Remembering the New York slice and old phone booths
I think of happier times when love’s true sentiment governed our hearts
By certain pains we knew or even wanted-that slice with you and heartbreak later
Love’s secreted conversations hidden in old phone booths grew our frustration
Though proximity is what we wanted, perhaps more than love, wasn’t it?
Yes, proximity not love, still this absence has created a strange longing
Where lorn the constant touch we knew, I don’t feel lonely in the desert
Lonely sad cries do not eat at my breasts, only your joy’s memory
Always with me, and showing me repeatedly, how to be without you
Old booths and freedom’s time taught me I could
I recline into the wash of certain friendships, the bottles of red remedy
You now owning newly discovered strength and voice
The shifting dream you willow into me, the chill before my goosebumps
You’ll blow tender on me to cool my blood

A firing squad would at least be quick.
Aren’t blindfolds more dignified than face masks?
I smell my own breath too often now, mixed with polypropylene fibers.
I smell the false sense of security in a cloud of Lysol and Purell
My fingers: in another time, pinched & prodded the physical, dry now, key callused, type tired
57 days in a state of emergency
124 days without seeing them, their septuagenarian chests against my thirty-year-old one.
How cruel to be forced to show my love by not being there for them.
Warm, white light, traded with the bright blue of screens in hallways, kitchens, imprinted on retinas
The TV always on, always on mute, always bad news
You practice holding the pages of a favorite novel, returning to sentences, significance
Anything will do, anything that is not a history book written by a virus
A virus another name for plot twist — and
This is not a sentence, it’s a novel

This is not a sentence, it’s a novel,
days flung to ceaseless winds without remorse;
gone, the time we lived life at full throttle,
now our plotted course, a hum, a rattle.
Outside, the earth’s rotating while we pause,
a CinemaScope of animals sing
of repossessing shrunken pockmarked shores,
inland woods and hillsides scathed, mythos burnt.
Inside, we are unfurling from our shells,
blankets draped, quick to catch distant visions,
And each of us composes our own tale;
take note the quiet feats of early light.
Boundaries will be crossed in pen and ink,
a film in black and white to watch when sick.

a film in black and white to watch when sick
these stories and songs are medicine
every open can gobble up nourishment
feed me, then leave like a thief through windows
move through the house of me, haunt me, hunt me
catch me in your teeth, grind my bones like
salt and pepper, the basic spice that flavors
and brings out the marrow in us all
you won’t be forgiven, but given still
a piece of plot and an ending without
being finished, though the reel is done, it
feels like more to come after the credits
the flickering frames freeze, light remains, beams
a moment trapped in earth like a fossil.

A moment trapped in earth like a fossil.
longing above ground; wells full of poison
A swelling vulnerability oozes through handheld screens.
no day safe. the air a carrier of ends
Death loomed nearby, his bones embraced warmed jars of ash.
the dead asked to dance and sent their selves wide
Their masquerade lingered like the foot of a Foxtrot,
“m’aider s’il te plait,” help me find the beat
The fervor caused a rhythmic curvature inked across silhouettes.
rattling and juicy, masses pour out of formation
They are the condensation stuck to silent storefront windowpanes.
they leave us a place we no longer share
They have abandoned us, they have been entombed.
What we now know, even ghosts are ruined

What we now know, even ghosts are ruined.
Heard between the floorboards
Like past footsteps of ancestors
We woke to find them lapping at saucers of milk
Crying over the mornings mist
We didn’t wait for the sun to burn them away
We held them gentle in imaginations
Took selfies, tested viscosity, made careful documentation
Because if you speak they will leave
By the time you read this, for example
A hummingbird will have cried louder, hush
(Do you still have hummingbirds?)
(Do you still stay silent in the presence of love.)
Warning, this message will self-destruct.

Warning, this message will self-destruct.
So listen slowly as these words electrify your hair follicles
Bolting in like needles through your brain
While a deceitful voice whispers tasteful propaganda in your eardrum
Let the lemons linger.  Can’t you see?
That a revolution needs to be formulated from genuine thought
Steady hands and youthful voices.
Playing in the soil together so nature can watch
With eyes like gathering clouds
Therefore let’s hope that connection will be end process to chaos
Like the outstretched arms of a thinning rain
Rain, that appeals simple like a warm kiss on the cheek
Clinging and connecting with itself —
How many rivers does it take to build a world

How many rivers does it take to build a world?
One where you don’t have to drown to inhabit it
But just enough to turn her attention to the sails being furled
With little hope that they will guide her somewhere familiar
A time where she was nourished and pure
With kinder winds and a current that she claimed
“Close your eyes,” she says, for I have a cure
“that lives in riverbeds that are far from home”
My rivers flow that can’t be untanned
Speaks to me in prose, just like my grandmother who
Glistened wisdom in this world to roam
casting light over her path like still water in June
We have arrived as we looked upon to see a sliver
The towers of the great bridge wade in the river

The towers of the great bridge wade in the river
Unbudging in their murky pleasure
Overwhelming, inescapable the wave moving forward
Of commuters following her spine homeward.

Strangely the shadows, overpowering the heart and mind,
Without substance our very substance grind
The naked world virally entrapped
By mounting fears enwrapped.

