the one that might yet be

the timing was wrong, the geography was spotty
we aren't mates, we're complementary
together a wholeness rushing to fall apart
a cleaver clefting the meat dividing reuniting
how many times does the butterfly return to the salt
at the edge of the lake, or slurp bloodpuddles
from severed heads,after the revolution? till the bodies
rot out? this falling into being
is the error of living. if we learn our lessons
then we die. or so we must believe, stickin to our guns
like an eighth wonder,drawing plans, scheming schemes
nothing's ever what it seems.


how does one, let's call her "luv", escape
from a set point match? the hand dealt, bets
made, settling, scoring. resistence is future
futile as the nile. run like wendy thru grammarcy dusk
or rose a sharon in corn fields before dust.

luv dons a hang glider and leaps
into the canyon from the blue ridge parkway.
it's a long way down, but she's trying
to get to the other side of the valley
without touching ground. she has to think
about windshear and angles of incidence.
a twenty dollar bill floats to the surface
of the river below but she's not distracted.
she has to skate the drafts up hill but nothing's
more uphill round here than above
the tops of the mountains. li'l detached
balloony of a birdtrance.


i would have gone there with you but you missed the jump
i left without you, and now there's feathers of nylon everywhere
what's up with that? hit the bottom, a rock, tossing itself . i thought
we could dance but it doesn't work when we
both wanna lead. we mix a batch of metaphors, versimilitude
with bitters after six, hold the olive. plug the cards into the sensometer
and take our pleasure like a solitary teenage. o peter
look, there's a star out there and it's got your dreams.
it only takes four hundred light years for them to return.























()&&&

i ask my son what's up in the cafeteria.
he says "that's teen talk, you know why?"
"cuz you talk about stupide stuff? well
that too but you know why?"
"why". it's cuz you guys always said
~that's grown up talk~ so boo yah !
i pry about girls, he barely
answers. but there's
a girl. she might be interested
but girls cost money. we laugh.
brainy, cute and poor. life's not fair.
etc. woah, geometry is kinda awesome
man. so is the night, wing over nest
on the other side of the world
from this morning.











*(_)(*


last night the shredding of life ending
without you sung under my skin.
fast, the river. pebbly and winterdry.
i hear a flood's coming. i hear a fire's brewing.
i hear the ice is on its way i hear
the poor are soon to be even more while the rich
will change bodies among themselves
and some will hang and bloody samurai.


common sense solution to fighting terrorism:
why don't we just stop pissin people off?




phone. brb.














*((&




my son said "oh man, i wanna go to north carolina when you go".
i'm thinking november now i'm thinking the fall's coming later
where we live, if at all, seasons rearranging themselves faster than crops
can grow. good think we got biodomes, hydroponics, artificial nature
at our service since nature herself seems kinda teenish and mutable lately.
so the one who could return fills a need for travel.
so the one that might yet be fills a hope chest with gravel.
so the one who could not move finally finds her groove
so the one who might yet know grabs a bucket full of soothe.
ooze. juice, buckets. the pattern always breaks down. i see my son
a future physicist on the brink of discovery swallowed by cern's big black hole
i see your daughter, languid and soft spoken, becoming head of the junior
civic league i see your son, spinning discs into a tranced out audience
balanced on the edge of what is becoming, and my daughter
dancing with a paint can in her hand. i see so many futures
that could be cut short. the world's gonna end you say
we're all gonna die you say
and all i can do is pet frost's silvery coat, nod
n say i know baby, i know.

my nerves are singing under my skin

sometimes when you wait long enough
all questions are revealed. the answers
may take a little while.

drifting away from what we dreamed
together and apart i think of the things
i don't need to do, the things i need to do
a cornucopia of rue. the days the stars
exploded over my world, the days of petting
a cat and the transient shredding of each moment
how sad to not live in the now. i can't
keep holding on to what might have been.
yet i do. instead, i keep
holding on the what's happening now
i weave stories of super8 certainties
as if i'd grabbed you from a movie in the middle of a scene
rearranged your tie and your kitchen
and placed you back into the same situation
with some differences in a key position.
i am the other woman. the one you should have met
before your family. now you have an insta replacement
from a different casting call, a different part which calls for
a good friend, a good mother. i wonder
how badly i must have treated someone
in a former life to latch onto this mistimed trajectory
with you. the tarot says we refuse to let it end.
do we? should we? would we destroy each other
and build new temples or would we rise like flame
and burn ourselves out? i bet that scares you, you have
young children. aren't there other possibilities?
can we think outside our cubes for a couple minutes?
but you have to ask yourself
with all the opportunities i have i out there
oh yah o man we is all so special
why do i keep coming back to you and why do you,
when you have just as many chances for new flash false starts as i?
is it a sickness? obsessive
addictive personalities?


