Diving Into the Wreck

Please recycle me/ I am biodegradable

2011-04-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Planet-friendly/ When my soul molts

just put me in the compost

with the chicken bones/ My skin will settle

down next to onion/ Stew in the mouth

of the slowest eater

The soil rifling through itself

that does not seek/Does not discern

between one hard thing or the other

Shale or tooth/ Folds over the lip

and worm/ Sizzles out a rose

of recycled placenta/ Evaporated

eye ball tears fill gutters/ glasses

I’ll be honored to be your drink

When you couldn't stop

2011-04-12T20:29:00.001-07:00

When you couldn’t stop

hoola-hooping you hipped

till you turned

tornado. What a beautiful

roof. Was it good? When it finally

fell to your ankles

a house fell out with it—

gashed in the field, cows

splatting down must have

sent you over

the rainbow

to see if you’d melt

in the rain.

When you

got there,

you heard her

singing some

where but

could not

find

her.

Something like life

2011-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

A platform: smiling with my liver.

I want a brave haircut so you will

know I am, call me

Little Brave.

Most likely you do not know

I am dead serious

most of the time.

I shoot cannons and you go ha ha.

This is something like repetition,

something like life.

Yesterday was strange

to feel grown up. I held my shoulders

back—statue’d told no one

this is how it feels, does not feel.

Then Peter Pan came

asking to the window, how do you

like your air--dehydrated or fried?

We ate off a large white plate

till morning.

It was something like life.

Now it is today and my hands shake.

You will not know unless I tell you

I keep a picture of a lady in my freezer. Her eyes

beside the peas know all. I want to marry her,

but she is dead.

Tonight I will take off my shoes

and my blender will speak back.

Creatures have a way of recovering.

I will leave the plant where it fell out the window.

Some would call

2011-04-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

I know I am too much

like you. That is why you cannot love me.

We go extinct from each other, this planet

of many planets, species

fade off-grid each day—

To watch the breakdown

of cells attack each other—

caffeinated hive—implosion shakes

the tree, then bursts it to light-ashes.

They’ll send a man in a hat, a pocket

that shines to tell you. Or they won’t.

His teeth will be wet when you learn what

you already knew:

stop looking for feathers.

Don’t you remember you dreamt they would

empty every sky, then fill them

with birds that look real.

Don’t you remember

some would call this beauty, claim

not to know the difference.

The Rainbow Orange-Deficiency Virus

2011-03-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

by Sarah Kai Neal

Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.

We all know the song. But what if the rainbows

disappear? Impossible, you may say, but

unfortunately, the possibility of the impossibility

grows more and more possible.

Across the globe, rainbows plagued by the nearing

of the red stripe to the yellow as the death

of their orange nears are now undergoing an innovative

procedure that is saving lives, and color.

To describe open rainbow surgery, we interviewed

Dr. Tender Heart Bear at Care Bear University who

describes the procedure:

“The lucky rainbow is saved by the needed orange

transplanted from a healthy rainbow donor--usually

a poor rainbow, or one who passed away

most untimely but signed the back of its arching card.

During surgery, the rainbow is put to sleep beneath

a sunny day. Anesthesiologists spray mist

once every sixty seconds--just enough so that

the subject is still there, but in a fading way.

Just before it disappears completely, more mist,

then counting to thirty seconds until the rainbow begins

to blink. At this time, in a slim window of 30 seconds

before the next spray makes it again vibrant, rainbow surgeons

like myself inject orange from the skyscraper needle

into the sleeping rainbow.”

Postop, Dr. T. Heart describes, rainbows are watched closely

for rejection of the donor orange, and administered sun

and light pills that clinical studies have shown help

it accept the orange as its own. The risk of rainbow death

in surgery continues to decrease, as leading rainbow surgeons

learn more about rainbow makeup.

In Fix Sick Rainbows school at Care Bear University

surgeons and researchers alike work tirelessly

to uncover the epidemic, now coined the Rainbow

Orange-Deficiency Virus that attacks the orange stripe.

As they dissect rainbow cadavers and begin mapping

its ultraviolet strand, it is their hope to produce a vaccine

before the end of the decade that will prevent

the attack on orange.

Associated Press

email: sneal@rainboworangedeficiencyvirus.com

Woman Hand me

2011-03-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Not one sip or two, but swallows.

Did you know when you jump, you fall

back down she never said.

Those understoods. Feathers.

Inside me I never said. Thousands of eggs.

I’m not bleeding but I will, but if I were,

what would that mean?

Woman Hand, reach me. Up my dress: a nest

of birds, many promises of red.

Bound: September 19, 1981

2011-03-11T21:02:00.000-08:00

A vertical incision, latex fingers fishing in
the day a million gathered to hear sittin’ in the railway station
two brothers reunite in a New York park.
Spinal drugs flooded cold
silver between us, no longer your body my destination
calling, did they change
my mind—a breech
of contract with Universe—for a poet
second thoughts about planet Earth
I turned half-circle
before steel dragged its heel, skidded through
the muscles you held me in an endless dream.

The curtain between us so you didn’t see
the mess they’d made, the moment of me
half-in/half-out of your body, before they raised
me dangling in fluorescence, drugged and singing home, where
fierce, I fish-out-of-water shook.
Strange hands fondled, beneath my nails
your was-blue washed clean
and wrapped me.

The deliverance: out of home; into your arms’ sudden perfect;
little time to recall the difference, the bleeding over that I long to be
when the Latching sets in, magnetite-
devotee, I swallowed the formula, dulled shades of mediocrity
through the plastic tip, the new plural
never full-
made, we slept through
your tubes tied, knotted off
the possibility of a threesome ("I only wanted you") we slept bound
as they sewed you back together—
the gut-mouth they’d made—spilled,
stitched up to not-talk, silently, not to
ever say more than one, longitudinal scar, homeward.

