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Friday, May 24, 2013

SOMETHING MORE PROBABLE




This poem is from my book "A LIMITED MEANS OF EXPRESSION" published by Rattlesnake Press, Pollack Pines, Ca in 2011.  The book is out of print.




SOMETHING MORE PROBABLE

This poem is broken. I found
It that way, beyond words to fix it.
It was too complex to keep in the mind
Without something untold happening
Just as the words were to reveal
Atmospheres or a startling journey
From which no one could return without
Their entire meaning excluded or compromised.

Passages, contradictions, abnormalities
That were once thought to make it
Possible, now all exceptions to whatever
Reality and deep feeling the poem had.

Now it does not matter what direction
We choose to follow. The poem will
Have already been there before us
Using meaning as some kind of trick
That actually steals imagination away
From us, giving it to something more probable.



Thursday, May 23, 2013

BURNING THE STAIRS




BURNING THE STAIRS

There is a low wail coming
Up through my skin.  When 
I listen in, head close
To the radio I can feel
The pulse, the full pulse,
The pulse, pulse of the electricity
In its circuits.  I can smell
The ozone.  I can tell
It needs flame.  Even the music,
Even the announcer’s voice,
Lifting and falling, selling stereos
And car tires has the stink
Of flame around it.  I wish
For evening, a room far away,
The arc of a great bird
Across the sky, etched air.
The wail will have none of this.
It becomes louder and shrill.
The dial begins flickering.
It’s mouth full of flame.
It begins to melt.
I quickly pick it up,
Toss it into the air.

The stairs of the angels catch fire.
The air is filled with burning stairs.
There is no way to get to heaven
Any longer.



The fire storm rages down.
It is like dreaming.
It is like moving clouds
Away with one’s hand.
I stand at the top
Of the stair and look down.
Someone is listening to a radio
So intently
I believe
They are an animal.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

DAYS WITHOUT YOU




DAYS WITHOUT YOU

Before you even feel it.
Before you see the burns.
Before the serious night enters
And hides in the corner of the room
Waiting.

Before the questions start.
Before the walls turn red.
Before the dreams come
Carrying their cloth bags, damp
With slender breathing.

Before these things,
Language will stop.
I will hold you
With my eyes, as if
All other instruments 
Were broken and we 
Had no right to come here.

The thickness of our bodies
Shall be of great comfort
Then.  The heavy verbs
Of our movements shall
Appear as dance.

Then, I will kiss you
With my lips full upon
All that is your reason.
And we will will be transported
Together.  And they who chance to see
These things will be unable to remember
Our names or if we stood
Before them.  For them,
And their time, we shall
Have only this recognition : love.



Sunday, May 19, 2013

FINDING WORK



From the Aberdeen Bestiary

This poem was frist published in Medusa's Kitchen.

FINDING WORK


The silences have become caves
Or mines and I became distracted
There by words.  There I am able 

To see them twist and combine,
To copulate letter by letter,
Forging meaning, arguing with each
Moment, bearing gifts for creatures
Who are barley able to see because
The night encompasses them.

Rivers of writers harvesting these
Silly words, believing they are stars,
Planets, moons populating what?

A book, an essay on planetary motion,
A poem about living in a remote
Village high in the mountains?

Finding oneself there upon waking in the
Morning without any sense of how
One travelled there.  Finding work
With a people who do not understand
Whatever one is saying.  Listening 
For the silences, working in the deepest mines.