Wednesday, October 26, 2011

THE AIR PARTS FROM THE HORN

The air
parts from the horn
becoming silence
But not until
it has become God

BIOGRAPHY

My biography is quite the tale
Verbs doing all kinds of unbelievable
Reeling from the turning wheel
The potter
pulling at the walls
of her wet clay pot
searching for the center
where the spin is mono
the perfect roundness it promises
Maybe there’s more
to the imperfect bend in the clay
That remains to be seen

But for now I’m left
with the events of it all
This and That got capitalized
because they reached
the bone marrow
The red of the bleeding
is a word here
but there it was
what you see when you see red
It was also the kiss of joy
exploding spring buds
ocean waves licking my toes,
foaming at the mouth

There was the you and me of it
the players
the random genetic mix
molecules colliding into plots
story lines
foreshadowing and climaxing
comedy and tragedy
My tears fell
into applauding hands
at the entrances and exits
Hospital tubes and strands of hair
pulling the curtains back
the stage, the table, the bed,
sand and grass



Saturday, October 22, 2011

HAVE YOU PUT HER IN A DRESS YET?


“Have you put her in a dress yet?”
she asked me
“No, actually I haven’t.”
“What?” she replied
“She’s a girl”
and I don’t know how to
punctuate that
Dot dot dot…?
My baby girl
who hasn’t worn
her first dress yet
who smells of little pieces of snow
whose fists are still closed
to the wet and the warm
of the world
the rough and the smooth
of what is to come
Pastel pages
Rosebud lips that have yet
to speak
the unknown words
waiting to spill out
The world,
as of yet,
deaf to her song
Christmas Eve, the beginning
naming you
naming you
Ayana
Ayana Sofia
Japanese Aya, beautifully colored,
intricately woven
Na, fruitful

What will your first dress be?
Will it resemble
the one your heart will one day
shake inside of
lost in dance,
warm hands on your back
as you sway to
the music?

And the only way to finish
the song
is
…?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

WAITING FOR ME


I feel you
waiting for me
your grass fingers
promising to wrap
their green around me
Who will walk in on us?
Our time together
the utter you and me of it
Your silent ears
hearing my silent songs
commanding our dance
only to
finally, leave each other

and here you are
the next hour, next day
waiting for me
the ball I can’t cough out
My lonely companion
the only visitor knocking
on my solitary door
The you and me of it
This noise,
our dialogue
the monotone harmony
Spectator trembling leaves
dancing around us
as we cry in our still embrace
The you and me of it

Why do you always
force me to answer for you?
My too quiet companion
screaming at me to be let out
As if

You wait and then you
take my hands
the melancholic cold
of your touch
mad conductor
of my exhausted strings
always returning to the chorus,
the still silent longing
and celebration
of these words

Sunday, October 9, 2011

WORDS COLD AS BONES

Your words cold as bones
left from the dancing creature
you gave birth to
You spoke them once
(A heart pumps steady time
unaware it will cease)
Silent skeleton song
Paper white remains
A vacant cavity
Moot the scars
we lived so hard for
Meaningless words like forever redundant
in the face of snapped-neck paralysis
Lifeblood drained out
Vomit, a precious lost
Bodily dysfunction
Exclamations
screamed and uttered
to record living
Lyrics remnant teeth
can no longer chew on
or swallow
Lump out of throat
Dried up tongue
Tasteless motherless tongue
spit out its last word
Silence is not an acknowledgment


(July 17, 2007)

WARRIOR FACE

In the morning,
when I’m painting on my warrior face
I glide the stick over my bottom lip
stretching it slightly and releasing it
I wonder if the day will ask me
to wield my sword high
or if, instead
it will hang limp by my side
the events and the uneventfulness
of 24 hours passed
when I will put my warrior face
on again

I slowly move from my private room
to the playing field
the unpredictable ground
on which we stand still
on which we writhe and coil
on which we explode like
an unexpected thunderstorm