Poem-A-Day #158 : Wood (Part 5 : The Seventh Seal)

You can read Part One of this crazy-fest HERE.


Wood (Part 5 : The Seventh Seal)

My grandmother was one of the people with skin like gauze : it pulled and seemed to thin like cotton batting or those fake spiderwebs that pop up around Halloween : those are probably just cotton batting : they sometimes have little plastic spiders in them but they are actually weird spider-shaped rings that you can put on your fingers :

I would run my fingers over her arm I think in an attempt to understand her years : like counting rings I was trying to figure out what had happened in this spot and when and what if anything was seen or remained : she would let me and I think she understood better than I did about what I was looking for this thing that was unfindable and unfathomable :

We're talking about death again : my grandmother is dead : both of my grandmother's are dead actually : I re-watched The Seventh Seal the other day and I am horrified and fascinated by the danse macabre that ends the movie : a string of loved ones tied together dancing off over the darkening hills : led by death : towards death :

Perhaps we are all obsessed with mortality : there's a tree on the edge of a garden on the campus I work at and the crown of the tree is all bare branches and it's the first week of August so those branches are safely assumed to be dead : the bottom older bigger branches are full of the late summer green leaves that resemble leather int heir texture and thickness :

I am obsessed with cycles above all else : the shape of reoccurrence : do you know the thought experiment about how we awake each day a new person but with all the old person's memories and so we don't notice : the idea is that we cannot ever know fully that we awake the same person who went to sleep the night before because we were unconscious and how could we know :

When I walk out of these woods and leave whomever has collected around me behind how can I know they simply don't cease to exist or they know that I continue in any capacity : it's a tricky thing this rabbit hole : a briar even : the thorns on this tree for instance they don't really get a chance to grab at much but when they do...man they grab at everything :

Trees are like that : we forget they exist until it's too late : bears too and death : we forget it until we are on a beach with our chess board and we have no options left : I always forget about the moment in Seventh Seal where death chops down the tree to get at the actor in its branches : death does not give a shit about your attempts to hide : it was time for the tree to go too :

The Seventh Seal

Poem-A-Day #155 : Wood (Part 2 : Invocation)

This is a real long poem. You can find Part One HERE


Wood (Part 2 : Invocation)

There is a breeze and it smells like fire : I'm keenly aware of fire the desert demands it : last night there was a storm and the lightening struck all around the Jemez and all I could think about after the burn in my retina was if there would be smoke in the morning : the signs of fire are all around us the dryness of us the parchment of our skins :

And skin is a kind of bark : the old man selling ristras on the side of the road has skin like an old leather couch it crinkles and has become creased forever in the corners where so many asses have sat on it and this is maybe an odd way to describe skin but it's true : his ristras also look like old leather except they are red :

I walked into these woods for a bit before we met : honestly I've been here for years : the fallen tree that crosses the path a little ways back is where I've sat and eaten my lunch every day for over a decade I count the blood-red flowers dripping on their stems along the path they are heart-shaped but remind me of rain drops :

Drops on the old deck : a swelling occurs they say you must seal against this swelling that the rain brings that it must be sealed : the spots spread from the bell-shaped center and the darkening radiates until the entire expanse is the color of water : in my knee this takes the form of a deep ache that takes days to work itself out in others it becomes death knocking :

Only some people begin to look like tree bark and leather as they age: others become gauze : the ephemeral nature of their skin allows them to walk through walls : ghosts before ghosts : I am reminded of the end of that cartoon David the Gnome : he and his wife wonder into the woods and become trees after saying goodbye to their fox friend Swift they die on the mountaintop :

In many cultures you leave the old to die on the mountaintop : again don't worry I'm not here to kill you you will have to make that choice at your own time : there isn't smoke today though so I don't know why we are talking about death : a friend lost a dog yesterday she buried it today and sat for hours with a cat staring into space thinking about fur :

I guess our nature is to project outwards to the end : a tree at the end of its life will stop producing fruit it will perhaps leave its limbs bare in summer as a nod to its coming winter : I imagine these trees as naked people wondering their towns and cities daring anyone to comment on their clotheslessness :

Poem-A-Day #154 : Wood

Dakota R. Garilli, editor at the amazing IDK, sent me a list of suggestions for Poem-A-Day topics. One was just the word 'wood'. It was both the least interesting and most full of possibilities as I have always found trees to be fascinating and weird.

