pine cone woodpecker

the oldest and most familiar stockings mean nothing now and
hold nothing. things like, "we met
in the whale's belly" and 

"i thought that wool cap i loved you guinea hen feather."

now all is pine cone woodpecker,
anger fixed like an arrow toward king
and his country,

find yourself to be an outlaw or
a sweetheart submerged in peat

i do not ask questions because
i have too many questions
and no one loves a nail but
we all love slush

alone i am inside an
ornamental bell

or surveying the stop
and drop of a dam

well i say, well
i have no wish to present

to your plummet

Stranger Things

Stranger thing have happened,
I just can't remember when
I offered such a generous harvest, said
Sea-buckthorn and my calendula,
all to be given to
pouting hands

and distracted hounds.
Liliana and Crow go
to find a tree, and I think
on the freedom of a barren
body, spread bald-eagle

offering nothing, taking
nothing

Love Your Amanita

Love your amanita, live silently. All is not so all-encompassing, say the words you love. Hold the bodies you most appreciate the hearts of. Oh you have a sweet heart, you are a good sort, you want for nothing, the drones don't see you, in your purity you are invisible, and I want what you have to be inside of my bones, a light to blow through my body, outside of law, the free-falling leaf

Nannou

When I care, my body
cringes like a blossom on
rewind, and

"What I Once Knew"
is a two-day
train ride away.

We cannot help it that
love is
love is
love, we simply

reduce the sweeter hours to
a poultice, slap
it on our chests

to release the black stuff,

cough it all up
until we are again

the blue milk of the newly born,
soft with mycelium

and somehow eyes
as shiny as a destination penny,

heads or tails.

One of my favorite directors, Ingmar Bergman, is commonly considered to have been motivated by a crisis of faith. His films often touch on characters grappling with Christianity and its figures (i.e. The Seventh Seal, and later, Fanny and Alexander). Even more frequently, though, we are presented with characters that have lost faith in the notion that our lives are guided by something good and sane, as with Alma in Persona, or Anna, in The Passion of Anna.

I got by for many years thinking that, because I was raised secular, I was not a candidate for a crisis of faith. But I was Very Wrong.

There is a magic that is logical, a magic that is very real. It is painful to the heart to watch people that I love live without this knowledge. People make up their minds. So, I have made up my mind to not make up my mind, not about anything, unless it is what I consider to be fact: that little can be ruled out, that without light it is dark, that there is usually some light to be found. I plan on putting many matchbooks to good use.

I've been writing on my typewriter. It hums, and I'm off and running. Some poems I will transcribe here. Some are only for paper. But I'm writing a new chapbook. I even have a short story almost done. The story is called Ballad of Flynn Farm. The chapbook is called,

Stranger Things Have Happened

I just can't remember when.

For Kath Bloom

Push in and
pull out

push in
I say to him if

"Adrienne Rich were a
song-singer,

this song, she would
sing this song"

Rainwash and beeswax
are both better

for the black air than our
religious attempts

How many must I buy before
I am no longer lonely? consider
consider

How many shall I buy to show
them I'm pretty
consider

and

can I hide it all hide hide
so that he will keep loving me once
he starts?


We're not new anymore daddy.

And I am not I, am I.

I am
only as fucked as the man

I give my life to.

How Sweet It Is

He stood you up. In the movies there are always extenuated circumstances that cause the boy to stand the girl up. He was biking to your house on that long country road, but then he got a flat tire, and then he got a ride from a kindly old man in a Studebaker, but then the old man had a HEART ATTACK, I swear ta God, so I drove him to the hospital. And before he died he told me, “You go find that gal of yours. She’s a keeper, I can tell. Take care of ol’ Custer for me (hacking cough).” So that’s how I ended up with this basset hound and I put the bow on him because I feel real bad I missed your special dinner, baby.

But that’s the movies and this isn’t, it’s real life, and that means cold pasta in a pyrex bowl that you curl around your fork and stare at as if it fascinates you, while you think of how he stood you up. But it was not well done, not even interesting. He’s not coming around with a melancholy dog wearing a blue bow.

Whenever something good is supposed to happen, you are happy, so you listen to Karen Dalton sing “How Sweet It Is” and you think, perhaps I will know. But then the good thing doesn’t happen, so as an entertaining twist to your script, ironic or something, you listen to “How Sweet It Is” every time you are disappointed.

You fall asleep and dream you are taking a walk with your mother. She tells you to let it all go. You wake up tired, in a cold room. It’s too big, and the door lets in the night draft.

"From whence" comes the feeling of relief? I want to know which direction to face as I scrape my peeling paper

Plaid On Plaid

It is chest pain, asleep-in-your-boots and dreaming. It arrives inevitable after things like cradle-rocking and long tracks of small tea-colored buttons. Everything is an opaque "remembrance of," "rug burn," and "plaid-on-plaid." Oh it felt like fall this morning as rain swept across the hearts of the trees! If only to come up bearing a mussel, I believe I would dive deep, for "This mussel like my lung is open in air." I am feeble and blue beneath your searching light, we both were wool-palmed and bowed. Wrap me in your hands for I am cold open your mouth for I am not always so quiet as this I will lisp somethings your way and go on wet walks

Beautiful Girls

Chamomile tea tastes like some sort of benevolent grain much honeyed I remember one long moment of a day spent eleven years old. I know beautiful girls they're so beautiful they make the word new once more they have such delicate little faces such sweet wincing eyes and they break hearts by the dozen, ratta-tat-tat-tat and even I do although I'll never believe it. Being that I am "Supposed to make two homemade-pumpkin-pies-from-scratch," I am considering blanket refuge, "Hello and goodbye! Sorry!" The trees are now the color of pumpkin pie because "To everything (turn turn turn,) there is a season." This is the season of teatime, tree turning, cutting loose kindly lovers because they do not send me, and giving thanks for the beautiful girls. They're so beautiful like woodpeckers when you see them you go "Ah!" When they look at you you look over both shoulders and when they leave you you think o sweet vision. I did not want to leave much but wanted less to stay, someday I will know-

Sidewise In The Stacks

Cash me out, I'm tired and hopeless, I'm falling sidewise in the stacks. Only my skin is young, a deceitful beacon. I am sick in the usual way, and in an unusual way. I am sad enough to wish I had a hound. "Remember this for me," I said to some fellow as I walked him to his book and sang, "Cue are es, tea you vee." "Sixty-one," he said, walked out later with his heavy burden like a Christian. I have felt a wild desire to do simple things. To reclaim my ottoman, drive to Seattle for a cup of tea and a curfew so early I don't see the sun go down but from stove-side or vague-window. Very small yet largely unsolved mysteries stitch my day with scraps of color. The mystery of the house ghost, the mystery of Ol' Custer. The mystery of how the hell am I going to make that much pumpkin pie? I would give much for just a brief moment with Christ. I would give back the very pretty things I've bought for a piece of peace made from scratch. I was frightened I'd forget sixty-one, but I sure remember. It is easier to buckle than to holler that I can't do this alone.

