1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always ***,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every ***** and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is *****, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my *****-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-****.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the ******* of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the ****** floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-*****,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain’d by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-****’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they ***** with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The ***** that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown i

It’s August here in New Zealand which means it is the middle of Winter. It rains almost every day here during winter.
Firewood piled outside the door is getting low so I earmarked two hours to barrow split wood from an auxiliary pile, stacked against the rear wall of the house, to the depleted pile, under cover of weather, at the house frontage.

The wood had been there for many months so it was full of spiders. Big spiders with brown chevrons on the back of their abdomen, Wolf spiders the locals call them, they can give you a nasty bite but they have insufficient venom to harm humanity. These spiders inhabit the underside of the split wood, they build silky white webs that resemble pouches. The webs catch inquisitive insects that search for food in the woodpile. The insects become entangled in the webs and the spiders pounce upon them and eat them. I saw plenty of evidence today of both the big spiders and what remains of their insect meals. Shells of the scarabs epidermis actually, all of the soft innards ****** out by the hungry spiders.

Also in the woodpile were several female Beech wasps, brightly colored little Hymenoptera with yellow and black banded stripes, with fearsome, sharp stingers protruding from the very end of the abdomen.  These wasps were not sheltering in the woodpile from the falling rain, they were hunting for the big Wolf spiders. Arachnids ten times their size and equally as combative as the hunting wasps.

Undeterred by size and ferocity the wasps attack the huge spiders without hesitation, Make no mistake, war is waged here for should the spider lance the wasp with its fangs the wasp will die an agonizing death, but if the wasp manages to deftly spear the spider with its stinger, a powerful venom will be injected into the spider immediately paralyzing it…..but the venom doesn’t actually **** the spider, it immobilizes it. The female wasp then penetrates the bulging abdomen of the Arachnid with her ovipositor and lays all of her eggs inside the paralyzed creature. Once egg laying is completed the female wasp disengages herself from the spider and flies away to die.

Almost immediately the wasp eggs hatch inside and the little white larvae begin to consume the living internals of the spider. They continue to eat the fresh edibles until they metamorphosize into young adult wasps which chew their way out of the, now dead, husk of spider and fly away to seek a mate which in turn, once fertilized, will ultimately hunt yet another unfortunate spider to host the fearsome hatchlings of her own busy brood.

As I stacked the wood in the front alcove I paused for a few moments to ponder the miracle of life and death enacted, unsuspectedly, in the battleground of my back woodpile….and marveled at the absolute drama of it all.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
20 August 2023

Welcome to Psychotics Anonymous.  State your name, and little about yourself:

My name is not important.

I have a problem.
I don’t tend to preoccupy myself with others’ problems.
See, I don’t care about my friends, loved ones, or myself as much as I should.
I mean, obviously, I realize that  I don’t care about these things, but my problem is that I don’t know the real reason why I don’t care about them. I know I have a problem, but I don’t know how to fix it. Think of it this way,  you know when you look at roadkill on the road, you might feel sorry for it, for about a second, then you blow it off and keep driving. Some people might kick it or laugh at it, if they walk  by. Well see, that’s how I feel about important people in my life , and at times, about myself.  I’m the one kicking that road **** while its down. Except the road ****….is my best friend. Do I mean what I do? I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that it’s wrong.  I know that I should care, I know that I’m a bad person for it, but I don’t know why I still do it anyway. I have a problem. My best friend is in the hospital and I’m sitting home writing this instead of visiting her while she’s 10 minutes away. Instead of apologizing  and telling her it was my fault. I’m sitting here not caring instead of going up to her and telling her the truth she needs to hear. I have a problem. My family’s a woodpile on the side of my house. The wood I never use but I like to glance at from time to time and then ignore a few seconds later. That woodpile’s pretty close to me, its always in my proximity, but yet…I never seem to care that it’s there. But I notice it. Oh, how I do notice it. I notice it so much that I pretend to not notice it because my lack of caring for the noticing of this woodpile is the only thing that matters. I have a problem. My brother is sitting on my mantle, every day he stares into my eyes, hoping and wishing I would care. Every day he’s there reminding me that he not only needs to be noticed, he needs to be cared about, and so do I. And every day I ignore him and that photograph with that picture perfect Ivy League smile.I have a problem. I don’t care for myself. I don’t really do much grooming. I mean, I shave…because I hate touching my face and feeling prickles. I don’t cut my hair, I don’t shower until I start smelling. I don’t care. I work at the one place where caring doesn’t matter. I work counting other people’s money. I don’t get into trouble or miscount because miscounting annoys me and everything has to be perfect.  It needs to be counted right, or what’s the point of counting it? It’s not because I care for the welfare of the people I count money for. Au contraire, they have more money than I do and don’t deserve my care. I have a problem. Don’t tell me I’m doing okay because I’ve completed step one of your program, because I’ve admitted that I have a problem. I’ve just said it five times. I knew I’ve had a problem before I got here. That’s not the hard part. I want to care. I want to feel empathy, or at least sympathy. I want be like everyone else. But the hard part, is that I’m not. I’m not like everyone else. And though I’ve recognized my problems they’ll always stay with me regardless of how much you try to push them out of me. You can tell me to go to these therapy sessions til I’m seventy-five, but the only thing that it’ll do is just show you how many more problems I’ve come to discuss.

