Haiku #5
baby clothes, curbside
not given to next of kin
free for the taker
you don’t know me,
but tell me you feel it, too–
the hollowing out of what was hallowed,
marrow scooped from our bones.
Tell me that you refuse to swallow
the empty language they dangle like bait,
their squirming equivocations
and spinning distractions.
I’m speaking in code,
but tell me I’m not alone. I’m not alone, here.
I’m trying to say that you’re not alone.
Remember the respite of unity in game 5
and Aretmis II’s mission around the moon.
Laugh with me now at the irony
reflected in an algae bloom.
Tell me that I’m not crazy–
you’ve heard the same thousand alarms in your head,
and, yes, it’s already too late. Dust gathers
on judges’ robes swaying on hangers.
Stranger, when hot winds rip the banners
from our eviscerated institutions,
hold my hand. I’m trying to say I’ll hold yours, too.
And all I can do
is sketch their golden petals,
blow them to the sky.
*
A midnight carries them, even in day.
Who hears their cries?
Hearts pressed down by heavy flight,
until a sudden spark—
gold petals cutting the dark sky—
blooms from within.
Poem and digital art by Michele
non v’accorgete voi che noi siam vermi
The motor slapped the water like a drum,
and when the engine cut off,
the silence was bursting.
On a dead speedboat on the Chesapeake,
I was reading Ginzburg.
Nearly twenty,
old enough to want
to be seen becoming
someone who read books like this,
careful not to hide the cover.
Menocchio was in my mind,
and angels were in the curd.
Casu marzu is cheese
kept past itself on purpose,
maggots eating what is
meant for us to eat moving.
No one on the boat needed to hear this.
Someone laughed too loud.
The surgeon and his daughter
went over the side and swam for shore:
all that schooling, striking out
across open water.
The bait went on wriggling in the bucket.
God does not seem to want us pure,
or finished, or still,
but leans over the vat of us,
hungry for what softens there,
for what we feed in secret,
for minds crawling.
When we docked,
I lingered at the stern
and read again.
I’m new here
Still trying to figure out
Who I want to be
Life is full of intersections
And side roads
I was only prepared
For superhighways
But I’ve learned
That I’m more of a detour kind of girl
That’s who I want to be anyway
i collect computer generated videos of scenes from my dreams
populating at seeming random in the swishing current of my phone
worshiping recreations of tsunamis and broken stairs as prophecies
behind my screen the children snark and pet one another
red apples at the center of each chest, dewy and rattling
find myself believing the rotten ones are rotten for good, worm emptied
i know it’s wrong
/
in the hot summer shower
i élevé onto the balls of my feet
baste myself to make my body
flee
naked in the mirror
i become a swan
wake up crushed and immediately
reinflate
it just takes a second
5:30 mountain dark
and I’m on the porch,
my coffee in a mug
with mother on it
holding a gun
the only time in her
84 years she shot one.
I open a fancy
journal Murdy made
me, to somehow
write myself
back to myself.
Gonna lock in
and crack, discover
something new
in the dusty corners
of my tumult
kind of vibe.
I grabbed the wrong
journal as I tiptoed
the quiet house.
It’s an old one,
already filled
front to back
with my pleading,
raging, documenting,
and navel-gazing.
There is no room
for a new thought.
So I read my past
repetitions,
listen to the garbage
truck and the redbirds
chip hello
to this day, in which
I won’t be able to help
just being my
same ol’ self, again.
Our family lived in the city, on a tree lined street.
One windless evening, about dusk, a whip-poor-will paid a call.
Most often, one never sees the nocturnal fauna.
That evening, just before darkness settled in,
the sound brought us close to a tree across the street.
Perched above us we could see it in sharp view.
It was my first actual sighting.
I thought of the years previous to that night.
Before the children beside me had come to be.
The time when I worked and slept in the thick of the trees.
Close to the ground, no sound just at dark.
The call started out a long ways away.
Barely audible, the notes became clear as it flew closer.
By the fifth time I heard the call,
the sound seemed to be up in a tree next to me.
The invisible creature called a few more times.
With a slight rustle, it flew away.
The plumage of this bird is a brindled brown and gray.
Almost impossible to see during the day
as its features blend with bark and leaf in perfect camouflage.
That distinctive melodious music has no resemblance
to the sight we saw on Westwood Drive.
The mystery of the complicated lives of our fellow forest inhabitants
is left in the silence that remains.
The irony of seeing this bird in the city,
after living in the woods for years and hearing but not seeing,
produces a smile and a question.
Why did this woodland aviator pay us a visit?
I tried to impart the excitement to my city dwelling children.
They dutifully look at me, appearing to pay attention.
After some minutes I release them.
They run back to the trampoline, their first love.
I stay with the whip-poor-will,
who flies away. I bid farewell.
Pay me out in power
over the dead skin
peeling off my shoulder blades.
Let it wash down the drain
in a simple exchange
of can and can’t do.
Watch the larks sing along
to the humble melodies
you created.
Know that you have it
whatever you choose to believe
it is yours.
my body, a bank
of broken toys
carrying the noise
of childhood
playing hard
no stretch too far
running barefoot
from wrath so fast
when broken glass
caught my toes
keeping up
with those
needing proof
of my worth
they only wanted
to play war
so topsy turvy
when children score
so I cut the hair
off all my dolls
prepared myself
for future falls
Until fireflies
came to share
their light
each day and night
they flanked
my fears
Each notch
I gained
a fortune banked
