gifted

My name is a promise that my father kept to an old man;
It is the hamburger grease fingers that
caught my body on his late arrival

It is my mother piercing the meniscus of afternoon
with sedated cries that could not page him
through converging acquiescence and strength

It is the heavy sacks in her lungs and skin imperfections;
My name is what remained of a house
that burned December to dust.

 
 
 

Meeting Notes III

elimination

as i clean my apartment,
rumination or is it
meditation since I count my breaths
or is it rumitation...

i dig through old college notebooks
and think about who i have been
reading old lines where
there is no beauty to me it seems
just myself and reality
both ugly

even still, a kicking regret
in my shoulders and neck
tight like a moving van
thinking those lines
could have at least been less lazy.
could i have not been a worse realist?

even after some minor notion
of empathy had begun to take hold,
the mememe and the themthemthem
still were platitudinous and farfarfar too
desultory

now filed away under to-do
i wonder what it would mean
to just throw it all away
nopenoway...too cliché

 
 

Final Draft

Even if that noble truth (be it either),
love, should perish and be vanquished to
hell, I would follow that which I love,

For more noble, or so it now seems,
truth shall neither vanquish love nor commit it
to perish but strengthen those ties to bond, so...

Burden be gone, and shed concrete feet not
on thy way to the abyss, but leave truth and
love to shine the world's reflection from its glass face,

Because the world reflects more brightly when
love and truth trade favored glances and flirt neither
with should-not-be nor cannot-happen,

And skirting this danger, they alight softly to
conceive, moult through instars, then pupate in the
crevice of a pine cone, until the final imaginal stage:

A ruddy moth emerges to find itself sealed in a
plastic bag, flitting in frustration, only to be released
to wild the open night, far away from home

but free.

 
 

An Ode

To the Most Beautiful Return

Between my screen and the door, a surprise at my feet on opening
Paleo softly rubberbanded between myth and meaning and a flourescent blue post it
A blue gem of kind thoughts flowing
Gently a bottom lip bit

The most beautiful return looks like peace
The most beautiful return smells like wisdom
The most beautiful return tastes like sunshine
The most beautiful return sounds like feathers
The most beautiful return feels like water

A warmth that seldom is the product of social brevity
beaming even more now

 
 

Freewrite #2 - Media

On the media

Barren of restriction it oft seems and with rapacious swagger, barrelling its way through town like a hostile spirit on vacation. Go back to your haunt, I say, where you have developed a relationship with the inhabitants and there are a defined set of rules that you live by. That was long ago, I hear you plead. Generations ago, you say, back when standards limited action because standards actually existed. Besides, it has always been entertainment to some degree, you moan. Remember Murrow? Don't hold him up as a bearer of righteousness. An entertainer! Ta dah! You gloat. Just the facts, ma'am. Don't laugh at me, I plead. Allow an escape. With films, there is at least the notion of suspending disbelief. When reality's facts and opinions are entertainment, truth becomes a choice and belief a phantom.

 
 

Portrait Poem

I am versatile and caring.
I wonder when anxiety and cycling will cease holding hands.
I hear pops and clicks of plastic bones.
I see hopes and dreams forever intact.
I want my love to remain constant.
I am versatile and caring.

I pretend to fly when cruising down steep hills.
I feel tackled by optimism.
I touch soft whiskers of truths.
I worry that simplicity will forever escape me.
I cry because I miss someone dearly.
I am versatile and caring.

I understand individual differences.
I say that we can accommodate them all.
I dream a hairy and scary mixology of memories.
I try something new whenever possible.
I hope that knowledge will never constrain.
I am versatile and caring.

 
 

Freewrite #1 - Change

C is for canola oil, which I do not use. There is something soft about safflower oil that I prefer.

H is for halibut, which I rarely can afford. My mother turned me off of it with her homemade mayonnaise topping.

A is for apples, which I do not prefer in the summer. They fall in the Fall, so I eat them before they hit the ground.

N is for nutrition. It takes so much focus to get a balance. Don’t you agree?