A Church For All Sundays

A woman I never expected! A real "Young Lady!" She arrived, a sort of guest, and I saw her, and knew her: Not a child, but retains the topography of a child's face. She wears clogs, and has tattoos, wrapped around pale, loose-goose arms. She has large, square hands, one finger cut with a peridot. She seeks bells: a church for all Sundays. She seeks: Saint Christopher, pollen swirling in tea, the sound of the rosary being said on the Catholic channel, her grandmother's deep-set, round-brown eyes, smiling, like bells, her soft paper skin, and mass at the old mission, with it's ceilings "On High," the votives. There is no church like that in this little town. The buildings are new, post-even-asbestos, it is a new sort of "Catholic," but she intends to accept it anyway -if only a little- because things aren't all "Black-n-White" to her, because she done grown up. All is not simple. All is fucked! All is swell! Peace be with you and-also-with-me-hell-I-work-hard! Grandma, let's walk to the beach, let's play croquet.

dear torn heart and tangerine

Dear torn heart and tangerine, it is oolong tea-time again, and I am "dismayed," all things gold and orange feel in fact like love and home, but has it really been a calendar year, and yes, it has- I am so far away. I have mentioned, I know, that I live in Olympia, Washington. I am largely unknown and bear similar plumage to many of the other birds. I live quietly, make silent mistakes. My sorrows are only loud in their vibrations, shaking brittle ribs, I am learning to say Hail Marys, I prescribe myself nine hundred, they go this way: Hail Mary full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. Being a writer means that a large part of you will never be understood by the people you love. Even not or especially by the ones you share tangerines with, brew tea with, I threw in much of the bag and L. said, "Oh" or "Whoa" and "Too much" and "Other words" that did not make me feel "Loved" but rather "Cold" as it was in that immaculate home, I thought it was nothing now, was gone, but I have surmised it is a rind I still press between my fingers. And finding oil there I cannot seem to let it go, to let it rot.

Bell

I am afraid of nearly everything, the louder whispers of the library, things that go bump in the road, gas cans, can rims. staff infection, spiders and their unhatched issue, meningitis. I am afraid of needles to the spine, the hospital kind, and of schizophrenia, alzheimers, and to a lesser degree, epilepsy. I am afraid of going crazy, or am crazy with fear. I had not drunk tea in days, it seemed strange, to have not-- until this morning we woke and it was "light out," but not light, there was no slight sun, but rain and rain. And I made a pot of tea called "Russian Caravan" tea because it tastes of burnt Siberian forests, and I gave him the deeper cup because I only trust myself not to spill on my pretty bedding, the sheets of which, by the way, are smeared now with the things that leak out of your skin when you are tattooed. Things like "ink" "blood" and "plasma". He is as warm as socks and his feet sometimes function as socks for my arches, when we lay that way. He put his hands on my neck, he meant nothing by it, I know, but I had to shake my head, say no, tears starred my eyes and my throat wrapped around a heavy stone and I remembered something that I am.

Sometimes a pressure builds in my head, one which needs to be let, needs freely to ache in the opened-wound way. And I feel like the little boy in "The Polar Express" when he realizes that his bell is gone and that there is a hole in his pocket. One he may even forget about, the better to lose other things.

i work in a library.
i read books about

fen bodies, tattooed
princess long time ago
real dead soft feet still.

i wanted to be open like
a rose.

i find that i am
cold hands indigo and
fractured, unto

this
day.

i was buried in an
oakland yard november.

resuscitated in the
New Year,

dead again by may.

tattooed
princess long ago
real dead soft feet still.

slapped by ice.
crouched in front of
the electric heater

The Queen of Hungary

A queen, he said, touching my face. I bathe it every day in The Queen of Hungary's water because I think I'm special and I deserve beautiful things and maybe they'll make me feel better but they don't much, but that's okay what the hell I still need a clean face.

I keep talking about what great taste I have but I don't think he realizes that I'm talking about him. He's funny and smart as a whippet and I like all of his tattoos but I don't think he really notices when I say nice things to him because when I say salty things they just have more stick. And the things I say that have nothing to do with him have the most stick of all. I assume this but don't really know because I am not him and therefore do not know his mind, also I don't feel like asking because it's early on for things to be hard and there is plenty of time for that later.

Here in Washington it seems like men are pretty good at rolling with the punches. They don't expect women to be all of those old-fashioned things with old-fashioned words like "vapid" and "persnickety". They don't draw their hand back when they feel your hairy leg or bat an eye at your armpit. Back in California, I felt that being real pretty and skinny and witty was a fairly high stakes game, so I wore a lot of makeup and didn't eat and took drugs and read books and I was just as sad as you would imagine.

Now I just bathe my face in The Queen of Hungary's water because IthinkI'mspecialandIdeservebeautifulthings and I eat chili and go to A.A. meetings and read books and I can get used to being respected but I sure can't seem to get used to someone treating me sweet.

nothin' doin'

I decided to cut him loose. I woke alone with a little dread, put my jeans on, my boots; poured some coffee into a metal thermos. I bit my nails to the tender bed and nodded to myself when I considered a long chain of solitary nights. Sounded about right. I drove to work.

Sometimes when I drive with the window down my hat flies off of my head to the backseat and I experience a quick sliver of panic. I respect my hat.

I'm mean these days; I try to hide it. Occasionally I can't help but spit it out, battery acid which has welled up in the caverns between my cheek and gums. I don't like mean people and I don't want to be one, so I quarantine myself, but I'll be damned if there isn't somebody or other who insists upon finding me every time. I used to be the sort of woman that doesn't get mad. She died somewhere along the ride, gone lifeless in the trunk. I'm what's left. And--

I've got no patience. It's like every day is a frame hung crooked on my wall, and it's gnawing at me, this incessant itch to get it straight. "Nothin' doin'."

 I have a golden coin in my pocket. Eighteen months sober thanks to God and Alcoholics Anonymous. He held it in his hands once. We were sitting on my bed. But I don't remember a prevailing warmth. Just the way that, in the dark, he checked his mobile phone and lit himself a cigarette and I thought, well this ain't it. 

