smoke (gets) in your eyes

you tidy the room
stuffing a glass container with rubbers
and suddenly I too am stuck

all the love we have made
fits in a jar
I can hold in my hands

to sleep

ay me, the words blocked by ferocity
sinews twist the sanity away
the lungs hack with ferocity
and I can see no way
to maintain any thread of creation
dwindling ferocity in these cold nights
has found its way into the dregs
of creation
feeble twists of the wrist
eke panic out of eye sockets
restful in all forms of frenzy
heavy cheeks fall onto the ground
and cavernous with dead weight slip out of touch
without much of anything magnetic
poles do not track fear of falling
this sore stomach is made not of polar ice
rather, it is bleeding with iron
anemic for beautiful breath

Sitting at Alewise 8/5/11

grass and hot glue guns
I sense it--all the colors of an old home
sun rays remain restful
howls remain joyful and quick
long necks of geese flood my line of sight
as their beaks open, my ear canals widen with insanity, hungry for false memories
creations of the mind fraught with wormholes

here at Russel Field I live again
and fold the laughter into my flesh
my tangled pit of a stomach is cooled by familiar sprinkles
water meets pavement and in its death finds a new beginning
I miss my old coat of chlorine
security blankets never grow tiresome
orange juice hats and baseball mitts
fitful blissful
clutching for roses

The Power of Art

"This is what drives the greatest art: contempt for ingratiation."

Simon Schama

Rembrandt von Rijn, "The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis," c.1666 (Oil on canvas)

Cage Scape

the feeling is round and familiar, resurfacing knots--contorting my muscles and producing water from my empty holes. the tiredness of ache cascades like aquatic notes, what is left of such old news? what hurt can be squeezed from a plum dry as stone? the pit in my stomach tells me you are as real as the slenderness of my fingernails and that you live buried deep in the breaches of my heart. dull pounds and what for? why even document these lonely nights when your ancient and wooden voice lulls me down into quicksand? I sit while you beckon and call to me "lovely" and you make me cry for hours and you never come.

mystery, intrigue, infatuation, have moderate half lives--I have seen them all they are knuckles without girth and I have outgrown them

"In The Eye," Suzanne Vega

If you were to kill me now right here I would still look you in the eye
And I would burn myself into your memory as long as you were still alive
I would live inside of you I'd make you wear me like a scar
And I would burn myself into your memory and run through everything you are
I would not run I would not turn I would not hide
I would live inside of you I'd make you wear me like a scar
And I would burn myself into your memory and run through everything you are
In the eye
Look me in the eye

watercolor/charcoal work in progress

Notes from Double Edge 6/16/11

We are about to enter the kingdom of the Dead--some of us will breathe and some will not; some will have hot blood, some will have no blood at all. My heart grieves for Ajax, the strongest of the few, unjustly called upon for humiliation. A wall of windows--green with envy, blue with despair, red with ire, and ice cold gray for shame.
What are the Dead like? The same minus the soul. And what is a man without a soul? A cavern, dank and all adrip with the tears of old sunlight. What are the eyes like? Windows to nowhere, or to a wasteland. Unconquerable and hungry for the company of neurons. Unrelenting--all the Dead do is look and look. Every image is a feast; this they learn once life has said goodbye, prematurely or otherwise. Strength is no concern. Made of memories, they are broken matter and fade with time.
T.S. Eliot thinks the Dead wear "deliberate disguises" but he is wrong.
Tonight I want to know what it feels like to die; I want to know what it is like to confront my killer who implores me to say "hello, old friend!"; I want to play Persephone's fool--director of fevers and madness.
What does it feel like to have something fly out of you? To have your body burn?
Getting the blood must be a cold climax.
Ah! What does it mean to haunt? Yes, to haunt. I have found it. Tonight, I will get all dressed up to do my haunting at long last.
Distant and solemn eyes like rain, unable to verbally communicate with one another. Speech is a form of life, is it not? The birth of a thought, totally unleashed on the world and able to fulfill any prophecy.

