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 #321 : January

January

The aloes are growing -
it is cold - but - they shoot themselves at the windows
dark green - moving - outside the snow becomes fog - becomes breath

Poem-A-Day #313 : Worn Out Shoes

Worn Out Shoes

The shoes need to have velcro

It's just a thing - I can tie laces fine - don't look at me like I can't tie a lace

They look good

Straps across the narrowness of the foot - like weapons - like leather jackets with buckles - there is a shit-kicking aesthetic in it

It snowed the other day and these old shoes have a hole that I didn't find until I stepped in it

Cold up my heel - a feeling that comes with it - a needle at the base of your nail bed

This is not how one walks in weather

You pull that thing tight over yourself - it is swaddling - you are prepared for the day then - anything that could possibly come will can then can because you have been sorted

Kick a rock and it will continue on its millennia journey

Add a pair of new shoes and your several decades worth of walking can go on

Poem-A-Day #272 : On the First Hold the Collar Close to Your Neck Night

On the First Hold the Collar Close to Your Neck Night

The sound of train tracks cooling is a baking sheet in the oven clang

These are house noises - the world
is a house making noises - the cooling
is the world making house

The pie was delicious
                         at least everyone said so
               why is it so hard to believe those sorts of statements
          conditioning - because - praise is ego and ego is inflatable

And no one can float on it alone

The oven cools it has a stone in its belly and the stone is blackened

On the first hold the collar close to your neck night the world sighed deeply and said that the years are getting harder to come back from

It closed up itself
curtains and all the doors
were resealed this autumn the windows leak still but...

Picture a train track popping - the back
of it breaking and curling upwards into the dark sky

It shatters into ravens and they
shatter into a rain of snow hard as glass
glinting like fresh asphalt

Jacobin Pigeon

Poem-A-Day #267 : Comfort Food

Comfort Food

Today

I need quiche

Lardons - cheese - I need fats - my body needs them
craves the deepening that comes with it

This is a comfort thing

A coming on of winter thing

But its a cyclical thing as well - I taste the ozone and it is snow-filled - the fireplaces are puffing pinon and there are Christmases going up all over

And I need an armor against it

One that a walk in the woods will not fix

That singing Beyonce on repeat will not fix

Today in my class a student began to cry while talking about codified hate and on CNN they literally asked if Jews were people and I want to start fires

But I will quiche

Not because I am running

Because I need the fats - cheese - lardons

I crave the deepening that will surely come as the tart rises and bakes - as the custard forms itself around the bits of bacon - I need the baking

Someone said that the codified hate would metastasize and congeal

The fats of it would become a solid in our system

And I am already tired of feeling this way and I know that everyone is tired of feeling this way and that generations of people are tired of feeling this way

I watch the sky for signs of storm

My car isn't ready - I'm not ready - no one is ready

Poem-A-Day #254 : First Frost

First Frost

There is the moment when the night comes up to us and grabs our hands

It is not a threat but it feels like blood in the water - the tendons are always just about to kick - the fists are always clenching and unclenching there is a grinding sound under the skin - it is velvet but burned it smells like canned air - we are on fire together

Getting out of the car tonight may feel like a death - air escaping like prisoners fleeing labyrinthine hallways into the cold of everything

But

Above will be found the stars where they were left still silver in the blue expanse of space - Orion notching an arrow at the backs of the Pleides

The roof of the car beside mine was covered in frost - thin and translucent - I was urged by an unknown force to rake my finger across the surface - and I did

Fingers come away cold and wet and covered in light - the ink of winter seeping into the bones of autumn - around us the cars all twinkle it is a calm

There is a moment when night comes up and puts its hands to our throats

Not a threatening gesture - an honest one

The rasps of its nails speaking about the darkness within us - the heat of its eyes a cipher - night is a void filling with the answers to questions asked in daylight

At the top of the cycle there is death - at the bottom there is more

Somewhere in between is a sort of daylight - a moment where hope exists - where the growing isn't futile and it will not just end again

Fuck - it burns -

Poem-A-Day #215 : Cold Spot

Cold Spot

breath                     a cold
                            space in
                          ourselves

          we don't think about breath
how much we take in and let out
     don't talk about the breathing
          done and not done

                             can you
see it today

          a simple question
is it cold outside          enough
     to see what is unseen

speak                     tell us
                         what sort
                         of seeing

           is happening
is it your insides on display
     your secret thoughts the
          kind we'd be shocked to know

is it just molecules of you
entering molecules of not you

Poem-A-Day #186 : Nostalgia

Nostalgia

In the dark fields of summer - the heat escapes us
it crawls into the sky in tendrils of smoke - it creeps

Our heat is a suck - the roads hoard it like money

This isn't some theft - the universe gives no fucks

The day collapses - it shatters - it is our job
to find the pieces and to stick them together with gold

To hold this moment in our minds - perfect it

The pressure of our remembering will diamond it
until it is something that cannot ever have existed

An inner-earth ocean full of monsters

The darkness will not stay dark here - it will recede
it will become the light on the surface of a lake - your eye

It will also degenerate with time - it will never be a photograph
like the heat held in pavement - the night will leech it off