I sag into my bonds,
bound to this wooden chair
with water from my eyes
six inches deep on the floor.
I feel all alone on a ship
gently rocking, back and forth,
water rolling, sighing
from bulkhead to bulkhead.
my head is down
and my hair is in my face but
if I was to look up,
my pupils would birth stars;
they would burn their way to the sky.
my hands are tied with
my own intestines, wetly coiled;
every movement
wrenches my stomach
in dizzy circles, hollow
like an airplane ride.
the chair holds me up,
gives me something to be tied to,
roots me to the deck; an anchor.
my mind hurts from
holding these stars,
squeezing my eyes shut and bearing
the sting of gas
leaking through my eyelids.
sails snap in my ears;
I grow a mast for a spine,
grasping handfuls of air
through canvas fingers.
I grow old and feel my hull
rotting as it surges
through these black waters.
I grow very tired from dreaming
of the sound of surf
on rocks, a shore.
tired from creating all this magic
for no one to see.
below, I flash open my eyes
and stand forth from the chair,
wet bracelets hanging
from my pale chafed wrists,
and I climb slowly to the salt air
of the deck of my ship.
I balance on the railings,
ignoring the spray of rain and sea,
and the call of oblivion
in the depths of the ocean,
my mother. finding strength
after strength after strength and
whittling them into kindling,
like so much driftwood.
teetering on the edge of falling
from the railing into myself
forever, I like being here:
I am myself — I have nothing but me
and my starry eyes and
my wonderful rotting ship,
intestines around my hands
and an emptiness in my stomach.
there are no more tears to cry
in the hold of the ship
for the toys I have lost
when I was younger,
refusing to grow up,
to grow old.
nothing can destroy
my beliefs; without them,
I go. I would let all the stars
that I have created
stream to the skies,
shrieking for me,
for what will become of me,
a bag of bones, a sack of skin.
I remember my stars;
they will remember me,
whispering my name
through the nighttime.
Posts Tagged ‘Water’
A Dream of a Ship
Posted: November 9, 1992 in PoetryTags: Believe, Bones, Dream, Eye, Magic, Mother, Night, Ocean, Rock, Ship, Sky, Stars, Tears, Water
My Mother in the Ocean
Posted: November 5, 1992 in PoetryTags: Beach, Blood, Moon, Mother, Ocean, Salt, Sand, Sea, Sky, Tide, Water, Woman
it is something, standing by the sea,
feeling my heart and my blood
fashioned rudely out of ocean-salt
and the milk of beach-foam.
I feel the pull of the moon
on the tide standing here,
examining the sky
in the sheen of the wet sand,
in the surface of the water.
I smell the wet sexuality
of my ever moving mother;
a lover of immense strength;
hypnotic, the woman with depths
for her eyes, skin wet and fluid,
salty hips and buttocks and breasts,
cheeks and lips and thighs
in the flexing of waves and
in the rolling of the water, the foam.
Breathing Pains
Posted: October 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Birds, Blood, Eye, Fear, Flowers, Night, Pain, Salt, Spider, Water, Window
waiting for you to arrive,
I close my eyes for the birds that rise,
flowing over my skin,
baiting the thoughts that cruise like fish
within.
I sink deeper into my steel water trough
to wonder when the night
will roll in.
the flowers I brought you have wilted
from the sweat on my brow,
but I am waiting, still alive,
waiting for you to arrive.
I count the turns of the fan and
stir the last of my ice
with my hand,
watching them dance.
I taste the water from the ends
of my fingers.
the salt and the cold comes
with chills of your eyes
if you tried to lie;
you’re coming here sometime.
I think of what I can’t see
past my reflection,
through the window’s glass;
where you said you were going,
where you might be instead.
these spinning spiders cobweb my head.
everything slow, slower, slowest;
these breathing pains.
a record skips on its label.
I’m watching these wilted flowers.
cut, they glower back at me,
slowly.
I’m wondering when blood will
run out of my ears
with the weight of all these
anthological fears.
I pluck a melting cube from the water
and send it sliding along the table
as I lay, my head on the back of my arm.
a cold green fire simultaneously heats
my uncomfortable forehead and
roots at the pit of my stomach.
