams even was produced by hologram, and after the ups and downs for several minutes we arrived to what I thought would inevitably be the forest, but rather was what I perceived was a Finnish town. The chariot I was in was stuck in the street, mud, rain, and soot entrenched us. I unbuckled the polyester straps and when I stood I realized that though the seats had built in urinals and toilets they were utterly noiseome to the senses. I followed a local girl to a food mart where I asked how I could find where I was but no one spoke a drop of English.

I corraled the group and told them to wait for me. I followed this girl who seemed quite younger than I to a small apartment in the uppermost floor of a very unsturdy chapel-like home several suburban blocks from our ride. She immediately removed her pants and I saw with my very own eyes that she was hairless and nubile. She insisted that we have a ****, and after I caressed her and complained too that she was far too young, she insisted that the age of consent in Germany was actually 13 yet she was 16. I remember it clearly. The most gigantuous feelings of pleasure as I mended a studio closet for my dining room furniture inside her ripening channel. Eventually after an hour we finished, she offered me a towel and some biscuits, which I consumed joyously.

Upon leaving her home I remembered that she had said we were in Germany, and so I produced a measure of Deutsch that I had been saving in my repetoir for the right moment. As Finnish is not my strongest language I was pleased of this and became instantly popular among the other candidates of our journey. This  E.T. ride is far different than  I remember it having been. Moments later I awoke quickly, a tuft of her black hair on my eiderdown comforter and a veil of tears from the merriment of glee shrouded over my face. After I rolled and balled into the soft feathers of my bedding, I twisted myself again into a knot, and allowed myself to rejoin the soporific treatice I was aiming for.

This is now where I turn off both lamps and go on watching films of a similar style.

Wishing You The Very Best,

Sir Martin Narrod

I keep my family of conscience
I shred my folly of heir
In case of torment or fondness
I never wear underwear.

STICK’EM UP with LIQUID NAILS

DANGER ! EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE
        See Other Caution on Back Panel:

I’m hot for you Cowgirl – you’re so flammable my glue-gun starts to melt; my screwdriver starts twisting when you loosen that low-slung belt. You make me feel like laying re-bar in a freshly-poured foundation. Shoot me up with that caulk gun baby – I need you like salvation. Ten and one-half fluid ounces – pull off your top, pop a love-cap in me. Fingerin’ your trigger while the job is gettin’ bigger so take me for a ride to the hardware store, honey, cause I’m seeing red and feeling white on your golden background’s sheer delight.  Hammer me a heart-full, spike me on a cross of blonde, I’m hanging ten, surfing the tube of your magic wand. I’ve been in love ever since I first waterproofed my seamy undersides with you… stand over me in those red, red boots, you Liquid Nails Girl – and from your pure white Stetson let righteousness unfurl. You won the shoot-out long before you even drew, my dear. Lost hope of the Wild West, Final Frontal Feminine Frontier – there’s only one side of you…  your GOOD side.  Just one look and your fearless gaze silences the foes, my blooming prairie rose.
YEE – HAW !  Be my angel, be my dream, my valentine rodeo queen, be my bodyguard, my therapist, long & tall & hard & wet – be my Liquid Nails Girl forever and I’ll ride right into your sunset…

When I look at you,
I can feel the Nile river gushing from
my arteries and separating into
the most delicate of tributaries.

When I look at you,
my bone marrow jolts my body forward
because you’re east and i’m west but
if we followed the lines of longitude
it’s impossible for us not to meet again.

When I look at you,
I smell bleach and roses
both burning the back of my throat,
one covering and the other cleaning.

When I look at you,
I feel warmth
but the real kind
not the the heat from a couple shots of absinthe.

When I look at you
my heart flys up and squeezes into
the delicate space between the two hemispheres of my brain
and suddenly you consume
me.

So when you left

I stopped looking at you,
looking for you,
looking for your hands on my ribs
or the hair of your leg brushing the back of my calf.

I tried to stop longing for the proclamations of love that you
whispered directly into my ear so
the wind couldn't ****** the seven letters before I got to hold them.

When I had looked at you
I did not want to admit that the red strings
that tied our calloused fingertips together
had begun to fray and snap.

When your presence became to fragile for my fingers to touch
and the ashes of burned rose petals
would fall into my palms.

I would swallow them
and try to remind myself of their-your
your once velvet beauty.

But charcoal is only used to extract poison from a bloodstream.

I refused to believe that you were the poison and I would open bottle
after bottle after bottle of red wine because
it was my-our-your favorite type of drink.
My red stained lips would get trapped on the neck of the bottle
until neither alcohol nor oxygen remained inside
and only shattered glass and ****** knuckles.

I tried to leave hickeys on the walls and pretend
it was your neck but my lungs were too empty from my screaming.

When they burned from your absence
I ate the charred alveoli
and hoped it would absorb a little bit of the pain.

musings of a kook surfer
(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

Logic and Perspective  (a poem)

Quantum Imagination Rules.
What-Ifs equal What-Is
in this, a shared creation.

