It Was a DreamIt was a dream, she thought.
Pungent smells and bovine masses argued with crowds of people in kaleidoscope slashes. She was overwhelmed. It was where, India? Perhaps New York on one of those parades requiring large animals with multiple stomachs. New Orleans with streakers sporting gimcrack beads in purple and green. Her head turned, gaze meeting an adam’s apple on the verge of ululation; the face lost in glaring sun, jealous and chary of detail. She lost sight before the piercing wail hit her ear, ringing growing anger, fucking rage although the cow ox gnu yakking on the burning kismet swallowed even that. She thought perhaps her dreams grew too audacious for her nights, given an inch or mile. Whatever length allotted to the penetrating depths deaths dearths of days lost to waking rem inding of where she’d never been. |
Rainyou can smell the rain fall here
long before it hits the ground burnt dust and heat grumbles in tumbled gusts crisp leaves skitter in rusty scratches across the sidewalk saying the rain comescomes the rain it comes. they land in the pool. worse yet the sauna to reconstitute like bay in a soup of chlorine and oleander so the chemist comes in a rueful murmur of alkali saying the rain drumsdrums the rain it drums and the water drops on a good day, hit the ground before they vanish in a genial puff of steam. on the roof it drums the air sticky in delight saying the rain humshums the rain it hums we swim through the wind to the porch and pull back the door like a shower curtain singing with the thrum then it stops. save for the brew in the pool, you wonder if there is rain in the desert at all. |
Song WordsIf I knew myself
what could I do? If I could hear my voice under the silence all around me Would I reach out past this limping faded day. If I only, only knew. If I could feel scorn would it flense my frozen feelings? I wasn’t torn And tattered in my soul? could I fly up through those acid clouds again? If I wasn’t so forlorn? I’m tired of this fighting with the inside of my mind. I’m tripping over thoughts and always flailing through my time with all the people that I love who now have left me far behind I wonder if I’m nothing but a fool. If I knew the words with the power to redeem me If I turned the key of this cell of thought and fear Would I leave this maze and walk out scared and free? If I only, only knew. |
Cooking a PoemI thought I’d cook up a poem today, but my bag of words
broke before the kettle and skittered across the floor; bouncing off the moldings and sliding under the fridge. Well, crap. No quiet clack of pintos or lentils here. They hurt my feet with sharp lego consonants and a slip of marbled vowels. All I can do is gather them up, peppered with cat hair, dirt, and a mixed metaphor. I guess the bottom of my mind could use sweeping. No pottage for me tonight - just a carton of intellectual take-out, and a secret love of dust bunnies |
What a Strange Sort of Scalpel That WasWhat a strange sort of scalpel that was.
Three words, four syllables, “Maybe we should.” The little snap might have been only behind my ears, so I didn’t realize ‘til later that I was waving a stump. You would think that the answer to “If I didn’t love you, I would have left already,” might have carved out my heart; or liver, or tripes. Something a little more romantic, or clichéd. Anything but this prosaic, fumbled, one handed clutch for my dropped feelings. And really, I’m doing quite well. Sleeping at night, cheerful at work- but I think I know now why people absently chafe where they are amputated. |
Brown MemoryBrown is the colour of memory
from the sepia toned photos hanging on the halls of my head pumpkin spiced thanksgivings cool wood floors amber beads on soft wrinkled necks sandlewood scent and sand itself jangling in wind chime moments tinting everything I see the cinnamon skin from summer’s tan the deep loam in the garden, same temperature as the warm brown hands cupping it having set aside the light bamboo tools the leather creased with use and oil spotted below the dusty armor I lie on the boards of my grandmother’s house and walk the parade of time looking up and behind Toku’s picture seems upside down with its domed glass and serious face three or four generations wasn’t it? my grandmother’s grandmother with the strong eyes and tired hands faced the kenpo mask across the butsadan even now, I look at my jewelry and see chocolate tones coconut beads, tortoise shell bracelets and combs and flecked pine resin trapping time itself it’s not that other colours aren’t seen it’s that the mind’s mud is too deep. |
Your Windows to the WorldYour windows to the world
are one way glass thickly framed with lashes, reflections demure and shadowed returning only what is wanted, expected, secure. It is safe to be fenced by silicon. It keeps out heat, and rain tears on cool, flat panes- unable to leak in or touch with storm. Each moment with you and I’m still alone. The heavy lidding caps all desire to pierce the mystery. One move. One step. One solitary waltz with myself with you in my arms. If I pull away, will you realize that you should have put it in mirror side out? |