Category: Poetry
Summer 2020
I feel strongly that
I haven’t done enough
is that today?
always?
humanity beats down
without context
the sun is so hot
it is winter, effectively
a stay-at-home order
a vivid and continunous
temperature
contemptuous integers
I could go back and forth
but I’ve let the dog run
I’ve taken off my shirt
in the early hours
survived a little longer
which is enough
though I know it isn’t
we’ve survived long enough
to know that it isn’t, or
survived past it, or
consumed it
in an act of survival
what a strange threat this is
when those threatened
need more than just their lives
when the monster eats
frivolity, and I reek of it
when our spirits
sneak out at night to touch
our bodies too hot to hold
Fear of Dying
I beg the stars to move –
that is, to have died already
I’m still uncertain of their distance
now more than ever
what would happen if I ate one?
would it kill me? if I sleep
facing the sky, will it breathe me?
if I get bit, will I die?
I am unsure about so much
what does a virus want?
which is the universe
and which is the galaxy?
is it cicadas? or static on
spirit headlamps? or
Denis Johnson’s feverish
kazoo music?
could be just a bug
am I doing the right thing?
where do I place
the needs that could kill me?
Nietzsche’s Sister’s Cat
I wonder if the dog, while
holding its mouth open for the cat
ever has thoughts of crushing it
flash images
like a photo continues
outside its frame, does the dog
see itself continue?
does the cat suspect?
suspect is a strong word
surely the dog is not to blame for
seeing. is seeing thinking?
neither one is doing
until it is done. so the cat is cautious
the dog inviting – its neck
thicker than its head
the skull in plates
built for this relief – sure
the cat will trust the dog one day
only after
it has never happened
Yell Fuck at Canoe Rental
geese scream hate
over a banjo being played
inside a trailer full
of life-jackets
the geese are so angry
they lose themselves
feathers in disarray off them
dropping two at a time
soon there will be
more feathers
on the ground
than on the birds themselves
you could build a new bird
imagine the feathers cleaned
and colored for crafts
kids attaching them
to their shoes, banjo music
lifting them into the sky
where light is adjacent colors
the music plays on speaker
it will never stop
but eventually the geese do
they scream their necks
into collapse, then
disperse, like light
onto the blacktop, squirming
the way light does
the light is the same light
as always. we’ve had it
this whole time. it has been
everything since and will be
everything else
it extends beyond the prism
of our atmosphere. it comes from
a fucking star – how can there
be hate?
it is only the brain making
of light what it will
the brain which has never felt
the feeling of light on its skin
Salamander
light, like the cricket that leaves the cave
our minds which consume
and think they have been. our minds
of the palest skin
they are stuck inside
the cave of skull
blind as a salamander – seeing nothing
aware of only what they see
Pressing Medicine
I do one, maybe
two things wrong &
I can’t function – my
stomach is the rag
my ribs are the glass jar
inside awash with medicine
how much does it take
to twist like that?
what do you do with
the rest?
black in the dark, black
red in the light
it is left
in the margin, discarded
white space that
oblierates, white winter
that proliferates
how can it be so many
when it is also each one?
Why Don’t You Say My Name as Much Anymore
my parents would say Terri – I mean your mother
or David – I mean your father
as if I wouldn’t know who they meant. Or like
they were each hiding some Terris or Davids
we weren’t supposed to know about. I never really
suspected, but I would listen sometimes
put a cup to the wall in my closet
that connected to their bathroom
I’d listen to my mother and father spending time
with Terri and David – coordinating spits
in their sinks – starting the shower for the other –
flushing the toilet. sometimes I’d hear the long lighter
snapping its fingers at the candle. sometimes
I’d hear the tub water. they’d say their lover’s name
– serious business in the house that holds
their children. they must have been in on it together
sometimes I’d fall asleep in the closet listening
my nicer pants and things hanging close to my face
curled up against bags with my name
adorned on them, a clear cup along the carpet
Clay Mask
I cover my skin in earth, as if
my skin is not earth
as if little mounds don’t grow from both
both are like space to bugs
or looks
why don’t you respond to me sometimes?
you’ll just sit there, staring, as if
there isn’t a buzzing
you need to cover
as if you won’t fill with ocean
if you stop moving
stop picking at yourself constantly
stop picking yourself
there is fire in your chart, without which
there can be no stone, no earth
yet I am all earth, no fire
I must have come from somewhere
another layer perhaps, deeper than skin
where I generate my own heat
my own light
like a vent that warms the sea
A Love Letter
it feels like a good time…
candles already lit, so
no presumptuous
candle lighting
some of the hourglass
sand is stuck. I wonder if
this like time, then
throw up my mouth a little
but what place other than
a letter to talk about time?
or sand? or being stuck? plus
I am concerned about my hourglass
it’s meant to be 30 minutes
but with sand stuck to the glass
is it quite? how much
time am I getting?
is it the same sand each time?
or does new time replace it?
it’s hard to tell – I flip it
just to see you buried
the Angel of Forgetfulness
blesses me. The Angel of White
Dimples
rebuilds herself
whole temples in her honor
could this be the time
when all of the sand
falls through? and
Forgetfulness retrieves
her blanket?
will I remember having
said yes to this, this life
and potentially others?
what did I see up there
that meant
enduring a human body
was it your body? It could
have been your body
was it something that needed
to be done?
have I done it?
can I keep doing it? is there any
question but the one I have already
answered yes to…
…is this a good time?
Missy
Our girl hears Missy Elliot
on the radio, 95.9 – The Throwbacks
She knows all the words the way
you don’t really, just play the sounds
so when she enunciates GO DOWNTOWN
EAT IT LIKE A VULT-CHA we laugh
She knows that part, of course, but
then again she does know vultures
She jumps off the couch and soars
like a vulture. She dries her hair over
her face like a vulture does its wings
She puts her hands up against the light
– a shadow puppet vulture
She is black and furthest away
She sees vultures and takes binoculars
but can’t find them
The light is too bright
