Wraparound

3.

Foster feeling, your poppied gaze

is all the lunar tide it takes

to float the deadweight of our days.

                                — Sherod Santos, excerpted from World News

I’m getting back into words, which should surprise virtually no one; reading and hearing and occasionally writing them.  Every night this week, I’ve substituted Parks & Rec with The Best American Poetry as my pre-sleep ritual, and tonight, I’ll substitute class reading for slam poetry at Cantab Lounge.  I’m hoping I’ll hear something of quality that’ll keep this going.

because/perhaps I was

in September I crouched behind a waterfall, shielding

my curling hair from the onslaught of horizontal rain and

rainbows lit concentric circles

I tied my hair back and took one moment in repose, when

the sun bled golden streaks, captured in forever, but

who took that photograph?

I drove for hours in silence.

ARCHIVE: Title’s Next

Tonight is
things-I’ve-meant-to-do night, like
thank yous that have gone unsaid, or
god this reading.
But I’m staring at candles instead, like in their fighting
flame I’ll find understanding, flicking up my
heat while my book rests at my wrists.

I’m making lists in my head because I
can’t contain them all unless I jot them down. 
I’m writing them and rewriting them and reciting them like they’re
Bible verses by which I must live:
Groceries prescription light bulbs renew passport
Hallelujah
God save us all, blessed be His name and
go get your bloodwork done.

I sprinted ahead months ago but
hare-like I’m falling asleep by the wayside, counting
sheep, dreams, words, filling
pages with my mundane mud of what?
My mundane mud of my quiet excuse for
survival, listing through life, leaving
every box unchecked.

October 2009

The glue that holds the tiny pieces together;shatterproof

It’s not if, but when.

Definition: sneizure

noun - snee zhure

A biological self-directed attack, wherein two or more sneezes occur too close together, resulting in a physical jolt of uncontrollable extended sneeze.

[I do hope this cold clears up soon…]

Compliment [by Rives]

I hope one day to be this excellent—

I remember the first time
you named me “Good morning.”

And how, the night before,
you considered my ceiling,
where the passing cars outside
the passing cars outside
the passing cars outside
cast their shadows and liquid lights
through the slats of my blinds.

You said: “Hey Romeo—
your CD player is skipping again…
but your ceiling’s like fireworks for poor folks!”
And I liked that.

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Sights of Silence

We woke to the sound of horses, beating
hearts on dusty saffron paths auburn
clouds coating nearby branches behind
them,

ARCHIVE: Varanasi, India

Faces in blurred browns wash
like wind past my shoulders and
I am invisible. 
Dust clouds drape and settle, atop
horns, huts, eerie semi-lit blackness—
it is all earth and ink on this journey
to water’s start to burning heaps of flesh
sacrificed to unnamed gods

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Elastic Levity

we            create
in separate forms as in breathing beasts apart but
we            soften

Mousetraps

I could say we are on tornado watch, in
that we’re sitting with our feet up and
palms together gazing at our selfish
cyclone ripping boards from the ground and they
spin, dance, rejoice in open air.