ALL RESPONSES |
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-scape
There were surfaces
smooth
rough
there were simple objects
blocks
balls
the interaction always sureal
then
now
Too young to know
pencil pen brush
what relief and release
might accomplish
escape the desolation
stop the endless endless
fill with life with green
recreate the -scape
from the hot and the barren
042912 |
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This much I never said.
The days I could spend watching raindrops
running into cracks in the sidewalk, the smell of
worms digging through earth, the rumbling of the wind,
the sound of words falling off the steep cliff you created.
None of what I've carefully said is worth much.
If I could bounce these poems off the walls of our room
breaking them into pieces for you,I would. I imagine them all,
falling across your face, like cherry blossoms on a windy spring day;
broken polymers of words, meaning very much the same;
the untold story many times told but never really heard.
Spring is no time for complexities or burdens.
If after so many years I could rewrite a few words to you
I would say simply: take my hand. I am still here.
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Words tell the story.
So does every movement.
Each set of muscle and bone
silently reveals
what makes her tick.
As she learns to read
the book of herself,
another's tale
rings clear in her ear.
Anatomy of spirit
winds the clock.
Be careful.
It may be contagious. |
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Twiddle Drum funked through the muck
Of paradiddle havistrom
And drigged the dragberts to their knees
As figure fashions overthrummed
The kiddlegardners smacked their thighs
And perforce rations realized
That tiddle waggle theorized
Much much too much ‘bout Thrangdore cries
While sickly seize kneed across the plain
The bubble breeze brought Rorschach rain
And terminally turned the world
Into a washed out enterprise
But still the foodles walked the plain
In smooth al dente noodle chains
And no one dared to craft complain
Until the dribble sconced and ran
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Memories from a small town
are like frosted windows
or deep muscle stretches:
I remember rose colored wine,
eyes like blue marbles, wet hair,
and apricot breath
I never kept any letters, no photos,
not even a matchbook cover
She once carried small purple
flowers tipped with brown;
she carried them down the street,
around the corner, and out of sight
She must have thought something
of them, something more than
anyone else ever had before
When she left, I cried, and I didn't
even know why
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Hushed friction
of water over sand
wind in the eyes,
sand on the skin
sun biting hard
on tip of the ear
wind pushing water
into earth's flesh
rotting marsh grass
from winter's passing
bodies washed up
on evening's high tide |
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The vast open plains presents
a frightening view-
nothing to see but what
the mind tries to hide
The city speaks the lies
we want to hear,
floods the view
with possibility
The barren landscape shows
the truth untold-
Emptiness is everywhere
closely keeps hold on all celestial bodies
works its way into the cracks of every tower, every monument
hangs in the air between every loving couple no matter how tightly they hold on to one another
forms the four chambers of the heart
the strongest molecular bond cannot shut it out
Without emptiness
there is no movement
no breath |
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I can feel the warm breath of time
coloring the landscape of my heart.
The smooth shades of brown, green, and reds
intermixing, holding onto each other
as if unable to survive by themselves alone.
Life is a meddling of sounds, feelings,
and memories softening with the passing of the years.
There is a lot of untold in my life.
Small secrets seeded within my everyday existence
cannot sprout leaves but have roots
anchored deep in the fold that separates
conscious from unconscious.
Decisions are born as a pale sun
over my past of which I can only identify
the hint of red, browns, and the blue sky. |
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There are no histories of the horses
Drawn by a woman - invisible -
Wallowing in our memory.
The horses bare
Their teeth,
Their other cheek turns.
They are full grown, muscular, speedy;
They delight our eyes,
Our hands left wanting.
Our memory, clear,
Our arms left still,
Or consoling another,
Being consoled by another -
For the lack of her.
The eagle has swooped through her paper -
Torn with anxiety,
Or with delicate rage,
Or simply the dampness of
Watercolors on silence.
These dunes are still, empty of animals,
Nothing but tides disturbs these yellow sands.
Yellow is what I've brought home of her:
A book of weaving,
A box of Worst Case Scenarios.
The box does not tell me what to do
When a dear friend is gone, and
I am tearless - optimistic in her death.
I am Brutus for my lack of sensitivity.
I am contented in her death;
For her lack of pain,
For her lack of lack of control,
For her lack of air.
The others are humid with their missing.
Yet she has woven us all together
In single, double, and treble strands.
I asked her if she wanted other yarn;
The thin, lumpy yarn was difficult in threes.
She insisted she wanted nothing easier;
For all the complexity, the weaving
Was just right.