To leave god/painted inside the gut

2011-03-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

You may find history ends luminously/ ends bathed
in steady lumens/ Or you found it never ends/ Always
you knew the ceiling falls in five hundred years

No creature breathed/ nor bathed in light
to witness another history made from piles
No iguana’s 3rd eye pale / and blinking/ No drag
of armored tail/ over/ the bearded god’s
fallen hand

The hand the painter with his neck
careened/ up/ five trips around the Sun
strained/ to leave god/ painted inside the gut

To become/ nearly light/ Aching the lumens
in his body as he stood on scaffolds/ suspended
knowing it would fade/ it would
fall

The homos going down

2010-11-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

We’re all going down down/ do I stutter

No more mama grizzlies no more pantaloons/ No pills

for sleep/ pills for ails / the homos going down for

The elephants going down gather/ still we can’t see water

The forecast comin/ The mother of ultra floods

Extra thin with wings they’ve made us/ when clotted losses

need a blubbered kind of hold/ 'Cause concrete sinks

I said/ Stinks/ & the homos/ We’re all going down

The whitest noise: a lullabye

2010-10-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

Bombs, screams, then silence: the lullabye:

sheet music his body heard—nerves

ivy-curled: eighth notes; intestines barbed

in stacatta; heart trebled in staff

Bombs, screams, then silence: the lullabye: the memories

composed in his body—recorded

the oldest song: the whitest noise

till the child no longer/but always

having so immersed in music been

knew how children’s sleep was made

To the sounds of whole notes—thrown—

four beats from the shoulder, screams, then silence

If it was Father Earth

2010-10-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

If it was Father Earth would it stop this/ Was Father Oak below

Greatfather Moon/ His speckled kingdom/ Would it stop

this bone drill of oceans deep/ If Father salt Father sea

If boyfish glinting along faults/ Where Father Quake cracks

open/ Melts us down/ If his firepot would steam us new

If it Brother Wind was /Would it blow this

place cool/ Clean/ Would it stop

Shame—the obese lover, leaves crumbs in the sheets, her fingers goo’d

2010-10-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Shame—the obese lover, leaves crumbs in the sheets, her fingers goo’d from honey drizzled inside each muffin cran—where she spreads her self, munching. Then insists I buy sunglasses for my face.

Shame—the grease patty, woke hungry again, her stomach puddled out she says, “What a pretty sidewalk,” all speckled with shattered suncaughts. “Isn't the ground the most beautiful thing you ever saw?” She loads the question down. “Welcome, welcome to your downward eyes,” she continues, “Keep’em covered. Keep those wets raybanned. When folks tiptoe up—their calves clenched along the brick, I’ll throw my invisible, cloak it over so they won’t know

we’re here. Keep the dogs away. Those panting, hands-on dogs. I’ll crack warm yolk. I’ll fill each seam behind the fridge, creep beneath eyeboards—inside the jaw, where I folded myself in. –My white blended into each pore’s yolk, each yeast pocket –milked. In a day’s work scrambled and creamed please pass the salt I own this skillet. Don’t need no oil. I’ve caked on years no brillo. Your eyes on flame burned. Blood in your face drowned Moses, don’t laugh. In hot light, my feisty burrowed in wets, plunger-lipped each place you open/you slurped noodles . I squirm hatched in your bag—my little, little burlap."

A verb's word

2010-10-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, can’t lift my head off the page—tattoo’d

my eyes look out: roll right, roll left.

The sanded plain. Blurred blacks in corners—

most likely the subject, the object

(with all-do-respectively, good sirs. )

Though like I said, I can’t move.

None of us can. I’m merely guessing.

Merely forehead stamped.

Blackheads we conglomerate meaning,

serve eyes who typewriter-slide in socks—

nearly-snake were it not for the hawk hop--

the give away: the one-legged-jig at the end.

The heads who slow their beaded tickers

at the occasional: don’t trip-on-your-

momma-comma; my gist-fist period;

the crusin-for-a-bruisin dash—

scarecrows point them onward.

Yes—onward from parental punctuation/genesis capitalization: all lies!

i want to Verb up! these perfectly spaced out times!

mr romans chains have rusted

Food chain

2010-10-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

Bottom dweller, you blue veined will-be-
chewed. Blind, little bird: fanning the
sundontshine, your backwards scuttle
through sand auras, endless illusion
of movement: the ocean’s fossil
deciding how to be remembered.
You with your tentacled ‘stache tickling
perfectly-rounded-discards--the wastes
you nibble till cheaper with the head
they’ll flashfreeze you by the bag: the pinch
twist tail--your shell off’ed in one, easy
pull, makes their fingers itch.

The pianos, who do not learn boundaries

2010-10-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Consider her manatee, amongst the silver slenders
She with fin in air, kin to all wild, all still-prone
holds her breath, lets you see

her insides--ribs, bolts, strings: the inviting math

of pleasedo slide your tips along slick maple,

come round those grand, for-touching curves.

Pull up chair, bring your hands.
Warm those tusks, those losing trees
carved for the girth she asks

of your fingers, of your fingers playing there
to make shake, make call-out-God,
make hold-the-note,

so you may both leave silence, sing

so you may both be mended.

Let me ground you: a childhood of after-church-Sundays

2010-09-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Lunch, then open houses.

Ruth—a family name. Truth—not.

The 3.0 that we were. Went looking.

In the forsales—mostly cubed, with lids.

Father number two did research, his thumbs

ink-stained, licked.

I think we all enjoyed. The clean windows.

Shiny knobs. Bathrooms w/o brushes.

Garages without car.

The promise of built-in shelves.

Of insert family “here.” Where the highest

number of stairs, was,

we wanted hard, historic woods.

Put an elephant in those closets.

Swap cards. Loddy-dah. Our tradition.

