Category: poetry

vociferous lady
over the shadows ’round your eyes
i circle with galaxyarmlength wingspan
sensing life
hover i
in the thickstillness of your smitten stare

vociferous arms vociferous leg then vociferous other leg
ratatat that what
then bow it slowly (that what)
musicking the silence then a quarter rest half rest whole rest
Fortissimo!

you got the sky talking again the trees buzzing the passersby bobbing
you made the morning parade in
the night twirling batons
into the troposphere float batons: faster until they are circles
multitudinous until they are polka dots
higher until they sizzle into stars and quasars
streaking plaidlike at right angles

vociferous lips
lightly lipping my lips
lipsyncing the joyful cries of a thousand
(angels)
wishing they had bodies or even limbs or even molecules or even quarks
knowing how i dig you how you dig me
FORTISSIMO pianississimo…

the slightest sound of a cat lapping water from a mason jar on the nightstand at the left
of my head
I am looking up at the ceiling at a sliver of light wondering how that sliver of light
got there
there is a thin light down the middle of it, Barnett Newman like
determined to shine right there like a tuft of grass through a sidewalk crack
your little things around the room surely popping in and out of existence
a camera bag somewhere with an old Polaroid camera with a few more photos to
dispense
maybe one of me or you or you-and-me
your hand on my belly my belly hair on your belly somewhere
white noise from a small heater
this sliver of light: maybe it is penetrating through the ceiling having penetrated through
night sky of the city, having traversed light years from some godlike force smiling
beams to me
your little hum of contentment having originated in my heart
the cat walking around somewhere and over an article of discarded-maybe-even-flung
clothing
some whiskey in something bubbly on another nightstand
my belly beating because my heart is dancing
your nuzzle on the right hemisphere of my beard
this sliver of light which am probably projecting up onto the ceiling, thinking of light and
shapes and divisions of those shapes
and my socks lying somewhere on the floor
I am reflecting on our mention of John Darnielle and thinking how I wish to hell I could
express that powerfully the power of this moment
(he’d probably say something about someone on a tile floor or an explosion of some
sort)
feeling your right thigh draped over my right thigh with my left hand
choreographing a hundred poses we might try
illuminated by a sliver of light
remembering my bed in my room in another house and laughing that I am not in it
one skipped heartbeat thinking of the one whose hand is no longer on my belly
anymore
how many slivers of light I have left on the ceilings of others
your hum of contentment having become deep breaths of sleep
hopes and tunes popping in and out of existence
here and there
in darknesses just like this in poses just like this with unknown movements like cats
stirring or little fan blades twirling probably clockwise
cameras with insides full of photos
people wake up new from lightsliverless darker/darkest places
poised to flash out slivers of light
above searching eyes

I flip over a quarter turn you flip over a half turn my belly now at your back and sleep-
breathe
too

thomas teaches asymptote
utilizing eloquencies like “doohickey”
thirdrow fourthdesk a redhead looks up from numbers she copied down
(marker squeaking her brain squeaking the pen recording the sound of a
lostandpuzzled hmmm)
fourthrow thirddesk: the face of someone immersed cries cogito ergo sum
(descartes is squeaking the marker squeaking)

i wanna be polynomial function
i wanna have limits
and still ascend toward infinity

granville’s in the ground today
in the south a few minds reflect
no eclipse happened when he ceased breathing
but tears are shed and that is fine

i wasn’t there at his death
not even there at his decline
but my mind was daily passing his way
someday he can show me why they called him catfish

1

listening to the acorns falling
clanking on things below
i ponder the constant sounds and the few heard
the dead leaves into which they fall
the sagacious tree from which descend overlooked things
(stepped over)
((crunched into))
the squirrels which scurry, sustained

i let go of the Limb
fell in full hearing
while you were sleeping

future tree

i gathered you in to my little hands
winter coming
storing you in nooks then in my body

small creature

listened as the wind sent you earthward
awake in the night
i heard you
(clank)
((leave
s))

2

i arise in the morning bursting with erection
i fall asleep priapus pulsing

i need the together-stroke
the eye-swims between humming kisses

my foot sliding across the top of yours
your foot slipping down mine

the tensioning which leads to tightening
the letting go which stops the breath

my hands on the protrusions in the apertures
yours around-upon and under-through

the intromission the intermission the readmission the emission
the rest the always unimaginable rest the New
3

strings through which runners run
having finished the race
falling in two
trampled

chests stretching for it
then it is
broken
drifting
done with

the runners are lying on the ground
on the other side
panting
one smiling
the string is gathered up
disposed of

from the pistolpow!
until it is reached
reached for
strived after
panted toward
(maybe even hurtled toward)

focused on then forgotten

4

between your breasts
my lips taste your heartbeat
quicken

your electric fuzz
on my bellybutton

leftward i reach a pinnacle
rightward i reach a pinnacle

i descend into the heights of you
quickened heartbeat
over quickened heartbeat

your perspiration on my forehead

5

i have rolled tumbled aloft
lightgray heavy
sprinkling megatons of ice gently quietly*
muffling every footstep
erasing every footstep
*harmlessly magnanimously

look out from the comfortable side of your window
collapse into the vision of all the colors of white
put on mittens put on scarf
toboggan on what i rained
flail in the softness, snow angel
look up and imagine yourself flying (the flakes still)

there is a gray circle drilling through
it is the sun
about to bounce on the spectacle

in the weight things bow
beautifuller
in clarified air

6

sheathed in you
i move justbarely
bowstring
sixteenth note
upperlip kiss lowerlip lick
half rest
animato!
long strokes whole notes
bars and bars of moving music
corpus cavernosum chorus
pizzicati
note crescendo note crescendo
whole rest
i move justslightly
sheathed

movement movement movement

coda

(ova
tion)

7

contemplating bursting on the jagged rocks
so afraid of heights
dangling
the edge is receding
my feet sweating
what would my head look like
how would my leg crack sound
how many days before the lump of flesh is found
my hands sweating
there is no rail here no rail
what if the land landslides
fall that should exhilarate
fall that ends
in new

world so small below
so slippery behind
edge that is closer closer
under my heels

i don’t like you edge
my heart
ra….

