saint vespertine

new website.

2009-03-11T19:00:00.003-05:00

hello, blogdears.

in a babystep towards my own pretty website,

i'm trying out wordpress and have moved all

of these frowsy blogger entries over...

let me know what you think!

http://saintvespertine.wordpress.com

ouse

2009-03-10T16:38:00.003-05:00

funny how fast

one sinks into it.

ovenknobs &

pocketrocks in a jar

by the bed. remind-

er, remind me:

why am I here

again? cannot Can

beneath Tuesday's grey

sky for anything.

funny how fast

a body does sink.

barrel-stave.

2009-03-09T16:39:00.019-05:00

unpacking slipsmooth summer limbs,

I re-connect
freckle constellations, hoping
to sweep some pale away; and,
finding sand fleshpressed in
creases, skin retains the taste

of salt & sweat affection.

hot and languid, they bend

like jelly, loll

at odd angles, tremor

at touch, but Being craves cozy; so,

I cradle them close to hope's

winter chest, bloodless

water bottles till I stitch them back

to thawing thews, shoulders, hips.

nickl'd needles will scar bone, but

some marks are worth

the eye smiles I've missed

these long ice months.

cold October, I hardly

remember, though November still stirs

a soft swamp heart once

muddy
sticky
seething warmth

[in the meantime, I brush
these footsteps from the earth,
set real fire to bridges I've walked.
hold cards close for self-
conservation, ‘cause I’ve seen:
the bootmarks indelible
upon rare orchid petals,
the ice crystals forming on ferns.]

another directive.

2009-03-07T18:29:00.021-06:00

I'm taking a trek into these woods. Leave the purple lupined meadow behind

and follow if you wish (though I wish you would). Even so, I'll likely sprint

ahead, might climb that old oak tree, only turning round to smoothsweep my

footprints from the plush & mushroomed earth.

(It's game & consternation. It's adventure & provocation.)

Sharp eyes will find my trail, others may find themselves a little lost, but look!

There's a sleeping owl to pray to, some crocus to admire, a hive with mellow

honey, this wolf & sparrow choir.

(Orientation is perception and seeks somesmall witness.)

And I guess, if you're keen, you'll discover me

bone-deep in the summer brook, chanting:

Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

#ampersand & ampersand.

daylights.

2009-03-05T13:56:00.003-06:00

summer has not even approached yet,
but here's a gem from favorite peoples anyway.

some [y]ears are better than others.

2009-03-05T02:02:00.013-06:00

when I told you before I was listening...well that was a lie. there were

suitcases sticky with wheels to cling to and softskin tree splinters

sharpening windows as I watched some elbows never arrive. but

I took a step toward tuning in I took a moment to clear a head &

wrapped a pink ribbon round those things I'd dismissed as too ugly

to confess to. as when

words aren't perfect but they're beautiful I baptize or drown &

there's no use in trying to keep tangled hair dry no use in denying:

I heard you this time.

miru kim

2009-03-04T22:16:00.000-06:00

peter prokopovitch

2009-02-28T18:48:00.001-06:00

each night I trace your face in bees,

ash from seymour's cigarettes,

candle wax.

& redwine spills

from splintered glass--

I remember.

and there's no thing

finite in it; a blur

but-- God,

a blur to behold.

proposal.

2009-02-24T17:45:00.000-06:00

hey let's you and me go to see the seething mixing churning tide of bubbly sky and soar / milksour stasis ties a hand to complacence but together together we can make it (can pull us out of the water) / send sun's rays to defeat it cold / cold in the chest and sated in sturm und drang / the rest is up to unlaced deers & eldar dews sweet sinking a slow seep into holes derma sliced specific for lacrimal lettings but we've no need for sadness / if can may let it be. just (we).

a moveable feast.

2009-02-23T21:36:00.000-06:00

Between departure and settling in, I've mourned and melancholied and rediscovered my reluctance to confront uncomfortable situations. I'm a mess. But I've also rediscovered my love for parsing, playing with ideas and concepts. the pseudo-philosopher and amateur theologian in me has been greatly fed, and I wish to further cook these ideas and notions stirring cake in my brain. And so, I have chosen to fully immerse myself for the first time in this Lenten season, hoping for a better wisdom and progress over utter renewal. Lack fasts and do fasts. A resolve to surprise I + others. I do not know where I will find myself (if I shall find Self) in 40 days, but I wish to emerge a bit brighter, a bit more connected. I do not expect some great awakening, Only a letting go. Lately, 'How am I not myself?' mantras over and over & I just desire a dearer nearness to Be.

Also, I am considering leaving Blogger behind and nesting my own little space of the interwebs. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you have on domain names and webhosting and all sorts of other things I know little about. Thank you, dears.

love.

X thousands of words.

2009-02-21T03:43:00.001-06:00

a little bit.

2009-02-19T19:14:00.000-06:00

needle and thread can not

center hold, mess spills

and spins away, the ginger

cat in the corner seems to know

what life is: catch a pest, relax,

force affection, then stalk

some aloofness. confident of

cared for, loved and loved

despite unwholly understood.

this little girl with the pretty

black curls walks in with clinking

keys hooked to a beltloop, chin up

and backstraight. she's pretend-

ing to own the place, she's pre-

tending grown-up confidences.

shouldering her blue backpack,

she's succeeding far beyond all

of the taller peoples huddled

here behind laptops and ceramic

mugs. they stare at hands, cross/

uncross legs, can't look even care-

full company in pied irises.

kids and cats. allow be Be

while i unstitch the heart

off my cotton sleeve, scissor

breast and slide it back

between ribs--quick! before

the decision is made to simply

jar-stow it upon some high shelf.

[i keep a stepstool for such whims,

perfumes and preservatives.]

can allow it. ripping stitches.

burning bridges.

sehnsucht

2009-02-16T16:24:00.000-06:00

well, epistemology's dead. dead and

gone the way of god & romance,

dragons & chivalry & a million

other things one can only seek

pickled within the canvas sleeves

and deadtree leaves of library novels.

sing a dirge, light the fire. a smoked

& grey guessing game emerges

from its funeral pyre. knowledge is

falsehood and nothing is

true(?) only paradox can stay, a place

to trace some ideas in sand, and

with deft fingerstroke, wipe

it grainy-smooth again. or

Belief is Guess' sister phoenix,

reborn and purer of faith. O!

I cannot really know, can I?

questions beget questions

and if Answer is cached with-

in the oxygen, human pupils

can't light upon it, and tongue can

not taste Certainty's benign spice. yet,

I do not mean to breed insolence

or even apathy, only mean to say--

I don't know. and neither do you. unless.

unless you do, which is a lovely thought,

but implausible, untrue.

on a quiet night.

2009-02-11T15:46:00.000-06:00

the catch--physical stillness has always been too easy for me.

i can sit silent for days, but my mind runs a race that never

seems to quit. the horses, the horses! i can't quiet them,

can't lead them to their cozy stalls. too often the erratic,

whirling nature of the race within leads my own limbs

to paralysis. i stare at walls and dwell in possibility like

emily--only i've locked myself in. doorjammed. i open a

window, shut it quick for fear of rain and the umbrellas

in the umbrella stand collect so much dust. i want. i want

to be the arrow flying toward some inevitable, bright

future. i want one of those horses to leave the track and

bound for the meadow, drink from some cool spring and

rest awhile in the sunspray. i want some thing more

than this. but i'm unsure how to open the door.

schema.

2009-02-09T11:24:00.000-06:00

so love is a monster we all
must embrace. beastly and
gnarly, but soft underneath.
wrestle the tempest devoid
of the bite; feed campfires
surrounding the apples of
warmth. drape a cloud round
your shoulders and weather
the storm, we are all tied
to some Thing we’d rather
ignore. there’s a yellow ball-
oon tied tight to my wrist--it
carries me farther from you.

yet to stage some release,
I must knife my right hand,
and I’m sorry I love fingers
attached to my thews more
than I wish to be next to you.

a well-lit place.

2009-02-06T03:00:00.000-06:00

how much is it for a pony ride, mister?

this dying carnival of white-lit dreams

seems a fiction fashioned for the middle-

aged mary and has-been prodigies. what

happened to our cotton candy youth? the

gazing at clouds? the stars were once

a thing of wonder. now just more pin-

pricks to fear. wonderlost stings thin,

plastic skin. the lard builds up around

a heart, forsakes once appleround

cheeks. leaves sad fat zombie eyes

gazing into funhouse mirrors, all

dressed up in top hats and lace. i

hate to say it, but your shoe's come

untied. and that unicorn lock you ribbon-

ed to your throat comes from a rabbit

i found oozing death in the dirt.

wraithing.

2009-02-03T17:31:00.000-06:00

the nectar is frozen, but sweet-
ness survives. some how. alone,
I am master of all that surrounds.
is only as surrounded I lose
grip, get anxious. here, I don’t know
warrants a splinter-
ing. lonely lionheart, having lost
all pride. stalk the color &
taste of shapes, words--I thrive
out here in the ether. a ghost
can love a man, can he? starving
for blood-touched oxygen, I find
wish to siphon it from
your pillow pink lungs. but
we both fear near-
ness, do we? [we. We.]

I spied a silhouette of you
in twilight. long form half-
lit by lamplight. I surrendered
a cold hand to press
a shoulder and you shuddered.

saturday sunshine.

2009-01-31T07:08:00.000-06:00

the freesail sailboat ship of friends--restores. we are three here, two girls and a dog. but this saturday morning, i am the only one awake, rewrestling with thoughts and remembering friends elsewhere. i miss. miss few, but very badly. this america's too big, and distance inevitable with so many fair choices. yet, i am grateful for every heart. and every heart that sends a note to say, i miss you. simple and true. i do not know where i belong yet in this america, or if it is elsewhere. can't shake a feeling of chronic displacement, exile. i need my own star or planet. a new neverland where all those missed can join me in the shade of great grandfather trees, and toe dip, dangle in mermaid-ruled waters.

and i can see the sun rising on another lovely day. stovetop coffee calls and i will answer. will always answer you, though i fear my voice will not always be loud enough, and legs not long enough to walk the miles and miles to see. see you.

cave paintings.

2009-01-27T00:15:00.000-06:00

If you do not count the sheepskin sprawled across the floorboards, caught between coffee table and television, I have never loved an animal thing such as I have loved you. Your feral heart lunges at my spine, slips a blooded finger in and pulls me to pieces, vertebrae by vertebrae. I took osteology once, I know their look—coarse stone claws or cavespace hooks to hang a club on, furry hood, stomach bag full of pink meat. We were together even then, in those ancient days of monoliths. You’d go to fetch some slivery fish while I tended fire and boiling water, hum a song or two. And when you returned, I’d salve your wounds, place a new crown over your brow, lay down some creature skin 'cross your wide shoulders. Or if I was your hunter, you might hold a clay bowl close to my throat and tilt its elixirs warm past cracked lips. Then strength regained, we might dance, and I'd find a fallen pine to carve us in picture (so Love's there, xylem-frozen forever).