G is for gout. Gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis that affects primarily the big toe. It has been called the “rich man’s” disease, because it is thought to be caused in part from excessive consumption of meat, seafood, alcohol, and fructose-sweetened beverages.

E is for eating, which everyone does. Some things we can change, but others we cannot. Try, though we may, it can be tough to not eat ourselves to an early grave.

 
 

altruism

a boy fell after there was a pond,
making connections based on schemas
finding patterns,
like frogs jumping in
startled --
activity all on the outside, strength
on the inside,
like a rubik's cube.
would he have overplanned
had he known his destination?
pluto is a planet. definition
has changed.
indigo is a color, just not of
our new language rainbow.
people can solve, but have trouble
finding the problem.

 
 

Meeting Notes II

Comorbidity

"Garlic, ginger, and echinacea,"
she recommended, as a counter
to my head firing the salvo shots of
war.

What a gift, the garlic, so
sticky to touch, smashed and
gnashed and mixed and swallowed at
meals.

As war dwindled to sporadic gunfire,
a minor insurgency, I crunched a
morning clove that made me
cry.

Its strength, then a vision of you, my
breathing deep held back
vomit -- a symptom of fulfillment
that is also one of lack.

 
 
 

Poison Man

Poison man came today
Wearin' his mask
Sprayin' his spray

Sweet smell came waftin'
Through open windows
I'mon be coughin'

Those ants and roaches
Commit us to genocide
As summer approaches
 
 
 

Today, a wind blew into my town.

Today, a wind blew into my town.
It blew in a Spring; sun and sky
filled with dust.

     While marching bands played
     a hip popping reverence to life,
The wind blew umbrellas up from tables,
     but the people held on, like we do
     have a tendency to hold on.
The wind blew fountain water into spray,
     but the people blocked their faces,
     hands dams to the misty deluge.

Today, a wind blew into my town,
and the people marched into Spring
blindly holding on.
 
 
 

Spring Birds' Morning Song

Whatshurename?
Who are you?
Do we?
Do we
When I passed by the fields yesterday, spring sun warming
all, baby birds screamed from the top of the field lights,
their families perched searching -- Like birds we look
so stable on our perches (our wires), even in high
winds, our tail feathers continuously shifting
balance back and forth. In rain, we nest,
nurse and nuzzle in trees and holes.
Do we?
Do we?
Who are you?
Whatshurename?
 
 
 

Spring in February, 2011

Magenta of redbud
a tiny stick of which
picked to post

In Texas, Spring comes in February
the confluence of a captive bolt pistol
that stuns and retracts
that fights the light
and a goofy lanky tongue wagging lab
escaped from the pen
or mental institution
with a yen for freedom

Eyes blind to distance
What the hell is Spring thinking here?
Teasing us with a subtle sweet blow
glancing and off-balancing

Spring is a cataract the sun surges slicing
skin slides south as blisters saute
supine in skinny soft shorts
space separating shirtless swims
 
 

Sir George and the Green Knight

“The liquor's gone to my head, Sir George!” he said,
or so I heard, though Doppler effected his voice,
because he shook his head to and fro, to and fro,
as I approached astride my coasting bike.

Deadpan he said, “Can I call you Sir George?”
“Of course!” was my reply. The shine of sun,
the chill against my knee of pale ale flask,
the alley gave way to spring but first the colors:

Red skin that set apart his bride's dress whiskers,
Blue shorts, bright blue that only set apart
A white turned fulvous shirt that could have been
a tawny shirt that years of sun bleached down.

The slosh that jolted round the jug he held
Held neither clear nor auburn ruddy meld,
But lips of “Oh!” surprise that I did greet
Until the jade bamboo marked my retreat.

Our eyes had met, the alley bum's and mine.
No longer set or dim, encroaching time.
To bear or not to bear another's weight?
A question meant to lure with tempting bait.

 
 

Thankful ain't tough

"I can barely hold my gun,"
he said, "my hands are frozen."
Taking the rifle and gazing
on baby soft fingers stung
red with the chill of north wind,

We trapse back swiftly and jump
a ruddy axis babe laid up
hiding from us. So near its warmth
kissed our cheeks; we smiled together.
I left my youth in that field for you

                          (pistol in hand, chasing a feral pig).

