Poem-A-Day #338 : Sleeves

Sleeves

Tendons snap like the old rubber bands by the sink - that gray in the light - that pull just enough to make it look like the job will get done then -

no

I look at the man in line at the coffee shop who is so muscular that his arms will not - cannot - won't - will never - fully sit at his sides

they do that thing under the cotton of his shirt where his flesh looks like slabs of ice in an old fashioned - where they remind one of horses flanks - where it would probably be terrifying to be held by him

there are stretch marks pulling from his armpit across his shoulder - they are bands in the rings of Saturn are the left overs from a lightening strike - they are the signs of skin growth - one could dowse here and discover a thing -

My     own     naked     body
is
reedy

knocks about in the wind - is a folded paper crown - sugar and meltability in a casement of thinness

the skin is paper the eyes are paper the moves are paper that has been licked at the edge and folded 1000 times

it does not order coffee so much as ask if it will gain today the ability to see into the future - be high as fuck over a vent in the earth and tell the secrets of the universe - the spine is the mast Odysseus was tied to - it is a gnarled tree - a dogwood that will not flower and therefore not leaf

it is a sight in its paleness -

I imagine that our shoulders would roll the same if laid back to back

there is the need to see the ugliness in that man and the line of coffee - a desire to find the tears - because my body allows itself to fold its arms tight to the side - allows its underthings to hide

a stretch across our backs would pop and curl and a lightness could envelop there

a sweat-skin would for real form -

Poem-A-Day #264 : Unrest

Unrest

Wake and the arm is cold again - outside the blankets
like it wants to escape the comfort

The arm wants to tell you something - you were sleeping and it has a message for you

There are marks along the skin - birth and otherwise
notice how uneven the color and the veins are so visible in the darkness

The sound of celery breaking

Knees collapsing on pavement and the glitter of light on everything

The arm wants you to remember fear and agency

The arm wants to sweat with you
there is the sound of a siren - it is the sound of all sirens - the room fills then empties of it

A moment before the most beautiful dream ever forgot - it lingers pinkly in the haze of the brain - calls in sing-song that it should be returned to

This arm has thoughts of going through the window - it cannot understand how one sleeps in troubled times like these - there should be blood on the steps of the capitol

Blood is hard to clean

If it is forced under the covers to warmth - the arm will form itself into a mouth and begin to whisper all the promises that have been broken

If it stays in the cold it will purple - possibly loose itself and never come back

Poem-A-Day #255 : Tired

Tired

In the face
                    the tired

Along the eyes mostly

A sort of indescribable thereness

                    Here

a lake to stare at

                    A sort of attempt at mirror

                    Imperfect in its temper

Can the water be tired

                    from its journey

                    from its pulse to the surface

Think about those rocks it leeched

The minerals that it described

                    A finger pressed

into rocky flesh until it gives

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 #240 : Hill House, Not Sane

This is the end of the Hill House Poems. I think I ran out of ideas at least 15 poems ago, but I stuck with it. One poem for each chapter in the book. Sorta.


Hill House, Not Sane

Houses conspire in other ways - steadfast until collapse
          fuzzed hills pile
                                     until they sky themselves - there is
no truth in these things - we lean into each other

Speak in the tongue of brick and mortar - safe - not sane
          our skin entangles
                                        with this permanence

The crutch of reality flexes
          until breaking - until fracture and stardust
in our eyes blinds us - we drive into death - we fall into
the mouths of the world

Poem-A-Day #219 : Blood

Blood

If you cracked the wall open the blood that would fall out would drown the room in scent and iron and the shattered fragments of red light would sift the carpet would finger the room like a zen garden whose names are written there and how does the blood find a way out of this space beastly and soiled the blood is the house's it is a twin without skin the house a twin of only skin there is no other place there are no bones the holes in the walls will no heal there is no scab wallpaper is not strong enough

Poem-A-Day #217 : Thump

Thump

The sound wants to find the room with people in it
fingers the door for ways inside

The smoothness of the wood is cracking under iron
a head banging against the wall until it breaks

What will sound do with the people found
waves upon waves of echo attaching themselves

To skin an pulling undertow like until there is rip
until the floaters in the edge of sight become burns

Until bone and break and render and soap
all are quivering masses on the blue and green blankets

Sound wants bodies it needs them to walk itself out
the front door to find other bodies to scream itself into

Poem-A-Day #205 : Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

                    I need your help
                                        in the dark
                                  somehow

                    this formed itself
together                    into a great powerful pattern

          it reared its
great head against the sky          that we cannot see

in the dark somehow
          I need your hands          to locate

                                   the badness
                           
                             I cannot even hear you
                   but the hands          touching

               in the dark
the stones                    the rough sandpaper sounds
of the air in the trees
          of the nails on the nails

I need your help
          in the dark                   somehow
                                         please

Poem-A-Day #193 : Borders

Borders

Your body has an outline
thin and infinite - it beats
against the rest of creation

The racks of your bones
are full of treaties -
the body must have its rules

How solid are you in your flesh
how malleable

Poem-A-Day #192 : Couplet #13

Couplet #13

Yesterday
there was the sound of skin against a saw

Poem-A-Day #189 : A Prayer Or Curse It Is Hard To Tell

A Prayer Or Curse It Is Hard To Tell

I press my hand into the earth
and because my hands are dry
I can feel every grain roll over me

It's a polishing

Like pressing yourself into a tub of dried lentils
bare feet on the roundness of river stones

My hand in the sand
fingernails on roots and begin to spread out

I say something intelligible
a mumble into time and space
that echoes but never deciphers

A prayer or curse it is hard to tell

Poem-A-Day #182 : Incubate

Incubate

clear
bubble
crystal
an eye loosed
tadpole
glass on skin
the enormity of the eye

then the pupil spins
it jerks
spasms
tiny t-rex arms
gripping water
losing
working up to break the ceiling

froth
water at boil
bone broth and simple syrup
a tail is a hand
it clouds
bubble as locomotion
eye taking it all in

engorged
what does losing a tail feel like
breaking a crystal ball
it goes down the stairs like boom
it sinks quick
skin is paper
ripping

the feeling of it inside you
a bot fly in your neck
pillow
the sound of fans
fingers on metal now
what rebirth is this
blindness and seeing for the first time

Poem-A-Day #158 : Wood (Part 5 : The Seventh Seal)

You can read Part One of this crazy-fest HERE.


