Medusa's Kitchen published this photo Lisa took on Sunday. It is quite a surprising image.

Medusa's Kitchen published these photos and poems today.

REMEMBERING THE JUNGLE

If we could only

Remember how the

Words worked, the ones

That helped change the seasons

So that no one would notice

Until time itself had piled

Up snow or leaves or

Rain upon rain into the center

Of a month, but we

Could not. Here faces were burned

Off, limbs were regarded

As cord wood, milk spilled

From mouths. We could not

Begin to disguise our disgust

Of the shape dreams made

On the walls of our villages.

Someone said the wands had been

Taken from the area long ago.

Still, we could see lights in the jungle

Night occasionally. They were music.

They were our voices.

We thought they were our homes on fire.

A MORNING FILLED WITH ROSES

Bullets dream the taste of flesh.

The parting of the skin to red

Fountains and the splinter of bone.

Saints speak with tongues made of fire.

The names of God split with desire’s

Sweet tooth pulled up against the spine.

The night is away from home.

I have seen where it goes,

How it borrows morning

From the dream. Listen to this wind.

It clots just below the sky,

Squats on the tops of hills,

Staring down at its own rivers

Deep, like blood.

Look here. A hand dips down

Into a palace of feeling.

Perhaps it is someone loving someone

We might not have noticed except

That the hand squeezes drop after drop of blood

From the wells from which we drink.

This kind of language is full of pretty

Things like this. Come out here with me.

The sun seems about to move from

Behind those trees, to wake up the birds.

If we are so perfect just this once

We can watch the bullets pick their way

Through the body. The smell of gunpowder

On the air. A morning filled with roses.

I have an image of the poster for the poetry reading I did with Jim Morrison of the Doors and that incomparable poet/playwright Michael McClure. This was 1972. The poster was designed by Bill Yates.

Today I am most fortunate. Medusa's Kitchen has published an entire issue of my poetry and photographs.. I found the photo in a pile of books in Jan Jett's backyard that had been out in the rain for some time.

HISTORY

We thought then, when we were travelling,

The children knew something

Special, the way the light moved in their eyes,

The kinds of sounds they chose to become

Words. We would watch the owls

Beariing gifts of curious silver on silent

Wings. Not one of us said a thing.

I supposed that all things were

Like this. The rising of the moon

Was on everyone’s lips. How wonderful.

How pale. We had never seen a moon

Such as this one. Each time it was new.

Now, standing on the high places near

The edge of the water we think the wind

Has something important to say. It does

Not. It speaks but it has no words. It is

Tongue for the trees who tell us of

Bees, the names of the seasons,

The kind and number of the breezes,

How light makes sound through the cambium.

We have been so often wrong that for a

Moment we doubt the children.

We discover a red color we have

Never seen before. Language

Abandons us just before dusk.

We question each other with gestures,

Frantic to recall how it was

We made fire, how we knew to use

These roads, where we had been.

FOLK TALE

When we lived along the edge

Of the sea we used to heat our homes

With a certain oil that burned

With a particular clear green flame.

As children we thought this oil

Came from the fish that were

Our livelihood. Allejandro said

That the green was caused by the

Fact that a type of fish caught here

Shared a common dreaming.

They dreamed they did not live in the seas but

Instead swam through the oaks and

Firs that surrounded our village and

Because the entire fish was pressed

For this oil, their brains gave

Up the greens that were the color

Of the drempt leaves. Maria Xavier said, no,

It was only the food they fed upon

That graced the oil this way.

As we grew we found out that

The oil did not come from fish

At all, but rather from a sacred

Well on the cliffs above the sea.

This well had a peculiar

Property to it. It was impossible

To pump the oil out. It had

To be withdrawn by placing one’s

Mouth to the ground of the well

and sucking the fluid from the

Earth. We were the fish,

Our mouths pressed to the breast

Of the earth, our life breath

Drawing up this oil with fish

Mouth and exhaling emerald

Flames that warmed all the

Winters of our youth.

