Jewel Tones
For twenty-five dollars
my mother can dress your feet.
You send her a check,
and she'll send you jewel tones.
My mother can dress your feet,
she does it by hand, with fingers curled as a reflex.
She'll send you jewel tones.
Around needles, without thought
she does it by hand, with fingers curled as a reflex.
Intricate toes and heels form tubular
around needles, without thought
my mother knits.
Intricate toes and heels form tubular.
One hand over the other,
my mother knits;
she doesn't need to think anymore.
One hand over the other,
knit one, purl two,
she doesn't need to think anymore,
lost in knitter's repetition.
Knit one, purl two,
while the television blares she
is lost in knitter's repetition,
her private concerto.
While the television blares she
works in jewel tones,
her private concerto,
with lips moving in the counting.
She works in jewel tones
and large glasses sliding down her nose
with lips moving in the counting
as a sign of her concentration.
Large glasses sliding down her nose,
inaudibly whispering to herself
is a sign of her concentration.
But she holds back her world.
Inaudibly whispering to herself
for if she let her excitement out
-she holds back her world-
she might disturb our TV show.
If she let her excitement out
in unraveling emotions in the family room
she might disturb our TV show,
or we might disturb her.
In unraveling emotions in the family room
sometimes instead of the sitcom, I watch her
but not to disturb her,
her inner world that non of us enter.
Sometimes instead of the sitcom, I watch her
knitting, her way to escape
into her inner world that none of us enter
where beautiful things are born.
Knitting, her way to escape,
making socks instead of time
where beautiful things are born
in a now empty nest.
Making socks instead of time,
the lines of worlds fade, and all that's left
in a now empty nest
are the lines of corrugated yarn in a spiral design.
The lines of worlds fade, and all that's left
is wrapped around needles, lips, and hearts.
The lines of corrugated yarn in a spiral design
coming together in knots,
wrapped around needles, lips, and hearts.
A pair of jewel-toned socks
coming together in knots.
And she'll send them to you,
a pair of jewel-toned socks.
You send her a check
and she'll send them to you
for twenty-five dollars.
17 July 2006
10 July 2006
28 June 2006
18 May 2006
Not writing anything, not doing anything, enjoying nothing, creating nada leaves me indoors on a rainy thunderstorm night all melancholy even in the arms of my honey and my baby, even writing the beginning of some short story of raunchy proportions and I have little hope. Just letting my life pour over me like this rain that pours down, just letting it all build up around me in giant piles of heaping shit. Did the dishes and now I’m listening to the Cowboy Junkies’ version of Sweet Jane over and over on repeat the drone of it so comforting so constant like the constant drone of boredom of depression of loneliness of the big gaping hole in my heart and no, Randy, my new love, even you can’t fill it within me, for me, but you can fill my time so I ignore the blackness within me. Yes, time, take away my time with your sex, your incredible body, the orgasms you give me, your smell and sweat, your embrace, your promises…take away my time with your promise of tomorrow, of forever…I’m not using my time for anything else anyway. And I guess this is my fear, using up my time on nothing much. Or not using my time on what’s important. I don’t want my time to slip away, yet I fully realize that I have so much of it, that life is just so much time…there will be more thunderstorms to appreciate from our hammock on the porch, I will write more poems, and there will always be chores around the house to do, hell there will always be the time to build a house, and a family. But things recorded evade time. My thoughts evade time, therefore I exist. Sometimes I forget. Like I forget how much calmer I feel when I have a clean kitchen! I’m working on the piles of shit. It’s not as chaotic now although I still can’t see my kitchen table. But I can see my sink and countertops. One step at a time. Humankind progresses in small, small steps in time. Infinitesimal steps across the surface of time.
Not writing anything, not doing anything, enjoying nothing, creating nada leaves me indoors on a rainy thunderstorm night all melancholy even in the arms of my honey and my baby, even writing the beginning of some short story of raunchy proportions and I have little hope. Just letting my life pour over me like this rain that pours down, just letting it all build up around me in giant piles of heaping shit. Did the dishes and now I’m listening to the Cowboy Junkies’ version of Sweet Jane over and over on repeat the drone of it so comforting so constant like the constant drone of boredom of depression of loneliness of the big gaping hole in my heart and no, Randy, my new love, even you can’t fill it within me, for me, but you can fill my time so I ignore the blackness within me. Yes, time, take away my time with your sex, your incredible body, the orgasms you give me, your smell and sweat, your embrace, your promises…take away my time with your promise of tomorrow, of forever…I’m not using my time for anything else anyway. And I guess this is my fear, using up my time on nothing much. Or not using my time on what’s important. I don’t want my time to slip away, yet I fully realize that I have so much of it, that life is just so much time…there will be more thunderstorms to appreciate from our hammock on the porch, I will write more poems, and there will always be chores around the house to do, hell there will always be the time to build a house, and a family. But things recorded evade time. My thoughts evade time, therefore I exist. Sometimes I forget. Like I forget how much calmer I feel when I have a clean kitchen! I’m working on the piles of shit. It’s not as chaotic now although I still can’t see my kitchen table. But I can see my sink and countertops. One step at a time. Humankind progresses in small, small steps in time. Infinitesimal steps across the surface of time.