The great bridge in the certainty of time
It’s spectral elephants parade above the crime
Where the towering towers wrestled like giants
In unbending titanic moves defiant
Invariably treasure plucked; now in outstretched loss
never to take a step, they stand so others may cross

Never to take a step, they stand so others may cross
cross the center cross the center
A labyrinth of paths, a multitude of dangers
go go go go
Look inward and onwards whenever there’s doubt
the corner behind, the corner ahead
Past masked strangers, eyes of fury
eyes pregnant with desire
Tittering on the edge of insanity
taste it, can we still taste it
Flashbacks of disco balls glittering strangers’ beaded sweat
the colors are vibrant but the music has stopped
Left standing in the grey street alone
strings of light invite us to its pageant of traffic

strings of light invite us to its pageant of traffic,
full stop, the slick monochrome of street
I repeat, it is snowing in May, it is snowing
all over my eyelids but my head is a fire
I put my pedal down to this floor
in a bizarre surrender. Speed is also
a way to slow down. Trust me
when I place your hand on the stick shift,
that I am asking you to take the wheel
for no one other than yourself. And when
I turn the radio up to drown us both out
of time and space, the marchers will
fall into their parades. My mother always said
the cavalcade erodes as much as it erects

the cavalcade erodes as much as it erects
dirt and dust swell, a little less road, a little less of us
so what—shut up—xerox this mess with your original face
and shed (please) that mask before I fall for a partial view
the bough done broke, hunty, there’s a big ol’ kink in the gyre
best to sink deeper then, darker, where the sharpest shells lie
outfit—taxidermy frog bikini, wellies, aluminum trident
find the circle where we chanted our old names into rot
river mud, coprolite, rootling! earthworm, amber water, helgramite! spring rain, swimming beaver, nettle flower!

spit salt water in my eye, leave me stung, singing mother, squinting skyward

the noble switch—the oracle has left the building for the open air
up here the vastness oppresses more than offers answers

keep the quiet in your skin, unlearn everything

the gowns of the sun are thrown on the water

The gowns of the sun are thrown on the water
Its shimmer calls you to come, wade in and collect
Luxuriate in the warm caress of the waning tide
Let snowflakes from past winters melt away, its spring
The green buds push forth out of barren branches
Cherry blossoms reveal beginnings aplenty
Full of possibility and pregnant with bounty
Its petals join the swim and drop alongside you
To remind you of the fleeting moment
What was sought after is now savoured
the moment is passing and the sorrow comes
Swimming through here slowly, keeping an eye on the sky
that low grumble reminds us of dinner left uneaten
What do we trade to travel along skirts that stitch shores together

What do we trade to travel along skirts that stitch shores together?
Is it an abbreviated breach in the mask of modesty through which winds blow?
Or about face signals the pigeons recall
Until desperation overcomes reticence
The direction of the dust relocates our difference
Its residue solidifies imagined footprints
Belonging to rocks skipping eternal life
All sails farther from a heedless hand
Where the aperture shuttles more than light
Defenseless is a posture we abhor
Broken cords wave from early lampposts
The distance between joists too far to hold
Composure. Isolation intermittently strikes
We can join them, but we cannot make them touch

We can join them, but we cannot make them touch
What’s in a touch anyway, if they are still able to gaze?
To gaze at the swallows in May’s early days, diving against a blue sky
Transported to memories that have past, lived in like they would always last
Each twist of the wing a reminder of hands entwined like delicate silver rope
Threads weaved with care and caution ensuring a sturdy hold
On patterns of wind and light and days of tiny, intimate joys
Oh joyous mundanities! Cementing cracks on the exterior
With an upward glance at black feathered wings or a look at her brown eyes
If a picture can say a thousand words, his eyes fixed on hers hides no guise
Freedom is watching the fading circles fly upwards towards tomorrow
The light is all but gone yet my closed eyes hold yours in place
We will follow the swallows in devout silence above the stars
The moon drops its ladder of light to transverse the viaduct arc.

The moon drops its ladder of light to traverse the viaduct arc
and climbs down to earth; a humid, teeming place. We saw him
psychedelic face mask, brown skin, green-eyed, in blue rubber gloves
like an astronaut, his crisp space suit only now a hospital gown.
slow motion breath-one two three hold, out two three cough, spit, & release
& the moon descends. we are wondering if he is sick, we are wondering
if he can see the moon, feel the sun, taste coffee, & butter pecan ice cream
if he has ever watched the deep, foaming ocean water swirl around his brown limbs.
smelled the atlantic salt-water night wind, crispy & cool, swirl & whine
the night the moon climbed down its ladder of light, in this fevered air, he was here:
he was witness; we hold leaky lungs heavy & scorching in pandemic blood,
we, diseased things; if he is not sick, he is something closer to hope,
and he, pushes moon fever, holds the heat of words & breath
that we may climb the sky with our legs and wheels and eyes.

