Anger, Over Time
Burn
Recoiling deep in recesses I can’t find
Boiling, over?
I fight…
Bright
Finding my dark heart and mind
Blinding, fall?
I seek…
Fade
Withstanding urges to lash out, in kind
Understanding, calm?
I survive.
Spark—
Burn
Recoiling deep in recesses I can’t find
Boiling, over?
I fight…
Bright
Finding my dark heart and mind
Blinding, fall?
I seek…
Fade
Withstanding urges to lash out, in kind
Understanding, calm?
I survive.
Spark—
a very different kind of happy
but we read my poem
from last june first
and she says
“you can be as free as you’ll ever be this year too”
and i say
“i love you”
and i do.
i really do.
same day
we are drunk
it’s in my head
and it swirls
in the best way
and they are friends.
that makes me happy.
it’s gonna be a good
fucking
summer.
Life always moves forward. Whether it be
for you or thy neighbor,
nothing stops it entirely.
One can pray for time to cease, even if only
for a millisecond,
but the earth runs
on a strict schedule.
Never a day coming consisting of your rules,
hell, even in a pandemic.
You wake up,
swing your legs over the edge,
and move. You perform the dance you’ve practiced
since you could walk.
Ignoring the words of your friends,
not remembering the sound of their voice.
Silence the thought
placed in your head
from that one phone call.
Delete the internet searches–
no amount of research
will cure cancer.
I search out
all my missing
dead
desperate to tuck
their names
into the altar litany.
Uncalled,
they are a river in the blood
loud and riotous,
I give them leave.
When they dare me to break
open in public, I bring,
my holy-rolling body
to these secular drums
and don’t miss the divinity.
These steps still, call down a clean
sweat; shy is lost
on the other side
of the last Beyoncé baseline
here, I give myself
to the tending of ghosts I cannot
name. A neat whiskey
held til they teach me the dance
of their childhood
joyous free
we cackle and wine
underneath a packed forest
of salt slick limbs.
Digging With the Golden Shovel
i collect words and smith ’em.
they blow on in like a breeze.
they’re new minted thoughts
when i’m in water to my knees.
i’ve a jeweled box of topaz,
with dead flowers from
the mesa and the marsh.
there’s passerbys and brothers,
by the bay in gilead.
words pour out today,
every passing wave the melody.
then i take it so far out to sea,
sailing where i’ll fish alone—
my pants are soaked up to my bones.
then i want the wet to dry from me—
so unsteady dying in this land.
see i met a woman, anesthesia—
she matched a wind blast to my fire, and
up my clothes dried as dead leaves, or
canvas sails stretched on glowing wire.
she was born in a fortunate place,
with friends to embrace—
sweet, count yourself kept by love.
bosom friend, pose me the case
how to best give you chase—
to wrap you in me, dove.
i’m open to vast stretching space,
but your warm’st embrace,
to me is not known of.
i came back home, at evening.
went back to rest my skull.
in a barrio named for san antone
by the bay i know too well.
she needs nothing that i can see—
not now or any day.
i wonder, am i a pest, or does she
see the heart of me.
she needs nothing that i can see—
not now or any day.
oh she’s got her ways,
she’s got a way—
i’m just a lost pescadero in the sand
with someone he can’t have.
now ask me where the water is…
…in gilead.
I hold my palm out, and
she leans her forehead into it.
I squeeze.
We resume watching our show
wordless.
She uncurls a leg from the blankets, and
I open my hands to hold her heel.
I squeeze.
With a touch we
Acknowledge,
Connect,
Affirm,
Support
our electrons briefly
shared the same space
exchanged potentials
traveled up nerves to declare
we were real
for a moment we
for a touch we
Our atoms, at least
Existed together.
(found poem)
“Pop Quiz”
Is There Anyone Else?
Are You Sure?
Exposure, Fractures, Structures and Purpose
We are gathered together
We are Deeper Than Flesh, Closer to Kin
Never Alone
We are All Violence, All Brains
We are Labor Pains and Hard Rain
We Eat The Suffering Game
and Spillover the Flames
some
things
must
burn
in
that
I
don’t
have
any
more
cheeks
to
turn
sort
of
way
make p.m. turn to a.m. / night time turn back to day
About 65 Junes
ago, Marilyn & I
explored the house
under construction
next door, brought
a handful of tiny
hexagonal tiles
to my backyard.
Laurie’s bathroom
floors would be
turquoise & pink
not beige & white
like mine. Among
the pines, we toyed
with our treasure
near a hole we dug
& dug toward China,
imagining we’d be
upside down if we
ever arrived. Maybe
we hid our haul in that
hole. Or, was I caught
& taught to stop
wandering & lifting?
Doubtful, because long
after Marilyn & Laurie
had moved away, I
walked with Arlene
up to the drugstore
& pocketed a miniature
red stapler & a black china
marker – grease pencil –
that peeled to sharpen,
never fearing if exposed
I’d be shot, like Arlene’s
father who told us he
had a bullet in his hip
& showed us his metals.
