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strange disease

I normally don’t approach topics of this sort. But hopefully I can pass this off as a sort of pen-portrait and not as any sort of political commentary. I don’t actually know or understand enough to comment on American or World politics. But, regardless, this is the undeniable impression I get when I see Bush and certain members of his administration up in front of the microphones.

strange disease

your face looks somehow
    slack

        not with age but some
    strange disease

            your tongue slithers in and out
        slicking greasy lies
                like rancid butter
    across rows of microphones

your cheeks spill out
    over insect jaws that work
            mindless as mandibles
        on flickering teleprompts

            your eyes are toxic
    squalid little pools of terror leaking
        shivers from soft busy glows
sea to noxious sea

            your ears have rotted gray
                    deaf as battleship decks
    slack as the torn and tattered flag
        silenced behind you

            your voice is the sound of gravel
    shoveled from the backs of trucks
        with dirt and lime into
long shallow graves

            your hands grope out trembling
        as if overcome by pressure
tapped from ancient soils long ago decayed
                    to putrid pools of loss

                and your head swells grotesque
    to bursting from your dark black suit
        pumped with agendas too fetid
                for the heart to endure

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“He loves me.”

As I got to know my future wife long distance, I found myself wanting to assure her that my love for and dedication to her will never change.

“He loves me.”

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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True Nature

This one was scribbled out as I sat atop a giant bit of driftwood watching the waves during a recent hike on the Lost Coast Trail in Northern California’s Sinkyone Wilderness State Park.

True Nature

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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Glance

When I go backpacking, I tend to my bring my journal along, or at least a little composition book. Here I’ll record any thoughts I have, or poem fragments. I should do this more often, since it affords me an opportunity to really sit with my thoughts, undistracted. Later I’ll go through the poem fragments and see about expanding them into actual poems (though I’m told a poem fragment is usually itself a poem).

Of the five or so recorded during my recent eight day walk, this one feels the most complete.

Glance

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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Provision

If I have a child one day, where would he (bold assumption I know) come from? I think we rain from the void into awareness. I think we drift in a sort of sleep, locked in the watery depths of consciousness and are eventually lulled by the rhythmic sounds of promise into life. From dream to dream we sleep our way through eternity, connected by an ever expanding web of condition—or karma.

Provision

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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cicada dreams

Once in awhile I’ll meet and interact with some small creature, and this will inspire a poem or three. I’ve attempted to interact with cicadas in the past, but they’re always so skittish, making it difficult even to get near one, never mind give one a ride. Maybe this one was a bit shocked by its downtown surroundings, making it more willing to try its luck with climbing on board. Which I think worked out well for it, since I was able to leave it someplace far more green.

cicada dreams

i

stained glass wings rest
light against the dull gray
tinge of stainless steel

    compound eyes study a world
    more strange and alien
    than their wide and varied view

  giant beetles rush colors past
  sometimes disgorging unwieldy
  young from beneath heavy wings

      great square hives rise up
      full of eyes that glint back bits
      of amber pearl and turquoise

    creatures half concealed by
    remains of cocoon rush about
    scratching out bits of song

        small metal trees grow barely
        a few flat leaves which never
        bend to the touch of wind

there is no need for thought
for there is nothing to understand
here of this dim new dreaming
 

ii

curious eyes reach out and
touch ever so slightly front-
most legs with invitation

        one rises up to ponder-feel
        the alien appendage almost
        lost in reflections of meaning

    then all at once tear-drop
    wings climb up light tan skin
    and over thin brown hairs

      one walks the other rides
      before the floating scrutiny of
      a large peculiar gaze

  overhead floats a sidewalk
  canopy of maples deep green
  firs and old black oaks

    sign posts and street lamps fade
    behind a backyard gate that leads
    into a garden where the sound

      of city streets is hardly heard
      among the many hues of spring
      that climb and blossom toward the sun

and here against a beechwood branch
living wings are gently placed
returned to sapwood realms of dream

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fallen

One of the old growth redwoods in Montgomery Woods has recently fallen. This state reserve is about a 30 minutes drive from the northwest side of Ukiah. I walk here with some regularity, including full moon walks, and I’ve come to know these trees in a way that’s difficult to express.

fallen

take what light i have to give
  my gentle friend

you are fallen splintered shattered
  scattered all upon the hill

take what hope i have to share
  for your rebirth

roots and limbs born out again
  as skyward green

your absence will be remembered long
  sung among the highest boughs
    from whence you fell

the ancient order of the wood
  will chant your transmigration through
    realms of rain and fog

take what light i have to give
  my heartwood friend

you are returned from whence you came
  drying slowly in the gloom

feel what hope i strive to spread
  throughout your broken form

find a place against the loam
  to spread your leaves again

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puzzles

I have been thinking of trying out another dialect poem. They’re really tough to write, requiring a lot of editing and reediting and thinking and rethinking about word and syntax usage, and how to graphologically represent a highly modified, accentual use of English.

