Poems & Other Random Things

"All my life my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name."

[plasticgardenicons]

Without Instruction Manuals

Practical tools for a salad,

a spoon and fork

carved from the old walnut tree

downed in the winter storm,

the tomatoes I grew myself

and cut with a dull knife.

Chicken dried

from being overcooked

in the fever fear of salmonella

and the uncertainty of true cooking times.

Etre is a French auxiliary verb

it means to be

and I have found other languages

hidden in a salvage company

behind the old library.

I would like to hear you speak

softly and without contextual information

I would like to guess with precision.

Over dinner

tell me again

how you came to find

the instructions for this universe.

I wrote mine down

on old department store receipts,

I kept them in my wallet

until the ink faded

and left me with only a memory

of enlightenment.

[plasticgardenicons]

How To Practice Sitting Meditation

How I do love

proper ventilation

that blurs the boundaries

between indoor

and outdoor air.

A slight breeze from an open window

or a ceiling fan,

it really doesn’t matter,

either one will carry you

eyes closed

into a nap of historic proportions.

If I were a statue

staring into the emptiness

that is this room

my breath the glow

my beautiful alabaster undulating

throat would take this breath,

this slight breeze

with the fly in it,

with the dust and pollen

too small to see

in it,

and make a stone silence.

All the clocks

with square tinted glass

definitively stamping

the time of day

granting this all

an air of authenticity

only found in history books

and Western Zen Buddhism.

[plasticgardenicons]

Sensible Souls

Ring headlines all day long,

my brain sweet deep and inexplicable

becomes aware of moving bodies

along the periphery

staring at what’s right in front of me—

horrible hairpieces

and faded Martian photographs.

A night city wreck requires

advanced technical diving,

the mother of all skills,

the deeper you go

the less sure you get.

And the whisper people,

this time they must be born

along the streets of New Mexico.

May you find ecstasy in certain

gas stations in Wyoming.

May you be as certain

as a statistical analysis

yet still afraid at how black darkness enshrouding all everything

appears enchanting

to you.

I lost the nineteenth century

on a camping trip in Idaho

and now everyone’s mad at me.

The Kingdom of God

has some of the cheapest paint

this side of heaven,

the eternal discount

for all sensible souls.

[plasticgardenicons]

Short Term Dependency

Churches still make me weepy

our father

who is no more near to me

than my own

who’s breath slowly

over years

left his body

scarred lungs and broken heart

gone back to

god knows what.

I feel myself into

short term dependencies

hosannas or liquor

mediations or mandalas

sex is always a place

to lose yourself

in the hopes of being found—

can I be found again,

and again,

always different

and still incomplete?

every thought that takes me

I let go of,

sometimes violently

because I mistake them

for pieces of me

that will end up at the good will

for someone else

to be.

If I wait for tomorrow

I’m lost.

and yesterday feels more far away

than forever.

I blink and I miss it,

all of this world

right here with me.

[plasticgardenicons]

Lost Worlds and Vanished

This golden hour

the quality of satin,

finish this soft flesh coherently

mineral fabric and soles of my feet,

the whole of me,

loved by all I cannot see;

an intimacy creature

groping for one last touch—

the world's beauty

the clouds—

it’s not resurrection I’m after

but eternity.

A voice that no longer carries

in the air

to land in the mind

and heart

through very human ears

or a sky

full of stars.

I love you

is more than a declaration

it is a state of being

open and squirming

pregnant with a million

million possibilities,

these words are less than I need

and all that I have

as this silence

swallows me.

[plasticgardenicons]

What Remains

The tambourine was snoring

and these castanets click with sadness,

elm cypress and hickory,

make me want to renounce attachments

but for the sound

of one violin

in a train station in Brooklyn

pulling from the chaotic irritability

of needing to be somewhere,

a strand of silence,

deafening for a briefest moment

and then slipping away,

like trying to hold on

to a dream

at 3 am

but only the feeling

remains.

[plasticgardenicons]

Prayer

Lyrics leave the mind

with images

hard to hold as dreams.

All hearts are gone,

have crossed oceans

from who knows where,

the crackling acid carbon

each eager brain

brings to the surface

of imagined need.