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Where you are
could be a sand dune
or a teal blue dining room,
the backdrop for a bowl
of Rocky Mountain ice cream.
Imagination likes to roam.
Like hunger it stretches
near to far. You don’t know
if this is a form of denial
or your eyes’ hibernation
from telling detail.
Imagination sucks up
everything along its way,
even a solitary existence
of one tree with
its necessary shade.
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It’s where it all fades
Southport beach
Miles of featureless sand
the sea a ballpoint line on the horizon
Good Friday where we make camp by a distant sea
We happy band of Christian’s
Our annual treat after the Whit walks
Clutching our gathered pennies thrown by the
watching crowds
Congregation after congregation following banners of faith
Brass bands by the dozen
The prelude to Southport
Singalongs on the bus
Pop and crisps,
Grandad proud in his Sally Army uniform
Uncle’s Harold, Ron and Absolom who would later change his name
to Arthur after Grandad died,
Auntie Helen, an array of cousins
Two bob each for the amusement park but
not before the band led by Mr Peet played
ribbon festooned Tambourines rose and fell
songs of worship and joy, packed lunches, bottles of pop
and the non believers amused by us but still singing along
Onward Christian Soldiers, Jesus wants me For a Sunbeam
Rolling Over, then home to where it all fades
Home to bed and to count the pennies
Two brothers and a sister
The four of us conscripts in God’s army
Only sister Sandra would keep the faith
Honour God
over forty years changing from Salvationist to happy clapper to C OF E
Truth is I was never a believer
I just went along for the ride
and
Cos’ Dad said I had to
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The field lies open
to everyone, giving
away its grass colored
silence to anyone
who can still walk
its loose pollen gathers
like an old green
or gray or brown army
blanket with all
its promises to keep
them warm
so poor
in our own
openness
so cold
in our own
promise |
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Turning of the tide.
Fractious waves retreat, air thins
in your blue absence.
In only one quarter-day
I will hoard what pearls I can.
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as if lavender
were only beautiful against black
as if these poppies were not flames
hills not incendiaries
fracturing the azure sky
as if they were not for the man
who built tractors in the thirties
tried to make machines that color
called them poppy orange
as if the poppies were not also
river, wind-riven, framed by lupine
beneath the San Gabriels, those purple
hyacinths with snow
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Tonight’s dream is a behind-the-scenes government,
Relikans and Demicats,
and one group with no name
because they forgot to call a meeting,
plus solitary figures moving around lonely.
The dream presents in words
(twelve point Times New Roman)
rather than pictures.
The machine runs out of ink.
Half awake, I realize
the unprocessed words are crammed
under the bed
in arbitrary stanzas,
waiting for Walmart.
Customer service says,
expect ink shipment
in five to seven days.
The government shuts down
temporarily.
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Firmament
Waiting for ships to come from seas
deep and bending as flowers,
she in her red dress escapes nothing
but briefest touch , blushing
upon sweeping cheek of canvas.
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At first you were just a thought
I carried
like a developing theme;
a strange sensation
of what is unknown.
Secrets kept in small boxes
were opened one by one
they were just memories
of a former life;
they filtered through like breezes
in a screen door. It slaps shut
and sunshine
shows strongly in the dust.
They are pieces
of our perpetual odyssey
dazzling by day
only to disappear at night.
Do you miss me?
I shall see you again
in a cabin in the woods
where the sound of rain
in the trees
plays familiar
like a Chopin etude,
a symphony by Wagner, a
classical guitar played
by your fingers
this mastered intention
two souls tethered
by mutual desire.
Do you miss me?
I am swimming in the lake
crossing smiles and stars
buoyed by thoughts like gold
flakes stored in jars
preserved for later use.
Do you miss me?
You will find me drifting happily in
towards the shore
and if you gather wood, I will
start dinner, we will
build a raging fire
read books leaned up
peacefully
against each other
into tomorrow and tomorrow.
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Each day is lighter than the
one before it,
but not light like day.
Wind along the planes of a face,
oak leaves, fading angles of the half forest
that reaches like an ink spill in both directions.
One does not step outside of their own
speed, move faster or slower than they are moving,
or ever know if they move fast enough.
Certain curves cradle the shoulder,
weight shifts to a point of absolutely impermanent
balance and it is like a crow rising toward the trees.
What is the weight of a crow?
The sound of dry feathers against the morning?
That is a sound like nothing.
The creek is black still, reflections only where the water moves.
A sickening fear of what might be moving or still,
crouched or stuck against the stream bed.
This is the way it will always begin,
measured in lightness, movement, flight,
or their absences.
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