2 Days Ago

Swiftly
I was walking
through doorways that
led to ten more

nothing was locked
and windows were everywhere
yet I

grazed each wall
tenderly
searching for an exit

i was set as a stone
in an interior courtyard
where outside was inside

No one was chasing me
no guns pointed
or knives shining
my house was like a prison

and i just wanted to be free

and there was no way out for me
in the dream
i had
two days ago

dream space-- almost done

Contrary

Swing between steps
inside and around
gently provoke a reaction

a touch or a glance
leading into a direction

pressed up against
the careful meeting
everything measured and
internalized

the heat rising against
a cold surface
making ripples electric and
hypnotized

the elegant rumor
spread savory
across a flame

a diminutive presence
wrapped up in chivalry
the hearth, contrary intuition

Ice Palace on black

Adrift

I sat in a dank and crowded room
with a man of wisdom and words
who drew parallels between

the searching and the saved
a delicate conversation
over cups of coffee and

tips left in clinking change

he took his pen and with
the same stroke
created a circle atop a circle

atop a circle

with each rotation
I somehow some way
saw some thing

varied

as he narrated a world
and history belonging to him
and also to no one

a separate sea
coming together to save them

there was no difference between time
and energy
the lines ran their course

linking between motion

a living body of text
that would guide a people
for years spanning
a thousand and more

sacred paper
dictating a prologue
to the birth of humanity

adrift on seeds floating
through the sky and
scattered throughout
the fields

the ceaseless crops
of newborn hope

the book of transitions

Patched

The leaves are falling slowly
like a million kites in the sky

against the sidewalk
and the puddles
soaking up the last

of the season
the debris and dirt

it's back to number
crunching

to calendars and no light

but we're looking
continuously

for a burst in the pipe
an overflow
of ideas

to warm us on winter nights

making sure to mind
our idleness

with busy hands
and heads computing
the next big thing

I'm sitting
trying to remember
how to make
the tattered pieces
into a spirit enlightened

by time

pushing pulling
until everything is patched over

526

Threshold.

I'm sitting at the edge of a rock
spinning

and watching as the threshold opens
into a meandering wave of
polarity

searching for a manner
in which to guide
the needle north

as it tumbles out of control
spinning

fixate now on familiarity
in this unfamiliar terrain

slide against the grains
that oppose you
digging further deeper downward

banging our heads together for
a mighty solution
that will alleviate
all these worries
cascading

a thin sliver
is all that separates
us

my fists are closed and ready
my feet firmly on the ground
waiting to pounce

a victory in sight
and defeat in the rear view
spinning

determined to break through

Splash

Ripple

Bouncing off spectrums
refracting light
in the shadows and
back and again

Crumpled paper
in a heap
in the corner
like a stack of lost hopes

in numbers and odds

down to exact times
cuttings
remnants

made anew

the vibrations coursing
through my aching bones
my spine and wrist

scratches against the hairless
skin

falling out all over the floor
picking up the scraps
and throwing them away

to end up in some other form
and it starts all over again

Under the Big Top finished

Graces.

When I was little
I used to draw pictures
of spaces

like homes
in my dreams

someplace safe

though
I don't know exactly
what safe looks like

is it a gun or bars on the windows

or pair of arms that
could hold me

I see

running water through the living room
and fish swimming around

my personal ocean

windows that span
floor to ceiling

so that the world outside
isn't so external

like melting
away
through the thin skin
of glass

trailing all the way to the
ends of the earth
and back again

in one continuous flow
of energy

every inch of the shifting plates
the trembling crusts
my playground

no place foreign
every language spoken

faces familiar
and friendly

every animal my brother or sister
every emotion driven by instinct
primal
not overburdened

by filters
or society

a place to lay my head
down on a soft pillow
or the fur of my cat
the shoulder of my mother
or the chest of my lover

dreams that don't haunt me
or cause me to cry
days becoming longer

in the field
with long grasses
I lay with legs stretched

staring at the sky

trying to extend myself upward
to the heavenly bodies

to the furthest reaches
to the next dimensions

only to return to this body
the only home I understand
completely

Dream Space

Sparks

Out of sheer exhaustion
endless nights feeding
on junk and pills

unable to sleep
but for a few choice hours
between bouts of indecision
regarding what to do next

i drag myself out of bed
after spending an hour
daydreaming of sleep

and stand in a cold shower
rubbing my eyes together
so hard

like i'm trying to scrape
away all the layers of membrane
that have been defiled
by what was witnessed

rubbing so that i could see
boundless explosions
of yellow stars

fireworks that look like pixelated
explosions of electrified wires
that were also veins

