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to take out the trash, resolved because it must be done certainly as brushing teeth not to be completed but only one step, one day toward the waiting surrender as imagined between the warm freshly-washed, and disheveled sea spread out of rippling sheets
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It is not enough merely to eat Azaleas
prettily sat at the kitchen table, fronted
even by wide picture windows brightly
lit by the summer's flat green lawn:
Seeds from a variety of packets, labeled
with images limiting what must grow,
bought in the Spring looking forward to
the specific varieties visitors will soon see.
It is both day and night in the back yard
when stars hint above all the covering
of small points that would reduce us each
into the elemental force binding us whole -
that small spark which we claim as life
smoldering in waiting to catch its own
significance, fanned into its own heat.
In each a discovery of the animal buried
in wood longing for the carve out to freedom.
So no, I do not apologize for the lack
you find in the absence of Azaleas
because the absence is meant to be
darker than caverns where sparks are
born in the dangerous heat, lighting up stars
as burning points cast high as in heaven,
cast high in that great arc spanning night
all but hidden in the one light of day, sparks
cast high, stretching across every head
whether or not you look, or imagine.
So no, there are no Azaleas positioned
in any picture window. Did you think
I would limit myself only to the eye's
small spectrum of color, the symbols
that lock people staring only at the sun?
To those outward signs of ascendancy?
Or the wildflowers not yet growing
back in your kitchen behind glass?Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
there are pictures of trees
bent permanently as if winds
still forced them sideways
appearing half dead, solitary
where deformation is the only reminder
there once was any movement
there are reminders of trees
lush in wild, virgin fields
tall grass sporting critters,
the sky in all its colors
in the excitement of changing
through the light and dark of years
against an irresistable wind
the memory of trees is too long
their limbs, from history, stuck
in place within the now dead wind
where nothing clear to an horizon moves
the surprisingly dead race of being resolved
grown through the elements, battered
resigned to the shape of air now still
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well done, well done you slurped that chunk of marrow right out without losing a bit to the table, a grease-free chin grinning spotlesss teeth victoriously for an ass-pat from the team you baby roo, you giggler hopping brainlessly by rote flicking off the switches hooked to the last few lights all for yourself in the desert pack positioning for control, the few drops left waiting to be wrested, sucked up dry and spent in that bloat you can never give with even passion tied in rules sad you baby roo, you cute beast counting all your corners, laid in patterns to be locked and squeezed jumped over too high to see down even one more time to the watery hole covered wholly now by bone
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behind the desk
an accounting
prevails
splitting a diverse hope into
thin leather whips, taming
the hungry stock
offered up to insatiable bloat
offered up, in appeasement
offered up, with raised hands
offered up on a blind course
toward the holy unnamed
encircled with a lulling rain
of lucky scraps, dutifully earned
by the destiny of free choice
wither with the mongrels
and hunting dogs ordered in lines
a fox darting into holes
with a net spread sea to sea
trolling up the last dregs of fruit
til the last spit of a job well done
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the little yellow ball
always sought out
when people are near
is not for the object -
it is reason
enough to share
time in common
known to all
as an excuse
to love us each
past any limits
our simplicity createsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
It arrives when it arrives
when all thoughts are meaningless
unaccounted for, never missed
empty as all the world
spread wider than conception
where hearts are dew on morning grass
glinting as wind moves thin blades
viscous clear circles that wait aloft
mirroring light that passes
through each in a jumble of angles
before the day evaporates every one
to thin mist wafting into clouds
when morning is finished
This is when it may arrive
upon a hummingbird's flight passing
unexpectedly through the skull
alerting eyes to a juxtaposition
leaving us barefoot with half a mind
daring to utter even a sound possibly
mistaken for a word
unexpected as joy and terror mixing
within that prescient constant
when eyes are closed to all sound
and is discovered, already there
there is a star
five thousand light years away
giving off his atmosphere
giving away everything we need
like carbon for our hair
oxygen to let us run and run
and helium to make our voices high
he’s giving it away
lit up like a brain all made of gas
blowing out his atmosphere
blowing away the biggest parts
leaving behind just a core
hotter than it ever was before
one hundred thousand degrees
just on the surface
he’s an old super giant
lighting up the neighborhood
five thousand light years away
and nobody knows it
‘cept some guy out in his shed
staring through the atmosphere
staring past the light all ’round his head
he caught the last show looking up
in his back yard so many light years
that super giant giving it all away
(more song lyrics than poetry)
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I hoped to capture
the collapsing beauty
of small red leaves
for you
because I felt them
moved gently in air
illuminated further
back than any memory
of myself
nothing so imaginable
could be as heartbreaking
were it to exist
if such dreams were real
knowing the rise of mountains
tied humanity cannot know or
wind beckoning round and round
the great shafts of Earth
pillars rooted in vaults
that hold the sky up
solely by our own design
I didn't hope to capture -
I cannot
the small red leaves
as impossibly accidental
as your own breath
that slips through my fingers
the weight of lines etched
in chapters on your forehead
I didn't hope to capture
only to lift for a moment
and perhaps a moment more
to erase
all that was writtenAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
candy, gut blown up
drowned in sweetness
eyes glazed, syrup
too heavy to move
staring sated and sick
wishing the pleasure
was thrown up, freeing
a space for lightness
within the in-betweens
they sat there alluring
those hot tamales those
round soft milk balls
that elegant rich bar
exotic with red pepper
those sweet jelly life
savers in fine contrast
filling me with more
pleasure, more happy than I
ever could hope to consume -
yet I ate, savored, and ate
even more out of control
than before I opened
my mouth widely aimed at
cross-hairs on pure sweet
a great gummed wad sprawled
not even daring to imagine
the ruddy sweet of beets
intermixed honestly with sour
the bitter wood of broccoli
nor the sad clinging droop
fresh beans wind around
just the sweet bloat blocking
spectra rooted in dirt giving
energy sharp, fast and fleeting
with such highly desired lies