A wax-like substance having a brownish gray color and a sweet earthy scent, formed as a natural secretion in the bile duct of sperm whales, which is occasionally found floating in the sea or washed up on coasts around the Atlantic…and has long been used in perfumery. –Oxford English Dictionary
So many fragrances like this: sweet-earthy–
a synthetic musk. Ambergris itself
so rare, so instead: ambroxides
to replicate. The after-scent: metallic,
animalic, animal-derived. Resinoid.
Used as a fixitive against the wrist and
neck like the claws of jewelries.
Juliette has a gun, but I have a snuffer
uncapped. My base note: woodsy, the top:
Neroli and Sambac. I come back, saturated
like a pulse point, a piece of flesh
fragrant as ocean.
Formed Habit
Because it was prescribed
Because the flavor: goji berry
Because it’s available
Because I like the ritual
Because it is necessary for sleep
Because it is necessary for work
Because something warm in the morning
Because it’s been a decade
Because no one opposed me
Because I can’t oppose me
Details disturb, so I’ll donate this day
to a dozen dramas. Death
doesn’t disturb the doing done
by those drawn to duty.
Damage—deliberate, direct.
I’ll demonstrate
with departure, not dinner.
A door, not a dress.
Drawn to Denver, I’ll disappear, drift
down through the Dakotas,
dry dinosaur land. Dig
below daylight, defy detention.
Be my deputy. Be dust. Be dusk.
Doug, Dylan, Dexter, Diego?
Don’t disclose your name. Just drive.
(Source: All ‘d’ words were taken from the 4/5/2014 edition of The Herald-Times newspaper.)
Will doesn’t matter. My heart,
my heart is aching, and hunger
does not show mercy. Cover, cover,
throw sand on flame. Pins and needles
like permanent numbness. I’m a fool,
I’m a fool, and I dream reel-to-reel. Closed
in a field of red, waist-high flowers. The siren
no longer sacred. Don’t mistake sky for smoke,
what falls for coincidence. Resemblance
curls back on itself with a snick, in shock.
Not in Portland
And all the nerves came zippered loose.
Pass through. Turn a stitch, see it
burn. Light me up. If you touch me.
The clearing : quiet : weaving : a tunnel.
I know the timing is horrible. And you don’t
know what to do. See it coming. Flowers,
keys, coins, the moon. Everything changes.
We cause our own suffering. Whatever
you think I am, I want. And you said the fear
was so real. And then it was just gone.
Flashes Before Your Eyes
You say you to me. You. I remember you.
This swallow worth more than grace.
My pleasure : your permission. This – today.
Flat gesture, crowning sign. This – – and then I
– and then I –. Are you okay? Are you nauseous?
Are you awestruck? – th – th – this happened
today. Oh : oh. And then I came down –
and I and I – . Love, look at me. Until you’re
forced to turn. Take off your coat.
Throw the ring into the river.
The problem’s not the golf cart but the carnage
beyond the fairway where rumors have
tall grass greener for concealing
the fleet buckings of ham-
fisted troubadours strumming
a second-hand six-string & singing
of a great chain’s careening into ravines
like parkour from valance to sash, balance ball
to yoga mat. At the singles’ mixer, the pianist bangs
the secret chord & caddies adjourn to pickleball
courts before members can offer sacrifice :
last night was rum-crusted togas,
was poppers &
breath play & branding irons' scorch,
all of it (the contortions, the restraints,
the serrated blades) just a matter of course.
We can’t fix all that we’ve ruined, so can we back off now and let it resettle?
It’s easy to imagine so.
I am a wild boar and a coward.
I clean up.
I lose you.
I keep losing and refinding my bag.
I keep repacking it.
I keep forgetting it.
I carry it awkwardly.
Yay, for ongoing projects!
Fix
Today is not a morning person.
But “It’s a good day,” says the friendly boy.
Later I get a sad text from you.
Our differences, two triangles.
I go for food and come back.
I march into the building and inquire about employment.
What you don’t want mentioned, I don’t mention.
Well enough we love it being meaningless.
There really is a zero between a positive one and a negative one.