A girl runs to fabled woods aiming
to sing a forest of songs.

Dreaming of applause, she takes up
residence on a woodpile.

For her it’s cheap to repeat verses
from popular chorus lines.

She demands potential, expansion
and radical improvisations.

What happens is that improbable
verses pop up out of the blue.

Secretly she imagines that others
Might like to join in, but who?

Looking straight ahead, she has no
intention of singing a ballad.

She sings oblique medleys that lack
any detectable connotations.

For her, ambiguity and wonder
should sit high on the horizon.

She has never tested sung surprises
on a new audience before.

Her refrains anticipate harmony,
but her voice flies far from it.

Had an audience been present
they’d have labelled it tuneless.  

She looks around for kinship and
emotion without keeping time.

She is oblivious to her vanishing
chords and musical silences.

Symphonies resound inside her
head, but her voice is silent.

It doesn’t germinate songs as the
chest of another singer would do.

She bonds with rhythms, oblivious
to the merits of transmission.  

They rang out once before when she
had fasted from speech for refuge.

The songs she dreams of are subtle,
Personal, ambiguous and obscure.

She can’t even imagine singing
them to the people she’s closest to.

She sings to the trees about things
It’s just not possible to say.

Her unobtrusive sounds fall far
short of anyone who has ears.

In the silence of recovery, she
hears solitude residing inside.

This is a deep place where tongues
fail because intention succeeds.

Her sounds express nuanced truths
that the trees alone understand.

The forest bathes in this sonorous
invitation echoing beyond the bark.

The leaves applaud, they wave,
flicker and join with the singing.

It’s rare for woodpiles to pulse
with song or breathe with breath.

I have a pack of letters,
I have a pack of memories.
I could cut out the eyes of both.
I could wear them like a patchwork apron.
I could stick them in the washer, the drier,
and maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt?
Perhaps down the disposal I could grind up the loss.
Besides -- what a bargain -- no expensive phone calls.
No lengthy trips on planes in the fog.
No manicky laughter or blessing from an odd-lot priest.
That priest is probably still floating on a fog pillow.
Blessing us. Blessing us.

Am I to bless the lost you,
sitting here with my clumsy soul?
Propaganda time is over.
I sit here on the spike of truth.
No one to hate except the slim fish of memory
that slides in and out of my brain.
No one to hate except the acute feel of my nightgown
brushing my body like a light that has gone out.
It recalls the kiss we invented, tongues like poems,
meeting, returning, inviting, causing a fever of need.
Laughter, maps, cassettes, touch singing its path -
all to be broken and laid away in a tight strongbox.
The monotonous dead clog me up and there is only
black done in black that oozes from the strongbox.
I must disembowel it and then set the heart, the legs,
of two who were one upon a large woodpile
and ignite, as I was once ignited, and let it whirl
into flame, reaching the sky
making it dangerous with its red.

