sunset

The word returned
like light on the sidewalk
under the thick soles
like the stubbly stucco
the smooth heft of aloe
under my finger tips
like incense blown
across my pores

and the trees rose
steady and licked
the sky gently,
and the sky burnt
down to embers
behind the rustling,
slowly

I walked
and carried the glow
on the back of my hand

Foreigner

Did you think you could touch me--
whose palm are you pressing?
Whose shoulders bent,
whose raw-boned fingers,
whose lined forearms?
Who thought you could hold me--
who do your eyes encircle,
whose broad cheekbones?
Whose heavy walk,
whose mouth twisting,
whose square chin?

I tell you this nose
is only the snubbed barrier between us.
That I laugh
like scrawls on paper,
snorting keystrokes--
that I could meet you
in the hollow under my earlobe
or in the corner of my eye--
that I stride my face in unknown country
and rub my neck with foreign hands.
I was nearly there
when my eyes narrowed--
that I was only ever held
by the circle of my sockets
embraced
in their arching bone.

12:32 (Swork II)

12:32

the blinds silhouette
and the ornaments hanging darkly
the cars slowly under
the tree fountaining, in the divider
the live flame and the sparks falling
against the curb, unconsumed
live ash on the still pavement
going down to dust
into dirt and disobedience
soil unsown
along the hardness,
the shallows gaping,
the patient defiance
of possibility,
warmly extended

irrelevant (I)

I'm sorry... but...

... go here.

neat-o.

hill-poem

the blue-screen sky
indigo lit, and flashing stars
like street-light on shades

the hills are happy ghosts
whirling high into the air
trailing long fingers of fog

rising immense,
deep, in the drifting haze
sparks twirl
across the slopes
laughter,

the dark country
beyond distance
has thrown its head back
joyfully, to the sky

wingbeats

Won't you take me, sparrow
--just a piece
over the tree-crests
to the foot of the clouds
into the shifting ravines
and ridges above the tile

Go!-- too small,
for the air to notice

wingbeats
less than a leaf waving

go.
the woven branches
you untangle
the buildings rise
hang heavy
below

and you softly flicker
above them

Carry this- take it,
with you up
flitting, go lightly
you, and the piece
that you could carry
slip quietly
across the earth
uncaught

plain-sight

a few stars in the window
my face on the glass, in outline

and nobody knows, but--
the quiet streets are trenches
depth immeasurable,
and the sidewalks the
spreading cracks

and nobody knows, and--
we could hide among the driveways
walk unseen under the palm trees

in plain sight, and in the day light
and there is no one watching

who knows what to watch for

and the last sparks have gone,
have flown-- have fallen,
cold on the sand,
so goes confusion,
the sharp prick of anything
below the stars

we could walk tall, straight
and standing, we could walk
unnoticed, unregarded
there is no one looking
who knows what to look for

we could walk,
unweighed by outlines
in the lee of their reflections
who are caught in their own constellations
walk easy in the shadow
that casts up their eyes as shadow

tango

... in which we stalk (more) people at the coffee-shop.

---

I know you aren't
looking back,
and I am not looking at you--

My eyes on you, and yours
after I--
have looked,

tango-glance,
eye-tango.

But what else is there?--
in a room gaze-crowded,
I step deftly
over the sight-lines

to the wall, and to your face
glancing
and from the cup
to your lips

fled

meet your gaze
with the back of mine

dip your eyes--
with my forehead

... (III)

Will you stay? please stay with me
all you bone-white hours
You cool-blue shadows--
fall always across my shoulders?
You smoke-sweet air
and cloudy water,
will you be in my bones and blood,
through the passing of the cells?

You tall snaking palms,
you hazy hillsides,
still frame my vision?
—cement, dusty and cracked,
walk with me, when I go?

—will you? you--glow against my eyelids?
leave my blood burnt
still wrap the night around me,
behind you

--when I go?

Hurricane-- I

If I was blown
spun-out
and stranded,

and so far from the words I've spoken,
if I stood blocking my own eyes,
talked myself a circle,
if I spun the world and fled
into motion--

--who is watching?

the un-scattered sun,
leaves not snapping,
and the gull-turn slow,

where the sky fell in the water,
and the waves swoll to heaven
and crashed across the sky

I, skimming
the horizon faster
than it was
than me
we crossed, and me
and myself
                 were,

flashing, I--
across the storm-bed
and I could not,
could not
see the shore behind me.

de profundis

--how much darker?--
the place which isn't anywhere,
threading the hallways,
between the houses, on wires--
cast up, like a hand,
to the sky--

the space unbound, unwoven
how much deeper?--
a scream might sink forever,
in the ever-changing chasms--
race forward-- ever-falling,
un-echoing.

it is dark beyond the windows--
I see only my reflection.
--the thick stucco--
but the walls within it,
beyond it-- much thicker, much closer
up against my throat

--this sliver,
to press lips against it,
slit. From the soft dark,
my throat--
a brush of air--
and rush forth,
into the greater darkness

shadows

In Venice-- I was a boy
was a bird
was a ghost
-- wandering the not-streets,
chasing the own
corridors of my mind.

In Los Angeles-- I was a girl
was a peddler
a traveler, the Jew
was a snail
--pressed under myself
my home, everything else
flat against the sidewalk.

In Beijing-- was nothing
a map, a mural
a notion
the doves who weren't there
--flew high,
the water in the canals rose
after them into the smog.

--was everything, there,
in the streams, the trees
filled the hills like light--
illuminated myself.
I was space not surface
--what did my hands do?,
when I was there,
--there was no shadow-play,
in that old place,
I can't name it.

