boots in my house

detail of outfit I did not buy

"don't threaten me with a gentle tease"

It is morning. The sun has climbed over the edge of the river valley. Somehow this morning gray was the only color of the sunrise. I am sleeping in a place where I watch it rise every morning. That room is also good for moonlight. A few weeks ago I bathed in a large patch of moonlight. I will have to be more mindful next time I do it. I am sure I missed the most important touches.

This morning I added ’fire’ to my list of things to do today. There are lots of papers that I no longer need. I have a can of kerosene on the porch and a large cement pipe lying on end out back. What the hell. Just hope I don’t get carried away.

An odd thing has happened to me. I’ve been wearing nothing but a pair of overalls at home for the past few weeks. I’ve had lots of work to do outside and inside and those things are just the most comfortable and practical to wear. Great to carry the tools I need. One day last week that was a small hand saw and a hatchet. I’m even so shameless that from time to time I wear them to the grocery store and the library but I’ve been trying to curb that behavior. And to brush the sticks and dried wildflowers out of my hair somewhat regularly.

new beast

there is a new beast that emerges this evening
I hear her in the desperate cries
deep and guttural

picture of my dog

what great hand would hold it down

“unyielding hope” he says
and I wonder if it would ever be appropriate
for hope to yield

dream

my shoe dropped before him as I stepped over
was it the felt that made him keep it
hand me his sandals

All Saints Day

he tells me

I am amazing viking rape spawn,
and the better for it.

I do not know.

dream

I was in a theater, in the office. Retrieving something from a locked desk for Kurt Vonnegut. He was kind enough to offer me some gentle advice. He said that I should slow down a little.

"Help!" she said.

"What had happened was that she had used up her instinct but had not replaced it with anything. Because she was so sure that the instinct would keep working for her. And it didn't because the material is just too deep. Too much to mine."
- Sidney Lumet

my thighs still ache

that tower is high
the wind was strong
everything swayed

yes, the other night

the bright moonlight,
I bathed in a patch
right there on the floor

its touch more subtle
than the sun's penetrating rays
but deeper reaching

now is the time

now is the time
I want to tell him
I have taken flight
my wings stretched wide

bathtub

too tempting for reason
far too hot but many bubbles

before my heart started racing
I spent time looking at my toes

stretched out before me
just above the water

found note

synesthesia

intimate conversation, action
ablution at the cistern
cairn growing

Not my kind of thing, thanks.

Did I mention that a few weeks ago my neighbor asked me to hang out with her and the husband while they burned their garbage?
Just couldn't imagine it. Even though I would have had a chance to see the deer she is raising in the house jump over the couch and the giant litter box filled with dirt which the deer also eat.

yesterday

I saw a girl dressed as a fairy
dancing with wild abandon
in her front yard.

electronic conversation

he writes:
watched part of the debate last night,
they had this computer graph thing that tracked the reactions
of uncommitted women living in ohio...
made me wonder how many of you there were

I reply:
I'm committed to one or two things.

Like hedonism.

And my cat.

late afternoon and evening

pictures at the library
secret surgery on the vacuum
an autobiography

funnybug on the bathroom screen

what makes me know I will return

remembering the grasping of your fingers
at that unexpected moment of release

should add years to my life, sinuousness

meandering is just more fun

aging

she tells me that the old dog is losing her fear
I wonder if it is catching

Neil does not like the smell of my dinner

knots

What is it again that must untie knots?
Vampires, did you say?
I need to find whatever it is
as I have a wicked knot in the tie of my sweatpants.

it wasn't

he writes:
was just washing my hands and
looked down at that bottle of bubblebath
you left and thought the label
said "ludicrously moisturizing."

For what it is worth.

I am feeling rambly like the roads I drove on today.
Had great curves and hills. Made me happy.
I don't know how to spell the purring of my body.

Arrow Rock

Slept for a glorious 10 hours underneath some amazing stars and the very visible milky way on a bluff above the Missouri River.

I have to tell you

I am unexpectedly thrown off at the prospect of being in a city. (Don't worry, I am preparing with delight - listening to music that reminds me how very much I love the city, desire it.) It has to do with more than all the concrete and less space, it is the time of the year. Right now I can feel (yes, feel) the sun rising over the edge of the river valley. These are days when a mist rises off the river each morning. There are subtle and sensuous changes in the quality of the crisp air as the minutes pass and the sky brightens. It reaches such a climax. The place of the sun in the sky touches my skin and mind in such an amazing way. Think I'll go lie in a patch of it.

having warm
pulsing
gotta pause and
hold onto the wall
until they pass
smiling
thoughts

all tingly, you say?

a little pressure with the thighs...

