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.