The Great Seas: The Sea of Marrow

who do you think you are?
we are nobody.
we survived bloodied downpours
and starved our way through famine.
how much closer does that get us?
we are nowhere.
the real journey is on the horizon
so don't think yourself accomplished.

what do you think matters?
those grey and white matters.
they build you up
compose your soul
remind you of your wholeness
when you're feeling scattered
so don't think yourself lost.

who occupies our throne?
the seat is empty.
we are stoic and perverse
and our memories have shattered
in hurricanes of unconsciousness
we are everywhere.
the truth lies away from vices
so don't think yourself strong.

what can bind our bones and brains?
something soft and strong
beyond our own minefields
into the sea of great grey
into the wind of great breath
we hold tight to memories-
and one another.
so you can find yourself sane again.

The Great Seas: The Sea of Water and Grain

eat.
open up your mouth and your soul and eat.
because what is food?
fuel? happiness? nourishment?
choose it now and be full.
fill you up?

no, i cannot fill you up.
and now, after digestion, i know.
i could never sow the grain
i could never break the dam.
yes, that's a damn shame.

the water.
she is still with out a force.
and so i am.
will you swim?
float? drown?
choose your way.
no, i can never be your boat.
it used to be a shame.
now it's just our ride
on the tide
and here comes high tide.
and then the low.

go to the big barn,
there is grain there.
go to the river,
there is fresh water there.

i'll be there before you,
wet or dry,
empty or full.

The Great Seas: The Sea of Blood

from the deepest caves it flows
within and up and down and over: fills us
to stay alive and pumping and flushed
the mother of life: carries us
our babies, our dreams, our disease
we, just vessels in the storm
floating: she moves us
riding waves of red in the dark
ebbing and flowing
thriving or dying, we ride
until it flows out
onto sheets and floors
deathbeds and streets
where it cannot be contained
by her warmth or spirit
from the harsh winds
to weary lungs and noses
from the hands of death
to the cool touch of
small fingers
that have lost their grasp.
to the dry and empty wombs
that have lost their heart
collapse: until the next circulation

i am a road

and you've happened to wander by.
lost enough to come along this way-
a wild and barely beaten path
a winding and graveled pass so far away
from where you've been
in such a long while
and the barricades still sit
before me
but somewhere along me
hidden among the perils
there is a safe place
and maybe that's why you've wandered by.

and you've brought your dynamite.
enough to level off these bumps
and some concrete to finish me off
for a smoother, safer journey
so much more civilized than i've been
before and after you
but somewhere beyond me
there is a home
and maybe that's why you've wandered by.

monkey bay

traveler by the bay,
you're so far away.
in the bush
in the heat
in the future
remember today.
and when you go
remember the goats
the orphans
and the gods
they love you.
remember that they do.
hold that ring of bone
hold onto your home
both are in your hands.
remember where you came from.
the crocodiles
the camels
the monkeys
they fool you
but remember
their hiding places.
but remember
the other places,
and your heart there
beside the bay
softly hold your stay.

addict

smoking affairs drinking gambling
labels for vices
just once.
justify.
just because.
a drag a kiss a shot a dollar
risks in their own right.
relatively
wrong or right
drugs of choice.
when the void is too deep
you can always run
but you'll always run alone.

returning

the sun was so bright
and so was i
the air was so light
and so was i
and i didn't know the road ahead
and i didn't know you would be there
at the beginning and the end of it
i was fifteen and i loved you
i was reckless and i lost you
i was twenty seven and i knew you
i was scared and i pushed you
but the sun returns and asks
if i would do it again
yes and again
and again just for that first touch
and for the last one
to give you the meaning of my name
that is bright
that is shining
that is clear
but not obvious.
would you go back
to the ocean
with me?
winding to redwoods and caves
finding green stones
and closing our jaded eyes
to stop looking
for just a breath
or two
remember
i'll go anywhere
with you.

faith

once in a while the quiet comes in like a grandmother. soft and wise. what is that feeling of solitude? exactly? nearly a happiness. something more profound. something reminiscent of a steepled country church. where silence meets something like a prayer, but it's the smell of the wooden floors and the musty bible pages that evoke those tears not the stories inside. remember though, it's just like that dusty church. but where that quiet nestles in is somewhere else. across different days, during the same times of the seasons. tucked into a cup of coffee or inside an undulating candle flame. above the twinkling skyline. riding salty waves somewhere i've never been. but i know it. and just in that last breath, the quiet slips away again. hunched and fragile and tired. what's left? nearly a loneliness. someplace i vowed i'd never be found. and the things that race inside that space where that quiet was so briefly tucked away; they are deafening. but in that expanse of noise is hint of what who i knew i was and who i might become. and it could only be heard in comparison to that elderly quietness. in that gap i can hear everything and nothing together, and i believe in it. and i believe that i can exist in that harmony of noise and calm. and maybe i won't be there alone. call it naivety. i call it beauty. what is faith?