The house was a familiar sight, wood floors dingy and worn, paint chipped and peeling from the walls, couches stained and torn. We had met here almost a year ago, between sweat soaked bodies and empty bottles, faces brimming with laughter. But now we were drifting away. You told me of a place on the western coast of Oregon where the land juts out in cliffs before the ocean and how you dreamed of flying from those cliffs one day. “Let’s get lost,” you said to me, through a haze of smoke and *****, as you lifted your drink to your lips. You had joked about running away before, but this time was different, this time you had nothing left to lose.
          The next morning we woke with the sun and packed the car. Blankets, clothes, and the stuffed dog you’d slept nearly every night with since you were six. You had named him Icarus the day your father left, and you threw him deep into the woods, thinking if you didn’t deserve a father, neither did he. He stayed there for two weeks buried from the rain, in mud and leaves. When you finally could take the loneliness no longer you went out to find him. It took you an hour and a half and when you finally held him you vowed to never leave his side again.
          We set out from the Deschutes Valley and I drove towards Tillamook as you slept beside me in the passenger seat wrapped up tight in the Serape you found in the attic the day you moved away. It was musty and worn but it smelled like home. The sun shone warm through the windshield and refracted in spectrums through the chips and cracks. The trees were getting their summer foliage, dark brown limbs hidden now by bursts of green. I turned on the cruise control and placed my hand on your head as you slept. The forest flew by around us, its trees a permeable membrane to the world contained within. As you rested I couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were being born inside your dreams.
          For four hours we flew, treading concrete, in and out of lanes, between cars and trailers, avoiding the animals making their way west. The smell of exhaust poured in through the open windows and mixed with cigarette smoke. The drone of engines gave way to the rushing of wind and four lanes became two. We were surrounded by fields of rock and the road was carved into the jagged earth. Here cement finally turned to dirt and I could see the cliffs you had told me of falling into the sea.
          The next day we found the beach and lost ourselves there between the waves and the crisp ocean breeze. Memories of a past life scattered like glass along the shore. The birds flew overhead and played games with us; one diving in close, turning at the last second to avoid the collision, then soaring high back around to see if the others dared to follow. We walked the border of sea and earth, ankle deep in saltwater and sand, and I held your hand as you confided in me every inch of you.
          You told me what it was like for you growing up, how your father had left, and how your mother worked herself past breaking to provide for you and your brother. Your father was a hardened man. He had worked in steel mills his entire life and had met your mother one spring on vacation in Oakridge. They were married the following fall and one year later you and your brother were born. You told me that he took to drinking and was let go from his job at the mill, and that he turned with violence to your mother when he couldn’t find work. He walked out on your family the day before your seventh birthday, got in his truck and never looked back. Five months later he turned up dead, he had passed out drunk at the wheel and crashed it head first into the old oak tree at the tail end of town.
          That night we slept in the sand and grass in the lee of a dune reaching its hands toward heaven. It cradled us as I cradled you in my arms. I drifted off to the sound of eternity in my head, to the vast planes of emptiness that come just before sleep. That night I dreamt for the first time in weeks.

         I was the captain of a sinking ship. I was standing at the helm, sails full, watching my crew slowly drown, and every time you would turn away from me in the night, another wave would come and break over the bow. One by one my men drowned and I watched as the waves came to take my vessel under. Yet there I stood, steadfast at the wheel, unmoved by the power of the sea, awaiting my turn to be engulfed by the endless green.

          When at last I woke you were gone, off walking where the sky meets the land, and I went out in search of you. When I found you there sitting amidst a mess of driftwood, you were distant, changed, it was almost as if you were someone else entirely. The night had taken a part of you and replaced it with a longing that I had never seen in you before. You told me you had dreamt last night of the place where you grew up.

         "I was there with my mother and my brother, running out to feed the cows, our dogs in tow. I looked up, distracted, and the sky glowed red like the fires of Hell. I walked the rest of the way to the barn and watched as the horses went mad, their blood boiling, racing through the pasture and sprinting headlong through the fence. My father stood off in the distance covered in blood, chopping wood and stacking it on the woodpile. The trees were set ablaze and my entire world began to burn."

