Small Solstice Stone

opening my window more

this season as we come

through

i see again the light in

yours i always mistake for the

moon

For Mollie

for mollie…

(field notes on a journey of integration)

 

 

 

yes i have abused.

looking

for something to in gest   that    doesn’t     just

kill the pain

but replaces it

with        MANIA!        infatuated frenzy being loudly laughing

high        bursting          with every emotion at once and selling

the empty drum           to the lowest bidder

combing the flea market

inside

a poem

my body

some memories

a friend

day two         i’d be a new person

victim

of the old and it always took some reorganizing but

at length                                i could    identify with both

without                          ever                                really meeting either

discolored   pain   rusting   suspension   beams   teetering

over the commerce center below   the climate   change

separated   by logistic leaps   and defiant dungeons

circling   hamsters on a weight     loss       wheel

as it became

less and less

necessary to pretend

we couldn’t

see            the bridge

 

 

 

Muses (Moan)

Landing                                                               Soundly

letting slip through open-palmed

treefingers d’habitude

the usual planning, pre-trial tainting

rigging

of hidden machinations keeping

the artist

hungry, disoriented,

lost & bound, gagged

& stuffed with the endless down

of barely scraping by    under radar:

(moan with me now:    Low)

Muses

centuries of wildfire and we been bargaining

for flint

Muses

endings dropped like cosmic debris

and we been spanging    oil junkies    just

to begin

Muses

the hand    of the easy one    to see

reaches out      from all     everyone

already knows

of   it

to land soundly

silent

where ashes dance    beneath

what & who & how

one has not been    yet

(moan with me now)

Muses

(sound    landing.)

… til you make it

after a dearth of posting, this healing poem raised its head from the piles of letters from the past, looked me in the eyes, and said “yes, please.”

circling….

 

“fake it til you make it”

i’ve been pretending for so long,

so long, so long                                                         that i am good with sex

that my sex u al it y is totally fine and complete     and i am ready for whatever

does or does not

come                                                            along                                                                   but

this is a dirty lie                                shamed together with the sticky notes of a pop song

this culture sings in order                                 to avoid the subjects    of vulnerability            fear

excitement                                           thirst and mortality       and yes

i am a part                                                                                             of the culture

so i sing                                   the blues          loud and clear              instead of asking you

if you feel                                  this intense     pull                  that i keep        on feeling

for you.

 

to tell you the truth                              i want to just look        at your face while you draw

if that’s okay.                                      maybe we can              draw                 each other                       until

silence opens us up.

 

i don’t know what        sexuality          ever

did to this culture to warrant                                      such fearful crazed bravado all the time, but it

must have been enough to fill              centuries with the maniacal clawing

of shame-demons                                            lynching witches by the thousands

and                                          lying                            through the lines of king’s bibles and                                         peddling                            peanuts             to the traffic

so now                                     it seems                        when i’m trying                       to come clean

i find angry ghosts swarming               the temples                  and i must first attend

their services                            before nightfall                                    even this late in the day

because “fake it         til you make           it”    does not                  apply to sex.

 

must be

terrible

to act like you’re okay all the time

and know         really know      silently and surely and shadowy                      that you’re faking it.

yes, this is a new day. the moon is in cancer, rightly so, waning away both to and from an open heart.

so this is what it feels like to actually be just fine… there is a place that does not want to forget how hard how hard how impossibly hard it was when things looked like hatred and victimhood all around… when i needed to see life from inside of something that was killing me. what is going on then.. when we need to see life from inside of something that is killing us? that line, that line… when we need to see life from inside of something that is killing us…

 

the body, it is not only killing us but giving us life

 