But time changes souls, and the microwave screams your plastic dinner is done; I will not eat. Sensing our history, we tried (did we?) to fill our home with past-life souvenirs—a few potted trees (bred to facile & dwarfed domestic perfection), a tank full of fishes you forget to feed, this antique table we wouldn’t dare cut into. And this lanolined rug I love to sleep on and dream I am back in our cave, or on some soft green hillside with a younger sun lightcharming my face—until I awake and find it’s just you, you who used to carry that lupine look in eyes and limbs, you. You've turned on the TV again.

rock. hard place.

2009-01-26T00:49:00.000-06:00

broken and bloody. swollen and dirty.
suffer and moan (though lips stay

sewn closed). deaf to alarms

when the bells peal & peel the white

off the whale, wrench the hair

off the dog that ululates a suffering
song. and I look like a feral child,
lupine and rangy, always craving
some thing more new better more
than this [is] chronic wish, sickness

marked by lemoned eyes and a self

that can't sleep through the night.

stuckkk.

disclaimer.

2009-01-23T08:49:00.000-06:00

i've been advised to present a disclaimer to this

here blog site: 80% of 95% of what i place here

is fiction. character-playing. perhaps inspired

by real people and events, but dramatized for

storysake. hyperbole is predilection and unless

you read something fashioned in very straight-

forward prose, it is likely that i, ariele, am not

the true narrator, even if the stanzas are penned

in first person. (as example: i am not in love, and

i've never met a coelacanth, nor a rotting rabbit).

this is not a 'daily diary of...' blog, and i've tried

very hard to keep any real personal revelations,

ideologies, etc out of it. except for the occasional

life update, it's safe to assume i'm only playtending.

thank you.

love.

owl-ing.

2009-01-22T03:30:00.000-06:00

in the instance you imagine a word

matching a color

matching a taste

and character,

it's awfully hard to go back

to how it was before. grey

world, porridgebland

and nearly dead. nights

like these, spent wrestling

with mortal everthemes,

are sleepless, yes. yet

make me dread the daylight

and all those diurnal peoplefolk

busy busy in the sun. this

is where i live best--at a makeshift

desk in a dimlit room, long past

the witching hour. some coffee,

fair music. and words working

rainbows through my bones.

this is my lab, my library,

farm & furrows. morgue

and graveyard too. so

the truth is, i don't want to

sleep. i love the quiet when

the rest of the city is dreaming.

frowsy real world, forcing me

to be like you, just to get by, survive.

i still have a few hours left before sunrise.

deal.

2009-01-18T02:39:00.000-06:00

and if I want to be your mystery, well how can you blame me? I want the world to love me, on my own terms. careful, careful is my currency. I am coppered wire, electric and pliant, but only in some right hands. won’t rend in two so easily, but bent and bending, approach a madness that no amount of screaming can relieve, ease. so silent I stay, prefer cool to touch over the exasperation of hot and fire. forgive me for my seeming dispassion, it is all I know to cope. and melancholy is the anodyne I find, in some good measure with wonder. and know that I won’t listen. won’t listen to anyone’s fair advice, it is up for me to decide. more than content to be the rat in the nursery that threatens the sleeping baby. but oh, am also the mare in the barn aching for the apple. I wish to press all your smooth coatbuttons, snap! then sew them back on. adore me for what I am and am not. fly me your heart, with feathers tied to muscled strings and I promise to build it a nest, the prettiest nest you’ve ever seen. and if we can rest there, together and fine, I can’t promise not to disappoint, but will be yours. & mystery.

attempt.

2009-01-18T01:20:00.000-06:00

when I say I love you but
what I don’t mean is I

love you except for, or even

in spite of. what I intend is: you
are the horse that runs wild

in desert cactus & [you are]

the snow falling over Alaska.

only cannot take me there.
cannot allow me to follow,
and even if I do [love? you],
there is no more will
in it than to simply etch
your name into the deepest
caves of self. I can’t know what

you are doing to your self. can’t
comprehend the whys when sitting
next to you elicits such a peace;
the will and way are lost until I’m lost
and out of your blue eye forever. glory

glory to feel and be felt alive. you seize

the feeling better than most, though

consequence is true. yet, I hate to think

it’s far too late to tell you. so all I can tell

you is I love you but and hope you know

what I do mean: for you to quit the careless-

ness that mars and torments your being.

these are a few.

2009-01-11T03:09:00.000-06:00

i'd like to list some favourite things,

for no reason but Reminder:

lions, owls and horses. trees with limbs exposed in winter.

a dear one bringing me a warm cup of coffee--there is

something so gentle, so kind in the exchange. phone calls

at 2 am. warm texas nights. the wild green and rain of the

northwest. rivers that run through a town. the mermaid

moon in full--i always have a hard time looking away.

fairystories, wizardtales. paranormal, ultraphenomenal

wonderings. cryptozoology. the ugly beauty of bodies--

blood guts bones thews. licorice, honey, gingerslips.

stories of sacrifice, redemption. my dmitri. a darkened

room long past midnight, lit a little by orange orbs. art

nouveau, french new wave. novels that must be read in

one sitting for fear of missing something.

Story. Story. Story.

wordplaying--testing words out on the tongue, trying to

find the right taste and sound. quiet times across from some

one to admire. fire-escape sitting, though it's so very cold.

mercy grace Love.

wish.

♥

redemption. given:

2009-01-09T08:22:00.000-06:00

so Story says: confronted,
the man with the hair rent
the young lion’s bones; broke
flesh, snapped sinews that
pop-cracked as frying fat.
left that beast to earth's

dissolve. but the bees! settled in

among the stinking strings of rot-
ting meat & globbed marrow.
honeycombs happy laid
in the skull. carcass honey
to redeem a corpse, human
tongue with something so
beautiful, sweet and sting-y
cased within king carnivore stench.

out of the eater, something to eat.

out of the strong, something sweet.

cacti are calling.

2009-01-06T01:35:00.000-06:00

an emotion unfurled and waved before a body,

mirror catching too much righteousness, thinking

want is a word I hate to let enter an otherwise

charmed & esoteric lexis. but wish and pray

can make too light or heavy a thing and there must

be some pressed letters to indicate the ishness

that does sometimes traintrail self. that being said,

I do not like it here where you are not. where humidity

is the theme of the day, in some good measure

with apathy (and I'm still dragging your timezone

around). forget the lure of clean, clear water. drink

wine instead. or force a perception of better. monster

lies of intellect, nearness [smashed:

“nice to know you, but I must be moving on…”]

I’ll move on to the desert. stay there in the sun

and dryland, cracked and smiling at me. horses?

there’ll be horses. art and inspire.

appledeer, darling
storychild. let go
and bleed your syrup-hot blood.

pour yourself out, and willing.

be broken. understand:

you can't kill love.

windy day.

2009-01-02T18:36:00.000-06:00

so. delightful.

beginnings.

2009-01-02T01:59:00.000-06:00

now is a rollercoaster I can’t

seem to quit. a wildride

horse that won’t let me fly

from, fly straight. I’m afraid.

(let it go.)

impressions.

2008-12-30T15:36:00.000-06:00

it is unclear whether I should wait for a mother to call. ring a phone ring I wear it well on my left hand. never remove the remover is death so unbecoming of a young lady. mister mystery sells a kind of hope at heart’s door like a spurious salesman. I uncoil two tethers, remaster limbs to run a dangerous game of how can you tell? tell no one what you have seen when I opened wide the window one generous blue eye trained on a fellow. traveller of sorts. wonderer. I live these lies like a lion out of fashion. if you give me your elbow I’ll cling to it. won’t ungrasp some fingers for fear of seeing a bird take flight at freedom’s chance. or maybe. there’s a good chance I like to watch the sparrows soar though I’m earthstuck mudmade. and any obligation for a waiting warrants a dread. bees buzzing knots in the belly. kill a feeling completely. then again. you’re surely not so spurious--challenge is a trust and for extra measure I’ll hidesafe a telephone ribboned to my right coatpocket.

the only prayer.

2008-12-30T14:56:00.000-06:00

may I be I is the only prayer—

not may I be great or good
or beautiful or wise or strong.

ee cummings.

excerpt a letter to another seeker.

2008-12-29T06:30:00.000-06:00

these days, I'm having a hard time

looking anyone in the eyes. I see:

horses behind them. space continuing

into eternity. my own insecurities

stretching strings to a heart

resistant to any sort of unsettling. too

much wish for one fleshform to carry.

less than. less than the the tree that stands

naked, unabashed before the winter

winds. less than the owls who fly and know

just what to do. thoughtshapes play

'ring around the rosie' with innumerable

regrets. ashes! ashes! we all fall down.

earthurchins. rag & bone buyers and sellers.

I should sign every heart-

felt letter, with love & squalor.

advent.

2008-12-22T02:02:00.000-06:00

muck & mire and possibility in the frowziest of places:
cracked mud, straw. beasts for warmth, comfort to tie

sense to earth. in the slow-wicked oily light, some

hopespark shines--it is Word Alive. so

Flesh&Bone&Blood uncurls, seeks air, emerging from

the mortal-dark cocoon of flesh and blood and bone.

He could not have been born without some trauma,

tearing of soft girl tissue and tears. all this

Joy in the revulsive spreadstretch of rent flesh.

corporeal thrums, serums leaked and sticky. Love. oozy

eel love. gutGod love to crawl across a heart and fall

into applecarved, well-curved arms. arrived.

and [O! hear!] the angels sing.

good grief.

2008-12-20T17:49:00.000-06:00

well, it seems things may be finally falling together. or they certainly cannot succumb to much more chaos...for now. no thing in particular, just a feeling that things will Be, and will be all right. body is in recovery and mind is word-bending--I have even begun syntax-stretching and storybuilding in dreams again! a good sign. I am now a resident of West Campus and it's been a fairly decent experience so far. but, in the interest of catharsis, I would like to give a list of Austin grievances that I have thus far compiled [also, forgive my use of hyperbole. world's worst habit]:

coffee here is either a)crap, or b)hella expensive. $3.75 for a double americano is the frowsiest kind of highway robbery--I don't care how many godlike veins it eel-oozes through.
people in vehicles HATE pedestrians. and also Austin's civil engineers, apparently.
the buses are cheap, but only run twice an hour? lame.
apart from some of the downtown and Zilker areas (Westlake too, but it doesn't count, does it?), this city seems one vast commercial suburban wasteland. ugh.ly.
the whole 'urban neighborhood' thing hasn't really taken off yet...
despite being a major cultural and artistic hub, independent films arrive far too late--or not at all (e.g. I would realllly love to see 'Wendy and Lucy.' but unless I fly to LA or Portland within the next couple of months, I'll just have to wait until it's out on disc. stupid.)
sales. tax.
I'm wearing a tanktop in December. and Portland's bracing for 6 more inches of snow... a wee bit unusual for that fair city-near-the-sea, but still.
I'd forgotten how little regard for personal space sweet Texans do possess. I need a little more breathing room, folks.
and well...those dear Oregonians who do know a thing or two about coffee and sidewalks and cinema and breathing room are. not. Here.

