bitsofvariousthings

[bitsofvariousthings]

Outbreaks by Kitchen McKeown

i search for god but the sun is a penny. looper moths form halos beneath the streetlamps. summer’s ghostly curtains. check the weather. haze. i search for god but the moon is gone. i search for comfort, and the eels come. they cross my meadow every twilight, up to seven feet in length, traversing mountain napes with open eager mouths. the fires heaved them from the rivers, now they curve themselves across the precipice of life, toward black oceans. haunted yellow eyes. looper moths become a gentle cloud. i become an eel, then rethink it. i cough. reveal a wet moth. some gray little heart. it’s all hazy now. pale as sunbleached wood, i go forth. in a slant of moonlight, i search for comfort. the neon 24-hour fried chicken sign gleams behind the pines. i crawl in the moss. it is easy to find god. she is a cluster of eels beneath my palms. i ask of her, am i doing any of this life right? and she, with her many mouths, says nothing.

[bitsofvariousthings]

Marriage by Ellen Bass

When you finally, after deep illness, lay the length of your body on mine, isn’t it like the strata of the earth, the pressure of time on sand, mud, bits of shell, all the years, uncountable wakings, sleepings, sleepless nights, fights, ordinary mornings talking about nothing, and the brief fiery plummets, and the unselfconscious silences of animals grazing, the moving water, wind, ice that carries the minutes, leaves behind minerals that bind the sediment into rock. How to bear the weight, with every flake of bone pressed in. Then, how to bear when the weight is gone, the way a woman whose neck has been coiled with brass can no longer hold it up alone. Oh love, it is balm, but also a seal. It binds us tight as the fur of a rabbit to the rabbit. When you strip it, grasping the edge of the sliced skin, pulling the glossy membranes apart, the body is warm and limp. If you could, you’d climb inside that wet, slick skin and carry it on your back. This is not neat and white and lacy like a wedding, not the bright effervescence of champagne spilling over the throat of the bottle. This visceral bloody union that is love, but beyond love. Beyond charm and delight the way you to yourself are past charm and delight. This is the shucked meat of love, the alleys and broken glass of love, the petals torn off the branches of love, the dizzy hoarse cry, the stubborn hunger.

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When you finally come to your senses, does it feel like

fresh air, head above water, treading crystal clarity?

Does it feel like a train tumbling towards you, bearing down the weight

of momentum, uprooting your feet buried in the beach sand, 

or is it the wave? How do you know, when suddenly

you have always been yours? It’s not cold, and you’re sipping tea,

and all is well until it isn’t. You can move until you can’t. 

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i need to get out more lol

sun shyly fanning, breeze over skin like a minty kiss

i step between cracks, shadows, glints

foot after foot through air pungent with garlic and meat

hands deep in pockets keeping warm, seeking heat--

moments of senses different from office light and static air

and for these moments, my mind stays clear

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Mundane

In the silence of a half-lit light,

dim lamps with shade-shattered streams,

my eyes close out the blankness of the night

and let in the blankness of my dreams

Dreams like ticking tocks, clock work

I rise and greet the day and turn to sleep

Each the same motion, the same steady rock-

rocking of the steps between my feet 

And yet- as each movement comes to close,

nothing- not even blankness- grows

[bitsofvariousthings]

summer night

oh starlight, you bright

eyelashed gaze like sunlight in drowsy haze,

like sugar slicked wings and nails down thighs

oh sighs

trickling, thickening delight

soft warm lips and bits of bites

on tips of ears, on lines of jaws

and in the midst, this lamp-lit night

the air does give its shaky pause

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Like solid space-- all delicate carved

and champagne bubbles, freed from lips

I turn around the ground fills in

with this dimple-kiss, this soft-defined

this wondering, grinning love  

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summer 2

peace my friend, and mind

that summer air still ripple hung with tear 

and diamond clear fluidity, not

unlike fluttering stirring in your chest--

notes to sing, and loud! with grins or soft

with curled fingers crook’d, sweetness 

clasped in corners, 

and pressed in smiles to taste   

[bitsofvariousthings]

summer

waves of air in fanning tides

keep summer warmth at bay

what a hazy thick

this distant, click of brain

like sludging trudge of mush

meshing slovenly, saccharinely

in between the gusts

like heart beats of thought

heads bobbing above--

for under is breathing heat, 

breathing like eyes in closing sleep

i muddle my thoughts through swamps of deep,

such trickling, mumbled pains

[bitsofvariousthings]

nyeh can’t sleep

There’s an ache in my chest that won’t lay to rest

ribs knitting into my sides

an itching crawl where i’m bodily dragged

to my feet, my eyes pried wide

[bitsofvariousthings]

awe

a drop on my heart

of sunshine it starts

the love that keeps pouring through

like cracks in my cheeks

and smiles on for weeks

the light that’s come in from you

and i love like a breath of hands combed through hair, 

a lilt of a notes hitched on missed steps of the stair,

whole sentences formed with conjunctions phrased 

just to ease up, release up the joy

for i love, and this love names its void

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Bleeding

Oh it’s a special kind of clarity,

a cut that runs but not so deep

a shot of something burning in my veins so bright

You know the best of me is always you

Just an empty vessel to flow through

The way you lilt your every rift shakes my heart light

You prove blood can come in blue and black,

in rippling shades no holding back

I bleed out red and your notes through my wrists

With shaking hands I close my eyes,

a being of white noise comprised

Clean emotion-- with it painful bliss

[bitsofvariousthings]

A clarity in the way this moves me,

uses me as I use it,

a part in the way my skin sloughs and coils

the teething of seizing lines on my thighs--

clarity in the way I dry my eyes and stretch

arms seared clean, fresh, 

mind blank and quieted by something 

hot and terribly, achingly bright

You frown

but this is how I sleep the night

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2

I want laughter and grasped wrists

casual shoulder touches and hiding at your side

soft skin and smiles and eyes and

a feeling like I don’t want to cry

[bitsofvariousthings]

1

Nervous teeth, nervous bones, nervous eyes

I want to straighten my rips and iron my sides

And I have love like glue and tacks and string,

so I zip myself up and begin again

[bitsofvariousthings]

I feel sorrow like an flame that wants to be cut

on the teeth of someone else’s blade

so I burn and I burn and I gnash and I bite--

your blood for my own, your tears for my tears

Turn away that it may sheath in the small of your back,

through your ribs, out your side,

in the emptiness of your eyes as they see past mine;

I raise your hand and hold you accountable

for things I’m not allowed to name.

But there’s no anger to whet on the heat of my own,

nothing to consume beyond static and grief;

I know if I hurt you, we’ll both just feel pain.

But god, does it burn just the same.

[bitsofvariousthings]

There’s static in my ears and static

in my limbs, and when I shake my head, pixels fall

from between my teeth, my calves glued stuck

to my feet, my fingers to my thighs 

It’s hollowing me out, this process of not doing,

of hand pulled down cheeks and cheek pulled down eyes

What was it like to not not think, and to not think otherwise?