does it make you angry that the mirror’s in the present does it make you hungry like a spatially laden pheasant? I see cardinal directions but only for this second In only three dimensions as my dark brain reckoned I smash the mirror with my fist The shards of silver bleed I smash the wristwatch with a hammer Then plant it with a seed I watch the tree grow stronger Its roots dig in my belly I feed the time-tree daily As my bones turn to jelly The fruits are yellow, thick-skinned They grow too far to reach My head is buried in the dirt The tree’s become a leech I will not eat my time-fruits I will not taste their juice Instead I lay here in the dirt and let my spirit loose
Category: Poetry
I am nature’s daughter
I walk by a pool of water the sun filtering yellow through the water skippers dancing the sky a heated blue. The algae air clings clothing the sweat runs down my chest I walk by a pool of water but I cannot find rest. I cannot see my iris in the glassy surface edge I cannot see my face or hair or the beads hung on the hedge I do not know my reason I do not know the birds that sing on heavy branches I do not know their words. All humans are so tiny such an interlocking mesh how many hands it took to build how many pounds of flesh No one walks beside me No one across the lake No one across the ocean Am I here by mistake? The grass is filled with tick shells the mud smells like a sewer I cannot see my reflection Or the clouds upon my skewer I sit on a rotting tree stump And stare out at the water A mosquito welts my arm skin I am truly nature’s daughter.
macrame
Why do we trap god in a pit Or pickle god in a glass? Why do we think of GOD as a man In paintings, in print, in brass? GOD is not human, she said to me, god is the spaces between God is the gravity well, the bee, GoD is electric: the Queen. If you scraped all the good from human hearts And somehow measured its sheen that’d be the shadow, a whisper of god just flameless gasoline. God is remove your sandals NOW And slap those feet on the ground The creation of flesh, who works the plow Struck dumb, ambered in sound. The sum of every genius thought The joy of every glowing heart The power of every pent-up watt The counter and the counterpart. You burn your sandals now and pray Let god unknot the macramé.
mariana to everest
How can I take in Mariana to Everest And battle Time, when she thinks she’s the cleverest? Here’s a curled-up baby, damp and crying Blinking with its black eyes at the room Every eyelash, fingernail complying With the human blueprint from the womb. Here’s a wrinkled shell, her soul still beating Even after AIDS has gnawed her flesh How to live when all of life is fleeting? How to age, when birth appears so fresh? How to love, when lovers die tomorrow? How to rage, when justice walks away? How to grieve when tears don’t lessen sorrow? How to see the weave within the fray? We must follow creature intuition What humans did before we managed fire We must understand another being’s condition And do our best to give what they require. We serve our human sisters and our brothers We cannot always choose their paths through mortal night Touched by the ancient calling: healing others It’s enough to lend our steady beams of light.
mother
I spread myself out and melt into the grass Becoming the blades of translucent sun-glass I am the bubbling under the stream The salmon that fall through acrylic and steam I melt underneath and become beetle shells The nettles the splinters the crunch and the wells The hollow and echo and ghost through the trees Breathing the waters and rustling the leaves I am the sky now, the moon-clouded sun The breath in your lungs and the drum of your run I am the skin holding blood to your chest I am the dewdrops on pinecones undressed I am the rock rolling up silver hills To generate forest from butterfly frills. I am the scraping of birdsong at eve The kisses of lava on saltwater frieze I am the washing of particled stones The salt-weed and sea moss and ocean-bleached bones I am the jungle infusing exploding I am the tundra diffusing unloading I am the depths of sulfurous sea valleys Crabs spidering through my Riftia alleys I am the heights of the quartz-weighted peak Lighter than air where peregrines seek In one slip of time, with a reach of my toes A stretch of my hips and scuff of my nose I reach out to space with the tips of my hair – Come talk with me, child; you’re under my care.