I suppose that's all for now...I'm working on a list of Portland things I'll miss, but I must find some way to distill it so as to not overwhelm you few [lovely!] readers.

regression or regret.

2008-12-19T02:43:00.000-06:00

ovenknobs and pocketrocks

and little hearts unfurled. I

left my umbrella with you,

my dear. and now it rains

too honestly for a voice

to voice: your heart feeds

my heart and my heart

is yours. I promise the apple

doesn't bite. or pretend,

pretend it's a gift I can hand

you this night, curl into your

large & careful hands. tonight

we'd share a drink and I'd reach

for your elbow, press a thumb

into the soft shallows of your

creature skin. yet given to

shyness, lower some lashes

and retreat reluctant into

space & silence again.

room.

2008-12-13T15:08:00.000-06:00

I can not be anything but

unsettled until I can acquire

a room of my own. true

thoughts come uneasy,

back to living in my

father's house and it is

lovely but. must feel

free, free to be the

self I've grown into

and until then, poetry

doesn't hit heart's

hammer suite as it has

before. also, there is

the sadness, the missing.

and so much of this city

to explore. on my own.

but can not. until I

can have that room.

the imp in me.

2008-12-12T14:06:00.000-06:00

christ massing in the hill country.

ululation sounding somewhere too near

for good comfort. inside some

stoney castlehome, poets thrum

faithful guitars, all this warm charm

of song and cheer and all I long for

is some time alone to play in the woods.

there must be some thing wild about me

that transcends age and intellect [or

however a lady of my own age is sup-

posed to act], for put me among some dark

dark trees and bounding rocks and

hawkish hiding birds and my energy

erupts like a child's. quiet is my nature,

watchful, politely, but. last night, as soon as

feet felt the black gravel road essed & leading

to a lighted house, I had to run. to jump, skip,

swing myself around all those gnarled and lovely

alders that do bleed red like hot animals.

I ran ahead of the electric torches, was told

to watch out for coyotes (it is so so dry here,

they are looking fierce fer food). then, when

dancing in the garden, snagged such a look from

an older woman wearing too many diamonds

that I had no choice but to let out a pixie laugh!

mischief mischief, making others angry with my play!

imagine. reveled in her disapproval. imp

in the forest. transformed.

and inside, warm inside was a prison

with too many smiles too brightly. I

had to get back to the trees. please.

let me go back to the trees.

texasing.

2008-12-08T21:30:00.001-06:00

a goodbye so full of acceptance it was nearly anticlimactic.

distance now spanning thousands of miles. this place is

suddenly too new. and me, in my blondeshort hair and

long tattoo and green scarf feel so alien here. stood in

the coffee line to order a double americano (you want

a double? really?) amidst orange mochas and pepper-

mint hot chocolate girls wearing UT shirts and a sour

sweet look on too-tan-for-winter faces. i am wondering:

what is it i've come back to? ah well. mustn't play the

cynic too early. is just the first night afterall, and afterall

i did wish a change. only. only i am missing already.

precondition.

2008-12-04T16:14:00.001-06:00

and friday is always better

for a blending in. or I can do

no easier for a quiet existence

keeping in threefourths time

with lies worth living. break it

up in the glasshoused gardens

with your stonesword fist. think-

ing about what you would or

would not do correctly, enigma is

you and all your puzzled glances

give me some pause, but only

some. is nice to not be the

mysterious one for a while

I am known--reveal myself

and cannot know why, except for

maybe the wine that purplestains

cracked and wanting lips if

there's a kiss in it, save it.

don't you just love goodbyes?

2008-12-03T02:29:00.000-06:00

in a big big way, I am really small.
I get off my feet, but I’m still distant.
don’t you just love goodbyes?

night is quiet here, strange. and though it is not yet owl-late, I imagine I am the only one up this side of the Prime Meridian. nights like these, I speak to old friends Bob and Charlotte, wish for some near late-night bar with bad jazz and empty faces. and here is what I have learned from these two peoples—keep writing, do not call your wife in the middle of a busy morning, and humanbean connections are to be made and cherished in the most unexpected of places. though the streets and faces of Austin will be familiar, I cannot help but know some loneliness will find me, settle into my elbows and curl upon my collarbone. inevitable, maybe. to leave is struggle, to stay—mistake. and so these last days feel like some odd purgatory, and the emotions so varied and well-blended that they have been reborn a bland and tasteless soup. knowing…will come, and time will tell becomes mantra among other mantras.

I do know this: I am not afraid. anxious, perhaps. sad, indeed. but not afraid. I do not know what it is, but fear jealousy and anger rarely approach my door these days. only their lesser cousins ever pay a visit--and more often than not, shrouded only in too-apparent irony…is this what is called peace? I cannot tell, and I suppose I have always seemed a calm one.

my my! this is awful. my writing heart’s awandering somewheres else. perhaps high in some cypress treetops, or swinging around the neck of a fawn. apologies. and love.

words of lovely on a lazy holiday.

2008-11-29T22:29:00.000-06:00

among the many other things done & consumed on this year's Thanksgiving day--sitting and reading while others meandered and gathered and spoke in both loud and soft tones was a best. I curled like a cat on the wooden floor with a fleshspine against some stacked paper&canvas ones and read some shelley. later, billy collins. finding lines that barbed a heart heavy with lethargy and potential missing, I closed my eyes and tasted, absorbed them. I likely seemed a strange one all alone with some dusty leaves in the corner, but it was needed. some of my favorites:

'For love, and beauty, and delight,

There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.' ♥

'Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.' ♥

'We do not speak like Petrarch or wear a hat like Spenser
and it is not fourteen lines
like furrows in a small, carefully plowed field

but the picture postcard, a poem on vacation,
that forces us to sing our songs in little rooms
or pour our sentiments into measuring cups.' ♠

[and the entirety of this one must be carved here--]

'If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,

say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back
as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,

just as the floor of the ninteenth century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.
There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,

not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing.' ♠

♥ percy bysshe shelley.
♠ billy collins.

updating.

2008-11-26T11:52:00.000-06:00

once again, it is the end of another month, and so

I'd like to point you toward the blogging gem

that is ten.months.of.missing.you. must read

jan's 'for lori with love and applecores.' lovely.

and it is nothing like reinvention that compels

my whimsies. whiteblonde hair now crowns

my head, just playtending. someone must soon

admonish the childish side of me. too old for

play. or maybe. maybe never is too old for

thoughts of white horses and wizards and fairies...

in this world, it is hard not to retreat to such

wonderplaces. and I do know the difference

between imagination and reality. mostly, though

there are times I cannot distinguish dreams from

the actual thing. doesn't much bother me. anyways!

Thanksgiving will be a time of enjoying the company

of those who are very much like family, though same

blood does not run in our veins. but nearly. one last

holiday in this sweet, strange place. packing & sorting

is a chore I hate hate hate to do, but is necessity. I

can put it off for another day or two? well, I will.

so, happy thanksgiving to all of you lovelies and

dearlings who may be reading. I plan on posting

up a list of favorites and thankful things soon.

peace to you, in this joyed and grateful season.

sabbath/shalom.

2008-11-24T01:20:00.000-06:00

is it peace or ignorance? belly bees lull-a-

byed to tacit sleepfulness by these

smoke signals I am sending, though

it is no s.o.s. just goodbye love-

liness, quiet surrender the serenity

of a city bathed in rare november

sun spray. a fire-

escape, frontstoop, an arbor, a coffeeplace

full of frengers. goodbye neighborhoods

or loves I never knew, only long to

now. now that I am leaving.

dear revenant.

2008-11-20T03:43:00.000-06:00

to tell it true, yesterday I nearly wept for leaving...sounds funny, nearly wept, only it is the first time such an emotion has struck since the decision to go. I suppose I'd been searching for that knifed melancholy feeling, took a movie about Being and Dying to stir it within me. Emerging from cinema darkness to find the city streets bathed in a half twilight--blue-grey permeating every thing. a frosted-glass observer feeling. headlights of towntrains burning lemons, sharp to see until sight adjusts and ethereal softness sets in. trees mostly naked now, lined up like sadwise prisoners along the sidewalks. bones exposed. knots ugly-unfurled for strangers' eyes.

slow walk, wondersponge, absorbing everything. cypresses and taxi cabs and the old man dragging a jelly leg with aid of a handsome cane. I started singing a song in my head, swaying to some simple I'll be all right. I'll be all right. I'll be fine...repeated record-like over and over. and despite the 'I' included, was a prayer for okayness & a thank you for the moment, for these chaos streets and the story[s] unwound here. for life, for the whole wide inconceivable cosmos. movie's end had me a bit dizzy, tripping a little over my own feet on the way out, but then readjusted the lens of reverence. 20/20 again? an ambitious prescription. so. even heading home hurts a heart.

apologies.

2008-11-19T18:38:00.001-06:00

i'm sorry.

i meant to write today, i really did.

only, i bought some white fauxleather

boots instead. and watched a deluge

emerge from my ceiling...just above

where sofa/bed so benignly reclines.

oy.

maybe later.

heartland histrionics.

2008-11-19T02:18:00.000-06:00

wish to split

my self in two.

one for here.

one for you.

all the glitter and the roar.

2008-11-17T01:51:00.000-06:00

But you, you have

the lean tall look

of a General, though

you're nothing like

a soldier. Or if

you are, it is from

one of those long ago

wars fought roman-

tic with swords or

arrows and horses,

the horses.

rending.

2008-11-14T00:51:00.000-06:00

usually am my own marionette.

fists folded tightly to hold/

control fine & thewed strings,

all in my own hands until, or

sometimes, fingers unlock and

heartful but thoughtless, can

can give them out. can not

work well for long when Self

is tugged and forced toward

different arrows aimed differ-

ing ways. the ache.

heart or mind begins a

toddler tantrum, no no

no no! must coo a quiet-

ing song. pacify. pray peace.

pray.

(one of these things first)

2008-11-12T18:29:00.000-06:00

and did you see the sky
last night? too blue
for a witching hour. follow-
ed wonderous with wide
eyes, caught inside a carousel
with cottonsoft horses(or were
they buffaloes?) pulled
across, easy as silk. made me
dizzy to see such monstrous
beings fly by so quickly! matched
mind eddying, shifting and I
could not pull gaze away, even when
wind compelled me clean head-
over-heels. ground stood, finally
decided the cold through
woolen cracks just might
do me in. so I went in.

if anything, I am Ophelia

not, not Dante’s sweet Beatrice or
Billy's Hero. may be Isabel Archer,
with one honest awful

decision. but not Beatrice

on that high white pedestal,
keeping dear & blue Miriam
snowclose company.

my wandering/wondering

place. my hearth always

warm that waits. You.

from a long weekend, et alii.