I don't know what time has done to me
except turn me into some sort of hedonistic mennonite
with strange boots

last summer afternoon

sign of a good or a bad day?

After a very long three days I went to the store and bought two things: a bottle of liquor and two C batteries.

nap in the sun

late summer sunrise

I don't know how I let him slip through my fingers.

I told a creepy gold chain wearing post-divorce-angst poetry writing guy at the workshop that I decided not to date until after menopause (he had been telling us that he dates menopausal women). He reached over patted my arm and said that was very thoughtful of me.

he did say

he would kiss me on the jaw
while I was sleeping
and I dreamt about him

the young furnace dude (that I've known for several years)

says he has never seen me smile before
says I've thinned out
asks if I'm on the prowl

My tongue hurts.

My tongue is a mess.
In a fit of nostalgia I bought a bag of atomic fireballs.
Spent the afternoon eating them - my tongue on fire.

cricket on my wall

I am trying.

“Be brave.”
she tells me

sunrise

afternoon walk

It is kind of sad that humans and their blind hopes are so predictable.

It is dangerous to read too much poetry.

It is easy to get fooled into thinking that things matter.

Saturday morning

Behind my house is a cabin that the camp ground rents out. Just outside my office window runs the drive to it. The cat and I heard something unusual out the window and looked over to see a dude in a tie-died t-shirt longish hair but bald on top walking two happy dogs on leashes. The unusual noise was him negotiating a plastic bag to pick up their poop. I almost leaned out the window to point out that WE ARE IN THE COUNTRY. But didn't.

finally

she balances it all
on the tips of her fingers

it is steadying to be perched
there with the others

none of us see it coming,
the cold blade

she is sliced open,
her deepest desire released

and for a moment, she stumbles

poem from words picked out of Coleridge (and last Friday)

I shrive myself to that magnificent woman
though nothing but a caress passes between our lips

her eyes bless the love, restless and gracious
she hast seen through the midnight hours

gently she removes the mishaps and
kisses us out of perdition

cool humid quiet

a thick fog has settled over the house and valley
I can not see farther than the crab apple
the edges of the barn have faded

it has muted all the morning bird song
but for a lonely cardinal in the pine tree
and an angry crow across the road

I imagine that while I was dreaming restful dreams
it fell from the sky, madly expelled - did not rise up
must have been the lightning strikes in the back woods

in those magic hours of the early morning it rolled over
woke me up long enough to crawl out of dream a few steps
rest in the comforting air, listen for the rain to start

Neil in the sun

capillaries opening, a pink tinge to the surface

secret frictions of form
they broke against my knees
trumping an entire culture
slipped up my thighs
the long muscles of the arms
a few quivers
calloused hands, a rib cage
then a pulse
the backs of the knees
a breathless moan
the small of the back
unbearable
the length of the spine

found a shiny tone

found a shiny tone in the woods
managed to swallow it
but it caught in my throat

it has been gradually melting
rivulets slowly sliding over the voice
I am no longer afraid to have

smooth and cold in the palm, they are

last Saturday
I came home with three rocks in my pocket
built a wee cairn for the reclining Ganesh
whose gentle pose flirts with me

this evening
the cairn fell over while I
was banging my heel on the
desk top in time with the music

I carefully rebuilt

inestimable fortune

each time my friend and I
get together, at least once
I will be reduced to gasping
laughter with tears

that game you started

time slowed
I watched
my fingers
in your palm
caught, not catching
the rock

pleasant day

hot sand
bare feet
shady patch
thrown stones
strong waves
wet feet
rocks underfoot
warm sun
wet knees
hiked skirt
distant boat
incoming tide
wet underpants
nice walk

some found art at Huntington Beach

only later do I remember that he is also a painter

he asks about colors
green with purple and blue flowers

how I am sitting
leaning back with my legs over the arm

wants more
there is a small snake laced through my fingers

he writes in the air between us

I cannot help but wonder
if he knows what he is doing

beaten down

tired
without
a safe place
to rest

I have been dreaming

blasphemous dreams
about sleeping
with a god

Pleasant Hill

I spent the afternoon
sitting in the sun
on the edge of a small human
made lake thinking and reading,
my cold white shoulders
warming to the bone-
storing this heat for winter