Orange questions I have

2010-09-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

Orange questions I have/ They crunch

so loud I can’t hear beyond / the crisp mouthfuls

How at twenty four weeks/ the fetus / with inner ear grown full

hears only the mother’s heart: /Life in a single sound/ Tapping

Yes, I remember this/ The day the sound/ breaks open

And light pours in/ Comes back to me now

(Custom-fitted for blogger. Off blogger, imagine

spaces where there are dashes)

Post Peaceful Ecstasy Disorder

2010-09-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

I dream whales each night, wake at the sound

of my voice calling out in sonar

Also, orgasms at the sight of doves

The touch of wind spawns spontaneous waltzing

I rocket to the rafters at the thought of mud

An ant and I mind-fly over cocoa islands

Pirate-dressed, I shop for candy at funerals

A tongue of rice brings back the first breast

The smell of glass water I am wet for

A breeze comes my last hawk life, where again

I am circling, circling smells

I will dive down for, and eat

You, good ocean, will stay

2010-09-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

The woman who is dying does not reach for the organic yogurt. She is dying. The trace blood in Yoplaits keylime wont hurt much. The woman who is dying who reaches for the bread, on the shelf, isnt in a store hurry. She is dying. She loses time reaching for the seven grain slowly.

The woman who is dying is tying up ends—a multitasker! Some days she is ready already, her prize in the sky—or some place that smells sky. The woman who is dying —who is she, when alone in a night room, does she really exist? Who, never you does she long for?

The woman who is dying youll wonder you dreamed— the leaves turned up where she passed. Was that her shadow that snagged the old stone?

She who is dying sprouts wing buds. She leans in. You are always the other side of the world.

The woman who is dying will tear out your throat when she goes: you know she will. You will throw a patch over, so the air won’t go, suck leaf to blowhole. You practice now with paper.

The woman who is dying is beyond carnivals. She says someday and really means it. The woman who is dying is the queen of hearts that will break. The cardhouse will fall when she becomes wind. She will become wind. You, good ocean, will stay.

The woman who is dying has that shine you long for. Shes not dying to know. Her eye falls far over your shoulder; shes good at lying, smiling she never says it though.

Earth 101

2010-09-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

- Blue exists beyond the trees--called sky, we grow up towards

- Feathereds who fly, fly in flocks

- As the mountain nears it grows larger

- The loving stone has secrets

- Beings disappear and reappear and disappear

- Leaves dry when they die

- We can always know day by its brightness

- Trees touch each other in the open

- Colors are everywhere

- Hunger returns

- To stay we must eat & drink

- If we jump we fall back to earth

- World is also behind us, even if we don’t turn to see it

- Shade is sun’s child

- We will sleep again

- A force here moves our hair

The world/ whole

2010-09-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

when we arrive in air we see our mothers face/ blurred
those hollows of eye and mouth/ those bruised fruits
in the sun/ soft edgeless she speaks our name/ her voice
her moving lips related/ her shape drifts in hems/
nurses margins/ warm ghost / through water she ebbs
over/ over the creek lip/ our eyes without edge see one
body swirl/ taste the warm drops/ learn the shrill cry
is our own/ the smudge of light and dark who dances/
is mother/ tree/ windchime: the world whole: we listen to its warm tomb

(A side note: this is a version created for blogger. B/c blogger would
not honor/translate its true form, i have added slashes to best
mimic the poem that, when allowed, has no slashes, but spaces.)

Danaus plexippus

2010-08-31T07:46:00.001-07:00

Danaus plexippus

Great grandmother/ who said the dead are allowed
to return winged, monarch/ To fly from here to there—

That journey over the old lovers, who in their fields
still pull on the root—

Their hands in the soil /Covered/ Clean in the after birth
Those old lovers who draw the message/ Up through

their fingers: remember, remember the faint life/ It flicks
over shoulders/ Comes / Then goes:

Two sisters who escaped once, spun silk for a place
to grow/ To eat through/Emerge/ Land in eucalyptus—

Grove just in from sea, where they rested
Drunk on a thimble of nectar, they drew their wings

up in sleep/ Along the edge of the field:
Spotted lovers/ In the hairs of the milkweed

Music box lady

2010-08-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

A quarter slipped in to her third-eye-slit:

her mouthbox creaks at the hinge, jaws
steel open: Inside--the arched way, a ballerina
turns on her toe, arm-bows drawn up
she twirls to a tune untwirling--In the fog
of the mirror, initials running
clean

The ding of lips lidded shut.
The brass lace latched. Song folded up.

In place of people, dance/ with scarves

2010-08-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

The Wind blew out my voice/ At first she couldn’t hear me
In the past I sucked it in, heard her whisperask, well, does it smell broken

An orchard of bird prints in sand, erased/That place I laid mermaid,
hip-down-casted in grains/ Shared apple, bread with feathered wilds
Wet, cold, naked

(Inching closer, she saw/she sees)

The spill/ My constant foxtrot down shore—a way

In place of people, I dance with scarves I said, the stars will come soon, call for us/ They call us the wishers: we, their dusted selves

Recycled: yourwordmywords

2010-08-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Each section of this series was created from notes/letters I recycled into poems. Each recycled note/letter has its own section, (aside from the last, which combines two short letters) and is in the consecutive order inwhich the originals were received...
Recycled: yourwordsmywords
I ...or so it goes

Dear Sarah
A house that sleeps 20 fish so I opened
it to see if it was blank, got good seats in water
that I love, I love I am going, I am going
to write you You can read

about the flood/ You can delete the building, float
down interstate I can’t follow
Everyone who can get free is going is going/ Down below
I never left, got tickets

The island sleeps My biggest fear?
Birds for winter that break on their feet

________________________________

II Hands that close

Dear Sarah
I am again reminded/ To hand-pray/ We will be hand-healed
I have cards from underneath/ Hands that close/ Close both hands

________________________________

III The very grateful cliff

(Dear You
I was rock filled I was grateful
caving near headwaters/ The sweetest
kitty of the gorge I was river so pretty
The days of making nature there, the very grateful cliff

My underside pretty hurt where you and uncle went
to medicine/ Couldn’t tell/ Pretty critical I went flying
out the little dog door)

_______________________________

IV Blog blog

Dear Sarah
I have read two cats died on your blog/ Need to get them out, huh? Beat the heat on your blog? The river is where

we went white on your blog/ Are you still sore?