2008-11-11T04:38:00.000-06:00

all these things,

some things:

a man a step ahead of me boarding the burnside bus. leather jacket, manufactured distress. one single long-stemmed rose trembling in his hands. eyes and face face only the floor, is noticeably nervous. blind date or reuniting? wish I could transform, bee-sneak into the redstained flower and witness the meeting.

I clumsily dropped my too-loose sharptoed shoe in some girl's splayed plaid bag. a low-lit bar with live music pulsing. she recovered it for me, placed it gingerly upon my bare foot and squeezed my hand before I could tell my legs to run for the exit.

a pretty girl telling stories in a cottonwhite dress beneath an apple tree. talk of ponies, thriftstore shopping for old lady loafers. 'everything I wear gets dirty.' pristine childhood memories; close by, someone attempts to lasso some constellations (to impress a young lady?). a porcelain cup of warm wine mulled in every hand and every thing smells winter-rich of backyard fire. quiet, I watch my friend standing dark and tall, talking with others, a party general! some words fall that we must careful steptoe around. and once we retreat indoors, the magic all dies. leaning into the corner walls, I think this is Right or it is off. but I wish to live in-the-moment, and so I let it Be. let it Be. no talk of poetry here, only smiling faces burning bright with too much wine. I know I know I know you, so regret is a thing for tomorrow. and glancing over at elijah's chair, I remember all these things.

daguerrotype set icons of me, then you. posed upon the mantle. a world, a whole wide world that could, won't be. I'm not nearly so lucky.

separation anxiety.

2008-11-08T02:37:00.001-06:00

doldrums die hard, but you forget.

you forget:

i was one of them.

i'm unsure,

i'm unsure.

words spoken i can not believe.

am i?

no, you must be miss-taken.

am nothing more than a broken doll,

quiet in the corner chair.

nothing more.

can you hear?

nothing more.

Hope.

2008-11-06T01:07:00.000-06:00

shameless self-promotion above and beyond
that which already comes along with having
a bloggity blog. 1: new tattoo. unfinished,
but is already love. will keep my little lion in
good company. shall i explain? quillfeather
inside my right/writing arm. peacock colored,
for 'Hope is the thing with feathers.' and i do
love the birdies. 2: you may find a wee book

i co-wrote with a good man about a certain

soontobeworldleader mister on amazon.com.

the end. love, rel.

p.s. book is listed at the powell's website too.

life's dream fulfilled.

greenhearts.

2008-11-06T00:16:00.000-06:00

earth-urchins thriv(e)-
ing in hand-me-down
rags, orphans all parad(e)-
ing in matchstick &
lace these hearts to
know/have known

a loss, a scriptscrawled

memorandum to
those whose marrow sleeps
cold in some alabaster
dark incorrigible you, un-
winding the ties that
bind and that bind me to
life’s loveless fate this
rain salts the scars autumn unlocks
anew the curse of the sea-
son: red dahlias all die, but
memories do blossom.

make an altar of this evergreen.
kneel. pray. wait.

yes we can.

2008-11-05T03:19:00.000-06:00

i have tried to keep politics out of this blog,
but am ecstatic tonight as i type. it was tru(e)-
ly amazing to hear the news of obama's
victory. even more amazing to walk the rain-
soaked streets of portland and hear the car
horns honking all along burnside, and to
greet the faces beaming saying, "we have
done it!" for it is We. a community. change
is approaching. i hope i hope i hope. love.

day in the life.

2008-11-03T16:02:00.000-06:00

this is how to start the day:
an apple a shower a kick
in the face. brush the blood
off the teeth, then get dressed.
try on three shirts a dress two
pairs of pants. six kinds of shoes
total a wrenching (mere matter
of time). fill the head with a few
more hopeful lies. tighten the
cashmere & plaid noose round
my neck. overcoat next, button-
ed up to cracked collar bone. mix
in mixed emotions thrown into a
satchel chosen careful to match
some brown boots. then out
the door on two suresteady feet
a key in the lock and a sidewalk to
escort me safely down the street.

possibilities are endless then.
library or bookstore, thriftplace
or park to see the trees or just
to see the sights. coffeehouse,
honestly ending in the evening.

there there.

2008-11-03T15:40:00.000-06:00

cart your horse high head
around like a majestic mask
of could you be [really?]. given
the enormity of charlotte’s smile
don’t blame you for trying her
Self for a while. lay yourself
down across my living room floor
sleeprest until the morning when all
begins anew now chance to behold
a firelight blessed by this candle’s
gold halo. it is November November
all ready! the tick tock’s propelled
us into the future
is here
is now.
singing the body electric I try out
some new names and locations
sent from my throat. no songbird but

still there’s one or two lovely notes

that sound and ring a clear crystal

ring. once I was a warrior child hunt-

ress hermit, one with every thing forged

by Creator. even then I was aware

of poetry. have moved through most

of my nine cat lives [am lioness after

all] and here is a dangerous game I’ve

been playing with cash and hearts

that are not mine. all for an art

that so few care, know.

revisited.

2008-11-02T23:30:00.000-06:00

Moving through my archives, came upon some

wee pieces written what seems like ages ago,

to read, feels like a portrait of a young roman-

tic. But the patterns still remain. Same themes,

preoccupations with trees and rain and dreams.

Wordforms from this one still swing round my

brain every now n again. Written at age twenty.

Guess I crafted it as sort of song, wingly shaped:

I was just wondering how you take your coffee,

is it much how you take your life? black with

no sugar or honey or milk to mask the bitter-

ness of the ache in your chest? you're a mess.

but I'm a mess, too, it'll be alright and we'll

search the green forest in the dawn of twi-

light, beneath a swirled canvas sky while

the bees sing for us a sad lullaby, we'll

trace our fates in a sea of deep blue.

I was just wondering about you.

you wear that jewel high on

your brow as if you are

somebody special.

am I special?

youth.

of hallways or hallows.

2008-10-31T14:05:00.000-05:00

I'll tell you something true,

the third floor of this place

is haunted. furthermore, I

know a guy who died up there:

cooking noodles in his under-

wear. when heart called it quits,

brain quit too & muscles lost grip--

collapsed jellybones in a heap

on the floor. flesh once well-

composed unloosed cellular

knots, sunk into the carpets.

squirmy maggots in the guts.

stayed a lonely corpse for days

and days until some neighbor

complained of the stench which

oozed out milk-green, leaked

from the cracks in the door. poor

old soul, ghostghoul now & some-

times when all else is quiet, can

hear the tap tapping of his wraith-

silver cane mournful down

the winestained hallway.

vertigo.

2008-10-31T00:37:00.000-05:00

I was once like that, tempest's swirl of stupidity still stultus, only more serenely so, even careful choosings stopping short of the Right. so I'm a broken heart, a doll's long-lashed eye following your long limbs up a suite of steps. cannot fall eyes shut or else you and you limbs shall failfall too or disappear. if only I could allow you some wings, but hands are empty, and black magic hat. or if it isn't, fear only a dull knife to emerge, worn down to match an existence, a wit. nothing in hands heart head. words, only words to give you cannot wrap your arms around.

there's a cake in the oven sick sick and deflated. no eggs no softsifted flour or sugars for fine baking. tried so hard to mix it from aphorisms and cracked synecdoche, too sweet to put your teeth on, and I guess there wasn't strength in it, nothing to cling to but air all air now no air left. well, with no thing to offer, how did we begin? I retreat watch your form ascend while I contemplate: this mess I'm in, the pretty imprisoning of balustrade bars, how true walls however bloodless are something to put your whole back against, lean on, root and grow into. lose touch for sake of a solo flesh. [and stanzas seem too much like staircases]

tuesday.

2008-10-29T00:11:00.000-05:00

[fyi: this also exists @ ten.months.of.missing.you, a

wee blogging collective I am thrilled to be a part of.

check it out--there are some very brilliant creators there.]

October is cold when you cannot see June. cleave to or cleft from this place that once seemed so strange. there,there will be a big backyard with a low sky swinging, trees to lean a spine upon. read a book. that is the way I will walk home and this is the route I take now, a gauntlet of gold and red boughs, leafmeal beneath my feet. something is wrong or right. possibility widens the window. me then you with our lives stretched before us like a Thanksgiving table, though sometimes I think, I cannot eat. cannot enjoy the taste of anything. no, any thing you say can bring a smile. old creeps into my bones every now and again. sinews sewn taut and my limbs wish to run. could I blink and be there? across a table, fingers stretched to grasp a glass of wine. ah, ticking time.

I worked the math out in my head, then killed the feeling completely. cut down my hair. a new beginning, a naked baby-feeling. lose my sex, my fingerprint safety net. [been told] a man's mind and woman's red heart. ancient soul with elastic skin. pull on my too big overcoat, the wool one with all the buttons I must retie again and again, wear it like abstraction, obscurity. so this is what security feels like: a little too heavy, warmy, fusty, but necessary in case I am becoming too weary for the knowing. am relying too heavily upon the unknown expanse of maybe. possibility. like Emily, dwell there too willingly. homebound.

crashkill all about me, defeat the life that threatens to suppress the carnival spirit sense, the horses. the horses, the oats and apples unspent, the games we play to pay the rent. reel back, reel in acrylic goldfish, time away from lovers and mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers. ascetic assertion, just to make another day orange and bright with tries. trying to make a home of my heart, only cinematically in technicolor and polaroid captures of the future fitting. fitting that I should be so lost here among leaves that turn to crimson and copper waxshine.

and cake and wine was a picture of me, what I could be, lost too, lost to reality. never wanted just me or who would either? all black boots and a wool coat, broken doll eyes. out at sea, a full fathom gulf between you, then me. missing that self that is selfless and true. pearls on a string, these loves I’ve left behind. pressed round and shiny, all platonic ideals shaped and secured in the void, the ether out there, rising high to greet the stars. a bluehot kiss hello and then wandering on to elsewhere. great big purple bursts poison the teeth. leave a sweet residue that can not forget she bit his cheek. drew blood. and it was love.

poet assassins.

2008-10-27T14:11:00.000-05:00

happy birthday, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963).

æther/or.

