Posts for June 26, 2018 (page 4)

Wide shoulders reach—  
massive branches
lopped off by the frame  

Jarringly close, the maple
gobbles the canvas, cropped
so only the thick middle visible  

Gray bark deeply rutted
knotted, rotted hollow  

Like exposed organs
large burls scar the trunk  

One lean branch twists
into a forked hook, a “Y” formed  

Another, a crooked elbow
a “V” balanced on top  

Two cavities, gaping mouths—
portals to inner darkness  

How many rested, nested here
how many still burrow in its furrows?  

Link to the painting:  https://www.soho-art.com/oil-painting/1255403091/Georgia-O-Keeffe/The-Old-Maple-Lake-George-1926.html

Joe is pissed
default setting
wake up
angry
stay
angry
go to bed
angry
Joe is vocal
let you know
tell you how it is
in his mind
Joe is ugly
inside and out
nobody likes him
not even Joe
Joe is sick
rage burns his body
stress kills his cells
tension compresses his muscles

hey, you
I think I know you
yeah, it’s definitely you
sometimes, at least

you

are 

Joe.

Straight up truth won’t work—
Too painful to read or hear—
Sadness unexpressed.

After Isabella and Katherine Adams’ Paper for Water installation,
                                   in Dallas, “From Fold to Flight,” June 23, 2018

Four thousand origami butterflies hovering
over ice/ young women training younger women
control—of body/ of muscles/ of every flutter
of lashes as they skate to music
only they can hear.

Above/ seven shades of paper come alive
with four stories of urban breath/ pink/
tomato/tangerine/banana/lime/cornflower and grape;
the creation of two children raising
awareness of lack of water
around the world.

I fold myself against the glass/
crease my body over the rail/
seek every ghost of a past-tense seam/
alone/ but not alone/ but alone/ and I
fade in the rising sun
and the effect
and the hope

of butterflies/
of children/

of the heart
and other

fragile
things.

Atmosphere is the color of candles on my table at seven.
Everywhere, light lifts your parts, grows legs and walks your walk.
The stones here are small, soft, green as terrycloth towels.
They float, appear when things get too easy on your eyes
and you wish to just feel your way through the climate.

A place like this will fall through the bridge of your nose.

O, up they go to the mountains, climb on and float.
Gather them with your hands, in the manner of a maestro
to hear the way it sounds when you knocked on my door.
Make a bed of them to sleep on, their moss grows over you.
You become the same as stone, stone light, stone light.

Take in air all the way back down until you are no longer alone.

Each landform you see here is your personal storyteller,
listen to them with the intent of a serious filmmaker.
Trees grow thick in the east only to give the sunrise some time.
Their leaves are rare and clear. To dazzle here is to dapple!
Each citizen in these parts, a thinker, maker, doer, lover.
They do not know I was intense enough. 

….
tater chips
dipped in
cocktail sauce
tastes like
fried shrimp

Forced from the comfortable
to build bridges across
the canyon of unconsciousness—  

Assume the stellar crown
of grindbones, stitched faces
and filed teeth mawing the chasm below—  

Owning the simple fact
that my ugly & your ugly bind
the same heavenly geas.

I cite you to the Apostle Paul
his clear and wise command:
Obey the government.
God has ordained us
to take the children
if they’re brown.

3 AM Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport  

I’m sitting on the cold, hard floor,
thinking about my morning flight to Guatemala,
thinking and feeling lines for a poem
when a man, riding a floor scrubber, round
and around the counters, manuevers through,
around the cordoned off aisles,
riding, the round brush circling,
the man riding, returns, pushing yellow cones,
warning: caution, wet floors in two languages.

I see a poem in the three girls, sleeping
on the floor as soundly as though they sleep
in their own rooms, sleeping,
heads against the glass partition,
protecting them from a fall down one floor
into the escalator. Two ot them wear  jeans,
not blue but orange and green and both wear
white Converse. The third sleeper wears black
stilletto heels like stage dancers wear
when they perform for tips. She wears a red
dress with black, ragged circles, not polka dots,
but more Black-eyed Susans.

The girl in the dress sits up,
yawning, looking at me, her right
shoulder exposed and her arm bare
almost to her elbow, her left
shoulder covered. Yawning,
she looks at me, yawns,
aware of herself, not
self-conscious like a young
lady might be, having no
concern about all the stretch-neck
dress reveals, yawning,
she smiles and lies back down
into her space, and sleeps.

Dried flowers remain
it’s as above so below
petals in pages

Comfort mother moths
frantic flight moonlights absence
transcending this night

Nihilist grimoire
except flowers doth shimmer
as candles burn out