I was jolted to life
by a rivulet of sweat
rolling down my spine

thanks Morgan, for this

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."
-Thoreau

my evening was spent in 'Bloody Poetry'

(a play by Howard Brenton about Byron and the Shelleys)

it whispered to me from memory's recesses,
out of a black box in Columbus
but this journey started with Charlotte's Rochester

that libertine bedded me,
handed me over to Byron
who bound me in his stanzas

led me to the shores of Lake Geneva
into Mary's arms where I
was carried off to Italy

boarded Don Juan's recklessness,
drowned and was burned alive while
stepping from the mind into nature

reading

Before the reading I was supposed to write down something odd about myself but I wanted to listen to the first few people and the moderator took the clipboard away from me before I put pen to paper. After the reading my friend said that I should have mentioned that I have gone buzzard hunting. (Took a nap on a sunny afternoon in a field and was awakened by a buzzard circling a few feet above me.)

with a strange light in his eye he says

Don't hope...
trust.

on top of Fort Ancient earthworks

can take no blade to them

it is the privacy of armpits
that soft sensitive spot

epiphany

I am building a wave to ride out my life.

two friends had friends die unexpectedly last weekend

vague thoughts

I am unsettled this evening
a misplaced manuscript,
words sent to me,
motorcycles, heart attacks

my misplacement has only stolen
a brief satisfaction

that motorcycle stole Bonnie’s life

he writes...

“i imagine heat escaping from your skin,
firecrackers in an adjacent field,
dust yielding to dew”

fire tower bottom and top

from 'The Plague'

"...they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them...."

from the west bank

note to my friends

If I am upset then find out if I am reading any fiction and if so, what. That will probably answer everything.

that little death that you die

he asks if
the passion is worth it
yes, oh yes
at times it rises
engulfs it all
removes the windows and doors
and walls of the soul
a glimpse of the knowledge
of the entire universe is possible
no, not possible,
it is there
you are this infinite thing
no lines blurring anything
even the retreat from this state
is ecstatic in itself
waves of the all gently recede
carry you back to the now

what has been making me dance this week

Funkadelic

One Nation Under a Groove
"Here's my chance to dance my way
Out of my constrictions"

and

Freak of the Week
"Don't give her that one move groovalistic,
That disco sadistic,
That one beat up and down it just won't do.
Don't give her that forever and ever foreplay,
She's not looking for the short way,
She's got to reach a point where she gets off."

spin on the turntable the most

now I remember him singing to me

he says

it is but it also isn't

to make a big deal of it
is absurd

It has been an interesting week, hasn’t it.

At least two people want me in some way.
My friend asked me to go into business with her
and an old lover called and asked me to take over a town with him.

(didn't almost) cut my hair

why I want

Byronic, anti
doesn’t much matter
I need to know

distance on the plains

driving across Kansas
middle of the night
went to sleep after watching the large storm
light up the sky for hundreds of miles

woke up
it was still going

both a celebration and an indictment of that behavior

I filled a paper boat with words
launched it in this small mountain river.

Maybe water is stronger than air.

beef jerky man

he approaches us at the bus stop
we do not want beef jerky
he asks what we are doing,
kind of mocks us for taking the bus
we promise to wave on our way past him
and we do - leaning out the window smiling

next day we all ride the bus together
he acknowledges we were right on, man,
bets we know the name of the 8 o'clock band
and we do - we have bonded, he says, grinning

yes it is

it is a matter of celebrating each other

the strings reach up

their frequency is preventing
the ice from re-forming

the thing is

you can't see it coming

Ricky Skaggs plays

(I remind myself:

receive life
receive )



I cannot help but dance.
Joyously.
By myself.




it does seem that something has melted
after all that lock is gone
(what a surprise)







superfreak indeed

this is it

we are closest to the sun
right this very moment
I stand facing it
arms open

Tim O'Brien says

"If you don't have fun then it's your own damned fault."

Peter Rowan sings

"sailing on the river of time"

song writing workshop notes

That little thing drawing you forward
that is inspiration to me.


If you knew what you wanted to say then you wouldn't need to write about it.


(We are waiting to outgrow ourselves.)


I walk a crooked road.

I'm trying to get to new things.
(knew things, I wonder)


If the structure is getting in the way then forget about it.

Ani sings

"I look up to see integrity finally win over desire."

"She's trying to evolve.
I'm trying to evolve."