that we may climb the sky with our legs and wheels and eyes
and reach heights unexpected, viewing all transpiring below.
And let the transpire be borderless, let masks become invisible
As we see and recognize the humanity of all
it is a human-rearrangement, what is proof that Never changes
A needed reset, a reprieve from what was deemed normal
not allowing universal pardon, we will bring all our stories
Telling our truths to sympathetic ears and open hearts
distilling meaning into verses, voting for a poetocrazy
endorsing only what makes us whole, and is healthy
finally retrieving the w we were missing, time to abandon the hole
to live freer and find a way out of the malaise
giving touch back to our skin, voices back to our streets
while boats are wings that drift and glide beneath, never staying still

while boats are wings that drift and glide beneath, never staying still
the river continues to press against my ribs, slowly emerging
and merging with time and light until
the wings have sharpened into motors for evolution, a continuous
convergence of need and desire, spin and drift, forward propulsion
Here I am, over the sky, a bird without a song
without voice to call you in the spiraling darkness
I use my body to remember what I am for, what I am capable of
life is an ephemeral vehicle of change, the flowers tell us,
the animals tell us, the mountains tell us slowly, the sky tells us too
when the song is taken away, write a new one, become another
that’s how people learned to fly and dive deep in the ocean for days
the machines we make generate electricity to light our way
on the water they were born for; from us, for us, of us

on the water they were born for, from us, for us, of us
I imagine the moment life starts, as one tiny cell
one tiny us — I’ve been moment in movement
since before our stories were written down in hieroglyphs
I’ve been written, I’ve been down
down the Nile in a basket, but never abandoned
skin sage meridian — my hands on my head, what space between
exists millions of vibrating cells like ancient stars
what isolation — this, that gave movement, its skin
folded over time, wrinkled and reborn anew
I just stepped outside, it’s all still there
same sun, same moon, recycled daily,
as me, of me, my ancient artifice — beckoning, one tiny outside
the arch stays so we may go, it spans beyond so we may connect

the arch stays so we may go, it spans beyond so we may connect
Connection that bends time and blends character
stretching careless and sanguine over everyone’s heads
Hoping the sky isn’t falling onto our laps
we drink tea and look up in anticipation
Above all the debris clouded with fear
the future continues to lurch into the station
Gathering as freedom seems near
Our wits, loose change, and spears of sunlight
Taking a toll as we try to brake loose
Into a future that incessantly arrives
As Familiarity is key in steering the road ahead
We wonder as the bones of the world cough:
How many bridges does it take to cross-off the world

How many bridges does it take to cross-off the world
X used to mark the spot, we use graphs
When we stop and listen, the world we seek to travel already lives within
The peaks and valleys of where we’ve been
Turn into crystals residing in bottom of dales
There are multitudes in the facets and the faces
Eyes glaring into multi-universes
all contained in carbon, all contained in me.
Pulled by tides, dangerously calm like the blue seas
Bargaining with the ebb and flow of phases of the moon
Sometimes we look for the itch just for the satisfaction of scratching it
Searching for metaphor in our own lines, written yesterday and tomorrow
As a soul light and delicate wishes in a field of dandelions
Like how this poem would be in tercets if it weren’t so screwed

Like how this poem would be in tercets if it weren’t so screwed
My days once traveled out to foreign ports
Like how our nights burn away our intimacies
I chased mirages, sure ecstasy hid somewhere beyond
Like how broken promises are forgotten in far away lands
Untethered from all responsibility who am I
Like how delightful my life can be held in your embrace
And so returning to where all my cares belong
Never to be a threefold affair, always one heart too many
My steps trace and retrace a path back to you
Like how your pipe dreams disperse love’s appearances
Like how I trace and retrace patterns on your skin
Lines converge mounting the waves of your pure joyful pulse
Like how a late night whiskey apothecary becomes

Like how a late night whiskey apothecary becomes
blurrier each sip, jar filled with tips,
teeth filled with ambrette seeds, the muskmallow
scent turned to stench, a never-ending hospital trip.
I only learned how to sing in three colors, all blue —
robin’s egg for waking
cerulean for joy
midnight for mourning. Where should I put it down, this bone-ache? This heart, arteries like roots beneath the wildfire-scorched forest, suspended like a suddenness. For 45 days I have watched Spring unfold beyond my reach, homebound for the rabbits, the deer bones lost to the snow back when isolation could break on a steaming cup whim. I liked you best basket-woven and piecemeal–  How wild lavender, wide wild the fields between this moment and then.

How wild lavender, wide wild the fields between this moment and then.
How wild the glowing coals that wheel smoke against the window.
Here is where you find gravestones that were carved for unloved men.
Here is the gloom of hills and hollows.
My mind wanders through gusts and gallows without rest,
My throat keens with all the world’s sorrows.
My eyes tread up a tree and rest atop a blazing phoenix nest —
Instead of wings I find ghosts of old emperors that catch and press.
Then surged within me a grief for the death of martyrs and villains,
And the old world spoke to me in the language of beginnings.
Its words were dressed in winding-sheets and Shrouds of Turin,
But the words were the wings I’d sought, and gave me flight.
Those ciphers took me above the dark world of graves and aberration
— How the insomniac city took sleeping pills to quiet

How the insomniac city took sleeping pills to quiet
we shut our minds off to the soothing lull of breaking news
swaddled in the inescapable haunting of our mind’s relentless recall
Counting sheep shift over to number dead,
how many tested, those infected
Nightmare sweats don’t wait for sleep in the Age of COVID.
Though the lights are dark, we remain the city that
Never sleeps, keeping a constant vigil, bearing silent witness
like a parade of ancient gargoyles
on the parapets of a threatened fortress
How many eyes have watched
how many empires turn to dust over time…
Yet we turn a blind 21st Century eye to the present
this is the deafening silence of going viral

The deafening silence of going viral
has settled in my ribcage, feasting as a harpy
on sorrow on my lung tissue, on the heart.
There are more echoes here than I remember.
Four chambers become caverns, strange music
—and I know I’ve heard it before, but tried to forget.
Lie with me in the ferocity of discordance
and I promise to whisper of things that never hurt.
Lie with me in the stain of erasure
and I will fill every gap with the gesture of cupping air.
Gasping in the ferocity of mourning
a life reduced to twilight and memory, rusted
scripts, scars, skin soaring –as if
you’d like nothing more than nothing from me.

