8.23.18

Lord, I missed rain. This isn't a title, merely a statement of fact.

After weeks of deciding how to spend each breath--

do I want to walk today, or sing?--

the light curtain drew its soft shape

over my parched face.

Cold cloud on the palette is the most precious

previously-lived newness,

when all hands had abandoned hope

of the things we knew, one returned.

Pearled memory hangs, capturing dirt,

smoke, regret,

fouling itself for our sake:

for a clear breath,

for a stretch of road where

velvet deer cross, edges crisp

against forgotten orchards.

And neighbors rise out of what was haze,

palms up to feel the fabric

of our land

while it still grows.

8.21.18

8-3-18

You can still see Mars,

and the water drops on the asters

are likewise red.

These are constellation days,

when we leave the windows open

to let in warm night

and the barking of dogs.

Memory feels close,

a bit stifling, if you think about it,

and close enough to reach for,

if you need it.

I hate old habits,

but he night is full of weight,

full of song, full of stones,

and close enough to reach for,

if you need it.

6.26.18

6-14-18

What is the first thing?

The first thing is speaking.

Well, that isn’t true.

The first thing is nothing.

Nothing, then speaking.

Second, there is forming,

a delicate shaping, or a violent birth?

Both spit stones out.

For the third thing,

comes breaking, splitting and dividing

into solid and heavenly,

day breaks from night,

broken into quarters, and now,

thing the fourth,

is of stirring ingredients

and claiming, deciding;

of skeletal status, wandering or fixed.

Things now make their own things,

growing and reaching

over the rift,

put into motion, their energy stored

count gilding cylinders,

unique and abiding.

6.25.18

Still here, still doing the things. Why not a cat haiku?

On a pillow, perched

Waits striped and whiskered judgement.

How shall I proceed?

Eyes green and jeweled

Pulse closed, and open slowly.

It is safe to sleep now.

2.16.18

2-7-18

It is dark here, but we do not forget the sun.

We drink to his name.

The depth of cloud is not oppressive,

it is home.

I am accustomed to dipping in and out of light

in small reflections,

like ice cubes.

They spice my drink, and I am a little point of light.

It is a little warm.

(We drink to his name)

Not quite to the level of ballads,

our songs still hang around amidst the hum

of traffic and the city’s own darkness,

forgetting it was once damp trees.

The cedar is a strip of red,

not brake lights,

unlike it, I do not stand out in the din.

We sing his name. (quietly, to ourselves)

I haven’t gotten to where I’ve gotten

on bad fortune,

but its orbit is vast.

Even if you enter it with light,

you will be robbed. Cycling

back to loam, wet and likely dark,

but accepted by this place. Part of the song.

We drink to your name.

1.9.18

12-27-17

Left North Bend at nine.

SD card didn’t work,

prepared to fight the past

if it should appear.

22 minutes to North 405,

Bellevue is slow even when the roads are clear.

I forgot it's Wednesday and people are working,

only going because I am expected

I won’t remember it anyway.

9:42 took the exit for I-5 North,

snow flies off the cars’ roofs.

Baker hidden in the clouds has snow

on its roof as well.

Across the slough the mountains

are flocked with snowy trees

and geese.

I have to sing to the river as I pass,

it’s tradition, so I do

to the biggest eagle I’ve seen

at Starbird road, appropriately.

I forgot about the birds up here.

Stopped to pee, 10:39.

My needed landmarks remain.

The road is bare but the shaded stone is

sheeted with ice.

Out of the floodplain, I rose to

Deception Pass

hidden in a forest of ferns.

A sea interlude.

It both was and wasn’t

what I’d thought.

3:06 driving out, sun behind me,

the only break in the clouds.

Don’t want to crawl back to the highway,

but at 3:49 I do.

11.2.17

Alki

At your house, we welcomed storms,

whatever would roll off the gray sound

and come to rest at the toe,

eventually.