yet you seem as if you're used
to confidence while i , well, i've always been confindent--
confident i'm an oddball. i think you just have a better mask.
but it broke. your sense of self is morphing, you don't know who
you are. watch a baby making its way into monkey child.
he picks lice from his mommy, picks up the spoon and mashes
green peas into his face, sticks things up his nose, in his mouth,
he doesn't know who he is, what he does. what are these things for?
in the same sense this is what a butterfly does when coming from
cocoon, this is what love does when it reaches past lust.


when we met you'd only just moved into your single's apartment.
it had two bedrooms but instead of making one of them for your boys
who would only be with you 2 weekends a month, you turned it
into your office. the boys could sleep with you or on the couch.
you needed something to fill your emptiness. i would do, i did do,
it was so quick it was too soon. you were in denial and shock.
i was trying to get over another bad relationship. the ambien radio
put us to sleep more than once. you proudly showed me
all the things you collected and brought with you
you angrily showed me all the things she collected and left behind.
you did not. you brought all the shackles of your house
all the misrepresented shekels that came between you and your dream
and squeezed them into your rooms.
all but the thing you say you wanted most. your boys.

i had my own place. my own children. almost grown, i was testing
the empty nest syndrome sans partner. looking for an imprint
over old lovers, young lovers , ex lovers.
my trip to reno was a distant past but i remember how i left him
like she should have left you it seemed unfair to
me that she would move the children
so far from their dad, so i sympathised with you
as i could not with my own ex, to whom i left it all.
except we cut the kids in half.


old enough now to pull themselves together, i wondered
what is it i want? puck gave me some brew, and i met you.
if it seems like magic, that's prolly what it was.

2b continued

writing isn't talking

and talking is only that.
i was going through some papers
sorting bills from the last nine months
sorting envelopes, trying to recycle
some of the paper that's burying me
and wondering exactly how long are you
supposed to keep these things, thinking
of the paint spill on the shed floor
and the piles of junk i didn't even know
were in there, wondering if pumpkin yellow
is the only color paint besides the
spilled can i could use, i'd like to change
my surroundings some, because it looks
like i better get used to my home
even tho the rent just went up again
and it's going to be even harder being a single
mother in the new depression...potato famine...
black plague...global warming whatever the latest
catastrophic worry could be, and how i can't do
anything about it but still i'm recycling
but still i wish i had a shredder so i can prevent
someone working at the recycle center
finding some old bills with the account number
along with my address and charges multitudes
of things on my card before i find out which
could be months because i never open the bills, just
pay the minimum online it's all i can do but just how long
are you supposed to keep those bills anyway
and what's the point those financial institutions
always have a way to make you responsible so faggit about it.
still the upshot is that i have way too much
paper and i'd like to get rid of it, i upacked
a box of things from the fire, repacked them into a beer box
and one of those things was a plaque my aunt gave me
32 years ago when i graduated from high school. it's a picture
of a sunset, a couple of birds across an orange sky i've
carried it with me on too many moves to count it's
always had a place on my wall until this house i guess
it was too deeply hidden so when i pulled it out
i thought of how you've been carrying your past with you
how it eats at your flesh, your desire, your sense o self,
and i thought you might could use it, it says
finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could
some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. forget them
as soon as you can. tomorrow is new day. --ralph waldo emerson. i'm
quoting from memory because as soon as i set it on my dresser
to give to you if i ever see you again, it fell between the dresser
and the wall and there it's likely to stay because
why go to all that trouble moving the furniture
when i won't be needing it
as far as i can tell
ever again. then to top it off i found a picture
of the two of us a year ago before all this happened,
when you were still in a dewey eyed belief system and i was
less likely to come off as the crazy person i really am
because well, in love is blind and i have to tell you
that i just couldn't stand to see you there beside her
so i took the picture and cut it in half and put both
of them back into the pile of papers i have earmarked for going
through later when i can throw out more important, but still
obsolete stuff.

death card

the end of one cycle
and the beginning of a new one.
yeah, i think this new one
will be sans the male
because you are all alike so involved
in your petty hurts and prolific dreaming
that you can't even see the other
or listen and grok what she may
be saying. and you wonder why
you can't find that "true and lasting"
love. you have to give of yourself
so there's room for the other. women
used to know this. i don't know if we do
anymore. but the chili peps do

give it away give it away give it away now.