you’d like nothing more than nothing from me
and what greater toll could you extract?
family, hand-in-hand in prayer,
moments of intimacy we’ll never get back.

cushioned in the voice, lips, arms of my love,
I lose my footing in our sweet reverie.
light azure sky. crisp, clean air in my lungs,
flooded with the potential of memories.

virginal-spined books. the ova of poems.
handsome words offer solace you won’t.
the rosebuds of hope in my heart and head
gather vowels, consonants to gift you, but I don’t.

sirens wail. ravens caw. robins perch. sing low
between the noises of demolition too early outside my window.

between the noises of demolition too early outside my window
and the cacophonous rattle of the train as it rumbles by
I can still hear the broken beat of your heart machine;
like a clock it chimes out the hours, singing a lament at noon
the last hour I held your limp hand before they made me leave you
our two heavenly bodies spinning out of one another’s orbits
ethereally reaching for each other
forever striving for greater heights
I feel your absence in the abyss
of the mountains that have risen between us
of chaos and terror and uncertainty;
I try to keep between the fluorescent lines
to ground myself once more,
begging construction workers to stop for your healing

Begging construction workers to stop for your healing
feels like asking these bare walls for answers
which I have written my own on in finger paint,
removed the long of obedience to glorify the color rebel
which is the same color as broken glass or
soot from fields we burned to fertilize someday’s crop
which says something about potential hope and also
how willing we are to starve when all we’ve harvested is
the plant grown on the water of tears. I know
the land I come from is rugged and I don’t care about
being perfect anymore. I need to say I am sorry
for wanting to be right instead of trying to be better,
a strange turn of fate. I believe we are always changing
like that’s gone now. Like how isolation. Like how gold

Like that’s gone now. Like how isolation. Like how gold
presses into the firmament at the day’s climax, and how iron
lungs, almost defunct, creep their way back into history. Hold
my bloodied ones, in pulmonary protest, respiratory revenge, so
drenched laughter replaces masks, gloves, and isolation trends.
And voids replace ant colonies — inverted black holes consume
my rib cage, like how gold can almost take the night’s chance
and graze against its image, peeling at edges. Is that
shock gone now too, home blending so tightly into everyone?
I’m cold. Are you cold? Does your blood also redistribute every
spin from the centrifuge, every knitted arm each hour on your loom?
A blanket fashioned from gossamer. Temporary heat constructed from nothing.
Tired from hobbies without really moving, so we danced. Like how
you might have if it weren’t for all of the everything.

you might have if it weren’t for all of the everything
all the talons in your arms; the empty birdcage in
your grandfather’s home. what a broken wing
for a feather girl to try and fly away on.
it was never so much about the wind,
but still I blame those limp and quiet breezes
their cruel words which coat the trees
and smothered all the things you might have said

hardly would your roots extend far enough
to reach me through those woods of oily fog
had i taken the time to draw a map
would we have found each other as before?
your heart may be the tracker of time, yet
there are some things you can’t unsay and we both have to live with that

here are some things you can’t unsay and we both have to live with that
With the memories of the lake retreating from the shore, the cobwebs
are a different way of tracing time. And listen, I know that
I look different than I used to, I look you straight in the eyes
the creature I am, having always been, is a kind of feral
wanderer with nowhere to go. Press your hand against the glass:
create a palm of constellations by which we can learn a new way
of looking. Light the match, stoke the fire—I’m not afraid of
whatever comes after. These words, small tinders of
hope. I use them to warm my hands, to see in the dark
to light the way through this thicket. I mean to say
I’m not afraid of what I might find in this new place
and I promise I will gamble carefully with my call to you
Like how your voice still turns me luck casino

Like how your voice still turns me luck casino
Our blind love was never all or nothing,
small wins that kept us both coming right back
where sweet comfort was like an addiction
until that same comfort turned us both cold.
Shivering and alone, goosebumps find us,
these telling blimps on our skin like morse code
revealing our history, can’t ignore
who we’ve been, what we’ve done, how we went wrong,
hedging our bet, that true love never dies
and while we both left the gamble behind,
into my heart’s treasury there I placed
memories of you and me like winning chips
so I’ll take our good fortunes to my grave.

So I’ll take our good fortunes to my grave
To be planted like seeds beneath the earth

Their fingers reach for inverted cities
Like roots that feed the hungry above them

Our wills and wisdom torn into scraps
With hope to nourish the soil and feed

And I’ll think of a cold November dusk
Growth hidden, ready or not here we come

When you uncovered your eyes and spun around
A few extra rotations for good luck

How long have I been crouched behind azaleas
A home of sorts, fragrant, safe, and evolving

As years pass we go on brooding and
How long would the chicken lay around here?

How long would the chicken lay around here?
The dread, its heaviness keeps her in place.
And who should tell her to stand?
When strength she needs resides behind locked gates.
Locked out, locked in. Who can tell anymore?
Light lost its power to penetrate through.
Away and alone, she recalls herself
On the days when she was blinded by blue.
In flight of fancy, on imagined wind,
She dreams to be lifted, carried away
Her body lies still, but she does not miss it
Digging, flapping, laying, pecking, all day
Out now she goes, and in her absence
I think about parameters, and yards.