2008-10-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

I’d like a step in your shoes, dear.
I’m not starving myself, only seeing
how long it will take to disappear
completely into the æther and find
my way into your lungs, for I

can play pneumatic too and we

are all one, all immortal in this breath-
ing in the hallowed cells of Socrates.
wind blows me into a new Being,

feeds my bones, makes them white

and strong as doric columns. autumn

air is clean on my new skin. clean and dry
as bedsheets tied to the line. line from a

to be, Clotho’s gift, though else is left

to her sisters’ gracehands. I have found

my other fleshform—line from a dream

where midnight rainbows sparked the sky

and clouds allowed for gargoyle shapes. a crook-

ed aged woman, blind and clever as a bat casts

a black cane tapping a test for each foot-

fall. I grow cold, old. youth wanes

and whispers a vague good-bye drone.

when I was young, I could be anything
and all, fly to skies where stars were islands

brimming with pirates and pixies. could walk

through wardrobes and looking glass frames. now.

now I can only cradle dead leaves colored of dried blood

and listen, stare through the holes in my own shoes

have never tread neverland, narnia or wonderland, only

urban slabs of concrete squareforms. strike a match

off this shredworn sole. light a candle or two. wait.

scissor shredding. sinews exposed.

2008-10-22T21:54:00.000-05:00

I very nearly cropped my hairs tonight. going gamine, but only maybe. thought too long today about such an alteration. philosophizing a hair cut. for what is it that makes me want to change it so? I have always loved hair so short, but never cared much for the patient grow out process--been lousy at it, actually. what is it in me that craves the constant change? some control over something, s'pose. every now and then I go through a mood of renewal, concoct stratagems for reinvention. except that at core, I am who I am, honestly and without apology. so who is the reinvention for? my only true answer can be: others. it is possible I wish to control others' perception of me so very carefully that it pulls a new brooding every several moons. oh, but I guess that’s the way it has always been. so careful. careful with my words—mustn’t seem the fool. mustn’t be construed as weak-willed or naïve. I learned early enigma is a facile and potent social tool. rather be mostly unknown than outright disliked or thought of badly. keep the image shifted and blurred a little to the left or right, but never quite in focus. born of what, I am uncertain. can offer traumatic stories of childhood, but that would not help. true interest in who I truly am is [rare, and] often nerve-wracking. you want to understand? really? I’m not sure I can be party to such a thing. smarts and inner-strength have been my thing (what else can I offer?) and dumb and vulnerable is not permitted. leaves me heart-sped and stubborn. defensive. walls. walls erected all around for reasons abounding and very few can wield the wrecking ball; the thought alone inspires some panic. I read and listen to such melancholic, heartwrenching things. love them for their vulnerability, for exposing some rawness that I [all] can relate to. I can write such things too, but ever with some degree of coldness, never to and can never say the right words face to face without hesitatation. abstraction is a wool coat buttoned all the way up. and I am blessed. blessed with so much loveliness surrounding. so why is my default setting still dialed to sad? does not mean I cannot experience happiness, and I suppose a deeper Joy underlines everything still, or else I’d go completely crazy. Joy from Grace and whatever I’ve ever felt, whatever I’ve ever been through, I’ve never doubted Grace, was taught by those I love most about its power, its stillness, its infiniteness. I suppose that is what has always kept me awake. for there are often little anodyne wonders to take note of nearly every day. dewdrops on grassblades at noontime, the way fog veils the features of a street so prettily as the sun’s climbing up, the woman in an oversized green carpet coat on the bus cradling a dog the size of a teacup. watching people wakens my heart to the bigness of the Creator’s universe. sneaking smiles from babies bundled up for winter—babies looking with such large, wondrous eyes that seem to search your heart and, yet, shyly grin at what they see. I’m terrible at talking to others, but I’m very good at spying and listening. nodding and smiling. it’s the words [pushed up from my lungs, shaped by a tongue, spilled from my lips] that make me nervous. I need time: to absorb, contemplate, craft, then pronounce each word with care. how I envy a quick, witty mind! mother and sister are those that always seem to know something to say. charm with a pun and laugh, a sparkle in their [same] lovely eyes (blue, but with a fire’s touch of green and gold. unlike my own, which are only blue cold blue).

fourth cup of coffee and I am out of my special cajun blend. onto the starbucks christmas kind my father passed on to me last year. is it still good to brew? I dunno. on the fourth listen of ‘sylvia plath’ too. I sit in my corner chair, knees pulled up beneath chin barely rested upon them, staring at the walls and trying to know just what it is. here is the night ahead. and here is tomorrow, and there is forever! who am I tonight? the girl in the corner. who am I forever? the girl in the corner. it is accepted. without hesitation. only some sadness. the problem with constructing such mystery is that few will ever know the real. both alienating and how it should be. or at least, how it will be. it is chore to explain own paradoxes. one either understands, or they do not. maybe. well, there is no black & white here, only gray with the occasional rainbow shining through. cannot draw a line around it, won’t fit any ordinary shape. a chaos map. pattern emerges, but only with careful study. will one haircut cause a hurricane of malaise some future day? or will there always be days of malaise and the style I've settled upon doesn’t matter at all. could bring on self-contentment or self-loathing. but so can anything, and anything does. and if I move to Texas, will life become easier? with friends and family and some do-gooder job I enjoy? or will there still be moments of not-knowing, discontent? I imagine so…but to not be so isolated, that will be something. now, I am still in my anchorhold. still focused on quiet ascetic. but I am ready, must soon pack up my Portland life. put it into little boxes and send it southward. will move through the desert, but may just find a new clear spring to drink from...[and I think I will chop the legs off my hair. so much easier, even if I do look like a boy. and well. it is perhaps a sign of beginning again, as well as a return to me at my most comfortable. who was I trying to be with longish hair loosely curled? some glamourqueen? that is certainly not me. no no. I prefer gamine.]

and. here's to the night, nearly over. here's to trying out something that scares.

there is much to read on this page. thanks for getting this far, if any have.

there is but only one heart in my body, have mercy on me.

cheers.

[sitting in my corner chair. little questions plague.

inconsequential, normally. only now have risen the

size of the very fiercest dinosaurs and they're tooth-

tearing my skull to pieces. i think if i concentrate

hard enough i can evanesce all my cells, become same

as air. disappear. or. fuse all cells, petrify. statue in

the corner still curled like a cat and staring eyeballs

at the wall. paralysis by any other name. ahwell.]

open letter.

2008-10-21T19:08:00.000-05:00

no you cannot swagger your grandfather guns any longer, not here.

bows and arrows [if necessary] only please. what you gives you Right

to explode a thing? we like things clean. done and done. done well or

not at all. this insisted messiness is tiring and I'm grown tired

of fighting for some light of harmony. so this is my boot slammed

down on your foot with a fingerpoint in your yellow eyes. stop.

please stop. cease & listen will do your bones a world of goodness--

not to me, but to the sorrow songs of beasts and orphans, trees

and birds, sky and satellites. all are dirging, pleading for a peace

worth keeping and I...I would like to live see own child's eyes.

darling girl.

2008-10-20T02:42:00.000-05:00

and I still believe in the whiteness of the whale.

I still believe in life worth the waiting in the dark

age of waiting, all is waiting. curtain call tonight.

dusk brings dawn, eventual in time. time is still.

town townsounding out names I will miss. remember

driving in your car? the windows rolled down with a song

in the speakers the universe told us we must listen to forever

in that moment was raining sheets or wasn’t. sky was blue

or grey. night or day? all. I have not forgotten, sister.

I see a girl in a cloudwhite dress, dark tights, pearly

balletshoes standing on a long pale porch among the stars.

[she is me] she is you. she longs to waltz and sway, but will

not let bones swoon to moonlight, move with the tides. there

is a drink in her hand, but it is ignored. there is a drink.

there is a swing and some grass and a secret stair for spying.

she is waiting for her mister to say something new, though

each word uttered from lips [seems] a jewel. he is a monster

or he isn't. a mystery. but don’t worry, darling girl. don’t worry

about the wine or the music he makes; you can speak. you could

always speak and laugh your prettiness so easily. time is there/

there for everything. till then, I pass on my 10 cent wings

and a careworn novel of megalomaniacal peg-legs and one too

tuuurrible white leviathan. solve your wish. some things will

Be (and I saw a sticker that read, reading is sexy).

making never perfect.

2008-10-18T03:03:00.000-05:00

sun imparts some meaning to-day.

so does this scarf cut from a sheep (

welsh one, I 'magine)& woven into this

marvelous plaid thing noosing my neck [not

too tight]. also: these pink shoes I painted

with a wee green bird and white moon

moons and moons ago. I nearly never wear

them, only special occasion. bookstore today

bargain buys. more poems and herodotus. fraud

feelings welling up once more. I am a writer.

I am most certainly not. crippled pen. what

thoughts, actions are given over? every

thing must be so careful--I'm growing tired

of so methodical. but then risk exposure though

I already know I am a fraud. how does one

infuse all one is thinking into one whole sentence? if

Dickinson & meta-narrative & Elijah & Antigone &

iconoclasm & the man collecting pennies on street's

corner are perched as little birds in mind's open

aviary, how do I coax all to meld notes same

time and in harmony? [and if I am thinking

of you you you or you, dare I silence that song?] well.

it is something to think on. it is something to

try for. practice practice, my little nightingales.

a good poem will do that to you.

2008-10-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

so absorbed I was in those words -
I forgot to take the long way home.
body automatically pointing toward
a place where ink & paper sat waiting

for some finally inspired hands. composed

these first lines while walking, I forgot

to take the long way home, like mantra

mingled with those words from that poem.

I want to take my book of trees
to the park, puzzle out the leaf-
shapes, collect some for keeping.
I want to marry these words
and those leaves in an eternal
union, bind them in a great big book,

twine-tied. treasure-save it for those

children that may be, may not be.

the blue October sky is dream to-

day, the saltelectric sea-wind riding

the backs of great blue herons a cure

for all that aches. and I am one.
one small being
one with every thing, even though
I forgot to take the long way home.

automatically.

2008-10-13T02:33:00.000-05:00

[or an over-indulgent glimpse into my head, mostly unedited.]

I am writing for beauty's sake. writing, dear, to show you

what I mean. I am who I am, writer writing some thing

always in my head. forever composing. I’ve lost hundreds

of poems because I was unwilling to pick up a pen. on the

sidewalks shouldering streets, flights of stairs, in morning or

evening showers, I am creating--sometimes it is just words

and lines that strike me. sometimes there are voices talking

and I am listening, but I never put them down to paper,

just let them live out there in the ether.

I pay too much attention to you, and never enough to you.

I write you too many notes, call you too much or never, and

I cannot mail you enough real good letters. I am sorry. I am

always composing [thinking, absorbed, thinking]. it gets in

the way of ordinary peoplethings, comes between me and people.