 
 

Word of the Day II

          With each passing fall day, his mother followed ebbs and flows emanating from the netroots, a Meissner’s plexus of political spin. As November approached, both certainty and uncertainty seemed concrete, and her anxiety rose exponentially. Trying to ignore the undercurrent of cynicism in election news stories was like holding back a freight train, but at least, she thought, these new forms of mediation did not leave her completely flummoxed.
          Her name was Beth, and she was a member of the banded confederation of groups that stood inexorably for one form or another of ‘conservatism,’ although each grandee fresh to its ranks had an evolved definition of the term. At the gym, she would bandy them about amongst her friends in non sequitur discussions, until words melded into laughter and poking fun at superficialities.
          Her people had their own world wide web, minus the techies and minus the world, for that matter. It was a social network with extreme purpose; they did not shilly shally on the issues that mattered. Business was conducted with comity, undergirded by a fierce resilience – they were not to be put down. For matters of national concern, they learned the party line and how to negotiate it. However, in matters of locality, the group’s gulosity for action was unmatched. Their tenacity was matched by a creative methodology.
          There would be no woolgathering. They would explore any and all solutions, as long as they were working together and continuing to get along.
 
 

meeting notes

bearing a brunt
bear with me
bearing down
bare your brunt
bare with me
bare down
bare down your brunt with me, bear.
down with me, bare brunt.
 
 

the grackles flew

this morning
from the wire
like ink dispersing
in soap water sky

then returning
to the wire
like the inside of
your forearm skin

the grackles flew

this morning
from the wire
like butterflies in
the stomach of desire

then returning
to the wire
like truth perceiving
an infallible notion

the grackles flew

this morning
from the wire
like hair wild
escaping contentment

then returning
to the wire
like pins pinning
placated residuum

 
 

If...we (the first)

If your lying down with me
        were the wholeness that I desire
        only bare essence of completion
We would never time travel together
                                    --always alone
 
 

On Eros

To confirm perfect incompleteness
epithalamium, dactyl, and spondee
triangulate desire

To become agents of change we:
                    accept the nothing of demand
                    emote the hate of denial, and
                    refuse to ignore the unspeakable

Acknowledging the lack—
                    encompassing this hole with
                    our whole bodies, our whole
                    minds, spherical souls

Cubical hole.

Premonition

O, dream!

that began with she and I

moving to the northeast or

somewhere equally as snowbound,

Driven by

tragic events involving her parents

we stood outside our not so simple

solid timber towering three-story house;

Me, daunted

by prospects of upkeep, this homestead

so far from town, she grabbed my

shoulders with earnest force.

She, resolved

in the statement, "You will have to shovel

snow from the driveway and probably plow

our section of the road." I shivered.

Suddenly,

her multi pitch eyes became mirrors and

on my face lay the weight of such a task.

(Awake, I relish the challenge.)

Driving in

circles around the town, I stopped

at City Hall to stand with two tourists,

their placard gawking frustrates my forgetting

The reason

for my trip, so I leave and cruise

that green grandfather of a Chevy pickup,

asphalt and winter gray, fighting the forgetting.

O, dream!

that began with she and I

moving to the somewhere snowbound,

why did I wake up crying?

Possibilities

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please more mornings like these
I would ask for a swath of orange-pink paintbrush
Over cliche pale blue skies

I would ask for ante meridiem with a bite to the breeze
that nip-nips a notion of sunshine across my earlobe

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please keep my father's teeth from falling out
So that we can sit and eat hot dogs together
I would ask for an end to time

I would ask for eternal graciousness in all humankind
so that it pop-pop percolates from one to two to all

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please fire patience through your lithe limbs into souls
Like lightning into kite and key; I would ask
Charge to the helm oh captain

I would ask for a tidal wave that will wash troubles down
and rejuvenate this hip hip far too hip and recumbent world

silence

born before the brawn

before the inversion of

darkness

long before the ascent

of 'ness' and 'ism' and

long before

before

became a glimmer in

the eye of long before

before mattered

mattered