Towers of Strong

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.

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

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

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

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