and i don't know how the labels work

every now and then rain
bundles on windows, pillows
across my eyes and the pond
invades. there are no stories here
just dull clouds and backlit droplets.
where is world more beautiful
than in the contemplation of sleep
lack of pain, sufficiency.

i wanted to write a poem
that would tell you the secret
you've been hiding from yourself
but you say you know it.

you ask me questions and supply
the answers but i am not so predictable
as the mass of an element. chemistry
while the mechanism of reality
lends itself for a fortnight to magic.
the audience can't tell the difference.

there is about you no sense of the past
where your scars were formed. you arise
singular, unique in this time frame, carrying
no burdens from nine other lives. yet
you aren't a cat and this is no riddle.

when you delve deep enough you see them
through the eyes of a dog,  lost before
you knew what would happen. aleutian puppy blue.

bear with me, i can feel something trying to speak.
it's your birthday so i wanted to give you something
from those times. i'm almost sure alchemy played a part.


imagine a margin as engine of genius/ fish scales
and lamellae form armor and you swim the interstice.

the wind does this when you die, for we are made of wind
and become clouds when we die.this came from a ram's
bleat as the knife descended

you have been praying for three days, calling
for a god to exist. the rosary tangles in your fingers
bones seeking a cape but you skipped catechism

the joyous is the lake, a kind of concubine, twinned
fevers for the youngest but deepest.

the word may come, may give the eye
but horus lays sleeping these many years
afloat on a river you named after him.

with their voices they call me, risen
above the grind of engines and hum of water
they hunt in a pride, take down the carrion

 a sharp tooth.  the hall consisted of two snow huts
connected to the outside. there were recognisable roles
to play and we took to them like royalty.

the burden of the sea's desert, a whirlwind in its mouth.
if only you could have decided then what it was all for
the next time would not have been so hard.

























()())()()


but you rally don't want to know about that.
so i basically have no insight there.
and the way your birth went, we were all surprised
to see you walking. we just didn't know.

my hair knots again. it's making a celtic rune
for me to turn into a bracelet. we bind
through moonstone and keratin.

i could tell you of the loss of nice
how you once were but now are burdeningyou sepeak
of neediness as if it were foreign to you
yet i seldom get time to write.
what's up with that/ o yes
i forget to honor how we love.
the pain that melts at a touch.
the way we avoid each other's bad moods.

maybe seven years will not turn us into new people after all.
or maybe the new people will still love eachotheras now
pain makes us stupid. this is not the poem i wanted to write.
























()_)(((


soft  light seeps around
 edges of  thick blinds
watery. cloistered, we wait
  for  morning.
i gulp the air between us
feed it back to you. a flame
 ignites and we are golden
 carp breaking
 the surface of the sun.

birthday tarot

superstitiously i want the tarot
to tell me more than i think i know.

i smoke inside, turn the phone off
but leave the windows open.
open my mind try to link
consciously with that which is un

she gives me page of swords
a little joke about minds and cutting
to the root of things. i love a scientist
the question was he and i -future?
not flashy like a king we're fine with things
running better, faster, greener
but he does like his H-score.

we're crossed by ten swords
doubt to the second power
i think that's accurate but when
i first saw their cruel blades
i knew betrayal was in the air.
self sabotage is the worst.

my subconscious is full of defeated
victories. i hope his is not but it must
have a hole inside. i can't pretend
this is his story. it's hers. if i read this
uninverted, as the guide tells me to
it means i subconsciously expect victory.
but it's inverted. i like the guide's interpretation
of inversion as something yet to be realised
or something at the end of its influence.
so let me read this positively, that victory
can still be achieved. if victory is what it means.
its wands instead of swords, some comfort, moving
out of the steely mind into the organic heartwood.
and yes it signifies triumph, acclaim. well umm
maybe it's really past time for that but it could
come again, the tree's still alive.
let's move to the conscious.

another inversion, the fool.
a card i always crave because it means
the game's still afoot. and i can
jump in tho the invert may mean
i am too tired to play this anymore.
lol.