home. work.

the hissing and spitting radiators remind me that i won't be sleeping much tonight. the sounds of unsettling heat are just that and there's just a little snow left on the sidewalks outside. tonight some are not hissing and spitting. the cats, anyway. they are curled up inside their own rattling radiators because they are settled. they aren't settling. just settled. and i'm breathing out of my mouth to try to do the same sort of settling. i've put my books down for a while. i've been in them so much i feel like i must smell like a library by now. but they are such good company that i hesitate setting them aside before i take a hot and spitting shower. in the shower i wonder if i could ever really be loved. i decide that maybe if i could breathe more easily i could be. i don't want to eat dinner because i feel fat after seeing myself in the shower and i'm still not sure if i'm lovable. some could. the cats, anyway. they remind me by playing with the curls in my hair. cozying up to me to get their dinner, assuredly. i feel alright about it though because it's not that i mind being manipulated in return for some affection. which i need more than dinner at any given time. don't worry- i'm not starving. just hungry. so i put the huge stack of books into my small lap and swim back into the pages of ancient wisdom hoping for that kind of simplicity. the kind of simplicity that hugs you before you fall asleep and whispers secrets into your ear that mean more than love, commitment, sex, or freedom. Secrets of decocting teas and breathing. that's all i have to do. it's time for bed and the radiators are finally quiet.

post heaven

this is not the afterlife.
but we could have been anything
before now.
one of these days, though
we'll push through to another
another next time
after heaven settles in
into our skin
and we'll sink into another
second skin
for living and dying
for nourishing what we have
exhaling what we can't use.
forming new lives
in our bones and blood-
breaking and swimming

we could become anything
when a day isn't a day,
only breaths in a timeless sea
another eternity.
after we create something new
another life
to give everything and nothing
nourishing only how we can
screaming and breathing
holding on forever
fingers and toes.
we can conceive of anything
before heaven.

where are you?

once i had a dream about you.
(a hundred times, actually).
dishonesty is a bad way to start
(i suppose).
but it's landed
you there
me here
and now it's all in between
dreams and white lies
between
sleep and omission
(a hundred miles apart, actually).
i'm thinking about the ocean
the cliffs and the birds
but only in the wake of my tears
(i suppose).
the perfect place to set up
for heartbreak
(just one of a hundred, actually).
in the sound of wave breaks
where was i?
i'm here now
(i suppose).
and where are you?
maybe you dreamed about me once.

hibernation

into the earth. deep.
through soil and moss and roots
where warmth is relative
so if i don't move
one inch
the heat will stay
inside my fur
a while
tonight
the blizzard passes
and the wind is calm
and my own tail
is all i need to sleep
soundly enough
but winter edges. closer.
and spring is just a dream
for now
while i am tucked away
under the hill
under the cobalt sky
beside myself
asleep.

riding on a train

thudding and pumping and screaming and smoking
under my feet rumbling,
i could hear it coming.
a speeding wreck,
somehow right on track
to my doorstep.
a few sparks and then
boarding time.
had i waited all those years?

i'm a passenger, i'm asleep
it's thudding along,
it's time to eat
and i just have tea
because the seat beside me is empty.
the beat of steel on steel tracks
will be my company
for another year
but when the phone rings
it's a stranger from the coast
and we don't speak.

tunnels gape open into mountains,
and eat us up
because you're here now
your face aglow in the machines
your shoes untied and hurried.
we slumber in sleep cars
sometimes together,
when you're not counting
the passing lampposts
when your mind quieter than the night.

remember love letters? talking to the curtain.

i've never gone to confession.
but, we could talk just as openly
about what i have done, or thought
or didn't do.
the water is hot and you're hanging there
and even though i'm naked
and vulnerable you're not looking.
you don't have eyes,
just rings and plastic and that's best.

tonight is about blankets,
the pile of them beside me.
as warm as they seem
somehow my toes are still cold
and rolling around in my own clothes doesn't even help
this time of year.
i know you're not listening.
if i wanted to feel heard
i'd go to the mirror
she's wide-eyed and sympathetic
and knows that i'm a serial sobber
and cries with me
even when i'm at my ugliest.

so i could stare blankly into the dark
or i could stare at the blankets
or keep talking to you.
so what?
lately i'm writing out checks
instead of love letters.
i can write checks instead of poetry-
for a while.
and try to not check out
i'll try to write prose instead.
like i used to.
i think there are some love letters
tucked into the back pages of a novel.
we'll dig them out once the smoke clears.

thank you for the talk.
sorry to leave you hanging.

wishes (and other selfish, senseless things)

i wish that you weren't reading this. it's going to be bloody and sappy (and other disgusting, sticky things). but i know that you (and other things) are going to read it and obviously at least one of my fingers doesn't care.