The King’s lifeboat

sunk off the coast of New Guinea;

the divine plan’s fake news

to keep us guessing.

Now is the time

to hold the questions

without answers

close to the chest.

I have a secret I want to share

with you

but I‘ll have to whisper it

while you’re sleeping

in syllables no ear can hear,

a prayer for the force

that keeps our blood pumping

and lungs breathing.

[plasticgardenicons]

Our Silent Now

The gentleness our sleepy recollections

make would not complain

for sharing their passwords

and data with algorithms

half baked and always following

midnight searches

drenched in aloneness

where thoughts like

medium sparks

break beautiful

a structure without shades

especially struck that when

the sky, the sun itself

broke our distance dependency

between ourselves and all the stars

that root mystery

& makes forgiveness

astronomical,the short

island hymn

attributed to the New Jacob

climbing boxes

teetering at the edge of heaven

this is what I would give you

that no search engine

could power or pull

from the information junkyards,

to lie down

one last time

under the great sky

and not know anything

despised and forgotten

with you.

[plasticgardenicons]

hallelujah all day

speak this truth

anything the average

worthy your blood

word among the masses

jealous the eyelids

Thou Green Orbs

dawn found joy

final and conclusive

two strong intersections

That Float Day and Sink

animals frolicked fluttered

you secretly flattered

mediator in plastic

you like omens

two passenger trains

kissed the railroads

weight the torso

soul and ash

zeros before all

pilot did shine

point view away

flights the waves

banknote in the tea

native light shine

question the young

learned heart dozen

gravity lost out

human eyes spoken

finger this canary

electricity each way

these cursed windows

tell yourself spill

sitting and leaning

desiring shady oaks

sings like genius

twisted whales nozzles

forehead headband

your true companion

lamp cord the question

hallelujah all day.

[plasticgardenicons]

Dropping Away

to die feeling human

without the least labor

or hesitation

feeling gravity give way

until you're not there

in any real sense

the gray arc circle

of your bonesong

walked through day and night

of a finite life

now closed and done

like your green eyes

your freckled hands

your yellowed teeth

in your mouth

not afraid to smile.

I say goodbye

from the place where

we still wear our skin

and worry about tomorrow

and when our own dropping away

will begin.

[plasticgardenicons]

The Miles Between Me and the Moon

the moon this unexpected evening

is big

even by a moon’s standards

but the sky seems unperturbed

by the fullness of it

like the bone-marble some

god-child lost

Shooting at the glassy eyes

From the long ago dead

disappeared behind mourning draperies

in the old zodiac museum

where my membership has expired

I’m here though,

hanging enlightens the feet

suspended between pulleys

the ancients created to pull day

from night

or the other way around—

also known as vice versa.

Anyway, while I stood beside my dark drawer

of memories

i began summoning you

requesting the official transcripts

striking so many words thrown

carelessly into the air between us,

the space between us

that I traveled like

a blind astronaut

relying on computer models that could

accurately process the miles

between me

and the moon

but not the love

in such a journey.

[plasticgardenicons]

Healing and Light

To reflect the time of year

and fire,

that speaks between beginnings

and endings,

our hearts lose the thread

of time,

and we imagine ourselves

warriors,

with all the known lions

on our shields—

or are we an idea,

born from a book

or the quick judgements

of those who never knew us?

What it feels like now

sitting in the noon

of this foregone conclusion;

to be misunderstood,

as a statue,

impenetrable,

but still familiar.

Either way,

there is a sun setting

somewhere

and a sun rising

both offering healing

and light

and a map that can only

be read

in silence.

[plasticgardenicons]

The Precious Hours

A time will come when I shall crave failure to lie by your door begging for the imaginary release of 24/7 news coverage reported to accompany the low basal metabolisms of sedentary pilgrims like myself, lost in inertia and meaninglessness. I would like to grab the huge ferocious hog’s neck of progress that voraciously swallows all that I love and have become attached to, to glide with steel wings this time, no longer falling, but with gravity and substance, no longer starving precisely because the food I eat is unconscious, dreaming in sequins so bright to your inside eyes, and so unimaginably fabulous that you finally know me for the first time, in the precious hours, and you smile; when I can finally silence the voice chained like a prisoner to my inner ears, reminding me again, like a perfect bureaucrat, astral travel when asleep requires a license regardless of what the nice lady behind the desk told me.