I am writing love letters and elegies. odes and treatises.

can you feel the motion in the words of my penning?

can you feel the heart of my hopelessness? I will love

the stars and the hyacinths till I die, I think. I will adore

the crocuses in the little vases of the blown-glass shaped

by rounded lips and loved into being. you are a being

in the finest of hours, if hours today may be called

the finest I know I know I know. can you love the bones

in the mountainside though they may not love you back?

can you love the hearts in the fires of poppies, the little red

mouths poised for a vampire kiss? kill the dead thing inside

you, toss it out, it is not worth the hanging around. careful

will see you stepping over ants. let go. ash trays pile up. find

Jesus there like Seymour. find Jesus wherever you are. I see

him in the quicksilver Texas clouds. I see him in the cars that

pass with little kids hanging arms out the windows, dogs

on the streets, some three-legged, some with tongues out.

I want a baby owl for a pet, is that possible? I want a magic

wand to protect you. I want I want I want. I want a life outside

of this room, I want a life of simple grace. I want a book bound

in leather, carved with my name. I want a family: some good

man, some children with gems for eyes and beautiful names.

I want to grow my own sweet red tomatoes and black cherries,

taste their fruit in the summertime; to cook things over a big

big fire, smell its hotsmoke smell in my hair when I finally find

sleep. But for now there is only to write about it. I want you

to know what I mean [you the specific, you the all who is me,

who are not me]. I want you to see some beauty there or here.

I am some different body day to day (at times hour to hour!): I

feel young, then old. ugly or un-ugly. a failure or a success. foolish

or [dare I admit it?] witty as hell. but always I know I am writing.

pretty things [a clip show].

2008-10-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

lou doillon is pretty.

grey gardens is pretty [silly/lovely].

virgin suicides is pretty [heartwrenching/true].

twin peaks is pretty [nw coffee/peopletrees].

lionbabies are pretty [huggable things].

some somnambulists don't know where they're headed.

2008-10-10T02:39:00.000-05:00

in your head there’s a heart-
beats a window of time.
and Self’s eclipsed
by a clock chiming:

one
two
three.

we are all [are we?]

wasted as bodies.

he and she and we all written there.

2008-10-09T18:47:00.000-05:00

I split the sky.
lightning bars bend
under weight
of my weightless hands.
you are the son of my son’s son.
you are the daughter of my daughter’s daughter.
baked your bones cakewhite
in the kiln of my heart. not

heart, Enormity//

wine stains communion reach
hands in the air. can not [you]
usher in new eras of cold
hard facts. all Earth is
waiting for a letting go,
heat, and in the wind of wisdom

let wisdom rekindle the flames

of me in the ivory bloodwombs

of her mother cradled arms//

boughs of trees span for your

smile, catch a kiss from you
would send their scarlet leaves
to clouds as kites, then falling:
Icarus heights to oceanseas. tears

sheet and sleek a crest upon

your cheek. pale wonder to

watch child eyes shine light//

I forged those gems. picked them just

for you can you feel it? do you know
the love that slices through your being? a

crocus splendor. sweet pink frosting and
ginger slips catch in your starling throat.
sing sing sing like the birds enamored to
you have wings too, can’t you see?
those careform feathers zippered

to your spine honest-
ly waiting for the sky.

other peoples' genius [or: emotional landscapes]

2008-10-08T03:20:00.000-05:00

coffee’s gone cold again. sits at my left hand in a mug hand-painted with a London scene my mother once entrusted to me (her brother gave it to her the year of my birth), but can never consume it quickly enough. dashboard marks the out of doors temperature at a frosty forty-one degrees. blood runs icy as those mudbrown dregs, and I must drape self in more blankets for any inkling of warmth. am now a ninety-eight pound person, yet I do not tell it as boast—was not blessed with Elvish height. [given merely the ability to fit into very small spaces, like cobwebby cupboards and leather suitcases.] only mention it cos I am surely shrinking (though I don’t recall a little bottle labeled ‘DRINK ME’ in a pretty hand), and soon now, I’ll be able to fit through the White Rabbit’s door. being petite has no real wealth of advantages. at five feet one inch, I am often over-looked (though it helps with stealth), and when seen, there is usually an exclamation of “god, you’re short!” followed by a quick gesture to pick me up. [I early learned evasive maneuvers for such inclinations.] but oh, that is not what I meant to write about at all. only some change is somatically manifesting. hair is growing--it’s an exercise in the bravest kind of patience not to chop it off at the knees, but I’ve determined to let it extend antelope limbs for at least another little while, and will leave it brown clay brown as the Creator intended. well, for now.

for now, I am more than content to be wrapped up in books, and absorbing the words of genius-types has an anodyne effect on an inflamed mind. or anyway, the bitter pills in prose and poetry are more easily swallowed than those that surround corporeally--though we all be corpses deferred. my wallflower life is overgrown with the thoughts of men and women long committed to the soil, dead dead and buried still. still, I make altars of their headstones, trace pithless epitaphs with frozen fingers, lay down chaos bouquets of lilacs and vanilla orchids.

but such affection devoted can be nothing but unrequited. or, if there be some Heaven set just for writers (masters and poetasters alike), we shall share some great embrace some fine infinite day.

“A world ahead? What did he mean by that? Or was it a world behind? Or did the past, the past circles of worlds, the steps of the temple of Poseidon and Poseidonia, the flower-stalk columns of that arcade of marble columns of Saint John Lateran of Rome (or wherever it was) remain even after they were bombed to hell, one way or another, a pattern in the air? Were there worlds that remained, worlds of past beauty that were future beauty? Did the past and future blend (or would they) in one eternal circle of the absolute, of final beauty? That prayer they quoted (from Plato, was it?), And may the inner and the outer be at peace. Here certainly there was no peace, or peace so hardly won in these rarer moments of fulfillment that they became worlds ahead; as he said, as Rico said, ‘You are entangled in your own dream.’ Was, or wasn’t it the dream that mattered?”

dreams must matter. it is all hope, all willingness for aliveness. and for now, I am more than content to be wrapped up in books, and for ever entangled in dreams.

a beginning.

2008-10-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

remember that time? i must've been ten. we were well-living in austin by then. it was my first trip to kerbey lane. [memory's been written in disappearing ink. already age washes away things.] yes yes. i must've been ten. and it was midnight, i think, though i was hardly asleep. with slightest whisper, you called my name, called me out of a dream. told me you were going out. going to get coffee. asked me if i wished to come [my morning coffee, already old habit]. get dressed, we leave in five minutes.

in the car, you told me how your college friends would often pull you out of bed some owl-late nights, just for tacos. coffees. milkshakes...i don't know. but it must have seemed very strange for the folks at that 24 hour place to see a man walk in past midnight with his ten year old daughter, order black coffees for both.

and we talked. talked as friends. i can not recall all turns of conversation, from school to Narnia to baseball to God, perhaps. we have always talked about those things, and i don't know what drove you to invite me out, some marriage frustration, maybe [was around the time of its demise]. or the church you worked for too mired in politik. but it was an induction into a world beyond construction paper and times tables. it was another way to Be, and i fell in love with it. is it any wonder then, that those are still my favorite nights? two people across a table, late late, when most people are sleeping? listening and talking. listening and knowing. listening and story-learning.

thank you.

interpreting dreams and other such mysteries.

2008-10-05T02:46:00.001-05:00

all these dolls. all these people. i often see you inside out--two eyes pale like stuck slugs, pink stringed and cyanine, lollrolling back & back & backto blackness, trying to find that pinprick of light. the light that Is and remains Forever. all these dolls. all these people. there's the sodden drumming heart, the cake white & crooked bones. thew unyielding, some yellow lipids lined to soften the blow. [the blow of the Other/is not every thing divided by two? boy and girl. bonne et mal. me, then you. but yet. in the Presence of One who is Three who are One faulted vision collapses, I becomes small, but yet. more more more than a mere doll. i unfold well-molded lungs and breath in deep, hear here is your Wind, love it if you can.] all these dolls. all these people. i am bird. i am snake renewing this skin over & over & over again. how long till the comfort comes? has all this dreaming for better left me any wiser as i stand shaky on tired legs and ask from the Author, grant me brain and heart that will collaborate,?

that is not it at all.

2008-10-04T09:37:00.000-05:00

[note: was put up earlier in a sorry state by mistake. ack. now revised.]

petrichor turns to fusty now. now it is just cold and damp, this old brick building has not yet unleashed the radiators that clang and bang and growl as monsters, and I cannot bring myself to close the window done&done shut. so I pretend. pretend the century-old ghosts that haunt this once-hotel speak to me in such a spooky syntax as only I can hear. I am back in time, a girl who took this room for some while between the Wars. hair cut short as a schoolboy's, bare feet on an aloof, wooden floor. I pull on thin stockings for warmth, glean some more from the haphazard mass [a mess, a mess] of autumn flowers burning burgundy and gold in a small vase by the window. the blossoms glow like Christmas balls (or earth’s own stars) in candlelight’s halo. a single stick flicks out blue to blonde hot flame, carelessly drips stalactitethick wax on the metalstuff column deigned to hold it upright. a bronzed Atlas keeping all well and lit.

the kettle ululates, signals readiness, and some ceremony is performed just as it is every night, ancient and personal, an insomniac’s spiritual rite. the tea purchased cheaply, kept dry in a pretty gilt tin bequeathed by some long-gone Victorian grandmother. now, where is the paper? where is the pencil? oh there, atop the bookcase that has become far too small, novels and notebooks upright and sideways, spines raw and aching and spilling out to the floor, strewn [but not out of apathy] beneath the sleeping cot with its sheets and their disturbing whiteness—too bright for this darkly dim space that never does drink in enough sun, despite the aggrandized state of the window panes. this city is forever grey. a sky soaked and blurred as newsprint gets when someone's spilt their morning milk upon it, some cut-paper trees that surprise with their height and infinite greenness. do they ever die, know how to ache? can we be sure these trees too are wise as their cousins who must suffer a loss, a nakedness, before Spring gives them new leaves? either way, an old patchwork quilt with a habit of shedding small fading threads has been thrown over the meek little bed meant for sleep.

but sleep so seldom comes. there are the same and new thoughts to think. the same and new languages to try out in ink and on the tongue. other worlds to explore and philosophies to consider. prayers to commit to heart—and of the heart? It is there, clearly seen, sewn with great care to her dressing gown sleeve. well, who is the writer endeared to to-night? Joyce’s wandering Dedalus? can not be Dmitri Karamazov. or she has moved on to T.S. Eliot, who is real and writes “of lonely men in shirtsleeves, leaning out of windows.” [The whole of the poem is a cool and musk perfume, matches the night, this rain, this maddening waltz whirling en pointe round the brain.]

yes. Eliot. and I am still the girl in a frowsy room, shivering with stockings on. heart-stitched, watching the smoke and fog find a lazy habit, stretch and curled against the lamplight street like some dear cat I once knew and loved. there will be time to murder and create.

or. no. that is not it at all.

some earthurchins here.