          I looked you in the eyes and I could see the smoke lingering still. You sat there for hours in a state of suspended animation, staring blindly into the deep green ocean. I sat by your side the entire time and watched the tide creep closer and closer, as if it were reaching out to drag you into its longing depths. I watched ships sail by on the horizon destined for far off ports you once dreamed of seeing. And there you were, lost in the mazes of your mind, haunted, tortured by the visions you had seen.

                                                                ­                     *

          I sit here years later in the house where we first met. I have repainted, swept and cleaned these floors, mended the furniture. It is no longer squalid and unkempt, but the faces that come and go are the same. There are still bottles shared on occasion and the laughter has not faded, but something in you has. A piece of you died that day at the beach, and you buried it there in the sand between the tides. To this day you will not speak of what happened there and I do not blame you. There are some things we must keep locked deep within ourselves.

Plant a fertile garden in summer & harvest all of the fruits and vegetables.
PIckle all of the vegetables.
preserve all of the fruits-leave some
Apples for pie.
Place pickles and preserves in the darkness of the root cellar.

Order How to ****** a Farmhand in 10 Days from the book catalogue.
Order the Art of War also just in case

Invite Handsome Jimmy Pike from the neighbouring farm over for pie.

Get Uncle Abe to cover the dirt floor with planks.
As Mama always said a frozen dirt floor is just for the dirt poor.

Bake Pie. Place on windowsill.
Waft the smell
Of hot pie over toward the woodpile where Uncle Abe is chopping wood.

Invite Jimmy to play Gin Rummy the evening when Uncle Abe is mysteriously ill of a stomach complaint and sleeping in the barn.


Show Jimmy Uncle Abe's tongue and groove method of log cabin construction.
Ask Jimmy to show me the **** and pass method of using unmilled logs to **** up against each other without notching.

Spike Jimmy's tea with ***.
Show Jimmy the root cellar.
**** up against Jimmy with notching.
WITH LOTS OF NOTCHING.

Fall pregnant.
Tell Uncle Abe and have a shotgun wedding.
Bake another special pie.