This month will be an experiment. It will go badly. It will be transcendent. I am writing a 31-part poem called Wood. The poem has no purpose other than to be everything and nothing. It is an ars poetica, an explanation, an attempt. It is modeled after A. R. Ammons' Garbage.

This is a conversation. Feel free to respond.


Wood

We should probably start somewhere obvious like a forest : that feels good this time of year : the shade from the full green leaves would cast a pattern of green light across the bare earth below : leaves from winter would have mulched themselves and everything would smell like earth and growing : everywhere in other words alive :

Here those forests would be Aspen and pine but I'm sure you have your own concept of 'forest' and you should just go with that : the actualities are not important just be in that space of sunlight filtering down hitting you and be in that quiet that only people who live in cities think is quiet for a bit : is your breathing regular :

I ask because everything around you is alive : because it is in a state of motion : I ask you about your breathing because you are in it and it is coursing through your bloodstream as we speak about it : did you know that it only takes 30 seconds for alcohol to hit the brain : did you know that the lungs are hands holding on to the air for dear life :

So why have I brought you out here : am I going to kill you and leave your body to nourish these trees or for the wolves to tear apart and feed their young : I might have an axe in my car I might have a gun you won't know that the language doesn't reveal what's in pockets or trunks : if only it could : I don't know why we're here any more than you do :

That's the trick though : I'm supposed to KNOW what I'm doing here have a plan a map a big red 'X' that marks some spot on the map that is the place that I am going to dig : I don't have the arms for digging : I'm more of a burier of objects histories knowledge : I could bury us and then we could really think about things :

In this moment the trees are probably swaying in the breeze I do hope you have a breeze in your forest they are so much more interesting when they move in ways we can see : I want to talk about the trees and why they are here for me and you : why we are here for them : this isn't some eco-bull shit please don't think that I want to hug anything : get away from me :

I want to thesis about why I come back to this again and again : the roughness of the bark on my hands and the veins showing in the leaves : I want to discuss this with you : I'm not sure how to begin that though I will plant the idea here and I will come back tomorrow and the next day and the next and I will see what sort of tree has begun :

Poem-A-Day #153 : Dead Bird in the Garden

Am I gothic? I've been accused of being gothic.

I'm going to finish out the month of looking back with a weird poem about gardening that is not about gardening at all. It does feature two obsessions of mine: 1) Birds; and 2) Decay. So there we go.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to take a friend's advice and start a series of poems about wood. Just wood, it sounds boring right? It is going to be AMAZING though, I swear. How much wood can a Michael chuck if a Michael could chuck wood? 30 days worth, if we're lucky.


Dead Bird in the Garden (4/28/05)

The sky is a gray sweep
of clouds making their brushstrokes
a perfectly windy sky -

Here the reel will speed up
as shadows blur on the landscape
if there were sound in this movie
it would be a lone viola -

Dip your fingers in
the rust-mud colored clay
that nothing will grow in
pull the rock from the shell of earth
roll it in your palms
put it back -

The heavy rains have
cracked and broken open
the small mound
the insides glow fiercely -

A small pool of black stares up
it has feathers that fold wet velvet
they are falling away -

Here is a rib poking out
a hip-bone the tip of wing -

A sudden sweep of air
across the breaking soil
the rest falls away -

A radish beneath the skull -

Poem-A-Day #152 : Pastoral #1

Poems that use nature as a metaphor are both interesting and incredible obvious. I try to not use nature that way. I try to just let it be.


