If you go far enough back in my life’s tree, You’ll see with each home I inhabited, I mowed. Eight years old, pushing ol’ gassy up 83 degree hills In cutoff t-shirts and 10 bucks a pop. Sweat on a promise: Bag it in the front. Don’t mind about the back. Acorns Popped like sling stones against my ankle. Cicadas ground To paste. From the ground we grow, and to the ground we return. I strung up a hammock between two trees and drank lemonade, The dryads cultivating mushrooms. That old oak still grows Thick with children.
I was a late mover-outer, Millennial with a trench coat (before Columbine; before Matrix.) with that wan tinny I’m taking it back Smirk as a twisted boy, I would mow like a minesweeper In sandals and socks while mom worried I’d cut my toes off– Bradley, Tom’s neighbor did that. Big toe off, pop, but I never Saw him sway while standing: maybe he didn’t need it that much. He never played basketball in the dark again. The ravages of war.
I could tell a desperation blew through Tom Bombadil’s beard When first the wilderness said to sleep. It said, We have no place for you, even though–even even though He was the Speaker for the Glade, and the Way Things Were.
No more
The nature of things The dourbark and the deadwood, the ent, dryad, and huorn, What whistling wind wended its way about Wan willow and winnowed whim, A living will-o’-the-wisp what pulled Goldberry through Hells she never spoke. His betrayal was complete, when First the wilderness said to sleep.
His truths be shown, when touched the corona of gold, Danced light among sunbeam, knowing full well the depth Of cold murderous death. Sméagol’s first name was Cain. It did not affect the wild thing in guise of man. The river stones were so deep, when first The wilderness said to sleep.
Everfree, not deciduous, I hold onto the season with a prayer And who knows what Tolkien wondered when he sang the dead- Songs to his child, who went to war when the war was won. What world it was to survive the end, only to see the end again. It is a promise to speak, when oak is made meek, when first the Wilderness sang me to sleep.
I am a fox. I eat the snow. The endowment of a warped forest What steams humid in the deep Deep winter. Salt dust like shepherd’s tears
You never had patience for that. Crystal stream-looks and stolen-throat dreams Tattoos of fish dances, bullets Coffee against foggy windowpanes:
I am forgotten. I sleep wild. Crepuscular. Duskrogue. Furred Loki. You sandman, stole fast my two hearts Away on grass-shod, grainy plains green
Hung like heartfruit strung high upon Pine boughs, drip-red and pulp, cosmic. One heart my fractal fae, one my Fragmented faith. I wake in fern blades.
I wake in gray. I eat the snow. I cannot hunt for what-I-once-was. Sunset speakers trill the night-song Twilight makers, their clay biceps taut
Haul dewy stars through falling black Leave no prints in fresh powder, my white Tails beneath ethereal feet– You saw me once, a long time ago
But you had no time for that. You Had gems, had stones, had cake to study And I, end-day hunter, seldom Crossed your path. You saw me in the stream
In the eddying pool where deep Water grows, you saw me reflected Shallow prowler, playing in words. I eat the snow, the ink beneath. You,
Guest in this forest, fresh from your Concrete and glass, iron and brass. Take Me in your pocket, take me in Your jaws, watch me pad down kept lawns
See me through grocery-store glass. A long time ago, I would have gone Cold, a long time ago, I would Have gone blind. I walk slow, hunt finches.
Hunt redbirds, race fieldmice, outrun Other soft-padded winter hunters. The fruit in my chest grows thick. Fig And apple. Not native to this vale.
I stole the souls of six stories Slid their clean bones between brick and stone Shored up the cellars, dried the words Saved to season a season away.
I think, I think, if you were to Skin me, else shear my harefur like sheep You’d see a wilding path, a map, An impossibility. I am
When I visit, the door is always Locked six in the room, TV silent Paused on a black-and-white Stale staring, people talking A winter’s breath in full summer.
When I sleep, the cot is musty Tucked in a basement corner Old water damage, workout Tools Beside a walk-in with ornaments.
That door haunts me like Nothing else. Chilly open: nobody Came between its close and now Black pit in blacker shadow, midnight Chase, why must it yawn so wide?
When I eat, always there is one off Four places set, five people et– We feast staggered, or one On the sofa, like a vulture what Snagged some choice tendon.
