I smoke a fallen leaf and eat sunshine
I inhale river’s water
the frozen breaking is this pretty sound
delicate leaves shimmering in wind filled houses
do you know the sound of the falling tree shattering?
the crashing of icebergs coming undone?
the crystal cracking of my heart at your silence?
can you hear it?
are you there?
the left town
ground open
everything high
everywhere song scattering morning
silence crawling warm from the day
bricks listen to crickets
pavements sleep
grass touches the hanging east
forgetting the birds and insects
the light startles nothing
is reincarnation too heavy for the insect population?
creeping about the blue and green mudball–
bumbling murmurs, attracting
ingesting etchmarks into leaves and bark–
it all goes soil,
it all goes life–
this is incarnate,
this is earthy grown brown life,
liquid life,
winged life hanging in the sun
suspended in frozen air
with barking dogs beneath
just speaking
ROUGH—here I am
and ROUGH ROUGH—I am here too
is that fire?
–it’s probably just lights with trees and things between us
I feel it too much,
the dark shapes of hills on the horizon.
and what I thought was a blinking light was
a single bulb steadily shining through boxcars
what to write when you sit at the world’s end,
feet dangling over the sickly abyss?
I wanted to write poetry
strange when you don’t know yourself, when you change from one year to the next, one day to the next. I change with the people I’m with, with the time of day, with the weather;
much of my life has passed in a fantasy of rehearsal
I will whisper deeply
beard grown red from Oklahoma soil
we should go in together
twist it out of life
pull it from the air–
the beauty,
even sick I can smell it
drink it from bottles and jars and reservoirs
be orange and brown
be of the earth
sink into its recomposing structures
push my hands through the wet grass
elbow deep in soil and push my head through
climbing down until I find the heat in the hillside
the gravity’s center
the grass flicks about the cutting machine
zzzzipzipzipzipzipzipzip
everything pops slick with confetti
where are the thousands of colored kites pulling wildly,
ducking and weaving, occasionally dive-bombing? where
are all the smelly girls? where do they get their magical scents?
Should I take to wearing fragrant oils?
to what extent can I trick out the size of life?
how many movies watch, candles burn, sunsets take in?
how many hours beach?
facing Helios, reading,
the black letters turn red
drop into a pile, stand up and march away,
leaving the page yellow and blank
the sun is dripping slowly out of existence
almost no one can question this
the imprecise order of these words,
bouncing around, landing and sticking here and there
shaking a giant box full of millions of little colored worlds
billions of silly thoughts competing—or sometimes just lazing around,
up in the ether, refusing to play with us
“fuck off,” they say, one to another, quickly locating and ordering the letters
to compose the two little words above the clouds,
“fuck it, we don’t need them…”sniffing down at humanity,
the ellipses called from beyond the sky, summoned up from the freshman theses
words buzz like television signals, like white noise,
like refrigerators and sunbeams through livingroom-window fuzz
shocking all over everything
running from mustached crew-cut cops in clunky outfits, bulky vehicles,
styrofoam brains and beady little hearts
–do you know how fast you were going?
–too fast?
aching with words
shadow-boxing them into shape
ciphered and tunneled at an alarming rate
heavy breathing them into numbed acquiescence
sexing them into our world and abusing them into advertising and propaganda
senseless, coagulated, bludgeoned by speechwriters
tromboning easychairs, frayed heavy blankets and wornout train whistles
empty superheroes growing more and more absurd
cylindrical forces hurricaning human speech upwards
hurled out of control
spiraling at stupid firework angles
the small fear of opening a can of biscuits
of popping party balloons after the party is ended
of sudden telephone rings
each word is a hue
whirligigs and flying machines
violins and frisbees
xylophones and fireflies
we speak in perfect pitch
the palette enormous
gymnastics and hieroglyphics
and whatever those sounds are when you dampen the guitar
I’ve spent my nights listening to music
searching for your voice amongst theirs
we could find everything
we can make wishes out of colored paper
pink and red and green
folding shapes and flight
to be lifted of my pride
all mine
to sip and create and organize the heart’s call
subdivide the language divisions
release the ego and submit to Christ
to feel his delight
to fall in love with trees in bloom
to appreciate even the tenement housing
their colors red and orange and brown
against the rain sky
to be loosened and to rub my wrists where the ropes were tightest
joy tickles my arches,
my feet shine with it,
the power—
a cold tap running my body
the sexual ache of life with Christ,
sweet with death’s defeat
I wake up anywhere and need you
I eat music from the air
pull the vocals out of the song and join them with my spine
listen and stare into the floor and touch my lips with my fingertips
I hold heaven inside of me.