"I know there is strength in the differences between us."

Bach on a mandolin

we cannot help but stand still

she says

"This is why I work."

We are sitting in a box canyon.

I smile, consider, and say
"This is why I do not work."

Arlo Guthrie says that Marilyn Monroe said

Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right decision?

sitting on a bench under a street light

he stops, says I look more like a typical festival goer
than most he's seen - no dread locks
(my bigfoot t-shirt and the long underwear under my shorts
don't seem to work against me)

somehow Twain comes up
when this happens, he asks permission to sit down next to me
we list all of the books we've read
passionately recommend, marvel
he tells me I am the only person he's ever met
who has read "Life on the Mississippi"
and I tell him this is sad

he tells me a story about the Missouri in Omaha
how he accidentally swam it one day

the third of five more postcards

3. arrival

My bearings are provided
by the moon and the man
who jumped off the mountain.

our temporary town

We talk to each other about our star.

after swimming I read 'Jane Eyre'

“By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind; his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference.”

morning on the road

morning

Sunday morning

Sat down to make a list of things to do and ended up making an origami boat instead.

Noticed a caterpillar on my knee.

a few thoughts from yesterday

(transcripts of several audio postcards)

yeah, I was healed by Sun Ra. seriously.

how I knew I wasn't nervous to go:
my menses didn't change (and that's big)

the name of my dinner tonight, Lebanese Delight,
is the name, I imagine, of some exotic sex toy

we escaped

we escaped the rain and wind
to sit in a booth in a corner
watching it pour

why you should never use those guest soaps

Sure, they're pretty and everything. And if you use them then you don't have to buy soap for a time while also cleaning out your cupboards. But they aren't always good - no lather or sandy consistency. And, if you are me, one of them can lead to a small crisis of faith.

cars and men

I should not -can not- have a sports car
I love to drive fast (perhaps on the edge of reckless)
around curvy roads, up and down hills, shifting gears

I know I'd crash and burn

it dawned on me this morning
that the same holds true for me and some men
for roughly the same reasons

sorry I didn't answer the phone

but my boobs got me stuck in a dress
in a changing room at the Goodwill

a city might not be too bad but it doesn't know my name

while the new ever smiling round library clerk knows my name
and pulls out my reserves the moment I walk in the door,
I learned today that she does not know what wi-fi means
it led to an awkward moment where I had to explain
something about her job and how to help me
but, there were two enormous vases of
the most beautiful peony blooms on the counter
and it didn't matter that I stood for a long time
with my face buried in them breathing deeply and
softly moaning with pleasure

Why paying attention to the sun matters to me.

We must have learned it in Norway.

Maybe I am part plant. No, just animal. The sun matters to the animals too. (remember what you learned from the cats)

I am trying to take a conscious look at my place on this very small part in this very large universe.

my wardrobe's current limitation

Some time last month (taking one of a series of self-portraits) and again today (dressing to go to a meeting at the bank) it dawned on me that I often dress like a Mennonite. Especially when I want to dress up a little. I think that it is because of the surrounding communities and their thrift shops. Never would have realized this but for the very different type of thing (those hot-pink spike heeled boots come to mind) that I've been buying since I expanded my horizons.

phone conversations with my friends

My friend in a small town invariably sings during our conversations. This has been going on for years but I am just starting to appreciate it.

I realize that I am known by the two others who from time to time will read me poetry or ask me to read.

healing

I just want someone to kiss it
make it better.

The Stranger

pages tangled in my sheets

late night late spring memorial sunday porch conversation

until I hear the tone of my voice
I do not realize how hard it has hit me

it is a real kick in the ass
for this atheist to admit she needs an altar

it is going to take a while.

There is sand in my pocket.

I know it is from that Los Angeles beach
where I sat on the edge of the continent three years ago.
Things were changing even then.
Those pants (homemade) must not want me to forget something.

what I've been missing

do you trust me he asks about something silly
as his arm brushes my hair
I consider the question
and answer yes. I do. I trust him.
It surprises me to know it is the truth.

it happens gradually, doesn’t it

strawberries

I can blame it on the strawberries
if they hadn't been so ripe
full, beautifully red...

I wrap my lips around the tips
like inviting nipples
the sweet explosion on my tongue
my eyes close in pleasure

what I cannot tell him

he is like my breath
and I am gasping

I imagine we are standing outside.