and truly, probably, likely, it is doing neither

there is just this presence, like the stone, like the fire

which has reality from the perspective of what lives

notes from the bayou

hunter/gatherer
by the script, one can often tell whether or not (and to what degree) the writer was intoxicated with the subject of written examination.
according to my pages of late, i’ve been simply stone-tanked on doubt, self-deprecation, and defeat. (Editorial Pipe-up: people like defeat! they do! rooting for underdogs and all…) right. so. as they say at the ole landmark, if it’s working for ya, keep it up!
trouble is, my version of “working for ya” has me sniveling like a wet weasel around “real” artists and dollar bills.. it has me creeping from a quiet vantage point down the block from my passions, mowing the lawn twice a day just to keep an eye out… it has me inwardly folding and silently caterwauling from some far-cobwebbed opera beam.. it has me heading to the welfare office for more assistance every day i put my own legs through the saw mill and stumble a righteous walk of shame toward a handout i hate and don’t need… (Ed. Note: yo, i don’t actually feel this way about gov’t assistance programs. obv.)
help comes wearing sunglasses and a bullshit-free kind of kindness drops a name and number (sees me in my squat and waves and moves on) without the heroics of pity (nor of euphoria)
and i’m back at the window again, spying dutifully on my own life, noting carefully (with a pharmaceutical blend of ardor and disgust) that i am bound–BOUND!–to entrance exotic gatherers, to enchant hunters of passion and purpose, then Venus-fly-trap the lot of ’em, if i insist on ignoring the exigence of my heart’s desire.
get up and move, bird of paradise! you are not poorly-named flower (fuck!) but aptly-named winged thing, and you got some kinda mating dance to do here, so make for the clouds.
what are you making?
excuses, mostly. genius at it, i am. roadblocks pop up no one ever saw coming. (least of all me.) creating my own hell, of course, one foolish choice at a time. costumed to the nines, i can call in the suitors of epic love, minstrels of infatuation, fishers of fancy. i can sell myself like the treasure of a jade empress, loyal friend of puppeteers upon any bar, curb, or slat of open air. but to actually share honest longings of this heart? really? fuck.
it’s all bravado.
my bravado could fuck yer brains out, should we allow it to come to that.
let’s please not let it come to that.
pigeons like bats, hell.
sky is bigger than my narrow, chromeless perception.
every molecule: rainbow.
sitting under the only spot of rain for miles, don’t care a lick that it’s fake.
Tales of the Gnarled and Impossible: a romance novel.
this here’s my life. been so long a gatherer i’ve forgotten how to hunt. and it’s come to this: a box of mac-n-cheeze over the living tremors of facing the wild, unadorned and alone.
by the script, one can often tell whether or not (and to what degree) the writer was intoxicated with the subject of written examination.
(a note from the Hunter: best to sober up before using your spear.)

the tower

this is how

too much feels

                     some soft carousel’s too-sweet sounds

                     tracking a madness

                     dripping with heavy

                     sinister mistaken trust betrayed laying

everything down

upon reflection

here

the useless game

                     spins nothing into better into gone

                     and there art violins its way

                     past gone past bedtime past winter

into

twilight’s call

to let us know

it’s running late again

                    and we’ve no leg to stand on so

                    crying can’t come with nausea

                    in its place and i

                    have no name left

any way

take me

back please can i

                   take it from the top and listen

                   more than enough this time never

                   take on too much above all

give

above all give all beings

                    space to allow

                    meaning to be

                    let

go

 

and the tower

recalling all those

hands up

winds its cylinders

combs its lamellae

they pray to Calliope

they dance to crumbling

no war for fire come down                     let

                    go

i’ve seen the face of god. and it laughs, mercilessly, mercifully long.

i am                 black widow

waiting in this              funnel

of my own                   strings

this softest       thing i’ve ever

known                         made

from the air                  between

my legs                        and the memory

of how                         my hourglass

turned                  bright red

 

and they say                i eat

my lovers                     and

never feel                    lonely

 

but listen          for that which keeps

us steady on                 tightrope toes

for there           is the tap-tap-tap

of colors          in their truest form

asking us                      to build

them                            a home

with                             or without

another soul                 ever

getting it                       ever

sleeping beneath          its canopy

ever                             dining upon

its cushion                               and i

have eyes                                 enough

to hear                         nature’s exigence

through every              last movement

of leaf              of wind and of limb

 

so do not                      ask if i am

lonely                          for my answer

you’d never                             see

but hold yourself                     steady

make gravity                            your friend

and dream                    dream-dream-dream

through                                    every night’s end

fucking for virginity

what (the fuck) is the big obsession with virgins?

honestly, i have this ringing in my ears from the 80s to the bible

from the willow weeping watching the young one choose the cottonwood

and sure, let’s broaden this one out this time this way we can try

to include all genders (or at least both) instead of just the one

with lewd eyes staring down the minnie mouse top waiting for it to sprout

because lawd knows when i said “virgins” y’all thought i meant girls

(we’ll get back to that)

back to where we are here, let’s see a show of hands:

how many of you remember the first time you had sex? good.

how many of you remember the last time you had sex? okay.

keep you hand up if the last time you had sex was the first time. yeah.

if your hand is not still up, the sex you had was all for show. no problem,

no judgment, i’ve certainly done it and done it, but it’s worse than blueballs

the act of sex that is anything but completely present to the mystery of

this moment right here that we’re sharing (see, let me know if it’s too much

because i receive from your being here willingly with me and this intimate

connection of my heart to this voice to this machine to the shared air waves to

your exquisite earshells to your open hearts the message that there is indeed

ample consent present for us to make love right here and now. so this is what

is happening. like this. let me know if it’s working for you and when it’s not,

i am totally willing to respect and respond, that’s part of why and how i’m here)

so. i mean it. if your hand came down because your last time was not your first

then you had some tired old sex for the sake of something you’ve been hiding

behind for fear of what you might lose if you came out. if your last time was not

