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 #227 : Planchette

I love Ouija boards. I love the idea of things talking to us from beyond whatever this is, from whatever that is. I love the lie of it. The beauty of it. The need for it.


Planchette

Ghosts of trees
                          break open and
       split along their Blaschko's

The rupture is a balloon pop -
                                                 the second it takes for sound to enter your ear
pick at your brain register there is infinite -
                                                                      the threads of wood in your eye tell you more

Heart wood
                              is both poetic and descriptive
and tragic in your hand or sanded into a banister
to slide down

But shaped into a heart -
                                         and holding a pencil -
                                                                             the wood can speak its screaming truths

What these spectral beasts say
                                                  the creak of ships at sea
                                           the vanished static of leaves
or the shrapnel of falling down

Whichever it is -
                            those voices are in your hand
warming there and feeling polished -
                                                            they are making the small plank left behind move

British Planchette c.1850-19860

Poem-A-Day #33 : Tattooing a Reservoir on my Chest

Tattooing a Reservoir on my Chest
          - after Emily Kendal Frey

The water levels are the lowest they've ever been

A red kite in the sky signals fire over the horizon

Tons of concrete etches into the landscape

Here is a hanger - your coat - it's all shoulders

I hate tweed why do you own tweed the elbows are just so...

Place these straws in a U around my heart the blood needs to pool

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.