Tagged: writing

Mulder

be careful with the moon
as it is not your ally

your coat beguiles formal
black with green, purple

you dance first
walk with your hips

seem to be most alive
when others can’t see you

so what are you now?
ghost alive

like a cat
overwhelmed enough to bite

then immediately regretful
embarassed, therefore

more likely to bite
it envenomates the feeling

I’m not sure which is which
whether the light

is actually the light
or the lack thereof

Elgin, TX

rain looks likely
which out here
makes us scurry to
burn things
that are piling up

the weed thing
the food thing
the sleep thing
the dreams

stuck together like
broken furniture
intertwined
clinging to each other

I get home and you’re
bored, so I’m scared
you’re the best thing
I’ve got going

I’m throwing
these things in
I see the neighbor’s fire
hit the tree

sparks threaten
to crawl like ants
towards our house
towards me and

all this wood
towards you and
wherever you are
in there

but the rain comes
as expected
it allows the fire to
process without

consuming itself
or so it assumes
as the fire assumes
it can quit when it wants

so more and more
is just thrown in
like us
a getting-through-shit

machine
a knot through which
the accelerant
is love

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
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

Playing Dead

for a possum to play dead effectively
it can’t look too good
evolutionary priority is given
to the ugly – the mottled fur
the hairless face like carrion
the chitinous tail, the smell

if a possum chooses another
she will do so for its longevity
its eligibility based on ugliness
therefore beauty
the young are carried on the stomach

tight against fat hanging
towards the ground, dragging
through ticks and the litter
disgusting, undesirable
reliable

no one comes for the possum
not the hungry, nor the thirsty
the possum does not pretend
to be alive – it is therefore safe
it is ready to drop dead
at any moment

a long, upturned smile
the secret – to live
while no one is looking

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

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

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

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