your first time then you have whitewashed your fantasies and written crude

roman letters of instruction-manual requirements in place of your own sacred tongue

touching the word touching the Word of Creation which is, indeed, Beloved, how one can have a Virgin Birth

and i am

a born-again

virgin

every time we touch i touch you touch me we are whole unto ourselves, maiden, mother, crone, pan-sexual poly-amorous para-normal

burning

not unlike generations of Witches, bloodlines of hearts on fire knowing fire does not kill what is already

burning

and i am

as you must be

if we are to come

together:

brand new, never been here before, never been this person before nor seen nor known you never made up my mind about who you are nor what will happen next nor what this means nor will i nor do i lay claim to you nor your heart nor your actions nor your voice nor this gift we share nor this mystery of life nor to anything but my choice

and my choice

now

is to come

so exquisitely unbound

that we are

born again

naked

to ourselves

to our bones

to our souls

and to the world in which we lay our heads our thoughts of what is what and black and white and bullshit advertising toys of girls-vs-boys and cagey ploys of mickey mouse gendered crap of this and that and who the fuck we think we are to call one thing normal and another thing mad and the fads of masking constant sorrow with the cartoon certainty that faking power can make, with everything we think we know wrapped in wires round the stakes of every claim laid in flags waving to patria! to the dollar! to the bomb! barely scratching the surface of skin and earth and moon, to this all we give

now:

our next breath

of fire

of freedom

of power-to

burn

for the River from South to North

theatre therapy:

no one pretends
in New Orleans except in theatre
in the blues
in parades and cabarets and every corner
of the block
of wood
carving history
into our bones
imagining faces
into every circus curve of form
(the river she come down)
from sediment to head waters
one day they’ll find us
intertwined
between form and function
dot and line
in wire skeletons flanked with
clay
red
cedar
wood
cutting
River
who is
my home
and how
sometimes currents flow
South to North
and no use leashing it
if you’re just gonna pull
use your bloodhound blood
build your swimming skills
keep your feet wet
and let the North wind blow
breathe it in let it touch your navel cold where you’re still
afraid to let it flesh you out and see your glow let it
draw you down and let you
float let it open eyes let it tend your fires let it
warm your throat let it
move your heart
and send your art sailing South blessed within
bottles uncorked to delight the Beloved
hands of breaking
open hearts
of our tribe of stars let us
make and paint and celebrate disintegrating
patterns beneath the skin
of Inspiration’s
integration:

Medicine of Molière, live like your heart’s been given flame
and love past masks, love inside mirrors, love through the generous
costumes and colors of every stage
and, giving constant freedom to your mindspace, my friend, my adversary, my lover:
save the drama for the stage!

postscript for the headwaters:

oh Northern freeze, all our phenomenal drama is spent on the day-to-day!
let go of all things personal, aim your cannons for the stage!
throw down your arms, frozen shoulders and all, cry
a bird call for all things silenced and a roar
for all the gooseskin of violence
and open up your chest plates, oh tin men! give us
a better way to measure life than time
a nicer seat for pleasure and desire
and above all save your wolves from logic’s demise
put your ear to the river, shepherd
round your drama down
with the water down
from the mountain down
warm the earthbones down
to the holy treepulp page!
oh River:
here we live, here we change, here we save
in gravity’s name, our drama for the stage!

permission for madness

something in the comfort here gives a frenzying pace

which seems to require an array of insatiable uppers

just to maintain

decadence

a chime upon the wind

spiral of molasses thick round your

sound

catcher

dream

maker

gâteau

avec les goûtes des autres langues

in your mouth

song

dans le vent

peut-être je préfère goûter

le mot

more than the sugar

the word

plus que la sucre

 

(please don’t mistake the frenzy for the fire)

 

peut-être je préfère goûter

le mot more than the sugar

the word plus que la sucre

la bouche plus que la mouche

la bouche plus que la mouche

a wash with love

…in the charnel ground

unlocked for me in this was again and anew the loss of love i wish i had already roared my way out of, and raw as my throat has found me, it still has come floating back up to the surface, body all decayed off itself and wood so tossed about by salt water as to be made bone smooth, pisces of vices pulled two directions at once as easily as legs are pulled from shellfish yet held tight sticking prickly in the middle some barbed wireform skelton holding fast to its structure washing up with the rest, yes, this is what sinks it out of sight as well as what lifts it again and again with the livid waves, uncertain where center is but moving swiftly from it just the same, there: there is my sorrow, there is my desperate sadness, there is my busted-up wormholed skin of wrongedness and there, there is the ghost of my hunger with its eye sockets echoing music i’d missed since the first time and all this time i’ve been right here. and a question comes, innocently brave, naively morbid, wisely rooted in sane mortality, asking: can i… be with… this corpse… in love… giving love… making love… in the charnel ground?

 

let us not pretend to be somewhere, someone we’re not.