You old boots
have been dragged far to bone-bleach
like a dead horse

yet only my cruel feet
complain

you hot silver do not protest
close proximity

and the holy mother of jesus
lives between my collar bones

stares out with clear-eyed disdain or
filial love,

these jeans have stretch--

this body sweats
salt, and rose-oil, and
a decade's weariness

an old man called me
sir until I spoke

I did not mind
because I am afraid

of all the things
which my sex threatens

and of all those things
which don't discriminate.

the letter knife

maybe it was
the gasp
when his chest was wrapped
round that
letter-knife

maybe it was the instant when he knew
his love to be

something evil like hot
red iron,

a cracked gas pipe

big woman and
she killed him,

and killed another one too,
them fellas just did not praise her,

then shuffled into the asylum
aint-that-the-way!

maybe it was too much tobacco,
he done drunk paint to excess.

And all the sinners are
throwing stones

at the homes where the lovers
read stories and

fornicate,

this is America,
home-a-the-free

peace be with you and
also with me, hell,


i work hard.

we drinking house paint
thick white lacquer

straight from the church,
Prohibition style,

smeared across teeth and
"sensitive gums"

said the store as I bought
Old Spice and

eyed five-
dollar razors

which I do not like,

we
"Do not know!"
"Trust no-one!"

And if you want
something done,

do it your damn self!

But do share my
bed, baby

why not.

"Gonna save my money,

and rip it up."

Thicker Last Night

In the bleak morning
Marrow anticipates winter

the body disengaged
from familiar warmth,

and the neighbors are
saying things like

"gonna find someone
to share my bed,
snow too cold,
the gas bill."

Bluish fingers
hold socks to the wall heater

dust ribbons,

and folks
step softly,

alone,

round their houses.

Thicker, last night,
than water.

Thicker
than thieves. 

on the lam

dear, it is too scary, i have dreams. in my dreams i am not dealt the mercy blow. i crawl shamed with my forehead to the turf. i am very happy it's true. it feels like the mallet

to the temple, it feels like the envelope opener stuck in my great-uncle's heart. i have

an irrational fear of being convicted of a crime i did not commit. of being on the lam, of attempting to evade a bounty hunter with a Remington,

it feels this way.

maggie's farm

    There is something pushing at my paper edges. A sound. A girl. A sad little girl, a brown haired girl, a girl with a cigarette in her mouth and one eye closed to avoid its track of smoke. A waterfall got it backwards, got it upside down.
    We smoke in the house here; I will no longer address you as dear. But here, we favor lace, we favor black, we fill it up and air it out, and have continued in this way for some time. There’s an unapologetic bite in our sweet eyes, we call ourselves MADchen, and none of us oblige when told to smile. We tried to bake but have no butter, so we’re moving the record player. Shuffling things around the house provides purpose. We pretend we don’t believe in love because it treated us cruel, and then it did it again.

i figured it out,
My Love, (cross that out,)
i figured it right out
again.

you are just like
the dimethyl ether
in the dr's office.

a cold clear not water
burning,

so ephemeral
that you are gone

before you hit the ground.

While sitting in Sizizis,
Olympia, Washington, 9/8/12.


You have cultivated your inherited hopelessness, to grow
like a warm knife through your back.

Only bitter tastes register, and love
is revolting.

Love, that sustenance from the
aged basin

is revolting.

Strictly,
you consume the
dust of nutmeg,

to lend a cold and static pulse
momentum,

the cyanogenic pits of peaches,
tepid beer.

You would not like it here,
here where I am sitting.

You would not like the soft,
dark wood, the ceiling

of doorknobs.

It is not unkind,
not fraught with needles,

not a keening night terror.

There is little light
and minimal pain.

There is not room
for you to spread your limbs out wide,

and hate.

slow heartbeat in a dry heat climate

When we lay in the brown bed, with the purple sheets, warmed
by disconnect static and pill buzz, (I loved this song with a scalding loyalty,

the way he sings,
even Richard Nixon has got soul.)

every day a slow mo fall.

Sweet cloying opiate twenty-one, its

nauseating cokefiend boyfriend drawl,
horrid sight night terror,
fell asleep in my impress-you-dress,
happy birthday los angeles bastard,
southern california took me down down.

Coulda sworn I -
"As Long As I Can See The Light,"
"I Cannot Have Seen The Light,"

slow heartbeat in a dry heat climate.

Card house of cigarette butts for to deny I was alone
and so alone torn by Corsican time zone.

I hardly remember a thing, dull wound no sting,
I hardly remember a moment, brain-dead drug-drone,

innocent in a film noir live socket.

Caught with no slicker in a shit storm,

to await the gavel smack.

Long Live the Gulch

The Paramount

Young men are slow-walking,
drunk, past the Paramount

a few tumbles into their
whisky nights,

attempting to quantify
their mistakes

as one tallies up a bill
and settles it.

Everyone's singing
of throwing I-Ching
these days, darling,

but for you because you
sing of nothing

but an ashtray and falling to sleep
still-spectacled.

Have you never noticed
the blooming dancer?

She certainly can
can-can. 

The Hello Fall

Painfully I am attempting to make myself
large

and full of holes

that instead of being tossed
from hand to ambivilent hand I might be

run through

Dear tiresome invertebrate love,

I am still in you

still swim within you

I am simply sober

and no longer know some

"pheromone opiate sting,"

And our hello was murky

as our goodbye

was never drawn

Dear Dissident Sweetheart

At the beginning,
where it hurts,

(not like a slap from a spoon,
I wasn't a bad child, was
too good,) I have scrawled
your name in the sheet of

fog

and been marked by your seal. 

A puncture wound, it hurts
a puncture wound, so beautiful

was it.

The ageless generosity,
gold coin of the moon,
spoke of something of
something-- 

but we
did not
understand.

I had what I have.

Will I always be pulling yellow
hair from my mouth

Always, one old
door creaking 

on some faraway beach

I found another place to fall in love with

and I do,

each day do I

.

?

I found another feeling

new,

a different kind of

wet-eyes,

I am looking

for a way

to destroy

my seething arsenal

of hate.

A way which leaves

minimal dregs,

which wont clout

my atmosphere

over its

lacy little

crown

Flora

When I look for myself I find

that I am sitting
in a bar

with a face which has lost
the energy of expectation,
irises unfocused behind
an opalescent fog,

sipping a tonic through the thin line

of a black straw.

On all sides
surrounded

by my autonomy,
allowing limited discourse.

If you are

a friend

your words feed me orchids.

Without Flora

no impressions

leave watermark.

night desires so much that it desires nothing at all. incalculable sound rushing toward itself from innumerable sources is marked silence. preternatural sadness perhaps is health but is more likely a climatic tragedy. and nobody turns those invaluable inches which would cause their eyes to see another's, fearing to find life there.

I'll understand when I understand.
Not before,
and probably not after.

?