i'm sorry that we never got to be
known to each other. i feel sometimes
as if it were my fault, that i behaved
too much like the male, or too much like
the mom, or too much like a princess
needing rescue or too much like
something i was growing into and out of
at the same time. too much like a human
perhaps. the original sin, putting on flesh.


so what will my new cycle contain?
lol. asking does not warrant answer.
can i just be in the moment for a minute?
zen is its own power. detachment, is that
what you want?
yes, red balloon kept two inches from
the ground by gravity. i like the ground
but it's toxic.
maybe this is your problem. you can't accept
that earth is dirt. that everything which grows
comes out of it. so naturally there's some clots
and flavors that will be part of it. perfection
is for the gods.
well, ya'll are bitches. is that perfection?
in our world, yes. DO NOT QUESTION THE ACTIONS
OF THE GODS. we don't.
you mean you have gods too?
this isn't about me, it's about you.
well i'm dying.
yes, we gave you that card. now do something with it.
i've been trying. it's been slow suicide, i'm smoking
more than a pack a day.
what good will that do? dn't kill yourself. let what
isn't going to grow, die. stop clinging to it.
you mean love?
not love stupid. the subject of it.
i want love to die.
no you don't. stop being obtuse.
ok, i want a particular love to die.
no, you want it to transform. not gonna happen. it is
what it is.
oh maud, don't you have anything but platitudes?
call them what you will. not gonna happen.
so then, my core beliefs, that one can change if one
wants to, are bullshit?
well a pig won't be a cow.
but can a cow learn to think?
in a cowish way, yes. they think all the time.
but they're gonna have cow thoughts.
and pigs will have pig thoughts?
duh
but they both want to be in some other pen. what
happens then?
well then they gotta die and get reborn as that.
metaphorically?
no cows n pigs can't transform. they don't have
the windings for it.they have to die. get eaten.
can humans transform?
sometimes.
ah.
i hope i do.

so what's the deal with me?

basis is fatigue no rest
for the weary, conflict
provides no time for introspection.
i'd comment on that but i'm late
for my joint rolling commitments

sure i got challenges,i got major
issues that scramble the way i process
information. i wanted to live my life
like poetry. now it's time to assess
what the hell i got out of that.
the pragmatic left me cold, at least
poetry has kept me from rigor mortis.
in the poem, anything is possible, especially
the improbability factor making a run
for the money. i said money and i meant
it. tonite alina and i were talking
about new zealand and she's all like i can
brush up on my arabic, learn a few languages
and work for an international law firm
they need people to go overseas.
yes, indeed. and i need passport and ticket
to ride. i need to sing for my supper
agin, i need to remember sweet
and how was almost never curious about
well, anything in my life. what's that you say?
oh, well i didn't mean "laterzzzz" i meant
:unitl we meet again:ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuck

