Tagged: poem
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
After Choking You in My Sleep
the dead must be hungry
the way they present themselves
to me – half a hand out
hollow legs
shrinking then wrapping
the corners as if embarrassed
I would be too
all that work to be dead
and still begging
not that I’m any safer here
stairs are one of the most
haunted places on Earth. I
could be sitting in a portal, or in the body
of something larger
someone’s work or unrequited love
a prison, the defense
of a choke-point
whatever it is, I feel its interest
it shakes my insides as if
listening for seed
it lands on me when
I’m not careful
forms to vacancies like
an owl to the tree
like your voice to my ear
when I’m sure you’re lying
or is it, when I’m sure
I would have lied
is it me? I am poltergeist
through misplaced energy
dreams of fame turned
malevolent humility
inside lurks
the big black mass
of ever losing you, especially
to me
Activity
I am writing again, which
feels like the wrong thing
behind me
there are thousands of figures
symbols for lost time
like a chair is not its word
“chair” a person
is not his name
nor is he what he leaves
behind
he is not named
“gunk in corners”
though he resides there
with no need for sitting, writing
now he sinks
where chairs were
leaving behind residue
like ink
on the paper
at night
Return
if you ask me to tell you
the code, I can’t do it
I need it in my hands
like your hands
which I feel and
remember with confidence
remember the world
as it was? a root
protruding from the rock
that you perched on
that lead your heart
into touch out of darkness
improbably to me
the mud where
you fell as a bird
I preserved you
curled myself beneath
your weight and
proudly display
your feathers
and was adorned by you
now we meet again
there’s a bird
in the roof of your mouth
and it’s like we died
enough times
holding the right ally
the ally holding
something of ours
in return
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, doing plumbing
doing queen and king
they do bullhead, water-bearer
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
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 two dimensions
a flattened Earth holding
more of us, all at once
if she is trying to say something
we wouldn’t know
she is collapsed upon. so
we move forward
in the old way
in which you’re only allowed
to replace yourself
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, laid 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 jump in water before I sleep
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 to shore
unedit 