Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
What do you mean
by knife, by wind?
The bluest sky below the wash
of sunset pink, delectable
as a slice of blue fruit riding
the horizon’s blade.
Half a moon over the barn.
The field of goldenrod fuzz
gathering its sparrows, brown
into brown, poor Sam Peabody
as lamentable as ever:
a song that catches in the middle
like a shirt on a thorn.
The wind dying,
& the color in the trees
darkening like dried blood.
After hearing about a poetry workshop where references to the moon were strongly discouraged
Goodnight moon you nail clipping you garlic bulb
Goodnight moon baring a fat white buttock
Goodnight moon over only a paper Miami
Goodnight moon you’ve been a great audience
Goodnight moonstruck wino posing as a poet
Goodnight moon and tidings good or ill
Goodnight moon with fluids leaking
Goodnight moon bound to your orbital bed
Goodnight moon of other planets
Goodnight moonscaped mountain of tailings
Goodnight moon I had a lovely time
Goodnight moon hello freeway exit
The flies were half-frozen, they could
barely rub their forelegs together.
How was it the mind still managed
its manikin dance? The galvanized
steel bucket had yet to heal
where a hunter had shot it
beside the old settling pond, now green
with duckweed. What was it like
to flicker wingless, like a flame,
among the ranked objects of desire
from the latest raid? And as
the utmost treasure sang its drone note
into the palm, to feel the fever leave.
I have only muscle memory
of this now: a hooded falcon
ruffling its index feathers
& the bare oaks like a ribcage
through which I passed.
Today was no longer fall, but fly,
with high winds & a fast
traffic of clouds. Now that
it’s almost still, the birds are making
strange noises in their sleep,
like fragments of car alarms,
& I remember the forest floor startling up
on iridescent wings & streaming
through the branches, a rush
hour crowd, & the dark road
they unfurled across the sky.
There you are again, hollering
just for the company of the echo.
There you are wearing my genes,
bucktoothed, nearsighted
& hollow-eyed from insomnia, the family curse.
I know you, long-distance runner,
apostate, follower of game trails.
I see already your ruin, inevitable as oxygen.
I hear the birds who never spoke to me
calling to you by name,
as if the world could possibly miss
one more neurotic primate lover.
The bindweed sheds its leaves
& turns to gold filagree in the lilac,
above the graves of the strangers
whose whiskey bottles I have placed,
green & purple, in the windows
to catch the winter sun.
Direct link to video on Vimeo.
Text:
When I was young, I did have a few ambitions. I remember wanting to be a tree, or to achieve orbital velocity, or even to fall in love — falling was especially attractive. I remember trying to feel full of potential: an odd proposition, like following the map of veins in the back of your hand, or praying to an unresponsive power company. I hadn’t yet learned how to listen to the silent land. Back then, my mania for writing was only kept in check by my mania for crossing things out, like scratch answering to itch. I kept everything: my papers, you’d say, if I were anyone famous. Leaves from a tree that no longer exists.
*
I filmed a short walk through the woods during a snowstorm yesterday, but in the absense of image stabilization it turned out to be fairly unwatchable except in short segments. So most of this videopoem consists of game cam footage from our neighbors, Troy and Paula Scott. The cameras are motion-triggered and shoot both normal and infrared, 30-second films. The soundtrack incorporates music by DJ Rkod licensed under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Sampling Plus licence, found at ccmixter.org, which Peter Stephens turned me onto last month (check out his videopoetry on Vimeo).
The power was out for four hours this morning, forcing me to resort to pen and paper, which now strikes me as a very odd way to write.
Start without the harmonica. Scarves, messengers, sections of a tangerine: anything can teach you grace. Hold a small bird & blow on it as if it were the first feeble flame in a trash burner with rain already starting to fall. Draw a map of everywhere you can walk with one tapping foot. Because honey is golden, we think we know how it will taste, but the tongue has other rendezvous. Reach without looking into a drawerful of knives, patting gently with your fingertips as if it were the head of a large dog. Practice saying, This one’s for the ladies. Anyone who knows how to breathe knows how to play.
A sudden waft of perfume at 1:00 a.m.:
night-blooming cereus.
*
Six hours of broken sleep.
I wake to find a web across my door.
*
I eat the good half of a hairy peach
as quickly as I can.
*
Distant tropical storm.
A small flock of migrants gusts around the yard.
*
Above the blue-and-while dogwood berries,
a blue-and-white warbler.
Let yourself in—
use any key that fits.
Be kind to the parrot in the mirror
who doesn’t know what he’s saying,
there in that cage that looks
so much like your face.
No one is on this, not even you.
Call the numbers you find
on certain benches in the park
& leave messages consisting of
precisely timed moments of silence.
Words can’t be trusted.
Be sure to forget your dreams
immediately upon waking
& remove all traces of any nocturnal emissions.
If sleep apnea develops,
treat with a didgeridoo
to reboot your breathing:
go deeper.
Let yourself down
with knotted bedsheets, gingerly,
through what used to pass for moonlight
in the age of aluminum.
Unchurched—I love this word!
It makes me feel like a vacant lot,
a sanctuary for knotweed & loosestrife.
*
We unchurched are like salamanders:
slippery, amphibious, choosing to dwell
where you only go for baptism.
*
I called an owl & she answered.
It was Greek to me, but she flew right in
& clacked her bill threateningly.