The woman says my poem is stupid.
Hard physical labor might fix it.
Finally
We are tiny flyers.
We carry our wings tucked under our shirts.
We have a high degree of depth perception of the things happening in
familiar landscapes below.
The world knows it’s in decline.
It’s the funnel effect.
Loneliness is sizeless.
I can barely see you through the architectual fragments.
I can hardly make out your urgent hands.
Let’s agree talking about it doesn’t touch it.
Don’t worry about worrying me, but let me worry about worrying you.
You suffer the nothingness.
I make a list because what else can I do?
I’m coasting.
There are no parties.
I draw on the floor and walk on it.
You put a thumbs up on my animal heart which opens and says, “Finally.”
October 1941
Moy Dorogoy,
I can’t see the trees or the leaves – I know it’s autumn by the smell. The air is sharp. As Akhmatova wrote, “I drink to our ruined house.” But there is no drink here. Sometimes your father sneaks a small canteen of water not marred by piss and waste. I never knew the tongue could ache as it does for a crust of bread. Have you heard the birds migrating earlier this year? They screech at midnight. Why are the birds awake? What has happened to this world?! Your father tells me I must be dreaming about the birds. But I only dream of that night we left the university and decided to go for a late-night swim. The water almost arctic and yet, we dove in. Fearless, you called me. You held me. We laughed. What does your laugh sound like? I’ve forgotten the tenor of your voice. I promise to drink to our loneliness together. I know we don’t toast with water, it is bad luck – but I’ll toast with my laughter, though raw as my throat is, listen for the silent bells that are my vocal cords.
Ya tebya lyublyu,
I
tender the kisses
in exchange
for fair trade
high-alert
time away
barter the soft
shallow lip
push your tongue
under like water
below bridge
drift the shipment
docks emptying
the waterways
no longer
neutral
Enviable Path
feather lash
birds bath
all eyes incorporated
taxing a yes-person
enthusiastic widow
at a funeral for clean
living
toxins united
a coupon code for a beaded thread
tugged at the edges
the strings unfurled
into a heaping mound of yarn
sweater begotten
Trust It
I make grass
in the sand stand on all ends
I clean the butcher block
sandpaper it then lie down on it
I split off from the havoc that’s wrecking the world
a climate exceeding its proportions
overdosing on us
I rose
despite the massacres
to find the sea between my knees
kombucha on day one
sore legs in the open air
leave the writing where you made it
(a fantastic move)
there’s a day without its corresponding
number
back on the horse
(in which the horse is on fire)
the sparkle goes
& the writing goes through it
or alongside
same knot different gut
same venue different words
(plus owl)
sitting in the skeleton of the lost cafe
face to the sun
lap of words
& then someone else’s table
w/ liquids & more words
(swear on the full page)
it’s a rough life
but an excellent hair day
it’s a personal apocalypse
(practice for the communal one)
wordplay with curry
(feeling fizzy)
one curl meets another
please just come over 03.01.2017-03.15.2017
supreme beast bends the morning light to full woo
saved you a seat at the community table with
sunday feet stored underneath
morning light is taking over & under
splotched sight for the wicked attending the state of the heart
massive hair trying hard to be here
these are information-induced hives
this is the mouth of hell blowing you a kiss
& licking your emotional skinned knees
blood is a dead end even if you’re curious
something something
something else
there’s a goat in the art room
there’s a trail of strings for crying in public
there’s sugar on my bacon by the edge-of-notebook coffee stain
we owe you letters
we carry you around, tenderly
we held hands and in our hands we walked down an ornate staircase
draped in stars
& down a hallway door to ceiling covered in all the things you made
& at the end of the hallway deep space suspension
that we dressed for by accident
pretty sure we just watched this fly resurrect
please just come over so i can feed you
beast january 01.01.2017-01.15.2017
2017 has gifted a fresh snowwalk. drink all the coffee & write some of the words. i was not a dancer, i was an impossibility. devout. a vessel. the great length hiding place. it isn’t supposed to snow here.