2008-10-02T03:26:00.000-05:00

of apples and eyeglasses: I’ve misplaced them all. hungry and squinting my way through it. but of conversations: I am finding the stories shaping lives, trying to read them as the books I so like like. the rewards are same, new existences unfold, escaping my own brain for awhile to Listen. and as I have become more embracing of Story, others have seemed more open to me--approach me often on the street. is it something etched across my irises? an aura surrounding?

I met a young man called Akeelu yesterday, skateboarding by as I was solo-strolling the length of the waterfront. we talked for more than an hour by the river, two strangers trading lives. Philadelphian, forging his way West like the pioneers of old, with the eventual aim of Hawaii—some place to surf, cultivate some land and find some brothers. it's a thick & common thread to discover—a constant searching for fellowship and communion [or however one wishes to name it]. for today, mr. barista at my favorite coffeeplace asked, with voice full of niceness, if he could share a table with me for a spell until his shift started. asked me some questions, mainly what on earth are you ever laboring at? told me a tale of working and working so he can take a month off to tour with some fellow musicians. just a few weeks of guitartuning and busted van driving/sitting/sleeping, all over fair New England in autumn, doing what he loves best with those he best loves.

and I, I am moving back to Home in hope of the same, some place to create with the most imaginative folks, some place where everyday ordinaries converge with calling and community, where all is full of Love. is it too idyllic a dream? very well, then. I am a dreamer. either way, my own intuitions exceed expectations. and this is oft-quoted, but necessary for you to know:

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

a story to be continued.

birthday letter.

2008-09-30T01:23:00.000-05:00

I crafted you a birthday letter
with some cut paper and the ink
from my favorite pen. you always
did smile at things made with
my hands, saving all those stories
so peopled with clever kittens and
their kingdoms. I can remember: folding
one great swath of paper into bookshape,
scrawling all words with the awkward,
endearing coordination of little fingers,
illustrating (because some good sagas
require pictures). published as gift.

[they must live in some shoebox now.
dusty and fading after these long years,
kept safe there by] you who wept to see
me lonelysitting on the playground. you
who could read the sickness in my eyes
when my mouth refused to speak it.

you who guided my wonder.

barely 20 years between us
in lifespan: just a girl on the
edge of adultness. are you
still learning how to live
on this Earth? are you still
bearing the force of what’s
been upon the slimness of your
porcelain shoulders? or else
the weight widens the heart’s
many stitches. when I was small
I thought you the most beautiful
woman to Be. even now, still
the same. I've only just forgiven me
for wearing so few of your features.

dusty and fading after these long years,
some things have been. have been mean.
but you gave me a name with strong and
pretty in it, an ever reminder of whose true
lion I am. perfection gets tired—we, we are
the broken and lovely. It’s Love and blood
that binds us to, you have shared the sap
of your marrow with five bright others,
beings I am blessed to know.

what are you wondering at now? have you
learned some great Truth to share? I can’t
guess where I’ll find myself in another 20
years of watching the treeleaves alter their
colors and dry-up, dust to dust. to have seen
more summers and winters, can you offer—
do the trees ever stop being a marvel? you
once showed me all the flowers and stems to
be found in your dear garden, guided me
from green to green; there’s a polaroid of it

caught somewhere in my hair, and I

will be sitting in that garden with you,

if you should ever need me. I will be
writing that story you gave to me.

fourth dimension.

2008-09-28T05:36:00.000-05:00

the grandfather clock swoons &

swings, winds away and down.

even with the best intentions.

guess he can not always keep it up with-

out some artful Maker's hand to master

the weightchain or tiny key. gears meet

gears. brass & gold. little teeth turning

circles just to tick-tock off ununderstood

eternity. seconds stretch to centuries and

we can only watch a face, count the stars,

and curtsy toward some abstract dream.

and if there's anything in All I am very good

at, it's wishes. never miss a chance at a falling

star, or waxcheap candle lit & fixed (ever at some

slight wrong angle) in a cupcake smothered with

hopesure sprinkles. yes, I guess it's Hope there.

meantime, brain is dumbstruck numb. has been

since realworld gears began spinning. can't keep

saying all the silly things, some filter is fairly missing.

true thoughts fall deep into the rabbit's hole and I'm

endlessly tripping over teeth & tongue. can't recall

a phone call or two--mostly the ones just before dawn,

before senses have shaken off the shadows. no matter.

I'll just [must] keep wishing time kinder with adventure.

where we are.

2008-09-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

just a thought:

i'm sure if i lived in some fairygreen land

among trees and creeks, fawns and moths,

i'd find myself only willing to write about

concrete, glass and traffic signs. monster-

busses and baby carriages spinning wheels

forever on too-narrow sidewalks. dogs can

be in both places. if that explains anything.

these flowers are for you.

2008-09-25T11:09:00.000-05:00

[What are all these honeybees humming hives in my ribcage?

Where have they arrived from? How awful's the sting?]

I am a runaway returning to home. I told you I'd never go

back if you called. But some phones are cake and cannot

ring true and I am pointing toes, hips and nose due Ess

with the aid of a compass en route. If I might make the

trip tonight as feathered crow flies, I would I would rush

madly there to be met by those sunsets and trees I do not

see this side of the tooth&tor Rockies. Prodigal Clementine.

But I've grown no wings from my shoulders' sharp blades,

so I s'pose I'll just follow the old rambling road leading

out of this place of everlasting firs, down&down to the

rattlesnaked lands. Past crucifixed waving cactuses,

back to rolling hills hiding bones of granite and limestone.

Taking spade to your soil in that sprawling backyard,

I'll dig out some clay for fate's shaping.

But my hands are small, I may

need your help. Some guiding

arm, some wide shoulder to lean on.

I must stand on the shoulders of pen-wielding giants

just to reach the tallest bookshelf; my fingers seize the

sought-after things and I pull down some canvas-covered

Hearts carefully. Careful with the chapter leaves, afraid one

small rend will cause some great corpse to yawp blood pain

in his grave, or else fiction wraiths will join a manhaunt (some

owllate night, finally fast asleep) to terrorize my naivete,

taunt my carelessness. Was I callous before? I am

sorry now. When I left, I never intended meanness.

There's a halo of hyacinths hanging over your brow

(blue to match the eyes of your sky). I like the look

of soft and regal, forever king of cowboy Ethereal.

And it makes me feel better to see you. Dear Texas.

wounds that heal and cracks that fix.

2008-09-23T14:03:00.000-05:00

mired in politik [delightfuly, laboriously].

6 days, 12ish americanos, a pint of blood,

some sticksweat, 5 pounds or so of body

bulk, and 1 new [collaborator]friend later:

there is a Book, or the skeletonrunt bones of one.

mantra platitudes for the self now:

Drink More Water. Eat Good Veggies.

Write the Heart Out, Everly.

Fight the Fear that Paralyzes.

Love.

{I might could tattoo these

down the long side of my arm,

a wordy epidermal river re-

minder in shiny black ink

upon ghostly white tones.}

if I allow myself true stillness, I am reminded of Faces,

see them winking at me in mind's eye. can not guess

why one over another, but I try to remember to love

the ones that show up, human being by human being.

under the surface, much yet remains. brooding confusion

can rise a light balloon weight to float above all other

pains, but it's no life raft & no hopeful kite. just some

jellyfish thing. curious to see, but no. not worth the sting.

[Autumn arrives & when autumn arrives,

I must read Robert Frost. 'Directive' is

maybe my most favorite of many favorite

Frost poems, written with strange, woodsy

beauty, sadness, wisdom. I urge you to read it.]

"Back out of all this now too much for us..."

a sad and beautiful world.

2008-09-21T20:40:00.000-05:00

friend[&currentcollaborator] bob just sent me this video.

love it. beauty abound. bright old souls playing in puddles,

stealing pears, wielding wooden pirate swords and eyepatches.

so. lovely.

all these ribbons i find there.

2008-09-20T17:57:00.001-05:00

there is this man. there is this man running for no small office, and we are becoming acquainted. or, more accurately, i am learning his story; he is not aware of me. or i am some figment friend, occasionally stopping in for a hasty hello. either way, i am unreal. but he exists, least i am told.

oh, there is a lot of politik to master. some of it seems important and there is other things to absorb me. some narrative complications, and when plot turns to policy: dull lull. braindense and dumb, i seek out the ribbons of trueness to me--they tie knots round my heart. for i have somesame ribbons tied tight in my hair, cannot be loosed or all power'd be lost. poetry-penning in high school. library monk, sustained on wordfeasts--saint augustine, graham greene, and martin luther king. in mind's eye, there is a young man wandering the slummiest streets in new york city. he is walking to the beat of his own thought rhythms. 'who am i? [pause] who am i? [pause] who am i?' well, i do well know not all searchers find their way. not all idealists rise to vision. not all outsiders find the [in]door.

& not all poet-hearts pump garnetwarm blood. some are lost, some are cynics. some stay strange and turn to stone. but i cannot relate to worldleader ambitions. all i can empath is the restless, seeking mind. the one who asks the underneath questions and delights in peoplestories. and after all of that, i suppose wishing a world change isn't so bad. i cannot be completely sure (even the most faithful bolster some doubt), but i think i might like the man. or he's beginning to make sense.

to the moon, alice.

2008-09-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Be: we some ingenious

machines, marvelously

made? built into Being,

alloyed awe in solemnity

& mirth? or: cleanstuck slugs

fused to this earth by grave

and Graver things--heldfast

dumb bugs in a trap? well

a pregnant pearl does pull us

with the shifting of her gaze,

visage shaded bright {or}

cautionary black. still. seeing

sky flies a higher Thought

up, fills pneumatic cracks

cold supposed in the chest;

leaves one sorry form sate

enough for another Aurora

and the cycle repeats.

eavesdropped.

2008-09-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

"Art is the sacralizing of its subject." -Joyce Carol Oates

It all tastes like wax to me now. I can't even do Special Dark bars anymore--wax. The girl at the patio table behind me speaks to a lover or a friend. I hear her words with a poet's heart, and maybe she has a heart like this too. Seems true enough. Observations pour from her mouth, carefully, ringing sweetly as her companion grunts his caveman replies. All chocolate tastes of wax. She speaks of kissing the foreheads of darling babies, just for the blank affection of it. I listen (while pretending to read) and her life unfolds before me like a bourgeois dream. Her mother doesn't care for good food, but her father has always cooked immaculate epicurean delights. She worries profoundly over a friend she fears has become too skinny--arms and legs all sharp points, awkward angles, little arrows. There is more of her story to tell, but I've forgotten all but the highlights now. Never turned around, never saw the faces behind me in reality. Instead my imagination sculpted noses and limbs, applied some fitting shades of melanin.

Yes, I think there is something to be said for a little eavesdropping now and again. Think of all the little windows to such beautiful, complicated lives you'd miss.

it speaks and spells.