I will wait with my breathing;
you’re coming here sometime.
I will wait for you to arrive.
Water falls as the hair and voices
Of nymphs at La Cascada.
Removing my shirt and glasses,
I place my eyes and nose
Through the surface of the pool
To be bathed by hands of water,
Falls like silver tinsel
Or ribbons of moonshine
And moss-maiden hair
Perpetually combed
By the white fingers of
La Cascada.
Her touch upon troubled features
Is like a lover smoothing covers,
Leaving pearls upon your eyelashes
for the morning.
as a lathered face,
I cannot tap my razor
in my soapy water anymore,
since you have written
that poem of bristly hair
that mentions me.
Little Things
Posted: July 12, 1992 in PoetryTags: Ape, Clouds, Color, Dreams, Frog, Love, Stars, Tears, Trees, Water
I think I shall
take refuge in
my little dreams
of apes and frogs
little dreams of
big-eyed fish,
shedding tears never
seen underwater.
little dreams of
stands of trees
who whisper together
to protect me.
little dreams of
pools of color that
geyser happily
when I come to visit.
little dreams of
stars that know me
and of clouds that wave
as they pass by.
little dreams of
talking and
being heard when
I’m all alone.
little dreams that
I dream like birds
to wall out
the other dreams.
I think I shall
dream little dreams
of precious things
that love me.
In Sherwood Forest, Santa Cruz Island
Posted: June 24, 1992 in PoetryTags: Forest, Leaves, Sky, Trees, Water
I half-awoke, standing in a forest
bark peeling in long curling strips
from the shivering trees, mist
hanging like moss in the higher branches
leaves layered thick under the soles
of my feet, and I just listened
to the dripping of water
falling like bullets from the sky.
tadpoles, grow fast and strong
in the light of the eyes
of the boy who kneels
by your puddle,
shrunken from the heat
of the dry days
after the rains.
standing, the boy can see
the river running, chasing
through the jumbled stones,
just over a ridge of gravel
several yards away;
miles to legless tadpoles
and semi-frogs still retaining
stumpy tails in a pool of
brackish water, bursting with life.
wriggling tadpoles in the sunlit warmth,
waiting for the legs to leave,
for throats to peep tiny songs
on their way to embrace
the river bed.
This is the way to build muscle:
Haul the rope from over the water
Up to the rocks and stretch to reach
The knot; tensed and poised
To swing out in the air,
All around you, way beneath you
Becoming the wind over the rocks,
Then over the water;
A hole in your stomach,
Muscles strung on the rope
The weight of your legs pulled up
To your chest,
Not to drag you into the water
The guitar strings of your arms
Hauling on the cord,
Grafted to the fiber
Shrieking cables at the bottom
Of the arc of the swing;
Relief at the end of the pendulum,
Weightlessness and falling
If you can let go.
Brian Two Two and the Rock of Fang
Posted: April 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bear, Bones, Brian, Car, Geoff, Joe, Laura, River, Rock, Sun, Water, Wind, Wood, Yellow
Geoff, Laura, Joe, Brian and I
went to the river to play outdoors
and to sing, sing ho for this, the life of a bear.
warm rocks, chilly water, and a rope
were for flinging ourselves through the air.
the sun and the wind bathed us in yellow hues.
music from the car ran its fingers
through the roadside oaks,
anticipating every curve,
and setting the bones that Brian broke.
wriggling our way over the mountains,
we witnessed a weaver of wood.
Falling Violin-Strings
Posted: April 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Clouds, Dance, Music, Rain, Sun, Water
the rain-sheets of water are hung out
like grey laundry from the clouds.
she dances through them
like they’re stage curtains,
smiling to the waltz, the music,
of the hidden sunshine and thus
for the joy of the rain.
Frog Haven
Posted: April 20, 1992 in PoetryTags: Blood, Frog, Green, Sand, Spider, Spirit, Stone, Stream, Trees, Water, Wind
I
the splayed hands of the roots
stop searching when I walk past,
but if I listen I hear them quiver
with life blood, holding boulders
when I climb down. unwrapping
and fanning the wind into life
are trees with green springtime leaves.
they swept me along like sand in an undertow.
