Poem-A-Day #324 : To My Sick Body

To My Sick Body

It is difficult to think with congestion in your face
you can f e e l the styrofoam thickness of the tubes within you
your heartbeat thrumping on the pillow

This is your blood in your veins and it is making sound

We are so resilient
our bodies take the endless radiation of days
manage to up and down stairs and cycle our habits like whoa

But when things fall apart          they do so spectacularly

They crystallize every mistake ever made and cough
them into a mirror at 3 AM
our bodies turn on us so quickly that they cannot make the turn fully

And they will crash in their haste

Will erupt into fever and pitch and fall into a depth of exhaustion
that will leave them in a state of need that only we ourselves can deal with

Poem-A-Day #291 : If

If

Write beautifully
words that could sear and pop
with the light of stars

They will cause palpitations
be boxes opening into boxes
revealing one lone puzzle piece

Rend yourself
the scraps of white cloth
will be made into scarves

Language will fill sails
or at least bring to mind
the image of full sails

Fragility
everything should wreak of breakage
and the feeling of tears on fingers

These true blunt instruments
these lines could be claw-footed bathtubs
that would fill with blood and flowers

Poem-A-Day #284 : Body

Body

          How
                                        far          is the border
of the body

                    Press finger          to rib
                                        the soft places between on the back
until
                    there is bruising
                              and separation

Poem-A-Day #256 : Migraine

Migraine

                    My head is a burning sigil -

                                        Cloth in a bottle -

     Words form and then spread across the page until they are a smear -

                             Listen to the broken vials of pain meds -

                                                   Light will shatter -

                    Pop all the vessels in the universe -

                                       Cover and run from this -

Poem-A-Day #219 : Blood

Blood

If you cracked the wall open the blood that would fall out would drown the room in scent and iron and the shattered fragments of red light would sift the carpet would finger the room like a zen garden whose names are written there and how does the blood find a way out of this space beastly and soiled the blood is the house's it is a twin without skin the house a twin of only skin there is no other place there are no bones the holes in the walls will no heal there is no scab wallpaper is not strong enough

Poem-A-Day #165 : Wood (Part 12 : Roots)

Trees want you dead. Trees are plotting. Read Part One HERE.


Wood (Part 12 : Roots)

I had a dream that I was pulling out the roots of a tree with my bare hands : they were worms snakes tentacles of difficult that curled around my arms and tightened until my skin turned purple and the veins burst : my blood poured from my arms like stigmata and I collapsed in the now red mud and rolled like a baby in tantrum : earth thought about swallowing me but felt nauseous with the heat of summer : it was pregnant was fighting a cold was full of other bodies : I was too much for it and the roots let my limbs go and I sailed into the night laying in this un-tomb :

Then I got up this morning and dug bricks with the names of the dead etched into them out of the hungry soil : the names stared at me oddly as if I could understand them if I just looked more but their histories vanish as the dirt is wiped off :

This is an AIDS garden it is forgotten and it is drying in the sun : I think about my arms open to the light and air and I think about being able to do this without dying : I imagine myself as a succulent in a window box stretching my one finger-like stalk towards the sun until the tip pinks and opens into anemone and feelers : I think about AIDS and how it transmits like ideas : a meme of unimaginable power : you learn its name and then it is inside of you and then your skin will harden and your eyes will pucker : we all have AIDS some inside of our bodies and some inside of our thoughts :

Pressing marigolds into the earth with my grandfather : the coolness of the dark soil between my fingers and under my nails : the faces of the plants have yet to open they are thinking about opening they are paused they are unborn :

Please hold this for a moment : it is the end of the root that tried to kill me : it has been pulled three meters out of the ground the skin is paper and falling off and underneath it is white and looks like raw potato : it is bone : we will keep pulling together until we find which tree it belongs to : which hand it is the pointer finger of : maybe we should taste it and see if it also is starchy and dense : I remember chewing on raw wood and feeling the sensation of it being green and dense and like what I imagine a finger would be in your mouth :

I want to eat the world : and this hole opening up that was in my dream and is now in this garden and now also involves you is becoming a mouth that could do that work for me : I drop bricks into the maw until it resembles the insides of a shark the face of a lamprey :

