tapping into-

There are fences, wires, electric

light fixtures and alarms;

invisible sound waves and

pulsing energies

that placate bodies,

our minds made useless

in the packing noise. 

at the museum

I am called Misko by

my dead mother like feathers

on a furtive animal-bird.

The kind that rolls in underbrush

like it can’t fly

but it can fly in a flapping beat.

borrowed

"The sands whispered, Be separate, the stones taught me, Be hard. I dance, for the joy of surviving, on the edge of the road." ---Stanley Kunitz

V. (shoel)

The sliver of shaded dirt

where people wait

and waiting remain speaking

through their aching dreams.

In cycles, the moon is cold

on their limbs, their faces;

Not quite the day-night

but still time

moving like a sifting sea coast.

There is only dulled feelings,

opiates in stilled bloodstreams

a canonized set of sweet sense,

the only remnants of living.

No more names under the world

the heaviness of hurtling matter

through forever is constant

and silent-- our shadows slip

in between the earth and our fingernails,

the half-moon scratchings

of children in the dirt.

IV. (sermonizing)

The smell of living is distinct

and absent from America.

A fear of death

dictates that beginnings

be coddled like favorite children

while adulthood is lost

to routine.    

But the beginning of anything

is weighed down by

everything. There is a false

freedom in a new idea or body.

Experience is a full range

Of (e)motion and it gives

moments of immortality

to the whole

of a human.   

III.

Being oblique, the buildings

of the city pretend to be military.

They sit rumpled in approximate lines

encroaching into each others’ space

like old men and women on the tramway.

But when has streamlined, gridded picture

ever freed a place from culture-weight?

I will take the approximate

order of the everyday-

the kind of city that fleshy hands make

that brains stained by woodland sun

and turquoise water create

one generation after another-

a free metropolis.

II.

It is not

calling aloud

to god that makes

god open one eye

from infinite rest.

Setting off alarms--

bodies falling into

the clean, ravenous

space beneath cliffs

too young mothers

birthing purple babies

teeth without meat,

lips without balm

war, war, and hate--

These things break

life but do not

invite reverberations

from the oldest foundations.

It is satin silence,

the touch of chimes

moved by breeze

on back porches

Bodies sheltering bodies

waiting for the bus

In imagination-

taking space and shaping

it temporarily, forever

seeing the ghost shape

of birch trees against

winter skies

It is planted in the stomach,

(the deepest part)

that does not bleed

or die or change.

The smallness

of strength is

remarkable.

I.

I hit a limit

with my teeth,

the stone

of a cherry.

Definite centers,

contrite and

oaken-true, define

the fleshy shape

of ripe. 

After hearing Natasha Trethewey's poem, "Myth"

The poet speaks about dreaming

of dead mothers and I

wide-eyed feel exposed

in the solemn quiet room.

That night I dream

of you, as if the poet’s words

are an incantation.

We are leaving

a library together,

you wearing a pale

linen suit and lipstick,

and I walk ahead

because it has been so long

since I had to

wait for you.

And looking back,

you had fallen and lost

your shoes.  I come

and clean off your

muddied pant leg

with my hand

and lift you, your

body the battered

softness of mother.

I remember now

what it is to be

a daughter, to have

someone to wait for,

crossing whole

cement plains of a

city’s inconsequence

Together.

You ask questions

that are not malicious

but soothing, exploratory-

a reminder that there is

someone that does not

look to damage your

pride but build it like

a kingdom

kept by all women.

Our stone legacy.

You tell me

you would like to see

Finland before

you die. I know you

are dead because this is

my dream but I start

booking night flights

to the deepest snows,

to the kind of country

I imagine Finland to be.

I consider the toughness

of boarding trains

when your leg is so swollen

and heavy. I consider

your hydration, your

bowel movements.

My plans disintegrate

into sickness-

your stomach hardened,

a mass of coiled tree roots.