24 May 2006
My four-year-old contemplates mortality as he sits on the toilet, pooping. Questions like, “How did people come alive after the dinosaurs?” and “Do I have to die in a long, long time? Do houses die?” and telling me his plan, “Me and Isabelle want to never die and if we never die we will be the only people alive, me and her, the only two people alive. We want to stay alive for the whole day. Can we stay alive for the whole day?”
My four-year-old contemplates mortality as he sits on the toilet, pooping. Questions like, “How did people come alive after the dinosaurs?” and “Do I have to die in a long, long time? Do houses die?” and telling me his plan, “Me and Isabelle want to never die and if we never die we will be the only people alive, me and her, the only two people alive. We want to stay alive for the whole day. Can we stay alive for the whole day?”
05 June 2006
At Least I Make Sense! Sestina, 24 February 2006
So I want to write this fucking sestina
yeah I'm mad, it started at the Lovebomb
art show, dance, and human twister to amuse,
where I met this man who had promised me a river
but oh, the drama
talkin' to this chick in a red dress with face paint: men!
If only I could attract men
a little more predictable, as is this sestina.
1:27 in the morning can't stop thinking about the drama
I started when I dropped the first lovebomb,
a poem I wrote, flowed like a river
down to New Hampshire to amuse
this artist whom I thought was a (my) muse.
Mere mortals don't walk among such men
as they paint pictures, a canvas river.
But who am I as I write this sestina?
A Goddess scorched by my own failed lovebomb
an explosion of such drama-
tical force: my fire, his water, our drama
of the Centuar and Crab, oh they do amuse.
Oh, they fucked like a lovebomb,
I should be used to this from such men.
Alas, I am young, hence I've chosen to write a sestina
to hold my deep emotion, a river
swelling to the overflow point, where the river
turns to waterfall in that falling drama
lost in the flow, how it just goes, like this sestina.
But I do so hope you are still amused?
How could I not be? Burned by men
I'll never take one home from the Lovebomb
again. His dick went off too soon, the love bombed
indeed, inside me, most unromantic lover, no river
flowing through me-oh yeah, most men
can't tap that orgasmic drama
of the female vagina. Am I to be so amused
by the rythmic grind, a sestina
of sex and just as short as a sestina? The ticking lovebomb
is my only muse in this cold river
of life, and my only drama: I always choose the wrong men!
So I want to write this fucking sestina
yeah I'm mad, it started at the Lovebomb
art show, dance, and human twister to amuse,
where I met this man who had promised me a river
but oh, the drama
talkin' to this chick in a red dress with face paint: men!
If only I could attract men
a little more predictable, as is this sestina.
1:27 in the morning can't stop thinking about the drama
I started when I dropped the first lovebomb,
a poem I wrote, flowed like a river
down to New Hampshire to amuse
this artist whom I thought was a (my) muse.
Mere mortals don't walk among such men
as they paint pictures, a canvas river.
But who am I as I write this sestina?
A Goddess scorched by my own failed lovebomb
an explosion of such drama-
tical force: my fire, his water, our drama
of the Centuar and Crab, oh they do amuse.
Oh, they fucked like a lovebomb,
I should be used to this from such men.
Alas, I am young, hence I've chosen to write a sestina
to hold my deep emotion, a river
swelling to the overflow point, where the river
turns to waterfall in that falling drama
lost in the flow, how it just goes, like this sestina.
But I do so hope you are still amused?
How could I not be? Burned by men
I'll never take one home from the Lovebomb
again. His dick went off too soon, the love bombed
indeed, inside me, most unromantic lover, no river
flowing through me-oh yeah, most men
can't tap that orgasmic drama
of the female vagina. Am I to be so amused
by the rythmic grind, a sestina
of sex and just as short as a sestina? The ticking lovebomb
is my only muse in this cold river
of life, and my only drama: I always choose the wrong men!
More journal 4-6-06:
I'm still practicing stars, trying to find that perfect five-point form of the divine shape. Pentagram. Pentacle. It's supposed to be the golden shape: perfect. But not by mt hand. My hand creates the imperfect shape and scribbles dark secrets of my shadow. I like to push dark holes through the pages and watch ages of voices rearrange the words I speak.
Unclear, I know. This is all supposed to lead to clarity. What a parody: I only write to feel less alone. It's not a matter of discipline or career objective. It's a survival tool my psyche and my body have adapted to keep me sane, make me whole.
Why are we born into this world broken? I do so want to believe we are born whole and perfect. I really believe my son was, is. But what if he grows up and struggles as I do? What if he can't find truth and wholeness? It's a heavy burden to lay on him, I know, to claim he is perfect, he is true, he is whole. It's really what I long to say for myself, yet can't.
I keep myself down in a cave, not ready to acknowledge the light in my spirit. And also not ready to give it up in order to join the real world - Capitalism - job market. I do not belong there. I belong here, in these words, in this book, in the divin Universe of the written word and language and blankness filling up. I am this book. I am married to it. It's my soul mate. It's why I can't find a human soul mate. Who else could give me this divine space, so clear and unquestioning, so patient and understanding?
