Poem-A-Day #352 : Weary As Water

Weary As Water

                                                                 The sound
                                                                                    the sky makes
                                         as clouds overtake the sun
                       makes me
                                         want to leave my body.

Be weary in this.

Allow the water to soak your fingers until you can no longer grip the mug of warm tea.

Cranberry sage. Then everything is colder, right
here the rook

moat yourself.
                        Scream into the paper bag.

                                                                     Let's pretend to be pangolins.
                                           Break our skin
                   plate the bone
                                           until we roll like cinnamon.

Let's be cream and just as weary.

Light,
          from star to starship.

Resist the impulse to build a city on rock and roll.

Fingers are less prune, more drum head, they hold things. Again they feel.

                                               Dandelion seeds
                                     must
                                              have a name beyond pinwheels.
                                                                                                  The sky is a seed bank
                                                                 endlessly emptying
                                                 the body.
                                The body.

Poem-A-Day #348 : Knife In Water

Knife In Water

The darkness of thought - knife in water

imagine that kind of jump

                                          where body can
                                vanish in liquid
I crave that kind of
going

Imagine me knifing the water each time I say goodbye -

I re-read the ending of The Anthropology of Water
and do not remember that the final image
is of a dying cat -
                              The cat is looking out from very far back in its eyes now, from a huge room where everything is running slowly away

                                                        - and then -
                                                                             The soul of a cat is mortal.

                                                                                                                          - and then -
                                                                                                                                               It does its best.

Think about Anne Carson's imagined dead and real dead - and then add self to that

A hacking cough that results in a claw-footed tub in your toilet

the words
                                               tangle knot
                                       find purchase to foot on - there
is beauty in the glass knife piercing your rib cage

What is best? -

The dying distance themselves from the living - not
because they are afraid of infecting us with their death
but because they may want to turn back

paths become dangerous backwards

Poem-A-Day #324 : To My Sick Body

To My Sick Body

It is difficult to think with congestion in your face
you can f e e l the styrofoam thickness of the tubes within you
your heartbeat thrumping on the pillow

This is your blood in your veins and it is making sound

We are so resilient
our bodies take the endless radiation of days
manage to up and down stairs and cycle our habits like whoa

But when things fall apart          they do so spectacularly

They crystallize every mistake ever made and cough
them into a mirror at 3 AM
our bodies turn on us so quickly that they cannot make the turn fully

And they will crash in their haste

Will erupt into fever and pitch and fall into a depth of exhaustion
that will leave them in a state of need that only we ourselves can deal with

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 #284 : Body

Body

          How
                                        far          is the border
of the body

                    Press finger          to rib
                                        the soft places between on the back
until
                    there is bruising
                              and separation

Poem-A-Day #91 : Cole-Prophet

Cole-Prophet

It will happen suddenly - you will be walking
the sky will be blue and so clear - and the path
will be so very easy -

Across your path - a mass of monarch butterflies
their orangeness - paper burning in a fireplace -
they will beat about you until your lines erase -

And your body will cease to be -

Inspiration : Black

Black 9/28/09

My heart is a breathing organ with an unblinking eye

Art by JimmyBlaze

The hamsa is a hand-shaped motif that originates in the middle east. The exact origins are unknown, but pre-date Islam and Christianity. In Islam it is known as the Hand of Fatima, after Muhammad's daughter.

It is meant to protect against the evil eye.

The idea that a look could bring harm.

It has become popular in Israel and appears on jewelry and keepsakes. It is considered a good luck charm. I have one next to my front door. I am not Jewish, Muslim, or superstitious. It was a gift from a good friend. It traveled from Israel with her in 2008.

My hamsa

On my back I have a large tattoo of the sun with an eye in the center. You could view it in a similar light as the hamsa. I always thought of it as an eye in the back of my head. A look out.

When I was 21 I was deeply romantic. The thought that some ink lines buried in a few layers of skin could protect me form history. From the future...

My heart is a hearing organ - a kneecap breaking on a tire iron

That is the sound a healthy heart makes.

The University of Washington has a handy guide with audio of various heart problems. The most common being a murmur. Murmurs result from an out of the ordinary blood flow. They create what sounds like an echo of the heart beat, or a woosh sound.

Most cannot be heard without the aide of a stethoscope. Laying your head onto someones chest as they sleep will not help you find abnormal heart sounds. It will allow you to feel their warmth and count the rhythms of their breaths.

a chamber burned - the outline of a body left behind

It is hard to imagine. Those white marks on the pavement. They could be tricks of the light. Could be strange light shadows. An artifact of a camera causing the color to be odd.

They are nuclear shadows.

Permanent marks on the ground showing where radiation from the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima went and how.

This bridge is 900 meters from the epicenter of the explosion. Thermal radiation moves in completely straight lines. So when it meets an object it reflects off of it. You get a perfect shadow. A mirror of the world.

There are famous shadows. An outline of a body sitting on the steps of a bank. These pilings on the bridge. This valve. The everyday object becomes a strange sort of witness. A sentinel that calls up the past without rest.

Constant. Beating. Watching.

Suspensory

Suspensory 6/18

There is anger in my shoulder it is floating and the shape of a hand-mirror like a fish or frog it manages to never be caught and like those soft mucus animals the little boy in me wants to smash it to orange pulp

Microsattelite

Microsattelite 2/21

There are so many ways we can go wrong

The man at MoMA –
one side of his face was inflated like a balloon

The man on the subway with the short leg

In pairs I cast stones into the fountain –
and count the times I am lucky

Tenter

Tenter 12/27

Hands on face – skin is thick
cloth on tenter

Laid in the sun and baking

Pores are craving yellow light
to cover the sallow – a touch
of jaundice helps in winter

This bag of skin – this disease
waiting to happen

Teeth looking grey – thin

It’s in the water – nano-things
echoing the sound of sinus
pressure-filled

Hands on face – pulling back
at the eye flesh

Still red and beating in there

Still a gooey mess

Zoned

Zoned 12/18

Feet – cold – check
Ankles – weak – check
Knees – in pain – check
Legs – general cold – check
Hips – don’t lie – check
Dick – meh – check
Belly – troubled – check
Chest – breathing – check
Hands – see feet – check
Elbows – bending – check
Arms – general ok – check
Shoulders – neck sore – check
Neck – stress sore – check
Face – cold nose – check
Head – see belly – check

Splenic

Splenic 9/23

It’s red and moving – the spleen is where it all goes pooling and filtered out
Everything ends here – here the purple goes blank

Dirty

This is mainly about sweat and the nastiness of NY summer.

Mainly.


Dirty 7/17

Pearls of sweat peaking on arms
            hairs thick with glue            a lashing of skin
Hovering wet cold            an icy grip over pores

Fingers move the dirt in circles            make pudding
                        of the flesh

Collect the spheres on thread
wear them            crucifix            of slow walk the cloister
                        of Eastern Parkway and count –

                        Hail
fire truck through the intersection

                        Hail
                        soup haze over the subway entrance

                        Hail
                                                gloss of water in manhole covers