April & Poetry 21

When

When succumb, umbrella.  When whole, help.  When marked, make off.  When wordy, cut the rug.  When whimsical, roar.  When om, joy.  When home, tidy up.  When reading the news, scratch.  When feeding the cat, hum.   When blank, bank on it.  When blink, blank.  When bored, borrow.  When bare, beg.  When baffled, steal.  When broke, break.  When busy, blink.  When finished, flip.  When tired, seduce.  When scared, succumb.  When numb, reach.  When nervous, cockroach.  When pressed, press.  When wrong, rise.  When write, rose.  When moral, empower.  When ravaged, beget.  When refinanced, fornicate.  When ever, where ever.  When yawn, bathe.  When laughing, lust.  When fruitful, forget.  When officiating, occupy.  When over it, sit tight.  When agony, ecstasy.  When logged on, encrypt.  When bathing, bite.  When bird of paradise, fountain grass.  When Earth, worship.  When moon, wax.  When sleepy, orgasm.  When weightlifting, swindle.  When banking, breed.  When up, up.  When sensual, celebrate.  When eager, exhale. 

April & Poetry 19

Blameworthy

It’s trendy these days to take the blame

For spreading il-, ir-, un-, im-, mis-, non-, ex-, dis-

It’s cool to take responsibility, 

and body slam it on the pavement of the

information superhighway that I built in your mind.

If one places responsibility on oneself,

points fingers at oneself,

voters will enter Samadhi

and whatever will lame will b-. 

April & Poetry 18

I (dot) com

I, eyes.  I, mouth.  I, crisis.  I, aching.  I, startled.  I, desired.  I, awake.  I, humanity.  I, ecstatic.  I, she.  She, leaping.  She, composing.  She, ruling.  She, mothering.  She, divinity.  She, exploring.  She, he.  He still hangs.  He climbs mountains.  He proves.  He can smolder.  He rises.  He denies his womanhood.  He, I.  Ex-I, re-I, un-I, ir-I, in-I.

I, first.  I, person.  I, narrative.  I, is.  I, overrated.  I, and.  I, like.  I, so.  I, passé.  I, rejoice!  I, re-juice!  I, juice!  She, juice!  He, juice!  We, juice!   

April & Poetry 17

Desert Grammara

Listen to Les chant about Chance’s choice.  North.  South.  East.  West.  Send.  Press send end call press pressure gong sound send sand through throat.  Her Ex- exposed her extra explosive excitement.  Now she’s here, shoving me into this desert, which is really nothing more than an Ex-plain.  Why does she shove?  She used to press, but now she wants to hush love.  Shhhh.  Love.  Shlove.  She tries to ex-press love.  Shove and shout to get the shhhh out.  She’s as impulsive as she is pulsive, as impossible as she is possible, as irritable as she is ritable.  She’s excessive and cessive, exciting and citing, excruciating and cruciating.   

She is static. 

She is ecstatic.  

April & Poetry 16

Vacationing at the Post Coast

Postman boyfriends me.

Postmodern dating site described him as into lip service.

Postcard image promises

Post-apocalyptic panties.

Says he’s completing a post-doc fellowship as the

Selenoplexia poster child.

We go to that trendy, post-war place.

Later, post-kiss, we

post an ad on craigslist.

He asks me my plans

post-life.

I shrug, and say maybe

I’ll blog.

He shares a secret,

wishes he could

hold

postage hostage.

April & Poetry 15

Egoista

Whip Cream tells me her ego is made from milk.  Contrary to popular suspicion, Ego does not affiliate with Igor.  In fact, polls support Ego’s lead in Ohio.  While U.N. speeches lack ego of years back, Greeks protest ego measures.  Ego hits Syrian military headquarters.  Wall Street turns egomaniacal.  Ego deaths rise in New York City.  Investors high-speed trade their egos for data-enhanced servers.  Egos dissolve off the shoulders of drug-enhanced egomedia moguls.  On Friday, we met to ego all night long at the egothèque.  After the morning yoga class, we tossed our egos into the Chalice Pond.  When they broke through the water’s surface, they made ripples that sounded like this:  long, long ego an echo of ache glow inflated and let go.  California allows ego-less drivers.  Radio waves send these words: Have you seen the new spy thriller Egoland?  Download a new ap for your ego.  Enter the freeway and drive West at light speed.  When the sun strokes your ego, ah!  Be burning delight!  Be naked wonder!

April & Poetry 14

Read this post after reading Charles Simic's "Club Midnight"

So, you’ve sold your seedy nightclub.

Are you now the sole owner of an organic farm?

Are you its sole forest gardener, its do-nothing farmer?

Are you its sole crop rotator loosening its green manure?

Do you spend the wee hours summoning insects

To gorge on weird germs and improve crop fertility?

Is your plough flying through Compost Valley

Or sinking in the glistening greensand?