This poem is inspired by a young teenager at a residential home where I used to work. He was someone who grew up in urban poverty and who ended up where he did because he—like many who grow up in such environs—made some poor choices. He was an angry kid, and a fighter. But during the time I knew him he demonstrated himself to be capable of totally random acts of compassion toward younger residents. For all his anger, it was clear that he didn’t like to see others bullied, demeaned, or taken advantage of.

He really liked putting together jigsaw puzzles, and would spend considerable time on them.

puzzles

so much gone wrong what
goes through ma mind as i
slide them pieces up
ova one anotha

th’ edges iz easiest to find
easies’ ta fit inta place
man what was that why’d
i beat that man down

then there’s them pieces
they look like they go
tagetha somehow cuz
they got the same cullas

they look like they match yet
a lotta times they don’t
i don’ know why i get so angry
maybe cuz my own pieces

they nevva seem ta fit
these if i look at ’em long
enough i find where they go
but no matta how long i look

at all th’ liddle pieces of ma
life i don’t see how they go
damn man i can’t ev’n find
the edges fo’ the frame

i used to force them pieces in
cuz it seem like they go like
that but then when i think ahm
close ta done it look all wrong

wrong like my damn life like
my damn future all jigsawed
but with pieces missin’ an’
forced all crazy ’till they’z all

bent up an’ don’ seem ta fit
nowhere no mo’ an’ i didn’t even
realize they wuz gettin’ bent
when i put them in but i learned

learned if i gotta push hard they
ain’t in the right place an’ when
they do fit they just slip down
all easy an’ it look right

maybe that’s what i did tried
to make pieces fit that didn’ go
where i’ look like they did
maybe that’s what my mamma

did when she had me when
she got high when she slept
wi’ daddey when she got mad
and took it all out on us

took it all out on us till we didn’
know how our own pieces went
no mo’ and now ahm here
here wi’ failure starin’ each day

hard in the face of a broken
tomorra wonderin’ wonderin’
what ahm gonna live fo’
wonderin’ how ahm goin’na live

but i got these puzzles an’ i
learnin’ how to find what pieces
go where an’ ta take the time
take the time to fit ’em right

i learnin’ how ta think about what
goes where how evrethang fits
tagetha an’ ta pick up the pieces
an’ maybe fit ma life tagetha

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tease

Some people… Just have a way about them. And thank god for that!

tease

her tongue swirls out
a wisp of smoke curled
round the edge of taste
where at the rim of flavor
chocolate drumstick ice cream
dances nimble courtship
and periodically slides in
through lush brown seals that
close round the shivering tip
of double dark suggestion

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A word

Was just reading a bunch of poem blogs hoping to get a moment’s inspiration. And… That seems to be what has happened, though not quite in the sense hoped for.

A word

Do you crack the old
dry twig of language
just to feel a moment’s
shock streak through hands
along bones membranes and
small raised hairs

Do you bend old yellow
rules of syntax until it frays
just to see paint crackle as
splinters rise against mind
revealing plywood layers of
a moment’s understanding

Do you have one idea
what you’re doing as you
play with words saying all
the same old things but
with broken verbs that
hang from splintered nouns

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from here

Most Tuesday nights I meet with some people to play go at a Perko’s cafe in Willits, 25 minutes north of where I live in Ukiah. Last Tuesday, as I finished my last game for the evening, I overheard one of the waitresses talking with some customers—people she clearly knew—about problems with her daughter. As I left I got curious and asked her about it, and she laid out the story for me.

Years ago, when her daughter was very young, she was addicted to drugs. Her judgment impaired, she sometimes left her daughter with baby sitters of questionable character. Something happened during this time that she to this day has no knowledge of, because her daughter won’t open up about it to anyone. But there’s enough behavioral evidence to suggest she was molested, or worse.

In recovery now from the drug abuse, she strives to make up for her past neglect. But the damage is done, and she struggles to raise an extremely intelligent, angry, resentful nine year old who seems to be developing sociopathic tendencies. As I drove home, potential lines began to manifest to mind in relation, which later built upon themselves to metamorphose into this poem.

from here

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.