The driveway was strewn with rotted oak leaves, and Oscar wondered if the old man was still alive. He stopped his car just short of the rusted garage door, knowing that from this vantage point no one from the house could see him. Stepping out of his car, he strode toward the front door. The outside looked much the same as before, ivy gnarling up the walls and spiders webbing around the door. He held up his hand to knock.
“It’s open, Oscar.” He was relieved to hear the old man’s voice through the open window.
“Thanks, Harry. I’ll be right in.” Oscar nudged the front door open and walked into the kitchen. The green wallpaper was faded but the little square table in the corner was clean. The old man had his back to Oscar, stooped over the sink drying the last of a small batch of dishes. Oscar stuck his hands in his sweatshirt pocket.
“The wood looks like it’s staying dry,” Oscar said. The old man gave a slight nod, wiping the counter with slow, decided movements. “I heard it’s been a wet winter.”  
“Not too bad.” The man looked at Oscar with tired eyes. “Those gutters need cleaning, though.”
“I’ll do what I can before I go.”
The old man turned his pale neck back toward the sink. “That’s fine.”
“Do you need anything from town? Or anything?”
The old man didn’t respond. Oscar took his cue to leave, walking through the laundry room and out the back door. An enclosure of thick oaks and cedars faced him, not quite a forest, but more than he could count. His feet carried him on the familiar path, up the mountain where the air was thin, and he struggled to breathe deeply. The trees grew thicker and the path narrower, but he trudged on, finally coming to a stop at a small clearing housing the remains of several tree stumps. In the middle of these stumps sat a bright yellow lawnchair currently unoccupied. Oscar took the opportunity to catch his breath, closing his eyes and lowering himself into the squeaky chair, waiting for her to come. He imagined her sneaking up behind him, covering his eyes. She’d giggle and lope back into the trees beckoning him come to follow her.
He heard a slight rustle through the trees and saw her walk toward him, her steps slower than usual. Her once long hair was cut short against her scalp and her belly protruded in an obvious way. She stopped just short of his arm’s reach, resting one hand over her belly. She cocked her head to the side, looking Oscar up and down. Her eyes settled on his face but not his eyes.
“You got old,” she said.
“You didn’t.” Oscar smiled while she stayed serious.
“I got old and died three times,” she said. “This is me,” she said pointing at her belly.
Oscar reached out to touch her arm, but she took his hand, leading him back out of the clearing down the mountain. He didn’t wonder where they were going. He set aside all the world but her. As he followed behind her, he thought that she looked much different than last time. Her eyes seemed less savage and her skin less pale. He thought she looked strange without her long hair tangled with leaves and wind, and he wondered if the same person that put this baby inside her was also trying to fix her, to make her like everyone else. He tightened his grip on her hand and rushed ahead of her. She gave a tiny laugh and started running after him.
Soon she let go of his hand and sat gracelessly on the ground, resting her head against a tree. Oscar turned around and sat across from her, watching her pick the leaves off a fallen branch.
“This is my tree,” she said, holding up the branch.
“I’ll plant it for you, so it can grow bigger.”
“It’s already dead. Won’t get any bigger.” She began pulling the twigs off the branch, smoothing it into a pole shape.  
“Are you done with college?” she asked.
“Another year.”
“I’m going to go, too.” She sounded like she meant it. Oscar wondered if he had been gone for too long this time. “Soon,” she said.  
Oscar nodded. “You don’t have hair anymore.”
She looked up at Oscar, not meeting his eyes. “It was trapping all my thoughts in my head.”
Oscar smiled. “Now all your thoughts are running around like rabbits having little thought babies of their own.” She laughed out of courtesy, and it bothered him. They sat in silence. He continued to watch her.
“Do you think it’s going to rain today?” she asked.
“Since when do we talk about the weather?”
“I want to.” Oscar said nothing. “I think it’s going to rain. I can smell the water in the air. Do you remember Frankie, that gerbil I had as a kid?”
“I’m leaving again tomorrow.”
“I know.” She started to stand up, bracing herself against the bare branch in her hands. “Frankie knew when it would rain. He did this thing with his ear. Twitch.” She brushed off her pants. “Next time you come back, I’ll be a baby. Brand new and wrinkly.” She met his eyes.
“Are you going to name it after the dad?” He asked, hoping that the dad was long gone.
“No, me.”
Oscar thought she looked very young then, and he could imagine her becoming younger and younger as he continued to age. He would grow into an old man like her father, stooped over and feeble, and she would go to college, reborn without him. Without her hair, she would run faster and he wouldn’t be able to keep up.
“Let’s watch the sunset,” she said, taking his hand. “Go get some lawnchairs and I’ll meet you there.”
He watched her trek up the mountain for a moment before making his descent. As he neared the house, he saw the old man gathering wood, one piece at a time. His bones seemed to creak as he lifted the tarp off the remaining dry wood, feeling which pieces were dry enough. The old man seemed to acutely feel each footstep, pausing on every stair and taking a deep breath, before entering the house. Watching the old man repeat this process again and again, Oscar decided that all the youth in the world did not belong to her. He would preserve her forever as she was now, and by standing in her orbit maybe she could give him everlasting life.
He waved to the old man as he hoisted two lawnchairs over his shoulder. After the old man had walked back inside, seemingly for the last time, Oscar grabbed the half-empty canister by the woodpile and began climbing toward the clearing where she was waiting. He hoped the rain would never come. He arrived out of breath and set up the chairs in their usual places between the tree stumps. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her arms wrapped around her protruding belly, watching as the sun crawled below the tree line. She smiled at him and he beckoned her to sit down. She sat and Oscar told her to close her eyes.
“I want to see,” she said.
“It’s a surprise.”
Oscar crossed the clearing, carrying the canister. He looked as the base of each tree, trying to find the right one in the fading light. “It’s the one on the left,” she shouted.
“Keep your eyes closed.” He tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He saw the tree and began to pour the contents of the canister onto the trunk.
“I knew you remembered Frankie,” she said. There was a large stone underneath the tree as a monument to the gerbil. Oscar remembered that it was the biggest stone that they could carry as children.
“I know.” Oscar took the makeshift walking stick she had made earlier from her hands and wrapped a piece of his shirt around it. He again crossed the clearing pulling out his lighter. He lit the end of the pole before putting the flame to the gasoline soaked tree. He backed away from the tree as the fire struggled up the wet trunk before flaring in the leaves overhead. It crackled and hissed through pinecones, trying to keep its hold on the damp tree.
Oscar’s leg hit the edge of a stump and he sat down. He felt her walk up next to him. Tearing his gaze away from the fire, he looked up at her, and it seemed to him that her skin mimicked the red of the fire, coming alive in its light. Her eyes were once again untamed, feral. Oscar imagined that no time had passed since he left for college and that no time would ever pass again.
She took his hand, just as the fire spread to another treetop, and put it on her belly. “It won’t burn forever,” she said, letting go of his hand and turning to carry the lawnchair back down the mountain.
It rained. Oscar stayed watching the last embers flicker and die before his feet blindly carried him back to the house where he would clean the gutters and leave.

