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.

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.

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.

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.