IF THERE IS NOWHERE

If there is nowhere for the spirit

To move, it builds its house in that

Place. We find wonder in the way

Distance reveals objects on the edge

Of disappearing. We find names for the way

A hand opens.

We give special attention

To the gesures trees make. “They are

Caressing the air.” We say.

There is a story, seldom told, of seeing

And not seeing, more than opening and

Closing the eyes.

We say dreaming is a way

Of seeing. We call from our sleep to

The waking world. It is a place

Where sound neglects language and

Spills from the lips, unhinged. It

Is unseen, a particle of the night.

What is seen: a body writhing beneath

Sheets – an avalanche of form.

HISTORY

We thought then, when we were travelling,

The children knew something

Special, the way the light moved in their eyes,

The kinds of sounds they chose to become

Words. We would watch the owls

Beariing gifts of curious silver on silent

Wings. Not one of us said a thing.

I supposed that all things were

Like this. The rising of the moon

Was on everyone’s lips. How wonderful.

How pale. We had never seen a moon

Such as this one. Each time it was new.

Now, standing on the high places near

The edge of the water we think the wind

Has something important to say. It does

Not. It speaks but it has no words. It is

Tongue for the trees who tell us of

Bees, the names of the seasons,

The kind and number of the breezes,

How light makes sound through the cambium.

We have been so often wrong that for a

Moment we doubt the children.

We discover a red color we have

Never seen before. Language

Abandons us just before dusk.

We question each other with gestures,

Frantic to recall how it was

We made fire, how we knew to use

These roads, where we had been.

DELTA MOON

The moon rose, thick,

Orange and damaged.

It was the horizon for a few

Moments, then, bleeding its

Refection into the river,

Lifted itself into the delta

And became the Autumn night.

photo published today in Medusa's Kitchen

Medusa was kind enough to publish this one today.

ONE HUNDRED POEMS

The way light eats the horizon.

The way Japanese ghosts

Have no feet. Birds gather

In the trees. They say things

To each other that we can hear

But are unable to understand.

A glass reflects the rising

Of the moon. Reading secret

Messages in the pattern of leaves

Upon the ground. There were

Pieces of conversation stuck to

His teeth. A great cultus of

Admonition flourished around

Any mention of the present tense.

The rafters were draped

With banners showing the most

Intimate secrets of the verb.

Landscape is spoken of only

In regard to feelings. There is

No middle distance. It becomes

Inevitable that dense conversation

Cover the face of the moon,

That night untie itself

From any reason and reduce

All poetry to whispers which

Remind one of the wind.

One hundred poems are written

At exactly the same moment.

They are mistaken for oceans,

And fished and thought of great

Depth. One crosses them

Full of wonder, lingering as long

As possible to watch

The waves, the shadow

Flight of birds across

Their sweet surface.

Medusa's Kitchen published this poem today

WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

You have found bits of song caught

In the spillway of a beaver dam. They

Are church-like in their praising. They shake

The collection of sticks

Piercing the face of the dam like so many

Bayonets. A rain begins and spills

Upon the surface of the pool, each drop a book,

A crowd, a child, a Golden Heart siging to the fools,

To what is left of the dancers, the poor shoulders

Of the river made to bear a cascade of tears.

They have built a monument on the edge

Of a cliff. It is impossible to get close enough

To look at it without plunging into the mind of God.

We stand watching the little fires in its towers,

The pitiful way it seems to contemplate the end

Of day. A vibrant eye peers from every window,

Some of them weep as only ones who have seen murder

Can weep. Ships send up flares to illuminate this place.

We walk along the edge of the pond where the grass

Grows tall and yellow. We stop and kiss each other

Before deciding to lie in this place and create

Another world, full of wings and the silence invented by snow.

We are unquenchable as acrobats before the highest throne.

House, knife, wonder, tears, cold, a flute,

Lambs, bridges, hills, the beautiful dark,

Silver bells opening like journeys, a crying,

Weaving a web around the heart that it may

Not break. All of the heavens resting

In the corners of your smile.