i see possibility in the darkness
and wish for sleep again

Under the Big Top

Ramble

All of this incessant talking
sometimes it needs to end

let's sit
with our fairy tales
and our monsters
in sweet silence

and imagine

in the same urgent cry
for something better than
chaos of an ordinary kind

the ice is crashing into the ocean
the seas rise above my head

and i am unable to stay afloat
without
a helping hand to carry me

the magic is somewhere
to be found

in the written word
a love letter
a summons

bridge common bonds
and reveal an opening

for the spirit to be
liberated vindicated
exonerated
contemplated

after passing
friends gathered round

but who will walk through the gates
as a true companion

who can we depend on in this life
not to disappoint us so greatly

that we lose all sense of hope

I try to look forward
but struggle against it

like i'm running through dry sand
my feet scorched
and skin blistered from the
deadly rays

ice palace with ice carriage

Delineate

drawing lines
down our backs

etching words into
skin

revealing complexity
through breath hot against breath

an implosion
wasted away

caving in and buried beneath
these feelings overcome

chills sent along fingertips
a head grasped in frustration

a cry bellows in my chest
and i am spent

Scrap Map

Boom.

strike down these doubts

this evil that permeates every ounce of anything good and pure
it's all too much to bear at the moment
i feel frustrated and not in that good way

the drugs are speeding underneath
and i'll burst if the pressure isn't let out
through a dull slow drip

because anything more than an explosion
might pull me into its grasp

don't think bad things
the bad things might come true
you don't know your own power, you aren't aware

of how
far
these steps take us

and one gesture could
pull on something to unravel
and then only bareness
remains

so exposed and vulnerable
for everyone to judge by clips and pops

the wind carries us away from
this place
and I float in the sonic boom

after Steve Schick's Percussion Concert

Floating

the floating worlds steamrolling endlessly through

the crashing forces
pick me ups

of quotidian life

buzzing alarms and birds speaking in foreign tongues

breakfast on the table,

get the kids to school

faith is a poor bargain in times of desperation and conceit fuels forward
trickling down the sides of walls

stomping footfalls buzzing eardrums echoes off the tree bark

radiowaves transmitting at a constant rate undulating

breeching the surface beaching hatching forgetting

Undulating Wave

Space

I imagine the world opening up into a hole
into itself
into the core

like those drawings of
grids
templates and astrophysics

falling under over beyond

emerging as new life
mother child
struggling for freedom

a sequence unfurling
a repeat a mistake
simple decisions

the boldness and the unrelenting
awash in color
instantaneously lost

bound in ritual
gnawing at the edges
tearing ripping receding

exploding into a past tense
coming up for air
through a vacuum

a space

Polynesian Flower

Memory

We drove down by the waterfront past the small boat harbor where my grandparents kept their sailboat when I was a child. Where once there were empty fields there are now wind turbines generating clean electricity. I think back to those trips on the L'Chaim, the name of my Grandpa's S2 sailboat-- his home away from home. He took such excquisite care of this boat. He cleaned it with a toothbrush. The steering wheel was shiny silver and smooth, and sometimes if he was busy with something-- he would let me steer the boat--a task I accepted with fear and trembling excitement.

Eightfold Path

Leaves

Set foot
deep in the undergrowth
with toes bare and sweat streaming
through the wilderness
and the unknown

banking left for glimpses
a passage of light lingering
ties of ribbons
splintering the fallen leaves
again to the riverbed

the water running through
unstoppable
get back to something primal
trace histories across
the survivors

against my throat
raw scraping
of air being forced through
i can't get enough
to run faster

for this place

Mini Flashlight

The Dawn

Every single grain
leads down the same path
into the networks

and outside the frame

Until one day he slams
against the headboard
behind the shutters

a ghost in the shadows

As a delusion
of pills and spills
with courses racing

the delicate balance

A heart ablaze
the numbed response
the suffering and the saved

vintage

Orientation

Behind invisible walls
and beams of dust and years

sits the fortunate one
alone and whirling

inching closer to a fixed point with
everything moving around an axis

perched at the end of fingertips
looking over the world

as trouble steams through
the rolling clouds, the endless

phases

the interconnecting universes
and spirits conversing

energy accumulates
into a bellowing cry

Mini Paris

Dialectic

In a perfect phase of symmetry
hashing out, confines of space
grating into walls these marks of moments

Bare fingernails
to the test of blood
and teeth

This arose out of nothing to reveal
a space divided
torn and placed delicately aside

Let's build these plans
into something spontaneous
with the promise of fertility

I can already see the grid
every step traversed
and reduced to rubble

Thread the hands through
intertwined and infinite
shadowed monsters

restrain
from breaking the
invisible pane

Light Through the Window