bobby the barrel racer

i talk to him tonight because
i am diverting the thoughts of unworthiness
you gave me during those fights
we had while the children cowered
in the next room. at first he's playing coy
but somehow the talk turns from politix
into manic depression, bipolarism. he tells me
his tale which mirrors ours but only lasted
12 years. she was the abuser, the one who blew
up after x months of remorse "i should have been
the wife" he says, "she beat on me, it ws like
a flip of the way it usually is". immediately i grok
his norm. but do i? she controlled him
worse than you controlled me, but eggshells are eggshells
and walking on them because of something i said
to you was the thing that crippled
me, footbound as a china girl. dealing with a mental
disorder makes one stronger or
whatever.
detached perhaps. bobby says "i hate animals." and i'm all like
huh? n he's like "well hate isn't exactly what i mean
i mean i hate what they do to you" and i'm all like say wha?
n he's like "i mean you get attached to them
and you love them, like my kids had this dog and it just
hurt so much to see the pain they were in
when it got hit by a car" and i'm like yeah but
n he goes "well, i mean, i'm a horse person
and i made my life about horses, married two horse
women, i'm good with horses but i only kept
them because the women wanted them. they
will always put their horses before a man you know
not many men will put up with that, they say 'it's
the horse or me' and then later when they're
walking down the road with their bags is when they regret. but
not me, i built the horse farm out of pristine
country and i built if for them, for my first wife
who died then for my second, i could care less
about horses or animals or anything that you get attached
to and it dies." so i ask him have you ever heard of zen?
n he's like no, not really and i tell him
of the zen masters and the samuari and later of the old
man and the horse and in between i threw in the joke
of god, the jew and the lottery. for some reason
i want the man to find this love he's so scared
to reach out for, like maybe it's payback
or justification or hope that even though you
could never stand the fact that you settled for me
how worthless i was to what your ideal should be
and i can barely stomach the fact that i lived
in such toxicity for so long, still i feel like the only way
to ever balance it out is for all the chemicals to just
get along being catalysts, get all molecular and explore
new compounds. transforming from the hurting vibes
into something akin to peace. gawd, i'm such a pacifist
no wonder i caved to your every whim, modified my
desires, turned myself into the very thing
i ran from in my teens. because you let me stick around.
bobby says 'the one thing i learned from the domestic
violence class that really hit home is
it's not my fault. her anger is not my fault'.
and i am freed by that thought, somewhat, that it's ok
to let go of the blame for another's choices, another's actions
even if you've pledged your life to them but most especially
if you haven't. the only person you can be held responsible for
is yourself. and by extension, the behaviour of your children.
that's it. after the age of reason, everyone needs to fend
for themselves. so i don't exactly blame you for the lost time
or the lost lives or the lost dream that was never mine but
i do let you take on whatever truth you can summon
from the whole debacle. it was a time of growth and stunting.
it was a time of birth and running. i dunno, you and i
had nothing in common but a desire to not be lonely
and i didn't know it because i didn't know myself.
i just wish the whole thing was done with the knowlege from
lessons i'm only now learning. n bobby says yeah
i know what you mean, but i still don't want to get back
out there in that minefield. i only have so much left to lose.

epjiphanies

little bolts of aha!s
tacking on the dayline between the risen
orange outrage of morning and a catarac
moon. still full, still blindingly
tidal and cycle. what happened to mine?

my soundtrack's been jackson browne's version
of "these days". specifically the line about
risking another. it was not sposed to be a risk
to live, to love. it was just the thinging
just the being in it. when i sang that with
the most emotion, sitting in my room in suburbville
i had no idea. the concert played a few minutes
ago and now the echoes of it finally hit home.
so i keep on moving, moving on. things are bound
to be improving one of these days. thank you
liberally borrowed from the engrams in my ears.



current mood: waking, baking.















)_)(







michelle must be so angry that her man
decided to take that job. i mean she gotta know
what might happen to him, prolly already seein it
in her nightmares, not the ones
she imagines, awake, but while she sleeps, children
in the next room, clouded, princessy then
shattered skulls and screamings. pill box hats
and the pod people with extended finger.
the sixties in a full retro crash
where this time we push
the button cuz we've seen the future and
well
reset














(&



i am fallow. period of rest before the next seed.
i dunno how long this winter's going to last
but i long to feel roots begin their wiggle
maybe the longing will hasten spring
though now i think of it, i get too stimulated
when the leaves begin the unfurl, the big stretch
into interstice. why think spring when it's
harvest time?

last night the moon lit my undulating
belly. ants busy on the mound. pyrotechnic scythe
expelling angst and members of the harvest.
they ate of the fruit we gave them
and still did not understand. no need to scold
i mean myself. i tried the best i knew how.
now i know a little better. experience the grown stalk.
eat of its nature. taste what bitters become
when they return to the body. or spit it out.

waitng for winter. i have a sister that lives for
the fall. sugar burnt leaf. the exuburant flash
before snowfall. i think winter suits her
like my cave in summer suits me.











*((*



sometime tho
i didn't try at all
somestime i merely mechanised.
auto pilot. little white pilly.


li'l white pillow. heh.sometimes.
you know, like fallow
means potential. unused, true but hey
conserve it for a while, just don't
forget to put me in rotation.















*(_(*


once you think you've had the final epiphany
you know like
the "truth"
the "key"
the "lsd trip"
the "nirvana"
the "glad bag around your nose"


isn't it grand to have something come along
and surprise you into feeling again?