Santa Ana

... so we've got a wind-advisory, then. Makes me wonder, a little, exactly what we should be doing to, uh, "secure ourselves"... from the wind...?

---

snaking,
the twigs whipping
the rustling howl,
the trunks waver
passes
the world is blowing.

rushing,
the sloping rooftop
the empty sidewalk
--slams it.
the window cracks
against the frame,

the world is blown

strays
through the screen
hair, papers ruffled
chill, to rest
on the carpet.

the howled passing

rustles

September 31st

A velvet sky,
and hanging lights, gold
swinging in the empty air
and soft air, with the streetlight cupped
washing down—heat the shadows
the soft burr in me, on me
arms and lungs, rubbing together
up against the night

Oh God...

... that sucked. That sucked beyond what I had previously thought were the more or less extant borders of besucked-ness. Isn't Fate a good parent-- to keep us on our toes, lest we become relaxed and lazy...

... ten days in Italy, and I wrote five lines, and actually that was a good thing-- because a decrease in poetic output is actually a sign of improved mental health for me. Well. And isn't being pleasantly amused just bad practice?

No worries though. That's been taken care of. Nice resounding shove back into all the stress and mess and nonsense. I suppose that's better, isn't it? More interesting? Ah. But, God... well... I don't know...

... but I do know that this is a new poem and that I'm strapped for titles.

---

Somebody knew once—
and all knowledge is forgotten
and all knowledge is lost
-- between one breath and the next.
and we are lost between each heartbeat
and the next. and we are lost
between this footstep and the next
and we are swimmers in our own tides
and against them.
Still—someone knew once, and I
, I remember,
I remember.

and all knowledge is saved,
all knowledge is remembered,
and nothing ever dies, but it lives
on, even in the whistle of the axe,
even in the mumbling of the survivor
and in its numb walking ghost, soundless.
and I,
remember. I remember.
and in the humming of the executioner.

and all things are waiting, are whispering
and all things are walking with you
through the darkness, and whispering
your name, whispering, “Say it! my name
Name me, say my name!” “A name, say it—
my name!” and I,
remember, I remember a name
and I name it, and I say a name

and once someone knew,
and someone named, once,
and all knowledge is dead
and is dying, and we are dying
and I said it. I said it—
the name I remembered,
I said and I remembered,
and I said it,
the name--

the imp of the perverse...

I am having a moment.

In less than twenty-four hours, I board a plane for Venice-- and I'll be gone for 10 days.

... and so, of course, as I was wandering around in the pre-dawn this morning... I started to feel... odd. Of course I'm excited and of course it's going to be wonderful, but you don't really appreciate how much you love your home until you're about to leave it.

The days are just starting to cool off a bit, and we've had some wonderful salty breeze coming in from the ocean. Everything's taking on that "roasted" scent, which means fall in Southern California. The very strange, rather wonderful wild blackberries that grow along the road that traces the ridge are finally black enough to eat-- after one wipes off the various carcinogenic pesticides and smog compounds. And the summer construction workers are *finally* packing their shit up-- which means that I (selfish me) can now walk along the roadside and not have to worry about squashed by a cement truck. Prius, yes. Cement truck, no.

... and oddly enough, I always associate this season with "glow". It's something about the light-- maybe it's the angle of the sun?-- that changes from summer to fall. The mountains were all misted this morning (LA is also the "Land of Smoke"... if you're more into the Native thing), off in the distance. And yesterday, I was walking and staring at the trees, and leaves were green and alight.

When I get back-- there'll be a spark in the air. I think that the hills around here must burn off all the heat that they accumulate during the summer in the early fall. Culminates at the end of October-- who believes in ghosts?-- but there's always the feeling of things crackling towards the end of that month-- at least for me. Fall's not harvest time so far south, so going into winter means something different than it does in other places. A time for releasing energy rather than gathering bounty. Change-time.

... well. That's all well and good. I like Fall. But now-- because my disposition is not a cheerful one-- I'm also thinking about how... temporary... things are right now. Rented room, applications to fill out-- don't know what I'll be doing 12 months from now, but I don't think it'll be here. Not in this section of the valley, at least... which I have had the immeasurably poor taste to fall in love with. At the very least, I'll have to go towards the center-- maybe to Atwater Village... please God not the West Side. And if I am both very lucky and very unlucky-- not in the States at all.

It's too bad the world's so big-- because then you get caught... you want to see every corner of it, and also to never leave your home. Something to be said for the world being one town, and then several more down the road a little bit-- then you can do both. I suppose it's easier to think that way, though, when one's "little home town" is a sprawling city of 10 million people, hm?

It is either endearing or infuriating that I can be thinking this way before a long vacation-- but that's just how I am. I need to figure out how I can be like Kant-- and never move out of this neighborhood, and take a walk the same every morning, the same route with such regularity that people can set their watches by it-- and still drag the world around on a string despite such strangeness.

... it starts, perhaps, by obtaining a UCLA library card... if the library will not come to Eagle Rock, I will go to Westwood and bring it back in a duffel. Oh well. Maybe all that petrified creativity from the Rennaisance will leak out of the stone and into my head, and I'll figure out a better solution.

magma

... written awhile back.

---

Calcium liquifies at 839.2 degress Celsius--
melted bone, therefore, is very hot.
If you kiss me--
should I cover the trees,
make a shard-forest of crystals?
-- they shine harder than leaves.

the garden in the vine...