Plunge I and II

some watercolors

The Vault

Antlers

Crow/Cavale

Subterranean Sensations

Witch Grace

Towers of Strong

Scissor Wings 12/16/10

Purple Knots - new song/work in progress

I'm taking a swim in darkened depths
my fingertips and all the rest are
roots and rocks and bulbs and pests
to challenge the ever blinking
dwindling casing of skin that ties me into purple knots
caress my heart and break the fever that has left my brains to rot

the dirt is cool against my weight
mechanical insects abate the
fear that I can't change my fate
or challenge the ever blinking
dwindling casing of skin that ties me into purple knots
caress my heart and break the fever that has left my brains to rot

marbles

tug of war

I finger the sand (dust)
it gets in the cracks of the hard dirt
packed firm by the blinding heat of the sun
the dryness helps me
it lessens the damp in my ocean heart
drown or drought
the desert shows my bones
offered up to celestiality
my cracks and holes filled with wind and particles of old
water takes all, a selfish draft
steals the air and floods the shafts of the mind
both hurt, both still
cold and lucid

kid

I wish to have the eyes of a child
everything new and nothing quite comfortable
whatever you encounter in any given moment is it
the only true thing
time allowed to touch a woodchip
so light, so able to peel apart
so ready to become a sanctuary
or a boat
or a currency
constant and evolving delight from a single glance
giddy screams, a terror to be sought
the statement of facts--"that is a bird"
relentless reminders of one's own knowledge and worth
a king one morning, a peasant in the afternoon
an eight o'clock cat sipping milk on the kitchen floor
reality and imagination interchangeable and perfectly coexistent
what is loneliness to an inventor or explorer?
all things need gentle aid
tangibility exists in every plane
and nothing is enough

the sustaining of cold chords

esthetic is sensation
the right beams of sound
the truest sustain
sustain the full and the hollow
crackles of speed and heat
melt the ecstasies of feel
a glorious drone
to correct the dank thrones of despair
rid the gilded of all shadows
never a flicker or shot
sustain that light air
coating all with sumptuous mind breath
speak old and young with vitals
to sustain is to call on the numinous ruins of holy lands
tear the hand away from the mouth and give up your lungs
a collective motion/sustain
made by tissue that is ever-liminal and transcendent

altitude headaches & everything turbulence

eyes in hand, I remember how my skin is pushed around by intangible neurons. the contact of invisible everythings and the clashing of lightwaves--loud as armageddon--corrode my pride and exhaust my heart.
a swim in the salt of unknown seas
a dance in the arms of unknown air
the calypso of life in and out my ear weighed on my senses. joints crumbled like broken trust and inside my constitution was burning on gallons of eager gasoline. my opals became conduits for Hunger, grew a thousand rows of shark teeth and feasted shamelessly. unabashedly. my tapestry of heartstrings is stained with the best blood. I would risk it all for a walk in such ecstatic purgatory.

Sweat

Normally an item of control, the fountain has cracked. It begins with a drop from the bowels to a birth atop the crown of the head. Pushed from beyond, an icicle will melt under pressure. But such salt is not found in any old cave. Trails of dew, channels of sweat withdraw the mass, liquify the essence. Transcendence of enigmatic heat into castaway marbles. Such a thing is unworthy of conversation.

But to sit, to breathe. The ferocity of life found, proved in a leak. Smoothness of the purest sort has etched its way among the surfaces, surpassing the beauty of Excalibur, the wings of the Valkyries.

I have made a single bead, an army of beads, and in so doing I know I am alive. The stars in the sky can never hold such water. A sound mind is free to boast now and again.

wind/first prose poem

I greet the gray. Unconscious of my imposition on wooden planks, I press. The mists have settled, cooling unseasoned skin. Thunderous shouts is the stillness of tired afternoons. All eyes on a single cow, unaware and unimportant. A mere presence. The same occupier as all the beating hearts. Howling cries plunder the day. Broken voices and confidences. The treasure is lost and hides nowhere. A death. A reach. Impossibly cold smoke billows above my head--wherefore came such a prize to my senses? The gold has not yet split the sky and cannot rend stitch from stitch. But grace is not gone from the mounds in the distance. The ebbing and flowing of tides in celestial homes are lucid in ways that fall between the hills. It touches my eyelashes and sways them, hastening a rush of hot tears. I do not - cannot - wear the cloak of day. I throw my arms upward, scream at my wickedness and bless what I am not. Muscular windows made of wind will not break, and so I sit.

a song

ladies lay down in the grass
they plant the questions they will ask the moon
cold dew wets the thighs
under darkened skies
dead leaves perfume

seasons stretch our minds collide
my empty hands try to hide your ghost
hot blood rules these veins
your weathered eyes have stained
my heart the most

acid days will bring the quake
you left me blessed and in your wake the thought
that souls are gifts of gold
took hold I am your old
forget me not