[Featured Image: Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains by Albert Bierstadt]
are we a pestilence or are we angels
Are we a pestilence or are we angels Did we come here to destroy, or save? We, the creatures who defined the angles Between the stars, and sailed the ocean wave Are we much mightier than the fruit flies? Than all the creatures free in forest shade? Are we constructing such elaborate murals That we can’t see our own reflections fade? We came from dust, to dust we shall return Let’s not drag all other life inside our urn.
broken thing
I am a broken thing now All of my feathers are frayed I hold a glass in my claws And shiver under its weight. The poison that heavied my soul Was a slow, thick drink. I was baptized in human tears Over a hospital sink. Or maybe I was drowned with human blood and hair I can’t distinguish exactly (but it smelled like hospital air.) I cannot watch sad films See the actors’ broken eyes Because my broken back Hauls the weight of their actual cries. The fiction is no longer fiction It’s wrenched itself off the page But real fiction’s worse than fiction Since nobody filters the rage. Nobody gives your hero The extra chance they deserve. They beat your hero with a bat And crush them like a nerve. They burn your hero with matches And go out to watch the game You document the wounds and regrets And remember your hero’s name.
I sailed a rowboat to the edge of the world
I sailed a rowboat to the edge of the world, where the atmosphere meets open space Launched straight up, as the smoke unfurled, as the waves grew small and the clouds uncurled I found myself in that place. Then at the cusp where the sunlight streamed and the edge of the world goldenly gleamed and my breath was frozen in the still night air, I lifted my arms, tossed back my hair And my boat tipped forward past invisible edges, like a thousand needles on a thousand ledges and I trimmed the air like I sculpted hedges For a single moment I was one of the stars, and the sunlight pierced my eyes and my scars, and I caught my breath in the breathless void, and the sun slipped behind the edge, destroyed. Then I shot towards the ground with incredible speed, as though I were riding a flaming steed, with the wind in my hair and my hair on fire and each muscle stretched and tuned as a wire, and I charged the earth as the earth stood still, racing the ice down an endless hill, and the coastline grew sharp and I thought I heard waves, and the dead raised their eyes from their ancient graves, as I roared and I sliced and I bled and I raved, And i burst to the ground with my head unshaved As I lay on the grass looking up at space And the breeze brushed the years and the tears from my face I sank back deeply and felt each blade Like a mammoth's fur, like the earth had frayed And I heard an owl weeping in the night And gravity held me and pressed me tight I remembered and sung what I'd heard before As I seeped down to sleep inside the core.
[Featured Image: High-altitude balloon by Noah Klugman; modified from source]
who wields the hand behind the whitened blade
Who wields the hand behind the whitened blade that carves the edges out around the clouds to let out light, the fire encircling shade a fracture spewing sunbeams over jade? And all those carvings, where on land are they? Perhaps the carver catches them before they fall or maybe they dissolve in stormy ray and crash as crystal rains, a broken spray. Jade forests turn to gold beneath the sun and honey milk flows over endless crowds illuminating sweat of those who run and melting through the ice of day. It’s done. Why should the preface of the night be flames? The sun’s farewell, before she dons her shrouds and tucks behind the mountain range’s frames the final shriek from she who no one tames. Is it because each time she’s dying new? To rise again through song of dawning birds? Perhaps this wild display is her tattoo upon the world before she’s gone from view. Perhaps she never knows if she’ll return Perhaps she wields the knife herself, an art She makes the color blood, in patterned fern She burns the heavens with her spirit’s churn The question that these paintings all beget is not the sunset then, but shy regret that as a mortal, I may be offset by night that’s bound to end my own vignette. When that day comes, I’ll wait, a parapet and hear the air films moving through the trees I’ll see upon the ground my silhouette inked by my friend, her knife wrapped in a net. The sky is calm; she writes my epithet a blue with hues of starry alphabet Tonight I meet her, and together we’ll forget the reason why we feared to be reset.
a millipede waves on the sidewalk dust
A millipede waves on the sidewalk dust ruby-backed scales with a touch of rust deliberate marching straight towards the street a road not perceived by the undulant feet. I pluck it up and it curls to protest blocking me out as it hides, distressed I place it away on safe grass to rest knowing for sure it will ne’er be impressed that I saved it from death that I did what was best. I try not to view the crawler as flawed; I am probably just like that creature to God.
balladrael 