Pastoral #1 (1/25/03)

My body
Standing in the tall grass
Long blond stalks of hair
Swaying

They brush
I try to stay solid
On the tilting surface
But the earth says no

Motions ankles to give

Poem-A-Day #151 : Mute

I have sat in a dentists chair twice while someone near by was being told they had cancer in their mouth. It is harrowing to listen to someone be told that their life is changed, that they will lose a body part. Sitting behind a partition, you are not an observer, you are a hearing device. You are trespassing on grief. The moment has fallen into your lap. And you are static, unable to move, because you too are in a dentists chair, mouth full of cotton.


Mute (4/19/05)

The taste is metallic
throbbing in the back
of my throat

The sound of a man
being told
he has tongue cancer

Bubbles floating over plants
pop
on the aquarium surface

A bright flash
hiss of pneumatic doors
mind the gap -

The tunnels thump
this is a moving place

The feeling of
perpetual motion

The dark tunnel and white tiles

The smell of old
flashing mice eyes
orbs of oil in brick spaces

Why the memory of a dentist
brings up undergrounds is beyond me

The rhythm maybe
of train tracks and random flashes of blue
the sound of setting a filling

The man is now crying
they are telling him
that the tongue will have to go

The doors open on air

Poem-A-Day #150 : Planting Marigolds

Planting flowers is perhaps the closest thing to religion that I will ever get.


Planting Marigolds (4/4/05)

The pressing
That's the important part
Getting the roots
to press down and
point the right way

You have to
dig in the correct direction
being careful
not to go too deep
or the roots
will touch the veins of earth
and run towards the center

But it must be deep enough
to tap the water

You have to make it
careful not to fill it to the brim
then let it soak down

This starts the life cycle

Have to say
several prayers
along the way
Crossing oneself
with holly wreaths

But the pressing
making the base
against the wind
telling the thread like roots

This is the way down
This is the way up
Choose

Poem-A-Day #149 : Storm

I had a metaphysical period. It was mostly about storms and things being anthropomorphized.


Storm (3/13/04)

As the buildings unmake themselves
the wind is singing about the unmaking
          about the color of unmaking
                    the taste

The streets cannot handle
the multiplying of atoms
as bricks disrupt

Lightening comes up
splitting paint from walls
          separating veins from leaves
                    stealing the soul of water

Poem-A-Day #148 : Invitation

A nice simple one.


Invitation (7/10/04)

The past
is a homeless cat on the doorstep
sleeping over the w-e-l-

As if -
it were calling to me
over the expanse of the threshold

It comes into the house
sneaking when the screen door
is left open

Poem-A-Day #147 : Study on Rain #2

This is the beginning of the other part of Study on Rain #2 I posted.


Study on Rain #2 (7/17/04)

There,
across the street
huddled around
a half-dressed man
who is crying,
are other half-dressed people

Through sobs,
What will I do
now that I've
killed...

And is he talking
literal moments of time
actions with reaction
or
can there be metaphor at
10:00 in the night
with two young girls
in their underwear
standing over him,
consoling him

Later in the street
she was clothed then
standing,
we took the girl home
at 3AM in our car she said,
There are some times
you're just tired
you know?

What to think
of a reverse pieta

And then the mother
the next morning
was there asking,
You took her where?
I didn't know my
son had friends over
tonight...

Poem-A-Day #146 : 42

I still think about this man. He showed me where he had also been bitten by the brown recluse spider. Where the infection was boring a hole into his arm. Turning flesh into puss.

And I still charged him.

This poem is a reminder. I think of this man every time I feel my humanity slip.


42 (11/1/04)

He said his daughter died

That the service would be on Halloween

That she was bitten by a spider
while they lived on the streets

His jacket is too big for him

He is thirsty and wants a soda

I charge him for it
$1.60 for carbonated orange juice

I feel nothing until November
when, while standing at dawn
in a field

I realize I am cold

That I paid money to be cold

That I am in a field
in the mountains
by choice

And I charged him for a soda
the day before
he put his daughter in the earth

Poem-A-Day #145 : A Theme Emerges of An Obsession With Nature & Death

A lot of the things in my journals are untitled. I gave this one a title that reflects where my mind clearly sits most of the time.