Mending my leather mittens
for the third time this winter,
I sew them with waxed string
made to repair fishing nets,
hoping they’ll last
until the splitting maul rests
against the shrunken woodpile
and the *** and ***** come out of the shed.
I find myself praying.
Blessed be those who have laced together
the splits at the seams of this world,  
repair its threads of twisted waters.
Blessed be those who stitch together
the animals and the land,
repair the rends in the fabric
of wolf and forest,
of whale and ocean,
of condor and sky.
Blessed be those who are forever fixing
the tear between people and the rest of life.
May we all have enough thread,
may our needles be sharp,
may our fingers not throb or go numb.
May each of us find an apprentice,
someone who will take the needle from our hands,
continue all the mending that needs to be done.

The leaf-mottled
copperhead coiled
near my woodpile,
rendered sluggish
and harmless
by the cold,
makes no move
to strike.

Its flat eyes
simply stare,
as if to say:
welcome
to the Garden.
  - mce

There's plenty of fish in the sea,
but what about the bad ones?
I feel like my skin is made of wool
and I'm always Yoshimi battling the robots,
but maybe the Yoshimis are battling me.

And I've always hated gospel
but it's the most honest shitlist I've read;
and I feel like my mind love to play tricks on me,
like my own personal sugar daddy.
It's my zombie friend that constantly lies to me.

The bells in my brain keep ringing "rill rill rill"
like the disorderly dreams they know best
and I can always feel the knife tickling me until it hurts like
"Why don't you come to my party, Valerie?"
but I always end up alone by the woodpile out back
wishing for the past black out days.

These emotions spread like wildfire
miles away to the sea-saw I once admired from the ground
never getting higher.
And I've always been a two-headed girl but never a friend
and although I know it's a man's man's man's world
I know it now more than ever.
and every single night I morph more and more more
into Mrs. Robinson and I'm more and more and more
terrified every single **** mother ******* day.

I've had my one-life stand
and I'm settling for being confronted with my failures
though I have not confronted them.

And although every one else can enjoy swimming against the current I can't help but be the one breathing under water that ruins the trip to the lake.
What do I mean?

I never know.

I just want to be the king in a purple robe of velvet and satin asleep on a throne but I'm stuck asleep at my own feet waiting for someone to poke me
until it hurts.

i grew up in a patch
of green
low rolling hill
tumbling sky
red maple picnics
cool earth

roses at the chain link
spring's surprise
play dates out front
shoddy wooden hideaway
to the rear

woodpile-beware!
sister scarred
angry bees collect

red-shingled horizon
white shack
rear view
laundry-line perimieter
prison yard
beware
invisible fence line

irish drunks
right side
wife shouts
captures best friend
back-rear torment
pup trapped
evil about

boys and bruised knees
cheek kisses
and sunset
bike rides
snack spot
woods of death

the sky fed me
my roots
tightly woven
spanned, undisturbed

summer mornings
on the run
heat like fire
pebbles, glass
walking on

escape, run, be wild
dreams your navigator

loose teeth
mother's hugs
father's presence
marlboroughs
motor, artistically
deconstructed
colored red

powered escape hatch
off-license
long gone
tree trunk porch presence
dead bird picnic
red-slatted bridge

fruit spider visitor
tiny rodent winter traps
screaming zia
e mamma
adniamo
basta!