it’s so heavy
bless this concrete and dust!
bless the man on the roof! (paint roller in hand)
bless the birds that land about him!
bless in earnest this humanity,
steaming vegetables on the evening stove of childhood Houston where we’ve all lived a stretch,
full faced and beautiful,
city under rain
the blood and glory of the day
the stain upon the dish
the children who cannot look but see
the whole globe of existence is lighted in the sky today
it’s all right there
the clouds pouring forth speech
stupidly true
the language of creation
of beauty
of beauty
always everything of beauty forever
the WHOLE SKY is moving
everything filters and floats into dusk
all your past
ashes in the sky
memories of faces turned snowstorm
white swirling above streetlamps
here is a sweetheart
there a turnabout
here the love of Jesus Christ
here, there and everywhere
name your colors, dear
do you know what waterfalls look like?
serpents and television and spirit
driving and a girl crossing a bridge above me
curly brown hairs me into believing
summer evenings spent twilight driving
I can see through the moon
the empty space against the crescent
the atmosphere we take as space
darkness and stagelights
the spot from above the table daybright
patterns ebbing off my spine
stars strapped to our backs
polishing solid oak stairsteps
carrying a spoonful of moonlight
carefully spilling none
taking this gift to you
through the trees at night
the swirling branches of childhood
the smells of falling trees wet after rain and wind
like some giant Am tuner seeking out channels and missing is the thunder from the sky
the leaves flick down in showers
flashing candles tumbling
I want grandkids
how suburban, how wild
I want to go and weep in the creek
children stomping through the sunlit water
butterflies playing amongst tiny ripples and the rocky bank
a bird flies into my head, chirping
lying rapt in green I see frisbee’s red flash
across the clouded kingdom
I find it on every side
the bird shaking the branch
the bees turning on their wings
some foreign city where the music has puts you
one alphabet after another
in Manhattan, walking the puddled night
into your first apartment, smokes,
some room—a cave,
a headphoned universe,
let’s find the darkness
steal into it, oblivion:
the mood keeps coming up, whatever it is
take the music like medicine
glimpses of children, of grace
give away your kittens in the box or they will consume you
start the fountains, spring is here,
is here is spring
go smoke butterfly wings
this place is stardust and colored stones and
aspen trees and little white ghosts
this place is sudden smoke in the sky
suddenly gone.
these streets are silver pavement breaking eggs
giant eyes and sideways bending
there is a fire in every fireplace
and a fireman in every room
and it never gets smoky and it always rains
this is the end of wobbly chairs and spilling tables
ringed with coffee colors
here is everything lovely
angel breath and books of verse
teapots brewing flowering vines
tiny little princess in tye-dyed shirt and flowing curls
red and blonde and wonderfaced
you see it shines
radiates
a lovely lone spiraling dancer–
the universe inside her hair,
creation machine inside one ear, and in the other:
Armageddon
elaborate and sparkling in her only antiquated dress,
light upon her flashing feet,
platforms clicking on the warm wooden oiled stage
she breaks out the piano and plays it lovingly
lovingly I sit and listen
and below the basement carpenter
pulling wet cut wood milled fine, sawdusted in
shovelfuls, sweated in eyelash specks,
he heats the coils, slices corrections,
pulls the old box and stool through the floor,
inking her green stained eyes:
this is loving,
this is how it works
I was breathing the ecstasy of creation,
live music, thematic or chronological editing, collecting
this was me you people, this was my
life and lifeblood, these were the seasons and the building
blocks and the builders in their hardhats
remember to remember
the days and the shapes and the shades,
the kiss on the side of your head
feel every spark of life and every ember die and the dark–
how it felt on your face, looking into it and writing out
from it with coffee and cigarettes on your front stoop
my God you were sad and lovely–
and suddenly lazy,
music speaks through the screen door out into the summer eve
and the scent of growing things makes you shake
–a voice like a violin
–some scattered raindrops at sunset
–the bliss at turning older
everything filters through the halo of creation
forget remembering, life keeps moving
go in and be beautiful
we smelled deep atmospheric baklava dark in the sky and
wished we had our own to create and
so bought paints and chased our rich ethnicities
beneath smiling stars dripping sweetly
we fill alabaster jars with perfume
we toss small children into the air and catch them
see them at the tops of their arcs
fill the walls with flowers and clear the floors for dancing girls
their flutes blowing coolly
I will now front handspring across the mountains
goodbye
