writings

Self Portrait Poem

let me tell you, before
it fades
i am actual existence
in all vagueness
and truth inspires me
to brush my teeth

let me listen to your
passion
and wish that i was on the edge
of a cliff in some novel
that’s missing the last two pages

you and i are finding
ourselves
but to find, we must look
after two tests, a meeting, a hangover
and, “PRAISE JESUS,” some MTV
whoopee

i tell you a secret of when
i cried
about the simple hurt that invented
her eyes

and when you know my
deepest within,
scream though the wind
dig your fingernails in

and take away
these choices

From a Purple Morning

this is not the end
and all around us
the day is soft
and a whisper
and in our bones

her love is in you
like the breath you take,
like nectar,
it is in you
like the power of blood
to the wings of a hummingbird

this is not the end
and the eyes
of four sons and a daughter
are strong and honest,
they are together
and remember
her soft hands

I said goodbye to her
and the blue spirit
in her eyes
was soft and unafraid
and knowing

this is not the end,
this is the earth
turning,
it turns under us
and within itself,
it has turned to bring us closer
all together in this dream

so go now angel,
sleep then play
beneath the stars,
in our hearts like a new day
from a purple morning

and know darling,
as you paint with invented colors,
this is not the end

-for my grandma

Hoola-hoop Warrior

there is a dancer
in the grass
of greens and yellows
and blues

and she dances as
if the world had no
air
only moments

like a firefly stealing
the black

the movement is her own
and it is fresh
like rain or a splash
or tomorrow

she dances upon
two sets of moon eyes
they reflect each other
and learn

sit a little closer
with this existence
under their feet
spinning through the middle
of a breathing love

the dancer
is looking
from the corner of
her eye
and waiting
exhaling
young, unfiltered
ideas
never failing
for their kiss

listen for me
walking to your door
notice the night's shadow
on your hand
and believe

BOOM dee-ada Green Bowl Review Selection

glass smoothness is in me,
the sleek soundings
of a long, sweeping comfort pulse
and Peanut Butter
along with funky flashing ferocious flabbergasted
flummoxed
feelings
of birth and growth and dance

take my hand
without even holding it
but really having it
my longest line of palm print
in your big eyes
big and open and unblinking

watch me wish for a train wreck
floating over seats and blood
and glass
for a moment, upside down
before the merry crash

then BOOM
dee-ada

I’ll lose an arm
but save
a life
drag an overweight man to
safety
pass out on his belly with a
beer gut laugh

return home with
seashells in my pocket
put them in your nostrils

smell is the sense of
memory
linked there in some genetic copulation
of 10,000 nobel-prize-winning eye blinks
of two scientist

call them
leave a funny message
send a letter and ask
for the smell,
the genetic code and its key
for imagination

Fall Becomes The Ocean

We are sitting on a park bench, the air is brisk, and your long red coat is swiping the snow as you swing one foot.
You are smiling at me and hiding it behind your collar.
Your eyes.
We do not speak. We do not touch. We laugh.
The trees don't interrupt. They stand fearless and steady and naked.
It seems as if there is no need to breathe.

Low and weightless, the sky is a flame of white and gray.

And then it happens.
The earth opens.
There, beneath our flirty feet and smiles, the earth breaks and moans.
It screams. But it is not in pain.
You wink at me.

Two squirrels, who were watching jealously, roll their eyes and fly away. A dog does not bark. The wind finally catches itself. The sun coughs, excuses himself, coughs again.
Bigger now, the hole under us appears to cry—its rock and roots tumbling into darkness.

We feel the power—the immensity of time and space cracking—we feel it to the middle of our bones but our eyes will not leave each other. The ground shifts hard. Vibrations are in your eyes.

I whisper that you are doing this and that you are a poem that this world is ferocious to read.
You pull your collar away and laugh. You laugh hard and like a zebra after a morning run. You laugh high and the final 13 giggles are of the ones that are my favorite.

The earth screams.

The trees remain honest and some reach for us—only the young ones—the wiser giants merely clear their throats and begin the final debate on the fate of dreams.