communion veil
st. albans bound
pappa, look!
gum stuck hair
and
ruined sleeve

tumbled jacks
fruit loop bed
times
mas*h
glass box
from the carpeted
haven
orange-smokey
scent

beat downs behind
the woodstove
hair-dragged reckonings
begging
cries

anger passed down
mother to
mother
to
brother
pray, midnight
smoke
sleepless-haunted
hell

i grew in no-man's land

Dapple gray harbour
…humpback in breach!
a brown ruffed grouse
with apricot cheeks!

Pileated peckers
in caramel trees
the swirling fall mist
and gusty cold breeze

Bonfires and embers
in a harvest-moon sky
the cider house rules
and baled-hay ride

Warm roasted chestnuts
cozy fall stews
scarecrows and pumpkins
those dark autumn blues!

Parkas and sweaters
with cinnamon shades
a hot mulled wine
in the cornfield maze

Pine cones and acorns
on a brisk fall morn
frosty cold breath
and flannels well worn

Ghosts and goblins
…ole hallows eve!
the landscape covered
in dry golden leaves

A grateful Thanksgiving
with family and song
daylight (un) savings
where shadows grow long!

A north wind whispers
the harvest complete
stack up the woodpile
winter’s in reach!

Storm clouds brewing
the foliage flies
let’s spark up the franklin
and scurry inside!

Pull up a blanket
and call in the cat
...it's a perfect time
for a fireside chat!

I am under a rusting fountain smoldering
Smoldering, mold, brownish residue
That felt your casual heartbreak yesterday
And last week
And every year
You used to climb the tree over there and look up into a stonewashed autumn sky
When there were no more books to read
You lost your first tooth in his neighbor
All the trees you named after characters from an epic story
That you left behind when you turned 12
Along with your hopes of success as a lone wolf or warrior

You called me into your thoughts just again this morning
I wriggled inside the room trying to get you to notice me
But your body was still and focused, no longer lacking

There was a timeout and a fear of rabid animals
There were ideas about how to deal with terrorists on your home turf
There was a dead snake in the woodpile
There were tiny embroidered cherry blossoms in heaps of laundry for your dolls
There were ugly apples falling onto the deck in September

I can’t help you anymore
Despite my admiration for how you’ve changed
Drop the dead leaves back onto the undergrowth for someone else to pick up

I shoved the absurdity into the woodpile
The fire was crackling and raging
Licking the bottom of the *** that is already worn
Demons and ghosts and phantoms of people who went crazy are dancing inside
Why are you moving it, how tiring!
The cat in the room asked
Why don't you join us, how stupid!
Red ***** on the chopping board asked
No, I said, no
I used ridiculousness to pile firewood higher
The fire will not go out in nine hundred and ninety-one days
I'm going to use this fire to cook, bathe and change clothes

Gentleman Jim
Jim Carrey
Cary Grant
Grant Tinker
Tinker Bell
Bell South
South Dakota
Dakota Wesleyan University
University of Washington
Washington Irving
Irving Berlin
Berlin Wall
Wall Street
street smart
smart phone
phone home
home boy
Boy George
George Martin
Martin Luther King
King Richard
Richard Henry Lee
Lee Meriwether
Meriwether Lewis
Lewis Black
black board
board walk
walk and chew gum at the same time
time zone
Zone 7
7-Up
Up in Smoke
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
Eyes of Laura Mars
Mars Attacks
attacks of opportunity
Opportunity Knocks
knocks-box
box elder
elder care
care home
Home Alone 3
Three Came Home
Home Alone
Alone in the Dark
dark energy
Energy Impact Illinois
Illinois Secretary of State
State of the Union
Union Pacific
Pacific Ocean
Ocean Futures Society
Society for Neuroscience
Neuroscience Department
Department of Transportation
Transportation Science
Science Daily
Daily Telegraph
Telegraph Brewery
Brewery Gulch Inn
Inn At Leola Village
Village Inn
Inn At Key West
West Virginia
Virginia Hunter
Hunter S. Thompson
Thompson submachine gun
gun control
Control Group
group in the periodic table
Table on Ten
Ten Little *******
******* in the Woodpile
Woodpile Report

I

In the garden with the cherry tree -
where daffodils curb the fence -
cats in long grass stalk the birds
and the rhubarb patch is bursting.

