Poem-A-Day #336 : [Yesterday - there was]

[Yesterday - there was]

Yesterday -

there was a Constitutional crisis -

a glitch - it
                    skipped   & caught   & tore
                    in alltheplaces.

It is hard
to ask paper
to hold ideas
for this long
without burning.

Poem-A-Day #329 : [Cornmeal on the hands - a burn - a polish -]

[Cornmeal on the hands - a burn - a polish -]

Cornmeal on the hands - a burn - a polish -
that becomes the glue sealing the broken ceramic bowl -
that lived on grandmas shelf -

It is like a gymnast at the double bars -
this bread making - it is an act for the cameras - will be scored -

Perhaps the fingerprints will vanish in it -
give way to rising and lowering tides - it would fit -
a buttered flesh for a buttered flesh -

Poem-A-Day #310 : When Lilacs Last

This is an erasure of the last section of Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d" is my attempt at distillation. Whitman used 100 words where 1 would work. He was amazing and infuriating for this reason. I think this version gets the same point across. Quickly.

You can read the full poem at Poetry Foundation.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

16
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,
Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

Poem-A-Day #302 : Fragments of An Organ

This is not a finished thought. I have no idea where it is going or what it wants to be.


Fragments of An Organ

Against the wall                    pieces of the doorway
begin to connect themselves in ways
foreign to passage
                                                                      There is a sound like paper burning
                                                             the joints are grasping          making out
tonging               They are making themselves a cathedral
                                              a soundway

                                              They will be an organ before they are done

Pieces of hands lay about the floor
fingers
                            like dynamite        
                                                             They are not real hands
they mannequin and pale themselves and become sand that could become glass
if only someone had fire

-

What a sound - the end of days - the reeds on the water will be the only thing to communicate with - the color of the moon before snow - a scent of lilac and sweat -

-

Impassive

&

Unrelenting

                                        Words tossed against a chest of drawers like laundry
                              - how did you begin to see into the crystal ball of this skull -
Motionless & -
                                At some point the doorway had to be reconciled - burned
                         or released - or -

                                                                           There was an inability to let it go

                                                                                                                     A sort of keylessness in the vetting
someone said that the man before us was a sociopath - others said he was just emotionless and distant - one called him a monster and pushed him into the burning effigy of Guy Fawkes

-

We are in a basement and there is the sound of music above us
It drifts through the sparse boards of the ceiling
It is a dirge
For others perhaps a wistful memory keeper
Here it plays out the burning of a church that is a memory

We are terrorists in this mind
Here to burn holes
The door frames attempt to re-
And we laugh at their feebleness
They manage to make noise

That is all before they collapse
We use them to construct a barrier

-

I was trying to find my way into the memory of sound in the giant room with the giant organ - to discover if the emotion rang there - if it hung from a light fixture - if it was kindling - it was not there to be found -

Poem-A-Day #230 : Stray Cat

Stray Cat

I have felt not at home
within
and without

The universe is not a cold dead place

It is just cold
and mostly not alive

Our matter
coalesces around us
it speaks to us at night
in the sounds of houses settling

If I have a hand to hold
let it also be my own

Poem-A-Day #225 : What Will I Do

What Will I Do

          only to watch it die
in my hands - the daisy - obviously

the greenness of the grass
     it was too much honestly - burned - it was blazing

the daisy - obviously
          it burned in my hands

curled petals went white then not
          it was just not for me - only for the soil

     not for these too clean hands

Poem-A-Day #221 : Hands

Hands

Hands held
so tight
you can feel
the fine
bones
the tendons
in the finger

The roll
of those rope
like tendrils
that wrap
from muscle
to bone
to circuitry

They
make it go
you can feel
the steady
thump
of blood
in there

Hands
the thing
that opens
gates
closes them
it is a
permission
organ

Feel that
nimbleness
the fragility
of the nails
against nails
the crack
of knuckles

So tight
that you can
feel them
breaking
can imagine
them floating
off their arms

Poem-A-Day #205 : Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

                    I need your help
                                        in the dark
                                  somehow

                    this formed itself
together                    into a great powerful pattern

          it reared its
great head against the sky          that we cannot see

in the dark somehow
          I need your hands          to locate

                                   the badness
                           
                             I cannot even hear you
                   but the hands          touching

               in the dark
the stones                    the rough sandpaper sounds
of the air in the trees
          of the nails on the nails

I need your help
          in the dark                   somehow
                                         please

Poem-A-Day #189 : A Prayer Or Curse It Is Hard To Tell

A Prayer Or Curse It Is Hard To Tell

I press my hand into the earth
and because my hands are dry
I can feel every grain roll over me

It's a polishing

Like pressing yourself into a tub of dried lentils
bare feet on the roundness of river stones

My hand in the sand
fingernails on roots and begin to spread out

I say something intelligible
a mumble into time and space
that echoes but never deciphers

A prayer or curse it is hard to tell

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 #108 : Sure / No

Sure / No

Think back to that time you felt safe
then back further

What sort of primordial space are you in

Has your tail receded into your spine

Or are you where you are now
staring blankly into a wall

Are you safe ?
          Do you know what safe is ?

A hammer to the head
will only bring the tweety birds

You are safe as houses I am sure

No flies on that shit

Take my hand the horizon is on fire
with sunset and I am in need of touch

Coral

Coral 2/10

Hands
color of clay pots
bloated fingers
break their casings

Callus

The cool water
is clear
opens fresh wounds
brightens the old.