Poem-A-Day #171 : August

August

Summer has settled into that soft green that is not quite ready to be tired but is definitely at the peak of itself

The idea of troubling the water keeps coming that the water can be troubled to be a force for healing that healing is something that one must be forced to do

Summer is sadder than winter each plant is going going going like it has no recourse and they will never get to their finish before being wiped out by the end of it it's sinister that the light and water of it is just enabling destruction

This is a negative view of abundance and it is probably toxic and related to mood more than truth

Healing is the thing the growing season is not a time of healing it is too active and energy-consuming to be healing you need dormancy to heal

We need to hibernate ourselves here and now take some pill or be beaten about the head

The breeze this morning is moving the trees like curtains about to part and the effect is one of prelude one of soon to change one of this has been and will be again but first it must not be

Every poet is wrong about the seasons is backwards is blinded by the glint of sweat on a lip

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

Poem-A-Day #128 : Green

I was just as obsessed by colors and light as an 18 year old as I am as a 35 year old. Below the poem in my journal is one of my favorite bits of poetry. From David P. Young's The Man Who Swallowed A Bird:

Once I swallowed a bird,
felt like a cage at first, but now
sometimes my flesh flutters and I think
I could go mad for joy.

The original:

Green (3/17/99)

Calm, cool

The color of springtime country

Makes me long for tall grass

to run through

roll in

Lay and look at the sky

Surf the endless

fields of ocean

Calm, cool

Next to anything it is

perfect

Always relaxing

Nature in color

The edit:

Green

Long for the tall grass - the shade of big land

the stalks - thick and whip-like

The sound of speed - of knee high by the fourth of July

the thickness of summertime maple leaves

The sky bleaches against all this boiling pigment

all of this dampness - this scent of grass

The most restful of states - run in it - let it stain your jeans

the feeling of wet - the prime of your life

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks

Mounting

Mounting 3/21

Ever the optimistic ending - out with a new leaf
bursting through chaff - the peony finally
pulls free - going pink and all the while ants
on their merry way

Impermanence is what I forget - always - sand
mandala of a tulip - hoarfrost breaking over
everything making thousands of eyes in the dawn

New York is filled to the gills with dirt and shit
flowers too - it manages to hold together - some
meandering long-form Canto (cue the sweep of
violins crescendo coming hard)

This is where I talk about the beauty of insects
and mention that on the first warm day of the year
I see the first bee of the year - dead -
on the sidewalk outside my apartment

How's that for hope? - optimism? - take that
fertility! - it was a bumble - not even crushed
soft - breezy - shoulders all shined leather
like armor

I'm thinking about the end of winter - about the
coming cherry trees - I visited my favorites
the other day - weepers in Brooklyn (flowers!
get your hankies!)

I touched their knotty torsos - thought about sex
and smiled at the oak trees clinging to their dead
leaves - I missed the bluebells last year but
the magnolias - damn they screamed

Impermanence - sand - monks sifting sand - making
monuments to not lasting - I can think of no better
not lasting than cherry blossoms - small pink
on the long weeping branches falling like confetti

like perfected light

Monochromatic

Monochromatic (12/13)

Everything is pink - opening
Unfolding everywhere
Wet paper with bruised edges

Nature is refilling
Spring is a violent season
All breaking redness

Peonies pop their leather seals
Dogwoods uncurl then die
The rupture of ice - thrusting grass
Everything a greeness that insists

A knife to the throat
A sheet of blood over the body
A sandpaper rub that callouses