In the still waters of the seventh lake
her stoic face is
glass-like under the stars
reflections of the magic heat
glow in a thousand twinkling seeds
meanwhile
my feet move
fast, the passing cars
splash as neon gasses and huddled masses
push on through
it was just a moment that I saw her
because I stopped to look.
This snow is the perfect kind of snow.
It is fluffy, fun and magical.
It bites my face gently
making me feel like I am a cat
with whiskers
sitting by a fireplace.
Blast me to high heaven, the feathers on this bird are shining
The light is screaming in my mind
light is the presence of something
darkness is the absence of light.
Cram before the exam, the stripes on the tiger are bending
The jungle is screaming in my mind
Terror is the presence of something
Peace is the absence of terror.
As the tiger rustled through the branches, they quivered, sending the bird above high into the air.
It's beeping, it's driving me
Keeping it's wide and then
Comfort here and again
explosion
forgot to lock it.
We held the broken tree limb in our hands, which is how we had been waving it, madly, in the woods. We picked it up and whipped it around like a flag with no unfurling, full of energy and fervor. We walked along the path, whipping poison ivy and pointing to the birds scattering.
On a turn, it wrapped against a tree trunk, and broke, and now it was just a piece of its former glory.
No mind, we broke it again,
and put the smallest piece in our pockets,
remembering what might have been.
She ran her fingers through her dirty hair, she was through with thinking of him, through with caring for the steel soul inside the beast, when they both know it was no more than a baby rabbit, shivering in the cold, frozen in place, waiting for a hawk.
"Jesus, Miera, could you stop writing such dark poetry?" he practically spat out his coffee, all over the white linen table cloth with tiny flowers embroidered on it, the one nice thing she owned, which was probably from a garage sale anyways. The mood began an ascent toward cacophony, although it was silent.
Break the noise.
"Well, then, turn on a light, for Pete's sake," she replied, flipping on the cold bulb.
It hung there, from the ceiling, casting shadows as they stared. First at one another, then at the envelope.
It had a small bird on the stamp, a perfect drawing, full of tiny lines.
The lines on her fingerprints made many tiny rows, like a sand garden, raked and raked into infinity, the DNA patterns that she had in the womb, now were here, in the flesh, full grown. It was just her hand, one of 14 billion hands on Earth at this very moment. At least that is the Math if there's 7 billion people, most with two hands.
Knocks on the door. Time for the train. Alarm goes off. Church bells toll. Car speeds by. Bus engine revs up.
Standing there, outside now, everything is quiet and moving, like being in the bottom of a river, in the crystal clear, winter air. Spacious and making her feel like a fish in a tank. Trapped but you can't see the edges. It seems fine enough, but there's a sense of limits that you just can't shake.
Against her chapped lips, her voice is going numb. Let it stay still, for a moment. The wind is cold, in Chicago it's called "the Hawk."
It's hard to start new after taking a break, the white page seems precious.
On days when I write daily, I am perfectly comfortable spewing nonsense.
Yet now, there is pressure to write something, profound, true and poignant.
Impossible.
I saw her walking down the street
confident in sweat pants
her look was of pure disgust
at her fellow man
she carried a cigarette
she carried herself
with great repose
a long fur coat
At first I thought
then I thought
then I thought
she couldn't be
she must be...
to each their own.
How dare you wake the golden sparrow's shout
when you laid up in the turnabout
Smuckering a solid air affair
when he was sitting, calling out to you there.
Did not you hear the mountain move,
when you were ear pressed to the pillow
dreaming of your dimmest light removed
and the sunshine is replaced with moon glow.
The day will dawn and you will shout again
another song of the composer's lute
grinning in your heart with focused eyes
as you answer the call of the shiny flute.
The cat rushed in he had been meowing outside the door
I didn't even look through the peephole to make sure it wasn't an intruder
before I opened it.
The cat lives on the second floor
in the apartment directly above
and thought I was in his house
so strange of me
to have redecorated.
Mixed up between the wires
the heart beats of the birds
the sky is breaking slowly
the factories breathe their smoke
the fog lifts up
Coffee and incense, medicine of mind
The jury of the peacekeeper
erasing every crime
Slipping the pen of the poet
across the blank page
smoothing out the story
adding rhythm, meaning and rhyme
to eclipse the raspy voice
of my inner gods
asking for the foxskin
as the whites of my eyes
roll with rage...
Take a load off girl
Add a pack to the mule
Aim your compass in the general direction
put the map in your back
pocket--
Rome wasn't built in a day.
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
The louder they yell, the sooner they grow hoarse.
Six ways til Sunday, falling from a point in the sky
x y axis
a parachute on my back.
Standing in the door of the plane,
like Leonardo's perfect circle,
someone yell go.
Poetry in motion is a common phrase, but sometimes it's true
in the way the piano keys move, rapidly up and down
like pages of a novel flipping fast through her fingers
no words are read and the mind is not held
down with the weight of drama
yet in the brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in the pages flipping
the mind sees not tiny tiny parts, but the whole of possibility
and the mind runs
it's poetry in motion
birds of intrigue
fluttering their wings
and you can absorb
the whole story
without knowing a thing
that lifetime flying by
in the blink of an eye
that joy of awe
is poetry in motion
it's just what I saw.
I remain convinced
that we can build a helicopter
just like I felt when we were seven
when we saw how the string and tennis ball
from the tetherball pole
spun in the air
I remain convinced
that we can build a tree fort
from the scrap wood we found
I remain convinced
we can take the empty shed
and make it
a one room school house
and teach ourselves everything we need to know.