I think this is a bit of a riff on Pound's petals on a wet, black bough. But it probably could be argued that anything written about nature after Pound is a riff on that.


A Theme Emerges of An Obsession With Nature & Death (7/11/04)

Light catches
in the grooves
of the tree's abdomen

Leaves tremble
debate amongst themselves
whether to jump or not

It's the breeze that does it
that makes
the leaves want to fly, that

And the light
in the deep
skin-cuts of bark

Sparkling
in a rainstorm

Poem-A-Day #144 : Upon the Spontaneous Invention of the Chariot

In 2004 I wrote a weird series of poems about the chariot and how the history of the transport is murky at best. This is one of the better ones and is placed in China. Which is one of the latter places to have a chariot 'invention' moment.


Upon the Spontaneous Invention of the Chariot (5/13/04)

In the fields and marsh lands of China
grasses root deep and jump beyond a man's head
filling the mind with ideas of the heavens
where a star blinks forgetfully
absent-mindedly and tremors with the idea
of projecting light alone

Poem-A-Day #143 : Study #7 (Labyrinth)

I obsess over myths ancient or otherwise.


Study #7 : Labyrinth (8/12/04)

*
When Daedalus sat
looking over the
rolling hillside of Crete

Tapping his charcoal about the desk

His eyes would unfocus

A glaze of rainwater and milk over his iris

The floating olive leaves
would intertwine and mesh
forming a sheen of glazed
leaf pattern over darker leaf pattern

And in those leaves was the key :

          Trap it in a pattern of light
          Move it into the vein
          Place it in the center of god

*
The idea that these walls that drive you mad are the walls that have always contained you this is the thing we must remember

*
When he handed off the beautiful bull
could Poseidon have known
the chain of deaths attached to it

That Minos would cage his only son
his only daughter would die abandoned

Theseus' father would leave a namesake sea
so that the cursed child would always burn -

*
Did Pasiphae know that her bull sex would
unravel a ball of yarn attached to her fake udder
and finishing across the ocean at the feet of the man who killed her son?

*
As the green parts fade
they get red, brown, gray

A gray only seen once in all things
A gray that is only in death

There are bones left

Bones loosing marrow
small holes of air rupture the surface
leaving only the imprint
of canals that once carried blood

The leaf skeletons
          (at their centers)
this is where a light will never go off

*
All I know is this:

His wife gave birth to a creature of unspeakable traits that was ravenous in hunger for human flesh

*
Carved into a mountain
the sharp walls would slice open
and cut everything
into darkness -

Poem-A-Day #142 : Shark Fin

Another thing I like to do when I'm stuck is to fall back on a classic form. The tender button.


Shark Fin (6/24/04)

A shovel bowl
Axe blade before a pane of glass
A sow's ear

Getty Images

Poem-A-Day #141 : Study on Rain #2

After I finished my undergrad I had a long period of time without writing. I worried on this for months. I began to stare at objects and write all the angles I could to fill up pages. Out of that, a series of 'studies' emerged. This is part of one on rain.


Study on Rain #2 (7/19/04)

The road
becomes alive
after a rain storm

The black
a deep well
with an awkward pulse

Dialated
eyes blinded
by moonlight

In Santa Fe
there are no drains
the water pools

Or runs
into little mouths
so that the street's history
can be hissed

Poem-A-Day #140 : About the Moon

Today's poem leaps ahead a few years. I don't remember the evening that it is about, but I definitely understand the interest in the moon.


About the Moon (6/20/04)

I want to swallow the moon
Take in the reflective disk
so that my belly glows
with all of that stollen light

Odd cold heat churning my insides

The sound of breathing
is like gauze over glass
a softness
you cannot hear
It is reeds
in an old martial arts film

You can taste marsh water poured over rice

The pocked face of night
a circle of yellow against purple
of course it tastes of rice
seaweed and turtle soup

Poem-A-Day #139 : Mission

I had a tendency to write pieces that were about the physical journal being written in. A sort of meta-commentary on the act of writing in a journal itself.

