Friday, May 29, 2009

what pacifying thoughts

what pacifying thoughts cricket and bookend your days?
i can mimic the smoothness of rocks licked flawless by mouthing waters -
it takes little effort when you know your race and pit crew,
but fleshes are more expensive day by day.
i lack the patience most mothers have, getting itchy for conclusions quickly;
fear is an industry in my country - what better candidate consumer than i?
lie your head by my body, if only to confirm my pulse and beating heart before it drifts
off to death-land, to the places where people give up.

mirandas and marigolds

pretty juniper, how do you permit purples,
and how are you disgusted by me?

I pick these unaccompanied mirandas and all the marigolds needed
for a crown of orange sunbursts fit for a king,
and lie awake under starbursts and a mirroring moon,
knowing these occasions are minute, fleeting.

I am at home in Ohio when the maple leaves open their palms to wrap me in the hands of trees
and movement of sky.
this earth holds and turns -
pretty papers, lanterns, linens,
coffee mugs, pens -
all our human trap held in these things.

I am less concerned now that the oak and tulip trees are black against their leaves
in the dampness of spring
although I still get the urge, the itch, that this is not all there is.

shark and seal

I want to be your appetite:
at this time of year we feast on each other.
we pass our cups of wine that know our lips aggressively,
and pass our blushes each to cheek.

You’re shark and seal,
tectonic, victorian, and mute.

i'm a duck

All your peasant attitudes and peasant soups
escalate and heighten my senses,
particularly my scent and smell
and incertitude.

A molecule, a face
a chance you won’t ever see turquoise in water.
Your composite resolution suggests you love what you see in me -
blonde hairs, bitten, swollen lips.
Our contract is based on this, and it’s loose as fog.

I’m a duck floating atop a yellow river
and my webbed and orange feet paddle quiet bubbles
that churn and carbonate what’s flat.

This is all audible, assuming one listens:

faces in contemporary black:

faces in contemporary black:

you win in the final, and the rocks are only a shuck away.

lemon, we mask and long
for our pearls and oysters.

flavored rabbit demonstrates authenticity in a city of skeptics;
over heat we lose what is raw and our fat flavors the marrow - human rot.