next up : the past.
it influences the now so much
it's what you've built
a sum of the interpretations of
 your experiences
that makes you feel the world
the way you do. mine, today
inverted again, is the chariot.
willpower. desire and how it molds
action. more lately,  i have tried to take
a zen way, resistence is futile let
the gods'will rule   i recognise willpower
and the disparate kinds of victories it births.
i've played that game but
 i am weary
that's what the inverstion says.
it says that all is in the past so this lassitude
should you continue, can rule
but now let's look at the future


which is magic. woah.
this position is about the strong
possibilities of the future.
approaching influences
traits to embrace
the card of magic and creativity
so the fool must be joining up
and that makes me smile.


next up, the male distaff.
position seven represents the querent
which is me
and another inversion
the tower.
i have to laugh. i chose these cards
so carefully, doubted my feels
the way the strings vibrated
and shivered a choice.
i am the tower. whether waning
or waxing in influence well
let's see what the guide says
the tower says there will be aprubt
appropriate change. let's see what else
it says on inversion.feel the card. it's about
the energy level. so a reversed tower just means
i have little energy for change.



i looked at the rest of them to finish reading.
 iwanted to know what they all said.

so here is the p oem.



we have so much to offer, so much to tell
but we could bed knives if we wanted.
i'm thinking victories are past, the body winds
down, loses grip on the reigns. the fool
wanders into a rest stop, wonders

how to go on. a little bird, red it was, tells
me how, so i put her song in
 my pocket and stride on.

i have little desire to change the wind
and stars seemed satisfied with the pictures
they make. people, too, have their reasons.
it's about the work i put into
sowing the fruit  
my will, put to magical uses
should the ground hold me up..

donneghy donnehey allis framen frip

we sat alone in our little two meme
watching the presidential procedures and alliterations
with new the new kids and those with five year
marks. the twinning prose felt like tinted tissue
but unlike random snow flowers, did little
to brighten an otherwise dulling evening. time to
take it up the stairs, leave your marks on fading
glorious colors. this is the banner day,step up!

on the subject of dress, i always go overboard
glitzy pink above a black silhouette, nipples stitched in.
the legs say it all. let's dance
. ok, that's enough. why i parade
in costume
once a year is a mystery to everyone.
 i've had kids
i must be fuckable. i don't
even want you to want me. i
want to want to want me.
 take a pic. twitter it.

on her birthday eve lynze talks to god

so, sup?
have you lstened to the flapping morse
i sent in the flapping blinds.

well i tried but when i listen
you cease to speak.

stop talking-you mean?
i think you've been living the mind
too much it's why ywe are not connected
you forgot about the tactile communication
we go through. typing a beat you can read .

yes but please keep blowing. it's a lovely day.
the trees are trees the palm is grass, my brazilian pepper
is invasive but so cute with it's green turning red fruit.
overnight. one fall leaf on the sapling lili and i found
at the playground, under the plastic slide just
forcing its way out of the soft sand there.
 it is not even one and taller now
than her. it's looking for its forever home but i can't yet
bring myself to place her in this rented land.
though i myself may die here.
there must be better places to grow.



(*



what do you hope to accomplish? what do you want your reader
to take home from this experience of ingesting words not theirs
but thoughts that might be?

to be clear yet fuzzy, an evocative experience since smell
is absent perhaps a perfume from an equivalent time.
to be a foreshortened version of footnoted text.

to write, in short, like nabakov- a  literarty
love of the moment
because he sees  trees and shadows
makes them characters in his work.
albeit,passive ones.
the winds arms unloosed on the linden trees
climb and shake  in autumn dance
leaves fall glittering red, golden-yellow
 sun drops skitter  across the road
chasing each other. lili squeals, retreats
as a flock rises in the wind advancing
then just as suddenly, stops. she stops.
creeps forward a bit and they blast away
driven by a gust. she chases and the dance is on.