Pane

Spiegelnde Scheiben, Toni Schneiders (1952)

at last

a fistful of flowers
knuckles kneaded together/white skin white heat
a yellow peel falls
coating your nail with air
a petal flickers
moving down toward wooden feet
a gleaming feather
wet moist fire in the dirt
a welcome cry of thanks:
"dearest earth, dearest love
hold me strong and take me into you
cool my fevered mind with dew
and vanquish the dread night"

Ode to Tolstoy

mechanized responses to death a circumventive blur
pushing the glows away from the mark
spur the trains beat the slow with my thick crop and let the doomsday snap
the dreamy grove for other futile matters.

the beautiful death, imbued with spectacle
a self removed from the glory and the wealth

"harmony of sublime movement"

astute snaps crack the whip and slip through all ephemeral tracks squeezing my multidimensional whole into mere lines weaving nebulous with my heartstrings
I find you after many quick nights, my movements so fast they move past time and render it worthless
I swallow it down with my monumental tongue, a glossic delight for me, as you know
and what do you know?

Not Fond of Her Skin

belly pushed up the spine
skins thick
no room for to bare
clogged the plots
too hot for fruit
a buzz more like a gentle scrape against the lining
to sink? to float?
the acid throbbing
a holocaust of the nerves
what is the movement
from words to air to ear to brain to perception
to the trickle of noise
down the glands and into the stove?
a sojourn prime with fear
no reins with which to steer
a white hot needle
threading itself through your consciousness
scalding all your bloom
a hurt that slices straight to cement
I have none
take my guts and plasma
my own gift to you
my hallowed home of ribs will house your dread
my marrowed cage will be your cathedral
soon my vibratory howls will cease to quake you
and dreams will come
ever yours only yours
mine are motionless
a slumber void for a creaking mind

Ode to Descartes

chromatid mold beauty
with psych screen
true to form
roaming shelter
benevolent fields
tell my keys
the tongue of kings
ding a ling
twelve five days
and thus the birth
score all the grain of the brain
the flow of blood
magnanimous crimson
sputters of heat
move and turn and pulse
body is not machine
cogito ergo sum
details
unscrupulous pock marks
fearful of forgetting and not noticing
the veins of flint
a spark heart

six a.m. seance

a dim and glittering ghost of light
glowing with integrity, fading fast
...
yeah it's enough to make me shout, it's enough to make me pout
all infected with a drought save a spout of gout that trickles so
you know we walk so many fields, fields of grass, grass of leaves
the stuff weaves through my bones and my hair
nowhere, nowhere but the air for my shell home
cracks and all, no walls, only small lines to hold me
the sounds of home enfold me
murky depths, cold as steel
or as hot, sometimes the feel
can be different
the husk of my body my skull my crown
is all there is to keep me from drowning
a life buoy, or spar
not far from the stars that entangle my mind
to find what's mine in time
sublime
I yearn and wait like a schoolgirl
to take on gravity, to absorb the ink of the world
and wear it on my pale spotted skin
I like a heart of and mind of muscles and quick spastic neurons
but should I change them to metal?
the lightning would come quicker, with blinding speed
to lick my thoughts
thick white and instantaneous
at once my soul on fire
burning like the cold flame of Moses

tabula rasa

just arrived in portland. read about patti smith the whole time in mark paytress' wonderful chronicle of her early years, break it up. now is a time to be constantly reinventing and redefining. wiping the slate clean over and over again until new compassion and new truths finely begin to bleed through. in honor of all the courage and fire she gives to me, I'll leave you with some of her fine words.

the plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face

the mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself

grave visitations

what is it that calls to us?

why must we pray screaming?

why must not death be redefined?

we shut our eyes we stretch out our arms

and whirl on a pane of glass

an afixiation a fix on anything

the line of life the limb of a tree

the hands of he and the promise that s/he

is blessed among women.

charms. sweet angels--you have made me no longer afraid of death.

patti smith

Spots of Sunlight on the Terrace, Maurice Denis (1890)

what has been lost or neglected? what is slumbering away? what has to yet to come alive?

owl eyes II

wastelands and tundras

permafrost leaks through the icy dirt

crystalized air, too cold to breathe

cautions the precociousness of life, brazen and bold

no hearts glow there--

save yours and mine

how different are we, you and I?

we howl at the bitter the light and the gray

you, a fowl, with your feathers and your strange lonely eyes--

but I? what have I?

