something beautiful

untarnish something beautiful

unlock something kind

toss up the weary working world

turn over something fine

the longing has set in again

snap and sneer and try to hide

the oil slick, the rotting log

cussing and fussing

and angsting away

filching a purpose

to endure the day

breathing

the ocean’s breathing

salty on my lips

like your body

breathing heavy

and strong

grey rocks beneath my feet

dancing through the cracks

up to brush my hair

back

gathering wisps

like your hands

moving softly

but strong

wrapping my sweater tighter

cabled wool squeeze me small

like your arms

breathing held

too long

bound

trap me in a small space and show me how to live

tell me once and do another

make liars of us all

parents, teachers, children

teach one another ill

and send us into battle

up a hill, a hill, a hill

rolling a ball

small as the universe

gathered up to find it ourselves

to find ourselves

down

was it soaring or falling?

falling is free, free, free

I was high when I learned to weep

In love when first I mourned

Kicking and screaming when we were born

Our hearts and strings were bound

and bound to be

trapped in a universe

small as a ball

thinking we might live

Noises

My secret dream is

Holed up in the garret room

At the top of the house

Sipping tea and pulling faded fragrant volumes

From the shelves

Listening to them flap their pages

Like pompous old men or young revolutionaries

Throwing ideas and visions

To spin in the chimney smoke

Pressed, caressed into condensation on the window pane

Spinning records ‘round the gramophone

And waltzing in coattails

With a garrulous Emily or Anne, swishing her pink beaded cocktail dress

And laughing like crossed cups and the upset chandelier

Oblivious to the wheels of the world splashing past down on the asphalt

The babbling and blaring of wavelengths to and from satellites orbiting overhead

Cries of children, braying politicians, ringtones, deaf drones, construction zones

A noisy world without

A noisy world within

Which will echo, echo, echo out?

Exposed

See the skeleton through the wings?

It’s hollow

Full of air

Os and COs

1s and 2s

Fanning out the membranes:

Glowing furry windows

Filtering streetlights, night’s lights

Murky with pigment, veins

Bony crosses framing leather panes

Cruising Zephyr’s highway

Membrane turned outside in

Cupped upward like a woman

Dark and warm

For once not pummeled

By elements

The Os and COs

The Hs

The 2s

Pepper the virgin lining

Instead

Whipping past a frenzied head

Scampering, teetering

Trying not to scatter to the ends

On Zephyr’s bends

The 2 membranes teeter

totter

See how she flies blind?

Dark and listening

For once not pummeled

By elementary

Ohs and ahhs

Exclamations—shrieks

Surprise at being

Naked as a baby

Blind as a bat

Free as a word

The Tiny Girl and the Sea

(with props to Ernest Hemingway)

rough-hewn umbilical cord

monstrous, natural

swinging and whipping

if not for its baby ballast:

tiny me

gasping

hand over hand

fibers and pores

shrunken, like Alice,

on nerve’s last, soggy straw

I trail through the void

skirts flapping

hair snapping

hard against my

tear-stained

wind-burnt

doe-eyed

face

pulled along the water—above

but not out of trouble

for the sea raged

the fish leapt

and I hung

and I swung,

hands gripping

rope burning

sweaty slipping

it’s dark and I’m

lost at speeds

o’er seas, endless seas

stop the storm

and drop my form

and walk me Home

Home Home

walk with me

on water, endless water

endlessly Home, Home, Home

The Click

Click clack
Wrong track
Kick back

Dig in your toes
And tap your heels
Dance around it
Ask your questions
And try not to lie

Sink down, sink down:
Bend you knees
And drop your heart

Move your feet
To each new beat
The rhythm’s never right
Syncopate, syncopate
And start to hate
The timing
Off, off —- on —- off

Endure the flailing
Endure the kick
Nurse bruised toes
And wait
for the Click

unfinished

waiting

for the car to stop

the prince to come

a birth

a death

the day to end

the papers in

dreading

the confession

the cost

feeling lost

loose ends

never woven in

never tacking down the threads

only dirtying more party plates

and untucking sheets

once done

yet begun

unfinished

and tired

of to do

no words

when it rains
it sleets
and snows
and spews down shit
to hit the fans
and whirl the chunks overhead
in slow motion
that we might marvel
at their velocity
before they splatter
in putrescence
upon our heads
and weary weighted shoulders
and blossom like a cancer in our
broken hearts
and crust up like a raisin
in the sun
that dove through the darkness
and remembered only love
when there were
no words
for the pain