In the morning,

I lay in bed with thin

lines of daylight coming

through the blinds,

falling across

my belly, greening my eyes.

I hold onto you

for a few more minutes

and try and memorize

your outline, I try and

build a body out of sun dust.

I walk to the library

and drink coffee in the café.

As I sharpen a pencil, I watch

the curl of the shavings.

I feel treasured, suddenly

I feel full of meaning,

remembering what it’s like

to be a daughter. 

J.

I favor honor
above all other
extremes-
a decision
to pass on the
realist, cubist
composition
of bodies
moving,
mouths
moving
throats of
ghosts
their
sounds
moving;
and once
stopped in
floridian color
a smooth gather of
suited statics and finally
silently, the history of composition        recedes.

I.

I want to
transgress
into a    whole    space.
clattering image
stutters me,
struts and dis-
embodies me
but a sky scape
could moleculize
me so that
body and
memory
were vapor,
a weightless
global blanket.

G.

I love the idea
of mastery
but I have seen
what mastery
does when
mastery wants
to master
the world
even though
the master will
never hold
the whole globe
nor own the
wholeness of
new.  

F.

he drowned

swimming-

drowning-

words changing
when states
change like
chemistry
but unlike
chemistry he
is rotted by
stagnant
grammar
the small
sign posts
of correct.
he died in
pale blue
the water
like sick skin
without breath
and sunk down
to roll sweet
with lakeweed.
In private
silence,
the end
like autonomy,
the mastery of
concise.

E.

the meal
was ruin,
a pie
crusted
         reminder
of over
and under.
a drowning
of years
the stories
sopping.

D.

mouthing
bread with
old gums
slick with
sour,
like a
baby
waiting
for first
teeth.
break red
through
and make
meals like
wonder.

C.

I think
he was
the whole
throat of
mountains.
no sound,
nor light.
nearing the
still that
makes
gods open
awe mouthed.

B.

which letter
is able
to give
          a way,
                  a home less
dialect?
summer
in the throat
to relieve
one person
from
rust.

A.

eat honey
that drips
from trees.
swallow
the red
amber
down
until your
throat is
soaked
with
sound.

dust comes
up
pollen-yellow,
breathing
chalk wisp
to paint
words with.

And then
I am a
locality:
frequent,
patient,
and a
product
of pieces.

blocks

tied tongue

            the beef of teeth

                        gnashing at relief

stilled time

            the stop top

                        feel that climb

towards the craving caving inconsistent

weave.  Break and sneeze through

to the sweet softness of singing.

shutter stop, and vanish

very suddenly

            I missed you today

My eyes became green and wet.

The city

and spare,

use-empty time ticked away

tiny images of you in succession.

They came skipping

like old moving film

dulled color, composition

scratched up. Hello-

And goodbye, please,

           please come again. 

so many people

I receive you

            the human palm of a thousand years.

that true weight, soundless, sweet and stone-like

is familiar: I too have been here before. 

passage

i am full
of swing,
the twinge
and spring
of new.

XXIII.

Heaven weathers like

any pattering day rain

it crimsons the skin

with holy hope

and wastes away

like stale paintings

waiting. 

XXII.

ancestral blood let
wonder woman
mitochondrial
might beating
the flood with
children that
pound the earth, first.

XXI.

I never fly in my dreams

Outright like a bird or superhero

I rink a dink rumble into the sky

In a miniature green airplane

Like a character in a cartoon.

XX.

Taking a break from writing

Results in a day of laboratory

Thinking. Testing the sound taste

And determining theoretic hypothetic

Rules to live by. It takes me a few tries

At the same experiment to dissolve

Down the sugar pills and get to the

Real. Medication like blessings,

Reaching inward through the spider

Tangles the seeping tree vines

Themed and labeled into sink jars. 

XIX.

What is the

exigence in the

floating circle of the

rhetoric chasms compounding the

inordinate amount of mashed words in the

sweet sour bucket of none sense that expresses me sometimes?

