Posts for June 14, 2025 (page 4)

i want to say something deep about how your mouth is the organ of learning and how you won’t be content until all knowledge has dammed up your gullet,
but every bite you bite hurts so damn much
(not to mention you hurtle like a torpedoed bullet into my bruising legs,
even hewed your claws scratch welts to complement the flash of chewed up flesh that decorates my arms,
your mother weeping ‘no!’ and ‘ow!!’ and ‘how!!!’ shakes me from every sleep,
and not to be crass but you have an asshole shaped like a cracked walnut rarely covered by your whacking tail.
oh and the glaze of piss you’ve blanketed the world in kind of skeeves me out)
baby i can’t fill your cup if you keep spilling mine

IN THIS YEAR OF DEAD THINGS
THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST KNOW:
ONE. YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THE SMELL.
TWO. DOUBLE BAGS. TRIPLE BAGS. 
THREE. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.
FOUR. YOU WILL GET USED TO IT. 

I found you there, hiding but not hidden. Behind my
rear tire. You dragged yourself there and rested— it took
all you had. It didn’t matter. 

I found you there, stiff and bloody. You were so much
larger than I thought. The flies knew you just as well. 
I struggled to pick you up but I did not drop you.

Will they find me here? In this year of dead things,
when will it be my turn? I will bleed into soup
and birth maggots like breathing. I see it in my
dreams. There will come a day when I blink and
find I cannot open my eyes again.

on the inlays

Today, I visualized the cord that binds us 
Flimsy, brittle, tattered thing
My being sacrificed into weaving it stronger 
Bits of my flesh strewn into the patchwork quilt 
I found it always needed more

You are no longer my parasite 
Choosing when to drain me dry 
Insidiously feeding
Refusing to yield yourself 

I release you 

You’re just sitting there, each particle
lighter than a hummingbird feather,
but collectively, you’re at least seven,
maybe eight pounds, not including the urn.
You aren’t much to carry, yet we can’t bear
to measure what remains of you—memories
hazy as motes of dusted sunlight—without
the weight of your soul.

end of the road ~ an old woman’s red cottage
perfectly perched ~ a stop atop
cliffs look out over vast expanse of sea
a tip-top of land ~ nature’s hand waves a roaring whisper
messages en-courage strength . . .
a hearty point
beginning and ending point
a diving point into ocean’s rhythmic rolling roar

reunions swim out beyond cliff’s edge
as deep dive meditation begins
a lulled time ~ a hushed hearing
bubbles up sweet sad feelings ~ caressing a wise old guide
a stilled time as hardened beliefs fade
reminders come and go ~ follow and know promises to set us free

south of land’s end a magical grove of wind swept trees
providies generous reassuring canopy
encouraging ~ to keep on keeping on
petrified witchy painted grove ~ caressed with angels’ wings
holds desperately onto a spit ~ a fragile land’s grip that means business
not for the feign of heart
this grove speaks reassurin’ encouragin’ words
wit a bit of Gaelic and Celtic salted wisdom
thar words can hit you upside the head
take yer off guard
slap ye around a bit hardly givin’ yer time to breathe:  

“Come on Lassie get your arse on out thar ~ nun likes the likes of a whimper’er, ev’er-on likes a larf, whether ye be liftin’ a pint or neigh! No one has time for a long face ~ get me salty drift . . . we don’t care how long you’s been sober!”  

a ‘we mean biz’ grove
a rough as they seem grove

a sheltered vista grove over merciless crashes and lashes of our frigid Pacific’s roar                           

Overheard
After Poem Denise Levertov’s ‘Overheard Over S.E. Asia’

I’m falling on people
where men send me to fall
  on bamboo thickets
  rich seas on rainy nights
I am the snow that burns
  each drop that hits the surface
 but I prefer flesh, so smooth, so dense
I seek the bone.

Over 110 in June
Tomatoes won’t set
Plumeria won’t bloom
Peppers in daily wilt
Despite shade screen on PVC stilts
Iris turning brown, easter lilies too,
All going down
Roses continue in their own way,
Beautiful blooms
That shrivel in one day
Basil and snail vine
Thrive and grow
Loving heat is all they know.

And me, you ask?
I’m hot, 
Fan’s whirring day and night,
Already sick of the AC rasp
It’s JUNE, not July or August,
No balm from the harvest moon.