ink down, sore knee. upper body holds the work to be done. curse. gift. beast of counting sits on my chest, throws the glass of water in my face. birthday! beast companion sings breakfast. all blue everything. all cat leotard. the day is gentle, plus cake.
stubborn days, slow school. knot-knee’d and icy. tenderly be damned. one controlled methodical stretch full through the legs. there’s a partner in the elements.
little lunch break session, high on winter. a series of surprises. the plan’s on mute, the sound comes through my feet. sublime pain. two body tree trunk. grief dreams. wind drift. defrost on full radio warmup. don’t defund the body, the only true place i live.
babygirl & i share a heating pad, work on our big hair. it’s friday:
it’s powerflicker
it’s dancebreak multitudes
it’s powerblink
it’s precious minutes reboot
no it’s saturday
it’s the community table full of books
it’s hands and arms pile
it’s the pounding rain, we all make room for each other
it’s beautiful challenge of muscle location day. it’s dressing the room up day. what size is your boogie? how do you haul your silly? what kind of soup? have you aced your heart?
take step but now make it half that and now half again. dear partner, are you beast? am i? the snow fell, we didn’t, i succumbed to melting, i keep trying.
repeat after me: i trust my practice. even when the winter cancels my knees. even when the circle circles.
it’s the full moon, the car’s full warm, the reminder’s not a dummy. by house i mean this. by tender i mean that. just try to tell me this isn’t moving. just step on the poem until it pops. read aloud to the room where you learned to read aloud, win a prize, a turquoise with a caveat, an injury with a heavy ear. a squirrel celebrates the sun by running the roof over and over. keep at it, yous. fuck putting it off.
The mosquito net hung in soft waves, draping the shoulders of the queen-size bed like a bride paused at the altar of a hotel room. The walls: paisley and sweating. The netting held back helpful flies, bottle-green bodies pressing close, who whispered warnings into the coiled snail of her ear. The veil blurred the faces of friends circling near, but their humming wings repeated the same word: don’t. On the bed’s wedding day, she lifted the netting from her face and met stone eyes with stone eyes, while petals of insect wings drifted around her. The mattress: a mirror.
In blue jeans and wigs, they know what I am thinking
I disappeared among corn energy, lost a star-crossed app, all the constellations were pie
Forgot the measurements I needed
Under the bed, behind the frame, the junk drawer, an old fridge in a run-down town someone is trapped, my phone buzzing, I know who is in there.
The hollows of shoulders: their names: Orion, or Jupiter, or Herculean shelf. I can’t believe you went there.
Meanwhile, lemurs, not our friends, the matriarch can be bitchy.
Store this in your garden club:
No fruit, nano plastics, car parts, a child’s play kitchen, malfunctioning bake setting, a need to open all the windows
the inability to move on -- but that in itself is forward thinking
Cinquain for How Sometimes It's the No-Star Food You Remember the Longest
Cheap, not
fancy. Eaten
in transit. Pistachi-
o kulfi on a stick from a
kiosk.
Cinquain for Standing at the Place on Chandni Chowk That My Phone Translated as Moonlight Junction (Because It Used to Have Canals That Reflected the Moonlight) Among Sarees and Electronics and Jalebis Fried in Ghee
We’re all
in these meatsacks
for a set sum of time.
There’s no escape. It’s a real con-
undrum.
Cinquain for How Henry Polak Got Gandhi to Read John Ruskin's Unto This Last, Which Demands That the Rich Put Their Wealth at the Service of the Community, Especially the Poor
The good
of the one is
contained in the good of
all. Also, all work has the same
value.
It was the afternoon of the school bus rodeo. I could hear in the distance the reckless grinding of gears. Bus drivers were competing on an obstacle course seemingly designed with punishment in mind. I was outside a place called Whitey’s, which boasted the longest stainless
steel bar in the world, when a white van pulled up. The driver lowered his window. His face was pale and thin, and he was wearing a yellow straw hat like Van Gogh wore in a famous self-portrait. “Is that Jesus behind the KFC handing out tickets to heaven?” he asked, pointing. The ram caught in the thicket by its horns had oddly human eyes.
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