Poem-A-Day #278 : The Wind Convinced Them They Were Ice

The Wind Convinced Them They Were Ice

                                        . . . their voice
                                                                 is one of curling
                    leaves
                    a sort of unfurling
                    that resembles rolled fabric

          a tent holding its bones tightly . . .


I said that I didn't mind the cold that my hands and feet are cold even in the summer that this violent weather was perfect for sleeping

But there is that spot on the inside that stares into the distant fire and wants the forest to ignite around us


          . . . we cannot endure because

                         we see things as outside
          or
                                        inside ourselves . . .


There are things in this world that one does not want to embrace and there are things that one wants to take up inside themselves and curl around and absorb

The curling of the wind is a part of us and the freezing could be as well the only divide is one of listening and one of finding another story to tell

                                                            . . . bullshit
                    the wind is nature and voiceless

                    I hear that

                                       but you are made of air
                                       and it sometimes finds ways to curl

Poem-A-Day #262 : Notes on Ways to Get Through Life

Notes on Ways to Get Through Life

1
Take the Werner Herzog transcript and erase until poetry

2
Allow the wind to seal the shredding roofing

3
Sink the tubers until the petrify

Poem-A-Day #249 : Nearku

I've invented a new poetry form. The Nearku. It's basically a very close haiku. So close you could mistake it.

There are no rules other than the second line must be longer in syllables than the first and last and the lines must come very close to the 5-7-5 form of a haiku.

The idea is that in nearing the old form, it reaches for perfection that can never be achieved.


Nearku

The umbrella is spinning

In loose moorings - a rainbow movement

The world around us grays

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 #64 : Funny Business

Funny Business

Outside the wind is tearing the dirt from the ground - the sound of whistles reminds me of screaming audiences and balloons being squeezed of their air

And my mind wanders back tot he TV and the man on the screen is riffing quickly:

          She's like a walking talking Stephen Hawking

          She's brainier than Kurt Cobain's garage ceiling

I think about the space between the glass in the window and the seal in the frame - gaps in time - that moment when word hits the air and then settles on the ground like ashes

Here is a joke

Here is the pause between sound waves and atoms

          There's lots of sexual positions named for superheores - the Spiderman - the Superman
          The other night a guy said Batman and I asked him what is the Batman

          He said it's when you kill her parents

There is the sound of clicking out int he street - rain on the glass that is actually not water but grains of sand lifting themselves in flight

There is the moment of dissonance - cognitive - otherwise - the trembling of muscles as they turn your neck to see the darkness outside be opaque in itself

• The jokes are Jimmy Carr's