Poem for Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving Day

The little cousins play hide-and-seek outside with sweet
potatoes fresh on their breath. Granny approaches by the
porch after she snubs out her cigarette: want me to show you

how an Indian whips his wife? She twists

the skin on my forearm until it wrinkles and burns. Sacagawea
stirs in her Wyoming grave then resumes dreaming of the
plains. The trees bleed in scarlet clumps. The cranberries

stick to the backs of our teeth. An infant

mole lies dead on the asphalt with cat marks and muddled fur.
Croquet on the lawn. Dad snoring in the bedroom. Mom
collecting acorns in a zip-lock bag to present to the girls.

The wind--the silly wind--blows all these anticlimaxes out

of  proportion.

Poem for Thursday, November 15, 2012

Black

The color of the coffee steaming

in the cracked, glued-back-together

mug. The color of the mug. The color
of the morning as the frost crystallizes

against the glass. The color of the glass--

trick question.

The feeling of the anvil dropping.

The act of conceding. The unanswered

questions, the spaces lingering around
the cosmos and the shadow of Charon

himself.

The residuals from the camp fire and

the absence of warmth. The distance

between the two points in the line on the
coordinate plane. The skin of the Maasai

and the Serengeti at midnight. The use
of metaphor.

The texture of stillness and the taste of

salt. The color of colorlessness. The The The.

The last line of the poem and at times
the poem itself:

This is no          exception.

Poem for Thursday, November 8, 2012

Release

if I were to
summarize
my life in a
haiku

it would go
something
like this:

             born in dixieland
             i learned to be verbose &
             eat sleep write love etc.

i would take
all my verbs
string them to
a kite's tail

release them
on a cloudless
windy day in
mid-March:

watch, now
watch as my love
drags the ground

Poem for Thursday, November 1, 2012

Caveat

At some point, it will hurt.

Not like lemon-juice-in-an-open-cut hurt
or even post-heartbreak hurt. It is meta.
It is the ominous cloud shadow. The divine
cold shoulder. The repercussions of sneezing
too loudly. And it lurks behind you with
dark stealth. And it will seize you during
some innocuous moment--a trip to the bank
or buying flowers on the street. It will reach
inside of you, violate you through untouched
clothes and take part of you with it, upward.
It is not death itself; it is the death of what
you thought you knew. And it hurts the worst
during a soft crescendo of violins or a memory
of a girl with caramel skin.

Poem for Friday, October 26, 2012

Harvest

Leaves frolic around us

hitch windy rides find

homes or don't.

                   This autumn you claim me

                   twirl my scarf fringes

                   manage to whisper the

                   ineffable.



                   You claim me with the

                   hues that sough in gusts

                   sharp deciduous and

                   bleeding.



                    You claim me without

                    gray-skied conditions

                    stand before me naked

                    as the birch.



                    This thing we cultivate

                    mustn't be carved or

                    shucked  like remains

                    of a harvest.

                   
Please understand:
                 
                    I won't reduce you

                    to some analogy.

                   
                   
                    You will keep me

                    through the seasons.

Poem for Sunday, October 21, 2012

Effects of Transience

what she would do:

come in with the storms, crush the browning leaves
between her toes. ramble about how she belongs to
the night. how she loves every grain of salt in my
body. how chilly moonbeams feel when they graze
the nape of her neck.

the world wanders among her enumerations. they
are evergreen crown canopies--sky-blotting. she
speaks in Hopi myths, sleeps in the bed of a truck.

sometimes i wake up moving, she tells me. i like it
because the road is smooth and the moths never
bother me. i can see the faces in the stars all parallel
above me. they know i am a recusant. they know
where i am going while i do not.

Poem for Saturday, October 13, 2012

Epitaph

Below

the dates etched in limestone, the implications
in between: people waking from dreams, red salt
fresh on tongues. One savior biding time, counting
the cherubs. Another giving the death nod
behind the concrete. Wordless.

Someone sticking a flag in the cosmos.
Someone breaking a heart in an equinox.

Below them, those words holding hostage
some legacy, a single accomplishment before
eyes became drapes
half-drawn.