If         we are surrounded by what we can see,
            what we see is what we are;
Then   matter is perception of resistance,
            time is the persistence of opposites,
And    space is an Electric Universe;
            not lonely nuclear fires,
            but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy
            traveling through plasma that unites all.

The Earth
        a wonder of positive and negative,
        not solid,
        is the infinite slowed into harmony.
The Sun
        a focus of resistance,
        not burning out,
        Burns In.

No small coincidence that
equals means is
You Are and
You See so
I am and
                  
You are, you see, the I Am
...


No Chance for Chance  (a poem)

What is Serendipity?
Seen miraculous,
Some thing done there,
Something done.

What isn't Serendipity?
The unseen miraculous.
What miracles undone,
in time
in time,
as it never happened.

Everything?
Nothing?

It cannot be a good thing-
Fortunate for you is
lost fortune for who...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

It cannot be a bad thing-
In agreement
with yes...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

I think,
so I think I am caught between
a wave and a particle.

….

Between Worlds

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon.  There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave.  Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged.  Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting.  Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition.  The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down.  The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean.  The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath.  Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea.   Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat-  a reminder this is Pele's paradise.  This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon.  Is it fog?  Yet a glance behind verifies the ***** of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak.   Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky.  Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay.  Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training".  Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

What planet am I on?

It feels so foreign, time stops.  The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered.   I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells.  A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon.  Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky.  The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything.  It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.

a light breeze stirs the tops of the trees into a tantric dance
in a section of the sky i've only ever dreamt of thriving in.
magic stirs the dust...
and it coats my eyelashes and the undersides of my finger-nails,
and falls from my skin softly-
the way stars descend through atmospheres.
there is sweetness in the air.
moon-beams basket-weave through night-sky hair
and tap-dance their way around my neck,
adorning me in their celestial secrets.
i create and name my own constellations
from the vantage point of a little girl beneath a big sky,
connecting distant points of light with nebulous-lassos flying from my fingertips.
i am golden.
in this moment,
i am beautiful...
if only i could remember.
preserve this feeling right now-
scoop it from the encroaching dusk,
and trap it in a glass bell jar like a firefly,
and feed on its light forever.
if i could remember that i do love myself-
maybe i'll survive...
perhaps even flourish.

rebellious song birds whisper through the night-
accompanying the melody of breaking waves-
a lullaby from the universe that only i will ever know.
i hum along in thoughtful bliss.
this ends the separation-
from myself,
from loving,
from FEELING;
right now i feel everything.
love,
light,
warmth,
beauty,
and the courage necessary to finally acquire a sense of freedom that can never die.
i am living,
to the very best of the definition...
that's got to be enough for you-
for ALL of you-
because i finally see that it's enough for me...

and for the stars.

Oh, I am raw.

