I have always wanted a telescope
To drag to a high place to see a star
Or two, rubbing my cold hands together
And shivering with my breath down around
My shoulders, waiting for the chance to sight
A poet, Robert Frost and friend, themselves
Looking through their star-splitter for a glimpse
Of something magic, some merry treasure.
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
0
I
a cricket
gets eaten by my
black scorpion.
II
a cricket
wonders what Robert Frost
is doing.
III
a cricket
is waiting
for a blackbird.
IV
a cricket
digests my poetry
thoughtfully.
V
a cricket
chirps loudly somewhere in
my dark room.
I have been marked
as a Dreamer of Dreams
by the slow writhe
of the One on my skin,
by the keen pipe,
the language of the whisper.
I have been marked,
or so it seems.
Untitled Poem #-17
Posted: March 6, 1992 in PoetryTags: Clouds, Dark, Light, Rain, Shoes, Storm, Trees, Wind
light is spilling through the clouds,
and the whippoorwill wind is getting louder;
a storm is coming.
I can see the line of rainfall
blurring the trees across the way.
the dark is rising,
and my shoes are untied.
One from the House of Bedlam
Posted: March 4, 1992 in PoetryTags: Boy, Cage, Clock, Crickets, Ezra Pound, Mad, Rock, Spider, White, Wind
this is the box that the spider came in.
here is the molt
of the mad spider
who came in this box.
this is the rock
from the cage where I kept
the spider, who was mad
and wouldn’t bark
after he left the white box that he came in.
these are the pictures I took of the box
that the batty spider came in
before I found that it was not him
who barked.
I am the boy who also came in the box
with such a grizzly spider,
put was not put in a cage
with a grey rock and a clock.
this is what happens to the crickets
that my spider hunts around the rock
by the light of that ridiculous clock.
this is Ezra Pound; a sailor, a spider,
who winds the clock in the closet of crickets.
here is the ward
where the mad spider and I are,
full of wind and white sheets and flat paper hats
and a rock.
here is the boy that bought the box
and found the rock for Ezra Pound,
that mad grizzly spider who wore a paper hat,
who gave it to me for the molt
that lies in the House of Bedlam.
this is the box,
the House of Bedlam,
where the spider molted even though he
was supposed to be hunting by the light of the clock
that Ezra wound.
I am the clock that tells the time
that the closet crickets die in the white box
– the cage in the House of Bedlam.
these are the legs of the mad molted spider
who ran around the rock in the white windy ward
of the house of the box with a paper hat.
this is the picture of grizzly me,
the boy Ezra and that deadly spider
who still wouldn’t bark after returning
to the House of Bedlam.
here is the box that is all that is left
of the boy, the spider,
Ezra and me.
[based on a poem by Elizabeth Bishop]
The Sun at the Edge of the World
Posted: March 1, 1992 in PoetryTags: Clouds, Eye, Flowers, Sun, Tree, White, Window
in the photograph,
taped at the corners,
we were caught falling
into the river with smiles
and half-closed eyes;
flowers were falling
on the glossy surface
in the middle of the white album page,
shifting the reflection of the sun.
outside the open oak-framed window,
shining over the tall broad-leafed trees,
and the clouds spiraling away
falling over the edge of the world.
Without Trying
Posted: February 14, 1992 in PoetryTags: Blood, Bones, Dreams, Echo, Eye, Fire, Flesh, Flowers, Forest, Frog, God, Green, Moon, Orange, Parents, Purple, Rain, Red, Rhyme, Rock, Sand, Sea, Stars, Stone, Water, Wind, Wings, Yellow
I
I can wish as hard as I want without trying.
Maybe it takes a nervous breakdown
To examine the croak of a frog.
A rich man tapes his hands to his sides
Drowning in treasures but refusing to decide
Which pearls he wants to wear for eyes.
II
To the grey lands to search for the sunken man,
Glowering in the shadow under a rock.
“Come in under the shadow of this red rock –
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
Of ash, of bone, of moon, of stone;
Cadaverous, skin a dizzying kaleidoscope of veins.
I screamed, hands clenched to my eyes, alone,
Falling apart under that brittle stone.
III
pretending to have misplaced my watch,
I asked a current friend for the time.
she looked at me curiously, sadly,
then asked why I no longer rhyme;
walked away as I demanded an answer
from myself; I never saw her again.
time to find another friend.
IV
Sweating and dirty from working,
I keep forgetting to steal some of the diamonds
I’m mining for other people.
At home, I’ve got this dusty blowtorch
Right next to my aspiration to smelt the world.
Been a long time since I burned anything
On purpose. Last time it was my wings.
Pushing the dirt around on my face
With the same oily rag, I promise
Again to go on a picnic in a forest,
Then pause, shaking my head slowly
To get rid of an echo.
V
O black soil, heavy and rich, warm
With the fires of life, thick and moist
Under my nails, in my eyes and ears,
Filling my lungs with blood,
Burnishing my skull with her coppery breath,
Arms sunk to the shoulders in the forest earth;
Black earth goddess.
VI
A poem incarnate: thee, poet.
Vision, mind, thought, dreams,
Thinking in every sense of a word.
And a blackbird.
VII
I came forth with a handful of seashells
(to the froggy applause
of the people’s jaws
creaking in their mechanical sleep),
Following May, who’s going home
To dwell with her enigmatic stone.
Placing shells to wait on the sill
And for her to discover
Like a faucet-spray of dry flowers.
Walking on the sidewalk I’ve
Empty hands in my pockets,
Imagining how she’ll find them
Over and over.
VIII
Flying through the rain on a wind of strings,
He flew with the ease of a soul,
Tall and clear-eyed with violins in his hair.