In the garden--
the vine rises twining
it rises out
and into spirals
and rises growing down.
It throws out a blossom
an off-handed peal
and between the shrinking petals,
the fruit grows taut
-- it falls,
who knows what happens to it?
--in the garden in the vine
the streams flow steady
and the leaves rustle--
the vine rises out,
and rises in spirals
and rises growing down.

...

Even breathing, across the carpet
turned the silence quiet,
the night's thick fabric
into an old sheet,
worn and familiar
to curl against.

Sensible of the Environment.

... and one more. Stressed-out and whimsical.

Sensible of the Environment

On the dark road home, tonight,
I hold the pen tightly.
When listening to crickets in Los Angeles,
one must sometimes aim for the hollow
of his throat.

another "dusk" poem.

Oh well, Perry-- very creative tonight, hm? You must have something due.

---

The rising pines
rest their furry limbs
against the wooden phone pole.

The star-leafed oaks
spread dark and gentle, over the power-lines
against the streaky sky.

The sidewalk a trail
with the deeper softness of well-packed dirt
and the asphalt a little damp and ready,
an empty streambed, waiting--

the crickets click everywhere

The woman, dwarfed, watering the grass
brightness arches from the nozzle
the birds chirp out of tune
the earth rolls
the sky is still and the air rests lightly

All-- is large tonight
and close.

... written at Senor Fish

The beauty of this situation-- as opposed to something more formal-- being that you can write about anything, really. Including moments of pure animal satisfaction which the New Yorker, for example, could give less than half a shit about :)...

... written at Senor Fish:

---

They were busy--
and I ran out of articles,
long before the food came.
So, I sat, stuck
under the tree in the courtyard
watching the sun soften
through pale green leaves,
snatches of sky, unlit lanterns
shadows melting into cement,
and when the tacos came
the tortillas were warm.

Dusk

Terror-- quiet!
Into the glistening stream
rushing from the city--
I am going to cast you.
-- to dodge for yourself, the headlights!
I'll sling you onto
the hard crescent moon--
across a shard of light.
As the stars rise--
go into the hills then!
-- fend, from yourself, the pastel glow
in the grass, the gathering flame-- if you can!
Come back-- if you want to,
the lilies are tall and straight
against the cooling sky--
and their petals burn
torch-white.

Arachne...

Arachne

Outwove you,
just like I said I would.
What can you say-- to me,
hey! goddess--
I kept my word.
Are you angry?
--grow a mouth then,
if you want to shout.
You stand straight with wrath--
you stand before me.
Breast-to-breast,
and your hands rise--
your wrists warp,
your fingers weft--
and don't you see I made them too!
carded them out from you
and pulled them taut
between us?

Oh what punishment, this?
--once I was a weaver,
my hands were quick.
My whole body is hands, now--
now I am a dancer,
weaving at the center-- sure, steady
and still quicker than you!

Only a god
would call that punishment.

memento.

Memento

The sword--
hangs,
by the table, over the mantle,
was given to him,
--surrendered--
not stolen, perhaps, as others.
The case is slick
with dusty oil
from years of dinner
based on a bacon substrate.
My mother bumped it, maybe
when she was cleaning out the apartment
while they were in the hospital.
--is sheathed--
--holds its edge.

Written at Swork...

... for lack of a better title. (I couldn't find one that didn't sound prententious and tired. One or the other-- that's fine-- but not both.)

---

A fleet
shimmer,
where was it?--
the sharp line
on the peaks,
in the dry fronds
dropping over
cracked asphalt?
the dust and flowers, roasted
in the air, and warm
pavement
against my palms?
--deeper?
The muscles
pulled straight
across my shoulders,
my legs-- brown and,
steady on the road
that skirts the canyon,
the slip, crunch-- gravel?
All these--
none of them.
Beside the fountain--
sheeting in the lamplight,
on rumpled sheets--
crickets and sprinklers,
and in the sunlight, frozen--
pebble in the shoe,
-- in all these places,
what I had lost?--
it came home in me.

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Dashanzi is an artist's colony in Beijing, where they make contemporary art worth noticing.

---

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Two factories, once built missiles--
the one on the water,
bay licking the pylons--
the one between beltways
weeds still in a windy city.

The artists came, subdivided
hung things from exposed beams
framed them under vaulted ceilings,
covered the cement with color,
and smashed the walls to windows

I went with my mother
to shop-- we bought pottery
and with my father--
we bought my mother the portrait
of a small, shaggy dog--
done in woodcut--
under a table like in Paris.

I went in a group
to see-- under supervision--
walls covered and screaming,
and the man asked,
"What do you think of Mao?"
and we could not tell him,
like he wanted,
that it went beyond 30%,
-- we didn't know.

I saw there--
two fish, in a tube
face-to-face, in a clear sky
and thought it made a good torch
for shadowing smooth expressions
and peering into high windows--
glowing embers, I went home
and found, I was covered
inside, and screaming.

Alone, now--
I say, it went beyond 30%
went beyond percent at all,
outpaced Mao,
the beams, the ceilings
could not be reclaimed
held under paint and light--
came here with the tides,
and followed me beyond them,
to the dry hills and flood-plains.

The man we trapped
slammed against our darkness--
he holds me, still--
made of me a room.

A Rose.

A Rose

Against the brisk, sharp-toothed tangles
Knobbed but elegant, straining gracefully
upward-- the fat and languid petals
unrolling, each arching base
and trailing fringe--
obscenity,
the dark, scented center--
depravity and
the rich tea,
distilled soil and rain
that curled up in my nostrils, resting--
wooed me for the world--
beyond all blasphemy.