[plasticgardenicons]

Normal Nowhere

Returning to the artificial scent

of new car smell

turn the engine

release the clutch

forget this little stretched death

whose elasticity is beginning to stiffen,

reminds me there is an end

to this road

and I drive it alone

and yet the light adorned with flowers,

and trees that stand like forever’s sentinels

patiently bearing sky and the seasons

and all the carbon dioxide

we can muster.

Spoke west rolled monstrous clouds,

purple wool and Olympia,

the rear view creates illusions

of linearity

that I can measure myself by,

sunsets I can count,

heaps of stars

and limited seating capacities

when all I really need to do

is stop and sit down.

[plasticgardenicons]

Letting Go

Can this invisible atom

surrounded by space

recite the strange prayer

we share with the kamikaze moth

and perishing stars?

When I am not afraid

of my mistakes

I tumble into the world

willingly

joyfully acknowledging

the perfection of imperfection

using the wrong words

that sing true in my heart.

My small spiritually arched feet

only suitable to walk the earth

in this time and place

move towards a destiny

I only learn in passing

like the secret meaning of flies

landing on my end of summer

lunch I share

with the shortening days.

What miracle it is

to be here

aware of the grass

teaming with the living

and the dead,

not needing tomorrow or

large wreaths of slender money

that can’t buy us any more time

than we already have.

Listen, I have to tell you

there is love in me

unformed but bending

towards some understanding

beyond what my fingers and mouth

pretend to know,

my arms of deepest secret

could hold the sky

mixed with birds

allowing it to be

exactly as it is,

eyes clear and quiet,

breath raised in laughter

and astonished silence of

letting go.

[plasticgardenicons]

Recurring Dream

You are an elected official and I am a museum that promises discord. I don’t understand human nature enough to distinguish a goodbye from a nod not returned nor do I vote in an informed manner. You asked me once matter of factly and almost in a whisper, why do you put this piece of glass in your eye ? How do I explain to you the simple truth it was just a stylistic phenomenon that came and went with the passing of time.

Out on the foothills of everafter, there is my soul and my ash, heavy and still like the weight of diamonds; the whole of the universe flowed in my veins. That’s where I told you I killed and scalped the unconscious prince of the world his photographic map in hand, for a strongest moment he almost had me and made me feel love again, might’ve changed a lifetime or more of self-imposed suffering, but there was so much dark for so long, my reputation evidently tarnished and that organic crystal sun frozen in the morning sky left us so surprised.

[plasticgardenicons]

The Night You And I Got Lost and Refused to Ask for Directions

Everything appeared enchanted yielding to this beautiful shadow blushing by force, you spoke through layers of plastic, this process is not very difficult you said, you close your eyes contract a weakness under the skin you speak, if the pitch is hard fire becomes terrible it takes a necessity of order to tell about joy and silence. We arrange many things mostly by size: hearts of people, art and waste, driftwood and flax, worn canvas and Paper Mache. Still, you would never understand these amputees of the faith absolutely stifled by the question you answered and spoke without eyes labeled in all medical textbooks which humanity can never control. Your lips were moved in the grip of mine despite my lack of vibrations my resemblance to mortals will never forget my creator tonight I was thirsty of beauty sleep joining our walks to work; when I’m finally done, I shall leave winning with great glass reflectors another hijacked native light shine through me on land destroys my sympathy, for what you say is only a dream is the strange prayer addressed to him absolutely invisible the hardness of hair eyes fixed from a million light-years away on those waiting in dignity and destroys the poor man who gazes stupid and with shortness of breath. Finally, it was the Agents with the Bureau of Reclaimed Things who sifted through our trash. The one with the half mustache, fixing the floral emblem of his buttonhole then bowing his head to his chest mutters beneath his breath, it’s not even a eulogy threw his unlit cigar sluggish raised eyebrows into the unforgiving street, since doubt is incurable he ignored reporters who called out kind of like how a sunflower follows the sun without ever mistaking forever with the sky.