Through beads and colored glass

we could see those on wings

still rapid, not yet put down on paper

and it was to easy to imagine trapping then

on a long kite string.

Other neighborhoods don’t feel like this,

touching wooden boats and smelling like

the damp between the stones,

because other neighborhoods aren’t like this.

Even this neighborhood is no longer like this;

the longboat houses with crows nests

and portholes,

are all now replaced.

8.15.17

8-9-17

Even when I speak

I ask for silence,

its safety the envolture

of skin and feathers

that exonerates.

Bird calls are given human words

for ease of memory.

“Oh me, oh pretty-pretty me!”

So we can select it out of the void

and know it by voice and plumage.

Silence doesn’t always mean listening,

but lately, at night,

I hear geese.

Something is ready,

like a blister just beneath my skin.

8.11.17

8-9-17

The world just keeps on ending;

Apocalypsis.

My garments are all rent,

And my nakedness is a further outrage.

Now the wailing has ceded

To the thought that

Maybe grief is not a process.

I am ready to hopscotch into the fire,

Just to get it over with.

6.6.17

5-18-17

Ask us to sing, or not,

Either way we are listening.

Holding hands, in throats a question,

We know the response is silence.

Not out of thought, or

Better judgement

But

Of absence.

Lack, the scraped inside

Relieved of its voice.

It isn’t pat, and the platitudes

Still escape us

Not ready to acknowledge

The void.

The vibrations stilled,

Broken but

Not bloody.

I don’t want to think of the colors;

Ours are white and bloodless, waiting.

While in the center of our circle,

Bulges a mountain of flowers.

(I wrote this for Chris Cornell. Compared to what he could do, it seems very small indeed)

6.2.17

5-16-17

What do you care if I’m made

Of bricks or clay,

Patched with straw or gold?

What do you care if I’m even a vessel.

I can promise to carry water for the people

And never do it.

Or every day save from thirst

And your face is blind to it,

Soft and rubbery and blind.

I am not sure if you even see colors.

I hate in the mirror I increasingly see your face.

Hate,

Oh, I know. I know.

4.13.17

I am bored of not updating, but still not sure what is the reason for doing this. I'm not going to feel guilty for posting or not posting.

4-9-17

The cycle is trough-to-crest;

and at the highest point

it is torn to shreds of foam,

only holding up hook-limbed gulls.

I have been following it,

humming along in my cavities

with the oscillation.

A circle is also a wave

is also the pulse in my lower lip.

The roundness represents breath,

a thick bone cage on a stem of flesh,

not bound by heliotaxis,

it eventually finishes curving,

the light only touching one side.

Breathe in, and be locked in gray,

breathe out

and explode into feathers.

Blood flows in convection

like a thunderstorm.

The pulse stands out

like the hair on your arms.

Breathe in because that must happen next,

squeeze the center as trough

becomes apex

and changes form.




A few things: I wasn't writing or uploading anything because it felt kinda pointless, since I have one reader (hi Ben). Some people believe you do art for art, or for yourself, but I think there is more to the relationship between a creator/creation and its audience than that. Part of my lack of readers is that I do not plug this blog at all, anywhere. I don't want to seem like I'm bragging, or trying to come across as some personality traits that I am not by virtue of writing poems (which tend to be seen as outlets for negative emotions by the general population), or desperate for "likes". However I'm not sure how anyone would find it otherwise, especially if they did not know what they were searching for. Part of posting poems by other authors was in an effort to look less self-centered, and give an aura of respectability (ie "this is a blog about poetry, therefore, high art!" rather than "come read my emotional barf"), but that became pointless too, since I wasn't searching out anything in particular, and only copy-and-pasting things that came into my email. What is the point in doing that?

I don't know if there is a way to seek an audience without looking like any of the things I'd like to avoid. There are a lot of things in life that are best done alone, and perhaps the writing process is one, but it can't end there so I have to change something for me, otherwise this part of the process (and sorta in turn, the rest of the process) becomes pretty pointless.