You knew.
You knew this whole time.
And you made your bid for love and freedom oncemore,
Like you'd never been hurt in your life,
Like it couldn't turn out wrong.
You knew, you knew.
Every single time, the hope wins over the sense,
And it's like you don't even try.
Who are you to march away and leave me here,
Heart?
Who are you to skip away blithely into the night every time I beg you to stay?
It's like you don't even belong in my breast,
The way you leap forth and hitch a ride
With people you see pass near, who shine like stars.
You follow them like gravity,
And every time, I scream inside my head,
Locked in,
"WAIT! Don't go, don't leave me here to feel your space!"
But you ignore me each time,
And briefly I am sure you are right,
Briefly, every single time,
I believe that you are the one I should be following,
Dragged behind you,
And not the other way around.
And then it comes,
It comes and I trip myself just so I will have chosen to go down,
And I am here,
Left
Wretched on my knees
And you never have to take the fall.
You never have to deal with it.
You're only in control when the sun is shining.
When the storms hit and knock the breath out of me like thunder rolling,
You plead you never chose a thing.
You traitor,
I would claw you from my chest!
But you already did that,
And I have no way to take revenge on you for your treachery-
You are me.
Your pain is mine.
(your joy is mine as well)
And so you get to,
Every time,
Abandon me and make me thank you for it,
And I am so sick of it I could scream.
You don't have consequences, Love.
You ARE a consequence.
What ever gave you the right
To turn my life upside down?
To leave me so unable to do anything but watch as I am dismantled by a force I never asked to feel?
I'd be happy, content, perfect,
(no, unfulfilled, empty, lost...)
To just give you up and cut the strings
That she
(whoever she may be, for I never get to choose, do I?)
Saws at with a bow, poison-tipped like a Shakespearean sword,
Plays, like violins singing melodrama.
I'd sever you from me in an instant and let you go
Play your games elsewhere,
Heart.
I swear I'd do it and dance in the streets,
(I'd have nothing, not know what to do)
If only it was possible.
(I am not damaged enough to give up)
I don't believe in love,
(Oh but I do, and sometimes I don't want to)
But I am married to my work, to you:
My job is not to be paid,
It is not to be happy,
(you are my chance for "happy")
It is simply and exhaustingly to survive your choices.
I don't get my life!
I get you.
I get kicked when I'm down, I get holes and hollows in places
I didn't know a heart filled,
Like fingertips and rib bones and lungs,
And that awful twisted spot above my stomach
That echoes cavernously with loneliness in the middle of the night
And sometimes in the lunchroom or on the subway.
(I get to think maybe that sadness will cease)
I get haunted dreams and impulses I can't control,
(sweet relief from a life of restraint)
I get your puppet strings
Jerking me to my knees
Knocking the pride out of me like breath.
(It speaks, but underneath I worship you)
I get your fingers inside my head, on the ridges of my brain,
Digging in like a migraine headache,
Gouging a place for someone I don't even know.
(Replacing the sorrow with joy so intense that I fear it.)
Who put you in me?
You don't fit here.
(you are the only thing that fits here)
You don't belong here.
(I am so afraid you don't.)
Like a parasite, you feed on me
(I need something to take this ache.)
And I am slowly dying of it, Heart.
(cure for my loneliness, arsenic for my mind)
I've tried everything I know,
I even tried to make you die inside me-
(I didn't know what else to do, I'm sorry)
Husk of a soul skittering along the undersides of my graffitied ribs,
But no, no you rose again,
Stronger,
And I... I wept in fear, Heart,
I really did.
(I made the hardest choice and you unmade it.)
Nobody knows that-
That I wanted you to go,
That I wanted you to stop, actually.
Nobody knows that I'd have happily never felt a thing for the rest of my life,
(only in fear, Heart, only in fatigue)
When they saw me fight so hard to become myself again.
(I couldn't beat the part of me that needs you)
But I knew,
I knew
Because the day you stretched and yawned after leaving me for months to rot around your frozen form,
I felt in me a terror I will never be able to explain,
Never be able to understand fully.
(Self preservation was never one of my talents, or yours)
This gibbering, skin crawling agony of panic,
That here you were again to bend me and break me,
That I was mortal, carrying a love that couldn't ever be killed.
It was the moment of clarity,
(of awe, as well, and terrifying vitality)
Before I decided I had to force myself to work with you,
Slap a smile on and go look for my next defeat,
(oh, maybe this time I could keep the love)
During which I saw my life unfold before me like a vast map,
Your destruction burning it to ashes in all the places I'd love to live,
Place by place by place,
Charred path to death over the lengths of decades,
No control, no say, just heat- and me, following along behind
Like a lost puppy
Trying to rebuild something substantial enough to make my home in.
I saw before me a life without rest,
Of this, the constant struggle to find and keep a wholeness I apparently don't deserve,
(I can't stop trying to deserve it)
To catch you and stuff you back where you belong and force you to lie still,
When I know you will only consume me with flames anyway.
I hate you, I really do.
(fear, not hate)
I hate you because I want to live.
(I am afraid you will destroy me)
I hate you because I want to die.
(I am afraid I will destroy you)
I hate you because if it were not for you, I would never suffer,
And I would have nothing to live for-
For I know nothing but the constancy of you,
Pushing me down, forcing me to my knees
And me struggling to rise and find a way to bear your burdens.
(GIFTS)
I hate you because I will never, ever be rid of you,
And I hate you because nobody should want to be rid of
What makes them live.
I hate you because underneath I still believe, somehow, that every single second's worth it,
Because that naive faith in you just won't die-
How can I stand that?
(How can my pride abide a hate for something vital, and a love for something toxic?)

And you've betrayed me every time, Heart,
And I don't forgive you.
(I already forgave you long ago)
And what if you've gone and done it again?
(Let me say I hate you so that I can have some control)
And how am I supposed to know that
For all these years to come?
*(Please don't go cold again, my Heart.)

I spent months
setting them up

those emotional "dominoes"

black rectangles on end
balanced just so
white spots spelling out

ego
    emotions
                soul

just a sharp stroke
of a tongue
on one corner
and
they fall...
   and fall...
      and fall...

they lay
      scattered
                  and
                     chaotic

on their backs
          like beetles
unable to turn

their undersides exposed
                             and vulnerable

how many times
            can they be realigned

how many times
              before the spots erode

how many times
               before it's empty inside

like dead beetles'
                       dry, brittle shells?

green island privilege

we thread our way through the Johnstone Strait,
where every landmass, largest and smallish,
all islands, so this particular three-island-man is comforted and
comfortable in his surroundings, in his skin,
in his watery rivered veins

the outlines of myriads shapes, assorted puzzle pieces of earth adrift,
fitted sheets, awaiting assembly upon the magic of water,
fitting the continuously moving puzzling frame, accepting all,
mutually funding each other for each must, by definition,
define each other

the sky allows itself to be glimpsed, “yes, I’m still blue,” it teases,
but sky is busy bathing its undersides, in gloomy whites
of a bubble bath, of a deep morning mournful fog,
we underneath, observing, bestride a double sided fir and pine forests corridor either-sided of our the cold calm watershed,
a green privilege

fog above, touching so lightly our green tree waterway enclosure,
just as a human caresses his truly beloved’s cheeks, so so softly,
the fog sitting on top of the treetops, kissing, allowing that,
but no more,as the day is now only hours young,
disallowing mature sunset romance