I think about parameters, and yards
Neatly divided in rigid one-way paths
paved with stones from our mother’s garden
carried one by one on our bare backs
Wisteria climbs overhead, carrying messages
From here to there to way and all over there
telling strangers how much they are missed
Still, one must follow the rigid one-way path
losing sight of all things new
Blind even to the nearby peril
I soldier on, I won’t give up, I do what I must do
Counting the steps, deaf to the siren
I have nothing left to fear, except
the wicked wire fence and the blood smear.

The wicked wire fence and the blood smear,
Threaten silently, predict my future exists here.
To wonder- Is there an alternate?
Black ink and blank pages alone, alleviate
Make way for hollow thoughts, mere
ghostly windowpane reflections, not quite mirror.
What a path I’ve begun
My sentences start to run
Unimaginable speed, beyond the paper lies
The places I long to be, my heart flies
Leaps into the unknown, cries
In hope and memory of brighter skies
sinking into prediction, barred
All our afternoons with sunlight marred.

All our afternoons with sunlight marred.
What funniness there is to find
In low clouds drifting brightly on parade
as if attached by string this textured sky
Lifts us together – basketed, ballooned
Like the ones in black and white film
Light and dark and old and young at once
From our mouths escaped those clouds
And from our feet the grass grew long and rooted
Were we to grow as one, inflated love
Perhaps we would have left these days behind
With soiled sheets and linens damp
Back then we lived like sunshine – but today
I can live like the chicken, coop or not.

I can live like the chicken, coop or not.
Boil my own eggs, jammy inside.
City’s falling sky, roof-proof coop in doubt
what you can see with your eyes. Hold on,
chickening out? What heart yells, do. Boil eggs
until they’re hard if that’s what you feel like. Or don’t.
In shell-safety days, we eat in masked plates
and shallow bowls. Today is yesterday with
or without time’s toll, jerked to halt with jolt
of fear. Pain is not cracking fast enough.
Once it does, there’s no reverie. We’ll walk
through memory like chicks, just hatched.
To lay an egg… past’s present in future
Small breakfast, close quarters, less purposeful

Small breakfast, close quarters, less purposeful
schoolwork and Zoom over the table
the sun came out to brighten the day
a ritualistic rising, weather the only variety
Still it remains cold
The birds visit at our barred windows
and chirp and squawk at me
we are the ones in cages now
Perhaps there isn’t anything real anymore?
Only simple chores of survival
And the words we write
The brevity and fear of snuck trips to the store
Running a red light on the way home,
Free-range became more like an afterthought

Free-range became more like an afterthought
as we carved out the root rot, the house’s riddle
swept under the bed, laziness converted into efficiency
while we’re bred to weather the sting of enclosure.
Our fingers have forgotten the fabrics sewn together,
electric silk of fox fur, hawk feathers. Hands poached
by hope and worn from years cracked in drought.
Our bodies roughed with shadows, stitched to obits

wearing life’s expiration tag tucked under one arm
as though it were charmed, when really we’re put to plot
like potted petunias wilting without water or shade.
We file our days: knitting needles to film sequels,
counting the eggs in our basket, and collecting their return,
we question if our roof hen is legal.

We question if our roof hen is legal
if the compost we hide in black bags will return to elements
or become conscious, a landfill of people
all wanting one thing— to make it through.
Stacked in plastic we will emerge, we will
shake oil from feathers and fly into neon sky
we soar, fearless, hungry, without our ghosts
but our bones, and our blood hold the weight of our humanity.
We will return to our Mother’s front lawn
share a laugh thru a window – behind a mask
wash our clothes in bathtubs, hang them outside.
There’s a line of questions strung from when to why
and if we fail to answer our mouths will be left
Round and loud and proud and lacking eggs

Round and loud and proud and lacking eggs,
I march into the day—unfed, alert.
Leftover wine beside my bed, with meds,
I drank and tried to swallow last night’s hurt.

Inside my stride, the prickling silence feeds
Impatience with the present and my itch
For pushing with spring’s early sprouting seeds
In mutiny against life futureless.

What’s one more kind of war? And on which side?
A patriot and rebel are the same
When hunger strikes the stomach and the mind—
All emptiness, with no one there to blame.

As nature gives no reason, only will,
We eat endurance till we’ve had our fill.

I feel stupid for contributing nothing
for departing unduly, for starting
with gumption and promise, then deserting
what I had promised we would compose
like dust settling and rock eroding
the undoing of an action is just as effective as
sweeping it under the rug and calling it history
class. Read an old letter one day and feel
the flooding sunlight on your back
repeating those words you once knew by heart:
the psalms have a way of never leaving your bones
and the desert will coat you like a second skin.
I relate to finches building nests with broken twigs
but birds do not question, birds do not beg.

But birds do not question, birds do not beg
the bird thinks my pockets are made of bread
and seems to think pecking is a way of asking,
what do you have today? an empty purse, a full mouth?
The brass animals line my desk, and on the mountain the green of spring is whispering a story of arrival
It feels silly to point them toward the window, as if to say,
look and look and look, everything in the world is coming back to life
even your little legs, you brass trinket, memory of trot.
I can’t believe the whole world is collapsing again, it’s so
cyclical, I almost laugh. Instead
I’ll call my father the inventor and tell him
I tried to make something of my own this time.
And just like always, I’m climbing again, onto the roof of the sky.
Winged idiot, so cautious and trusting

Winged idiot, so cautious and trusting!
Tethered at the talon to self-inflicted corruption.
Ages of faltering flights and misguided paths
have depleted your will and scattered your strengths.
While distantly dissolving, reflections reveal a surrendering self;
remembering spilled cups of tea on nights spent alone, cowering, unable to sleep.
Witness that which creeps in the cracks of your mind, and then float, seeking grounding.
The weight of your presence enters itself: a cold stone sitting vigil in a darkened cave.
Hardened and damp, surrounding demons slithering upon secret soil.
How did it come to this? Cornered and pecking at pieces of freedom?
Once caged without consciousness, your mind is free to wander if willing.
Who knows what might happen–there are whole rooms waiting for you to design them.
Land softly and tip toe quickly; the canvas has been cleared.
How much land can you really tend to?