XVIII.

Sometimes

I am perfect

The spindle

of my machine

ticks like

meant- to- be

making material

to weave with.

Sometimes

I can sustain

All things like

a delta,

a bleeding river

of sweetened soil.

Sometimes

I am nothing

The tiny spaces

between atoms

expanding

until my matter

dwindles

to a few spots

of ember

And sometimes

I am everything

the wind, steam

and brick, raw

and domestic

the dirt and drapes

constant and

inconsistent

and everything

sometimes

is true.

XVII.

Looking back at old work

does not please me.

The gods in our bellies change

as they do their infinite studies.

Their understanding

widens like a mouth-

a canyon yawning into completion.

XVI.

how many prayers I put up
on a cluttered cork board
papers of words fluttering
like frantic wings pinned
until they resemble nothing
not my breath
not my close wish
just a thought,
detached and soaked
in melancholy.

XV.

Sitting next to my grandmother

with an unreadable box of letters

was the most tragic thing at Christmas.

We sipped soup

and ate strukli

at the tiny table

with the snow falling hard all around

the veranda and my socks drying

on the radiator.

The radio goes,

plain and serious,

the evening news is in

and I am sitting with

my whole self

weeping.

the relief

of places

warm, slow

and shared.  

XIV.

Are the deepest roots

of the oldest trees

the fingertips of God

or a riddle?

XIII.

my fingers produce

minute vicissitudes

on your skin:

a porous

and perfect

material to

signal with. 

XII.

You will need to

anneal your skin

with irascible memories,

the stinging

cut tugs of experience.

Only then will your body

be unburnable,

even while the Earth

shatters to potsherds. 

XI.

I am pretty sure

Tofu Pups

Are worse than

Any squishy

Ammonia meat

Produced in the

Heartland of America.

Their rubbery existence

Makes me sigh

With snobbery.

Why shape soybeans

To resemble

Your moral dilemma?

X.

I wonder what yellow ghosts

Linger in limbo

beneath the stairs.

Do they breathe the dust

And blow out like bulls?

IX.

Thinking

like a callithump,

a jumble of prizes, colors

and noises, a jungle of images embellishing.

VIII.

Cooking with thin grease

snapping at wet potatoes

just sliced and salted.

Cool salad and the cicadas

going and going

in the late haze.

Finally, cevapi

ground up and grilled

after being to the butcher

only once the whole summer.

And the sincerity

of being alone

willingly,

the deep breath

of womanhood.

VII.

Digging while dirt-covered

we become the dirt digging itself

into and out of its own hole.

VI.

Working through fear

is a swampy trip

into the green frizz

of the memory maze

that settles in the brain;

Mustard gas residue

from the great war of

stuttering adulthood.

V.

You are new,

A peaceable diplomat

Some kind of advocate

For the place I could inhabit.

You create an apartment

Where I stay for a few minutes

Each day and start to understand

What things I could have

If I could be

A better me.

Be patient with your briefcase

the hardness of myself is rustic

the oldest oak waiting

in the whistling whips

of sapling-thin pith.  

IV.

Rain

            Saves

                        Everyday

the washing wetting wielder of health.

III.

I depend on an unusual budget

Of space and time and words:

a wallet swelling into whole

countries of infinite richness.

II.

Elasticity, the gum stretch

of puttied people

wearing, wearing until the

muscled arms and legs

twist and pull,

mangle and melt.

I.

A heaving heaven:

the ironworks of depreciating cities

the long wait of living

of moving and feeling frequent

feeling famous in the criss-cross of human crosswalks.

counseling

Can I with them combat

the sense of sedative,

the white powdery pauses

between street noise?

I haven’t the stories To Fill the family

My men are scattered,

Their pictures locked, burned,

And flooded: lost.

My women are few

And community-less

lessened by loneliness

and loss.

