ecstasy

I would let go
but for the colour.
still,

I like to sneak to the edge
and dig my fingernails into stone
and ponder
the relief of falling
the ecstasy in shattering bones, the
liberation of seeping blood. but

when I crawl back
it is for the shade
of your tears.

budding

a ciphered breeze radiates
chilled fingers to
flicker over my skin and
keep sleep a dream.under the old quilt I imagine
you, I
crawl inside your likeness
and rebut today's rain,
the maple's goosebumped branches,
my pale hands.
reject robins ravening of
drunken worms, to

deny me, to
construct another.

a poet's epilogue

will it matter that I knew you?

that I notice light spinning
off maple keys

thrown from their canopy

to die under bicycle tires

pushed by gangly boys?

will I place my heart more carefully

after I watch leaves painting

small strokes of sunlight

freed from purple skies

and indolent raindrops?

did the words have meaning

when the waves wiped sand

from my feet

and left smooth stones

for my fingers?

and in the end
will I matter?

Dear Poetry

I will break again.
outside locked doors
inside the rain;

I am not enough
to stand,
to touch the shattered drop.

I cannot awake.
Morpheus bound me
in his embrace.

I do break.
shards of glass bled
colourless by rain.

I am not enough
to eat my pain,
chew brittle glass
kiss her anger.

I do not get away.

I will die again;
be reborn in blackness
of my darkest cave.

I may awake
alone, in Gaia’s womb
entombed, unknown.

I will not flay my
flesh in words;
fall through myself
to make amends

again.

unforgiven

who do I imagine I am?

breath?

thought?

in a place

where ten year old

bulldozers tear down

one hundred year old trees

in this place where

house sized wood chippers

vomit green onto

clear cut ground

bare foot in the grass

the rain will not

baptize me

my finger waits

for the drop that

could forgive me.

concupiscence

The lavender garden is sharp dry sticks. The half withered lilac bush hangs on like a stroke victim, small white flowers facing away from its dead side. In front, an entire clump of golden ground cover, eaten alive. The herbivores moving on to tasty nettle flowers and deep blue hostas.

The thistles are thriving. Feeding birds all winter, has afforded me this reward.

I sit under my willow’s weeping, and look to its stunted branches for emotions appropriate for the dead and dying. Are they waiting under heavy clay soil to emerge with cicadas? Will I recall my love in the arrival of their ravenous droning?

Perhaps.

All are dead, or will die from my neglect. If you want to be poetic, will die from my breakdown, my second bottom, my passions' burial, from life and hope too afraid to wake up.

But my today is not for poetry.

Today I stand in thistles. Last summer, I brushed past lavender for the perfumed caress it left on me. I regard the desiccated bed before my re-immersion in barren slumber.

Moment of Silence

Well it's happened - I'm published.... go figure.

starved rock

I am drifting mist shrouding sacred souls condensing cool on rounded rocks, a blanket for embracing moss hazy fingers who in grasping for the twisted trees plummet instead to churning waters merging my sorrows' songs with loons’ soft and haunting melodies I am the dying shattered tree my red heart laid open, my decay - now marrow for our mother earth the musky redolence in damp disintegrating leaves, my grave - a witness forever to the silhouettes of passing lives I am footfalls barely heard between heartbeats - felt scarcely behind you on the leaf-strewn path dancing in the mist of a waterfall who carved my stone face within each teardrop I am all of these I am the questions you dare not ask your face - that you do not see I am your dead I am forever. Dedicated to: The Illinois. Seeking revenge for a tribal murder the Potawatomi paddled down river to attack the Illinois. The Illinois sought refuge on top of a high rock. They climbed up to the summit of the rock hoping that the Potawatomi would by-pass them on their way southward. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and the Potawatomi surrounded the base. As the Illinois tried to get water by lowering buckets with rope the Potawatomi would cut the ropes or shatter the buckets with their arrows. They also climbed up on top of Devil's Nose and showered them with arrows. As the Illinois grew more desperate, some tried sneaking down, but they were murdered. The rest that were left on top, starved. Since then, the rock has been known as "Starved Rock."

universally speaking

I am nothing

more than words;

(composed in marrow)

meaningless
shapes on
dry pages

every thought
is a prayer

for heaven?
for hell?
I don't know.

engulfed in
unutterable answers

I make love
to darkness

are you more precious
because of your
dying?

- picking, eating, dead flesh
with your iced fingers -

or still precious in spite of it?

do hearts explode
with grief,
or do they hide,
again?

again. and again. and, again.

a man will bury himself
alive,
(I've watched. holding his shovel)
(again)

do you notice
mother earth's dark womb
engulfing you again?

I hate these words.

I hate my words.
again.

I hate.
I hate loving you
again.

I
3am

there is someone
in here
dying

it's 3am, and I
need to hear
sunlight

you, obviously
hours wealthier,
step off into
your life

the blackness between
your words
will not hold time

curled
within it - I
listen for breathing.

II
continuum

inside

I waited for rules
to change

-time is dripping somewhere in a cave-

(Do Not drink the
black drops)

love?
you were in love with it

(it tasted of quinine
dipped in too much sugar)

III
space

a heart holds
enough blood to
flow
evenly across
a kitchen table

before turning
black

(you never wrote this down)

in the space beside speech
you can
hold smooth
cold stones

collected, I
wear them in a sac
around my neck

they weigh the same as time.

IV
patterns of engagement

number one
embrace bleeding

learn to love
sticky sweetness

this is how snow
feels to a daffodil
french kissing
cold with hot

fuck this.

blood in snow feels
beautiful

the velvet of black
roses
is absolutely edible.