The back of next door's shed.
A white wall of pebbledash.
It's one almighty canvas,
the same size as a goal.

II

In the garden with a trampoline centre -
first love sits poised in morning air -
though we haven't shut our eyes all night,
we're more alive than ever here.

King of the burning woodpile.
Trimmed weeds in a mound.
Neighbours chirping out of view.
Sport scores over a blaring tune.

III

In the garden that's become a home -
close to my place of worship -
guests wave outside the temple,
years and years of well-wishers.

Looking out for hedgehogs.
Feeding a family of foxes.
Like a wave in my brain,
memories come flooding in.

IV

In the garden that was aforementioned -
long after daylight has drowned -
a friend of mine sits next to me
and we gaze through broken cloud.

We've seen everything here:
sun, rain, snow and hail.
This garden knows all my pain
and has helped me to heal.

Gentleman Jim
Jim Carrey
Cary Grant
Grant Tinker
Tinker Bell
Bell South
South Dakota
Dakota Wesleyan University
University of Washington
Washington Irving
Irving Berlin
Berlin Wall
Wall Street
street smart
smart phone
phone home
home boy
Boy George
George Martin
Martin Luther King
King Richard
Richard Henry Lee
Lee Meriwether
Meriwether Lewis
Lewis Black
black board
board walk
walk and chew gum at the same time
time zone
Zone 7
7-Up
Up in Smoke
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
Eyes of Laura Mars
Mars Attacks
attacks of opportunity
Opportunity Knocks
knocks-box
box elder
elder care
care home
Home Alone 3
Three Came Home
Home Alone
Alone in the Dark
dark energy
Energy Impact Illinois
Illinois Secretary of State
State of the Union
Union Pacific
Pacific Ocean
Ocean Futures Society
Society for Neuroscience
Neuroscience Department
Department of Transportation
Transportation Science
Science Daily
Daily Telegraph
Telegraph Brewery
Brewery Gulch Inn
Inn At Leola Village
Village Inn
Inn At Key West
West Virginia
Virginia Hunter
Hunter S. Thompson
Thompson submachine gun
gun control
Control Group
group in the periodic table
Table on Ten
Ten Little *******
******* in the Woodpile
Woodpile Report

“Maine”

I’ve been hunkered down
In the great north woods
And here’s what I will say

It’s harsh, it’s cruel
Beautiful and good
A uniquely different way


It’s the famous rocky coast
With foaming crashing waves
A quiet walk along the beach
In amber autumn days

It’s ice and snow and sitting
Waiting out the storm
It’s stocking up the woodpile
To keep the fire warm

It’s the sun and shadows softly
Dancing through the trees
Voices from the distant past
Whispering in the breeze

It’s ghostly souls from yesteryear
Walking well-worn paths
Generations long removed
When the journey was the map

Maps of struggle, maps of time
Of where a heart once stood
Maps of life’s rambling rhyme
Of what hard work made good

It’s family, friends and loved ones
And what’s been left behind
Hope chests from the “great north woods”
For young ones left to find

And find they will as time goes by
And life is handed down
From hidden, hardened, weathered lives
In shadowed pine tree towns

It’s one more time the wheel goes ‘round
And fills another mold
Then sets it down out in the snow
To winter through the cold

This is part of what I’ve seen
Gazing at the stars
In the silent, distant, northern nights
In the miles I’ve gone so far



I’ve been hunkered down
In the great north woods
And here’s what I will say

It’s harsh, it’s cruel
Beautiful and good
A uniquely different way