Vague womb mostly
but for its constricting pains
a dozen weeks yearly.

Fig, and figs, and
thick yogurt, and fermented tea,
and thin-
woven black rug beneath the table
which I eat at.

I do not take off the ring
which Anabel gave to me
which was her father's and then
hers and now mine, remove it only
when washing dishes, taking baths.

Pliant tennis shoes perhaps are for running.

The moment has passed over the course
of some months,
or
so

I am bleeding indifferently

or

bleeding with indifference.

I must have a very stupid
face.

I must have a very stupid
face
because I cannot think
of another reason

that I would be taken

for such

a

sod

slow summer

There is nothing sweet about the way that he is
playing the piano upstairs, it sounds
like the cruel abuse of keys,
black with decay or molding white.

Glass crackled with spindly frailties
hangs from the ceiling,
holding light.

Sometimes I can scarcely think of
one
person
that I would like to know.

Words like chalk
dry the cavern
of my metaphorical
mouth.

I think in fact:

That I could love you all summer long.

(There is a terrific lack
of luck
in your life

which your round jade
eyes belie.)

I am very fond of other losers.

We who keep tripping
and eating shit.

(What was Quite Pretty --for
a moment--
has grown ugly.
Is that
something?)

I looked at rugs today,
and didn’t buy one.

I spoke despite
my vague disinclination.

You told me, you said, "After I left here,
your house, last week, I wrote a poem.
It was about leaving your house, and
leaving here."

I think that I may wish that
things were not just a little bit
different but very--

just for a moment to watch
that notion dance.

I Don't Or Do

I Don’t Or Do

What is the shape of your eyes, that strange
sacred geometry, I saw them staring, as if
starved or somewhat evil,
and not for me.

And I’m not a virgin, not
without jealousy, I don’t or do adore to be
waiting, I don’t or do simply want to be worshiping
a vestal worshiping
a wild improbability.

In the Bible you were Jacob’s favorite wife.
His hands ever undeserving to be lost in the cotton
of your hair. To anticipate your hidden thighs,
not the warm granite I have pounded upon, rested
a teary cheek on, spoken softly to, and never won,
immobile in the sun. In the Bible
you were Jacob’s favorite wife.

Tiny and winged and every bone in my ribcage
is dry with devotion. I will not die for lack of your
lapis veins but would be slightly less corporeal.
Tap out the constellation of Leo.

It will blink, propitious neon green.
I will come free your limbs
from what could hardly be called garments.

three

Lust

Scare me, all that lies in wait, scare me with your sweet little hands, your chest’s little cage, your little feet, sweet eyes, I saw them stare desirous, not for me. Scare me with your inhale and your exhale. In the Bible you were Jacob’s favorite wife. He wanted his hands in your hair, the warmth of thighs. In the Bible you were Jacob’s favorite wife. I danced with you, I wondered what you thought. I lost control of my motions as my senses took you in. But couldn’t keep you. You were tiny and winged, you barely touched my palm and then you were gone. In the Bible you were Jacob’s favorite wife. Let me know when you are ready. Tap out the constellation of Leo. It will blink, propitious neon green. I will come free your limbs from what could hardly be called garments.



Devotion

Last night I had a dream that when you stopped fucking me, you started fucking someone else. And with her, you could really fuck. You weren’t paralyzed by depression. You weren’t the warm granite that I pounded on, rested my cheek upon, spoke softly to, day after day after day after day. Your name was Lucien. My heart broke. She had beautiful auburn hair, long as a Monday. With her you were free. My heart broke like a glass bone.



Contempt

This is not a dream. You are getting drunk. You are taking my clothes off. I am limp, like a doll, the unloved kind. You stare at my naked body. You are fully clothed. You push my legs apart as if they do not have nerves and stare at my vagina like you are trying to find the light at the end of a tunnel. You throw me over your lap and spank my ass with all of your body strength, ten, twelve times. I stop counting. My body goes numb. In my head I say NO NO NO NO NO and STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP. My mouth is full of chalk. You have a hammer on your bookshelf and I fear it. When you have put my clothes back on, you say, “Welcome back to the world of the living, if you’re ready.” I grab the hammer and try to kill you with my eyes, but you don’t die or even disappear. I just stand, holding the hammer, and I hate you. You are the passing stranger who has murdered the childhood of my heart. You are the teacher that taught me that I cannot trust anyone.

love is dumb, death is imminent. death is dumb, love is imminent.

imminent

Lucrezia Lacked

All of the candles burning down so fast.

My feet are covered in blisters, full and round,
like paper lanterns,


I am sticky with orange salve.

I'll never end up like Lucrezia--

I don't know why I have her portrait on my wall,
the resignation of her face,
simple brush-stroke of a stab wound,

she is hanging on to the curtain,
she will do it again,
her hand on the knife is ready,

bits of pomegranate seeds
stuck in her molars,

a small good sweetness, brief color
in a barren gray life.

Lucrezia lacked, lacking in luck,
lacking in light.

Forgot to crawl beneath the sprawl
of the sun.

Little Egypt

To think of all the times
you saw me laughing,
silent, and crying.

You never saw me dance.
And I’m such a good dancer.

Imagined Conversation

I fear the satyr:

But not as much
as I am terrified of love.
I have watched it lying,
barely moving,
face down on my bed.
I have tried to breathe life
into its stubbornly slack
blue lungs.

(And while it is true
that I am learning
that what is dead,
is not always dead
for good, or ever,

I seem to find
my lovers in their winter.
I trip over their bodies,
covered in the snow
of their pain.)

I fear the satyr,

but not as much as
the tangled horror of loss.
I cannot breathe for the
little catches that stitch
my inhales.

Once love was
natural to me,
coral to an ocean.

I only wanted your warm
skin against mine, and
all the time.

Now solitude is
my ocean.

I think I understand how you felt.

fairy tale love story 1.0

fuck the semen that you left in my bed to bleach little rivers in the indifferently blue sheets.

fuck you, fuck your haircut, i wish it were mine, i'm keeping this sweatshirt, because I don't hate you.

fuck you for assuming that you know ANYTHING. you have a face i want to punch. you have a voice i want to strangle and a body i want to fuck.

and a mind i want to fuck, so, so bad.

fuck you for staring at me as if i know what you are thinking. i don't. i just want to. and the more you stare, the more i want to, and the black smoke in me spreads like crude on naive waters.

fuck your little black jeans.

fuck you for assuming that i do not Know How It Feels To Be A Writer. i have been writing since i could write. fuck your drawl.

fuck you for wanting to fuck me so much. nothing is ever different. fuck you for perpetuating this.

fuck you for your wide-eyed pursuit, your innocence, your insistence, fuck you for the accompanying guilt injections.

 fuck you for assuming that i am speaking about you, for assuming that i am in love with you, sad and unrequited and pathetic. fuck you for enjoying that notion. the funny thing - the astounding thing - is that it isn't even true.

fuck you for being good but not good enough, close but not close enough to what i want.

fuck you for getting what you want. fuck you and your hopeful love affair.

fuck you for witnessing my inarticulate ineptitude, my blind confusion and the bruises that ensue, fuck you for knowing i'm hurt, fuck you for your unusually perceptive way. fuck you for being in the room on the day i want not to exist.

coming home, wanting to sleep.