The Ocoeeee takes a long time to heal/ Are you commissioned?

Out spring

on your hot blog/

I have read all the hope poetry/You?

Well, blog blog

_______________________________

V Book a face, (sung in rounds)

Dear Sarah

Book a face, friend a book

Be a face, book a friend

Friend a thank, book me be

I love you I love

Love you I love I

You I you I love love

Letting me Letting me Letting me be

Your face Your face Your face book friend

Your friend Your friend Your friend again

I love you I love

Love you I love I

You I you I love love

_______________________________

VI Verbulated

Dear Sarah

I plan to download, print, frame, display, capture, post, dive, wreck, love, the photos of you--your essence at the beach

_______________________________

VII I feel connected again

Dear Sarah

I’m back I know you read I’m happy to hear our funny home I thought deleted thought you blocked my face

Your new poems I feel I feel connected again

_______________________________

VIII For your birthday

Dear Sarah

would you like the bottom of the hill? A farm, a car,

or a hitherpat tart?

The pretty white house on the right hand side

right before you start up?

Looks in good shape on its outside, but

I know nothing else

The most normal sun grinning

2010-08-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

On her knees, beneath a wall of shirts/ She gathers
the best box from the stack/ Brings it to kitchen table
Where her fingers may work inside/ There, she stitches
the scene/ Constructs world in an evening, from paper

forgets how they told her green for grass, blue for sky, hears
other sounds: the passive paper she scissor-cuts
trees to sweep ceilings/ Spikes for grass, for dimension
she draws the most normal sun grinning

From the outside a hole, fork-pierced/ Through it, a string
fed through purple clouds/ And knots/ So they’ll swing
without dropping, fill space, chafe against
the sky, orange

The people—she places them last, folds lip

at their feet/ To press them down, into

the-too-much-puddle/--That unseen seam

to dry, forgive her/ --Shiny, smooth

A world inside a box, she carries

on her
hipless/ Paper-people, resurrected

from the crease/ sway inside

Do not sit on the folding table

2010-08-20T11:54:00.001-07:00

Do not sit on the folding table

I lay there instead/ The sun's breath

slides down my hip/ Things made

clean/ I wait, watch eyes

churn in rounds, one way/ Then

heaving, the next

They can’t make up their minds

No, machines don’t seek balance

The slick edge, the dam freed

over, the baptism of stains—

They’re programmed/ By those

still, with desire

The last spoken word he heard

2010-08-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

Go deep in the forest, the stix

you’ll need for a bundle--a faggot

The trees’ sheddings, without wick

break easily. Bind one, bind a faggot

In Winter, the makings more visible

The stems of oaks: a small faggot

For the sake of fire, pull branches

from what you scouted—the faggot

Three dozen a long way go

Together—makes flame, a faggot

What on Earth: the shortest autobiography

2010-08-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

Many times they said to the child, There is no god in your house. No God in your house. She stared at her hands, saw in them trees. Becoming clumsy, she’d fall, walk into jagged.

A day she began to bleed. Realized rivers. Let rafts empty her, into Ocean.

Then. What on Earth they taught her, became holy: it softened. She’d visit, find arrowheads, pray.

To break in order

2010-08-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Spirit, I am here again, where we meet: Tides
of palm swept across page: my calling
for you, from edge where I sandfooted
stand in salt silhouette, drawn.

The coming in of your tide, on my ankles
welcomes me—Visitor, recede:
recede I, I recede, change, dissolve.

I was created for this: order
in the way I break

Might I tempt you

2010-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Might I tempt you to

crumb crawl in my crackly crummy bed--
Atop my gladbagged, duct-taped-mattress--
with its dog hair- A fine throw!

A sneeze in the air—or two if you
come to bed doll, jolly rancher on your pillow
Not tempted? --Try the fridge of green jello.

Ghazal (my first)

2010-08-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

The gunshot The bells in my eyes
Lunge in to wind Back to the stable

Thorns in my sides Winged
for a cool trough drink in the stable

Thunder in the cloud at my flank
A bucket of oats in the stable

The sound when it snapped
Bridle off-hook Back in the stable

Dropped from stampede as light acrossed
my empty stall back in the stable

In the hay The earth still
Saw grim in eyes back in the stable

Shoot her wild or long-nurse it back
What becomes of a beast in the stable

Fourteen, belly piercing: you did it to yourself

2010-08-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

Unstick your thighs. Plug

the hole with gum.

Remember the pierce, the safety

pin—its black tip burned,

how you pushed in,

hours through skin.

Electric sent down. Past hips,

beneath sheets. Pink.

Walls fading. From the mouth

of the belly. On your back.

The hot-toast-prick. Silver

in your ears. Lighter

beside your thigh.

Once a cord, now a hook.

Your swollen, button-lip.

Your beaded chump.