*()

i can't wait fa dat


but i guess i gotta.

frankenmeds

i sat at the robot all day,peeling
paper from acrylic, inhaling uv fumes.
my nose feels like i snorted coke
and my head feels like i should still be in bed.
disorientation with a reason. it was almost
ten oclock when we went over the sunshine
skyway-- my daughter's fear of bridges,
especially those that collapse, seems like a silly thing
but after all, the infrastrucure is crumbling. the lights
were off, but the moon was full. it hit the suspension
cables like a spotlite. they're painted yellow
but they looked obsidian. i wanted
to stop at the top and just look at them
or be on a boat beneath them. always wantin to be
somewhere besides where i am. lookin to the future
which may never arrive. i could pass out from uv light
and fumes, the bridge could lose its footing, yellowstone's
old faithful could give the whole world a supervolcano.
that' why they have fema. that's why i have a fume extractor
which i didn't turn on today, the disorientation works
it's almost quitting time and i don't remember being here.

lost

the post from dad's. jeeze i thought
blogger autosaved everything! it's that damn
satellite feed, iffy at best.

so anywaaaaay. it's ok. nothing much to say
down there. or up here. a bit of alienation
some advice to a star. i'm thirsty
and beat. i can't drive like i used to
just want to fall in bed and be done
with the day. but i stink and stank
want some crank for da yank. lol.
sometimes i spew just to spew i guess.

i haven't felt a poem since the last time
you broke my heart. there's something to be said
for detachment and shock, how breaking reverberates
across the floor and shatters other brittle matter.
nothing really gets to you. a pang with private
symbols. the first album after waters left the band
a soundtrack for how it needs to be. i remember
waving my arm egyptianly out the window
on the drive across the bay, the fall of sun
above massive clouds dwarfing the city/ a reticulated
incarnation, a pelican coast into pasts i'd rather
not relive but tried each time with you. empty seat
holds a perfect lover. an exchange inside palms, one
on the wheel, one absent, for the rest of ever.
how i have to let go of the hook, dive
for breath and light, a coldspring that quenches any goodbye.

before the drive

gotta find my nite time glasses
my funnel and dipstick
tune the phone to someone who cares
and has a car. going south, where
the ripples from the collapsing lehman brothers
won't reach for months. retired and waiting
for god to touch their cell phone number.

you say you know i don't like allusions
to the everyday. i say, yeah, this is why
you speak your way. this is my poem, go away.


that's good weed. i say this with a bit
of margarita in my veins. half a pitcher
with an angel visited by sistah's of the hood.
it was the angel's birthday and i was kinda like
all over her case with the level of mercy
she's giving out. i told her, look, it's not your
fault, you can't save the world one brat at a time.

when it becomes too onesided you have to start
stickin up for yourself cuz don't expect these babies
to do it. and won'tcha bury the guilt with your daughter's ashes
now, bow to time it's falling passage now.

i open the bottom drawer of the desk
the cat jumps inside
i pull a couple of girl scout patches
from the rubble of papers which mark my life.
'registered on time', hard to believe i ever
did anything in the required time. no one much
wanted to join me n the angel's club. just a buncha
dysfunctional anti supermoms trying to connect
our girls to the world. we failed. hers is dead
mine is in working poor maze, merilee's lives
by guilt and nancy's ran off to be a mom or a movie star
it's too early to tell which one. there were others
like kathy's daughter who got busted for pot
and nicole's , who last seen, was a cross between
drama & local slut queen, shay's overweight girl
with hormonal problems, she shaves her face
and carries mace. no one knows where
these girls been, where they goin, no one knowing.

outside the sun goes down. cricket buzz comes up.
inside the whine of guitar hero in lieu of learning
real guitars cuz cartman thinks that's not coo.


we gotta run. angel just called. she's a notary
gonna get this certificate to shoot a gun all legal like
my son's gotta go do what passes for the man thing
in my family's circle. hell, what do i know, could be good
for him. i hope my wifi card works at dads. that or
i'll be writing the book again, without recourse
to actual emails that don't need rereading.
life moves like quicksand.

cloistered mud & empathy

held it in the prism of my hands
meltint between my fingers, ginger
hair and rootbark. always going over
the pasts we never had, always going on
into the futures we won't live. this is how
a writer defers. le rouge et le noir.
scandals revisited as duochromes.
stained genes on a slide. where will
the little ball land. i asked you
how it might be ten years from now.
incredulous eyes turned tin eared.
mouth of a framer. i understand more
than i did then but meh, i still don't understand
much beyond the body and what it holds.
le noir, in its most cavernous. le rouge
de la beheaded. i mix my languages
like metaphors sprouting syntax but am only faithful
to one. i once was piece of dirt
to this i will return, pearl me not, peal me never
i want to feel like this forever.