the same atoms you have

and the same scorching blood

your wings beat and my feet walk

along a lone path, separate lives

but the crack we leave behind in the glistening serenity

of a vacuous land are the same

name your price, old friend

give to me those strange lonely eyes

so that I might rise to such an ancient calm

I got a crow

a claw comes crushing claw claw claw

crow crow crow crow caw caw caw caw

nevermore/forevermore

clutching a spine breaking within

many cracks open and bent awonk

awaiting the glare

hot eyes melt into the deep

the depths, lone depths

scorch the deafening bound

found the lines that emanate,

illuminate the sound

it's only sound--left

///

root boot fruit

shoot a loot

the vines pluck rhymes

give what has been stolen

///

rocky road red rickety rugged

knotted stubborn stones

harsh dust rubs you raw

skin slicing blood bearing

majestic formations are simply fingers

twisting upward to the cool depths of heaven

it's a musical life

Excellent progress with my banjo today. Learned a new tune, "The House Carpenter." Aching story. Another modal song, similar sounding to "Shady Grove" and "The Cuckoo." For some reason songs in modal tuning sound ancient and pained. Full of unrequited love and far away sorrow. The hills of Appalachia seem to be filled with that sort of sorrow. My very favorite is "The Blackest Crow," also known as "My Dearest Dear" and "As Time Draws Near."

As time draws near my dearest dear when you an I must part

How little you know of the grief and woe of my poor aching heart

Tis but I'd suffer for your sake, believe me dear it's true

I wish that you were staying here or I was going with you

I wish my breast were made of glass wherein you might behold

Upon my heart your name lies wrote in letters made of gold

In letters made of gold my love, believe me when I say

You are the one I will adore until my dying day

The blackest crow that e'er that flew would surely turn to white

If ever I prove false to you, bright day would turn to night

Bright day will turn to night my love, the elements will mourn

If ever I prove false to you the seas will rage and burn

Blue Veil, Morris Louis (1958-1959)

Splashing, Richard Serra (1968)

Male and Female, Jackson Pollock (1942)

Glue Pour, Robert Smithson (1970)

Detail of Connection, Eva Hesse (1969)

texture

a cockamamie scythe it tumbles fumbles mumbles bumbles crumbles, even, into the ground the metal all broken, splintering away, the earth has spoken licked the ore with its fiery tongue and scooped it up into its belly of a mouth, the ore greets the oil as it floats in black oceans of saliva / no signs no time seems to have passed, every once and again needles probe the oil and little bits will spurt up into the cold (or hot) air above

the mouth is a hot home blood, sweat, and tears have seeped into it for milennia, placating the hungry groans of the belly below

Drip Drip Drop

Pat Steir, 1990.

towers of strong

towers of strong

built upon stringy chaos

noisy ice makes bright the gray

while water laps midst the decay

you stay, hanging by a mere thread

the tooth to my gum

whet the trances of mighty men

come out and out, unravel again

swallow your pride, the bride of decadence

and swim in the bleached sweetness of surrender

Sound Drawings

'I Love It, In Space there Are No Limits, I Love It.' Graham Gussin (2001)

ink on wall

Rebirth of Slick

a fire

rosy red

the flames travel cross the silky air

holy hearts

hang from empty man's eternal stare

deadly days

seep forth from the intestinal glare

foolish fears

incinerate all hope of a repair

cave

caverns, catacombs, cisterns

dripping solitude and ebony

filled with the blood of the earth

lid after lid, layer after layer

of dirt and damp air try

to contain the chaos

but cracks find their way

to the surface

and fire licks the passersby

note bene

create lines words moods skies

beaches fools tongues lies

languages beauty truth decay

illusion/disillusion matters astray

obsession regret love (both known and unknown)

an elegy for ideas never allowed nascence

a resurrection and a carnival of haunted thoughts

fill the lungs with new bright air

a shy eye

concave recessed cool hard

dry hurt aged weak

inept and scorching

these holes are empty

interior holes

radiating sorrow in and out

back and forth

here and there

nothing to trace

nothing to soak up

a hollow hole is all it is

an invitation

sinews tendons and bones are meant for all, for bodies, for lines, for light

sometimes my soul know things I don't

sometimes nothing is fine enough

sometimes trust/truth is altogether different from what I had imagined

stars see everything I cannot see

release the glue and let it spill

let it drip and fill, let magma drip

let fleeting atoms fester and fuse

and become ink that flows from this pen

to grace this page with black stillness

ten

tendrils taking time together

touching teething tackling turning

telescoop the burning blood

conch shells drip and blow and crack

dusty birds with feathers fly

in the ground and through the sky

hollow beaks and porcelain feet

the earth has air and fringe both