God's cataract

2010-08-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

While running, the shapes I see: mostly
square—the graph paper ones, all over

the glass/ Below, more cubes—their
light stains on the floor/ Kept ripples

And the far one—the smudged pulpit—
god's cataracted eye

Loneliness, who wears a tuxedo

2010-08-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

Let’s have a look around

Loneliness waits in the kitchen,

wears a tuxedo
Everyone misses the roses

Also, a triangle in my throat,
a circle in my mouth, and this longing:
trains, window-scenes, the softness of going

But bright here, no place for music
when you wake up this alive

Inside my camera, an out-of-focus-bird
In Antarctica, a penguin turns off
towards triangles: noone stops, knows why

Is this how birds love
when bones take longest to digest

Swallowed something whole once

Behind a curtain of bubbles,
one-eye-open, I sleep in the sand

When the dead speak

2010-08-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

You’re already dead. I saw the white hairs of the earth, undug, dropped down into the hole of your grave, with a patty-cake-pat those hands smoothed over you. All well, marked you with a stone. What they called you by, chiseled into the face. They say a name can hold a person, so they never disappear.

The skin on my face wet, I did all those things humans do when other humans die, as they lowered you, thought of flame and ash, how you could have turned to wind, been free. Not this box, this box casing, this last home. Who chose this.

Now you write me from velvet, wanting peace, you ask for a drink, burp dust.

Tell me, how am I to answer, to feed skeleton, hold skeleton to breast. You—without skin casing, where maggots feasted, your eyes unaccountable--pit for a peach, or a thumb, always shadows in your hollows.

Tell me, what will I look into, the flesh of your cheek eaten and dry, as your mandibles open. You say, I love you I love you, tell me

what, wet and shining left, tells me the truth--what you really mean to take this time.

Stolen, light blue

2010-08-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

When it was stolen, light blue

I saw it everywhere, gripped

Handlebars and hands.

Always in that same place, dolphin

clicking past, someone new

on its back

Each time I wanted

to push them off, steal

my saddle beauty, my windy

ride down hills—so close

to flight

Once, chained up: a scratch

in that same place, so I knew

But nice cops couldn’t cut it

free without numbers—proof

I had paid

It was the old kind you know:

Brake via backwards-pedal,

and no gears-- just knees

Imagine that: speed stops

in the real world just by digging

in your heels a little, and you

breathe: you exist

Presence

2010-08-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

She learned how to scoop space for silk,

mining with her fingers those strings

that stick to skin, soundless

she'd drape the wound then, cobweb-

curtain it ancient—way to stop the blood

With plenty a spider —all those whites

beaded in corners ripe with nets,

and wild creatures who stared by the eye--

some of them stuck by the wing,

she never felt alone

Always on the edge

of listening, she'd strain,

so still to hear a note: let go

let go, they'd whisper

Her finger on the pulse

Up, as a lighthouse

2010-08-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Embrace my mother: the last speaker of womb
Pinpoint her center before she shifts That calm eye lurks
off coast, where gusts took home out sea

Beside the waves, I was right
in my silence: a lighthouse with blues for eyes
I looked out, at that first sea-- sea

she never stopped reaching, salt

she wanted, always more: That thirst

Inside, I grew a spiral, a spine
with stairs to the top, where
through eyes I spoke not
in code, but swept the white tips
The Moon never stopped
so I never could, even make a pile
of all those chops

So I tried the ocean into hypnosis
With the pendulum of my light-flick,
tailing very sleepy from left to right,
I knew the trance of comets: solace
taught me well, though ocean

does as she wills

Stout in sand, my one legg-ed chute—
nearly rocket, I kept my eyes,
still turned out

-------------------------------------

2010-08-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

I want naked, want
beautiful when I’m naked, want to be seen
in color, want light shined all over this
on-loan-vessel of mine

Let’s ride out to sea, where
fresh blood stains water, where we
both know they’re coming for us:
We just keep loving

Teeth— they say come out
in the struggle, so we won’t
We’ll float as they figure-eight around
Hold each other, kick out like babies

Become light, till back

in that salty womb: We,
always forgiven.

I sleep better with bones

2010-08-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

Dear God I gave you my throat, you stained
my fingers at the Sun’s benediction
You should know by now I have a sixth sense
for electricity, and I know very well about hunger

I used to believe you were a grizzly, of the sky
Not the fluffed, what-do-you-see-in the-clouds-kind
but the one with claws, my thigh remembers
how you rested on that final day

Is it possible I never feared bears, though I cut
off what was pretty, I sleep better with bones,
bird-shaped, beside the bed

Hear the heinous singing

2010-08-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

Hear the heinous singing: their toes from dust depart

as one with sky their song makes them, despite the Earth—

who in stone and tree remembers

rain, blood in rivers,

what they did to each other

She who saw keeps place, baptized by both: drifts of shadow, drifts of light

She who knows the shape of forgiveness, without corners,

is always round, always sung

What's red at night: the bush

2010-08-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

What’s red at night: the bush
Not the lion on each corner, light-frozen
on stone bed: very still, very statue

What looms held behind your back
looks like flowers, but careful, will turn--
a guise for something: You know

how sudden all the lilies—their heads cut off
The man in his garden who hated their color, hated
how they grew

back each time he’d pluck their bloom—
a palm of wild, stolen
How he’d sing holy then, grow wax feathers

while out in the garden the streetlight caught
on a ghost, a child— her cheek wet
In her hand, stems

Through my eyes, August 1, 2010

2010-08-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

Frogheart mitosis

2010-08-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

Even though skin still intact, if no longer alive
throw them back: these deaths have a way
called the frogheart-thump
Beneath sheets in the morning how one
the night before multiplied hundreds
Beneath Egyptian cotton they pulse
on your toes, ankles those hearts come
back to life, wearing such thin skin:

cold & wet, how you can you tell
What’s dead
when they always felt that way

2010-08-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

A pen uncapped/ Has a tooth/ Has an ache
In the hook of my fingers, a notebook
hungry at the jaw/ That spiral seam

Not down these days/ But up
from the earth/ Up I said the dress
of the mountain/ On your back, take it
with you/ After that click

walk home in breeze that comes, mint
whispers on skin/ Wave goodbye
at the window/It promises to come again

