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