Poem-A-Day #346 : I Look Terrible In Photos

Now is a good time to mention that I am about to hit the one year mark of this version of Poem-A-Day. I've been debating what I want from this thing and have found myself deciding to alter how these work.

So...the project will continue, but I'm going offline.

I will still post 2-3 poems a week on here, but the majority of the poems will live in a physical, handwritten form. This is to free up the project from the constraints of blogger and to give me a bit of breathing room to explore posting more essay-type things on this blog.

I may start posting more of them to Instagram or Twitter as a result. We will see.


I Look Terrible In Photos

In every photo of myself I am a tree ,  arms reaching out their wires attempting to dig a wall ,  being a tree in photographs results in a body that is constantly a seedling ,  it never fruits ,  always in flower ,  I remember the smallness of the earth and the press of roots but there is little calling from the sun ,  it is an orb in the sky that will not quit smiling ,  a cruel thing that ,  the camera an eye unblinking (  an image no one has thought of before  ) ,  a shield pitted with arrows ,  here are the results of the capturing ,  the soul is iced and held and in constant summer clothing ,  eyes will never catch the glint of the stars because the stars are forever behind the blueness of daylight ,  the sun has won here and the wooden feeling in the body has as well ,  in every damn photo I stand there with a hunch and the arms of a dead man ,  it laughs in its suit and tie ,  the blue of blood pops in the black and white of the moment ,  here everyone ,  an offering .

Poem-A-Day #340 : Bar

Bar

History
the steady yarned mallet
against the stretched human skin of a timpani
scythe and chaff and all of that

We discuss time
God are we boring
always burning hapless fuckers
a series of fields being made fallow

Fallow is a yellow word
stalks of corn limp
inkspots bloom across them
they salmon belly in the anemic autumn sun

Roe on the tongue fizzing like pop rocks
endless present melting at the vanishing point
leaves a lump of cooly green radioactive slag
in elephantine shapes

It isn't such a steady beat
this history
percussion as drunken bar fight
and whiskey spilled on the already sticky table

Poem-A-Day #339 : Hope Chest

Hope Chest

The box full of things - unnamed as they are -
hold the history of place in the reflection imposed surface

The sun comes from behind eclipse - it
momentarily explodes - loses itself - becomes a break in the lack of air

This is opening - a seam of paper tape - a fold
sun echoing in pulp - in dust

What are these broken lines of thought
burning a hole in the universe of a closet - they flap like broken doves

Beak cracks - the rubble of it - a light bearing
fruit - rotting and burning and searing the faces of memory

Poem-A-Day #337 : Manhattan

Manhattan

On rocky tops the lighthouse beaming
its mirrored sun - arms
spread a veritable wide embrace -
there is a sand in the gleam - winking
causing pearl in the ducts of the eye

That pool created dip of earth
sinkhole - cocksure - earth loosing itself
a new address would be best - the beam
pressing buttons of travel making lease
on a room in Crown Heights

Oh the sound of gulls - this city on a hill
garbage belched from below it echos
reflects itself - reminds
what could an echo be - the
whole a twin sun binary edging

Poem-A-Day #307 : Jan 1

Jan 1

Won't the sky just drop it

                    it just stares with those questioning clouds          knows
          that answers are stupid - listless
                                                                    broken masts on beaches

The fucking sun will not stop unblinking

                    another wonderous day has set upon us          years even
          in their ruminations - they are villains
                                                                    knives to throats and heels

Perhaps we war because we see the tempo and cannot keep a beat

                    unable to un-bond from the churn of the calendar
          even in the face of all the universe - we cannot          yet
                                                                    do away with it

Bring ourselves to unhinge that door rusty tho it is

Poem-A-Day #162 : Wood (Part 9 : Alyssum)

You can read Part One of this super long poem HERE.


Wood (Part 9 : Alyssum)

I stand at the dumpster and I think about how none of it matters in the end : I mean really matters : one day you and I will both be gone and a few people who will also be gone will remember us for a second : geologically even the trees will be forgotten before the rocks will give up the ghost :

I'm thinking about throwing out the frame it was an ex-boyfriend's it held photos of his family and there is that part of me that wants to hold on to even these fractured bits : like that dead tree at the garden with the crown all dried and brittle : why not take it down and get on with it :

The garden I planted on the patio died within a few weeks of starting it I'm convinced that it's because I didn't burn sage but it's probably just that the sun is wrong here : I planted poppies and nasturtiums and morning glory and not a one happened :

My grandmother's both kept gardens : simple and beautiful they dominate the nature of my memories : one with her vegetables and black-eyed susan and zinnia the other with peony and flowing geraniums and mint : both with fruit trees that I do not remember ever producing :

I think about alyssum and their softly ombré colors : purple into white : purple in : I'm again reminded of dogwood and the slightly tinged edges : the color of the inner rings of wood : a dark vein that bleeds out into light blondness :

You run your fingers over those veins for a moment : they are raised and the softer parts between lower with age and less hydration : everything darkens and will bleach of color eventually : dark veins raise and harden like a preserved body :

Can a tree be taxidermied : can the branches be raised into angelic wings and the flesh peeled back to reveal the muscle beneath and all of it mounted on a platform and lit nicely like a ghoulish tableau of what nature could look like if it were a horror movie :

Poem-A-Day #118 : Poem for Sunday

Poem for Sunday

I wonder about resurrection - about how things heal -

The skin on my finger has sliced open the two cliffs do not align and one becomes a tectonic subduction - there is a sucking - what can only be called flaps -

Someone jokes about the future - a wave of the Star Trek device over the wound and new skin is formed - the resurrection in seconds -

Each morning the world wakes - though this is only a phantom - the world never truly sleeps - the sun is a 24-hour lover -

Resurrection must take longer though - the two cliff faces have to weather to a smoothness that will not leave holes behind - the canyon must unfill and fill and monsoon often -

This gray skin - it must come back to life - I do not pray - I stare into the face of the unsleeping sun - I worry about fission and my retinas - but these too will heal -


ādityasya namaskāran ye kurvanti dine dine
āyuḥ prajñā balam vīryam tejasteśān ca jāyate

St. Francis School Of The Deaf

St. Francis School Of The Deaf 4/6

The girl sits on the end of the slide
away from the other kids

Her eyes closed staring at the sun
wrapping her arms around herself
and rocking -

I have just been showered
in pure white cherry blossoms
that speckled the sidewalk
like dribbled paint

And I cannot feel the warmth
of this early April sun on my skin
My phone rings -

And the girl turns to look at me
deep brown and gold