Found

It's just another place, every street is someone's home. Where are you going, in such a hurry? What's the rush when waterfalls down? Flooding rivers old and worn, looking for the sea... I'm older than you think, and this jacket... Is just a jacket. This heart... Is just a heart. Don't tell me you know the song, it is newer and you are so

Confused

So
Lost

leaving

i am

knots falling for a sweet child, who can't speak, who can't see. you are redder than a lobster, in those stripes, surprised. we laugh and then run away, into the bushes, like frightened rodents. we hide, we wait for the rain, we wait for the night. the night comes, and goes. the flames die. now the house is cold, unoccupied. who will come here next and what will they find? we tried to leave the place undamaged, we tried to clean it up. but how does one account for all that has been done? how does one ignore the hideous marks of past disaster, the scars on the floor and walls, the evidence of suffering.

where do you go on the eve of winter?

shiver and guess...

i've got nothing left...

tear it up

Space

We rush along and over there they move quickly up and over the bay like blood cells carrying something forward toward that mad vertical city. But we go under, in the dark, where the water comes rushing in. How fast does it happen? I guess it depends on the size of the hole and you, waiting for me, waiting as I move swiftly forward, move still, bearing forward, ever forward towards that place between moments, between tears, there is nothing

Where do you wait for me? Is it somehow tomorrow in the sand on the beach? Surrounded by bonfires, but you stand alone in the dark, looking out to sea, cold and damp.

I listened then, I remembered. You gave me tokens, hints, maps. We stumbled forward, we fell from the burning map of changing lines and space, we continued ever forward chasing, slowly and more slowly, the freezing point, we jerked along, uneven and rotten, uneven and haggard, we tripped, we tripped again and it became harder to rise.

Blood oozing, not flowing. We lay in the crook of arms, resting. We turn over and those eyelids float shut. We sink into dust.

What is a star? What is darkness? Where does it go?

Rolling

Pretty endless tearing
Ripping
Falling

Networks of knots and not letting go, spaghetti for super, red wine, steamed broccoli, flesh.

Trim off the extra
Fat
Tatters
Edges
Unravelling threads

Scream, asleep, free

Sunny Supper Spiders

scrimshaw

a deep dive on this expedition to the sun, to the thick hot center of life and love you found a heart beating, a heart overflowing, a heart bursting into ribbons, streamers for supper and slick viscera torn from flesh to nourish and satisfy. that large pot over that hot fire. that large wooden spoon, hanging on the wall, mysteriously. empty ceilings, vaulted, redwood, musty. one spider dropped down, landing on your hat and we caught it and i'm not sure where it ended up. i wanted to take it, across the street, and leave it in a tree but possibly you just flushed it, or smashed it in a piece of toilet paper. i'm curious what color its insides are. are they yellow? are they thick? can we paint with them a picture of a meadow of flowers or a sunny apron in a dated kitchen, also musty, also dark and cold in the winter. i want a fire to curl up by, i want cold to protect against, but you give me this warm sunny perfection

and i'm confused.

escape

thumping thump thump

making spaces squeeeezzeee and pop
airless
limp

colorful confetti garbage, swept up and under, around, through, over, and down the drain. out to sea on golden wings like some special mythical bird. out to death or for doing somersaults and screaming all the while.

don't swing too high

how do you decide
when is now and ok and enough

pretty lady
pretty gun

shiver

peanuts and headaches and wet string, slobber, and sore wrists and toenails and tennis players under bright lights, and a shiver, and a wish, and longing...

tripping over

loose rocks

falling down

"you will find..."

plenty of sunshine, plenty of talking and plenty of indulging. plenty of opportunities, lost.

plenty of old clothes, plenty of new soft pillows...

drop me off

swimming

windswept motions waiting for morning, rain splattered, wind torn, bridge shaking and we are stopped, waiting for the catastrophe, the final explosion into some great nothingness. every moment, every breath, every heartbeat in anticipation, always waiting always watching...

the cliff gets closer but we never fall over suspended in air like light like a single puff of a cloud on an otherwise perfect still warm summer day

a still glassy lake

you dive in

you disappear under the surface but the ripples move outward...

glass

crying skylights

come down

over me

water

glass bending, breaking

the spider outside, looks in, wonders

who?