form over substance

elana is from uzbekistan
knows the burqa's intimacy
the covert ways of taliban women
lucky she got out. i ask her
what's it like to write
in a tongue not hers.
she says in russian ideas flow
but in english it takes her time
to find the right word. she wants
to be precise. and they tell her
we don't publish much rhyme, much
maligned, this rhyme. but as hip hop?
in da bag.


you snub yr nose at the last pawn on the board

shirking responsibility what do you think to hoard?
you didn't want the road you got, a gansta sting
and a gun in your back. they led you on, they led you in
used you for their twisted sin. here's you're queen, crowned
with cum, watch the pretty vp run.


xXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

water is payin your pennce now
the song keeps tring to be born.


water is paying your penance now.
so come on down, get your head out of the clouds

and all the things they said wouldn't mean a damn
if you could stop stray arrows with lines in the sand

and a one way ticket on a one way bus
the drivers homocidal and no cares that much
if the gunner's gunnin for you
and you foud yourself alone
would a feather and a daydream help you get back home.


ficitious tuth's and overripe fruit

mark the place you lost your youth
a passing toast, to tortured host
points you towards the coast

things are rough
they're changing, love
can you feel that crawlin in your blood.

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
my typose andre my typose are gettin cold again.
put down that bottle of dom and warm them up please?
as i sit here, on the verge of 22
hr sleep deprivation, my eyes lollling/ lines of ks
stretching to infinity
you beat me to the land of nod
and i all wanted to do was go to sleep
hours ago before the flip of the coin
brought me gabriel's head and the music of uzbekistan.





now there's a keyboard in your spot, stretching
across my comfort zone, a comorant of coincidence
a clematis of courage. a lilting smoke signal
from across a

music

totally diggin jack's new tune.
think it's jack's i dunno. i always wonder
with him.

gonna save it here so i can get back to it.
he's as prolific with the fuity loops as he is
with his notez

stfftfftft


i'm thinking that broken hearts song i wrote
a couple days ago would go well with it.
as opposed to the other stupid broken hearted songs
i been writing lately. funny, my heart is achey
but it's good that i've had a lot practice at gettin over it
this summer. it was good for me to have a summer of no
dating. suz was right. just calm it down, get to
where you're more in tune with what you want.
but what DO i want? that's always been my bugger.

what really gets me about the whole reboyfriend thing
is how much i was willing to "give up" in terms
of what my vision of my future was, in order to make a life
with him. why do i always do that? have i no core?
are women just naturally this way or am i just
too chameleonic for words? it's probably that
i have no strong dreams. i have only vague
ambitions and those are easily morphed. probably
a genderless thing. i really feel like venus
has ruled my life, and since mars also is strong
in me, well, i guess love will always be flavored
with contention. but isn't that the way
to keep from stasis?

flux
–noun
1. a flowing or flow.
2. the flowing in of the tide.
3. continuous change, passage, or movement: His political views are in a state of flux.
4. Physics.
a. the rate of flow of fluid, particles, or energy.
b. a quantity expressing the strength of a field of force in a given area.
5. Chemistry, Metallurgy.
a. a substance used to refine metals by combining with impurities to form a molten mixture that can be readily removed.
b. a substance used to remove oxides from and prevent further oxidation of fused metal, as in soldering or hot-dip coating.
c. (in the refining of scrap or other metal) a salt or mixture of salts that combines with nonmetallic impurities, causing them to float or coagulate.


stable flux. what a concept. in contradiction
is the whole. yin yang. the god inside the god i am.
i might have to try a poem about that. right now i ought to shower
and get to work before my usual lateness.

fixing a hole where you got in

i'll only wear you inside
when i can't hold on to my no


traffic cones directed me into the wrong
lane. i won't be responsible
for those that followed
tho i had my come hither blinkers on

it's clear we have a difference of a definition
promise means "without fail"
yes might mean i didn't want to be bothered anymore.

so take off the pout
swallow a pick. we could play music
if you're not a dick.

burial shroud

you think yr so weak
but yr stonger than me
love always crushes me
under its feet.

you on the other hand
live by your plans
things you can hold away
from love's stong demands

a stone in the earth
a rock in the creak
funny how air and gravity meet.


dunno what lessons
i was sposed to learn
maybe "playin with fire
will sure getcha burned"


so water and air, i swallow them both
one for my brain, one for my throat.

and earth, well, just take it and cover me up
but before you do put fire in a cup
and toast to the thing that kept me with you
hope and its last great hurrah," love me, do."