How much land can you really tend to?
Wet coffee grinds the muck of morning thoughts like compost
How much mending does mother earth really need?
Trees crowding together, rocks that don’t want to move
How much of the air is really fresh?
Wind down the hill into a valley, trees applauding
How much of the water is really pure?
Creek river highway you can see through, not by accident
How much of the animosity caused can be cured by nature?
In the backyard there’s half a moon and sometimes a sun between cloud drifts
How much of the wildlife have you really preserved?
Waiting to break the yoke i listen to two blue birds say to each other:
How to be true to ourselves in this time? And at what cost?
How much has the bird already lived through?

How much has the bird already lived through,
goose “winging north in the lonely sky”
seeking a home
where water is clear and skies are blue?
Yet turbulence takes a toll.
Wherever this old bird thinks to fly
higher and higher it dodges the fire
of what has been and will be – desire.
That bird stays the course
the one that does not run smooth
landing like a lion,
a robed winged wounded lion
still able to radiate, for
it’s too cold yet for bare skin on the earth

It’s too cold yet for bare skin on the earth
yet warm enough for the fruit to rot
For the ice cream cake of my youth
to melt into a steady mirror, a steady
lake where frogs gather, almost as if
orating a new testament to progress
amending nature’s constitution with
tender care for water and its width.
There is reason to celebrate, even
after the cake is gone or after we
give in to the season & can no longer
raise our hands in joy it is possible
to raise one steady hand in hope
So all of us are shivering save one

So all of us are shivering save one
Who leans into the wind and swiftly soars
Broken by the skyline hunts a red foe
As shadows grow, so does her coaxing moan
Buy the farm, buy the farm, devilish smile
Till this soil, sow your seed, taste my plump fruit
Then it rots, decomposes and poses
We fly before it sprouts and sinks its roots
Green pushes up and sprouts unbroken height
Unfurling giant leaves above our heads
The wind, vicious wind, pockets of delight
Catching our wings, we rise once more in flight
Clouds fold and twist amid the breath of life
And gathered with the deer we look upon

and gathered with the deer we look upon
the fields, years of fear and silent woods
where spiders sew new webs with secret pockets
where the sunrise seeps into the horizons
of all our misremembered yesterdays
as a new spring brings life from under the leaves
we lay our weapons down atop the dew
quietly surrounding feelings of the unknown
our hands reaching for roots or silken strands
refreshing to find comfort in something familiar again
the dirt is cold on our cracked and creviced hands
that only time has seen only perceived with a naked eye
we kneel before each other and cradle tiny corms
loose gestures trail bright crocuses along

Loose gestures trail bright crocuses along
the edge of my bed. I have not been sleeping
or dreaming in black and white like he does
and here I am. Some form of copy cat.
My father loses every card hand he plays
but it never stopped him. Let me tell you about horses,
did you know they sleep lying down? In fields
full of strangeness. And my father, he
lives in a town abandoned for the unresting dead
to haunt slowly. And I keep gambling on
these horses that won’t run west
like some horizon lit on fire. I am watching
my father settle his garden for evening
His arms, the quiet trees, our spines. He yawns

His arms, the quiet trees, our spines. He yawns
I think, how long can this quiet last?
how long can my snare-drumming heart
beat softly till its sound wakes us?
but it is the wren that does, her small grey
body casts a sunlit flutter across our eyes.
standing, brushing moss from my clothes I know
this is a small end to another beginning.
the stutter and stop and start of
all that we will remember
long diminished, dried out like the leaves
small like the wren
sudden and swift, her mate appears to us
he dances—petaling and rooting us

He dances — petaling and rooting us
A star in the sky took the lower road
snaking down like rambling light oozing past daybreak.
The dreamcatcher ripped itself to pieces
like flowers losing petals, falling nowhere.
All the world’s a filing cabinet
hung haphazardly in the sky, swaying
like a latent cat in the summer breeze
and there we are, waiting for
something to give, a branch to crack
the seasons to quicksand and atrophy
much like planets dissolve
into new planets, different skies
a bear approaches, furred from nose to tail.

A bear approaches, furred from nose to tail
climbing a high-hollow for a honey-sweet song
color embellished by feathered chorus
singing tomorrow will be new, maybe
but today’s feast is elk and bison carcass.
The sun is collimated into a narrow ring,
Gaia aroused, expands on her couch
peaches in hand, she eats deliberately.
Humans banished, the Tree of Life restored,
what better good than burying the pits in the dirt?
Earth now demands an oath of viriditas
or new pastures, whichever is better for the kids.
Fields await for our descendants to play
in flowers blue as our cropped fingernails.

In flowers blue as our cropped fingernails
in petals pale as ghosts in our shared dreams
surges a nectar sipped through gossamer wings
a healing balm for all the living things.