V
infinity

metaphorically speaking

my murder will
be misunderstood

it will be enough to say
it's hour
was infinite

like the taste of
chocolate
kissed from your tongue
in solitude.

From Ear to Quaternity
(a Ruthless and Toothless Production)

by Leanne Handson
(fabulous poet - and not just because she wrote this)
author of "Odd Verse Effects"


Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Mistress of misery, goddess of gore
Lady of leg humping fantasies blue
Driving us mad with foot flat on the floor

If you’re disturbed (perhaps sick to the core)
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Read and prepare to be struck down with awe
(Some say it feels like a dose of the flu)

If you’ve a parrot to spare (maybe two)
Drop by the Bulldog for cheeses galore
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Pay your respects to the nut we adore

Nearly the end now, there’s just one verse more
Then you can go back to peanuts and brew
Make sure you’ve done what I got you here for:
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh




Never, get too friendly with a poet....

not to touch
I read Neruda with you
in a dream that was
worthy of your untamed mouth,
your heavy eyes, they
hold the deep night's velvet
your roughened hands, impossible
not to touch

I woke with you
my eyelids
draped by May’s first dew, then
opened to cold solitude
an emptiness caressed
by dawn’s orange fingers
your touch fleeing on chaste butterfly wings

my love, a transparent child,
cries soft round tears
that float up and leave my
tender kisses in the
pure whiteness of clouds.

confession

and when first I loved

you, I was my other self,

whose surface love gripped, and
clung in fear

with dreadful fingernails.

when first I tried

new love.

layers have peeled;

of love, of scorn,

and fresher passions,
flayed from

fragile skin.

nerves lay alive on

frail new membranes, alert to

desire’s precise pain.

trembling, I stand alone
becoming stronger;
virgin flesh
still unprotected.

my hidden love,
my fierce passion
for you, bound loosely
deep within myself.
I swallow back and
gag on my bile stained
remorseful confessions.

you are

my unremitting bedrock

worth capricious joy;

essential still,

for each heart beat,

and my every
single breath.

the strongest of the strange

you wont see them often
for wherever the crowds are
they
are not.

these odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few

good books

and other
works.

and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.

they are
their own
paintings
their own
books
their own
music
their own
work.

sometimes i think
i see
them- say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way

or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing
automobile

or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag-boy or a bag-
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.

sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time-
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.

sometimes
you will only note
their
existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.

i remember
such a
one-
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.
staring into
a cracked
new orleans
mirror

face dreaming
against the
walls of
the world

where
did i
go?

-charles bukowski.

THE HUSK OF YOUR VOICE

By David Whyte

The husk of your voice
is like a chrysalis
grown round something
hidden,
waiting to be born
and waiting for you
to stop.

What is inside
wants to know itself fully
before it is born.
That's why it refuses
to reveal itself,
sure as you are
that you need not slip down
that long branch of your body
to the very root
and in the earth of your body
near the damp echo
of everything
you have not touched
reflected in your voice, and the air
suddenly quicken
as if innocent speech
could rise again
from that rich and
impossible soil
composed of your neglected past.
Like sap rising
in the steady tree
of your courageous life.
Your voice opens

and shows
the strong outline
of that tree
against the sky,
where another
shadow
takes flight
startled by your
new cry,

the shadow
of something leaving
to find its own way
in the world.

Something you carried
as a black weight
for many years.
You watch it go

relieved
as if it might return
blessed by a world
which
allows its going,
refusing to be held
and refusing to hold
you again,
free and finally
in its flight
to another's mouth
untroubled by your breath.

Mount Gabriel

by Peter Dunne

The sheep keep their horns up here,
Unlikely cattle graze the crevices.
Every cloud is a mouth in the rock,
Ravening caverns crab across the face,
Searching out souls; swallowing a herd
Of black cattle, an acre of stone:
Finding no sustenance, disgorge them.
They reach for heaven, these heights; they speak of hell.
Fire licks at the gates, and they are wax,
Drip feeding the inferno's cold flame.

A stark ascetic place, a dark acidic place,
A bitter, barren place, yet men build fences here.
The ancients scratched the surface for tin,
Mad hermits glowered at valleys of sin,
And they built their fences. Heaven and hell
Played mischief in their hearts
While earth laughed at her captives.

Gabriel grumbles on ascent. Crossing the top of his
Great turtle back he drenches me with
Spluttering guffaws, throws me an incongruous
View. Out of dark lowering, eons of days and nights
Battle and dance on valley and sea. It sucks at my breath
And earth implodes in my breast.
Too much to know, to see, to bear.
I glide down to the valley, landing among
The stone walls and hedges of familiar fields
And my exhilaration is without bounds.

Yo no soy yo by Juana Ramon Jimenez

Yo no soy yo
Soy el que marcha a mi lado
y a quien no veo
Al que visito algunas veces
y olvido otras
El que me perdona
cuando como golosinas
El que anda en la naturaleza
cuando yo estoy en el interior
El que permanece silencioso
cuando yo hablo
El que permanecera en pie
cuando yo muera

translation #1

I AM NOT I

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

translation #2 by piktor (thank you)

I am not myself.
I am this,
that travels next to me without notice;
whom I visit sometimes,
and, sometimes, I forget.
Whom, quietly, silences when I speak,
who grants blithe pardon, while I hate,
that wanders into where I'm not,
who will still stand when I die.

spider haiku

struggling spider's
fine weave, defies elements
to watch, happiness.