On the gold prairie,
silver competes
with the dew.
Grass saws air
clean enough for surgery.
Somewhere below the graves,
a sea of oil lapping against earth.
What will happen
when the men with
long claws and downward hunger
stumble on this peculiar paradise?
Dark blue world with
a turquoise brooch,
lend me cerulean serenity,
cobalt coal.
In a grunge sweat I awake
to my graying life,
see my watery windows blink,
your image like an oil painting,
then a satisfied sea,
next a poison frog.
Each blink my view of you morphs,
though your honorable navy
shades swear you have never changed.
You glide beyond the reach
of my clock,
ticking away as it tends
to do while the universe is unreachable.
In the vastness of your blue,
in your sapphire essence,
chewy caramel change is king.
Today I am 9, 19, 29.
I look out my window to the used days,
see saw toothed predators
hunting my small, oblivious
head in the long grass.
I am suffocated by the
fire and brimstone perfume
of my own being
as I tiptoe back and
forth between heaven and
hell each day.
I long to let my hair
cascade down my back,
to strip naked in the
unblinking square
and ask the strange things
with six rows of teeth
to take my shame from me
like an unwanted cloak.
Yesterday at dinner,
I was a vulture vivisecting
a yellow canvas,
my talons raw as milk.
I am binary,
a code with so many zeroes,
and you are the one.
You have a thick, plush
user interface.
Use me for your gossamer
sweat purposes.
If you rewrite me,
make me a file.
Organize your unchained
thinking of me.
You are a prodigy of design,
pure energy in an age
of tarnished sleep.
Rifle through me,
incorporate whatever
spherical zeroes will make
you whole,
though you lack nothing,
transmit a rain-laced joy
like a virus.
Over my shoulder,
some ubiquitous business
cashing in on my impoverished back.
I am clay,
am a starter culture
for a world of salted rain,
with a rind of potpourri.
From my private beach,
a bliss unfolding in the midst of absence
a pleasure exchange
a hard market
a refreshing barter.
A meaningful trade.
I’m free of rain.
I show my picture to the blank mirror.
I was not busy in my shiny days
and now I see
clouds of apologies ahead,
burning bronze.
My shape shifting selfishness
Folded into a skin box,
Origami.
My life was born for a while,
between sameness and joy.
Ten times I memorize myself,
candy candle
I have to light,
To guide kaleidoscope perception
Back home to me.
Interdependence is difficult and soft,
ad infinitum.
Today is the first day of the goal I set yesterday – to write my poetry every day. I have not yet written anything new, although I am revising some poetry I have already written.
For some reason, I am afraid to dive in. My mind is sort of ducking in and out of my emotions like a rock skipping over water. If I dive too deeply, I may not come up.
On some level, I’m afraid of my mind. I don’t write confessional poetry, so it is not as though I’ll be diving into personal problems and emotions in a direct way if I begin writing a poem. But I get into this space, this cold silky space, when I write and sometimes I just slide deeper and deeper into solitude once I start. This can feel rejuvenating, but I am on the border mentally right now and if I slide too far below the water I don’t know what will be waiting for me there.
I have to push forward. I’ve set a goal, and that goal must be accomplished. I can’t just give up, especially on the first day. It might be cold, but I need to sink down and scrape the images from the coral crusted bed of my head.
Seeing is cataclysmic.
Hearing has rendered me mute as a portrait.
Beauty’s pelerine flows behind
my shoulder,
and the gift of slender hands
unties the bow,
to get to the realness of me.
I once made a mop from my hair.
Now it has grown back,
glossy but hollow.
In my nutrient dense curves
(where does a curve belong?
everywhere wrapped like
legs around a lover)
she licks lightly.
Moving faster than math,
I ride the train to the city.
Lines, gradations, numbers.
So many nice colors,
Cool chaos,
The air slick with liquid nitrogen.
An ornament,
My education dangles
from the tree in city center.
In the reservoir,
My distilled ambition eddying.
Through the equation of church bells,
A garland of neon loss.
Which sun is silent, low?
The near one that blinds
Or the farther that fries?
In a clear city,
rumors
give you an inert art.
The blister is open where the money is.
Lie down,
Removed from the vicissitude of skin.
The pit of mercy,
His own money,
Leaves her hungry.
A proud pit, a deep pit.
The development of such objects
Unbearable as it is unacceptable
He wanted his place,
His needs eternal,
And so he did something dark.
Miniature Moon 