Flat-chested-totem / Love-tree-belly
The rough on your lips/ Don’t be shy
cause no one looks/ To tide,

you pluck leaf for fire/ Tear petals
inside the rain/ And Susans, black-eyed
through white pickets/ Grow

2 Untitled (little) new ones

2010-08-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

The bridge wild, its boards shook
as I walked out, unable to look
On ground On ground

Angels with lanterns passed in corners
of my eyes as I sang, found
earth inside, unshaken

Walked out, across water
where moon that night, I couldn’t stop
to see, not with all the shaking

------------------------------------------------------------

To feel the Earth, pulse
inside your socks, wild creature,
open your palms: sky them up

That clean light pours, You—
ancient comer, are you in favor
of turning it on high—
Your spirit that knows it’s time

She's your morning read

2010-07-25T08:36:00.001-07:00

The way she spreads across the table/ knows what she wants
caresses your forearm/ as you bring her close closer eyeing
where you find her own smell/ so romantic

The newspaper wants you/ to unfold her/ from the crease
ruffle her pages/out of order/ mess her contents/up

On the table/ take /your time now / a slow read
the inserts/ pull them/ out / lick & turn/ her over

And knees, use them, to stand

2010-07-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Through the porthole window of a ship I look
uncertain if I’m out or I’m in
Still I bend at the hip
wanting a certain woman to
shush these words / Take me
some other place

Also, rivers in my dreams I wake
wet with sweat, thirst / Back where
I started the night before
The horizon of her eyes

And always, that mountain in my mind / The distance
Feet to earth/ Put them down
And knees/ Use them/ To stand

So studious

2010-07-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

All while breathing she wants you to make her move/ Bring your hands
up the dragging night/ train of that dress she wears/ She’s hard
to miss/ Beneath it naked/ All day crossing and uncrossing
her legs/ Those thoughts she has/ When it rains a lot/ The shape
of what she wants/ Wants to un cover how you taste

how she’ll school herself in each subject
of your body/ Your ears/ Your neck/ Breasts

Let’s begin she says/ In the north she’ll slow bird
head south/ Not too soon/ Where it’s wet/ And it’s warm

She’s slow to learn/ Very studious
She’ll get it/ If you give her time

SOS

2010-07-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

SOS

Been too long /Might die/ Please kiss
Please touch/ Me soon
I need you to treat me improper

A woman’s hands and these here hips
Your hips and these here hands
Let’s let them pray /For fire

For you /This geiser bursting soon
How long /Till you come
For me will you ever say yes?

With my eyes I trace where you’ve been
Try to find you/ Each time you’ve just left
Your smell there/ I always miss you

Rapture

2010-07-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

Rapture

As she freefalls into the canyon/ The dive
I can hear it thumping in her mouth
She who makes alive staying/ This place/ A little easier
My muscle between her teeth/ My wild/ My bloodclock
Keeps time now in the space of her

The limestone wall/ That rose its red stone wave
As I fell/ Gripped beneath incisors/ Shrinks to prayer's pose
As the Sun/ Her great wings fan
Rise high/ Where circles made
Inside her mouth/ Flick shadows across the dust

Slug-taught

2010-07-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

From the slug outside my door/ The one that’s left
her iridescence in the light i learn/ Teacher of downward slow
Earthglide she without shell/ Antennae’d feeler
Her way blindly through/ Vibrations she slurps
up the rain/ Leaves stones for slow drinks
Along grains she’s time lost/ In dark travel
The past in rivers behind

How to Eat a Porkchop of Hurt

2010-07-14T15:41:00.001-07:00

How to Eat a Porkchop of Hurt

Trim away fat anger, Cut bone off, Blot til napkin stix
Peel off, Plate of lonely, Serve, Centered sad. Knife to bits
Fork, Chew, Swallow.

An often torch-ure

2010-07-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

If i promise to slide in mornings down
into book sheets
Tuck myself Quietly in
Will you bring me there
Your hair where coffee smells gather

If this heart promises to break
a little more often
While you in the other room reach up to the shelf
Days spent simplelistening
to the effects of your breathing

Would you let me evesdrop there

Imagine: two serious ones
Covered in each other's tenders
i crack open at each of these thoughts Relentless
A pile of envelopes licked in the night
i can not write your name on

Ms. Donut

2010-07-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Ms. Donut

With that hole she ain’t a lady / she’s too edible
That hole / finger place / intentionally round

Heldup to moonlight /the shine comes through
Catches on dimpled glaze

Your tongue on her raft / waters rise
Till who melts who / not so clear

A soft place

2010-06-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

After/while reading Judy Grahn's A Highest Apple, recommended by a teacher, I wrote the poem far below and shortly after, while continuing Apple, read the below excerpt which interacts most serindiptously with my poem. Don't you think?

from Pat Parker's GROUP:

now
there are new lessons
new teachers
each week I go to my group
see women
Black women
Beautiful Black Women
& I am in love
with each of them
&this is important
in the loving
in the act of loving
each woman
I have learned a new lesson
I have learned
to love myself
______

A soft place

A soft place for women to be exact
many soft places for many women
many soft places of my own for women
for my own woman
for my own many women
(for I am many women)

I am many women having many soft places
Many of which many women do touch
For the many women that I am
have also touched other women’s own soft places
For there are many soft places inside
each woman’s women

How we touch each other softly
Soft to soft till softer how we move
how many of us how many places there are

2010-06-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

What Goes In

Woken without paint/on my face I leave it
Naked/all but for the meteor around my neck
Something in the air/ today’s a breeze
On my legs/ what goes in/must come out rain clouds

Try unlearning verb tenses/ with cows in the tub
Toes curled in hot water/Sound of stars in my tea Astralgea
That it should rain for days/ what comes out
Must be God in an eyelash

