math’s blog

Do you
insist on half a moon
do you
go to bed earlier than I do
do you
blame Taurus sometimes
do you
cut yourself a little short?

Should I write here in this little box
forcing me to make no errors
or to make errors that tear my clothes
or should I keep my creases and
pound nails for a few days
into my fingers for a new poem
for you?

Should you
value lightning over thunder
should you
let bugs live and prosper
should you
respect the rights of bloodsuckers
should you
answer me when I ask?

Does the trumpet have enough force
to keep me and you in the game
not if it plays songs about love affairs
the captive and pioneer tornado
yes and now because of my lips
being ready long night and day
for you?

Will you win this temporary battle
cannonball in your throat and all
the memory from the smell of salt
the hunger you get from opening
the pantry door to gawk at luxury
and the sandy voice of jihad says not
for you?

Can you
prize the found over the lost
can you
see through the rosy shower curtain
can you
scrub clean what you've been telling everyone
can you
be brave in the face of listening?

Not quite light
they say the weather
has never been
as unsettled.
 
Woke later than usual and disturbed
rules were broken and paths overgrown
in dreams I couldn't bag or cage
safari is over back to work.
 
Phenomenal lassoes miss and take
hold of one or another of my horns
yanked the nose the eye the balance
pheremonally barely resistable.
 
Looking through gaps in the slats
isn't everything I need right here
I haven't been everywhere so how
would I know where my medicine is?
 
The cool fall
from the hot seat
crisis maybe
maybe not.
 
Sitting in a different place than usual
makes unusual the multilingual
chattiness between bird species
Do they care if they are understood?
 
It is cool in the morning but will turn hot
should I wear long sleeves or shorts
the plaster turtles comfortable in weeds
the water in the koi pond is slowed to a trickle.
 
Holy writings have long been invading
the squatting kneeling pleading place
prostration more a rhythm than peace
this verse works that verse falls flat.
 
Show the prison
walls the way
to feel better
about themselves.
 
Books unread and mocking lined up
against the wall like so much paisley
clouds show me their dark bottoms
they are lighter where we cannot see.
 
The roots of crime the middle ages
hunger brain and fuzzy simulations
atlases topographies and interiors
how to talk about it all without drowning.
 
Coffee breezes respect for others
this music combines what cannot be
thought and felt in the same note
they blow in and exhale over the ridges.
 
Lead me not
to my own fruit
plant my heart
outside my gut.

Amanda is a young woman who I work with. Last night she commented on the fact that I am always writing notes and talking to myself. Another worker told her (I had told him) that I was writing songs. Jokingly she said, "Write me one". So I asked her for ten words about herself.

This is the outcome.

==============

Amanda

Amanda landed on a foreign shore
no sun greeting
no boy meeting
no work to give to
no folk to live for
where is Amanda?

Amanda crashed into a ping pong net
gyms competing 
opponents weeding
expenses stepping
career sledding
who is in control?

Amanda opened yet another door
always behinding
ever reminding
to hear her her friends
step into a future
where Amanda is purple.

Amanda used to belong to herself
now caught thanking
family cranking 
out the shopping
the books the filling
the lack of Amanda.

Amanda smiles and talks fast
she has to keep up
she shakes like a pup
becoming aware
of what there is to fear
out there Amanda dear.

29 June 2009
At Amanda's workplace

The boys on the edge of the cliff
bounding the mesa at mesa lane
flew
not really but they wanted to
how they wanted
to take off.

Plants especially those high
and barked in constant prayer
lift
with sap fibers not neurons
with waving but no noise
and we long to climb.

Creatures of bows
miss being up
today is about
lift
no time or stopping now
clouds lift and my palm
through webs in moss
come up with wings out
fey ether shouting more
then giving way lifting
tending airy
spider memory
up a way's
rise then any-
where higher
lifted.

Souls webbed into clusters
drinking lessons from a rooted pool
lift
each other huffing
space of cartilage
heard if effortless.