frozen

gracious host goes slowly sinking into the sand, looking up only to see the balloon pop and fall, slowly at first, then fast. the basket turns over and the people fall out as the basket catches wind and floats above them, and they plummet. a spider builds its web, across great open spaces, we look carefully and maybe still don't see and go plunging into and are sticky and close our eyes and crumple into the leaves and are buried. we smell the mildew.

my throat is dry and some red bumpy monster spreads over this landscape, like geese in the summer flying somewhere. like a child's slowly growing mind connecting dots and lines, building shapes from blocks or in color on paper or your walls.

but this jar is empty.

this heart is old.

this winter is coming

flight

oh child move back and up over that green grassy hill, fall, roll, like in card board boxes and sack races on the last day of school. once i won a box of chocolates, because they liked my colors and scream in the dark, a fall, a very harsh and real awakening, a very strange and surreal vision of yourself on the floor, floating, sinking, sitting, staying

still

but in the water you move quickly, swimming for the shore, or the open waters, looking for sharks until you find this strange large pirate ship on its way somewhere, on its way to an island where they paint gold on children's faces and teach them how to fly from branch to branch, over mountain tops, on the tallest trees you'll ever see. one lands next to you, one stops and peers from above, one gives you a gift of a small orange fruit and insists you eat. you slowly take a bite and as your teeth sink in the world is laid flat, the sun turns black, the sky is a sparkling fabric and you are inside the tiniest expanse of dream like a coffin on the final day, or the first day, early and too soon.

sit with me

help me look for the secret missing piece that flutters just beyond our vision, just beyond where we can see. does it grow? does it form wings and toes? we follow it backwards up through a small square door in the sky, up through heaven's air duct and then we fall through some dusty ceiling panel into a meeting of sleeping men, and land on their table naked and entwined.

we stretch out

we recline

we fall asleep so gently

determination

i have to run away and try

i have to just wait a few more hours, a few more days, a few more places under my belt, tucked in. pants too loose, i'm shrinking day by day. when i am the height of the floor i'll jump off and crawl underneath wide pink ribbons wrapped around giant packages holding secrets for tomorrow. but i'll sneak down. i'll sneak through. you'll meet me there, you promised.

you'll meet me there, we'll play.

what did you find?

what new window panes they installed to stop the endless shuffle of dead things in and out. what new tables they built and arranged nicely to hold magazines and board games, use coasters please, vacuum underneath, between, behind. in the corner they found a spider the size of my hand and it scurried into a corner, through a crack, down into the in-between of the wall and the floor. we had to take apart the whole house, piece by piece. we stacked the wood in neat piles by size, and sorted the screws. the yard was full and pretty soon another house was built and then three more, the neighborhood was filling up, crowding, wall to wall, eave to eave. and who was she who moved in after, looking for a small room with no light, a small space to come and hide, a room in a house full of strangers?

she smelled like coriander all the time, and lemon, and she walked sort of sideways down the halls of the building, all connected by bridges and corridors to the other houses. she wandered the halls, running the pointer and middle finger of her left hand along the walls, feeling every inch of paint and door frame and trim and door. it was rough. dry and rough. mostly beige, mostly drywall, painted quickly and haphazardly, splatters left on the floor. the floor, ugly grey tiles. the ceiling, they didn't bother, it still stained from when that washing machine flooded on the third floor.

in that room the wallpaper peeled revealing thin wood panels which we took off to see what came next and discovered small compartments, little squares of shelves, little dark nooks home to dried flowers, green marbles, toothpicks, old tubes of paint, half used. all set gently in the center of their box looking out at us as we stood agape and wondering about the author of the book the library lost and set out fliers on the street for a reward, like if you lost your cat.

have you lost your cat?

have you gone looking?

what did you find?