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!

twenty seven thousand people i want to ignore in my fucking face.

Oh How I Hate You

u akt lyke nthyng evr hapnd
bt it mnt tha wrld 2 me

Little Slav Comes of Age

The first time
Little Slav
contorted with the force
of the Stranger, and bled,

she was eleven years old.

The blood did not look
bright and fresh, the way she thought
that it ought to,

having come from such a young body.

It was almost black, a mud,
decomposed mosses and fossils,

all over her underwear, and she
was not ready.

Very pale she did not tell her mother.

Little Slav willed the Stranger to stay away,
and She did for three tenuous moonmonths.
Then returned,

rattling Her cruel
corset of bones, nodding at Little Slav
appraisingly and mouthing the word
"Breasts," and squeezing Little Slav's womb
with Her long white fingers again.

Little Slav climbed into the bathtub
screaming.

The Stranger loves those screams.
They speak of Her generative magic
in Her only fluent language.

Little Slav screamed for her mama.

Mom, mom.

When she climbed out of the bathtub she fainted.

Mama toweled Little Slav off and gave her a blanket.

She showed Little Slav the contracting womb
by weaving her hands into a single fist and squeezing it.

Mama walked to the high cupboard, gave Little Slav
a big shot of slivovitz.

She told her not to think about it or smell it--
Just drink it, Little Slav.

When Little Slav drank it she fell into a dream.
In the dream there was not pain.
For a time she did not fear.

And when she woke up, the Stranger had
sunk into the tender of her bones,
stared out of her own eyes,

was caught dripping by a wad of padding,
and Little Slav knew for the first time

how it feels to be made of more than one. 

Ole

Ole was born on a day which
the sun chose.

Born on the cusp of shy and
very,

the cusp of sleep
and waking.

More deserving than anyone
of all good things:

fat velvet bumblebees,
onyx black nights,
the translucence of new

maple leaves in mid
daylight,

white butterfly caught
in a gaze,

as if by an eyelash;

a day which
the sun chose a day which--

inarticulate gratitude,
face against worn pillow.

The Matryoshka's Husband

The Matryoshka’s Husband

The matryshoka’s husband is dying.
He has lived such a long time.

What he has seen has tired him.

His hands feel heavy and swollen,
each time he paints her sarafan,
he notices

his fingers turning to wood.

The matryoshka is dying.
With no one to feed her

and with such a great need
for her,

she dies the way god died.

Slack in the haze
of exhaustion,

her husband cannot tell his son:

This is how you make matryoshka.

Cannot say, you must save matryoshka.

And matryoshka
cannot speak,

at last her progeny
have run out,

a river gone to chalky lichen
and dust

beneath the sun.

Robin the Hood

Even Robin the Hood
could love his luve,

and well he did
as I recall.

Even Robin bereft
of his blood and land

could love his luve

and walk, run,
set an arrow in flight,

attempt a spirit
of goodness,

and find that it was alive,

have you forgotten

all

that you have known.

Anna Alma Allison

"Depression is a cultural tradition.
Emotional distance is a family trait."
- a friend. 



Here are the blinks
composed of darkness
and stifled light

which are illustrative
of you and me:

the shadows of our hands entwined
against the light of a yellow wall
at four in the morning
forming the shapes of benign animals
and monsters

interpreting the swell and pulse
of a red candle

incinerating the flotsam of a past
late at night, at the cemetary
fueled by lamp oil and sage

walking home from your apartment
with all of yesterday's clothes
and a can of Coke in my hand
and smiling

the pink rashness of my nakedness

your glowing looming nakedness

an instant free of sadness
and sadness, its lightning quick and imminent
return to your heavy head and bones

you are in the thick wool socks which i gave you for your birthday,
along with stormproof matches and a match-tin

as if to outfit you for a war
without knowing it was already raging
and you were losing 

chess games and a needle sewing sumi ink
into my arm, the flesh of my tender bare,

rubbing noses,

several decades of kisses,

ruined daydreams,

your slack body on my bed,
your face buried in the mattress,
you cannot move, i cannot make you better.

the nightmare of alma.
the hour of the wolf.

still i wear your soft grey sweater
every day
until i move away

and bring only the broken parts with me,
because all the parts are broken.

what was happy within me
was shattered by you.

And what was young grew old.
As if overnight.

for a barrow

i've been hoarding silver
to bury in a barrow

i've been hoarding silver
and pottery, and wax

but in time which is now past i thought
to be drained of blood, so practical

just a handmaid--

just a handmaid to be buried in his barrow

that in the death life
i could serve him

as i served him in this life
my death body open as a rose

my death mouth full of
sweet, soft words

of reassurances
"Yours is a lovely barrow"

"You are beautiful in death,
 more so even than in life"

a nurse
concubine

never handfast or loved

but i've been hoarding silver
to bury in a barrow

and like a morel which one day
sprung from the soil

or a morning i never expected

i came to know that i would rather
collapse to bones in my own

than to rot in his
after drinking the draught

inscribed with his name
by his own hand

Amanita Muscaria

Amanita m.

Had I been a doe,
a reindoe,

I might have been whispered to, 
kissed, doted upon
by you,
Trojgaard,

without having become

so very sick.

Soft amanita,
I could not resist,
I was so hungry,
so desirous,

my teeth sharp against my tongue
twinged for your flesh,

the roiling wave of your truth so

shaky, poisonous.

And while I torque with yearning
for the gap in your bite

and listen to the hiss of the wind
for your lisp

I am weak, sweating
curled nauseous

newly born and anemic,
bruised from pelvis to heels,

freed to writhe

against daylight.

