winter solstice 2009

waiting swells the fertile belly
and the hungry sea
 swells of rise and fall
squalls of shore lap  land fall
jettisoned from the deep by breach
or head first into fray and glory from beneath
the prophetic caul  the caw bespoken
among crows lighting with black sheen upon
the snow of breast reading the undeciphered ley
lines of winding that crawls wind written to surge across the
meadow in its season of waiting for chlorophyllial boon
oftsprung offspring of the necessary seed freeze
waiting to green thaw

another day

launched by rising light
 an after-burn of enthusiasms

in tailspin drawn into the vortex
deep soundings taken
  in the ocean of air
  in the speed of light

I know of no standard for
 measuring the quantities
of want and need
  coming together
no means for assessing
   the qualities   of each
from among   the various species
    and subspecies of desires
flailing in the net of imagination
 seeking a means of escape

the patois of the  yet untried
permeates my speech
I trade in local goods
 item by item  bartering
  aporia for sweetmeats of substantial release
windfallen fruits from the world tree
meticulous in arrangement
 bruised flesh turned to the underside
singing out my wares
 fallen fruit
 is sweetest on the tongue

mysterium (edited)

whether some lack of completion or over-
doing.  mocked-up model: a world.  this  tease of
shapes. moment by moment    snap
shots.  page through fast  faster  now they
flicker haltingly   on the run.
from outside looking in looking
on   this world  appears
operational. view the landscape.  in particular all
its breathing pieces.  hone in    on the
metaphor makers.  observe the  confusions
note the faces: quizzical   perpetually perplexed.
yet smiling.

yes to be. yes to be writing
the power over me. of words. the
shepherding  into momentary herds   in coherence
bound to speak out of the mock’d up world.  

feel of the barken dress of the yard oak.
scrunch of her fallen desiccate leaves
her bare crown  the fractaled fingers of her skull
itching to touch the sun. her undercarriage stilll robed
soon to be snow veiled. dryad within    sinks
to her roots 

mysterium

whether some lack of completion or over-
doing.  mocked-up model: a world.  this  tease of
shapes  lying  sitting  standing.  moment
by moment snap shots
page through fast  faster  now they
flicker haltingly   move on the run.
from outside looking in looking
on   this world  appears
operational. view the landscape.  in particular all
its breathing pieces.  hone in    on the
two-legged metaphor makers.  empty movements
all that moves inside: ideas  theories about the movement
without.  observe the expression:  confusion
note the face quizzical. perpetually perplexed.
yet smiling.

yes to be. yes to be writing
yes.  the power over me. of words. to
shepherd them into momentary herds   in coherence
bound to speak out of a screen in the reel
whirl. a mock’d up world.  full
of ripe ideas.  

feel of the barken dress of the yard oak.
scrunch of her fallen desiccate leaves
her bare crown  the fractaled fingers of her skull
itching to touch the sun. her undercarriage stilll robed
soon to be snow veiled. dryad within  knows in
her roots of the inevitability of spring’s return

VII. fevered pitch

lifted   then
     headlong  -- upon  the feathered plume
  of solar wind blown  flares
ignite the oracle’s eye  of cindered slopes
baring the infinite collusion  your thoughts
mine  the whirlwind’s  harvest
my mirror   hand held
reveals the form
of their substance
pitched and yawed and thrown
into the breach

  crashing downward
tumult of the aerial sea
bedeviled by dust  and dust buried
the sun branches out
 redressing  the matter of shadow
 reflecting the glass sun back
  upon itself

making it real

silk is spun
carpets are woven
caravans ply the spice trade
nomads roam in no man’s land

elusive touching
upon the ethereal woman
guised and reguised
 in diaphane
against the night sky
he  hungering among the ruins
 of Xanadu
whets her appetite
for intangibles

the sharpened blade of mind
 slices through  the veil
now rent   the scales fallen
clear eyed  the seer seeks  reality
among objects uncertainly
positioned to give solid appearance
to  passing waves
 in the phenomenologist’s landscape
all this dung   word-shaped
by the hermetic’s hand

VI. clotho knits up the ravelled sleeve

opening her whiskey arms
  to sing  her old song
come closer  my love
  come closer
in her sand gritted voice
in her throaty reprieve
all sins forgotten
the sweet of honey remembered
never  the sting of the bee

hair falls across her
  forehead
woman of the veils
 bent over her knitting
 into each stitch  a wish
a yarn of southern swamp greens
glimmers of blue sky    shreds
of red   fly agaric   ‘sang berries
twilight  purple hued turns
toward midnight blues

V. still

your voice   still
 floats into my ears
after the closing
 of the door
after the rise and descent
 of fogs

who pulls the strings?
who pulls the strings?

