Tess

Now, now I understand
why you left all your things--in the hallway,
and abandoned your car in a stand of pines
to pass through the halls
of accumulated sentiment, to where
the light slants through the trees
in the thin mountain air,
--the rich sent of the sea, weaving
through the branches,
I have set down my memories,
--I expected to see you
outside, because you always
return--when I leave
--but I lean on the doorway
and find I'm staring
at the path you took, clear and
leading through the dry leaves
to the shore and the skyline
above it--we could talk
if I see you again.

I will leave a note for myself
and will not
look for you in this house again.

xxxxv.

in the dark tonight,

I am not the man I should be

but I am thinking of you,

and looking out over the canyon

facing the sea

when the waves rustle,

I hope they whisper a lullabye

across the water

         in your desert city, not so different than mine

but much busier, to you

in your flat, with smoke in the walls,

         and a collection of bottles on the sill, I’m assuming

many different shapes—

--I dreamt we met in Bangkok, possibly

in Singapore, and passed briefly on a rainy street

on a cold day, in front of grey buildings,

and stalls with colorful awnings, it halfway

passed for English summer

and our eyes met, yours hooded by your hair,

and mine shaded by my hat, for a moment

I was surprised and thought, “What an interesting woman—

what is she thinking?” and you thought, “What

an unusual man—where is he going?”

perhaps I saw you again later, by the river

and we walked into the mist along the banks,
with the lights gleaming on the further side

or perhaps we simply exchanged a nod,

recognizing a fellow-traveller in the silent

streets—

--if the palms are kind, they will pass

this note under the crack in your window

xxxxiv.

when the light bleeds away into the ground
--I remember another time, when we wore the dark like a skin
and the ways were all in shadow
the sharp obtrusion, of a broken socket lying in the dirt
pricked my knee, the glass slivered my hands as I ran them
through the tufted grass, and the moon glittered
on the prongs the once held the bulb

--I keep my eyes on the ground, on the pile
of twisted metal, lying near my legs
and kept my sight in my fingers,
rolling the fragmented wires between them
and listened to rustles in the bushes.

--at some point, I sank into myself,
and the moon recognized my ghost
in itself, by some foreign science,
it's light made the ghost of a light
in my hands.

someone once smashed a lamp,
on the pavement--
fleeing, perhaps, or threw it when
they did not need it, and I swing
it before me, when night
crawls up out of the sea, when
it spreads hoary wings over the hills

and science and alchemy,
govern us, in the scattered pieces and luck
lies the mechanism by which
we come hold the day in our hands
to cage the night, in glass and wire
the lights we build,
are the bastard children of the sun
and the glint in our eyes.

WIP

I felt in my chest today

my heart beating beyond my chest

I thought it might rest between your ribs

but I found it had not lodged there

--I hear whispers between my shoulders

the wind whistling in my vertebrae

and I watched,

and bled

it pounding before me 

into the empty air

if you hear the drumbeat in the distance

don't hesitate to stomp

here, I am singing for you, also.

tore itself free--of its bony cage

thrumming in the open air--

proseII

This is from mid-September, I think. I thought it wasn't good enough before, but it's starting grow on me. So I'm posting it.

---

I'm hungry, tonight. I was composing imagined histories, earlier. Weaving stories out of the wet musk of greenery, and twined desert cities, and the light for thirty windows, set at odd angles form the staircase. I was dreaming of darker skies, and the arctic scent of winter--snow blown down from the mountains and the distant hum of the heater.

I was thinking of traveling, of raveling circumstance in the gentle grip of a hundred miles of freeway. A thousand. Ten thousand--until all the points of light had been woven into a single constellation. Of changing my face, pulling one of several dusty cloaks from the trunk I have hidden elsewhere.

I am listening to old music--retrieving the memories of what others have lost.

I look up at the graceful branches of the eucalyptus, but they are never quite the branches of the eucalyptus behind the wooden fences, where the mourning doves would perch and sing at dawn.  I look up at the stars, but they are never the bright-edged souls I saw over the dark bare branches, never the tenacious guideposts I saw walking over the hills, fingering their way through the haze--lamps left for some ancient navigator, that we have borrowed for our own strange purposes.

I look for poem and find nothing but paragraphs--look for sense and find nothing but impressions.

It's hard to be caught, hang limp, in the long slow, swoop of your soul. I never take pictures with people in them, for good reason--and even now, I find them to be indescribable. I could take words now, would like to, and use them to cast shadows on a wall, for the sake of company. But, I would be left with nothing but empty outlines, and the darkness between them.

I felt the presence of something last week, blind and unborn, waiting below the nervous frantic shaking, below the teeth of world--for just a moment, standing on the sidewalk, at the foot of another nameless building, I felt that there was something, shivering with unrealized potential, at the far edge of my range. Stranger and far more gracious than I could've hoped.

I called up the coast, and had it confirmed--she told me she had seen it, too--and that she was resting in the shallows of the 5.

When I can fall in love, again--I will figure these hours where I can--in gratitude, not desperation. Not to smear dust on the wall, and hope that the gods are moved to mercy, by the blood. But to let the time concentrate itself, until it becomes simple--and brighter. Glass and iron--and a window to catch the sun, shatter the light across the marble. To write well, I think you must love your subject, whatever strange shape your devotion makes for you.

xxxxii.

Mo' edit, mo' bettah.

---

--I have always wanted what I cannot have

and like anyone deprived, of what is necessary

I cannot focus--

have been trying to tear it out of my soul
what--cannot--happen
with no success whatsoever 

--for the love of the Almighty I'd cut

it free, set it loose, must it die--must it die

like all the other times--must I fall,

for it to be free? Can I not launch it still

living from hand--if I could, wouldn't I see it

circle, sometimes, for the balcony? Wouldn't it alight

upon occasion, on a nearby branch--must it die 

down to nothing?

I'd send the past winging out into a late June night,

to cut trails above the hills, the streets alight

the buildings burning, the ridges afire and the wash

of the shadows come to quench them, to send up

the sweetness of sage and dust and anticipation

there, before the road goes curving, at the rise

with the hills towering above, to skim the porches

it's fleeting shadow a benediction 

on whoever greets the evening, with joy

--whoever passes under the shadows of these hills

intent and glad, and I'd have it

rest on your railing, awhile ago

stare through the window

sleek with potential
and caw once--then fly

xxxxi.

It is a gift--
       that one holds up to the lamplight
carries about, leaves under the window
sticks in a pocket, drops under the desk
                 leaves atop the sheets, sticks
in a shoe
                 --sits accusing upon the sill
                   recognition.

It captures the sunlight--
            translucent and solid
time--how do I
thank you?