Heart of Thorns

samskeyti

samskeyti

how many scarves would it take to cover
every inch of my bare skin

how long to cook the rice, for the kettle to boil,
how long until

the sky ages unto darkness

and am i dooming myself with owls? superstitious, the stitches
which are mine,
mine seams

in the center, at the depth
of its twinging marrow

love is all good

behind walls of calcification
like kaspar’s room,

but

with a window

jesus was a crossmaker / dear emily

"either road's lookin' grim"



dear emily i was in the sun today, it beat
like a quickened heart, there was a swing

and it hung crooked from a tree

my body wants to cry.

it is sick, my head is sick, there is a pain
and it hurts so much, (could) crying,
release it,

"i am as puzzled as a newborn child.
i am as riddled as the tide."

nothing has been the same since--
this and that.

everything is quite confused
and much so very strange

and much so very heavy
and i'm awfully ill, tried to lie

in the dark

but there was no dark,

where on earth can i hide from
inevitability 

earthly unearthly

a body of flesh

corporeal,
among black trees

the sky is clear,
white stars, the white of time

in deep night the ravine is earthly,
unearthly, the crawling capillaries, the trees' ghost fingers
dissolving into an inscrutable
black pool

eyes cannot make it out

further into the
day ravine
is a necessity

to know it, a little,
a little as it knows so well.

further into the
night ravine
is a dark dense place

in my mind

full of earthly stones and

moss and branch rendered unearthly

by the sprawling flood
of light's absence

a new kind of baptism

i do not think that it was accomplished, by
splashing into the sound late at night, naked,
watched and then held by a stranger

Washington, it needs to be --
just you and me.
Green ravine, it needs to be--
just you and me.

Infinite flannel of moss,
just you and me.

Just you and me and maybe Luke.

"You will say that I am not Robin the Hood,
but how could I hide, from top to foot,
that I lost something in the hills?
I lost something in the hills."

we the smart ones we are stupid
we've been told for so long that we are smart
i wish we had been told that we were loved

i wish we had been told that we were loved

being smart is not a root or a home or a friend
it seems to me a very cheap gift, widely given
accompanied by sorrow, loneliness, and hate

it hurts me

I can watch a moth, I can watch the cat, watching the moth
I can find the steps where no one is sitting and sit on them
I can chain smoke cigarettes and spit and no one will see me
I can try to listen to the rain as it falls on the leaves
I can try to listen to the rain as it falls faster and
faster as if it is going somewhere

I don't feel strong and I do feel ashamed
I don't feel strong and I do feel
I do feel as if I am

not growing I do feel as if I am not learning
I do feel as if I am perpetuating the things which I do
which I wish I did not do and
do not want to do

I do feel alone and I do want to be alone and
more than anything I want to be content with my own self
by myself

I'm supposed to be married to myself and I do feel as if
I am still looking for a lover to make happy, someone
that I could make happy, I do feel as if I am looking
for someone to make me happy

If this incessant spattering of disappointments is growth
it hurts and I do feel hurt and I do hurt, it hurts me,
it hurts so familiar, so dull and gray and dumb,
i don't know where i was and i don't know where i have come to,

we the smart ones we are stupid
we've been told for so long that we are smart
i wish we had been told that we were loved

i wish we had been told that we were loved
so much, i wish that.

i spit

i was so sad. only my most
choice sweet dark organs were tethered with
blue yarn and i could not trace
its beginning, could not find its end

and had no knife to saw it all ragged
away

i was so angry. in my prettiest yellow dress
i was cruelty wrapped like a half-gift.
i was so angry.

i don't want to be your lover. if this is what
it feels like to be your lover i don't want to,
why would i want to, i only have a taste
for sweet pain, this bitter vile
horseradish pain, i choke it back up

i spit it onto your chest

i don't want to be your lover, it's like
bleach on the scalp, it feels stupid.

i don't want to feel stupid anymore.

there is an eagle in the tree.
thick and winged.

why should i love you.

like a false prophet
you were manufactured by a group of men
overseen by a group of men
the approving nods of the heads of men

i choke it back up, i spit it onto your chest

i choke up this vapidity and spit it onto your chest

if we are all worth our weight in shit
you're just more shit than me

poem for my friend

so you do not collect bones anymore,
they are heavy, take up space, you long
to take up less space, you

are long, long arms, long legs,
take up much space, your body
it is good

it is a good body, i think that
and i think that your heart is good, too,
and your tongue is thick

with amusing vernacular,
you're a good friend, good our drives,
and our days, i like them.

relent

relent relent your attempts are going nowhere
relent relent dont you know that women are just too unclean

don't touch me

relent relent don't you know that women are just too unclean
relent relent can't you read the smoke which bears the nicotine

i want to be alone
i want to be alone

leave me alone
leave me alone
leave me alone
please please please

Julian From Far Away

Julian From Far Away

Dear Julian your silence is so reliable, I can lean back on it,
it reverberates against my muscles, and I know
you are alive.

Dear Julian I tried to look different but I can’t. I am dark my
color is dark, the time you said,

black is the color of my true luve’s hair, and you weren’t talking
about me, but you weren’t talking about anyone, and black is the color of my hair too, so it didn’t matter.

Dear Julian if you ever stop being my baby I’ll be right shocked.

Dear Julian you never listened to a fucking thing I ever said.

Dear Julian it is hard to watch Bergman without you, and damn you, and damn you, you bled onto me, there's too much love.

Dear Julian I am very happy here and very far away from you and it feels perfectly right and quite, but like a balloon which escaped and rises out of sight, my love for you does not deflate. My love for you is a yellow yellow sun. My love for you is a flea, insistent, hard to kill, even when you crush me.

Dear Julian Vera killed a mouse. Dear Julian Deenie killed a daffodil.

Dear Julian I hung the bunny up. It said to Allison and it said your name and I kept thinking, “The line it is drawn,” and my heart felt like crying, but my rivers run dry.

Dear Julian I miss your sleeping body. My sleep was never your song. But your sleep was mine.

Dear Julian please, don’t censor me. Nobody will read this anyway.

Ostara

Little White Flowers in a Bowl of Blood

Mab

How to make love to the earth?
I need to. Imperative.

To say that I am here, a visitor,
sure, we nomadic
animals we roam

I have a firm and painful spider-
bite, in this way, am
perhaps initiated,
perhaps slightly,

but How to make love to the earth.
It is not enough-- walking around in shoes,
barricaded from the rain by wool.

Burning the wood.

Mab says take off all clothing, rely
on the mammalian warmth, my blood is hot,
after all, it is, my womb is a nest
at the end of a tunnel,

Mab says rely on this.