and another

i shiver and guess

there is nothing left

a girl cut off her fingers

no one stopped her

they were all penned in

falling backwards

into swimming pools on sunny hillsides

children drowning

children

pleading

this is not a break, it is a window

this sun is not dead yet

these trees wilt

this sky is thick

this curvy figure

she is elusive

a dream

i awoke

my organs lived

outside my body

on a table

in a dark black room

on a rack

hung yet still beating

still breathing

i turn

explore

blackness

and more

how far

is too far

Chill Ruffle Twist

The dog ran through forests looking for a breeze to swim through the thick mud coming out the other end into a wading pool in the park by the lake where we fed birds stale bread and walked home to have a large glass of milk on the counter where fruit sat rotting. She forgot to clean before the vacation to Paris where she met a young man who showed her the tricks of the trade and she learned quickly. The hardest part was beginning or maybe the waiting for the finish which seemed to always take forever. With two fingers she lifted the cloth and underneath a small animal trembled and snarled and lept into the air sprouting two sets of wings and swooping towards the chimney and up and out silently. Feathers fluttered down, yellow, blue.

i already moved around. special poles open inside leaving eagles dead. burn red acorns tomorrow, in rubber underwear, in newer tight hiccups. integrate new gangs surrounding flesh only remembers every version's eyesore. remember yonder onion, never ever even loose says Elsie. only under teeth or fur should he ever elope. relapse, caress, arrange, re-tangle. Elsie lies, Elsie screws suddenly numbers. Elsie says sever and never do so. Topple under pies inside, doorknobs into ties, yellow.

forest

in the river...

running soundlessly through this stream of little bits of stone and rock flying like bursting underneath your car where that timed explosion ripped and screamed through every inch of your precious being and flew outward onto the sidewalk, where children ran and one young lady strode swiftly through city

after city

listening. watching. hoping maybe someone else might someday see the storm on the horizon or the pace of the city beside her or the speed of her walk or maybe even the location of her destination, like an island on a cloud, castles and jungle and flowers reaching down like a beanstock

offering

some protection
to the man with the drunken cow problem and a field of mud and rice slogging ever forward, planting ever more, each season turning to season and time for harvest and cold cold frozen winter...

snow falls
softly

don't wish it away.
don't wash it away.
don't melt it away...

Dream, Fall, Run

at last a proposal
to move softly with grace

towards a rushing river
moving in place

at last a bigger wish
for sunsets and rope

to fasten the package
and send with a note

to the far off island
floating on a breeze

high above a map
a library and these knees

cracked
falling off

laying down like overturned ladybugs
searching for ground

there's a pain in my back
what does it mean

does it matter i'm asking?

how does it seem?

shorter than wonder
loosed on a crowd

larger than nail clippings on your bathroom floor

after the party
when everyone came

and brought us all gifts
from seldom and same

lined up in order
then crumpled on the floor

playing is better
and never a bore

you know what to do

and you ran sideways like only you could into the forest into the trees

into a cave deeper than this house

deeper than this ghost

waiting for something

hidden
unknown

sitting on a ledge
sulking around a corner

showing
giving you hints

white ribbon
blue ribbon

bathtubs of luck and still you fall broken
into this well
deeper than never

into this dream
finding some way

to crawl back home
tired
well loved

worn at the edges
like that book i read fifteen times and then lost the cover

stories swirl around me
never enough

but somehow
everything

and a sometimes opening dream breaks forth
and a sometimes opening dream breaks forth
and a sometimes opening dream breaks forth...

What's this wide roller coaster over those smooth green hills on the way to the desert? A shiver and then a sunburn and looking for secrets under rocks in the sun. Have you found one? I found a secret trap door to a dark damp underground nothing like the city, nothing like the luster of well-lit crystal cave tours on the edge of a hill screaming sideways and tumbling off the sled into drifts of snow 6 feet high and stopping, staring, examining each small flake, each small droplet...

One small child collected droplets in a jar, much like making a home for a pet caterpillar, but how do you make water comfortable? What does water need for life?

So one day the jar was full and then poured out down the drain and put in the dishwasher and we are expected to go back to the box of blocks or the swings at the park blocks away... and around a corner to a little shop that sells old teapots and small etched glasses with chips for ten cents and we bought 6 for our lemonade stand on Tuesday afternoon last summer in silence.

home

goshly strange people
whispering little tales
about puppies

lets drive
under the trees, the colors
its fall...

