Tagged: environment
Jump the River
watching kids play
Jump the River, which
is a game with two ropes
the kids line up, then
run at the “river”
& jump across it
each time the river
gets wider until the kids
are barely able to make it
some run their hardest then
stop abruptly at its edge
some throw their bodies &
roll for extra distance
some just cry –
too hard, no fair
later they will wade in
the creek. its banks
move apart like ropes
the water flow lessens
some of it abruptly stops
it gets warmer
the sunlight reaches lower &
blooms the algae
the tadpoles feel the urgency
the tepid water tells them
hurry up, get eaten
or get caught & held
their instruments still in
perfect spiral
our eyes take time to adjust
to decide if we are heading
towards, or away
either way we fall into it
then drop it
will we get word?
will it be fire? monsoon?
will we throw our bodies?
or stop abruptly
at its edge?
Domain
if you put a carcass
on the roof, the rats
will get it before
the birds
I do my coughing
on the roof
you do your
proving
you impress the doctor
with a bouquet
I ask stupid questions
that I hope
sound like love
then we go get ice cream
you choose something brilliant
I get chocolate
people celebrate
having finished the maze
never mind
getting out
then drive up and down
the one road
negative
in string lights
revving their lack
of ideas
like the start of a new
world until boom
it appears, and
we’re here, this tiny beach
with not enough space to
space out
as we float on bars
sit on each other
sink the land
into the sea
Pesticide 2
ants grow their fungus
in my ears
confuse my eyes with pools
they touch me, expand
get used to me
not moving
I try to see their whole bodies
in a way I’ve never seen
my whole body
but can feel it
I am up top, pressed
against glass
I am standing too close
to the moon
It goes down my body
to the planet
I try to see its whole body
in a way I have never seen
my whole body
but can feel it
Battery Effect
tonight it has been red
then yellow, then luminous white
I think coral, copper, cotton, rattle
at one point it was below the water
before that it had never left
now it’s here, and I know instantly
that I know something, just not what
maybe I feel the moon’s knowing, or I
heard something, the stars
discussing the moon’s politics on the Earth
children in their adult poses
doing mounted police, fixing the sink
kings and queens
with bull’s heads, stomping the water
they don’t play the root, as you have
or me, the stone with a root in it
we are fixed to the hood of the Earth
the sun does a firm bounce off the moon
it goes down a corridor before
coming back, unlocking the next
entrance, and the next, perhaps everything
a baby gate opens, the milky way opens
we are ferried to our rooms in secret
swept in by birds, to be checked on
later, though they know we will be gone
in their wisdom they can see themselves coming
as I have seen myself coming, and you
our mouths open to the same phase
your blood a belt of red, the candles yellow
my reach a luminous white
Vision at Fallen Home
we took his couch, some
tools – to help
evacuate belongings
the garden too
has been demolished
though hummingbirds return
for the turk’s cap
along the fence
they go from stagnant
to blistering
which feels familiar
one transcendence
to another
a tourist in each
starting to head back
then pulled out again
by color, certain
red objects
brilliant against
old footage
a poppy
a war
in many ways I feel
that we knew each other before
we must have done
the way you identified my mouth
like a plant from home
and I know your hands
and I fear so capably
your loss, as if
it has happened
Candida
your heart will hurry
to the places it’s been
a note tied to its leg
what if the quiet place
in your mind vanishes, or
worse, is given to someone else?
for now though, this is us
this is a city
it shows us its spirits
it calls when the grass
is too long, stops calling
when the grass dies off from sun
where the ice cream truck
does circles, donuts
do your ears hang low
and the occasional BOOIIIOIIINNGG
or HEELLOOO?! we lay
in its sound, having just licked
each other, perpetual lawn mower
I guess the gears of the world
dairy for the diligent whackers
and every house, broken in
on champagne, with its windows
smiling through a baby
under expansion, like most things
built to withstand fire
bison, winter, crop
shortages and floods
termites, outages of power
the way things are
underneath, before eventually
there is a die off
a long low moan without
complaint, the REMEMBER ME
of life that has taken hold
bugs in both dimensions
a flattened Earth holding
more of us, all of us at once
if she is trying to say something
we wouldn’t know
she is muffled. so
we move forward, certain that the
best thing we can do with our lives
is replace them
Thirty
I was standing in line with you
when I passed out, fainted
I guess, and woke up
on the floor
I remember feeling
guilty, like I had overslept
and how different
you looked
appearing over me, like
a god, or its mother
perfect
and impatient
my elbow hurts – I realize
I must have fallen on it
you say I may have fallen forward
if it hadn’t been for you
how lucky – I am grateful
– I am weak – I am
let down gently – I am
long to see
the security footage
in which your reaction
plays out like a silent film
in which
the faces of the embarassed
become everyone, black
and white, at each moment
assigned a time
SWAT
woke up drenched again, not
dreams, not raining
who knows
there’s a resiny
imprint of me
on my mattress, myself laid
down over countless
others, like days
I go through what I ate, when
the withdrawal symptoms of
things like caffeine
pot, what I’m wearing
sleep positions, if
I should have showered
maybe my mattress is a valley
my blankets roads
I overheat, sweat
become cold, pull them up
to wake unsure
where the water came from
if it’s water at all, or
just salt
if while sleeping, I’ve
been swimming, and
barely made it back
How to Release Dead Animals
It is hot and windy. your face
is probably covered in hair
your body out
I am reminded of the animals
I’ve kept, some of which have
died in my care – snails
toads, spiders – clearly dead
(some had been melted
in tupperwares in which
I had also caught a star)
now back into the wild
unable to throw them away
unsure of their use now, as they
no longer moved in my room
unsure of where it was
I had found them
running away, around
this whole time, open
mouth against clear
sloped walls
even the rocks I’ve kept, like
tears hidden up my nose
or in my ears
I’ve wanted to keep forever
my ultimate stubbornness
to be an everything-sized cage
to be your whole world
suddenly my mouth is full
I set the dead on the knape
of the Earth, an armadillo
rooting its vast, known circle
flinching, closing
the dead to skitter off one day
the Earth to have rings
the dead to die again and
again, having lived
again I am unsure about
the size of the world
where the color goes
on captive animals
why they feel different
how they could have died
if I can love something
without having to have it.
Harvey
the cab drivers
pull into gas stations, enticed
by the light of zeros
such brightness
meaning nothing, all out
I pick oil off the water
I pick oil
there is always some left
at the bottom, or
stripped up the sides
fucked and left stranded
like the coast
its lazy
endless versions
I’m trying, but each time
fucking is like flying – There is
more or you die
there is oil
it makes boats of birds
I flap
What could happen any minute
and the minutes lost
probably off somewhere
the drive up coast
its bolted down furniture
no walls
or else these paper thin ones
tonight I dreamt a jaguar
too hungry to hunt, was drowned
by the heron
lifted away
eaten someplace quiet
on the rocks
down the hallway
until the heron was stretched full
of hair and bone
holding its gut
sloshed to sleep by the moon
her great blue stomach
the sea
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