Spread your white legs to the cold,
it is not so cold, as all that,

let your knees fall slack and angled,
like arrows pointing west and east,

Mab says.

i feel old

we must be quiet, mostly still
light the green candles, it is as if --

you are a child and i am a crone

it is as if i was left beneath the yew,
like something lost,
a little handkerchief,

a worn, sad, blue

no one can make whole the body
of the old. it is a spent body, cannot
reclaim what it once had and gave away,
what was taken, or what left it for a new
vista, other arms.

the morrigan washes my dress of rags,
her ravens perched on her shoulders, her bloody hair.

you do not appear in her vision.
not laughing, and smoking, and all that you do.

you are a child.

and it is beautiful for me to see.

envy seizes in my shoulders and neck,
is it apparent,
 
i want to be light

like you

light like the watery sun
that reflects off of your thin-boy's chest

i feel old

curiouser and curiouser

Drink a Bowl of Blood

Drink a Bowl of Blood

Scraping sweet cruel moss
from my eyes

I became a stone with a
heart, I became an animal of more
thorny labyrinthine needs
somehow the humanity of love
made me more a creature

I needed this forest
my luve, my luve was turning me
to amber at the heart-rate of terror

my dreams souring like milk,
parts of me simply starting dropping
branches, I could bear only

blooms of blue pain

And nothing but weak and cloudy
tea filled my veins

Now I drink a bowl of blood
Drink a bowl of blood
Drink a bowl of blood ev’ry morning

Drink a bowl of blood ev’ry evening

It slides down my chin, it stains my sweater
my thirst is a hunger

I must be corporeal
I must be slapped into color
The heart must start beating

A bowl of blood my luve never gave me
he never gave me a bowl
of blood

I gather it now for myself
dripping from the trees

For there's not a girl in this whole, wide world, as easily led as I

you could make me believe,
with your lying tongue,
that the sun rose in the west.

anne briggs.

felt slippers

well it is raining isn't it
the sky is opaque a cup of tea i think of how,
i like it and
of how you wouldn't like it

baby bairn i'm acclimatin'
it's all very infatuatin'
the sky full of water
the sound full of sea
the lake full of lake and the
city full of wells,

but i think of how 

i wore your grey felt slippers 

'round your house

i think of how 

you would scratch my curly head

with those long, blonde

square fingers

how no one else 

could do it that way

and a bloom of sadness

which lies half-asleep

turns its frown 

toward my face

and looks right

into my eyes.

so it is then.

never a stain that rain could 

just wash away

a bruise

something beneath my skin

and i don't know 

how many bowls of blood 

i will have to drink 

before my own overtakes

the tea in my veins

such spiders-legs compared 

to your thick branches

ten names for Igraine

i told you some things,
ten names for Igraine,

i asked why do my long
underwear grow so baggy 'round
the knees?

i told you some things,
this rune is called a such and such.

you showed me some runes.

(that first night-- the second--
i remember the moon--
it was yellow, and huge, it was
january, it was bronze,)

i have wanted many and most of the time
to be buried in your barrow

to be a cherished object or a
trusted tool

to be of value to you

(the thought of being loved by you
was too large for my mind

as with god the beauty
was more

than my mind could comprehend)

but i do love you,
it is flesh, fluids, breath
which love you

a bowl of blood
and a heavy head

a body in a bed

this cloth keeps me warm

i can cover my skin
and you can cover yours

and i can love you
and while i'm alone

entreat the friendship of the ghost

and some time the weather will be fine

and i will not want to be
a treasure any more

and i will know
ten more names

for Igraine

Just So You Know

i loved to love you, but that's all through. i loved to be lying next to you.

I. Begging the Ghost

I came into the bedroom, I begged
the ghost, please to come back, please to be with me
I said, if you think that i need you, please
tell me somehow you are here, and I am quiet
and I am patient
and I am studious
and I wait for the ghost to reply.


II. The Daffodils

The daffodils
in the glass vase
were also just babies


III. Love You

I do love you, but it is alright.
A heart can break and does.
Revolves, slowly
and quick,
that apple,
that painted egg

Where I Like to Stand

there is a ghost in this room

there is a ghost in this room
a moment ago
it shook the blinds

it's been a long time

and although before,
-before-

i felt as if i had a thing to say

something about beck
and call, beck and call

it fell away like some feathery
gray petal  

here come the Hills of Time

my love is a baby

a right little bairn,

and frightened of time

i am old and young, perhaps

the milk of a bitter plant

or the bloom of a crippled tree.

when

my baby cries

"so when you see me 

passing by 

please hold me deep

in your heart

and just remember

i want to help you 

i don't want to hurt you 

just remember

i want to help you 

i don't want to hurt you 

so don't tear it apart."

heathens

when god was not a word
more a sheaf of wheat or a chest
pressed against a chest,


divine with sweat

there were simple things

a long girl loved daffodils

she kept her hopes in bowls

i've heard-- been told--

a little bairn chased a pheasant 

into a nettle patch

cold water seizes the lungs 

truths like torques close 

'round the heart

i do not know what one does

only a rattling

seed-pod

which says

what's done 

is done

my love

what's done 

is done

retrospect

heathen is twisted in a tangled knot
cannot negotiate this knot

i am falling asleep in a little boy's bed
with Mr. Badger and wool blankets

there was an inevitability to it
i could never have let it lie

not after the first thoughtless scraps (chatchat)
i know myself that well at least

and intimacy.

 intimacy.

from that moment forward the poison

imbibed, digested

not the nakedness, arching
tongue or teeth

before all that
the shadow puppets

fuck

I wonder what we are trying to be. I think, maybe it is our age. Maybe at our age we are all trying to be something. I don't know what I'm trying to be. I am not trying to get out of bed. I am not trying to leave the house. I am not trying to shower or eat. I am on my health insurance's website. I am trying to get a new shrink, in the new town, the town I'm moving to. I'm trying to do that.

I can tell I am dirty because when I raise my hand to feel the my short short hair my neck feels waxy. This is also a symptom of turning to wax. This is something that I am doing. I am doing this.

I have been wearing these long underwear for five days now. I pull them down when I put a tampon in, but I never take them off. Sleep in them live in them. Whatever. God damn it fuck I'm not okay.

If I were fine I would not be listening to this song called "We Are Fine" over and over. I'm not fine, you're certainly not fucking fine, hence, we are not fine. We are not fine. I just need to put on a new album. I just need to drive out to the marina. I just need to stop loving you. I just need to take a klonopin. I just need to eat breakfast. I just need to get out in the sun. Oh wait it's raining. I just need to get out in the rain. I just need to do the laundry. I just need to buck up. Is that what I always say? Buck up? I just need to buck up. I really just need to leave my room. Really really badly I need to leave my room. I just need to stop loving you. I just need to stop, that.

"Am I Blue?" "On With the Show!"

It is true though-- last night was the first in a long, long time when I didn't have a nightmare. (Thanks, God. Thanks very, very much, truly.)

The fact that I cannot make you happy is mother fucking baffling to me.

The fact that I don't care about making myself happy is a mother fucking problem.