Are bearded Punjabi yogis your silent partners?

Do you have a ploughman by the name of Wendell Berry?

Is Grendel’s Mother coming to the harvest?

Is Mirabai?

Do you happen to have as much forced bliss-energy as you have biodiversity?

Do you have a hunch you’re a cosmic being playing being human?

Is that why you wear Bhakti boots

And kick the eroding Earth sky high?

April & Poetry 13

Take me to the Graces!

After you soap my back, of course.

Take me to the ends of the World,

Or the ends of the whirl.

Let marble walls surround and around.

Though blood or wine may be spilling hot here & there,

Let where be light, light, light

Up our noses and between our toes!

I love forever and you

Besides and backsides and B sides!

Make me come to my knees

And beg Divine Power

In every breath of Every One!

April & Poetry 12

(Read this post after reading CJ Evans' poem entitled "Elegy in Limestone")

If he, stone, and if he

does.  If gods, like light, like if people

towns and cities and nations, like a stone’s throw,

like gods, sound mind and ancient body.

If he does, like if the days and nights

of Earth think Earth, if the spinning

of the Sun and Saturn burn in their Thought, cry

Sun and Saturn; if he does.

Map the subconscious, herkimer and quartz,

the stones not appearing on any map,

if the map wants inward guidance.

If he does.  Word, if it is in

and in mind.  If visible until

Deed.  If mystics lie and light

moves the spine’s hot

Serpent.  If he is light, if it is

okay to dark with.  Stones.  In the

crystal bowl sounds Mount Shasta, and The Word.

If he is the sound of Mount Shasta under Raven’s wings.

If hiding, if hard, if height, if heat, if healing. 

April & Poetry 11

Mojave Majesty

Mother warned me not to tame the wild lilac.  But why should I mind a woman who drinks the nectar of the Sacred Datura?  We’re engaged in a typical mother-daughter wildflower. She shoots petals of blazing stars at me while I try to drown her in meadow foam.  We’ve only recently discovered the resins of the knobcone, the needles of the Ponderosa, the phallic cones of the Sugar, and the Shakti of the Torrey pines.  She prefers mountain hemlock, I, urban gridlock.  We ghost, thrive, and choke on our hike through a grove of Coast Live Oak.  Mother throws herself on a bed of bay laurel mistaking it for Coyote Brush.   She shouts, Divine Lover, if you do not reveal to me your true essence, I choose death!  Mother often threatens the cosmos in this way.  I sit back and cross my arms over my chest to observe her display of spiritual anguish from a critical distance.  Nearby, I find some coffeeberries to smash.  I paint my lips green then red then black.  I tie on my hip scarf.  I sugarbush. I sage.  I choose dance over waiting for Mother.  Later, I run off to meet my idol at a desert campsite.  Her name is Lyrica.  I find her contemplating compost as it swelters beneath a lone Joshua Tree.  Shamans say this land is a healing energy vortex.  Some local people still practice ancient drum sex.  Natives once worshipped rhythm here.  People come here to learn how to kiss rhythm.  Here, we practice dropping the Self between the beats.  A local master instructs me to remove my city and step into the hot Gong bath.  The copper pressure waves lift consciousness; the tin pressure waves shift awareness; and the nickel pressure waves wave waves way away the way waves wave away.  Sound waves wave away brain waves wave away light waves wave away magnetic waves wave away waves away waves away away away way way way way way away.  

April & Poetry 10

Rhythmia

Ventriloquists live in lighthouses, gargle and joke.  Voices surf, redden and haberdash.  Novelists ride shadow boats, cave and inkswell.  Tongues pull deeper into craters, tumble and muscle.  Subconscious lotus blossoms hafla to live music, hoop and ignite.  Cries catch in the throats of deepsea beasts, cradle and fall.  Coupons doze in mailboxes, sliver and waste.  Appliances suffer traumatic stress, polish and hum.  Books shiver in their spines, tale and morph.  Surfers hump rip curl, sexwax and comb.  Glass rims touch lips, un-sober and versify.  Throats unify outcry, swallow and democratize.  Guts wretch martyrs, bribe and pray.  Soldiers suckle kava root, dictate and undress.  The wine-men promise wireless grapes, toast and embalm.  Barmaids pour lips into skinny jeans, publish and snuggle.  The Regime orders all voices imprisoned, writhe and rhyme.  Neighbors throw digital block parties, sigh and seek.  Pronouns become verbs, she mes him.  Sages play Mahjong in palm groves, shuffle and tile.  Teachers promise rose gardens, who versus whom.  World leaders guard fish tanks, confer and becalm.  Bankers wear spacesuits, cheap thrills and escape.  Attorneys make beds, bottles and ankle bells.  Babies have second thoughts, neverdust and waterbirth.  Cows get mastitis, Rose of Sharon and Janet Jackson.  The banyan tree laughs, earthen and worship.  Gasoline excites us, chant and gauge.  Poems make sense, please and desist.           

