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changingbirdpoems · 7 years

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poems not about any particular person: 2008

a poem for Lincoln’s birthday (Feb. 12)

there is entropy growing in alwaysgardens needing only soil and water and air. Sunlight’s irrelevant to photosynthesis breaking out of haiku, loosening all form, casting aspersions on carbon dioxide, our favorite exhale

down

the soil needs Sunlight too (ultraviolet cravings and a tendency to ask for solidthings). we are moving towards chaos, leaving glucose as our only trail of rebellion

prosetry

There was nothing in her eyes to feed his heart. He looked at her. He always looked at her. She was always standing next to him, looking away, mouth hanging slightly open. Every light fixture in the room strained to illuminate them.

Inconsolable, his heart was made of plants that grow only when spoken to. He blinked as her silence withered his body. He was a man who was tired of feeling worthless. He began all his sentences the same way. He wrote so slowly that his typewriter had begun writing ahead of him. He. All of her sentences varied, and she never blinked. Blue eyes never need to be moistened, as they are already water. Fruit trees grew in her apartment; their branches and vines were cruel and wonderful, growing out of her occasional words. When she would laugh, all the lights would flicker, straining to hear the soft sound. He wanted to be her light, but she was a woman who promised nothing but erasure.

Summer Rebellion

Looking at love that is stranger than mine, memories of sweat dripping down to a place Really, the reminiscence is soft, like the light we would bathe in, feeling nights on northern streets, flying out of cars out of breath into stores for liquor or for old, used things we never needed But God did we want Lying on cement, tar beneath our backs, hands close, we were Awake like owls in a lightning storm There was a river that June night you whispered away the fog; we tore off our clothes and swam until it was morning and we couldn’t ever go home again. That afternoon the guitar strings broke. You wore thinner clothes and asked me to hold you less Rolling stolen cars into lakes, practicing escaping, practicing holding our breath and looking in each other’s eyes through water and moonlight, as though we were made of universe. As though we were in love. When really we were just musicians. Real artists kiss with their eyes open, you’d say quietly firmly transcendentally touching the red tired space beneath my eyes opening your mouth for a last breath.

June 20

so there’s this fear

swallowing the strands of our color but we never

ask it to calm down

to slow the trickle, no we only

breathe in and feel the burn,

and say thank you like good children

as if we have no right, no birthright to honesty

But hey, this is how the world turns

and those who grow cacti shouldn’t complain

about prickles,

you know?

June 22

there’s a cold storm rising on the mississippi river pulling out its tendrils to the mist it washes up the ocean whales and seaweed vanished letting us drown in our own piss there’s a sad way you look when you smile at your mother as though you know she never wanted this there’s a sweet little flavor dusting o’er the hilltops as though it could find the way to my mouth or some other orchard dust on, old mother dust on you have found your own boundaries but they do not exist

July 7

the ocean that reaches out its hand to feel out the features of my face as though a blind man lingers in its waves will find itself also my bed, my home, my landlord fingernail shells and seaweed tongues promises against my ankles in and out, a tide of words and purpose.

July 13

In a storm, the car can be the safest place, they say - All that rubber underneath you. I disagree

no lonely place can ever be a safe place. Purgatory’s the word.

Purgatory.

July 14

once I found a weeping willow asleep by the side of the road it was weary yet nascent, drooping into its beginnings cradling each branch, I picked it up and gently silently set it down in the back of my truck I took it home with me, fed it some sunlight (which was really all that I had to give) and asked it, please, to wake

if it must weep, understandable, but to lie so listlessly? no, it must open its eyes

I told it, Oh you are just becoming you have so much existence to look forward to, I promise the next day it awoke and humored existence for an hour, before . . I would have cried, but salt water wouldn’t save a weeping willow

July 15

so I hear that you’ve been raining in santa monica,

little cloud? the sahara will be so disappointed in you

July 28 (Rollercoaster)

I find this innate bursting forth from every living thing.

Even the trudging existences seem to inevitably flow from a center of energy beneath it all.

It’s not so much the thrill of the risk as it is the appreciation that you are hurtling through space unscathed. One doesn’t enjoy happiness just because the alternative is death. There’s a moment for existence and you don’t refuse. That is the thrill of such a giant machine.

July 30

little lies turn into pavement on my tongue, furnishing this purgatory highway, rain-strewn and sullen, like a teenager doesn’t have to be. let me taste morning dew, let things run their course. each person to their own mistakes. fly. I’ll hold you.

July 31

Each knuckle of my spine clenches with the road, ears quiet as horses underwater. The most comfortable the world has ever been. For once, on this hope-strewn highway, there is no need to be anyone else.

At peace.

August 2

It’s like the difference between jam and jelly– one with pieces of its origin–one smoothed–purified–cleansed of its form– broken in a jar by the porch–green, ephemeral rain lifting each leaf–above the mountains, mist warns (it will not always be so gentle)– there once was a time when spiders spoke and mountains disappeared.

August 3

Like seahorses, an incredible delicacy– Wings of tinderdust–they make love like pendulums. Rewarding our silence with gentle alighting, these neon fish of the air.

August 4

Each quiet is its own. Opening my eyes underwater, a different sort of clarity brushes in ripples across my vision. For every silence that we hum into being, a loon rises like a phoenix from the ashes of the lake.

August 5 (a haiku)

the mountain has left but in the moss you can find other ways to breathe

August 6

fields of corn off the side of the highway condemn any person who says that there isn’t beauty in the every day

August 7

Who would have thought that I could find New Hampshire in the middle of Virginia? A hidden portal pocket takes me back to my peaceland, but now I am with two gems, curled up in my hair like phosphorus. I have always found the semiprecious stones to be more beautiful.

August 12

Work. Try to complete. Try to succeed for this new bursting forth? Try.

August 13

This old shaking. Listing the people I have loved

I come to face with this sadness I have mostly

expelled. I remember the ancient need to reach

out. A rainforest mist of good intentions

keeps a constant dew of uncaring hands at my waist.

Songless prophecies.

That first saffron love pirouettes between your

legs. Many people set up butterfly nets for love,

but I have begun to just fly with it.

August 29

sliding through the sky cracks of the school summit I am faced with an absence of familiarity, and my ankles feel naked without grass licking at their skin- i am weighed down I am weighed down before I even sat upon the heights of new adventure.

September 3

I saw you brushing your lonely hair today,

outside the locker room. There isn’t much

a person can hide. Hold on to it. Let

everything else roam.

a haiku for you

it’s been a long time since I sat down and spelled out one of these flowers

lost and disconnected

This is not your year, the turquoise water informs through the rusted iron fence, luring into a sinking sort of dance, each forlorn creature floating with a lassitude unfortunate and inescapable. It is mine.

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