Category Archives: poems

Deafness

23 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in aging, becoming, death, learning, poems, poetry, the road

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When the words
fall
on deaf ears,
I wonder, what’s it like in there?
Static?
A song on replay?
My sound doesn’t tingle the switch,
the spectrum of frequencies a foreign language.
I used to scream to be heard.
I used to hand out the code
to what others thought was encrypted.
Now, the fire behind these eyes
that licked the ceiling high
if I couldn’t get through,
has real wind to respond to.
My lips rest
when the noiseless collision
of intent
reaches my own deafness.

Rituals

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in abundance, poems, poetry

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He draws breath
through his first cigarette
close to daybreak,
and shuffles himself in bare feet and heavy
blue terry cloth robe
down a concrete driveway,
below phone line the pale grey squirrel travels
like his personal super highway,
to pick up the newspaper
and bring it inside.
I’ve never seen him smoke,
I don’t need to-
the perfume of morning shifts
dramatically
when his ritual begins.
These rituals, their shapes,
differ
and
appreciation arrives despite
our never having exchanged
a word.

Fading footsteps

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in abundance, becoming, nature, poems, poetry, presence, the road

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Looping letters in pen,
my fingers contain dances
that my tongue is meant to spin.
But, without them, you wouldn’t hear me
over mountain ranges and
thousands of miles eastward.
This instrument will take the sounds,
twirling and swaying in my arms,
and transmit them through your eyes.
There’s a hunger that crumbs of words
could never stave.
Grasp.
Hold.
In stillness,
you know possession is impossible.
Let’s look not at one another, but
to the approaching terrain
wrapped in shadows of dropping moonlight.
The landscape will explain every twinge
these small dances can only hint at
through dusty, fading footsteps…

Sovereign Arachnid

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in listen, nature, poems, poetry, presence, transition, work

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I needn’t reach out from here,
the entire world can come to me.
Body slung comfortably
between eight agile legs,
I sense your presence
long before you know of mine.
Quivers of silver silk
transmute movement
into knowledge,
informing my scuttle towards,
or away.
Deep in this dark protected place,
I gather silence
and watch.
Light drops in,
lifting me up
if I want to visit day.
But people fear me,
little me.
Tucking myself away
with my abilities
feeds a hunger for solitude.

I follow

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in becoming, devotion, learning, listen, poems, poetry, presence, work

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In the dissonance of debate,
Now or Then,
the neural net catches me,
catches me.
I am the ball,
bouncing,
finding flight, then falling.
Breath runs from here.
The decision, made, not to chase it.
Carried forward in blind twists,
I trust.
I trust the flashes and twitching
are informants of a coming world,
a less mirrored place encompassing
what was,
a daisy-chain of stars,
within what is,
a popping wildflowered celestial body.
The road is serpentine,
its body thin, fast, intricately patterned.
And I follow,
I follow.

Humor rising

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in poems, poetry, presence, release

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On all fours,
sour saliva lessening,
I look back from the trash can
to which I’d rushed, gut heaving,
and say
with humor rising,
‘You must see a lot in here.’
Her smile of recognition fills in the words:
Oh you’ve no idea…

Approach her knowing

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in becoming, death, learning, listen, poems, poetry, receiving, transition, work

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Walking away,
woman with half face stands
where I’d been,
calling me to her in stolid silence.
She, an anatomical waning moon,
skin missing.
Her muscles and unprotected eye,
blood vessels and nerves and skull,
within her wholeness,
watch-
calling me back.
I turn, meet her eyes,
and approach her knowing,
nothing but this, nothing but this.

The passing land

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in discomfort, family, lost, poems, poetry

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My belly dropped,
not from driving over the hill
but from hearing his words
delivered at its crest-
This surprise,
crafted of unwanted elements,
was not for me.
Following the highway,
together,
I gave my attention to the passing land..
There was nowhere else I could go.

Thankfully, at this, I was practiced.

Deft hands

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in becoming, devotion, listen, nature, poems, poetry, the road

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I’m being remade.
Deft hands tear the fabric of me,
without wasted movement
or hesitation:
clean lines, no dangling threads,
and fluid rearrangement of
color
pattern
texture.
These quilt pieces,
cloth made of the stars,
the ocean floor’s curvy sand,
flocks of birds,
tree bark,
sweepings of sky at sunrise
the yearning blue of twilight, and
the sparkle in eyes when the heart sings through,
a unison growl,
and hum of any satisfying meal with friends.
Stitches holding me together dissolved, long ago,
what few held were torn-
quick snap and done.
When this is finished, this blanket,
or cape,
or kite,
or skin,
I won’t need it.
Until then,
I thank the tailor
sewing me back together,
my cloak the feathers of great
and able-bodied raptors,
the slipperiness of fish nestled in close rock caves,
the ambling walk of bear, his fur
a submission to all
he isn’t.

At the next depot

29 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in becoming, fearlessness, freedom, learning, listen, poems, poetry

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The absinthe cloud of memory
forgets the sugar
when heavy footfalls approach in the dark,
a trickery of echoes-
when an unlit train flies along a track
from direction unknown.
Blackness deletes orientation.
False terrain tells lies.

Still.
Breath loops, settles.
Hands tremble.

Fear’s got nothing on me,
I’ll take this ghost for what he’s worth.
At minimum,
I can steal his shadow and pawn it
at the next depot.