close enough to touch, the fallen branches that people the shoreline and I, marvel at my privilege, my history, how I came to be
witness to this moment, testifying to the luck of life, cris cross continental running from European Black Forest persecution,
Spanish inquisitors, whose auto-da-fe cris cross burnings earned them no truth, no fame,
where racism hatred made my tribe an official inferior kind,
worthy of extermination, yet, here I am surviving to be arriving
to the serenity of this goddess Columbia moment in natural embrace

but here again, at this second, still excoriated as virus-privileged,
aligned this time to the guilt of my skin colorations,
guilty genetically, in my nation of 99% immigrants,
which confuses us,
for we, our troop, victimized by quotas, ghettos, crafted laws,
once upon a time burnished, now burnt by our successes,
we asked for nothing more, fair play,
a chance to win but never by stepping on the backs of others,
are told, no, no, guilty by chance,
cause you won the oppressors color coded lottery

the sun keeps on battling, though now late afternoon,
its glare, no fair, makes me squint to see the horizon,
a thin lucent bright line, who knows how far away,
it challenges me, saying am I not the sun to everyone,
leading you to new islands, green end zones for anyone
to touch down, leading you back home to where you shelter
anyone who asks, a new horizon for anyone comes to me,
giver of words, my inspiration family history shared for anyone,
I adjudge guilty, your privilege was earned, by the exile you’ve endured and the truth of your island green privilege,
and the trees, in unison say, hallelujah selah

the drunkard crawls from an infinite sea of sadness,
their screams echo
                                                                                        into an enormous black sky,
upon finding their sun
                                             which was once an incessant ***** red,
now a cold mass of midnight blue,
abandoning its worshipper
to revel in darkness,
                 to freeze from a deathly chill of loneliness,
                                  to melt from the nights' stinging raindrops of reality.
but the drunkards,
and only the drunkards,
are secretly admitted
                                into the hollow asylum of the traitorous mind,
              where some imagined eerie light
                                            bathes the shadows,
              where they feel the solitude enveloping their bodies
                                                                                                  with an alien warmth,
              where the raindrops intoxicate their insides
                                                                                like thick, sugary syrup;
a place where they
willingly drug themselves
into an ignorant stupor,
                                                                                painting translucent
                                                                                                   dreams of yesterday
upon the undersides of their eyelids,
                               and seeing them
                                             as the art of the future.
solely possessing the key
to the invisible shackles
that chain them
to equally invisible walls,
                they lie back in relief,
                                                               upon silken feather dust pillows,
comforted by a styrofoam fortress,
while blissfully wasting away
                                                                                                                 in their drunken
                                                                                    narcotic haven.

do not fall for a boy with a pirate heart, even if he will
cross five thousand miles of sand and ocean to be with you,
carrying nothing more than loneliness and longing in his cargo hold.
those things will bond you both together like an oath, but
blood is thicker than water and soon, the promises will weigh you down
like rocks in your pocket, keeping your lungs and heart empty.
he will not stay, something will always call him away in the morning,
even after you've spent the night wrapped in his strong arms,
counting the stars from the undersides of the highest sail.
you will listen to his stories, for they will stretch beyond the decks
of his ship and make you feel both empty and full at once,
but you cannot rely on a tattooed smile to forge you a key to the world.
eventually, he will leave you on stranger shores, soaking and breathless,
wondering when the next tide will bring him close to you again.
but you are not a ***** he found bar-side, never call yourself that.
you must be unpredictable and wild as the sea itself, bottling storms
into your heartbeat and braiding a barrier reef into your hair.
you are calypso, dangerous and beautiful and unyielding,
and if he comes back ten years from now to set foot on the shore,
you will not be waiting. you cannot always be waiting.
he might tell you he loves you. but even then, he is only speaking
about the seventy percent he is familiar with, the part that is pulled into
rises and falls by the moon, a dna sequence patterned by the earth itself.
do not answer him. steal his ship by sunrise instead and plan to follow
the treasure map that you've long since forgotten. never come back.
leave him with a seashell at his side and he will remember at last
that the reason he loved the ocean was because it sounded like you.

I feel it in my fingertips
when you tell me how you worry.
I feel it most in my ring finger—
Isn’t that strange?
The sea in my ribcage tosses,
and your Navy boat of which the name I forget rocks upon it.
You are unsure if you’ll be coming home on time.

I watch the waves from the opposite coast,
making note of how tall they are,
how dark,
and suddenly I am in them
as they are within me.
They beat against the undersides of my skin,
so hard that I pray
for the first time in ten years,
asking God to watch over us,
to bless this gorgeous thing we have.

there is a crusted-
over, nasty-
looking cut
on
my left
knee
from a bike
accident
I had the
other
day

both of my
big toes have
calluses that
size of quarters
on the
inside-back
parts
of
their
undersides

tiny sunburns
from where my
feet stuck
out of
the sand
decorate my left
and right
feet

my pale belly
and legs
seem ever whiter
in comparison
to my sunburnt and
darkening arms

there is somebody
out there who thinks
I am beautiful

how have stayed strong
all these years?