Wood (Part 5 : The Seventh Seal)

My grandmother was one of the people with skin like gauze : it pulled and seemed to thin like cotton batting or those fake spiderwebs that pop up around Halloween : those are probably just cotton batting : they sometimes have little plastic spiders in them but they are actually weird spider-shaped rings that you can put on your fingers :

I would run my fingers over her arm I think in an attempt to understand her years : like counting rings I was trying to figure out what had happened in this spot and when and what if anything was seen or remained : she would let me and I think she understood better than I did about what I was looking for this thing that was unfindable and unfathomable :

We're talking about death again : my grandmother is dead : both of my grandmother's are dead actually : I re-watched The Seventh Seal the other day and I am horrified and fascinated by the danse macabre that ends the movie : a string of loved ones tied together dancing off over the darkening hills : led by death : towards death :

Perhaps we are all obsessed with mortality : there's a tree on the edge of a garden on the campus I work at and the crown of the tree is all bare branches and it's the first week of August so those branches are safely assumed to be dead : the bottom older bigger branches are full of the late summer green leaves that resemble leather int heir texture and thickness :

I am obsessed with cycles above all else : the shape of reoccurrence : do you know the thought experiment about how we awake each day a new person but with all the old person's memories and so we don't notice : the idea is that we cannot ever know fully that we awake the same person who went to sleep the night before because we were unconscious and how could we know :

When I walk out of these woods and leave whomever has collected around me behind how can I know they simply don't cease to exist or they know that I continue in any capacity : it's a tricky thing this rabbit hole : a briar even : the thorns on this tree for instance they don't really get a chance to grab at much but when they do...man they grab at everything :

Trees are like that : we forget they exist until it's too late : bears too and death : we forget it until we are on a beach with our chess board and we have no options left : I always forget about the moment in Seventh Seal where death chops down the tree to get at the actor in its branches : death does not give a shit about your attempts to hide : it was time for the tree to go too :

The Seventh Seal

Poem-A-Day #155 : Wood (Part 2 : Invocation)

This is a real long poem. You can find Part One HERE


Wood (Part 2 : Invocation)

There is a breeze and it smells like fire : I'm keenly aware of fire the desert demands it : last night there was a storm and the lightening struck all around the Jemez and all I could think about after the burn in my retina was if there would be smoke in the morning : the signs of fire are all around us the dryness of us the parchment of our skins :

And skin is a kind of bark : the old man selling ristras on the side of the road has skin like an old leather couch it crinkles and has become creased forever in the corners where so many asses have sat on it and this is maybe an odd way to describe skin but it's true : his ristras also look like old leather except they are red :

I walked into these woods for a bit before we met : honestly I've been here for years : the fallen tree that crosses the path a little ways back is where I've sat and eaten my lunch every day for over a decade I count the blood-red flowers dripping on their stems along the path they are heart-shaped but remind me of rain drops :

Drops on the old deck : a swelling occurs they say you must seal against this swelling that the rain brings that it must be sealed : the spots spread from the bell-shaped center and the darkening radiates until the entire expanse is the color of water : in my knee this takes the form of a deep ache that takes days to work itself out in others it becomes death knocking :

Only some people begin to look like tree bark and leather as they age: others become gauze : the ephemeral nature of their skin allows them to walk through walls : ghosts before ghosts : I am reminded of the end of that cartoon David the Gnome : he and his wife wonder into the woods and become trees after saying goodbye to their fox friend Swift they die on the mountaintop :

In many cultures you leave the old to die on the mountaintop : again don't worry I'm not here to kill you you will have to make that choice at your own time : there isn't smoke today though so I don't know why we are talking about death : a friend lost a dog yesterday she buried it today and sat for hours with a cat staring into space thinking about fur :

I guess our nature is to project outwards to the end : a tree at the end of its life will stop producing fruit it will perhaps leave its limbs bare in summer as a nod to its coming winter : I imagine these trees as naked people wondering their towns and cities daring anyone to comment on their clotheslessness :

Poem-A-Day #109 : Pastoral

Pastoral

the knuckle of the grass is a black doorknob - a shine to it - so many hands - like the nose on the tomb of Elizabeth I in Westminster - the particles of these hands mingling with that metal edifice - a sort of smelting

the knuckle is bending and that is why it is a knuckle - the grass thickly bends in the wind off the mountains - the Sandias are not pink today today there is a creamy haze over them - there is a fire pushing out the smell of burning piñon - a factory of smoke piling on the horizon - the cotton batting from a quilt spilling out after being torn open by a child or dog

it is shiny because it is grass and the joints of plants are always shiny - like the flesh is stretched just to the point of tearing - it is a swollen knuckle - an old woman knitting knuckle - you can hear the cartilage pull

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks

Cheater

Cheater 3/3

All that banging

Radiators make my skin crawl

I rub oil to fill the cracks