Veiled in sunlight, draped in moon beams,
our masked hope peeks through shuttered doors
out toward the perfumed air of spring, the calm
abode of breath of he who keeps the scores.

We stutter prayers to cope, blame the blight
on blossoms blue, wait for him to quench our thirst
in kind communion, sweet serum on the tongue.
The lung. Despair flits and flutters, at last alights;

each breath quietly implores mercy
and lumbers slowly forth to him for alms

And lumbers slowly forth to him for alms
Hands stretched, waiting as if for an answer
Her smile assumes an act of kindness
She wants to kneel, she wants to pray, but can’t
ask him to join her, like a child afraid to play
without words he cradles her cheek and chants
Violet skies fill her eyes; intonations blankets her soul
candles lit, the cost of healing is paid
Humbled by the currency of hope
she no longer searches for answers
Her hands gently let go of the questions
She looks up, cries in praise of grace
For she was there to see him save
To lick his wide soft feet and upturned palms

To lick his wide soft feet and upturned palms
wounded and weak, I’d like him to be frank
with his fear, but he’s furtive and shuffling
as if approaching verboten subjects
in the night, dressed to avoid
crowds, we move with shadows in alleyways
our secrets stuffed in our knapsacks, but
we like the inevitability of things left behind,
waiting with patience or enraged chained to the
potential of a subject in an unopened book
that both is and is not what you want it to be
like our mothers with all their complications
he’s a knotted ribbon, turning into
A supplicant like me, awoken now

A supplicant like me, awoken now
By the hugging moon? Or its perfect howl?
Giving in to wasted light, bent like supple bough
How can we union, among deep valley?
Eyes are turned to ground and minds have turned to stone,
all of the organs shake in a basket.
His scant words are stuck to me like gristle to the bone,
in a desert with shadow puppets passed
Forty days wed with eighty more to go.
This life has proved a waking dream in skin,
for with burdened limb I reap as I sow
I search for seed and meaning in where I’ve been
patient pitch dark fate, waiting to be found.
By his faint tread like warm breath on cool ground.

By his faint tread like warm breath on cool ground,
I hear his footsteps fade as fast as morning mist.
Alone, I lie in bed, but then, this sound
That would not silence, instead it did persist.
At first did I mistake it for a knock,
Or was the house just creaking in the wind?
For rhythmic as a footfall or a clock,
Its measure was precise and disciplined.
It was Death that stalked me in the dark.
In frozen fear, I await Its cold embrace.
With mortal aim it chose me as its mark.
Gasping my breath leaves without a trace.
And so I speak from deep within my tomb,
Cries annually come springs brightening bloom.

Cries annually come springs brightening bloom
Jogging through twilight, clouds separate to reveal
And when stars colour the sky, Our eyes will grip the new identity
We shall overcome, the poster that will colour our faces
behind the screens, as the cases multiply,
And voices get twisted ,land of silence sounds with shovels
scooping and slamming to rebuild what could be
Destruction knocks , with its anxiety-laden voice
Deserted streets vomits sirens , a day turns blue
with omens. Does fear make or let one retreat?
Strength.Does it break the walls of the healthy?
As the storm clouds blur back together, my heartbeat slows,
My pulse adjusts fitting the heart rhythm, no breath catches the cadence
Does true beauty make or let one cry out?

Does true beauty make or let one cry out?
If this has happened to you, there can be no doubt
in my mind – one is right, and one is wrong. Not to say
one is always expected to place a tear on display,
or play impassioned wails over the speakers in the crowded hall.
But if it feels like music to your eyes, and the layers start to fall
away – then congratulations! You’ve found something beautiful, assuming you care
to look long enough, staring beyond the glint and glare
of the glass. It sits smugly before you, pristine save for fingerprints smudging
its cape. Its cage. Its mask, it’s perspective nudging
your eyes and hands away from its prize. Your voice is all that’s left
and all that matters. Beauty can strip you down to your greatest asset –
in its absence, your voice only whimpers, and decays. Unrelated,
I haven’t touched grass in 47 days.

I haven’t touched grass in 47 days
Felt the morning dew tickle my toes
but it was only a dream, i suppose
Continuing to daydream, sun’s rays-
Suns rays outline stark shadows in alleyways
It guides me to the east-side windows
Where the flowers used to grow, I’m in limbo
Dancing on reality’s threshold
freely flowing, breathless and glowing
Spirit, mind and body juxtaposed
swaying eyes closed, this is the place I go
Fantasy interpose yesterday
Was insanity overload and marigolds
Blue grass, dead grass, my head’s a bouquet

Blue grass, dead grass, my head’s a bouquet
Its florid aperture beats like a hummingbird, clipped
Without wing to take flight or throat to sing
My eyes drink in the glossed clamor of screens
Though no one there or here returns my gaze
Podcasts sub for laughs, scarves morph into masks
All we leave unsaid rims this bitter cup
Sun rises and sets, the breath exalted
In ritual as I wash my hands again
Flipflop from annoyance to gratitude
I pluck May’s first blooms like resonant strings
Marvel at intrinsic begin-agains
And leave wreaths ringing at mourners’ doors:
It is unfortunate but true and necessary

It is unfortunate but true and necessary
that the living must mourn death with fresh life
and life slowly becomes a sediment of memory
As we bury love with new leaves and grieve
not for what was gone, but for what remains after they left:
the endless moments we must live bereft;
so many words we wish were never left unsaid;
the last things that now lie with our departed.
Today, the morning is still like a lake.
We hold each other together, lest we break.
The trees whisper sermons under their breath.
Elegies rise from nature’s rustling breeze.
I want to stand here until I become a tree.
Every orchid reminds me of my mother