2008-09-08T22:48:00.000-05:00

These days, there is something like a woman’s face

in my morningtime mirror. There, there are the cheek-

bones I lamented lackof in later adolescence, and there

the lips don’t seem so disproportionately thick. But same

blue irises, same sprinkling of freckles across a nose

my mother feared would become too small, or too large

for my elfin face. Too large, but this is the expression

I was given, though I hardly recognize it in photographs.

And there, below neck, the same womanish body I’ve never

really loved, limbs so short, but a Form given by some

greatgood Being. As a child, I remember staring through

the glass, seeking out Alice and scared of Jabberwocky,

but also knowing, this is my self.

{myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.}*

I was contemplating absence of Body, the invisible mind.

Could I be me if I owned some different face? Darker skin?

Longer limbs? Conclusion, I never came to then, certainly

now I am beginning to know how I am “fearfully and wonder-

fully made.” All are crafted so cleverly: those glamour bodies

in celluloid print, the gray-haired&turkey-jowled politicians

preaching Fear, the transient sleeping on streets--smelly and

ragged and begging to eat, the pregnant lady I watched on the

bus with an unlit cigarette nearly crushed between fingers,

waiting for her stop, while inside her, Lifeblood builds a new

Thing. Miracle of miracles. I want to cry out—“please take

Good care of that humanbean growing from such smallseed!”

{for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.}*

*g.m. hopkins

haitian love songs.

2008-09-08T13:01:00.000-05:00

my spirit ran

to greet you

before my feet

left the porch.

~~~

i've never been to Haiti, but something in me loves it still. i do desire to go, somedays/someways. something about the creole folk of it, the caribbean french, the poorest country in the western hemisphere still brimming with such lovely, smiling faces [though the politik has put them through hell]. in the muddy, fusty wake of all this fire and rain, i am thinking of the little island, carefully placing all its people in my prayers. bonswa.

(courtesy of henri rousseau& cocorosie)

character study.

2008-09-07T16:54:00.000-05:00

remember Ingrid? her Being is being revealed to

me ever slowly. but I saw her last night, clear

as day. wearing turquoise cowboy boots over

dark jeans and working 8 hours a time in some

dusty vintagethrift store. a busy street, big windows

and Herman's Hermits from speakers overhead.

a bored look in her body, as her focus

drapes,

redrapes,

and adorns

old mannequins all day long.

the end.

creature comforts.

2008-09-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

who can I tell my secrets to?

sometimes in dreams I am Whole again.

othertimes Self can't conquer staircases. or, limbs

longlast free from feral clutches find a bolt upright.

heavy breathing, bloodboon terrorbeating at bars

of its bony prison. the usual eerie&ethereal shapes

on unlit walls to greet after the nightmare. [should

be used to this by now and soon they’ll disappear

but] the heartmonster stays in depths and folds of

Evening's starshine sheet; caught. been been found.

a malfunction of my own brain maybe. or a port-

hole to someother seaplane existence. elsewhere

an owl sounds. not as it seems.

goldengrove unleaving.

2008-09-06T20:41:00.000-05:00

Spring and Fall

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(my favorite fall/inevitable-innocence-lost poem.)

the log lady.

2008-09-04T19:54:00.001-05:00

The Log Lady observes and asks:

'The heart--it is a physical organ, we all know. But how much more
an emotional organ--this we also know. Love, like blood, flows from
the heart. Are blood and love related? Does a heart pump blood as
it pumps love? Is love the blood of the universe?'

'Sometimes--well, let's say all times--things are changing. We
are judged as human beings on how we treat our fellow human beings.
How do you treat your fellow human beings? At night, just before
sleep, as you lay by yourself in the dark, how do you feel about
yourself? Are you proud of your behavior? Are you ashamed of
your behavior? You know in your heart if you have hurt someone--
you know. If you have hurt someone, don't wait another day before
making things right. The world could break apart with sadness
in the meantime.'

peace.

fifteen degrees cooler in the shade.

2008-09-04T17:49:00.000-05:00

I used to ride the #20 nearly every week, when I didn't feel like walking the forty(or so) minute trek necessary to cross the Willamette River to the Other Side, down to the little office famous for being in close proximity to the Doug Fir, and where I would sit at Donald's desk, in his big office chair, and plan grand Publishing Futures with Jordan.

It seems lifetimes since then and now the bus smells of bug spray and sanitizer. Every thing is bright, the late summersun streaming in through shut glass, catching metal and peoplefaces facing every way. It illuminates the dark man slumped and sleeping in a middle seat and the nattering white-haired women waiting to debark before Powells [imagination tells--they will peruse the many collections of Emily Dickinson, then confront the cash register with armloads of Danielle Steele]. Start/stop/start. Humming of engines. Crossing the flat, majestic Burnside Bridge offering a grand display of river, city, sky, trees rooted in hills overgrown with dwellings. From Downtown to industrial center. The facades get grayer, angles sharper.

When I first arrived in Portland, the buses represented Arrival. Big city, and I was part of its beating Heart. Visions of Northwest bohemian glamor. The enormity of trees and sweet little finches. Possibility. I would be a writer, a Poet. A young voice, separate and tall as the cypresses surrounding. But carrying old suitcases of doubt and reticence, my voice never rose above a whisper. In observation, I stay quiet. In doubt, I stay quiet. In Fear, I stay quiet. Anxiety and restlessness lead to pre-mature complacence, and all of those little plans and ambitions slipskip into forever cracks.

And now I am on the move again, wrestling the cynic within and trying hard not to feel a failure. New beginnings, or maybe. Continuation of the same--but something must change. I am young, to be sure, but no longer able to claim naïveté & bashfulness as defense. Brave resolve. Things seem to be falling together, but no guarantees. I suppose we'll see. Maybe I'm merely, always chasing after deer. Oh, my dear.

loooozyana

2008-09-01T18:19:00.000-05:00

scrape the skin, there: forever hot

Augusts in southern swamps, sweatstuck&

just paper fans to cool dark-skinned limbs

lounging in light cotton dresses, clear blue

eyes cast slant& fixed upon cracks in the

dirted glass, a thin marching line of vermin.

grandmother Madeline (Alleman/Rodriguez, she)

born into a fambly of seven boys and two girls.

brothers had a zydeco band; each played musical

part. seven brothers with guitars and accordions,

fiddles and banjos, washboards. some coffee[syrup]

served in demitasse cups; the spoon stands up! filéd stew

for supper, the song of the family stirring gently the gutgreen

waters and weeping trees. scent of magnolias. old pirogues

perched upon muddy banks, waiting for some enterprising

fishing man to embark, avoiding pesky gators and gar. white-

washed living the dark heart of the bayou--hearty cajun folk, bébé.

(some half of me.

now slowly[but!]quickly

disappearing its place, washed

away by wind and rain.

heart hurts for it,

but what is there to do?

are we the Destroyed

or Destroyer?)

latimeria chalumnae

2008-08-30T19:35:00.000-05:00

i saved your coelacanth, mister. furthermore, i have

it still. if you do desire her hasty return, you must make

promises to feed her nicely salted seagreen waters, or maybe

marys tears, some oiled coffee inks from an enterprising

squid, or a few vulcanic stones still glowing and smoldering

from bellyhell fires. you must love it for what it is Now--

not just magic beast summoned from the dead and depths,

not just as ancient reminder of what the world has been (&

never again)--but your cobalt-colored fish of extant, your sharp-

toothed le soir ocean mare, sage and playful with her circus

tricks. being is not either/or. your coral hearth won't hold her.

deal?

a new somebody else's lines, not mine.

2008-08-28T19:37:00.000-05:00

Ashley McWaters

"Arlene"
from Caketrain* Issue 05

How to get out of it: I burst like a star of a five-pointed search-

light. I roam the sky looking for someone to cover. No. I stick,

sit like nerves on the skin, wait for the current. Give me some-

thing to bundle or blow up, something to shovel or shame. The

surface is slick and bleak, an icy plain. It can barely contain us.

We reach and reach. Light tells the story: to glow, burn first. So

the halo sets the head ablaze; it will be so pretty. She searches

for haven, comes up empty, always. I lend her the strong fist of

my heart to beat and beat, she complains it's no kite. Between

tow sides, there is a holy edge; I'll meet you there. You bring

the flashlight. I'll be the one swimming like hell.

(*Caketrain is the first I will submit

my own words to. luck, wish upon me please.)

symmetry

2008-08-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

'but my words are frail,

not audible, they do
not even convince me,
perhaps they are untrue...

but ironically, you will always be

belle of the ball, at least to me.'

August ending.

2008-08-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

Sun's day, though half-grayed, and all the city buzzes somnambulistically in the petrichor haze that turns blocks of concrete and tree lined streets into little life dreams, brief moments-of-being, then snap! back to half-empty coffee cups and smeared newspaper sheets, drone tempo reminders for things-to-do, other fair avenues wherefore to co-opt the wheel.

I've seen hundreds of people pass this picture window and only one umbrella, and I am too torn in two to do anything well and good for a long while. carrying dismay in this gilt locket loose round my throat--I will wear it forever.

divergence.

2008-08-21T18:10:00.000-05:00

concerning Conclusion:is it

[always nearly] so

that all smooth stone

cobblestone paths can close,

forever excepted save one?--the one

chosen in night's anxious

are you awake? and settled

in the baptizing heat of some

shower, decided. done. it's

what will be to Do. do no

wheeling back around to notice all

the ways the sun seems warmhoney

on the other side of skeleton-

in-winter trees, or the cottage

down another road with its

windows flung wide with

invite to green&saline Alcyone.

maybe Mister, I will stay right here at

the train crossing, sheep crossing,

people and clever car crossing. I

will stand like Scarecrow, arms

opened up for the embrace and

light enough for some wind or sage

featherflies to carry me to the place

that I am to Be but that

never really happens.

this day.

2008-08-18T16:13:00.001-05:00

three girls sleeping in a shoebox studio

and an early morning awakening by thunder.

boom! brilliant(i'd so missed real tempests).

sleepsprawled on small floor (we had to push all

furniture back to fit), some unfocused light. rain

rain rain and the milky sky shaking the city

so sleepy, so lazy. three girls being girls.

no work today, no where to Be. public

radio and strawberries for breakfast.

a picnic on the carpet. and the rain

rain brings a best dawn in a long while.

how wonderful to have old friends around.

a note/a care/an assurance.

2008-08-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

i will write more very nice things soon.

not so sad, not so many guts and rottenness.

summer is ending all too soon and autumn is

too too melancholy with no need for me to pour

more biliousness into the mix. would be wrongly.

stay out of the dogday brown heat. sirius boils and foams at the teeth,

so pretend you are in cool blue Iceland watching sheep under stars and

breathing in elf air by the sea. we'll all be in Iceland together now.

with reindeer.