Woke alone
like a stump
let go seeking
lift
caught like grain in timber
a step sunk because the hip
listened too long and yanked
the ankle out of its habit
forward out of badgering
because of enough urges
at that change
duck queens rise
smoke from patience
colors conversing
stripes on a lady
lifted.

Right then or in the echoes
of that right pluck of percept
lift
gets in the lung of the dog
of the gristle of the fence
and breaks it up.

Planet full of people
making cheese and wine
and things taking years.
Down scales populating
black and white musical
traditions founded by
mango eaters and shit tossers
who took a long time
coming up with the trumpet
and its cumulus.

Worked on Father's Day
it's not really the same
as fathering but they
the cubs and chicks
whose parents shit
on them needed dinner
spaghetti for some and steak
depending on their diet
calorie intake is everything
when you're locked up.

This room has nine sides
stolen signs on each
choices I guess for leaning on
and two lights wrong
for writing what's coming
say it anyway insisting
she is out there
ear behind the page
stitch in nine saving
the slave of time.

Night reminds me I
can't say the trees
in the night wind are
or are not the same
as what blew around
and over me when I was
arriving at a campsite
in another state
trusting without choice
mom and dad driving.

The noise was
the same anyway.
Love and kiss and
the rest of the good
in good night without
the good in the night
in the best of nights
without being without
the one who with
you wish you were.

Too tired to spell
to take off pants
to let it out I slice
bread for butter and butter
for bread shut up
about it not being a meal
we are about to
howl and wolf down
someone's strange guitar
picked like fruit.

Plain as pain
in and out of blankets
a leg one of two
in concert with invisible
good making the best
of a night in the wind
spelled on top
of the world well known
for making the best
of the dark temptation.

The noise was
the same anyway.
Love and kiss and
the rest of the good
in good night without
the good in the night
in the best of nights
without being without
the one who with
you wish you were.

Button it up
or undo all the buttons and fasteners
if that's what it takes to get yourself out
out of the chains
out of the laces
undo all your laces and latches
button up.

In blue shoes
floating from time to blooming time
lucky like a weak slap in the seam
getting somewhere
out of here
floating from time to blooming time
in blue shoes.

In cotton semblance blanketed
it is soft and we are protected
in naked metaphor wrapped
it is a way our way
in wool lines evenly woven
it is commanding but unconvincing
can it keep together
all the rain you rained?

My spiritual leader
considered by the young to be elevated
above everything that came afterward
an elder for the needy
older than springwater
considered by the now to be then
my spiritual leader.

Lying here
where so many have lain before
girls laughing somewhere nearby
over their heightened
sense of exposure
where so many have laughed before
lying here.

In cotton semblance blanketed
it is soft and we are protected
in naked metaphor wrapped
it is a way our way
in wool lines evenly woven
it is commanding but unconvincing
can it keep together
all the rain you rained?

After the sale what didn't sell
was all superstition, all theory
we got stuck in it and learned a lesson
pour sand in a hole it is still a hole
try it again and it might matter.

Drive through the rich man's gully
each inch aristocratic
every step an antique
tell them they got there on a fluke
try it again and again and it might matter.

Been all summer in the basement
will you move or not
will you bed or breakfast me
will you refuse my big yes
try it again and it will matter more.

Sparrows and gulls in competition
for leftovers at the harbour
you're looking for bread, me fries
the meat is always tough or fat
chew it again and it might matter.

Need at the crafts store, the beach
at the haberdasher, at the frontier
an implement in the mind to cut
green from silver to give them both
another try.

Willful noise like neighing
making hay out of people
who say Decide
Decide Now Forever.

Ponder along on the bay
thundering hooves on the old
established trails until they
decay into genius and blow
away showing heart.

Camel faced bunny
teasable harbinger
open up the holiday and
giggle over the dunes.

The color of its motion or voice
head or tail or wing maybe
when a child draws
a favorite animal you get
the most essential part.

Sneak waiting for fruition
June clean and sharp
as spiders' legs jumping
ahead by side-to-side
passion comes inside-out.

Why walk when rolling
down a cliff of ice plant
and eucalyptus bark breaks
your falling positivity?