I'm still practicing stars, trying to find that perfect five-point form of the divine shape. Pentagram. Pentacle. It's supposed to be the golden shape: perfect. But not by mt hand. My hand creates the imperfect shape and scribbles dark secrets of my shadow. I like to push dark holes through the pages and watch ages of voices rearrange the words I speak.
Unclear, I know. This is all supposed to lead to clarity. What a parody: I only write to feel less alone. It's not a matter of discipline or career objective. It's a survival tool my psyche and my body have adapted to keep me sane, make me whole.
Why are we born into this world broken? I do so want to believe we are born whole and perfect. I really believe my son was, is. But what if he grows up and struggles as I do? What if he can't find truth and wholeness? It's a heavy burden to lay on him, I know, to claim he is perfect, he is true, he is whole. It's really what I long to say for myself, yet can't.
I keep myself down in a cave, not ready to acknowledge the light in my spirit. And also not ready to give it up in order to join the real world - Capitalism - job market. I do not belong there. I belong here, in these words, in this book, in the divin Universe of the written word and language and blankness filling up. I am this book. I am married to it. It's my soul mate. It's why I can't find a human soul mate. Who else could give me this divine space, so clear and unquestioning, so patient and understanding?
01 June 2006
Transferred from my journal 4-6-06:
This divine journal, blank pages white as pure sky and the light so light until dark ink burdens its face. Each page a face I put my hand on and caress as I would the cheek of a lover, the cheek of a child, or the cheek of God. All this searching for God is really just a pilgrimage to get home, back to the Mother, our one, true love, the beginning. Everything we search for is a search for Her. And it's as if we are all estranged from our Mothers. Why is this so? Why does She birth us and leave us to feel so helpless, so hopeless, so alone? If only we could reconnect we could be truly happy, truly pure, truly light. No more darkness. This is my form of prayer, this writing. It's my Zen, my meditation, my search for my lost Mother. It's my peace, my center, my Buddha. My God, my flow, the fiber of my being. Words. Writing. Talking to the divine, of the divine, for the divine. Or just to hear myself talk.
This divine journal, blank pages white as pure sky and the light so light until dark ink burdens its face. Each page a face I put my hand on and caress as I would the cheek of a lover, the cheek of a child, or the cheek of God. All this searching for God is really just a pilgrimage to get home, back to the Mother, our one, true love, the beginning. Everything we search for is a search for Her. And it's as if we are all estranged from our Mothers. Why is this so? Why does She birth us and leave us to feel so helpless, so hopeless, so alone? If only we could reconnect we could be truly happy, truly pure, truly light. No more darkness. This is my form of prayer, this writing. It's my Zen, my meditation, my search for my lost Mother. It's my peace, my center, my Buddha. My God, my flow, the fiber of my being. Words. Writing. Talking to the divine, of the divine, for the divine. Or just to hear myself talk.
31 May 2006
LOVE
I could sleep with your fingers inside me
I whispered
I could kiss you 'till the end of time.
I could look at this clear blue sky
and only see your eyes and I could stare
through mountains to get a glimpse of your smile.
I'm walking in a waking dream
I see images of you in the pool
of my coffee, your name on my dashboard
your whole being in the interstice of time.
I just can't count the seconds fast enough
until I really see you, really feel you
under the sun, in my arms, your lips on mine
making solid the ghost of you
who haunts me in my days.
I could sleep with your fingers inside me
I whispered
I could kiss you 'till the end of time.
I could look at this clear blue sky
and only see your eyes and I could stare
through mountains to get a glimpse of your smile.
I'm walking in a waking dream
I see images of you in the pool
of my coffee, your name on my dashboard
your whole being in the interstice of time.
I just can't count the seconds fast enough
until I really see you, really feel you
under the sun, in my arms, your lips on mine
making solid the ghost of you
who haunts me in my days.
I haven't written any war poems in awhile, or, more accurately, peace poems. Is this any time for poems anyway? Who reads them, who cares, who really makes a difference, or even a living from words, short words, long words, in proper placement, or haphazardly spread around, does it really matter what words we use? We are at war. People die each day and it is our will. By our, I mean collectively as a nation, though I don't like to be connected to this nation's reality. A thunderstorm here in my neck of the woods turns me blue, I can't garden anymore, yet on the other side of our Earth people dig holes in the ground to plant their loved ones, water them with tears. A single teardrop is lost, but a nation of them creates a global storm.
Birthing the sacred woman
See how she's grown
From empty-vesselled innocent
To full-bellied, tired and spent
What fire awaits her body's glow
To push bone against bone in that slow
Transition from woman to mother
Embodiment of power no other
Will love laboriously into being
A small, sacred body fleeing
Red-wombed house of mirth
To milk, mother, Earth.
See how she's grown
From empty-vesselled innocent
To full-bellied, tired and spent
What fire awaits her body's glow
To push bone against bone in that slow
Transition from woman to mother
Embodiment of power no other
Will love laboriously into being
A small, sacred body fleeing
Red-wombed house of mirth
To milk, mother, Earth.
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