i wish that i was that little bitty, blissfully stupid eight year old me riding my pink bike with bloodied knees and unruly snarled hair and koolaide stained smile speeding down the torn up alleyways of that dumpy little college town not looking both ways, not giving a shit if my legs were torn open or if a boy saw my disgusting hair, or that i was one pothole jolt away from puking my guts out from the red dye #40 which riddled that koolaide i had just recklessly downed heading home to my mother who would inevitably be smiling for me and cooking macaroni when i blew through the back door, so masterfully hiding her tears because there wasn't money for more than kraft and dad was working late giving his secretary an early holiday bonus in some sleazy trailer park two towns over so he didn't have to face my salty koolaide face (or other sad things).

i wish that four inches taller.

i wish that when it was midnight on a tuesday night and i said that i was going out to the bar by myself to drink that he would wish that i didn't want to go not because he wants to tell me not to but because he wishes that i would rather give him a kiss and crawl in our warm bed and slide his clothes off and not stop kissing him and not be thinking about drinking stale beers (and other things) next to strangers- but he knows that i'm bullshitting and that when i leave for the bar i'm actually just going to my car to turn on the heat and listen to NPR for ten minutes to see if he'll text me to give me a reason to come join him at home in our bed and of course he doesn't because he doesn't really care what the hell i do and even if he did he knows that i'd rather feel desired than drunk and anyway he's the one who will stumble in at 2am puking and reeking of smoke, not me, and so, actually, i really wish that he would rather crawl into bed with me than crawl to the bar but i'm not good at being aloof so i just cry about it and wish that i was all that he needed because when he's holding me, it's all that i need- so i wish that i didn't. cry or care.

i wish i didn't drive my grandma's old one- head-lighted mercury.

i wish that i could say this out loud.

sleep you off

i was sleeping on the shadowed side of the mountain
where it was dark, cold, and turbid
where the slivers i called eyes were also
heavy, wet, and dark blue
swelling in the deep lake i called home.
i was alone
and i was sleeping.
then you nudged me.
in the beginning
just a ripple
unsettling the surface of my dreams
and the faintest of light
throbbed in my eyes
like a hangover or a sorrow
i was saturated
you were lucid
tipping the balance in turn.
the motion jolted me awake
and i was dazed and hot and angry
burning away.
and then i wanted to sleep
in the warmth
and the bright side of the mountain
wasn't far away.
boots and tents and coins
and another mile
exhaust me
and i lay down where i am
though i don't know where i am
my eyes seal up
and tomorrow i could rest
in the warmth of your hand
if you touch it to my shadowed heart.

in case you were looking for a light at the end of the night

fog rolls in on this city, or town as some would say.
two cities, twins, are one in the thickness
and now differences are small:
the heat on the pavement, the wetness in the air.
i can't say it will be warm in the onsetting days
but tonight the fog sleeps in the nooks of chill
waking and wrestling with the heated rain
and i remember nights like these when i was lost.
though i am still lost
i trip along sidewalks that are more promising
while strangers pass by and promise nothing.
i can't say i prefer fog to smog,
only that i sleep less soundly on concrete.
you can be my street lamp
i can be your candle.

frolic for fall

rabbits do what foxes do, but only when they're willing. on forest trails or concrete alleys. they dig and and save and tease and nuzzle until they're sure they're not dinner.

foxes do what rabbits do, in turn with seasons, colors, magics and evenings. they chase and sleep and elude and wink until their paws are kissing.

to my dearest bastard, sleep

at 3am you're flushed like an adulterer's pink skin in the late hours of affairs and when you roll over i'm feeling cheated and exhausted and you've got that sweaty smirk again. just before you creep away you suck away the last warmth from the sheets and i am cold and nearly naked. i don't know why you had to go. i know that i've been needy and dependent and weepy. but you're never here and when you are i'm afraid that you're going to light a match in the night and be gone at the flicker of my eyelids. do you remember the night that you never came home? i've never felt so lost. i threw up twice and drank some wine and took some pills and you still never showed. i would have changed the locks but we both know i'm too weak without you and all you have to do is lay in bed with me once and i'll forget everything else. so you've got the upper hand. you always fucking have. i'm just desperate enough now to admit it. when i was younger you used to be all over me. i couldn't keep you off. we'd lay twisted in the sheets until noon. i'm still that girl but i suppose i perfected playing hard to get and you liked it so well that now that's all you want. it's time to relax and stop playing games. so i've got plans for you tonight. i've cried enough over you and i'm done trying to understand or sway you. stay or leave, either way i'll be wide awake.

slippery pulse

she asks what happens to me
when everything is falling apart
i can feel my blood pulsing under her fingers

just a surface burn
on my skin
shaped like a cigarette

a sore muscle
in my shoulder
from heavy a weight

a headache
between my sutures
crushed by paperbacks

a heart attack
in gaping mouths
when i can't sleep

i answer her with tears
and then i say "tears"
because i know what it means to fall apart
and i wonder how deep my injuries go

she feels slippery spots and my pulse disappears