During a gentle afternoon snow storm,
I am still. Listening to the silence.
Letting it creep through my soul.
I shut my eyes, turn my face to the sky.
Feel nothing but the gentle caresses of the flakes
on my cheeks, my lids, my lashes.
It isn’t quite enough, I want more.
I open my mouth extend my eager tongue.
Wait for the first flake to alight. Melt.
To enjoy all of these things at once.

I can feel something arrive.
An emotion, not mine. It grows, glows into me.
I am embraced, somehow enveloped.
And my tongue catches a kiss
that melts into my heart.

Old Salty Dog Blues

I remember that man.
In that rented chilly mostly empty room.
Marveling over young me naked but for a white pirate blouse.
Compelled to pick up a guitar, strange look on his face,
smiling into my eyes.
Singing that song with a great delight-
a proposal, a seduction.

tenderness

I wonder where it is. The lack of it touches me the most. It seems to be the one thing that he desires though he cannot see it. Does not even seem to consider it. Does not miss it, though the gaping wound in his heart bleeds and bleeds all over his soul.

This morning when I got up I found lying on the floor my notebook open to a page with only these words on it “mathematically disharmonious.” I cannot remember exactly why I wrote them down.

something I learned from the cats

how to appreciate the sun

almost brutish

the pre-glacial, sub-glacial
vernacular dance of rock

(far beyond liquid)

the convergence of ice and debris
forced us apart

what performed this maneuver
on our behalf?

too cynical to let go into the joy

but wise enough to embrace it nonetheless

Dear Lard,

Thank you for Janice and Lydia.

you got bookmarks?

sorry I turned into Neil Kennedy

please chalk it up
to late night no pain meds
want to sleep but can’t
want to read but can’t
too tired
nervous about my fever
pitching and rolling in
hormone adjustment blues

Wuthering Heights

finally read it last year
sorry everyone
the story just didn't appeal
in fact, I found it quite distasteful

who wants a life like that?

dream

another interrupted dream last night
another phone message from that place

snow in California
hot flashes
confusion

curious

lump

Dear unidentified growing lump,

You have been disruptive. Please do not come back after I have you removed. I promise that I will learn whatever lesson I am meant to learn.

Thanks.

evening

the warm air fades
cool twilight breezes
kiss my skin
lay me down
in the evening

the mystery

how long does it take to adjust
to find balance in the upheaval

new future, new mind, new body
- confusing enough
but new friends, blossoming friends,

knocked off balance by seeing my own
fragility, fear, faults, seeing my own
certain need for solitude and companionship






"right about now you face your worst mind"
- V. M.

until the end of the world

it wasn't until a few days ago
that I understood the end

understood wanting to creep into
dream mind with my conscious one
(almost like smuggling)

found myself listening over and over and over
to three messages (one dream) I left myself from that world

the sleep-drenched voice kept drifting off
but something was trying to puzzle it out
keeping me awake, talking

if it does work like that

and I'm not convinced at all --

what is it exactly
from which we must wrest free

backwards

it was not form
that brought me to place
it was place
that brought me to form

and I'm still learning it

knife to my heart

wielded by my own foolish silence

ahh

new jammies

look like candy
feel like heaven

horses

I knew I would forget
so I called myself
left a message
on my way to work

day at the beginning of
being warm and sunny

and I was surprised
at the end of the day
to have a message
from myself
reminding me
about the horses

the herd I drive past every day
magnificent creatures
this morning they were all
every one of them
still
tense
watching
I couldn't help
but follow their gaze
-- a large dog was running
across the back of their pasture

Paco says ...dance!

Today we danced
the dance of her life.
I was swept into the confusion,
darting this way and that.
A surrogate self
for the restoration of sight.
Later only to have the light shining
in my eyes, blinding me.

what undid me

your hand on the small of my back

instinct, not logic

affection, not analysis

Renaissance thoughts

I did hear that hesitation, after the fact
that catch in your voice
that recognition of me
but don't worry, I know.

I'd be resting in the back room
listening or perhaps in the shadows
sipping the notes, translating, always translating.

I'd be waiting for a musician,
playing for you to dance,
playing for the pleasure that's in it.