We begin our fall and the scream is not piercing nor frightening but filling and buzzing and ignited in our skin. My blood surges for you. Spreading your arms so that they are flexed and unbroken, you begin to catch the air.
You are soaring.

Then I am speeding there with you and all around the black becomes a hard blue, then a color I have never seen. It is a color that is related to your ancient animal ancestors.
We laugh like stoned penguins on our first date.
Wet and woven, our fall becomes the ocean.

A quiet roar. The deep wind. Our genius in motion.

Soon a mountain appears before us, its enormity is deafening. And it is moving—not in a way that is up or down—but in a way that is secretive and timeless and patient.
The mountain knows us. It does not speak.

Then we are walking, then climbing, synchronizing our movement to an old rhythm that was before lost. I watch you move with rock and the music is beautiful. Your hands become your canvas. The paints take shape.

And before I can ask for this dance, you look deep in my eyes—swirling, speckled, glowing acceptance—and you say that we will love each other for the rest of our lives, for the rest of this world's life, and nothing will ever change that.

My bones sigh. My heart breathes a new oxygen.
The layers of life peel away.
Lily found me.

I see you bird, there, inside. I see you and I always will.
And you see me.

Thank you.

-me

and i thought

i thought of hang gliding
of piercing the sky
of weaving my focus in and out of the currents,
of the silence and awe

i thought of never landing
of moving with the wind such as the clouds never tire of doing
of leaning into farther away,
until i can no longer tell where i end and sky begins

i thought of wearing purple cowboy boots as i flew
of the looks on their faces,
of my invisible feathers

i thought of a rhythm there
of my shouting at the horizon
of a view stark and vivid,
sounding a lot like laughter and crying mixed to a robust shade of green

Diggin Through Europe's Backpack
Green Bowl Review Selection

Train Drain 8/28/04
Talkers, watchers and sleepers ride a train. All feel the steadiness, hear the bare steel.
They wait.
Little boys explore and push all pushable buttons and the girls hold fingers to sky windows. Mother’s sit forward and finish their love novels.
“It’s startin to get really good!” one probably says.
A young woman, a piece of cliched beauty, watches herself in the land passing by and wonders what she’s waiting for. She does not giggle.
“Wear shoes at all times,” he says over the speaker. “We’ve had massive foot injuries in between cars.” Just as 70 year-old lovers hold each other, walk to the button.
They know how to wait.
Guess rust is just part of life, but not on this ride. Not on this movin, this shakin. That orange, steel-slurping stuff passes by on silos that have had their day.
One day we all come home, we reach the station, the dine-in destination. For now, guess we’ll have to wait.

London Arrival 9/4/04

Jet lag in hand, we made our tired way into the city on a fairly cheap bus ride. As I entered the nearly full bus, a woman in her fifties; glasses thick, strong British accent, threw a large rope over my head, she pulled me next to her.
“Here,” she half shouted. “Sit down here lad.”
I felt I had no choice, her inflated eyes swelled through heavy spectacles. They were kind.
We introduced ourselves and I learned she was Ann Campbell (like the soup! she says) from Australia. Ann had grown up in the UK, somewhere between Scotland and London, and at 21 immigrated to Australia. Now, Ann is a ‘spot-welda’ of five years. She showed me her tattered fingers, the hard work in them.
“Slowly I am losing them,” she said. “I’ll haven’t but stubs for long.” She paused and together we looked at her hand, she held them both up, open for inspection and introspection. Scattered sunlight flickered on her scratches and mangled fingernails.
“Ahh,” she grunted. “They never were beauty hands. I suppose, rightly so.”
“They are good hands,” I said. “Strong. Look at mine, beaten up too. I like to climb rock.”
“Oh good,” she said, tapping me on the shoulder. And outside, London and our lives passed by. Ann watched small houses curve past and she was quiet. I said I was tired, very tired, and she recommended a good snooze. I obliged.
With my cap pulled down over my eyes, I listened to London on the bus, I let the sounds and words wash over me. Ann’s friends to the left gossiped. A man laughed. The bus seemed to grow on the straight-aways and suck back in just before tight turns. The motor’s hum chased the road away and I slept. For a moment.

