A tongue that tastes too well
A throat that thirsts for the whole bath
Ears, unstoppered, gate-crashed and ringing,
aghast at the brazen yarns
Saucer-eyed at the secret shows
Heart-throbbed at the wholeness of Om
and mute-voiced
in prayerful listen
[Art by Jamie Heiden]
When I yearn for a leaving,
things celestial trend with me.
Someone who knew
bade me to consider the sand
on the beaches of the world.
Each grain a placeholder
for a faraway sun,
and I am stunned with overwhelm.
Lifted from the everyday.
Marked to come out and play.
There’s a small bird
stays to have a look
with a tik tok head
puts its trust for a time
~who sent you, little one?~
to eye me up
to tweet a tsk tsk
yet sweetly insist
on a finger perch?
A bit of small talk,
I think,
would be nice.
Cast your line into the soft static of six days from now.
Feet up, warm cup,
and let someone in.
One who’s been down.
Yes, that’s the one,
my love.
~Fifty said to Fifty~
Time is growing short, growing cold. Know that i will be with you, all the way to the next time. Be on guard, lest I drift into the lock of sleep. Charge through the night, that you may play in broad day. Put away the fearsome fear, until another year.
I tried a brush of camel hair
for what it did to gauze
Too brash it was to have a care
and so it gave me pause
Your marble eyes
of gimlet guise
demand a fine detail
A painter’s hand
an exercise
in Art beyond the pale
My head is turned
by a siren’s accolades
and all other voices
of the moment
come as bothersome braying
murderous crows
Once,
I peeled back a peekaboo page,
thinking to find what lay beneath-
some lines writ in a flowing hand
that only I would understand.
But that leaf,
so soft and supple,
had done its unkind blot,
and what was inked so deeply
had faded from my thought.
A litmus for lost love.
In the switched-off kitchen I peered through drapes of grey lace, transfixed at the sight: a mirror hall of backyard infinities, benighted in a mute of blue. The straight rise of chimney smokes seeping secrets into heaven.
There were phone books
as thick as a board
I never believed
that showy strongmen
could rip one in two
In those days
we were all laid bare
~our addresses~
~our numbers~
It took no temerity
to look us up
to call us
We had to pay
for privacy
Now
we pay detectives
to find us
Aremyfeetofftheground 