I scramble and slip down through the branches
and jumbled rocks of the stream bed,
listening to the pianos of the water falling
into each other, over moss sewn stone.
II
beside a sheet of embroidered water
is a cavern of dripping stone:
Frog Haven, hidden behind
a bead-curtain of hanging roots
dipped in the creek,
pouring and pooling away.
III
we are the spirits who define this place.
here, the fall of clear water
is the curve of a spine;
here, the thrust of smoothed stone
is the swell of our muscles.
speaking with the voices of the different cascades,
with tongues of roots and leaves;
breathing out sunlight and forest dust to see by.
here, a trough has worn in the rock,
running happy with songs of mountain stones;
here, several strands of spider-thread,
or elf-hair, to be plucked by the hand of the wind.
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.
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.
the squiggles of the moon
in the water ‘round your feet
is how powerful you are.
when I close my eyes,
I can see Alex flying.
I was captured in the mirror
of a pool of clear water.
I watched myself climb a big rock
behind me without falling.
my newspaper blanket is wet.
I wake to the across-the-street sound
of the rain bird sprinklers capering;
one was whitewashing an aluminum gardening shed.
the stutter of the water
chides me for not wearing my shoes.
shadows have much to speak of;
a depth of water holds many mysteries.
trees hold secrets that men have never dreamt of;
a stone whispers to pass the time.
laying face down on my bed
hoping for an earthquake
dreaming of what’s going on
on the floors beneath me:
a young lady undressing,
a piano playing below that,
worms tunneling under
the creaky foundation;
small roots in the hard dirt,
then maybe rock and water,
occasionally pockets of other stuff.
deeper and deeper, it’s hot
and the earth starts to melt.
so I wake up and turn over
to stare at my ceiling.
Water
Trickles around stones
From way underground
Places where secrets sit
Still very unfound
It searches and pries
Through caverns and cracks
Picking up, putting down
Glistening, it refracts
Bubbling up, winding through
Under, round, over
Supplying things with itself
From sequoia to clover
Joining, growing, getting more
Gaining much momentum
The tiny little rivulet
Intent upon concentration
Down, down the water goes
Fingerlets, creek, brook
To stream, to river, to mighty ocean
A lengthly journey it took.
Sub-Conscious or Look Into My Brain
Posted: May 27, 1987 in PoetryTags: Black, Bones, Clouds, Dark, Eye, Flesh, Forest, Ghoul, Monster, Secret, Swamp, Water
Dredged up from the foul slimy pits of the unconscious
Come the compost and seedlings of these poems.
The sunless quagmires of my nether regions
Unseen, unheard of, unpure, unwanted, unknown.
Grey sludge wends its way through towering pillars
Stalagmites, remains of what could have been.
Unwholesome creatures populating the pseudo-real
Slither between murky bog and decaying fen.
Oozing questionabilities of the sanity ungrasped.
Psychedelicity is achieved in shades of black.
A changed and twisted depressed mentality.
Phrases and ideas flit, cohesion to they lack.
Through my pen does the putridescence spill forth
But most is caught in the mesh of conscious mind.
In festering forests seen in a lurid light.
What hideous secret can I find?
Dripping, oozing monsters, bereft of sight.
Unearthly being composed of gangrene.
Grotesque mockeries within the fetid swamp
Shinily glisten with a wet, mucal sheen.
Ambulatory fungi, frothing with saliva.
Sporadic slurries of viscosity.
Living monstrosities of decomposing humus.
Warped aspects of mental perspicuity.
Anerobic things with myriads of legs
Accompanied by multitudes of gelatinous eyes.
A virtual abyss is present and evident
A rift unbridged, for its size.
Slavering ghouls armed with wicked talons,
Bubbling pools of superheated mud.
Toweringly infinitesimal gaps of pure voidness.
Cascades and rains of syrupy blood.
Sticky strands of cosmic material
Form webs to clog rusty machines.
Blurry images fade in and out.
So many extraordinary ideas, yet without the means
A chasm of despair and of morbidity
Makes up the majority of my soul.