Hold this root against your skin until it inches itself under it and into it and to your blood stream and then to your heart like it is a clot finding the center : what do you suppose happens once it is there :

Poem-A-Day #156 : Wood (Part 3 : Wounds)

Wood continues. After the invitation to the party, we must know what sort of party we will be having. I don't throw simple parties. There will most likely be more blood to come. You can read Part One HERE


Wood (Part 3 : Wounds)

There is a collection of small sticks in the little cardboard box beneath my bed : wondered in from around the world they now collect each other exclusively : each one has been relieved of its bark : a sort of skinning of the kill :

My impulse when presented with limbs is to peel back the layers like an onion to get after that heartwood : it is blond and smooth and has a smell like grass and the edges of bodies of water : the tracing of the layers of growth : following each nub back to its start : is archeology :

I present my right hand as evidence take it and begin to look close : closer : at the base of the palm by the wrist right where the meaty bit of the thumb begins is a hill-shaped scar there is a break in some important palmistry line there and it probably means that my life is shortened or my wealth will never come :

In 2009 that scar was not there : it was always there : it is the remainder of something : like the ball-shaped growth on the apricot tree from where the child ripped off a limb and the tree panicked and covered the space in growing :

The door to the walk-in fridge was old and the small guide-wheel at the top that acted as a spring to make the door close itself would pop out of alignment : pressing it back took great force and leverage : the door was taller than you :

The wheel needs pressing down : you reach up and in a standard motion you press it down : you hear the normal thunk as it goes into place : you feel the metal catch tear and hold your hand : you react : how do you react : you pull your hand away :

And in the pulling you render your flesh : it is an angry open thing : a mouth in your hand bearing fatty tissues and blue-pink meat : you think of uncooked fish : you wonder where the blood is : and then you feel intensely where it is :

Poem-A-Day #10 : Fragile

Fragile

      At the counter the man was bleeding had on dark glasses was holding himself in a way to make him invisible but he was clearly there he fumbled his wallet and struggled to see through the swollen eye and finally took his glasses off

      He said he got jumped


      At the counter the man was mumbling incoherent was probably drunk his clothes looked like they slept in a gutter he was picking at a large oozing wound on his arm the skin was turning white around the edges there was a smell of death in the room

      He said he was bitten by a brown recluse


      At the counter the man tried to say 'coffee' but his voice caught in its throat and rattled he managed to order but spilled it on the floor his head was wrapped again and again and again in white gauze his eye was shot through with red his face was purple

      He didn't say anything

Inspiration : Cheapen

Cheapen 9/29/09

Pennies tarnish - turn green the
milky waters of the bay

I have always loved the look of old things. The dark spots that form on silver. The way wood softens around the edges then the grain separates before finally crumbling.

Copper tarnish is beautiful, green-blue, it looks like stain painted onto the surface.

Creepy.

There are barnacles that look like Lincoln
on hulls of schooners

The idea that a barnacle could have the face of Lincoln is ridiculous. It is also amazing. This is the idea of finding Jesus on toast. Satan in the smoke of the World Trade Center.

It is finding the shapes of things in clouds.

But I mean it. I mean that somehow a penny was dropped into a spawning of these little creatures and they took the shape of the Emancipator himself.

Look at barnacles. They are halfway to having faces. They are eyes without heads. Or mouths, they are venus flytraps. They are Audrey II's.

Ford Theatre curtain fragment.

His nose smells all seven seas and in
Times Square they have a bit of curtain

The smell of the ocean is particularly strong on the east coast. It is different then the Pacific. It smells like brine. Like fish. It smells darker, somehow colder.

From the Ford theater - history
under glass - untouchable

This is true. The fragment of curtain was on display in 2009.

Eventually all faces are left to pictures only
just masks

Old photographs are amazing. The faces staring up at you through time. Their eyes still holding whatever thoughts they were having as the shutter snapped shut.

In most antique stores you can find bins of discarded photos, postcards with cursive writing on them. All for sale for under a dollar. Memories for less than food.

Of paper
there is a thickness to blood lacking in paper

Blood is very hard to clean. It has a strange thickness to it. It smears rather than absorbs.

That copper taste and the red that seals brown
that softens in water