Tagged: the Sky

UFO

I can’t whistle, but
I did once in New Mexico
when I blew steam
across the water like
the Northern Wind
my big cheeks full
my beard and eyebrows
a landform each
I am performing more
as you drift more
but my gestures
fill your sails
you kiss the ground
because it isn’t wet
I bite my tongue to
find some
when you ask for lights
you add that little
*don’t take me*
a disclaimer
*just show yourself*
you mean *anywhere
here… but also
everywhere else*

Creation Story 2

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now

but each time I say it
my face seems smaller
my beard like ivy on a wall

I am both good and
bad things pretended
but in nature

I am exonerated
I have a cat’s
imagination

under the table
this is how I forgive myself
to build without

touching the mountain
to set up all the little
people

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now… can it be you?

you put a blanket
on the window, close off
all rooms to this room

your jar lids pop
in adjacent counties
ice crumbles into the sky

our breath remains obvious
counted
we lower our portions

beyond the curtain
is a frozen planet inside
a warm vent

another chance to make a life
to remake life in our image
a ball of heat

the twelve minute race
however long
we must hold this embrace

Ophelia

always interrupt me for
animals or ghosts

food-related reasons
bathroom

a sound you
hear the car making

my exit
a song on the radio in

need of lifting
or a heavy thing

land upon
my head

wake me up with tears
if I am cold

slipped like petals
on the sheets

like grief
drawn by a fly

or a bird
hiding its hurt

stop me at the edge
if I get too close

hold my body in
point me towards

the beginning
and set me down

When You Travel by Balloon

I worry you will learn something
that takes you away
a balloon you forget
to let go of
or choose not to

I will grab a balloon
and follow, though
in the sky
I have even less
direction

no bones to block it
no blood
maybe they will put
all the reds together
maybe it has to do with the air

it is exhausting trying to plan
my plans, I fear, are me
choice animating thought
a quarter machine
who grabbed me? do I have control

over where I am? is
control like a thought
should I let it go? is it the same?
I swim through the air in
my best clothing

careful to match the color of cloud
but it’s different when you’re in it
it’s obvious
it ruins it

don’t go
don’t look at me
don’t go

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
feverish kazoo music?
Denis? Denis?

could be just a bug
am I doing the right thing?
where do I place
the needs that could kill me?

Voyager 1

baby birds cry
to expose the red insides
of their mouths

so that the parents
can deliver food

any sound they make
is just screaming
it attracts possums
raccoons

we sing, we scream
in both joy & anger
we certainly cry – in
everything we say
we are saying

Here I am
Come get me
like baby birds

preferring the company
of whatever’s out there
to nothing

The Earth Two

when a child picks up something
delicate she often crushes it
or pulls it off the tree

her hand
may as well be
a tube to the brain

the insides of worm
and aloe vera
upward

each first contact
a benevolent ownership
so nothing bad will happen

no, because I
will put it back
such confidence

the minnow, the grape-like
clutch of frog eggs
especially the flower

how do you explain
what is alive?
once we took people

I find myself saying
if you leave it, it
will get bigger

as in
there will be
more of it for you

“..finding a second Earth is not a matter of if, but when.”
-Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

 

The Earth & its Atmosphere

there must be a hole
for needing to be better
& hating yourself
through which
it leaves

we park somewhere
a trap
of green gasses
idling, a sun roof

the large holes
carried
in front of our bodies
like stealing art

the certain parts
of air that stick
before
being sent back

the false ones
the hopeful ones
the oxygen
the nitrogen

the courageous others
tagging along
swept up in it

we give each other
something good a little less
each time
here in the same place

but it’s still
some good

we finger the holes
in our hoodies
& in the atmosphere

we crack a window

we finger our mouths
through which words
emerge from
primordial
soupy throats

but where
before that? i struggle
sometimes

perspective… or
who was there
when it happened

a police officer?
a father?
a friend
who learns the world
by looking at you
looking at them