The journal in question

This was compounded by the fact that most of my early journals came from the racks at Barnes & Noble. Their journal selection was, and is, a bit...silly. Endless books covered in flowers and "cute" things. I always went for the odder ones.

This is a piece about the journal I had early in 1999. It was my graduating from high school journal. And this is about its cover.


Mission (6/5/99)

The heat has bleached the sky to a heavy cream color
A heavy oak black-latched door
All the glass in this place warps that beauty for its own reasons
The smell of a thousand mildews
Iridescent copper giant turning green ogre of testament in the corner
A lone tree against the endless yellow eyes

Poem-A-Day #138 : Legion

I have always wanted to experiment with structure and form. Not in a traditional way. In a weird way. This poem is long. Is weird. Is meant to be read in a ton of different ways with rules that I don't entirely remember. It was to be read by 5 people. It is my attempt to retell the story from the Christian bible of Legion, the man who is many.

The parts can be seen as a cacophony slowly being filtered. A is the most muddled, B retells the narrative from A. C is a sort of clarification of the story as a whole. And D is the implied threat that the creature represents.

I was a weird kid.


Legion (4/9/99)

A (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices endless ceaseless voices enrapture madden voices swirl to mud in my head voices we are existed once sane voices speak of evil voices voices take over

2
we are many never to be whole in our power we are many whole cities in our completeness we are many entwined into an overwhelming force we are many as always forever and ever forever we are many none but us exists here we are many we are many you are us


B (read by one person)

wondering the desert
we discovered a fountainhead
drinking this elixir
immortality

this cleansing syrup is all we need
on earth
drink the air
we are millions

wondering by herds
taking all we cross into ourselves
drink humanity
we take all

we are many


A2 (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices someone must bear this cross voices someone must bear this burden voices someone must set us free voices someone must take this over voices together voices

2
we are many many exist with joy bloody we are many many exist as one no more we are many many exist up to fall down we are many many exist away from we are many others we are many


B2 (read by one person)

for thousands of years
we searched for peace in normalcy
drinking beauty
we could never find

this purpose is clear
as we find that this is our end
drinking in end times
we fall to our feet

for years we knew of him
at his feet we cried
at the feet of him we found
disgrace

we are many


A3 (read by 2 people in unison, the words of 1 and 2 should almost alternate, they will create two different meanings)

1
voices we cannot concentrate voices we will someday escape this shell voices we will no longer be here voices will someday end . . . .

2
we are many who rule this body we are many who never die or end we are many after this body there will be another we are many and we are all . . . .


B3 (read by one person)

threatened with exile
we are dishonored wholly
drinking from this elixir
the stuff of mortality

this man is against us completely
drinking in hatred
lashing with
fists

threatened with exile
we hate him and
drinking from his blood
is all we want

we are many


C (read by one person)

He came to expel us
To make us one out of many
Though we wanted it, we do not wish
to be forced

But we are

driven out

We float away

Driven on

we will find another

Driven

We search for peace
in the desert
Bask in the voices
We are many


D (read by one person)

We are many bring us your children we are thousands give us a toy we are millions bring the young we are many growing we are many biding time bring us the children give them to us we are multiples allow this

Give us what you want
Give us what we need
Give us what we want
And we will go away

We are many

Poem-A-Day #137 : Dogwood

 I have been obsessed with trees and the cycle of seasons for my entire life. No trees manage to draw me in more than the dogwood. It's odd, early spring blooming without leaves. The little notches in the petals of the waxy flowers. The sort of node-like centers. It is the definition of ornamental. But also a harbinger tree. It foretells.


Dogwood (4/28/99)

Sore about the edges
Pulled out if its home into blinding light
Seared red by the womb
Scraped and bruised until chapped
Deep within still clean
Sweat and tears vein it
On display for all to see
The pain of it
The mark of being born