2010-06-16T09:18:00.001-07:00

Dream Walk

The mushroom / In the forest
On the mountain/ Wilted/ When I touched
Was a dream/ Never touched
Kept down/ The trail/ Dried leaves
Snake promises/ Bare ankles
Kept moving/ Through/ To light

A clearing/ Where red poured/ In my hair
Down/ Something from sky/ Seen—
A couch house planet / Growing down
Took last face/ Raised my squinting
Goblet to sun/ Died/ I with light all over

Was a dream there/ Became real
Further down/ Fallen oak/ Plank rope
Tight-walked/ Out to ivysea
Below’s crowd/ Of air/ A penny splashing
After breath/ In the wrong lung/ Went
I died/ Was a dream/ The third time

I kiss never

2010-06-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

I kiss never

I leave light at night/ Outside my door
The fence turned on / Caught electric

Never thought I’d be here / Kiss 30
Never thought I’d live / Below ground / Light hungry

Was always / Day by day / Here I kiss
30 sun-rotations/ A lone press

Snail spirals to my ear/
The silence of oceans / Inside

For Mia Zipata

2010-06-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

For Mia Zipata

August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993.
The lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits
who was raped & murdered by Jesus Mezquia.

_______

Your rapist your murderer—
A fisherman fond of ankles in rivers
Of the caughtsun thread cast
Of ripples quiet going
His mind a raft

Any trace of river left
Inside that last pair
You pleaded for air with
White knuckles on the cord
Around your throat
Hands fond of tug & thrash
Did you wonder
About fish thrown back

A fisherman who once hung by baby feet
Wrangling viscera-covered
His back slapped for first breath
His mother who named him Jesus

Jesus who positioned you
Arms out on pavement
A human cross in early July
To mark his name by

______

You bluegrass child who grew
Where horse tails flicked eye corners
Pulled flies from your hair’s briar
How they swarmed even then into what
You grew

Double jointed Onloan-from-the-universe-child
A brother a sister who unlearned your shy
Each time you kissed the mike
Threw back your head to sing
For a second skin to take it all in
A little easier

_______

To think of the chance crossing
The 2 am intersection of that clashing duet
The street’s orange light
The music in your ears
The field you never knew Your last

To think of faulty batteries that could have
Cleared your ears to gravel’s sound
Or of one more last song before that
Or of the sleepless walker who chose
Left instead of right that night

To think of the makings
The tuned arrangement that would play
Your three am scream soon recorded on paper
Your last note Your instrument in someone’s hands
Hands we want Out Of the composition
Before you violin-screamed
Into the off-staff of stars

_______

Should leave it there they say
Let soften the brutality
Cauterize facts how he did
How he cut the air from your lungs
With fishermen hands Wrung the cord dry
After he raped you

The beating that would have killed you they said
The beating if not the strangling if not the raping
The beating of your heart let loose
Your blue rivers hitting air
You who never left the room
Without erecting each goose-bump-pillar high

_______

Did he know by the way the streets shook with scream you sang
Know by the strength you kicked you fought
Did he taste salt on your breast as he bit
Know your humanity when he left you
Eyes closed Out Of your body

That slug’s trail across skin
Where his mouth had been
That ten years later would bring
Only one kind of answer
Jesus

Inside Boxes

2010-06-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 5, 2010
Inside Boxes

A year after my last post, a poem written yesterday:

Inside Boxes

How the dust settles on
toilette bolts door hinges window panes
The trail of skin cells
winded to the margins
Those flaked wisps

Through air holes and light slits
the sketched rustling of inside sweepers
gathering evidence
into piles every second sunday
the scales cleared away

This Vaginal Day

2010-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

This Vaginal Day

To the cab driver who said he’d buy me a car
if I’d have sex with him
Exactly how many times humming
with your dick in my mouth
does it take to buy me a hybrid
and can 5 missionaries be traded
in for 1 ass fucking
and what is the going rate exactly
for a Sunday morning cab ride
where I am not propositioned for sex

Later on the subway 2 young girls
in thighhigh skirts & a man
who touches them in ways
3 times their age
Pinches the youngest
she smiles says stop
& 50 tongueless watch

Later walking the street
home where orange light falls
I’ll not have music
in my ears these sounds
Feet on pavement
The keys of each step

Thou Shalt Not Suck My Blood, Impart Rash or Lay their Eggs on my Scalp

2009-06-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

It’s barely the second week of a Tennessee June.
In the ninety degree humidity,
I’m swearing it off already.
Mosquito bites, scabbed and rescabbed,
turn my olive-colored, deet-slathered skin into
an ill-humored, greasy, polka-dotted print
of marks, left by little, greedy mouths.
Ticks, that teeth-first took the plunge to suck,
unnoticed, on the blood of my thigh,
till I yanked them, pinched their
pulsing heads between my fingernails,
staining my fingertips with blood
they robbed my body of,
without asking first.

I am not a happy camper.
In fact, I’m not camping at all.
And how could I have waited till now to mention
the poison ivy that has brought my left eye
to a swollen and crusty puss of an image.
Excuse me for hiding from the camera,
beneath layers of cortisone and menthol toothpaste.
And NO, dear gas- station-lady, my dead beat boyfriend
did not show me a thing or two.
Been there, done that already,
but thank you.
And besides, I don’t do the boy thing anymore.

And I’ve tried all the creams, the creative concoctions
that promise soothing relief-
Cool hummus slathers, fresh aloe, and calamine,
of whose bottle instructions ALL read:
Not for use in or around the eye.
Fuck them-
What do they know of this itching,
of my own body’s quest for relief?