Legacies slow

to a simple wheel squeak

then silence.  And in the silence,

footsteps, walking away from fire.

systems of justice

There is no need

For confessions in

companionship.

No contracts;

There is no theft

No Hatred, nor

Suspicion.

Your company

Will not alienate

Nor bruise

Like old skin fruit.

Us friends

Will not be made mean

With hunger

Or desperate

With thirst

Or sick with

repeated defeat.

Our trials pass

over the mahogany

of hope and verdicts

are sparrows

lifting

from a long,

cool river,

a momentary echo

swallowed in

water.

observations

he eats peanuts out of his pocket

using his fingers big and bruising

shucking salt nuts like nothing,

like habit.  

Mr. Modica's wake

waking waking one hand

shaking the wax shoulder

of a being once breathing.

Beneath the coffin, a

profusion of flowers

whets noses like

strangled and careful

summer.  

(untitled)

Mothers wringing

hands beneath eaves waiting

and listening to the town

talking low toned and talking cool

            and daughters ducked and abstaining

            from being properly deceptively new.

training

rounds around the gym

for fighter conditioning

placement repeating punch

in switch combinations the

numbered beating repetition

of praying, counting, breathing

reaching to the 1-2 basic

pounding against everything

against the day, against death,

with death and finally

tirelessly, I am free

and I breathe raw

and sink beneath the

buffer between each

part of me. 

ascension

bunches
of grocery
daffodils,
cut loud
and clean,
butcher
destitution
on the empty
counter

deep decline

sliding down
a muddied hill
with heels locked,
with nails scraping,
and searching upwards
the sweet last light of the world.

ground technique

I had a dream I am
in a house like a
maze and I am
running up
and down hallways
opening and closing
doors, jumping down
flights of stairs.
When I wake up
I am exhausted
and my covers are
on the floor
and for the first time
all winter
heat drips from
the radiator.
All over my room
pieces of clothing
hang like fallen leaves
eerie in the half light
one more morning
wet and gray
in this fruitless
boundary between.
Sitting up I
remember other
parts of other dreams
which reach into things
ladle out insides
make you crave
a physicality
that could kill you.
I lift and set down
my coffee cup
more than necessary
feel the warmth
like a creature
sleeping
The spoon is a
metal tool
as basic as a hammer
newspaper with steady
newsprint no snaking
living lines creeping
and making me consider
my location,
making me imagine
a house like a maze
and me running
until I hit the bed rock
in the basement-
until I see the furnace
burning and beating,
howling with
moving picture.

(untitled)

I took the bus to the beach

on a Wednesday night

in the winter

I stayed in an empty house

and still heard

old conversations

The wind blew

through the skin trees

worn with the cold

The picture window was black

but I was picturized

for Bill next door

that night was fitfull

full of misplaced

meaning

Thinking on centuries

of single days

Filling like quick

water

the next morning

I walked on the beach

and collected

white, wide shells to save

and held them against

my belly

I watched the sand ripple

and change

with rivulets of winter sea

and in front of me

suddenly

was a gray seal

I breathed in

and stood still

an old friend

in the kelp

and frozen foam

defined

creatures both of us

alone and real

for a moment myth

fills us

and vanishes

him into the waves

and me into the wind

and wet grit

(untitled)

The planet

         on a long plain

                  stretching its last light

(The most honest ends are the trading illumination of cycles

No clutter, no noise, crescent practicality, soft shadow punctuality)

What god isn’t made of heavy heat and the deepest of stone wells?

Be

Being good

            Being strong

                        Being true and truthful

a smattering scattering of belief.

Being is habit-forming

            a treadmill of tendency

                        and accuracy and passivity

                                    despite the creativity of everything.

Being being being

            each decision a consideration of history,

                        cursory theory, and composition

                                    or simply a carrying on of feeling, being.

Doubt

          Will get trained on you

like a follow-dog.

It will chase you

until you are ragged

and thinned out

like wick wire.