I saw him from the shore
And waved him out to sea,
Rushing over the water’s open grave.
IX
The dreams,
they poured their hearts
out into the bowl of my fingers,
flesh and water and soggy stitches,
Lost and drowned
in the ashes of childhood,
the sorry sons-of-bitches.
I breathed into my palms,
Taking each by their tenebrous hands,
And throwing them into the darkened heavens:
stars like two flung shoe-fulls of sand.
Spinning around and around underneath,
Watching them swim, these stars, good-bye;
Constellations of the smiling faces
of my parents,
One on each half of the sky.
X
I ran through the stacks of cars
After him that flew away by the seat of his pants.
I, too, cannot answer the question:
“What is the grass?”
I can no longer remember.
Standing under a leprous moon,
In a field of strobed weeds,
In a circle of garish flowers
Bowing outwards,
Heads trembling in a sort of gleeful fear.
Looking at my arms, my hands,
my fingers,
The vegetation was purple, orange, yellow, green,
turned pale by the light of the stone in the sky
shown bone by the fire suffused in my eye.
The moon grinned, sunken in the dust of a scream.
Yugguy
Posted: January 28, 1992 in PoetryTags: Animal, Blue, Eye, God, Light, Orange, Rabbit, Turtle, Yugguy
quality time with this animal:
Yugguy, rabbit and turtle combine,
transforming in the blink of an eye,
blowing bubbles through blue light bulbs
and the orange one in my reading light.
laughing quietly by myself
with all my animals.
god.
he blows the bubbles well.
Never Tamed or Rochambeau
Posted: January 28, 1992 in PoetryTags: Eye, Kill, Love, Rock, Slient, Smoke
I could kill you,
probably,
before you could react.
not now, though,
because you’re aware of the thought.
but sometime when you’ve forgotten,
I puncture your eyes
with hooked fingers,
or rip the bridge of your nose
off with savage teeth.
the potential is there.
I could love you,
probably,
before you could react.
not now, though,
because you’re aware of the thought.
but sometime when you’ve forgotten,
I admire your sight
without judging,
not interrupting your sense
of where you’re standing.
the potential is there.
the potential, flashing
as smoke rises from split rock.
whispering as dry paper
down a silent hall.
calling like idle scissors
twirled on your fingers.
but tired of listening
to nothing worthwhile,
I got a glass of water,
I walked a long way,
I climbed a sturdy tree and listened to
a worthwhile nothing.
padding softly
through starry halls
lined with glass trophy cases
searching for my rubber ball
bounced once too high;
searching many interesting places.
lots of animal heads
in the glass museum.
big teeth and manes.
you can see them, all dead,
but no rubber ball.
they give me the creeps
just the same.
I have so many toys
I don’t know what to do
with them all;
guns and men and jeeps
scattered around the floors
while I’m looking
for just one.
when the thunder stopped rolling
around the sky like a marble
in a fishbowl I stuck my head
out of the closet to take a look around.
my room was fine; I was scared
that the rain might have come in
stamping his muddy feet on my bedsheets
and stealing all my comic books.
you shake
your mental booty
at me and
you
know
it.
sometimes the voices get faraway
when I sit in the sandbox and play.
I don’t know why I pushed my trucks
around, I did it anyway.
I was born
playing racquetball
against a page like this.
sometimes this was all
I had to do
to keep myself warm
in the nighttime of the fall,
in the yonder of the blue
when there wasn’t you
to kiss.
day comes near and bleeds on me.
all the trees, all the frogs
leave in little ships
labeled by the experts.
the flowers tremble but
still no wind on this punctured shore,
wheeling through someone else’s sky.
I stopped after the rains
to listen to the silver frogs chanting,
who I could never find
when I wanted to watch them sing.
I could hear their beautiful piping
from my little room,
and I fell asleep to their chorus
in the light of the sun setting.
my father taught me how
to split wood,
carefully, with a sledgehammer
and wedges,
not fighting the grain,
but splitting good;
how to pry apart
the stubborn pines,
when you shouldn’t hit oak
hard and when you should.
my father has taught me
how to split wood
and I’ve never thanked him for it.
I was seen talking shit to a monkey
on the street corner
in broad daylight.
A group of people gathered to watch him
kick my ass for telling him
that I was afraid of his thunder.
As I lay, rolled off the sidewalk
next to the curb, reading
the brands of tires as they rolled by
I believe what they did
was truly heroic,
kicking my ass and all.
some frogs
toyed
with the human
by croaking
once, twice.
then being quiet
as he looked
around.
I shot my poem
with a bow I strung
high away in the air
up over the sun.
I fly when I’m lonely
with no one around.
wild spinning up softly,
ending up on the ground.
Untitled poem #-11
Posted: December 26, 1991 in PoetryTags: Dream, Mirror, Ocean, Sand, Stars, Window
tonight
as a dream
of ocean,
there is seaweed,
a corsage
on my wrist,
sand in my nails;
my window was open
to the stars,
mirrors to
mad poetry.
Ghoul Flesh or Mr. Gnarly Rides Again
Posted: December 26, 1991 in PoetryTags: Bones, Mister Gnarly, Skull, Stone, Wood
I count the bones
rained from above
which sound like wood
dropped on stone
when they fall.
–
If I could,
I think I’d love
the long bones
most of all,
and the skulls.
thee King in Yellow
lies still,
his face shrouded
by thee breath
of a thousand monkeys.
I think of my chaos of dogs in the dark:
down fall the trash cans; they saunter and sally
as we race away quick down the waterstained alley.
chiming in with great howls and loud barks.
four-legged and shining, we piss on all cars
snickering about owners asleep in their sheets
their dogs running loose all around in their streets
following the directions of the faraway stars.
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