prayer for fire

the water is a mirror of my sorrow
and the wind whispers change, blows
through the tall grass, speckeled with ants.
i hold my wrists to the sun's razor, ask it
to burn these wishes from my blood.

wounding tree

i touch the places that we've been
drive the streets
under the lights

that run in knives
and separate our skins

on the cell and in email
we talk and words
are all we have

between us.
each time they fail us


and tell me why when we touch
it all seems too very much
why after we sigh
you only hear me when i say
goodbye


he only hears me when i say
goodbye

broken cars,broken dreams
such are promises and schemes
reversal of a life
we could have been


i saw you in your wounding tree
shot you a line
to help you down
but it doubled back on me



and tell me why when we touch
it all seems too very much
why after we sigh
you only hear me when i say
goodbye




i thought about the last time
i ever saw his face
the way we couldn't say the words
in the right place

we cut our stardust with hot sand
blew it in each others eyes
whispered winner's losing prayers
and said farewell again


and tell me why when we touch
it all seems too very much
why after we sigh
he only hears me when i say
goodbye

release

if life's about balance
then i better hold out my arms
and begin to walk.

you say and i reply. i say and lean
into wind. why am i trying
to be your saviour?


you don't know me/want to know me
this is what my rationality says
better the body of past to curl up with
say hello the grave fast, vast.

survival, yeah. the claws scratching into the edge
of where you stood. how can you get back
to the ledge of yesterday when it crumbled
fell before you, left you hanging where you are now?


if you want to live, you're gonna have to let go of that clay
it's giving way. i've got my hand held out
saying this way, this way, hey.


i know your fear- i'll walk away.
the drop is far, the drop is dear.
it's scarey to cling to earth like this
but crazy mad to trust in bliss.


the rational makes gravity king
the mystical wants us to grow wings
both things are true, a cusp, a verge
is where the balance best occurs.

within ourselves the elements-
unless we chose to exit it
earth and fire are things of you
water, air , these things i do.

the fifth, an esoteric lie
we feel when all our things combine?
can't touch it, taste it, smell it, wear it
i feel that we can only be it.

color me blind

maybe color with me with blinders
the smell of fresh lavender
antiseptic & cool. a light color
moving in sun. plumbago
with a red tint. the way sliced cucumbers
feel with eyes closed.\

inside there is a cave
opening into bioluminescent spires. we've
grown wings that are only visible
here, now , while we're in it.


you show me your plans. i nod
daisy on a stalk. garden of weeds
and small orchids. don't pull too many
i caution. i'd miss them.

let's take the paint you bought
with your last bit of hope
and do the wall in the pink room
into something more somber and boyish.

pitch the tent on the flat place
between stalactites and stalagmites
greeting into grin. it's good to have
a roof that keeps the water out
but still lets you feel the weather in here.


or rather, out here. did you notice
how wide and vast this cave is, plato?
we might be watching shadows on the wall
i dunno, sometimes it feels like the gods
are yankin my chain. noose around my feet

i'm stumbling and scrambling to keep up.
i'm not a bettin woman, you aint' a bettin man
so something must feel like a sure thing.
let's hope it's not just the pull of the green.



i got some nervous energy to work off.
i get out my own plans and blow off the dust.
squint cuz i'm gettin older now. i don't wanna
miss the fine print, size of a boulder.
they're a bit faded, what with the fires
and the floods and the rips i made
those times i fed some to the fire
to keep it going.

but i can see what i wanted
and it looks kinda like the buckyball
on the playground by the pool.
hexagone all nexxusseed.
let's overlay yours with mine
and see what we can do with the tangle,
maybe make a prism, where being is believing.

final blow

once a cat that was living
with us got run over in the driveway
we got out of the car
it was twitching and its blood
leaked out its nostrils
like smoke. you used a shovel
to finished it off then took the same
shovel and buried it in the backyard.

once i was living in a village
on the edge of mountain. the rains
came, and the cane grew. reeds ran
alongside the riverbanks. i wove
the best baskets in the village. even the chief's
wife asked me how i made the weave
so tight, water stayed in overnight. one
day strange beings came dressed in metal
carrying knives of metal, looking
for metal. i'd heard of these beings--
stories around the fire at night
warnings to keep out of sight because
they'd enslaved far away villages. made
them wear metal around their necks
metal around their wrists and legs, cut
out their tongues
so prayers could not be spoken.
when they began to threaten us
saying where is this metal
where is this metal, i knew
they would never have enough. i threw
my baskets in the fire. soledad threw
the corn in the fire. the whole
village took the burning stalks
and set the straw around our houses
on fire. set our houses on fire.
oh this was madness, horses rising
into the air like smoke, hooves
pounding into the ground, an earthquake.
they tried to put shackles on us
but we lay in the fires and those
that didn't burn bared our necks
for the fall of the blade
with our tongues still in our heads
and spoke to the gods, hey, listen
i'll be seeing you soon. did you get
the baskets?