8

such lips on such hips
rush tips and switch thrusts

i will always feel that first inside-you
i will always know that burst inside-you

between those dreams
our bodies illuminated the midday

gush lusts when kiss pelvises
beneath which drips wish
9

more sky seeping through the bare branches
less hidden birds
necessary cold inevitably leafless

when the sun fades this far
everything tires

more conspicuous birds
barely break the silence

more sky penetrating
looms less
far

10

in the triangular form of our two bodies
there is same stuff as the cores of stars

you rising at my horizon
you zenith i gaze

we shift around into a rectangle
i set on your horizon in visible separations of light

then at other right angles we transcend time
nebulae with hugebrilliant things forming in our singular belly

(icyrocky remnants of us
drifting off into the vastness)

11

through the vessel of you flows
true
between lava
and sun

love on the boson
love in the marsquake
love in the roar of the butterfly wingstroke
love around the fingers around the fingers

if you feel the ubiquitous pulse
you have heartbeat

if you have heartbeat
you walk on the earth and make it roll under your feet
if you have feet
you can walk straightfoward
or in curves
and meet yourself over and over

you are the lungs
through which inhales exhales
heaven earth

love in oxygenated blood

12

underneath your aperture
shined on
moistened
i suddenly sense the oneness grip

underneath your rhythmic aperture
i expand outwardupward
weightless
beneath your heavy repeated fall

underneath your accelerating aperture
drips bead
my river into your ocean
your ocean into my sky

growing bursting filling
sudden first then your sudden second
grip
release
one
flow

13

people say their gorgeous things and run
i am singing at their occipital protuberances
wholeness at their elbows
the sound bends as they break away

i heard it the trees shook
she told me that my smile makes blue babies breathe
it keeps ricocheting around in my head

into the horizon sink the flashing folks
the darting ones
sinking fully fled

mellifluous i will tell you gorgeous things while you face me
before you expect it
and then i will stand there unfleeing
whole
undarting
while trees tremble

14

what if while undrunk
we felt that we-know-what
with the lights wholly on
we bounced here and there
what if we spoke while we moved
who would our selves be
without those shields over ribcages over hearts

what if while unstoned
we gazed on the epidermises of each other
hearing the veinlets woosh underneath

what if we unlearned who we are (even i even you)
gazed amazed again
then
grazed
then
razed
(strangers
forgetting what-ifs)

15

sled on the ice before it melts away
run up the hill over and over
and in between laugh with the earth under the snow
as you descend ascendingly

stand on the beaches whereat ocean waves lap
build castles in the sand or dolphins
before there are tides there that do not recede
dive outwardly into that enormous loving moving body
before you have to escape inland from its fury

speak with trees they know all
they watch you when you’re holding hands and exhale contently
they laugh when you ignore them in the winter
they tingle when you climb them
(not words not words emanations)
speak with them before the blasts disleaf them
before we leave on ships or in death

gaia is withdrawing her spirit now
but not her love
open up and yawp on the hilltop
while it is still a pinnacle

16

so now we lie in various fluids
our bodies still twitching with aftershocks
positioned in reposeful pose
where they expired in pure ecstasy
happy limpness all around
every pore open and listening
smiles on faces
and behind them our brains lit up

then one falls asleep then another
there is no pain or poverty or war
only an unundoable cord

this is where we’re going
this is the glimpse of that Return
whether we reach for it or not
repose open listening repose

room abuzz with almost-spoken words
and twirling round those are virtually meeting eyes

like the clockwork of a galaxy
(within which tick moons around planets tock around stars gears around)

weaving through this comets of intentions
encircled are by belts of fragments of dream rocks

and mindmade spaceships of words
precisely calculated sometimes whiz by or touch down

perhaps green with cold or white with heat
aposiopetic broken off satellite flights

all these vibrations and musics always hinted at
spoken maybe someday

you in this me in this
kosmos logos chaos

by day day and night night by
sink our ships into the atlantises of each other
sail our hotairballoons into the clouded blueskies of each other
drive our cadillacs into the flowering deserts of each other

word word by and by phrase phrase
write our heres a Where
wear our sounds a Why
weigh our smalltalks Whos

give give take take by and by
follow our comets into Cometh
watch our stars birth a Start
sperm our dreams at Supernal Ova

by day by night by each other
holding together universes
outmassing Whats
finding hydroatmoanthospheres

I am grey and blue sky
Shouts of sunshine between bouts of rain
Under it you popopen bigol’ umbrella
You put on shades
Walk along paths lined with flowers showered-on
Walk into clearings now shone-on

I am thundering and then dewing
Blazing and then sprinkling
Occasional unintended rainbows

Quietly, you pull up your hood

You there gamboling or moseying, spinning or strolling
Under it all, accepting it with love

Me roiling and puffing up into the pointed-at
The shaped-with-name
Sometimes heavy and deepest gray
Sometimes perfectly shining through that unimaginable black
Through that unimaginable blue
Into the unimaginable greens and reds of you

You quietly skippingly there or unmovingly there,
Wellies splashing or flipflops clopping
Love only the great wide outside can know