When I left, back with young muscle They boxed my things, closed up The life I once shared, demanded Closure to something I wanted left open My place and my memory of me,
In all the ways moved on, in all Yet still she says, headphones on Watching the black-and-white Dog running between seated politics, “You bring so much joy when you visit.”
I wonder why, and in what place, What purgatory, what resident Hesitancy, a person would want To box that up, toss it out, forget.
We Come Together: Stand before A double-fan arch grille Single-wide mahogany Double-diamond six panel with Half-glass sidelights.
Inchoate, a prismed sun invited Sprayed across the porch, veranda, stoop. Always overcaste, a rainbow ekes past Meticulous Yggdrasil, her skirt-of-roots A window beneath her branches (Double-fan arch grille) Trunk a rotund Sexy, full, bend.
This entry could use a second door, this Place of residence for the uprooted For the fallingleaves cultures. We have but one root in the end– Umbrella-adjacent still only a bas-relief Mere shadow to the overcaste skies
We stand in line together Money and soul-wealth alike Knob of polished iron Pitted from a seasonal saltwater pour Two feet placed upon a welcome mat Muddied from a thousand types of earth.
This the loam, This the seedbed of Eve’s Garden. Desert mirage-made-full.
We don’t see what’s behind (Single-wide mahogany) this gate (Double-diamond six panel) this worn Trembling wood touching finger-pads All the oils of cultures secreted out We see, only, A tree-of-promise Ourselves alined to enter
Yet We All Came Before
Is this God? Is this Justice? Half-(glass)lidded (highlights) Budh? To step in, to enter one abreadth, Remove the muddied shoes, Remove the bloodied socks Traipse through an abode–
Enraptured safety.
Why is this threshold closed? Is it as a present wrapped? Mystery abounds. Is it a bottleneck? Hide the genocide, hold the masses Hostage. Is it a riddle? Speak, Friend, and enter. Does it keep the natures out? Devilish and Divine alike, Glottish-sticky romance and Spittle-flown revenge, the Embattled imperfect Hope-healers, Philosophers of Kindness, the Tempests of rage What burns down to a simper Alone in a corner what– What purpose does this door hide?
Why is it, only, this wide? We Come Together, and I– I am third in line: First Diana, and Beksinski behind. Damocles on the sidewalk Twenty souls, then Einstein.
My head or my heart, still Writes to you, of you Unforgotten subconscious Little barkshape things I still get job searches for a life In North Carolina I’ll never live. I call them Unkinds. Some forgotten file in my Dropbox A squirreled away picture A poem or a memory Or someone just like you Staring Poirot in the face His friend but why did you betray him–
Every project I write has a default Woman charismatic character That grows into someone else But starts as a thought of you.
My head or my heart Still writes of you I don’t know it until it’s done, And we’re there cherishing a Wingate Blacktop before Our cars depart, dog in the backseat
The end of us killed the poetry in me Killed the romantic in me, somesuch Part dreamer in me, and I built One new head and one new heart Scaffolded skyscrapers wrought with Lichen on the north face, smudgeproof Glass, and a character that runs away.
I had to reconstruct the debris what lay Between A plane crash what began at the Arch And ends at shakshuka.
Every time I write “ridges” I think How right I was, how adamant you were We didn’t survive our first chapter’s edits. I was a pantser before you, and now I plan I must prepare Always now, I am not prepared.
As a survivor of youth, as a survivor of you Scouts honor, a go-bag of poetry An Emergency Thought One memory of something found Two of those things lost.
Little river stone Like when my brother would haunt The house After midnight play Impromptu dark piano against darker sky Alive and worrying cracks along his face Two notes not caring who Tried to sleep tried to compose A three-note tragedy Little river stone all the edges worn Sharp like oyster shell in the garden Avante like the gnome Half buried Holding compost at bay Salute
My collections a composite of fractal Memory, I think Bottles of the greats, multi glass unlike Lake Michigan glass License plate numbers behind the fray Wallpaper-pages. All Those Who Came Before Me, From Me— Me, a growler with a dog’s face and glasses Rusted out Dr. Pepper sign to match the lip gloss Melted from the heat Pooling against the bronze keys I don’t remember.