This is a circumstantial depression. I know these sorts of states. "Circumstantial depression": heartbreak, et cetera. No, mostly heartbreak. "Other": hormonal imbalance, post-traumatic episode. This is a "Circumstantial depression".

Why is there no fucking song that sounds appropriate for this moment?

Death: Don't you ever stop asking?

Antonius Block : No. I never stop.

Death: But you're not getting an answer. 

Seeing It Now song

allison and peter became friends

Peter:

So, an introduction: I am Peter, I am a journalist and musician in San Francisco. I like fine bike routes, champagne, and busy schedules. et vous?

Allison:

hello peter! i am allison. i am an oakland based poet, soon to wander! i like cats, antiques, falling in love, and tea. my two greatest desires are babies and publication! WOW this is going on my blog.

 

 

 

whisp'ring

whisp'ring
(dear heathen,
he lied...)

he is trying to make things simple for himself.
let him.

(i will, i will. my tea
went cold. cold kippers cold kippers.
and i did, i cried so much, heathen
not quite ALL of the time but
seas in teacups...)

and cease yr weeps, bairn, it's
not raining battery acid is it?

(yes yes. okay you're right i will.)

seeing it now

heathen is a stranger,
but she will let you know her

brown-haired girl, needled with dye
beneath her long underwear a birch-
body

stamped with constellations

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
dreaming, sleeping, songs from
a music-box,

soft green yarn and march hares.

pale and preferring wool,

quite exquisitely hungry:


for something more than clay,
for more fuel than peat provides,
for an all-together new color of
light,


quite exquisitely hungry:


and sick of chewing candlewax
and through with saying, that
in the dark, brackish water


could just as well be beer,

a scrap of paper could be a blanket,
a wall could be a window,
static silence could be love, no,

that isn't so,
that doesn't ring,

and if you haven't even heard
her sing,

have you really known heathen at all? 

Heathen

Limited edition chapbook, first in a series of one.

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
sweet my heathen,
and so unwilling

explaining my dreams to the heathen

you say that dreams are not to be taken
quite literally, not quite
to be believed

but that is not what i meant little
bairn, sweet heathen,
you were there, and you were not there.

you did not see the little duckling
or its mama's broken neck
you did not see that limpness like a slack
silk chord

and you were not the one
who was shot.

and in this way
i am very strange:

i can love forever
like a stream which does not
cease,

i can love for now
and loosen, like a
falconer

and i can love in future

for all the days and nights
i tossed and crew

trying to crawl between your ribs,

i feel now as if my chest's cage
has been flayed and splayed bare

i knew i would find you there
there were i have held you

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
sweet my heathen,
so unwilling,

you do not know what it is
i dream of--

how black the ink or how
stubborn the stain.

temperamental weather

in my dream
like Alma i was
shot and again

and again
one true bullet hit

you took me down my
bairn my little bairn
yellow haired and all
you took me down

you, visiting
the horse's grave
you took me down

you and the grandfather's
clock
you took me down

the dregs in
your teacup there on the desk
they take me down

you think me healthy
and natural

milk-glass or bees' wax

or good steady light

i think me
temperamental weather

i have a sorry body
made of sugar or wax
it looks just as it should
and is so alone

little bairn 
i could not save you
and i tried so hard
to dissemble your cage

but all that we are left with
is all that we had
and a little bit less
given what we gave 

bath

Straight Reading: "As I Sit There Mending Clothes That You Will Never, Ever Wear"

"as i sit there mending clothes you will never, ever wear"

heartbreak is sweet like flutes
it feels old,
when i feel it,
numbing my slack feet
contorting in my little chest
i feel like a thousand brown haired women
one hundred thousand brown haired girls
who were left alone
looking 'round, and
starved

eating clay, and calling it bread

you go your way my love

blackwaterside (traditional)

One morning fair I took the air
That hung about black waterside
T'was a gazing path all around it
And the Irish lad I spied

All through the fog, the heart of the night
We lay in sport and at play
Till this young man arose and gathered his clothes
Singing 'Fair thee well today!'

That's not the promise that you gave to me
When first you lay on my breast
You could make me believe with your lying tongue
That the sun rose in the west

And so go home to your fathers garden
Go home and await your fill
And think on your own misfortune
That you brought with your wanton will

One morning fair I took the air
That hung about black waterside
T'was a gazing path all around it
And the Irish lad I spied

bad dreams

I.
the dreams have turned sick, and bad--
and dark,
dark movements of bodies and
horrible words are spoken--
i am lost, cheap, alone in them
so irreparably alone in them

II.
my baby is nearly vapor
with sorrow,
the baby within me,
the one which i am supposed to care for
unto the time that it can carry another,
and even after and for ever until
the abrupt and lingering end

III.
i think of what i cannot be all of my
forgotten days
i think of who i am not,
trickle my weeping bones

IV.
i am egg brittle and white;
if each face which i describe is mine
i am that moon drained of its
blood, that sad little bairn
buckled and torn by the dreams

my ghost constant

i have a ghost constant
his face sometimes shines pale like the brittle of an egg
and a light within it,

or like the nights of cold moon
which i look at,
there,
pressed against pitch

my ghost constant
feeding on the air of my dreams

there as i wash my hair in the shower
scrub my bent neck
and long feet.

i want to feed the ghost
books, songs, little boxes,
an ashtray, a chess piece,
a reminder
that i am squeezing the invisible
hand with my hand

i fear he consumes only
empty air

but for those moments
when his body touches mine
with life

tonight i learned i do not
love myself

it is a problem, a problem.

my days are

sitting at the loom loving you.

my nights are

sitting at the loom loving you.

perhaps while i am asleep

i love myself

and then forget,

and forget how. 

I Cant Sleep I Lost My Page

a little bairn yourself

(cut me, i think that i bleed terra cotta silt 

drain me i think my lymph 

opaque indigo

--i spit lapis bile--)

 .

 .

 .

 .

 .

there is so much love that you do not know!

so much, love!

truly i cut this planet in half like an apple 

for you

i think myself slowly turning to bronze 

for you,

that i might be useful

that i might be of value 

that you might wish that i should be 

buried in your barrow 

although i know 

you're just a bairn yourself

a little bairn yourself

.

.

.

.

.

i know that it is scary! 

i am afraid. 

and you 

little bairn i know 

your fear to be more pungent

you know exactly what it is 

that you fear. 

you know its 

unknowable 

face.

have smelled 

its frost.

.

.

.

.

.

you would grit to hear me say it 

but you are wise with sorrow. 

and i am stupid 

with love.

.

.

.

.

.

it makes me smile 

at chalk skulls.

stare long 

at bare nothing, 

write 

little poems. 

"she smiles as one who loves to smile" --sandy denny