--my, knobbed and elegant,
strong, tapered fingers-- between them
thick yellow muck, only a little
more when I clench, rubbing--
I spread them and a crumpled thing falls.

In its pulpy creases, the delicate folds
and fringes-- are one
and liquid, curled on the sidewalk
-- there is no hatred.

Hey!...

well... now.

Have a look at this! A damn good online literary mag... www.archipelago.org...

... and this post especially... http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/chernyi.htm .

Translations of a turn of the (last) century Russian poet-- Sasha Chernyi, by Kevin Kinsella.

... I love Russian poetry. It's gritty and bitter and hilarious and grand. Which, I've heard from people who think they know, is a bit how Russians are anyway. Well... my great-grandfather was Russian-- he was a contractor who built skyscrapers after the First World War-- and he used get up early so that he could ride to the top of whatever project he was working on and dance folk-dances on the exposed beams, hundreds of feet over the city.

... so, yeah, maybe they're right. But don't take my word for it, and head on over to see for yourself. As a sidenote-- right now I'm reading a collection of poems by Soviet dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the metaphysical implications informing the construction of an exceptionally large hydroelectric power station in Siberia.

... it's really, actually pretty good.

Fledged.

Ha. Finally thought of something new... thank God.

---

Fledged

Eyes cast down
running harsh on the gravel
pacing weary the sidewalk
gaze crawling just ahead of the feet
over broken pavement, into the roots
climbing the bark's sharp chasms
to lie, heaving, over the branches
then--
reaches beyond the last handhold, up.
Pulls itself up on itself, reaches
sees in the clouds a handle
gathers itself, reaches
and jumps-- hands out, grasping
arms out reaching, treading sunlight
falling,
on the asphalt,
unclimbing,
cast down onto the sky.

poetry.

ah... I just found this in one dusty corner of my hard drive...

---

Not the way
just one way
of saying what cannot be said
what swallows the words and leaps between them
chasing a moth over quicksand
starlight through clouds and sheeting water
myself beyond the glint in your pupils
and in the lee of the seconds

grapes.

grapes-- filmed and dusty,
heavy. I picked one, again--
still sour.

... (II)

Two thumbnails to clear the brain-space. Not stunning... possibly necessary.

....

The hours that aren't--
strung too-well together
but hang, low and grey
under my brow-- dull.
The days that end and start,
not particularly clearly
the shadows syncopated
on the changing tempo--
I must be rushing in a circle.
The world spins--
I see the same things,
blurred.

---

Something,
in my skull, stretching
pushing hard against the bone.
Another thing, in a full place
can only exist heavily--
is now waking from the pressure.

cavalcade.

cavalcade.

scatter! fragments—
a clatter and sparkle,
ashes—rise!
up from stamping feet.

oh, sun—set!
yes and, sun!—rise.

if the sun rides the moon’s face
and makes backdrop of the darkness

–the shadow uncurls, slowly
and saunters under the trees, untroubled—

shouldn’t we dance—
tell me!—shouldn’t we saunter?

aren’t your teeth the moon of your smile?
—the dark center of your eyes—
a cool and restful place? away from the heat!

what are we?— ruins and sunrise.
what are we?—dusk and cathedrals rising.

what are we! the joyful mourners
of the thing that didn't die.

Fluid Dynamics

Fluid Dynamics

We come to most people an echo
free-falling
until we collide with the hard places
in them, and bounce back--

but I went through you like water
rushed over your precipices
and pooled in your hollows--

was nothing but flowing.
Now I've run your course,
I find you in my currents,

but I wish
that I could hear you
in the shape of my voice
ringing over the peaks.

...

I could tell one story,
forever. Hold it up
in my head, and
chase the sparks
across the hours--

eventually,
as much world
as I'm given
would twine
its facets.

Mountain Climbing in Beijing

Mountain Climbing in Beijing

No mountains to climb, here.
Pass over the sidewalk,
heart leaping on every swell
in the pavement.

Sometimes- a break in the buildings
or a cut-- the snaking canal,
exposes the edges
of the crowd.

On the pedals of his bike
he rises, cresting
the sea of heads--
a sudden hillside, but already
fallen to pumping knees and rubble.

In the middle of Red Square
too much pavement to fill
even with my gaze.

But, up on the bridge-- I'm tired,
not used to climbing, anymore
I lean against the railing.

The sun dissolves into smoke
settles, red, across everything-- the avenue
that runs straight into the plains
which spread, flat, to the horizon
and circle the city.

Due west, a long smudge
peaking heavy against the haze
dark and definite, if far
not out of the eye's reach--
not too far to rest your gaze on,
strong enough to push up the sky.

a beautiful corpse...

which is to say-- a little bit of sound and fury, signifying nothing-- except, perhaps that it is very, *very* hot...

... I had an instructor once refer to this sort of poem as "a beautiful corpse"-- a pretty thing, without much life in it. And it's how I always think when I'm writing without a specific direction in mind. But sometimes you have to write a poem to figure out what you ought to be writing about...


Pressure Cooker.

Too many cherry tomatoes,
says my neighbor,
so I took some in to work.
Yeah. We're all sort of doing the green thing, now.

If it weren't so hot outside...

The sky is glowing white
and the dust on the asphalt
silvered.

You never walk alone here--
there's always the sun.

Sheeting through the windows
to set the tabletops ablaze
and kindle the carpets.

and the finger-prints on the glass door
throw rainbows onto the brick.

In the glare--
on the corner
every head is haloed
and every shadow's long.

apostrophe.