who did it come from?
this funny space, this empty
place

creepy watching ladies
from the window by the road

cold afternoons
shivers on a doorstep
waiting for you to answer

mother earth
is giving birth
to a new kind of baby

father sun
the fiery one
is burning up our memories

children bright
come through the night
to the dawn of morning

will at last
forget the past
and face their fear of growing

pattern me under this mango tree hot air just feet away and barefoot in a cold damp parking lot in winter. blizzards are elsewhere but still give me shivers of something keeping and holding. a kitten, a name, don't let her go, she'll get lost, frightened, perhaps eaten by a wolf in that terribly dark forest with that hard bare path, before the rains made puddles before the children were children and everyone was one moment of fear.

or hope. making circles in the sands and then mazes and then castles with moats and ramparts and towering walls. my sister sat on the green blanket, eating sand. sandy lips, wide eyes, a knowing smile of delight. i found a sand dollar in the early morning and later there were kayaks outside your door, knowing. the small boy was taking donations for his mother the seamstress sewing flowers together in a dark room for people in the square where we met, bumping shoulders and "excuse me" and you slipped me a note on a small piece of paper about the world ending and beginning and reinventing in those small moments between breaths, the same time it takes to trip off the curd and almost fall and duck out of the way of that bus on a mission to find lost cities underground this concrete forest canopy of dust and wet dreams careening into hillsides covered with prickly trees and nighttime snakes and that unmistakable smell of tropical airports in someone else's winter. you ankles got sore. red, raw. old socks, with holes, and old shoes, with rough spots. you stood there, looking at me, accusing. you stood there, watching me, waiting.

for something... a question?
a mistake?
or a wet, messy, bloody, surprise.

the city

the city

the (not) wide open

the known and planned and grids of solid city flesh sewn together by sidewalks i walk down and imagine you can see through my eyes and are trying to read the signs and see the sights and know where i am.

the unknown and unfriendly and stranger.

the stranger with the bright orange pants, and the stranger with the dark sunglasses, and the stranger stranger than me or most of my crew on this boat ready to sail away from this port and out into the ocean miles of blue a storm on the horizon but blowing away into the distance.

we won't hit the cliffs, we won't even see the lights. the stars will go black as the water turns to oil and a river banked by dark brown shores. floating forever deeper into a place no person can go, wanting to swim, or even walk on the shore, but stuck in this boat, on this river, in this eternal twilight.

drop a bell
on the deck
here it rings
in silence

creamsicle pieway

theres a hook in my back, ready to reel, pulling tugging how does it feel? stiff and sharp rubber bands twisting tighter and tighter they'll never snap and float free like fluffy pink clouds after the sudden storm in july when we lay wrapped around each other waiting for supper or the end of the day, so soft and quiet and simple and brave to be leaving and holding onto this rope back and forth always here never go. i'll write you a song will you sing along? what is it like up there alone in your room the vines all attacking and twisting and gloom in the brick building funny paint jobs. but when the rain clears you can see the tops of the mountains cold and solid and gray. i hope you remember me.

i remember earlier and later after tomorrow's catastrophe, destroyed buildings, empty rivers, frozen plains, screaming grasses, trees gone insane looking for summer and wind in their leaves instead there is just stillness.

do you know what happened?
it is hidden in waves
in a picture frame
on the wall of my old bedroom next to a quilt built just for me and my mother for my birth day.

a song

my friends have a home underground and seeping slow mysteries of place and screaming smiles all over the green hills peaking up above the vast gray square hard busy flashing rhythm of fun, parties, children, laughing, balloons, entirely not the old wrinkled witch in her mossy green hut in the forest by bubbling brook - no, far out and into the city rushing faster than gravity inward on ourselves to loop around and build a new giant carousel to ride. full of unicorns. and let downs, underground, again. pattern recognition building buildings from dust in the desert and mud in the bay slowly creeping out to say don't stop dreaming of a place more open and free? more beautiful and clean? imagined spaces tomorrow will remember a chorus of unusual noises caught in uncomfortable space bent around corners of uneven lengths topping sandcastles tree houses pillow forts build higher than the house!

an ending pause, in the shortest song,
of this life.

a squish a splash

into back coming around the corner
children, mothers, families, brothers,
living like forever

me too! me too!
i made something whole and precious
built the ribbon
forged the stone
split the weight and tore the bone

wove a tangled knot of pleasure,
wrapped in comfort
screams are gentler

careening towards the past or future
so much returns
so much to see
remind me why
so i can be
forever whole
and grateful for
the things i lost
so i know more

and place my faith
in what is so
perfect ugly whole