Little river stone Wearing down Worrying away to nothing, borne Reborn by brittle belief Ah, the Smartest Man in the Room Thoseindelicate fingers trace across the stars Those who came before him cut him raw Inspire like harboring giants Like that depthless Esaglia seashore Stuck on the other side, the wrong side of a copper Mirror-face Wrong side of a pooling water-face A what-if tapestry of broken bottles glued together Memories that weren’t Origami brokebirds that ran away.
When my brother haunts This house. This barrier of scatter. Tesla in a ring of marijuana smoke His static the background noise of a birthing Universe He has no place in this garden His spade in hand Ivory keys against the black ones A song he built from harmonics An aural promise, and no more growth
When my brother births His house. His misty-walled amphitheater. Voice starward, a gambling wail, Two eyes a focus, facsimile, golem man. A river runs through it. Spackled moss cushion A river runs through him. Glittering stardust tumbles He fills his chest with powder-rocks. His first true love a disaster. His second a plot device that is everything He isn’t. A pray to the single-letter god.
My love comes as a flush of hearts King of Swords this. My hand of galvanizing blades Round Table adorned with fields of fancy At zenith, a crucible We all pour our cards somewhere Let the edges fray, crystallize, melt Dice in a pestle. Ground to powder. Chaff what remains, that dim nugget What iron curls in, what steel and bronze, And ash picked away by naiad and fray, Two nuggets, little matte gunmetal grey Rusting at the bottom Little river stones
Little River Stone My brother See me My eyes are golem eyes, too Dull, unlit Unlike yours Pearls, as Eliot would say.
I like poetry. For me it is the art of putting broken words together, fixed. Kintsugi for the jumbled thoughts that exist without rule or border, where people try, fight, celebrate, and debase themselves to make sense. I don’t like a lot of poetry, despite my Twitter account constantly liking things I read. I moreso like the act of trying to create; I read words sometimes, and see the process the writer went through to make it just so. Poetry is an extreme example, and not a monolithic “one example,” as it is myriad.
Most poets I read try and put a puzzle together, where the process is clear they see the work as a puzzle: how do I make this impactful? Drawing up all the possibilities, all the -sauri meowling around in their heads like living creatures, conjuring words that yes, yes fit. In seeing the work as a puzzle, as a here fits there fits this word isn’t working, the writer is removed of a certain pace, or rhythm, or movement. A professor’s words come to mind when I write this: “Never use the word ‘Flow’ when critiquing another’s work! There’s no such thing as flow!” I laughed so hard.
If I could quote every damn word I’ve read in the past week
All at once. All at once. Where every letter slid into a perfect whatever
I’d tell you about the radiant sun that billows in a conch shell
Wreathed in flowing grape-colored tapestry, violence, wreathed in pain
Bunched up inside my chests; one locked and wooden, one flesh, one
Bone beneath the breast; I’d crush an origami swan right into that conch
To watch it burn white hot.
If I could slide syllable to slotted fucking syllable beside syllable
All lined up. All lined up. Where every sound had a new place around
I’d tell you about sto-len in-can-i-de-scence, and linger on the I
Carv-ing mean-ing to wait-ing, re-mov-ing su-per-flu-i-ties in me,
Leaving carv mean to wait mov flu I in me. No that isn’t what I mean.
Bone beneath the breast I’d crush–not that either, good sentiment.
I fall to pieces, yes.
My little soft bullet is tucked between my lip and gum
Sucking the brass off it, sucking the powder out. Unburned
Saltpeter. Young, when first was I reversed, “old soul”
Felt wrong when all I did was spin like a hurricane
Clothes blown, unhinged closet door, two bulbs out and
Black inside discolored like
Charcoal. I found righteous and I stood beside me
Made-up man with his fantasy plan, role models gone,
Fingering the little triggers that blew up the sun, friends,
Now memories line book spines along book shelves
Line incense burners with nag champa, copal, and
Sulfur. I of my family made and carrying this stained glass
On my back keep track of things that break back to breaking;
Crisp morning day, the tip of my tongue a tiny pin, Round
Little Soft Bullet against
Teeth, saliva-wet staining, aimed at my past, I needed
Modern Fantastic 