(or "Breaking the Fourth Wall, whose name is 'monitor'")

or, really, just addressing you all directly... even though I said I'd keep out of it...

I) ... but hie you over to "http://somniloquy.org/blog/", my dearest stalkers and skulkers (yes. all three of you.), where Mr. Preston Mark Stone knows what he's doing. Even the "I am blogging because I happen to be awake" posts are pretty good. Just a real treasure box. Although, given it's slightly behemoth proportions (archives date to 2001. which means at least 2 years BMS "Before MySpace..."), I should probably say "chest"...

... but "treasure chest" just doesn't have that same pleasingly arch twee-ness to it. Which brings me to my second point...

II) I'm always looking for a nicely aphoristic way of describing "What Is Poetry?"... and since it never can be comprehensive, it might as well be catchy.

In the past, I have tried poetry-as-pinecone (which it is, if you've ever really thought about pinecones. because what is a pinecone? a pinecone is always, first and foremost, a pinecone. Just as a poem is always itself, before being anything else. what else is a pinecone? It is an odd and spiky thing, pleasingly solid-- and it carries all the seeds for a forest beneath it's hard and horny shell... and what is a poem but an awkward, inaccesible thing that carries the whole world in itself-- if it's a good one?)

... and when I was nose deep in Kant (which phrase is much, much funnier, btw, if you use the proper German pronunciation) a few months ago, I came up with "poems are the logical constructions of an alien ontology"... which, if you ever felt the bird-ness of your heart, or the moon-ness of your longing, you probably understand. Although my friend the self-taught (this is the great compromise of the liberal arts education: if you're smart, they'll teach you to directly access the canon and if you're brilliant, they'll just leave you alone) Classics major didn't really get it. But that could be because he's not used to thinking about the ontology-ness of things, or it could be because it only works for me and is therefore a shoddy definition...

... and those are the two best overall descriptions I can come up with, but from a purely functional standpoint... I say that poetry is all about precision without accuracy...

... because that leaves room for the ness-ness and the ish-ness which are necessary to check the tyranny of the definitive.

WWJD?

WWJD?

What Jesus would do--
He has already done,
so that you may find something better to do with yourself.

Kite

Kite

Not in ruins,
but in piles of leaves and twigs
and bits of string and glass--
I don't mind.
I have no mind to rebuild temples
but have all I need-- and a clear sky--
to make a kite.

Thunder

Thunder

The hard rain crushed the grass and flowers
and rested heavy on the hills, snapping at the treetops.
A softer darkness--
and it lay down across the flattened branches
and found itself in the bark's slick ridges,
slid through them, reunited and
rumbled across the ground, with a quiet and rushing joy.

The moon rose in the softening clouds
and the lights along the driveway snapped on,
blazed brighter than stars against the dark grass
and shimmered across the asphalt's depths and pebbles.

I rose from bed's dull shadows--
chilled and the night shone like a jewel
in the water streaking the foggy glass.

I knelt and undid the latches-- they stuck, a little--
I pressed the windows out as far as they went
and it all came seeping in,
Quiet-- and pooled across the carpet
and my face.

Across the click of the fan-- crickets
wind brushing against the ferns,
and one bird piping, now, in the dogwood
because it lost the day huddled against the trunk.

Not a night for throbbing and howling
but for low and steady pulses
for stretching out and stroking whatever bit of
the world you can reach to
and the mouth's slow undoing into a half-smile...

-- slammed the glass shut
and rounded on me, half-asleep and raging
for letting in the heat.

and I have gone from peace and thunder.

On Proper Boundaries...

I have come-- to keep faith,
with my promises,
in an offshore account.

Habituation

Because I have climbed up through the hours
the ropey muscles
of my soul don't burn
nor my heart gasp the thin air.
I could walk these slopes forever
and forget I was climbing
now that I am fit
for walking the steep dry peaks
and I won't look down
to the sweetness in the creases,
the valley and the foothills,
I'll send them from me.

I and You

I

The I who wasn't, not really--
the I who is poured water across it
because it was a firm place
and I did not want the reflection blurred.

---

You

I see myself only reflected
in the glint across your pupils
a spark and an outline
and the rest sunk in the depths.

... et fini!

Well. There you have it.

That's about a year's worth of work there, stolen from in between the pages of essays and articles.

As my Dad would say (or would say if he was a proper Texan and used such amusingly colorful colloquialisms)... now we see if that dog can hunt...

A bit of an experiment this-- to see if putting these up on the web will stress me out so much that I can't write. Like the prospect of joining a writer's group is currently doing.

And... y'know... I took a Creative Writing class, and absolutely loved the feedback and discussion... and I think the set-up made it so that the stuff I took in was better than it might have been... but then there was stuff that I would *never* have been comfortable taking in... like the God stuff. The God stuff is really very hard to share with anyone with whom I have to make extended eye contact.

... so it was a useful experience to the extent which it promoted accountability, and detrimental when it got to the point of self-censorship.

... so I'm trying the internet instead... and if I find that I can still work well despite the (relative. because poetry is poetry is poetry and posting it on the internet, I feel, just means that you get fifteen interested readers instead of two...) exposure, and that the ease and annoymity of blogging doesn't lead me to stuff this page with pablum...

... then I'll keep at it. But will be gone for awhile, because, like I said, I just posted the past nine months... so need to rebuild the stock.

Mona Lisa

The sun sets
On the cheeks of the Mona Lisa
The thickening wash of grime
Fades into red-gold shadow
She steps back from the display case
Receding from us slowly,
With grace, into the twilight
Still smiling.

