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 #244 : Of A Broken Wheel

Of A Broken Wheel

A broken limb -
               the eye - a wheel carrying you towards that gas station over there -
          not that you are on empty but you never know...

                                                               There is the impulse to lake - to
                                    find the tree this thing fell from - to
              rub the bark across your chest until it reds

The aesthetics of clouds -
                                                                            epistemology of algae -

                                                                 There is a greenness in both - the wheel
                     of the car kneecapping the day - the Emily Dickinsonness of
a broken wheel that is also an eye looking at a broken wheel -

Here death -

                                    Everywhere the sound of cicadas -

                 How both are ticks along a carved piece of wood -

Poem-A-Day #225 : What Will I Do

What Will I Do

          only to watch it die
in my hands - the daisy - obviously

the greenness of the grass
     it was too much honestly - burned - it was blazing

the daisy - obviously
          it burned in my hands

curled petals went white then not
          it was just not for me - only for the soil

     not for these too clean hands

Poem-A-Day #206 : Blue Room Green Room

I haven't talked at all about how I'm working on these poems. I'm reading one chapter of The Haunting of Hill House each morning. At some point I sit down and write about the chapter using quotes from the book.

In theory these poems will track the narrative. Though I think they will probably just track the creepiness of the world Shirley Jackson created.


Blue Room Green Room

Stillness is a vial
of thick cloudy liquid

There is no evidence that this
belongs to the rest of the world

               It can hear us

               Don't be so afraid all the time
               it's altogether Victorian

The sound of glass breaking
the clouds no longer suspended
they ooze along the floor

               Do you have an Aunt
               a comic Uncle?

               Was there always a bull in a field?

The blue figured paper
twitches in the dimming light

Stillness seeps into the floorboards
stains itself

               What fun it would be
               to stand out there and watch it burn down

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 #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