I can see my ugliness,
my scars, and my abrasions
just the same as everybody
else

they are there
they are morbid
and disgusting
they are who
I am and I act
as such

I know exactly why
and how people hate
me

yet

I’ve never faltered

in a hurricane or
the breeze

I am who I am
I say
and nothing more

still stories flutter,
rumors fly, and
I can’t help but
notice the stores
and tales that
circulate

I’m lucky someone
still finds time to look
at me straight

perhaps the strongest of men
are only left with the opportunity
to gain

the mid-day sky paints the undersides
of my closed eyelids blue as I try furiously
to wet my chapped lips and peel away that dead skin
to forget the memory of yours, so dry on my index finger
by the time 3 a.m. rolled around
and I finally got to the sink in my bathroom.
both the soap foaming on my fingers
and my clean-faced reflection in the mirror
were like I was, sunbathing
under clouds, but then

a year went by and carried us full circle.
the wind of that hurricane still rustling our still-
growing hair, I came to wonder whether that long journey
back to the white-washed night-time kitchen in my mom’s
otherwise empty house
was worth it—all the hesitancy and then
all the alarming and ultimate lack thereof. If only because of
those lanterns we sent
up into the atmosphere and
across the already countless pages of the journal you made for me,
I’m inclined to say (hesitantly, it seems, but
ultimately not so hesitantly at all) that
yes, it was.
all of it was worth it.
so now I’m left

with that blue,
that starling, stunning, shocking,
vivid blue, so deep
that even when I close my eyes and try
to blind myself from it, it sits there anyway
on the undersides of my closed eyelids
like a dream or a drugged vision, but more profound
because I know
that when I go to bed tonight, it won’t have faded in
some form of perturbed sobriety. it will still be there,
just as startling, real, and vivid
slinking surreptitiously through every moment then
on.

The world’s smallest basket lies tucked away
Inside a jar for field-trip wide open
Eyes of wonder to chew on, settled in
The drooling smiles of truant minds like most
Sticky wads of gum that hang dried to the
Undersides of every desk throughout the
Pine Belt area of Free State County,
And all that surrounds circled about one
Solitary clandestine blade of grass
Tucked & woven into antiquity
By enchanted hands, & no doubt the work
Of Ma Universe slippin’ her divine
Fingers inside the dirt-caked skin she’d
Herself sewn onto one of her very
Own living/breathing marionettes,
Borrowing the gloves of ancestors called on
All the way to back to the first blade of grass
Plucked, & the first dreams that woke young shaman
Poets mad with visions streaming like
Images from celestial antennas
Into intricately knit blades of grass,
Sharpened on dewdrops & the unforgiving
Wilderness of frontiers, like a sea of
Green knives crashing their piercing waves on prairie  
Shores while dull eyes attempt to draw blood with
Sharpened pencils on a sketch of its beach.
The towering sandcastles & woven
Baskets & cosmic canons are canonized
Eternal in that magnificent
Fireworks show behind tempered glass, in that
One simple blade of grass.

I watched spiders make their webs
Four to five paces apart
North to south along the ficus hedge
Anchored nearest to the green wall
Each two knuckles wide
Street lamp orange undersides
Yellow tiny joints
Each moved quickly
Set to finish its trap before the night settled full

I discovered them while walking
Seeking familiar toxin
And found them
Masters of their craft

The first I saw caught that caught my sight
The furious movement of rear limbs
Catching the stream of silk
Guiding it on its way
Jagged plucking stemming a straight line
Then laying over a guiding wire
And moving on
From four o’clock to eight it went
Then back along the clock’s face
Its red underside patient but swiftly going and pulling along
Leading a tiny line of molten muted silver
Five to eight and back again
Pendulumous and measured geometry
Dancing back and forth

Then I saw the second
South I crept with knees bent low
Shrank a hand’s breadth
Swift and wonderstruck
And it too worked a masterful weave
So similar but when I looked back
I saw the difference
More than size of form between them
Slight as was their difference
Unique minutiae of brown fuzzy backs and brown fuzzy heads
Varying personalities and style
Artisans of the same renaissance

And soon I saw a third
South still and still different
Higher up to catch the light
Still giving light to its neighbor
Who lets the light reach her neighbor

A fourth’s stilled anchor
Taught and shining in the light
Beneath the indigo sky
Highest of them all
Largest of them all

If in the beginning of their dance
Drawing cracked windows in the sky
Nets or webs or sails
I might have seen them
Forming a rainbow arc
A fragment of such a thing
But I did not
My wonder and my mind
The first catch of the night

I made a 12 egg omelet for dinner
Not just for me, mind you,
But stuffed with milk, garlic, onion and two cheeses
Half as big as our whale sized pan and oh solo cheesy
It was such a delightfully delicious omelet
But of course, I couldn't make a beautiful thing without a dash of pain
Once, twice, thrice, four times I gripped that accursed handle
I burnt my fingers so the places where I grip my own are now slightly leathered
Sighing with exasperation, I lean across for the spatula and
ZING what do you know?
One more stripe of seared flesh on the forearm
Of course it hurt (when does fire not burn?)
But now I can't help but laugh, as the undersides of my fingers feel like a wallet
And my forearm a new splash of paint