(After Sina Queyras)

April & Poetry 9

I read poetry aloud to Czarina while the tattoo artist carves an image of The Raven on her back.  Now I am reading Forrest Gander’s English translation of the Spanish poem Firefly Under the Tongue.  She listens to me tang fissure pleasure the pulse.  My voice keeps her from mossing ancient with mystic ardor.  When the artist warns us that bruising may occur, we both become paralyzed from the soul down.  Hours later, a lone Chinese grammarian swags in wearing her ecstatic make-up.  A dark hiss shifts the lily breaks the rock.  Cloak courtesans claw Kabbalah cupcakes.  Czarina’s inked so indelibly deep into the dermis that the wings transform into real Raven’s wings.  She off and flights skywise.  What’s left for me to do but press and twist my foot on the book, as if I am smothering a cigarette? 

April & Poetry 7

toomanyLegotoys

            too many

to play with fire with fire

more plastic            wonders and Structure

            (do count your plans before they hatch)

let Soaring Crow Spirit speak

let Financiers wander lonely as a

cloud that floats on high o’er till and sale

we have some things to work on spiritually

surely Language should go on a gluten-free diet

            perhaps yogi tea makes you

sexual                        meet me at Amusement

Land

                        corner of Do and Think

            toomanyLegotoys!

all’s well that endears

(This post written after memorizing Kathleen Winter’s “Glamour.”)    

April & Poetry 6

In a different city,

all fees are waived.

The Boss has fresh breath,

and weekly meetings move you.

Guys and dolls gaze out windows with

their angel phantom eyes.

Women receive long letters

written from the Pen Man’s Ship.

And letters from the DMV—

Divine Motive Vibrations—

assure all employees

The Boss expects

rain tomorrow.

(This post written after memorizing Victoria Chang’s “Edward Hopper’s ‘New York Office.’”)

April & Poetry 5

Dear Mother

            Mercy stays out late playing Texas Hold ‘em.

Dear Cynic

Dear Psychic

Dear Psychotic

            We’ve received your application.

Dear Beloved

Dear, dear Astrotourist

            You’ve earned your stars.

Dear Herb Ladies & Gemstone Gentlemen

Dear Candlestick Maker

            The night promises to leak your dreams.

Dear good scout

Dear aged sage

           

            You’re on my wit list.

(This post written after memorizing Camille Rankine’s “Tender.”)

April & Poetry 4

Time      when   you

are standing on your

head.  Time as the sky

feeling the beating raven’s

wings.  Time if you’re a

breakfast bowl.  Time if

you’re    my      pillow

when my head is upon you. 

Time if you’re my pillow

when      my         head

is on the block.  Time if you

are my dream.  Time if you

are The Teacher in my dream

who      was            reading

the  Tarot  and  drew  the

Father        of         Wands. 

Time if you are the live cobra

that rose up out of the card. 

Time if you are The Teacher

swallowing   The     Cobra.

Time   as      shockwaves. 

Time      in      dream.  Dream

time.  Dream standing on its head. 

The         raven’s           dream. 

Dream Chief Dancing Raven watching

Wind make love to White Buffalo. 

Dream sweet grass grows

upon your head.  Dream takes Night by

the other hand.  The three go leaping

over       The Chasm.         Time passes.

Dream distorts.  Time may get the jump

on you.  Dream guides the jolt in you.

(This post written after memorizing some lines from Anne Carson’s Red Doc>)    

April & Poetry 3

Paolo and I never agree.  He insistin’ Nina Simone’s cover of “See-line Woman” tops my wail and moan.  I differ; hey, the way Feist do it measures up some.  Paolo gets to turning red, black, and green.  Gets to so he ready to throw his bile in a pile.  Paolo gets me up to confess his hump number ain’t much noise, not like music that hurts.  My woman walk in like piano solo stuck in her hips.  Good reason her name Inspiration.  Whew!  She wreck my days!  Then his lady walk up; she called Silence.  So of curse we gotta get up to assessing the She-ass.  Ugly start when Paolo kicks the trap drum down the fire escape.

(This post written after memorizing Yusef Komunyakaa’s “The Music That Hurts.") 

April & Poetry 2

With solo moon in my pocket, I proceed to clean out the closet.  Fickle dresses twist around the shoe rack, and her gypsy gown burrows in his arrow tube.  There’s not much sorrow or longing here, just outgrown shadows, his old yes jeans, and a pair of shoes that once belonged to the Creator.  Entering this closet means entering the zilch dimension.  In this storied space, the first things one might notice are not the empty cabinets, the rising orbs, or all the world's scattered vanitas.   One might notice the holes in those old shoes, holes left by the taking on of burdens and the receiving of gratitude.

(This post written after committing to memory Lisa Russ Spaar's "Solo Moon.")