Sorrow and idiocy rest heavy burdens
Upon a subconscious as black as coal.
Upwellings from a depth of a boundless water
Birth new ideas to multiply and flourish
But sightless, flapping, contorting myconids
Swoop in to ravage and demolish.
Flinching in terror, cowering in fright
Screams and shrieks fill the alien atmosphere,
For individual thoughts see their comrades die
And spend their short lives in fear.
Writhing their way out of the primordial soup
Flopping upon sunless shores of sand,
Rooting and grunting beneath moldering canopies
Agonized ululations echo across the land.
The stench of death, of rotting corpses
Permeates my mind and lingers there.
Insubstantial casualties form endless pyres;
Smoke and dust reek to fill the air.
Paroxymal tremors shake unsteady foundations.
The erosion and decomposition grows with each quake.
Whimpering and gurgling, vicious things strike
The supports of sanity – that’s what is at stake.
Stupendous castles built of flesh and bone,
Towers of veined sinew and gristle.
Flashes of inspiration silhouette these forms
Quenched as the armaments of darkness bristle.
A sodden mist lays over my broken mind
Soundless arachnids spin their silken webs.
Glistening foam glides through hazy eddies
Over clouded water, all consciousness ebbs.
Within these sluggish, merciless swamps
Contained in this subconscious of mine
Raves a maddened, gibbering, repressed waif
“Tween wits and madness, thin partitions align.
How does it feel to be so transparent
An object made to be looked through
Unseen and
Unnoticed.
The only physical evidence that it is there is
The small pieces of
Fly and dirt and scum
And water spots
That wouldn’t have happened if it
Had Cascade sheeting action
But no one cares.
Sometimes it gets cleaned!
But only to make it more transparent
And ignoreable
And featureless
And it takes away its personality,
What little it had.
Does a window silently scream when it’s broken>
Maybe that’s what the crash is for.
How would it feel to have a hole through one’s middle?
But there are always those few, special, lucky windows;
They look out over a peaceful countryside
Or sparkling, sunny waters
Or cloudlessly blue skies.
Not streets full of pollution, misery, greed
Poverty, homelessness, helpless,
Prejudice, suffering, chaotic, infernal,
Religious, lunatic, morbidness, rape,
And other acts of intolerable crime.
They are very thin partitions…
Seadreamer
Posted: March 11, 1987 in PoetryTags: Captain, Child, Dream, Green, Hero, Imagination, Lightning, Love, Maiden, Ocean, Sea, Ship, Sky, Tears, Water
A little kid sits in a corner with a dunce cap on his head
He’s being punished for something someone else has done and said.
A single tear runs down his cheek, yet he still shows no emotion
For his mind has carried him away to a deep blue boundless ocean.
A captain and his trusty ship, he sails with imagination
Outside the world is stark and harsh as compared with his creation.
By wondrous people in wondrous ports, he’s beckoned to the shore
But landing his ship realizes a goal, and his fantasy will be no more.
So he sails along, taunted by faces that he has never seen
Past vibrant cities, rural towns, and verdant hills of green.
Impassive at the prow, wind in his hair, and sea salt on his tongue
His is the story of a Seadreamer, a tale of a hero unsung.
Stoicly standing, resisting temptation present in every stream
The captain knows the fragile state of his precious dream.
Also in this world is a pretty maid who can never touch the sea.
A similar fate as the captain has vice versa curses she.
Gleaming water, teasing depths, voices within the surf.
But as the captain, the maid is strong, and strives to show her worth.
The Seadreamer sailed across the sea until it met the sky
And there on lonely island was the young maid, rather shy.
Yet Cupid’s arrows impaled them both and turned their hearts to love
Blind inspiration struck each one like lightning from above.
The captain turned his ship to shore and the maid ran down to meet him
In their haste they each forgot they’d end each others dreams.
But love overcomes all obstacles, for now and ever more
The maiden’s foot touched the ocean as the captain’s hit the shore.
Though their dreams were disrupted, it came to no great harm,
For the captain sitting in the corner awoke with the maiden in his arms.
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