God made me human
she was feeling capricious that day
actually I was meant to be a frog
                        
green and certain, self contained
content to simply squat and watch
flick a sticky tongue at a passing bug

observer of two worlds
at home in both
a leap-in-waiting

able when need or impulse
dictates to skedaddle
with the nonchalance of a Buddha

a gleam of green and gold
glistening on a lily leaf
or kerplunking into deep cool water

Frog had I such toes such elegant legs
I too could scrutinise the mysteries
of pools, the undersides of lilypads

do you wonder Frog
whether there are other ponds
do you dream a dream of elsewhere

do you pause to peer skywards
harbour a secret  wish for wings
ah, what may lie beyond your pool

but perhaps I ascribe                                        
too much mystery to you Frog
you simply are

whilst I, I am stuck in wondering,
trying to connect two worlds two realities
**** **** the divine indifference



                                  
  Tricia Lambert
   2010

he is space
the freckles that dust his nose and cheeks
are constellations
stories untold
the dark purple that bruises
the undersides of his eyes
are areas of the night sky
that are absent of stars
yet full of hardship
his eyes glisten like galaxies
colors swirling into something
more
something big
and his smile
is the sun
that burns with brightness and warmth
and leaves you with stars in your eyes
he is endless
and he is space
and like space,
he takes your breath
away

He pointed to the 4'' by 7'' framework
with two teenage girls faces pressed
against hers, an overbearing smile in the background
of a boy caught in the mist of poor lighting
and ******, drunken photography.
She told him about the field
laid green and black blades wet
from central PA rain and smashed,
meshed clumps of mud sticking to the rubber mazes
on the undersides of old work boots.
How the fire billowed over hazy introductions
and pressured joy of seeing someone no one
really ever wanted to see again.

She told him about the drive with two girls,
how many stops
it took to reach the county party
and how many times she counted the circles
on her thumbs before she was distracted
by another person wanting a picture or another beg
for a beer.
She laughed as she reflected, glancing up at the photo
then back at him as his hand
lay between the crease of her *** and thigh.


He was from Durham and didn't get it.
But she painted it so vividly with her tongue
as it danced over the summer memory
that he felt he could be there
if he let himself.

She unwound for him like a yo-yo
to which only he could pull her back up again.
Unaware that she mindlessly
let him control all the strings.

As she talked, jumping from picture to picture,
he noticed her leap frog
from each. She skipped three or four in the middle,
and even thought it seemed
as if she could open with the press of the right button
there were still some things she wouldn't let him
really see.
She held her breath when the story turned bad.
He saw her eyes balance on the phrase,
he now noticed, she carefully chose next.
She was no outburst. This was no plea.

She had a plan and undoubtedly knew
all that she wanted him to know.

As she flipped to the next page
he counted the seconds between the pauses
and moved his hand to her shoulderblade.

I have secrets. Not really. The
thing about secrets: everyone has them.
It doesn't matter how close you
feel to someone. If you know
someone, you keep secrets from them.
To avoid keeping secrets from someone
is to speak your every thought
and conceal no transient stirring of
opinion. And who can boast that
they have never held their thoughts
in check for the sparing of
an unwilling or unwitting ear? Indeed
I have no secrets from others,
simply sides I have not shown
them. And no one can be
my closest confidant, for there are
questions I have never been asked.
So when you feel I am
keeping something from you do not
assume it is my malicious vouchsafe
that I guard from the daylight.
The things I tell others are
as readily apparent in me as
the steps I take, the things
I have not divulged merely the
undersides of my feet, not displayed
but ever present.

But there are things I have
not divulged within me that have
been scrutinized and been subjected to
taboo. These for want of a
better word, we can call secrets.
They are small motes of golden
truth which swim in my bones
and glitter in flames of indignation.
And they are alive for they
move throughout my entire being and
use quick teeth to try to
rend me open. They thirst, these
infinitesimal planets, for the sun which
casts light on everything and bears
nothing in more genial light than
its neighbor. I rather suspect they
would appreciate that equanimity.

However were I to free them,
to cast asunder their parasitic bonds,
I would be cast from my
comfort and tormented, guilty as a
twin shamed for his brother's faults.
So what am I to do?

These glazed traits, my inner selves,
have teeth so I feed them;
I feed them with knowledge and
the comfort that they are not
unique, for others are feasted upon
by the unknowable and un-"what"-able demons
that lie in wait in their
bodies; I feed them with promises,
so infantile yet that they cannot
be tested for emptiness, of an
eventual release and the opportunity to
cast loose the bonds of disgust
with which my peers lasso them.

And they grow larger. They are
engorged with hope. Still when the
beast grows larger, larger grows its
bite.

And when I am at a
loss to placate my secret in-dwellers
with hope, they gnaw. And the
bites which at one point might
have been an irksome scrabbling at
my heart now cave in my
resolve and threaten my breathing with
an erstwhile unspent vigor.