Hyde Park, London 9/4/04

I trace a cloud
with my finger,
trace slow and
soft

using the chewed side
of my fingernail

Hyde Park
and grass
hold me

Take off your sunglasses
but keep reading
looking
when I am not

Agree silently
speedos should be
disallowed
here

cover your head
tireless pigeons
dropping, aiming
hear them in trees
shaking, watching
waiting, planning

over are we
done and through
I turned back,
you were gone

Hitchin for the Highlands 9/8/04

We rode with the white-van-man. Slowly the world grew taller. The ground rose around us and Stuart remarked on the beauty. The green of this place I said.
The green and green and green.
It fills the space all over, to the tops of mountainous hills and down. The green is dark and rich and growing. It is old. You feel the ages here, the grand pass of time rolls through the hills, beyond the highway, beyond sight, straight back through your heart, and the green stays green and you wonder how people can find God anywhere but here.
My gracious new friend Stuart and I hiked the Pap of Glencoe today. The view. It stretches. And I was there, on top of a giant piece of Scotland, of earth, millions of steps from home, my life upon my back and in my dirty fingernails. I was there, above a military plane that flew by low through the canyon. There, missing my dog, thanking time, space, free will and fate, allowing the cool rocks to meet my feet.

A Sweaty Russian in Munich 9/27/04

It was Mozart, the sweaty Russian said later, that poured from the accordion, from the flexing of muscle and bending of bone.
He pushed and pulled, stretching air and sound into a feeling, into a tapping foot or smiling face.
The music grew.
He and the accordion became twins, twisting, folding, breathing—and around his lips the sweat puddled then dripped. He worked.
The Marienplatz (central square) of Munich, for us watching and him playing, became the concert hall and a spotlight focused, swayed for a moment, then refocused. We all wore suits and my shoes were shinny and stiff. Heavy curtains did not move.
The music lived.
He spun with the thing, he held it how it wanted to be held; perhaps it held him, and he let himself be played. The cobbled streets vanished, and an old, wooden stage floor appeared. He tapped his foot hard.
The music was really music—something you thought you would eventually hear but had not a clue where it would be.
He kept his eyes closed.
He twisted.
The music slowed.
He pushed quietly and let the pulse drop and did not open his eyes and he waited. For a moment. And he waited, holding a note, and all of us waited with him, waited to jump up, to yell ‘Bravo!’ and spill our wine and ignore the wide-mouthed people sitting behind us and thank-heaven we paid extra for these seats. But we were already standing, and we remembered this. We remembered the night and the breeze, the city around us like a dream.
We remembered his coin box.
The music stopped.
But he kept playing.

Drunken Austrian Nights 10/15/04

He rolls his tobacco, within four fingers, and feels the texture of paper, the easy, smooth placement. He wants a smoke.
Behind him somewhere Norah Jones asks him to come away with her. He wonders why, figures she’s too famous and he needs a haircut.
So he just walks along the bricks, rain speaking all around, and he walks with no purpose but to know that he was there, on the ground, part of the earth.
He pretends, every once in a pile, that he is the facilitator, the grand mover of things and that his toe prints are the code for the next sunrise. So he walks, one foot in front of the next, and holds a beer and sees a vision of life oozing from his heels. He giggles at this. The trees roll their eyes.
He watches, in his head, the reaction of dirt upon bare skin and the subsequent, imagined response from mother nature and her givings. He talks to her and charms the leaves that are so quiet on a still day.
But, he knows this is all weird and wishful thinking and something meant for future deliberation. For now, the simple release of nicotine and gulping of cheap beer will buzz the toenails and make for awkward, yet spirited dancing. So he rolls.

Pub Primer 9/9/04

The dogs sleep
a round of beers
stay awake
and pull
pull at the night

A Scottish ale
dark and hot
pump the tap
rub your cramps
act a little un-American

sit with the
white-van-man
we talk of Morocco
go there
here’s where he surfed

her third beer
swaying now
crying tomorrow
should we walk?

down the dark
path?

torch it
bring your mobile
and the moon
and walk with
me

before you go
listen to the
harmonica
play your fingers
along this
wooden table
one at a time

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