Pasadena Window (II)

The words rise high,
Curving,
To meet above me.
They close out the sun.

Pasadena Window (I)

Will it be that
We are forever losing ourselves?
Ever since we opened eyes
Onto the daylight
We are blinded by brightness—
Our souls slip between the cars
And hedgerows
So we leave one eye’s corner
Open as we walk
For a familiar face
Mirrored in a storefront
For a shape in the gutter

Rebuired

Reburied

Nothing but the hum of the computer
The heater growling and the buzzing lights
No chorus and no witnesses
So I give in and run my fingers over
The chambers of my heart, pulsing softly
Softly and a brush of warmth in my chest
Winter is here now, and I must bury it in the mud
Against the chill winds and the coming sun
In the dry time, I must be leather over bone

Emily Post

Emily Post (how still the bell…)

In a far away chapel, a bell rings unbidden
Flashing high above the church-yard
It throws itself against the bell-tower
Slams the rhythm into the planks and joists
A whirl of dents and splinters, then
The dull wood begins to pulse
The church shuddering lightly in the mud
The earth hums softly, all the way to here
Buzzing in the dry ground under my feet
Rising up through the bones of my legs
Out and I have just enough brass in me that
My blood begins to sing

Lullabye

I sat in the falling dark
Alone with the crickets and the cars humming
The wind in the scrub whispering
From the steps I watched the stars rise
Over the clay tiles and stucco
To the tops of the slow swaying palms
The chorus faded and
The ashes of the breeze rustled
Between my dry lips
I whispered them all to sleep
Under the un-singing stars
I sang myself a lullaby
And sank also into the shadows

Just another hymn...

Prayer After the Rain

I bless God who gave me eyes to see the mountains
The deep cool wind that rolls down from them
Prickles the forearms He has also given me
Praise the Lord who silvered the leaves with sunlight
And filled me with blood that sparks at their glow
Bless God for the ridges and the hill-sides
My lungs ache and my heart pounds
Praise Him, that makes my legs burn as I rise among them
Praise the One who made the sunlight,
Who was wise and gave me skin that delights in dappling

One Tang Dynasty Poet

One Tang Dynasty Poet

All morning in between the bookshelves
I ran my finger down page after page
While the sunlight wove between the stacks
I was looking for a poem—I could not remember the name
My teacher wrote it down for me, but in script
He thought I would learn how to read the characters
Among the translations, I read every poem
I read the short ones to the end
Skim the long ones
A whole world in snapshots and choruses
Would I even know?—if I had found what I was looking for

Heartbreak

There was no pain when you took it
No nerve goes that deep
The veins must be slow to heal, though
My limbs are heavy and my nail-beds redden

Orion walks

Orion walks across the tree-tops, towards the moon
I have stopped on the stairs to watch him
My love for you is a little below the angels
Stuck fast to the ground and not rising
It is callused from the pavement

Determinisms

Determinisms

In a world where the Musts
Have chewed over the mights and maybes
And spit them out as Shoulds
Where were/will are Is
And have smashed all the Cans
The ghosts of our children press us forward
Into the dirt where our parents lie unburied
I have stood will stand am standing
I will have always risen
I will say have said am saying
“I shall not.”

No words.

There are no words for this thing
before this thing my words are brittle and break
Lord, if you want them then take them
may the shards tear your palms.

The stars that rise in waves...

The stars that rise in waves
over loose spined hills
plush with shadows.
Lit windows strung along the ridges
rivers of headlights slung across them
The tail end of a nebula trailed down
to where the sky bends and grows heavy,
then scattered across the slopes.

Music

Music is math that begs
The players in the lighted halls
who carry every sin in the curve of their bows
The lone one who plays without light
on a broken instrument
Surely that one has been sinned against—
They plead the same and in the same voices
God speaking back to himself
“Wherever three are gathered in my name…”—my fingers are five.
They come together to ask and are answered by the call
that they do not send to heaven,
but out to us, where God is also.

...

Fools and devils—
these are our words,
capering in the floodlights between us.

Ragnarock

Ragnarock

The old story holds the key to the problem:
The dent in the concrete wall, where my great-grandfather’s fist
missed my grandfather’s head, and didn’t finish the job.
His hand made a hole and let in the shadows,
all of us, every generation, have stood facing that fist. Some of us duck
Some don’t.
I ran and got there early, half a minute
before the shadows under the pines, in empty eye sockets—
He ran for his life into the six-month night,
swallowed by the shadow
until he followed the fjords down back to us—
well-up in him and draw out the shadows who live in the wall.
Hey now, Vassily Frostivich, screaming shoah in your soul
you don’t hear the quiet click of the shackles,
under the gas-lamp, everbright--
Hey, Mr. “Frost”, tell me now if you can still raise your arm

Chasms

How many little depthless chasms did Foucault have to traverse, as he walked down the hallway leading his mostly-naked boyfriend forward on a leash?

As many as the gaps between threads in the carpet.

Still, he crossed them glidingly, to step off into the biggest void of all: the classroom

The hallway was simple, when he only had to manage the carpet, and, perhaps, the cinderblock walls.

In the classrooms there are as many sets of eyes as there are eyes, all of them coming from different places, but rushing towards one place: the podium, where Foucault is standing.

Surely, then, he is the bravest of men. Can we begrudge him the leash, which is the tie-line, or the one attached to it, who is an anchor?

At 1 a.m.

At 1 a.m.