i wonder if i ever saw leaves that way?
shadow comes in for a hug. she doesn't like
that the windows are open . she can hear
the metal spoonish clank of the chimes sister
bought, morse code vertical blinds, palm rush,
web book cooler fan death rattle.

really, why not take it out and blow it off.
clean the years of dust and vacuum packed nicotine.

sigh. pretty sure i couldn't get it back together.
now really it's just too much like work. i should prolly
go plant that fern or move it instead. ya know? it's
a glorious day.

but listen. you can do that after. remember why we're here?


oh yeah, i feel a little dead in side with all this work and worry stuff.
i don't have space to write. or edit or be in a community.






















woah, that was quite the gap.

yeah, i had things to do. plus i don't like to think about why
i don't make that time. i vowed i would honor the love
more than the writing. to do that, i have to be there for the love.
the irony exists in that he loves poetry, and likes my poetry.
sometimes loves it, more when it contains him. which is odd.
tell me, does that mean i can/should write him into my poems?
he admits to vanity. but a mirror may not be as satisfying
a reflection as he wishes. what would ms atwood do?
it is a struggle  i wish he would schedule grading time
so i could use it write. he did this morning, but i reddited.
i'm too accustomed to his interruptions to even want to write
when he's in the room. and now look, i'm babbling.
perhaps you have something useful to say?


no nothing i just wanted to tell you i love you
that's what the blinds are singing, i sent this wind
for you, to blow out the cobwebs binding your mind.
i know you're weary. but look at this

is this all i get though? like three days out of sixty?


oh my dear, no. you have them in fits and spurts. you have them
before and after work, to sit and meditate before you work again.
otherwise i fear we would all just sit and mummify, navel gazing.
it is a lovely spiral, isn't it? paint it for me love, in tomes of regret
if you must be i mess with your lyze, ms lynze. i don 't care
if i ever go there again or submit or try to be involved i'm so fucking
tired all the time i feel irrelevant, because my children think i am.
and this is what the world feels like falling behind, dripped
into the peapod molecule by molecule, imbrication inheritance
bobbing on a breeze.














****~~~~~~~******





how did you put up with me natalka? you were always
so much more talented and all around accomplished.
thanks for thinking of me while we did that .




















***9999(((

it's really kind of groovy in my living room.
there's spaces to be that no one else has to invade
and places for tete a tete or assignation plus it doubles
as a stage when we move the drums out and plug in
the key board. just come on over here, the night
makes me afraid to go out.


really, it's just my body. or was it my spirit.
i think i lost the voices in my head too soon. i could
do a pitter patter to the bank or make headroom
for a flight of cockatiels (the one across the way
says hi). the printed gold threaded india inspired cutrtain
from ms finch billows full of travel and come hither
what's holding you back girl, why did you buy a new car
so close to retirement? don't they know i have to work
fifteen more years for early retirement?  even early ?
so yeah. ummmm. i need a decent car man. i couldn't
get out of that other one anymore. zero interest for seven years.
they took a grand less than my bank wanted. ithink i shoulda
gone thru them i could pay it off early with no penalties
and save some interest. too late. i did the numbers wrong.
i didn't figure i could double payment to the true.