In my room
24/7 24 hours 7 days now
A week since you left it feels
Longer than it is some weeks are days some
Weeks are hours some
Weeks are milliseconds but this
This week is forever

I never saw the transition from workaholic into depression like
A literal depression, an indent I
Cave in myself I
Cave in on myself I
Go to counseling, admit it happened it should feel like lancing a boil but
It doesn't it feels like rearranging a sweater around a rock in my chest so
It rubs against the splintery undersides of my ribs irritating inevitable

Months spent in my bed i don't go to class i don't do work i sleep
Sleep everything away sleep everything away
My uncle asks me if i've been eating i'm paler than usual and no
No I haven't been eating how can you eat when there's a
Boulder shoving your lungs into your spine, and your intestines into your pelvis
I try and feel like throwing up I
Lose weight but don't feel any more worthwhile I've been
Caving in on myself, caving in on myself, caving in on myself
In the ruins
Furious
I still live

If you sit alone in opaque rooms
and wait for a few good lines to inject themselves
into your brain as if they dripped from a syringe
then its time to try something else. Poetry is like
a gigantic exotic insect that shouldn't be squashed with the
***** undersides of rubber boots but captured
by meddlesome mesh nets and elbow grease,
put in display glass cases where the wild things
are and frequently washed clean of the stale,
insipid grime of life. And after enough love
it will entrap itself in the great transmutable cocoon of time
and break free. Poetry is in the bark of
old grandfather tree stumps out back behind
the barn, each circular line revealing
multitudes of cacophony and pain,
yet you wouldn't have known the taste
of the ligatures of wood without
first running your tongue along
the metallic axe that hued them. Poetry
hesitates for those who stare with naked eyes at the
cold quilt of patched grey clouds looking for symbols, choosing
to instead reveal itself to the telescopic lenses
of admirers of orbital spheres.
Whereas sometimes the cracking Sphinx confuses even the
pristine muses and the sound
of thunder at night makes the dog
cry so does the effervescent poetic
smiling of the moon inflict pain
onto the hearts of the lonely, yet they
still dare to look. Poetry isn't a noun
but a verb. It is the act of jumping
into leaves, of stepping off the precipice
of normalcy, of falling ever deeper
into the dark abyss below.

The colours swing in a pendulum attached to the mind
as if
each shade knows its final resting place
in a landscape packed with the purity of clarity.

All of the brushes have been tenderly placed
in a potholder soaking
up the sensations of previous lifetimes
now slowly turning to ageing grey shades
of temperament

To touch the sunflower grey would be a sin
against the sun it glints off the minds magical array
but green beckons in an eversoft seduction
with silver on the undersides to offshoot
the tantrums of the painters reflection.

The scene emerges from a warm blanket of texture
into a tone so gentle that it seems to whisper its presence
in a vase of rounded personality.

I watch
as she loses herself in every stroke of deftness
stepping out into the limelight
taking a bow before an audience of murmurs
soon retreating into that world
that has captured her for today.

She will return when she is ready.
to live amongst us again.

While watching Nick Jr.
At 3 AM,
I realized,
That I should comply,
the best word out there,
the one most up to date,
top of the line,
descriptor of how I view this,
that a person,
On that personal journey,
Has the ability to take things,
as they come,
The right to comply and accept,
subtle resistance,
sparks make in the dark,
or complain and argue,
With our fair lady Reality,
Our comfort zones snug in the couch,

Softening our undersides,
cradling our egos,
tingles of nostalgia tickle the nostrils,
A temptation of non-timelessness,
Themes have evolved,
While evolving the themes decreased,
Sensation dwindled,
Mankind found daily interaction difficult.

Rallying in treasured desert halls,
Painted absurd pink propaganda soliloquies,
Fill the hall,
Shut the door,
See it all come down,
The exhaustion,
The living nights,
Scarred Skies,
Makeshift holes of the soul,
Realign and try,
For the love of God; try,
Better that your tethers are secure,
It makes the construction workers,
Safe; all up there,
Cold as can be,
Shivering at 100° desolation,
moving like creme statues,
Up there,
That tie to the platform
Preserves the sonder,
That fact that,
Someone is up to what they are up to,
Paranoia shouts find out,
Passivity says let it be,
midsentence it all makes sense,
tat the net of being,
flies along the bleating radar,
the seismic adventures of man,
Trampolines collective consciousness,
Floating together in the void,
Finding our footholds,
our tethers,
they are our feathers,
ironically,
the bonds that
caress in segments,
the grand confusion of time,
the singing buffoons in the void,
the crazy madmen we all are,
daily psychosis pills,
Excrement recipient,
that moment to moment,
preservation of existence,
Seems everything is going to hell,
in a hand basket,
yet the cave blares within,
a source of nihilistic capitalization,
Banging infants in Foot Lockers,
It should outrage,
All that progress is accomplishing,
segregation,
The isle of a certain strain,
The mental stimulants are similar,
they age appropriately,
it is comparative,
that we all understand,
Complying,
Sizing up and making the gentle leap,
In the wake it wouldn't mind,
if the time was right,
when you're ready,
then the exchange may happen,
A future can be fathomed,
Braving the Unknown's womb,
Past and present collide,
They lie,
Side by side,
like tin soldiers in the mud,
Anguish,
What fortune lies on our sidewalks,
What can be said,
About O so crazy madmen,
As they contort in the Unknown,
What is the amount worthy,
Assessed in some lab,
Looking down the lens we'd assume,
Kerouac atoms abound,
the Samsara principle,
of all them principles and none,
because we fraternize,
we tempt the fates,
Gerald said,
We exist in the scripts,
we sing on the shows,
we don't accept or comply,
we should look around,
and see Others,
A renouncing of old habits,
Don't call me a Dadaist,
*******,
I'm into the  primitivism,
in respect to our attention span,
we have a grip on ourselves,
almost,
Fatalistically we are born on the,
crest of a wave,
eternally throttled by chaos,
when the wave sank its teeth,
into the sands of the immediate generation's side,
That reins are there,
Now more than ever,
I guess we are too far gone,
That's what those fanatic fatalists think.