A wall for the shadows
of my dancing fingers.
In my lap, my hands are clasped,
but they still flicker across the stone.
This is madness:
I flick them up onto the screen,
where I can watch them.
I backlight them with more light
than I can draw into my skull.

Cheshire

Chesire

In the trench dug across my face
and the slit across your eyes
is the only gateway between us.
I am sometimes sitting up in the branches
but now I’m not.
I fade behind the leaves
and leave you on the road,
except for the grin, floating faceless.

Not paid up.

Not paid up

My account to you is covered in red
and I left the tab open too.
Unsigned and crumpled,
the checks cover my desk-top,
unsent.
I opened my window,
and they scattered across the room,
and beyond it.
The breeze was cooler than it has been
and fresh, so I pulled on my jacket.
The sidewalk was littered with wet paper,
which stuck to the soles of my boots as I walked,
hips swinging,
off to see you anyway.

Take it.

Take it—the pound of flesh
I have others.
Take it, and blood also, and tendon
Shuck as much skin as you would like
Have all of it if you want
In your hands—so much meat
The empty drooping shell
Eye-less and unsmiling
The hands—a collapsed fringe of fingers
and cold.

Twilight

Twilight

Somewhere between footsteps
my soul fled into the dusty air.
I walk the sharply-tilting hills,
matted with reeds and sunflowers
plunging between terraced yards.
The shadows are indigo and I am alone.

My Fingers

I.

My finger-tips are rough
My finger-nails are ragged
But I will make them softer than silk
-- Don’t pull back
I will touch you more gently than sunlight
My hands are strong from clenching
But I show you my open palm
-- I don’t blame you for flinching
I know my skin is dirty
The earth’s been ground deep down into it
Deeper than the soap can go
I’m certain to leave smudges…
-- Oh please, don’t shiver. Oh please…
-- Please. You’ve nothing to fear…
-- Won’t you let me touch you?
Let me smooth your scowls
Let me rub away the tear-tracks
I would cradle you more softly than sand

II.

I would cradle you more softly than sand
I would hold you firmer than oak
I burn, but for you, I will sink to a smolder
-- Don’t turn away
I howl, but for you, I will whisper
Across your neck to cool the sweat
I roar, but for you, I will lap
Against your feet to wash away the dust
-- Still, you shudder…

Shut the door

In between the seconds
I see, in the half-light
The empty hallways
Where nothing is
Where I am not
Come for me.
Down into the isn’t
I’ll ride your arms
Across the threshold
Carry me to where
We are waiting together
Shut the door.

If I could write..

If I could write how the light looked—
glowing softly on the stucco
pale gold against the blue shadows
of the courtyard
How the sky was a deep clear pool
and the towering eucalyptus fell against it
If I could write like the swelling strings
the notes that came spilling through the pillars, onto the sidewalk
or how it was to pause at the edge of the light and listen
leaning against the rough, cool stone,
If I could speak like the instruments spoke, wordless and for everyone
or could say how it was to hear the song fade into the traffic,
caught in the folds of the Valley,
and to stop,
and go back across the street, and walk to the light’s edge,
I could tell how it was enough,
to hear the song rise in this one place,
although the strings stilled and it was done.

Spring.

Spring

At the end of the world—it didn’t,
and the world shook its head and said,
“What people were ever foolish enough
to mourn me while they were still alive?”
and shaking like the tall eucalyptus,
it threw back its head
and spread its arms like the great jacaranda,
snorting out tufts of blossoms.
And humming in the key of jasmine,
it carried on with the business of spring,
and even thickened the grass with clover
specifically for the backsides of lamenting sages.

Poor Sinner

Poor sinner, I—
Sinner full of pride
and glutted on the blood of other men.
Poor sinner, rooted still to the ground
every part of me spun from the soil.
Sin in my hair and in my skin
in my teeth and in my tongue.
Born in sin and grown on it, sinking
ever deeper to feed further as I open
towards the sky—sin in my eye also.
Should I wonder that the sky is wide and open
and slips through my grasping fingers—
my hands are sins also.

Should I fold them, Lord, and not trouble you?
Shall I take myself back to dust? Unnecessary.
I cannot smudge You, who are untouchable.
Poor sinner, I.
My stains are already turned back in on
themselves. I am trapped and abandoned.
If I would shake the foundations of heaven
my bones quiver.
If I could storm them, I lay waste only
to myself.
When I clench my fist, the air flees
but my palms bleed.

To a Distant Lover...

To a distant lover (who may or may not exist)-

Tonight, I’m thinking of you
Although you don’t want it
I am staring at the lights in the ceiling
And thinking of stars, and of you
Sighing your name in my heart
Whose face I won’t say it to again
Tonight, you are my dearest ghost
My most-beloved shadow
Who has long since outgrown the outlines
Of what I can conjure
I am calling a name you don’t answer to
You who will not come, anyway
I am sighing for the you, you are no longer
And for we who also are not any more
I mourn also for myself, who is now
Unmoored from you—
And also for my own old shadow.

Tulips.

For a year and a half
I kept the bulbs in my trunk
and the shards of broken pottery.
I heard them rolling whenever I turned
and when she asked,
I told her I had planted them,
because she was worried they might have rotted.

They did not.

After eighteen months, I cleaned my car
and they were buried under a towel
green stubs poking shyly
through their papery flesh.

I wish, now,
that I hadn’t thrown them out.

scattered.

My mind sinks back into itself
I read what I wrote, but the writer
has scattered like so many leaves
I clasp a few sentences,
to try and raise the specter in me
but the woman is dead
and I am alone on the sidewalk
and not so different from the mountains behind me.