Pieces of View

you tell me it is beautiful

but i can’t see.

it’s abstract art,

greek to me.

when i used to perceive

did it make me more free?

having less than

two lenses?

panoramic

telephoto

rose-colored

darkly (as in a glass)

all now out of focus

trapped in the bifocal line

a papered fly

an ambered mosquito

dizzy and disoriented

frozen in fuzziness

i need a new prescription

glasses, once hurled, hit the wall

and frustrated, fracture

. . . shatter . . . and scatter . . .

i’ve left the pieces on the floor.

tin (wo)man

clicking at a clip

like high heels

strutting to stay up

stopping might make teeter

the uncertain heart

open-whoosh-close-whoosh-open-whoosh

hear the blood

check the pulse

touch the tempo

a persistent whisper:

click-clack-whoosh-whoosh-open-close

oh

no

it’s synapses, not ventricles

that slow

no!

Oh,

thoughts swirling

sluggishly

drowsily

like blood in milk

curling,

winding,

halting—

hiccup! hiccup!

taste the tang

diffusing

patiently

like blood in mouth

tinny, untamed

taking back the brain

"And Often Is His Gold Complexion Dimmed" (william shakespeare)

Worshipped, a god:

Source of warmth, growth, and sight

Symbol of life; Life:

O, holy pun—the Glory of the Son

Else burn and blister and smite

Or wither and languish and die

—Make SAD

Scrawled on the prescription pad:

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Lack of Vitamin D

Added to the list

Of why none us is happy

It came out today from the cloudy melee

Of our gloomy state’s sky in winter

Can we soak in enough

For the sake of our health,

Wealth, and happiness?

Or to fire our sins

Of gloominess within

And place on a cross

The hope-loss,

Burn it down

And till

A new season?

Snow Sabbath

On that day

the Midwest was a formless void
and whiteness covered the face of the earth
while a wind from God swept over the face of the lake
For God had said
"Let there be snow";
and there was snow.
And the people saw that the snow was good
For the snow separated the people from
their schools and their workplaces
and their usual rat race routines;
So the people blessed the snow day
and hallowed it;
On it they rested from the work
they would have done
And Yielded their Wills
to the Weather:
Amen

Greek Mythology, Shakespeare . . . and Bruno Mars

"so much of what i see reminds me of something i read in a book" (or in this particular quote's case - a movie), so it's not surprising that the songs i've been enjoying from bruno mars remind me of . . . william shakespeare and classical mythology.

random literary association #1: bright eyes

"Oh, her eyes, her eyes make the stars look like they're not shining." - "Just the Way You Are"

"Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return." - Romeo & Juliet
(not to mention "She doth teach the torches to burn bright")


random literary association #2: rock vs. rock

Sisyphus eternally pushes a rock up a hill in Classical Mythology as punishment for his hubris.

Bruno Mars eternally pulls a piano around a city, to accompany lyrics about his willingness to suffer for someone else. While the self-centered ancient may have to push a rock, the self-sacrificing singer actually rocks.

Cold's Comfort

that heart is not beating

merely shivering

quivering

in icy fear,

imp of impossible frights

and ignorant oddities

shaking in its boots—a cage

of ribs hard as sin

cold as shoulder

turned hard, tilted

toward terror

willfully gloomy—why?

not feel the fire

fetch the sun

from the father, farther

farther

fountains of light

flurries of flame

flickering bodies in the night

striding, guiding

passing, swaying

surrounded

compounded

cold’s comfort

come farther

fans fanning flame

speak the Name.

warning

A scream raging –

singer’s shrill through dark, flashes

blows hard and long

thick upon the windshield of the skull,

blinding fleshy eyes,

rocking plush, pillow heart

like spinning on ice

into control

each gorgeous revolution

drenched in flake

upon flake

white and

pure as the blood

of Christ

—insulation—

His piercings

her dreadlocks

limbs flying

mosh moving

frozen souls

thawed in blizzards

of sound

bass

bass

beat

wintry breezes

pump, pump, breathe

annually appropriate alliteration

"winter weather awoke in the world without"
- Sir Gawain & the Green Knight

Fruit of the Spirit

I want to be an orange

Plump, bright and bursting

Juicy droplets, gently pressing

‘gainst my veins

in perfect physics

force upon force

Humming softly with contentment

Peel-free but unburstable

Pump me up

Flush the drought of doubt

From my veins

Make me percolate,

Still with

Your humming,

Taut with

Your movement,

A lightning rod for

You