101015

do you understand that you shut me down
do you understand that

your words should be rain not arrows or

you are like a heavy darkness
a dot of ink spreading
under the skin or

do you understand that i don't even have words

thinking and doing (a poem from the bathroom)

thinkers must be do-ers
just like eaters must be poo-ers. 
a morsel in the gut
ought be inclined towards the butt.

whatever thought on which you chew, 
let it digest and follow through
into the loo, its destination
without which fate is constipation.

your mind would be a bloated spot
if all there were were thoughts and thoughts
dried and clumping up to be
of a retentive sphincter freed. 

and so i will repeat once more
(in case you missed it once before),
just as an eater surely poos,
if you think much, also do and do!

Dreams

Where do dreams come from? From whither ideas?

Like children, secret, bold, they seem
who in the dead of night escape
their father's stern and vigilant gaze,
then whispering walk the way denied
down to the writhing sea.

There they run haphazardly
and in my sleep, beneath
my eyelids closed, I catch
the motions of an untimed dance. I try
to learn the steps by
heart, but joy is not an art.

and then - the sea -
the tides move - the moon,
the heavens shift,
recede - back up the hidden way, they're gone
by dawn - they cannot stay.

In the sunlight, things are righted.
Indents on my mind's shore fade;
the sand is even once again,
but the earth remains forever changed.

Spring (a poem from a dream)

All the world has woken finally;
The sun is shining bright - hurray!
Fat clouds amble, smiling lazily;
The wind is soft and sweet today.
And oh, the children, all so beautiful,
running, laughing, off they go!
But here I am cold still and silent
For no friend calls my way "hello,"
and this is as it is, and so.

beauty, and inaccessibility

What does the wind feel like, I wonder, that doesn't stick
to my licked finger-
print. The lines
of my palms politely curled
darken daily, settle down. It troubles me:
somewhere leaves blush under the sun's affections but
I can never know to just what bright confused complexion
of red and gold. Yes, it troubles me, the limits
of the skin I'm in,
the bones that bind, the beauty unseen.
But here is some consolation at least: the wind I taste is sweet.

Boogars, A Poem.

I sit here and try to be this thing I was
once - A Poet
- back when i could think and dream and
love.
instead i'm a lonely slug meandering
thick gray head bent eyes swivelling
drivelling, a trail of formless infertile muck i slap a title to:
Boogars, A Poem.
i laugh a little to think of
you reading dried snot like
tea leaves. then I weep
because i crave the touch of a breathing beating world
but all I feel all I can 
feel is the weight
of this
shell as I sludge across the page
and maybe-I-don't-give-a-shit. that's what scares me most of all.