what more did you want to hear , father.
these are sins i swear it. i laughed at the kid
who twirled too much and fell over.
 the sapling
bobs it trunk in the wind looking like you, waving
for me to hurry up, hurry up, don't be late!
the strawberrys remain stock though ants c
  nest in their roots. they need sand. more sand.
hunger attacks at the  most importune times
and worse is when there is something you can
do about it.












~~~~~







i got nothing to eat
but i will
i got your big secret
shall i tell?
















()****


i think, and honestly i do think this,
i don't want to crit that man's poem.
cuz it's not one. sigh. ok , into the fray i go.
because this has run its course. for today.

revolting slave

there's a certain brainwave
established when the slave mode
takes hold. a slow drowning or heated
pot  boils /or not at all. unused kinetics
scramble for the doorway just in time you safely
kick them back inside.
it's fun to go exploring but tomorrow
you'll regret it in decreased production
and slow moving returns. you hope the boss
doesn't notice. time used to dribble, the second
hand's tortuous slow march held you from
the life you thought you led, outside flourescent haze
but like the equinox when  poles switch, eddies
whirl unpredictably around you, north and south
curl in on each other, puppies asleep. the worms move
in different directions -what was scrambled
cannot be re-egged. the energy it takes to work
when work is no longer completely neccesary
your children, my children are grown. why do i work
this way? i must, in some perverted way, love it.
the way i tick  minutes in cut legs and tweezer pull,
hand pumping the vacuum. fourteen times fourteen
is a gross. or more if i'm wrong. no wonder my shoulder
feels like it's on fire and my neck wants to tumble
to the side with the cracking sound of a tree dislodged
from a cliffiside. oh my wreckless youth, why did i lock you away
for a dollar and a half? i can no longer fulfill half
the anthems i sang in my teens. if you had a gun, i'd say
shoot me before i get here, but
too late, too late.leave me now
i'm tryin to sleep . gotta go
in the monring
again.

curious

tangled silences line my face
reasons why we stopped talking are
numerous as friendships. broken
lines, traffic lanes,  jammed bridges
between us. it's like what we had
was on a mail truck  hit by a water spout
going over that bridge you wouldn't cross
because so many people died there
one time before you were born.
it's not even the same bridge.
there was a delivery for you
on that torn open truck
but now it's fish food or trash
 poetry from a polka dot dress.
either time is moving   faster or this
dizzyness is a virus like the black vampire cat
 lurking in my driver's side mirror. it is  close
 to el dia de las muertes; my daughter is a witch and i
 see portents
in birds. turning left near the alcohol
 warehouse a giant
 truck doesn't see
 my a bright red car. a cardinal
 flew down the last stretch of road
 before i pull into my eight hours.
balance is tricky thing. it's so easy to topple
over, land on all fours, embrace the animal-
eat shit sleep fuck kill and die. basic genetic code
attached to some pretty fine curlicues of density
like a thrillion galaxies, waiting to be known,.

my inherited friend

before my friend passed away i was at her house
when she got a call from annie may. annie needed
someone to take her to the airport so she could
fly to baton rouge and visit her boyfriend. since
my friend was bedridden she aked me
help out.  which is how i found myself on the east
side loading an eighty seven year old
five foot nine black woman and her wheelchair
into my mini van. since my friend's death,
annie mae turns to me for help.
i don't mind. she's old, she needs the help.
tonight, annie mae calls me with news she says
well i was walkin home from church
an i stopped by the mailbox an while i was there
checkin my mail and lookin at the coupons
this woman i ain't ever seen before starts
askin questions bout my life so i tell her back off
woman don't be gettin in  my bidness! she give me
the eye, i seen where she went, she on my left
when i walkin out the breezeway but when i come
in she's on the right. so i get to my place,put
down the mail and i'm just makin some sweet tea
when i look down and lynze, there
was a snake in my house. it was the size of hot dog
down there on the floor it
crawled in
under that hole i been on the super about so i
looked around for something to shoo it away or
to be honest kill it with you know
sometimes a snake'll get into
your house once , then it thinks it's got a home
no sir! not in my house so i called  the super
an said you know i been tellin you bout that hole
nigh on two months an now there's a SNAKE
in my house so you know i
was gettin mighty upset with that snake so
i hollared just tell me what you want me to do lord!
an that snake just turned around an crawled
out the way the way it come it but
the super was on his way, with a boy an they
moved the furniture around lookin for it
though i done tole them that snake
went out the same way it came in, pointin
at the hole. that boy hung his head
and left but he came back
with a new door an they fixed
the patio so's that snake got no way to crawl
back in. now jenni, i tell you the
 lord showed me my enemy that day she lives
on the same floor as me, i walk out past her
on the left when i'm goin out but when i come in
she's on the right. she got no reason
to talk to me but she say she gonna call the cops
on me, i'm crazy there weren't no snake
an i say mebbe not, but i got me a new door anyway.