I'd be waiting for night to fade
into those impossible hours;
waiting for him, happy, to take me
home to take my body into his hands,
release my melody.

as my body bends
curves around the tree
too big to become frog

I catch rain in my throat
hold it til the surprise
of the cool swings into
the hot blue sky and
drifts off with the clouds

I bite the mud
tasting the kiss of summer
- a red leather fruit

for j. s.

you leaned close
speaking quietly
whispering really

I could feel your breath
on my cheek

you spoke the name
I've been using
but never said
never said

and I knew
I was not wrong
to see these kindred spirits
and seek their company

at first I could not imagine
what might capture me thus

I learned in the quiet
hidden in the shadows

your fingers became fire
and I, entwined

turned to ash, nothing
remaining but the moon

caught in your branches

took off the ring again, left her behind

I must be ready or is it
that it must be happening

I am opening to possibilities
a future exists for my choice,

my pleasure, the truth, should be considered
respected, loved and celebrated

some men have been, she says,
susceptible to this strong force in me

and that I should pay attention,
so I try

early morning mist rising off the river

it becomes clear
why religion was invented
(by fools)
to stave off the doubts

but there's nothing
but nothing
in the end

I am a key.

I am a key
slipped into
a watch pocket
for safe keeping.

gravely dug

despite rocks and rocks
it is a neat hole

there is plenty of honest work to be done

still

notes I found on my desk

-



quiet practice
and
creative discipline



----------



sustenance
maintenance
improvement



-------------



talent
luck
work
nerve


-

inchoate

the rivers are rising and falling
again and again advancing, retreating
settling over those fields,
slowly sliding back
it does not seem it will cease



maybe it is the other way around after all
and I am the pillar of fire

refrigerator poem

frantic goddess
your delicate blood
could fulminate light

sometimes the gamble does not pay off

disruption
convergence
withdrawal
contemplation

there will be no more disasterous

(relief. release?)

'don juan's reckless daughter' plays
jaco reaches out

the risk had to be kept at arm's length
to be sure of my place


Sometimes it flows, but a lot of times it's blocked by concept.
- J. M.

a few questions from today

Why did I ever think that I'd figure out what to do with those lone socks?

Just by smell, what do you think is rotting in that closet - bird, mouse or snake?

Wow, I really did enjoy that Don Ho album at one time, didn't I?

games, tapes and toys

nobody wants
my
rubber chicken

translations and mathmatics

but it's all music
isn't it
and the diminuendo
is deafening

It's a(n absurd) thought.

I realized that I could explore a cliche. The Fed Ex guy has been flirting with me and even followed me around a store (where I was shopping and he was delivering) to chat with me.

startling dream

it revealed itself
emerging slowly

strong and curved
pulsing with life

writhing out of its skin
again and again

goodbyes give me a headache

(and there's no powder in the house)

What is it with you people and babies?!

For the second time someone has asked about me starting a family now that I'm starting a new life.

disappearance

trip after trip
taking it all away
the latest?
my clothes
everything that didn't fit
i was left with a mini-skirt
and a whole lot of shoes

vivid dream

i am underneath strong hands
he leans over
to kiss the small of my back

prescription (for fragility?)

I don't know what it was exactly that he heard in my voice or what it was that I said last night. He had me go through my record collection and he gave me a list of things to play and not to play. At the end of our conversation I was instructed to immediately go to the turntable, remove the Joplin record and put on "Peter, Paul and Mommy" then Sly and the Family Stone. Then to call if I didn't feel better.

haibun

Red State, indeed

This morning I realized that I am a rebellious jezebel. For the pleasure that's in it.

What made me know it was considering why I stopped wearing my ring and knowing where I am going.

The Frank Lloyd Wright design in silver. Bought it to remind me to be true to myself. But I had to strip naked for a few months. I didn't need or deserve to wear it (for all the inattention). I put it on last night.

Think of how vulnerable I was - I was startled by a dream of someone getting into bed with me that took a sharp turn when it was not really you. So, you have been on my mind, that possibility.



presumptuous soul
wanting this bigfoot moon now
red state bailiwick

it is the thing that is happening

no big deal, huh
just the way
things are and

indeed, I have
made this note
to myself

found my way
to the path
what will be

"you must change your life"

I am ashes
I am burning
I am whole

it happens
over and over
backwards and forwards

I understand why

I was cold
so I stood
in the rain

on the edge
of the step
rocking

I return

to the bag
of magic unknown
warm, I rest

knowing the images -
I've been pissing ashes
for weeks

odd morning

too tired to put on the clean sheets
I slept with them next to me in a pile

naked - not wanting any clothing on my body
under the heavy quilt

in morning I awoke with muddled confusion
a new strange sensation

it was a book, softcover, shiny
stuck to my nipples

no idea how I managed it