waves

every wave I saw
was recorded in me,

they're dead now,
with the memory of them,

too long at land,
words no longer hold,

yet I still know
a sea still roams,

without it, I'd sink
to depths from this gravity

hold me up, I'll swim
your wild currents or die,

I still hold your flow
within me,

there in the salt
in my corridored veins

nestled between broken mirrors

nestled between broken mirrors

nestled between broken mirrors
and smashed glass, whose reflections
full of soon to be scars, the blood
curling about the gaping wounds,

I found the child again and again,
returned to the root constantly,
that of birth, its accompanying knowledge
bright in the mind, dumb in the brain

like a deja vu reverie, being there
again and again at certain touch stones,
reverberations from outside time
interrupting the violent wake of my circling,

what lack I had soon filled,
it was the void that was rushed to fullness,

nightmares portended nothing, they fell away
into the brevity of night-time, falling
into some deep inner well I harbored as if
it were an only ocean circling an only earth.

the floating girl

he saw her in perspective,
her fading, to the infinitesimal,

though embracing her,
with no tether, she was a free form
in a space with no gravity,

when she would start floating,
often she could feel the lift
first at her heeled shoes,

no use,
she was the floating girl,

with no reference to earth,
her, a species between feather and bird
parallel-ing between worlds,

but always fading,
volatile yet as any sun,

into that crack of dawn
blinding, at its first light.

nesting

nesting

at the distant perspective's point,
where the parallel lines meet,
a bird flying toward me twirls
in the curves of my vision,

i know it's the same atmosphere,
but it bends in ways i cannot,

growing closer, a man now on a bike
changes his shape in those straight lines

an error, the birdman,
twirling hs pedals feverishly

a real vision now more real,

superman flies me by.

Two Form Poems

Form I
------

there is, i know this,
a real vase on a table,
apprehended?  i don't know
what that is.
but it is in a more real light,
casts no shadow,
and holds water i cannot drink.
a flower appears in it,
perhaps a gerber daisy,
but it is a perfect daisy,
with the perfect blush of bloom,
and summer is here in december,
i somehow feel warmer,
sitting here in the mud,
wet, and stuck.

--

Form II
--------

i believe in unicorns,
as Tacitus, i report them,
not in Germania,
yet reflecting in my mind,
no one drew a picture,
i just know.

leaving

leaving

behind, no road stretching
there are no points on the horizon,
no horizon, no space,
the spheres have disappeared,
without falling, no movement or stillness,
no hell of heaven, heaven of hell,
there,
there,
beyond now, that last imagination,
the music of sounds
away,
no atmosphere excited by percussion,
a lack of deafness even,
no word, no number,

rushing to fill the voids,
new expanses, new immensities,
older than the waters we left.

I will burn then for you - a poem

ignite me, I am frozen,
my bulb, stuck in the socket,
wishes to explode to flowering,
do not leave me in Spring,
a bud on the vine,
but light my fuse, I will burn then
for you

parthenon - Nashville, Tn. - a poem

approaching, one is struck by order
plotted on fields of grass, and rising
in those columns, Ionic capitals,
if it is holy to become silent, in awe
of a simulacra that transports you
to the Hellenes, I became as a saint

meteor crater, Winslow Az. - a poem

meteor crater, Winslow, Az.


we step out to the observation deck
and look across it's expanse,
a lateral vertigo takes hold, where
you're afraid you'll fall to the other side,
'it happened at the earth's beginnings',
you know they're not lying, the ancient dust
covered by eons of red iron oxide
is quiet as the Buddha attempted,
a child wondering about Sunday School lessons
is clutching the rail, prepared to leap
from this end to the opposite
as he jumps up and down, prepared to fall,
his faith leaks out his pants leg,
just like coins through a hole in his pocket
rattling across the man made floor

provenance - a poem

asking his provenance,
he hated the Turks,
they for no reason killed
a million of his people,
balled fists and tired eyes,
a tear,
north and east
of his oppressor,
he said in the end,
the heartbreak,
the agony of geography

empty, then fullness - two poems

empty

I now know
all of it
trees, escrows,
blackened steak,
bills of lading
all bottom out
to empty
--
fullness

sails full blown
grow heavy
with emptiness
ariadne's thread
always forgotten,
icaruses, all,
wings melting

empty reprisal - a poem

I went to the Fair
this evening alone,
buds in my ears,
playing music amidst
the out-ers attending,
expecting to feel lonely
I fell, entranced,
caught as a passerby
in a crowd of belong-ers,
how many young men
with young families
reflected me, ages ago,

occuring to me,
I was just one node of
a circle,
small, yes, but part of one,
help building fractals
that I standing, upright,
I could see building
one on the other

shards - a poem

he recovers shards
from broken pails
rusted from heads of
water, bottomless,

a one man factory
electrified
operating through night,
through barrenness,

listing quietly, efficient,
as ink leaving pen
to paper

symphonic - a poem

symphonic, I hear
that one slightly untuned
cello bleating right notes,
lithe fingering over
the frettless board,
removed from the
orchestration, sadder
than the rest

american youth - a poem

I must let it go,
the promise of youth
beyond middle age,
that toy ball hidden
in wire racks
at the grocery
we all hoped for
as children

relapse - a poem

she sees things as normal,
devastated, sitting,
watching the world on a screen
flit by, sepia shadow on the floor
flickering away at the dust
accumulated from an inability
to leave the couch,
when out the window a bird
bats at the glass, it sees
it's reflection,
she turns again to the screen
to see hers

tucked away - a poem

what is it, you ask, with you,
meaning me, my arms flailing
to my internal music, dancing,
as if the center of everything
tangible, regretful, pathetic,

I do not know where it comes from,
this subjective tape recorder that keeps playing
through your talking, your excitations, hurrumphs,
it simply plays on, this dialogue too, of memories,
imaginations, things I sensed from when a boy,

suddenly I am the Fool whose journey
has ended, become wise by your countenance,
your frown, making aged wrinkles at your brow,
my dancing, ceasing,

when I was a baby in the belly
I was fed by heartbeats, mother's breaths,
the strains of Mahalia Jackson
beyond those fleshy walls,

perhaps Johnny Cash and Dino Martin
filtered through to me, just a corpuscule,

that is what's with me, I say,

again the music begins,
my toe taps at first to the tucked away rhythm,
soon my legs again prance and my hips begin to sway,
at full gyration, I recall Charlotte, at home,
us running, playing kick the can,

you shake your head at the holy fool,
your shadow receding now through the cracks
on the floor, around the corner, now gone

afterlife - a poem

when we attempt to speak in dreams, it's obvious
how unnecessary language is, how its always
coming out garbled, confused, and upon waking
we find ourselves speaking in tongues
even we, the dreamers, no longer understand,

emotions, too, need not be so acute
in their wakeful rendering, rising abruptly as tears welling,
when in dreams, emotions are the air we breathe,
they are the colors of the atmosphere,
the lurching air we mistake for the skies,

that we could communicate
those intuitions to another, in wakened language,
would be then, a way to describe an afterlife

cocoon - a poem

tonight I shall float on the egg,
flowing tides will abet my wakes
I created earlier in the day,
swallowing them in depths
only the swimming fish, beneath,
can understand,
I will not require air, even people,
or work, that creates discordant swells,
I will dream, murmering alone
beneath real blankets, comforted,
as the chrysalis in it's cocoon,
before waking, the first time,
a butterfly