I squint and twist my face into aweful
facial acrobatics,
road-kill contortions,
do anything but
scratch that horrible
menace of an itch.
Did I mention I sleep with cortisone beneath my pillow?
Mention that I roll my eyeball in circles,
like Halloween googly eyes,
bloodshot, to scratch the poison?
If it would not blind me and
result in ultimate conviction to an insane asylum,
I swear I’d stick needles into the ball,
voodoo-doll style them straight into
the socket,
nail down the source,
put it FINALLY to rest.
Instead I squirm like pinned down prey,
flustered beneath the droning sounds
of annoying little bug wings that haunt me
and grow in number.
Daily.
Yes, the clichéd image of ants in my pants
is utterly perfect.-
That’s me, walking down the street like
I’m feening for crack,
twitching for no obvious reason,
twitching for the occasion of this body,
dare I say- MY body
that I would pay money
to abort out of.
It has been taken over.
Excuse ME for residing here.
I’ll just pack my bags and go now.

Infested, rashed, scab-mapped
prison of a body.
I swat, I swear, I sit on my hands,
And NO citronella candle
can help me now.

My Word Collage

2009-02-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

This website is great. You can create a picture of what your words LOOK like. Here's the one I just did by typing in my stream of consciousness.

Diving Into the Wreck on You Tube

2009-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me. Ask the eightball.

2009-01-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

“Reply Hazy. Try again.” That’s what my ninety-nine cent, thrift store find of an eight ball said to me this morning, firesided, as I gave it a searching shake. It’s funny because the question I asked was a bit “hazy” too.- In fact, I didn’t really ask a question, just wondered what the eight ball might have to say. Something about this interaction between an eight ball and myself reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend yesterday. The parts of the conversation I’ll share deal with the joys of being a twenty-something year old. –(This is sarcasm’s cue, in case you missed it).

This friend and I, in a round about way, were talking about identity, about not having a nano-sense of “who we are,” and what we want, where we’re going or how. My twenties, as I grow nearer and nearer to 30- which I imagine is like reaching the tip-top of a roller-coaster hill, looking out before dropping, have been quite bizarre.( And still are, by the way, for three more years). For the most part, being in your twenties has been a no-place place, a sort of mindless, confused wandering where you know you’re supposed to go somewhere but you just can’t remember where.- I picture a helium balloon that is a day or so old, inching in the air, lowly along the ground, its string dangling the floor. Every now and then it catches a little current and tentatively bops right or left, moving, but not travelling far. This, to me, is the essence of one’s twenties. -A really bizarre place where you just don’t have much of a clue about yourself at all, though you try to. So you aimlessly wander a little, here and there, but to no avail do you arrive anywhere. And at a certain point in one’s twenties you stop trying to figure out much of anything at all, because in your experience, such thinking produces very little but frustration.

So a little angry was I when I was watching Oprah a few weeks ago and I happened to catch a clip of the show in which the glories of post menopausal life were being discussed. There I was, munching my Orville Rettenbacher, kettle-korn popcorn, when I heard a panel of celebrities now in their fifties and sixties discuss the difficulty of the twenties, and how none of them really had a clue “who they were.” Oprah agreed and they all nodded in this “common knowledge,” quiet knowing, sort of way. Need I say, that when I heard this, I was not only relieved (that my sense of self, or lack there of was validated and not singular to me), but I was also pissed! Pissed because no one had ever told me that what I have been experiencing for some time now is a “life stage,” is common knowledge, is even “normal!” –This common knowledge of the world at large seems to be known by everyone EXCEPT for those in their twenties (at least prior to the Oprah airing). I think, 'If I had only known this a long time ago, a lot of confusion and the mistaken perception that I am the only one who doesn’t have a clue about where she’s going, (despite my ever cool sunglasses) could have been spared.' I have resolved that whenever appropriate, I will pass this information along, especially to those it pertains to.

It was yesterday that I did just that, and I ask the old question, ‘What good is information and knowledge if it is not shared with the world?’ As for when my thirties do arrive, I think I’ll research them a little bit first. -I do know one thing: a woman’s thirties are supposed to be her sexual peak. (Maybe that was the roller coaster image coming to mind?). Other than that, I can not say my knowledge of the thirties is very extensive. But rest assured world, if there isn’t an apocalypse of 2012, then I will most definitely be learning about them in time for their arrival. This time around, I’ll be prepared. In the meantime, this not knowing who you are thing really sucks. So take that eight ball and shake it!

Setting the Scene

2009-01-19T19:51:00.001-08:00

What is the purpose, the form, the theme of this blog? I ask myself. I'm not sure. -I could it break down Doogie Howser style, offering my thoughts, insights and reactions to the world at large (and assume you find it worth your time to read). I could use this blog as a means to academically examine the world, which is in every possible way, a text that can be interpreted to reveal the world in which I live. I could blog as an act of feminism, a reclamation of power through which morseled fractions of my life as a female- as the "other" are revealed to the degree that I am willing to share them. I could use this as a forum to collage the images, random thoughts and realizations of a woman in her twenties that may very well be of little use to everyone but myself.
Needless to say, the possibilities of this blog's content and form are all risky. Risky because sharing myself with you, the wide world's web in 2009, is an unsafe thing to do, regardless of the time period. But for reasons, formats and themes that may evolve in time and reveal themselves to not only myself, but to my audience,(if I have one), I'm thinking that I'll do it anyway.
Adrienne Rich said it best.-"I am an instrument in the shape of a woman, trying to translate pulsations into images for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind," Planetarium. And as the title of this blog refers to Adrienne Rich's poem, "Diving into the Wreck," I continue to step down the ladder, suited in the wet suit, the awkward flippers, the tight mask. I have my knife; it's blade is mirror polished and surgeon sharp. I have my camera; its lense, my eyes, are polished open. And lastly, I've read the book, the book of myths. In fact, I've read the whole series.
With "no one to tell me where the ocean begins," I decide I'll dive into what is blue and liquid because it seems like the best place to start. Did I mention that I never did learn how to dive? Thank Goddess for metaphor.

2009-01-19T19:31:00.000-08:00