the blind scribe

the blind scribe writes
at the edge of the water's
fire. reflective, always
moving. a moment ago  i was
in your bed, you hand
me a moment of relief.


and  what comes to me

are stories of these lives
you think we must have had before.


then you slip off
into a place i can't follow and tho i am
greedy, i won't wake you with a stroke
of my fingers. i save them for the keyboard.

the scribe loves the clothers of witner.
she wears your shirt, tho you
would not still have it
these
ten years later. movement makes its own
sacrifices. eats in differing ways.


it is inside out, the semblance of chic.
skirt pulled way too high. black and brown.
what is it about the thought of women's clothers
clothes. that makes me



a moment ago i was beside you
skin to skin, hand in hand
 the slide  along
the small of my back, wracked
in a spasm of sensation.
you know how to channel it, and so i'm bound
in some way to the physical
some painstaking way take it
this pain, spew it out into space.

the blind scribe types blindly.


reflects on the defects of body
how you insist on the separation  of
spirit how this frail wondrous vehicle is not we.

but it is. just not
all of we.

so do not fret when it passes. give up the beast
when it's time. there will be new memories
to make. isn't that what all the religions say
all the flesh mongers all the promiss.



&*^^^













the god of poetry wants you to kneel
so you are on your belly
the mattress sits on a boxspring the box
spring on the floor. no frame.
a big blue ball holds your knees
off the ground, its rubbery surface cushoins
gravity. your own personal bubble
in the wrap .

just a place i once lived. ttathata, thou
are that.


thou art that.



see?


lol


&*^^^














between lines waiting
for the words to come, like a touch of skin against
a brush of gaaaa......









begin again....

between rushes of the pen, waiting for the words
to come, she bows her head, the arch of her back
inverted , grieving. some strange
sound begins like aluminum
hammered, but it's only an
engine's roar.




between bouts of activity, the scribe
bends  head to the mattress, brings hands
under chin fingers folded between each toher
as she was taught  in church
bows her head and pays

suddenly she's hungry
with a gnawing pain
that tobacco cannot feed. douses the cig
and grabs a bowl of flax maple crunch.


she loooks in the mirror
at the wrinkles forming despite perhpas
because of
her new regimen with susan lucci's for ever young


thee deepen. she's getting old
thinks of how she won't be reitireing
from work because...
well maybe there's disability. but srsly
she can work, just not the same hours
twenty two years have taken
a concept of spring and hammered it flat.


heh.


so she  wonders how it will be
then lets that go cuz really
how can she know?  if trends continue
she's likely to be kicked out somewhen.

but if the spirit of the company  prevails
which it proly won't cux
all the old lions are gone, or dead or both.


yeah but if, then she could channel cal
who cheerily greeted everyone until his 80th yr
when he realised that walking the plant
every morning was just too much for his old bones.

tired, he'd say, tired tired.
rigor mortis is settin in.
so he let the cancer come and the doctors
whittled him down to almost nothing
and then he died. gerry was his lunch
buddy and she's the last of the old group
though she hasn't been around for ever
like the dead pres. odd how the scribe writes of work
away from it, but when there, she writes of you.


but no, this is about retirement. how it's not
going to happen for her. she bows her head
thinks of shuffing beteen two jobs
if she's let go, the meagre income she'll
have . wants to sleep.
takes a pill. another. another.
enough and retirment is permanent.















(*&^








the stories that stick with her
contain pain and injustice.
reverberations persist in a low
frequency pass. enough time to write
how i drowned in the toilet
with daddy holding me under
because i couldn't control my bowels or
the tree house the neighbors made us
remove even tho i had lukemia and it was
the only place i could go outside
my room because having a structure
in the trees is against association rules.

plenty of reasons for pain, plenty of justification
for innoculating with me syphillus in the guatemalan
jungles, plenty of excuses for closing the window
on all my screams, plenty of guns for the rapings.


the scribe wishes the stories she was given
were lighter but clouds can't rain without dirt.












&*&*&





cup of coffee, selah
drag of weed, selah
puff of tobacco, selah

kafir and hummus were my breakfast
before the embargo. now we dine
on hard pita and rancid olive oil
until the caravans can thread thru the tunnels
carved in the bedrock. we have to dig deep
there are listeners, prison guards, at the border.
they keep us in, and the rest of the world out.
it's a big oceanic border, and you'd think
a few small vessels could sneak by
but the guards are vigilant. they want us
notted. but we are still the knot
that binds hatred to this land. us and them.
and after all, we're only ordinary men.
would you have us become daily saints
with no promise from the other side?
what do you think we are, slaves?
christians? we've slapped each other's cheeks
for so long we have none to turn.
let's just do this thing so one of us prevails
and the other dissapears.