Every orchid reminds me of my mother
Difficult to tend to but beautiful and majestic to behold
Whether rain or shine; to have to sift to find it fighting for it’s place to glow
Bilateral symmetry of the epiphytic houseplants bloom and grow
I tend to ponder the resiliencies of nature
Ebbing and flowing in disdain of humanity’s effects
Ceaselessly succeeding in achieving breathless beauty
Reverent scents pours from the fragrant root
Reminding me, though unseen, roots can set us free
Earthing with my naked feet, Digging in the dirt with my bare hands
The daily dose of forward motion leaves impressions behind
Beleaguered notions of childhood echoes in my memory
I’ve learned the path behind is not a curse at all, in fact:
Footprints, too, are a kind of offering

Footprints, too, are a kind of offering
when there’s nothing left to feed the children
this forward motion in almost sand
sinking like a promise to come home
to something like a handful of water
I sip slowly, remembering how thought follows
a strange train in the sand. So what
if I can’t touch my toes or bake a decent loaf of bread
I know there are aliens out there, which is better
than believing in God or trusting the government
and trust me, I am not able to do either of those things
but I do celebrate the rain when it’s been hot for so long
the thunder, I welcome it. Earth to bone rattling.
What do you know about making windows?

what do you know about making windows?
About glass panels and what’s behind them
Seemingly clear but with vague reflection
How do you shape deceit’s frame?
A fixed foundation around distorted panes
And beyond them, inside them, us tired shadows
What do you know about building walls?
A much more honest process, to be sure
Raised to block the light from passing
Shut out voices whose mouths I can’t control
Pull the blinds on their lies and deception
But then retreat, inside my walls and windows, to drown in my silence
I long to push the door open
Critics be damned I won’t try

Critics be damned I won’t try
to please anyone here unless
you swallow this handful of holy sand
and tell me if land can truly belong
to a body—the old wolves grinning
at the rabbits, they tip their hats
to the tales that pass from one generation
to the next, paper dominoes in flames
disrupting the entire industry of fire
with their extinguishing truths.
My father used to sell them by the
dozens, in the business of multiplying need
door-to-door, an ocean-to-desert desire
to pretend I’m some cold genius

to pretend I’m some cold genius
just out of the Arctic, poetry stuffed in my parka’s pockets.
It fell out on the ice;
my mother’s osseous dice. Wait, my flight!
I couldn’t catch it.
Yet, now I am seated. What time zone please?
I am tired of the terrestrial.
The stewardess drolls, “Fasten your seatbelt.”
I’m not there. It takes off.
Wake now; nightgown dusted with frost.
It melts on me like a frightening dream.
Yes, cold. No, a genius I am not.
I realize, I am walking inside out
The moon changes faces but it doesn’t hide it

The moon changes faces but doesn’t hide it
Freckled and pocked by the weight of delight
The sunshine will come, to shine in the darkness
Bathing the moon in its heavenly light
Below the zone of blue, above the depths of salts
Their love hangs in the balance, a drop of dew that’s caught
Or lingers between the pause of a breath
So beautiful and yet impossible to touch
All at once pulled by invisible torque
Two lovers performing a celestial dance
Each step they grace bound by crashing waves
One to the other forever entranced
A pure animalistic urge that remains
The little grey dog in love with its chains

the little grey dog in love with its chains
never knew metal from moss
and why would it? What is it about captivity
That teaches tricks so quick, like fetch, or
play dead. Listen, I wanted so badly
To take that damn dog for a stroll and
teach it freedom. Look, there is nothing
lovelier than a roll on the lawn and
forgiveness or bolting towards whatever is next
but those little legs never left what it knew.
I do not know what else to say other than
you can only ask so many times.
Before you just head west, but
I only ever made it to the end of the driveway

I only ever made it to the end of the driveway—
A place you can be at home without arriving,
warm lights inside beckoned but I wasn’t ready.
In this world of many could you find me?
Is that your shadow in the rain on my pavement?
The drops take shapes i know your face would make.
Stepping through them, I create new ripples—
Tracking your stain with me towards the hedges
Let me find a new home for you
And all the milk inside your head
spilling into the cracks of the sidewalk—a web
Decide for once you feel such numb galore
reach inside pull out the tangles
And here is the window and here is the door

and here is the window and here is the door
a choice between touching clouds or resenting their altitude
between busting them with our minds or lying on our backs in the long grass, playing that game with the shapes, that one
it’s a witty puzzle, where they all exist on the same playing field though will never truly fit together,
unless we sink into a deeper kind of silence, of listening, and touch the ground in a way that teaches us to
see ourselves in skies that feel too out of reach
and to remember that every shape that exists is constantly shifting, changing into some other form, the only difference is speed
And we start to find grace in our pace, in each phase of the evolution that defines the mass of our silhouettes
What joy, to feel the weight of this shadow, to stand between the sun and the earth, to exist
As the intersection between certainty and surrender
to remember the mud and that time, by the stream, in the springtime, when the bank gave way beneath you, and you fell,
and you sunk to depths that have been waiting to show you a new surface,
to help us lift this veil and finally with luck we’ll trim these sails,
for there are stranger seas ahead, my dear, and I have seen them.