blow

Ideas asphyxiated under their own weight-
what is the heaviness of brilliance
that goes unheeded?

Wouldn't we rather christen this luminescent thought
like the bow of a still-dry vessel,
crystalline shards of champagne
still clinging to its steel and shine?

Or perhaps we're better off avoiding the ceremony,
and instead holding ideas high as the wind
like a handkerchief between hands...
to be sailed to a land yet undiscovered,
to be shared with the horizon.

Is it about the vessel, the handkerchief, or the wind?

(Poem on a dare)

[this was penned by friend and ridiculously talented writer L.W. in 2006, somewhere in south central Minnesota, when I prodded her to do something that included twenty-five compound words and the specific combination of one of my all-time favorite combinations, "intransigent wont"...]
---

Remember what The Who said about
a teenage wasteland? Don't cry, travel south. I don't understand,
anyway, why I'm always searching for clarity: life as empty as a baldhead,
hairlines already receded, reaching for a book of paperback poems at my bedside
bookmarked at the careless parts. I'll fishhook
nearby answers as though they're an intransigent wont-- all this knowing. I'll sit-up
with a headache, all ups and downs, the pain like the dull red of a darkroom.

and through a keyhole, here's what you'll see: a thunderstorm
uprooted. That doesn't make sense: Imagine sunburn
in pale sunlight, pinking while you're not paying attention, tiptoeing
backwards, coming at you like ideas can only come: in your hometown.
At bedtime. Like fingerprints.

no witnesses

Reality was that tree
that fell in the forest
while you were behind it
pissing. The one that no one
heard crush you because
they were elsewhere while
you stood there, alone,
pissing.

If you were still here
I'd ask you if the tree
made a sound as it came down.
But you'd likely shrug.
"I was busy."

sicut nubes

Madre nuestra
que estás en las nubes,
santificada sea tu sombra,
venga a nosotros diariamente tu suspiro mojado,
y haga que tu voluntad nos invada las almas,
danos hoy como todos los días
la esperanza del beso de tus aguas,
y perdona la seca tendencia humana,
de buscar amparo bajo techos,
sin dejarnos caer en la tentación de conocer de verdad
la sensación de bailar contigo, descalzos, ampapados.
AMEN

obsequios

Te regalo mi elipsis.
Para que caigan estos tres puntos suspensivos
en tu camino
como lagrimas de alegria
que anticipan los momentos
que te esperan.

Te regalo mis parentesis.
Para que los dejes abrazar
las ideas esas subyacentes
que rechazas con regularidad:
lo arbitrario,
lo prosaico,
las ideas que algun dia floreceran
para atraer las mariposas
que te esperan.

Te regalo mi punto de exclamacion.
Para que tus palabras resuenen
en las almas de los demas
como de golpe
como si fuera un relampago.
Porque cuanto mas tremenda la tormenta,
mas exquisito el rayo.
Y es una tormenta lo que te espera.

cave paintings

we float like Pythagoras
when he plucked his first string,
like Damocles looking up
wishing gravity to sing.

we float like Prometheus
molotov cocktail ablaze,
like Theseus throwing yarn
in his eternal island maze.

but it's time to burn the string,
and to illuminate the cave,
tune the string above the sword
to resonate among the brave

to tear the horns from the beast
and paint our petroglyphs in red,
firebomb the blacksmith's forge,
defy the blade above our heads

to sink the island, let it drown,
and hold the fire above the flood,
we'll cut the string and sing the note
and then we'll clean the sword of blood.

your forest

I carved your name into a tree,
but then I kept walking.
The tree didn't follow me.
Only my shadow did, but in this forest
even that was lost.

Into a maple, red like love,
I carved the melody of your Saturday morning skin.
But that wasn't enough.

Into the birch,
I carved my memories of your lower back.
But the birch peeled
and the maple bled.

And when I came across a willow,
it was was too tough to be carved.
Too hard for the color of your eyes,
too hard for your midnight sighs.

And by then my knife was dull.
And my shadow was still gone.
And the hope that just maybe
I would come across my own name
carved into a tree...that was gone, too.

porcelain

What a strange animal.
It smudges exactly that which its soul prefers spotless.
It draws breathes of white air and
gazes through a window
that will likely never allow in an optimistic breeze.
Its eyes gaze down as if pleading to be told that
cleanliness is indeed an illusion, and that I welcome
this ashen expressionism
painted across my chest.
But I don’t want the visits to end.
I don’t want the ritual to end.
On those white breath nights,
when it covers itself in primary colors,
I know it’ll come back feeling unclean.
Painting me again with its paw.
It’ll seek me out.
White. Clean.
Ready again for the ashes to fall.