I cannot fathom that  strings
 are being pulled
and voices  [not mine]
THROWN
 into my mouth

yet     I took  you
into
 my mouth

a dribble of a thousand seeds
 you planted    there
   drool from
   between  my lips

my heat   my dirt
 an urn  of germination
word seeds   fingered up
through  soiled speech

my thumb is green on you
     seedling burst invasion
      of my garden plot

you   hotbedded
  grow into   my licentious
    speech

how far the mind wanders
 from open plain to dark wood
and down      down
   into the underworld
   of sparkling quartz
and conversing corpses  and
 those   who utter prophecies

we have ignored them before
we have translated them
 time and again

you have come  and gone
abrupt leave-takings
buried in avalanche
swept away by flash flood
swallowed up by a terrestial yawn 

in and out   in and out of
  my life
the gate  swings
empty on its hinges
where once you rode
 into my unkempt plot

a series in progress

I. present

reading ancient runes
in ruins of the future
believing too strongly in repetition
in a world where nothing is ever the same
twice much less again and again and
again on the parchment of memory
the stylus sinks into the wet clay
the sign is pressed into wax
molds are cast
the hand always a different hand
having a different say

impresses impressed upon me
the body slices through them disturbing
strata setting off small landslides

now is the only and it is
alltime
past and future residing in
the alchemy of now
and cellular structure

I feel the thrum of my universe
and faintly – come closer –
I feel the thrum of yours

I am looking at a sky
uniform gray overcasting the unseen blue
I recollect being there

there is wind and leaf fall
the furnace ignites now and again

this is the newest leaf
in the sheaf of autumn weather
out my window
a cursive V of geese heads south
I remain behind with the crows
given to and giving in
as impressions continue to impress
setting out in the labyrinth
of infinite ways to the center
of infinite dead ends
new settings down
upon my slate

II. no telling

once upon a
no voice
no word flow
no hot desire to sing time
the thread with which her lips
were stitched

think alchemy. think immortality springing
from the manipulation of shit. the arc of going
up and coming down. the bliss and damnation of
degener-/regener-/degener-/regener-
ation. think memory fused with imagining.
the skin thins. on its way to parchment.
and lackwit. cold callus feet seeking the comfort
of ancient slip-on rubberized shoes. separation
of sole and heel incapable of keeping out the damp.
outdoors while I absorb what remains of the season’s
declinating sun. the crows convene in great
multitude. nearing the end of the let-down’d
leaves. drying cracking breaking
shattered by ice or snow weight. spring’s new soil
in the making. I wonder: what I will shed?
what will arise from its dirt? what seeds will germinate?
what will dissolve the thread of my sown tight lips?

desire bides on the tip of my silenced tongue

III. distance

paradox rules:
the farther away the object Other
the greater the desire
until within reach
at which point
come closer
desire piques
and appetite gnaws the bones of reason bare
the line of sight narrows
the burn of the beam limns
a smolder of line
draws upon the wanting soul
a maze embedded within the mind
sovereign the empress here
of hot need
wanting more mother to obsession
than having

IV. underworld

dark faces curls and breasts
lame halt blind and deaf
seers of visions
the dispossessed

the ferry man in revolt
has left them
behind refuses to wash away
their memories
settlers just this side of the Lethe
still in the marginal state
waiting it out
in makeshift shelters
waiting to return
memories intact

year X day 2 11.15.09

how long the days
 as lived  how short
the time it takes
for the trees to bare
for plume crowned reeds and rushes
  to tranform from green  to brown
the gaping lips of milkweed
having birthed their fluff borne seeds ___

I write in the dark cave at the heart of my lair
about the day  eye minded
an interior vision prompted and propped
by memory
the outside made in-
and then released

just as the milkweed
 takes in-
  the fire’s sun
  the earth’s nutrients
  the water’s sustinence
  the air’s respire
transforms these into umbrelled floral crowns
each tiny blossom in turn
becoming each brown seed  to be released
air borne outside  in-
 and out   ranging wide
 seeking to take root

seeds which have taken root
in these words
scattered now into the atmosphere
to ignie
to be mined
to be inhaled
to quench the parched and dessicate

three hours ino the deep of night
setting out to word weave the faded threads
of a tapestried pouch
from which pixie dust will be strewn

and I have explored
Dionysus who led me to
satyrs   and Priapus
  (who led me to Asia Minor)
and a host of ithyphallics
Asia Minor
   and the wondrous distraction
  of Leonardo’s  design for a bridge across the Golden Horn
and on to the vagarious  slime molds

and then the quantum leap
that brought me to milkweed
and the out’s and in’s
of everything