it is not the shadows
we survive in,
nor the undersides of
rocks,
neither is it the shade
of trees
or
the nether-regions
of the mind

no

it is only in
the cool of
night,
when all can see
if they look hard
enough

that is when we dance,
that is when are,
that is when…

…we are the night-walkers,
beings of grace.

we, the things so ugly,
we, the creatures so horrendous,
we, the nightmares and the
dreams all at once.

we walk out on ten legs
or two,
marching in no particular
pattern at all
yet in such coordination
that the armies of the
world salute in shame

our meaning is nothing

our existence, in and of
itself, is astounding
enough

we do not need to scream
from the roof tops to get
the message across

we are the night-walkers,
dancers of the moon,
we have no grace or charming
traits,
yet you fear us,
but we
don’t fear
you

Heavy gray clouds battle for control of the supple trees,

which bend under the will of the wind,

leaves whipping and flickering their bright undersides,

like the dresses of frantic Spanish dancers;

pale pulp squishes between her toes,

the grapes bursting under the weight of

eighteen-year-old feet - both the fruit

and the flesh are soft and ripe

and smell of sugar in the sun;

the gray sea licks wildly at the gravelly shore,

while her fire-red locks twist and tangle in the wind.

The luminous grey undersides of clouds
Travelling a charcoal sky, speak my thoughts aloud
As thunder
                    Reflections of my mind's wandering eye

Crawdads have a crazy *** life. There's not  
much to courtship and no real copulation. Boring  
as this may sound, it's somewhat engrossing  
for me. Likely more than any lady crawdad ever  
thought of it. I would think most women might
agree. Sadly, reminiscent of **** really. Males
act like ruffians, catching females like prey,
turning them over, and leaving a sticky deposit
on their undersides. Worm like sperms adhere
to her, which she carries with her until she lays  
eggs. I've seen this while preparing étouffée.

Not the *** act, just the worms.  

Life is a multiplex of convoluted situations.
"Please yes, oh no!" What's going on in those
crusty little heads? It seems such a foreign
lifeform. Still, eerily familiar to what I've found  
at the bathhouse. I think I'll fatten up my tail,  
wear some antennae and pincers this Halloween.

Mmmm... Étouffée.

Dusk, mosquitoes, lilac and thunderheads
Step down from the sky balanced on breeze and the undersides of leaves,
The river is choppy and rushed, shouldering past the piers of the bridge
The night is about to swallow itself whole.

Bald heads rock steady on screened-in porches
Lick their lips in hungry anticipation
The first streak of light and piercing crack
Shatters the horizon

Appetizing morsels of snack food leftovers, jammed down the throats of the gathering’s well-meaning occupants, trapped in place, paralyzed by purchasing power, co-mingling amongst a gossamer of plague ridden staff, exercising their right to a paltry sum, at the cost of worldly dignity.

Tupperware auctioned off at a silent word, while women with crow’s feet crevices compile layers of expensive, foundry concealer, birthing a new, more melancholic Pagliacci, only to be outdone by the next in line.

Sound equipment, purchased over market value, placed on the showroom floor, mechanically regurgitating a playlist of old hits as broken hips slaughter the concept of rhythm and cadence, dancing for their youth, embarrassed by their age.

Late husband’s life insurance, blown on a new make-up line tested on Lassie, bought for the sake of a cost-free gift, which would have the woman’s palm eaten out by a monetarily starved charlatan, rented out on an hourly basis.

Sprayed odors, mixing and merging as they meet on the undersides of veiny wrists, fumigating the stale air, weakening the legs of the participants, dropping them to the floor as sequenced lights illuminate in time with an ancient billboard tune.

Eight o’clock bedtime, difficult to impose, when giddy patrons stay drunk on the bliss of over-spending, knocking off to a land of nod in unmonitored broom closets, clutching at their purchases with the vigor of a lowly man in pursuit of his bottle.

The night slows, crawling in turn with a dead clock as it ticks in place, stalemated, flinching, but not forward, only in place.

Lights leave the room, and silence ensues, the visitors leave, weighted down to a lifeless crawl by their numerous, unnecessary purchases in overfilled, non-recyclable shopping bags.