once i had a love that couldn't
we were always at odds, the gods
loved the sparks that fly between us
they used them to light the candles
on the tables where they feasted.
we got tired of that, he and i.
so tired i was barely able to move
and he was barely able to lift the hammer
but it came down and we managed
to be in the way of it. in sync, at last.

dawn

o
i am so smart i think
my brain encompasses the sky
the rays of sun so why is it i
just now figured out
that "i love her' means you
love her and those assurances that she
was not attractive to you were merely
smokescreen for the boudoir. not
that it's my business i wouldn't go
there with you because i'm not a hypocrite what we have
is not a relationship or rather it's quite open
because i blew that door off the hinges and it's only natural
that you explore after all you are a man
aren't you so the truth is that you love two and sex
is for youth so it's ok that the excitement
you've had with me the other
woman has been, well, exciting but stressful (to say
the least) and you can do your duty
with her that's all that's required but i'm kinda pissed
at myself because
once again
i only hear half the story the part
you chose to reveal the one
i want to write and not the one
that's playin on tv but that's because i cultivate
my blindness so well it's grown into
the fenceposts, it holds all this gravel
in place so really don't feel bad or guilty it's ok
to decide that what's best for you is peace
of mind no
contention i mean it's true you've both
been thru so many congruent experiences with your
profligate spouses who ruined
your respective lives & besides her
house not a trailer and
is in the city you love, you
even helped her pick
it out-- what colors do you think the kitchen
should be-- so there's a good head
start so what if she isn't an artist who needs
that crazy shit anyway, jesus i'm so slow now that i finally
put all the clues together so you
don't have to keep putting out hints that belie
your assurances,now that my hindsight
is as engaged as my foresight now, now that i finally
figured it out and you're all "in my face, booyah 2
can play that game" would you puleeze
just cut the charade and lose my number?
i mean, i get it, k?











in the words of the
sherels, hah, kinda
serendipitously exy, ay==
"set me free why don't ya babe
getta outta my life why don'tcha babe
you don't really want me
you just keep me hanging on"

























*&(*&










it's ok to chose the safe path .
or at least, the one that looks safe.
so many people do, and live perfectly happy
lives of quiet desperation. so quiet
they don't even notice it. and if you don't
notice it, isn't that the same as not having it?
perception is everything. welcome to the new day.

contradiction in action

there are words and there are actions.
there is diction and there is sensation.
every thought is a thwarted...every word
is an action that means nothing.

ah natalka lend me your sweet, for a moment
so i can run through bethlehem looking for a holy birth
some promise from god, fulfilled at last.

not that i'd believe in it.




the flame needs air to survive but by it s
nature, it consumes .
air doesn't need flame.
i'm misty. i need some clarity
some of this heavy water burnt off
you know, like fog is beautiful and all?
but it's kinda hard to find the way.
water and earth make mud. water earth and fire
make bricks. bricks build good houses. air
is the space wherein the houses can be. on earth.
hearth. the space of fire and air, combining safely.

there are so many rationales i could use.



on a lone winter night, there was a fire
log in your fireplace.
we talk about the age of our souls
based on astrology. you're on a cusp
in the baby stages. so young,
i sigh. i feel as if i am ready
to blow out. but my own cusp won't let me.
it's not yet time.
you light the fire.


i say, this is your element
let me show what it does.
i write a haiku and read it
to you, place it in the flames. you
kneel beside the hearth, pull your eyes
from the fire and look at me, watching
the flame. there is wonder in
your irises the color of spring wood
your irises the color of sky inside the sea
your irises with earth forming on a pond.
your irises with their plea.
please be gentle with me, i'm just a baby.
and i hold you, and promise you
nothing.

novocaine

they say fatigue can really
make make you detached and alienated.

i get the same effect from
a hammer to the head, maybe

some refried commitments.
that shit the dentists use

makes my mouth numb. i wonder how
it works on other body parts and i wonder

if it can be manufactured in the body
cuz the laughing gas tank is emp tee

and that needle looks awfully big
so you can keep it to yourself.