Rain

Rain

My bed is rumpled and cold.
Outside the sky is gray,
the treetops gleaming,
and the rain has polished the asphalt smooth.
A cricket chirps questioningly.
The old man uncoils his hose,
to wash the leaves into the gutter.

Alibi

Alibi

Oh, you cold and lonely generations
Who will parse our strange and glinting century
Know this:
That I woke one morning and my car sat in the haze
blanketed with purple flowers.
When the jacarandas bloomed and the blossoms fell,
one barbarian had the sense, at least,
to gather a handful and offer them to you

Reading Rumi (II)

Reading Rumi (II)

The Poet says to me: You are not the less for having struggled
Those who lean over your wounds
enjoy the smell of roasting meat.
Fear not consumption, or that smoke rises—
The ash is rich food for the fields just sown.

LA Song

LA Song

The ground swells and falls,
rhythm sounded in stone and gravel slopes.
The wild swinging melody
slung across them on phone-lines and freeways.
Hissing and squalling—wires crossed, brakes slam
the chords rise—like the
gnarled, sharp-leaved Manzanita
in the smoky air and against the moon
tight and high.

Corner of Colorado

On a day that was oddly cold
I looked up from my reading
and found myself at the heavy foot of the hills,
resting against the soft gray sky.

The Skinner's Lullabye

The Skinner’s Lullabye

By the stream, in the dark,
I blunted my knives on my own thick skin
then sharpened them on my bones,
and went out to flense the world.
I went forward, and the surface of things,
hung in strips from my blade’s edge,
and I never looked back—
at the piled hides
or the trail of flesh, wet behind me,
until I came to the stream
at the edge of dawn.
I turned and saw nothing but whole things and
unstained ground,
and the last few scraps,
scurrying towards the shadows, reweaving
and my own old skin,
tattered and lonely.
I knelt and clutched it to me, a blanket,
and I laid down to sleep,
cradling my face in my hands.

Untitled 2

Your pain goes so far
No further
Who hasn't seen grey skies
Hasn't lain on damp sheets
and woken as empty as their bed?
Oh your grievers
Bent heads and clenched fists
What is gone
Has gone beyond the gnashing of your teeth
What is left--
the tears on your face, the twinge in your flesh
these things are yours
and a reproach to heaven
but no good food to ghosts, who eat blood.

Reading Rumi (I)

I am walking through the gardens of other men
Running my hands through the bushes
You were foolish, older fathers
To set men who loved flowers as guards
They tend the blossoms carefully--
My pockets are full of seeds.

Four Poems (after an argument)

As I was leaving, I left the door open
Slightly, so you wouldn't close it.
Just enough for a rich stream of air
to trickle across the threshold and your neck.
If you never can come out to find me
Still, may your rooms be sweet up to the rafters.

---

No more wailing or whining
the solid truth
is your empty bed
the quiet hallways
and the long hours of nothing until nightfall.

---

Staring at my foot, and the fly
perched at the end of one, thick, callused toe.
The ropey veins and bones latticed
into the still full flesh of my calf
golden and a little dry, from the sun--
lying in the rough June grass
speckled with slivers of light, slit by the palms.
Only two decades and such a long time.
How do people ever make it to a hundred?

---

The world is ending, or it won't--
No apocalypse is worth carrying
out into the grass.
Than the low motor of a helicopter
or the wafting scent of charcoal--
the future is less, even, than the breeze ambling in the bamboo.
It passes through the yard with not even a rustle.

Pslams (two poems)

Lamentation

I have come to the land of salt
The ground beneath my feet burns them
The wind kicks up the earth's powdery sweat
it leaves ashes in my nose
This is one end of the world
where the birds have sunk into the rock,
winging deeper down into the congealed forests.
I walk between boulders, like the ghost of a river
Whispering softly and kicking the pebbles

Pslam

Lord Above, forgive me
That I have only my eyes
To see your light
That I have only my skin
To feel your warmth
I drink the waters of Your world
Through a cracked and unglazed cup
I am all leaks and muddiness
But I am thirsty Lord, forgive me
And there is no other vessel

God, not there.

I should shrive my soul
and spend the next week kneeling.
I should cast my hands up to Heaven,
except that my God is not one who reaches
down. Won't I look silly--
kneeling, arms outstretched,
and beseeching to myself?

God, if He comes,
comes in the quiet before the morning,
and the stillness after evening.
God, if He comes,
comes when he wants to.
He comes when he needs to
and not when one needs him to come.

Ah, God-- who is
not listening, God who is
not coming just now, God
your servant kneels in some other chapel,
but your child is standing here
and unwilling to clasp her hands to the moon,
nor the sunset-- which is idolatry.

God, your child is standing
alone and worships you, hands at her sides,
with her yearning.

We March Already.

Soft sheets and the cloud-tinged sunlight
Drifting through the window
The mourning doves and buzz-saws
The low soft humming of the world
Beneath the thrumming faucet
The weary clank of the pipes and girders
One tone, ever-rising
Rustling from between the palm fronds
From the squealing axles on the freeway
The shrieking sparrows
The cricket's snarl
My heartbeat
One tone.
The distant trumpets'
Echo in the silence deep within us
Is rising

Gypped?

Yes. Of course-- "World Skinned" is a poetry blog! Isn't it obvious?

... right. Nevertheless, I hope you'll stay for a minute or two and look around-- and maybe find something you like.

This is to keep myself honest, and to spare my near/dear the burden of critique... and also so we don't have to play that subtle "is this about me?" game of guess and check.

Awkward.