(I have been inspired by an old friend)

Every Day Closer
to Light. Sureness.
Angels Singing.

(America bursts from your organs (in parts))

America bursts
from your organs, red, blue


I sip spiked tea.

You wash your hair smelling
wood smoke, flesh

I swallow an apple.

You gnaw on Christ's arm.

He pours red wine.

We feast.

(yesterday I was a pillar of bees)

I shower in mold,
shaking, wracked with ivy and dust.
Pigeons feast on my toes.


*excerpted from Light Infinity

(Montreal, 2007)

Capybara, ice-cold
memories in a biodome
ducks, kissing French

(day)

I will come home. 
I will walk to buy toilet paper.
I will listen to other people sing.

(these trinkets are my love (in parts))

These trinkets are my love:
Earrings. A wide, wooden bracelet.
I picked them for you.

It's not enough.
To stand conflicted in a market stall
Deciding

To think and think about
what you like best. To give you
an approximation.

Still I ponder.
Even the gift box, blue,
with thin blue ribbon.


What I mean this to say
is that I love you. I am willing to die; 
I love you so

I have spent my morning
in a market stall,
thinking about what you love.

(her face is my face)

her face is my face
splintering
her hands cup our cheeks

(holiday season)

the bat is molding
seeds long eaten; wreaths rising
time to move on

(I taped a map to the wall)

green swaths remind me
(concentric lines drawn closer)
I've climbed mountains

(inadequate)

Can this poem
reflect the waters? Red balloon
survives the storm

(love poem #3)

I love you close,
noses touching. Hand to cheek. 
You go; faith eludes me

(stick)

what could go wrong
with braids in my hair, with trains,
with our elbows touching

(Sunday morning)

blueberry juice,
books, oatmeal in the living room,
beeswax candles, lit

(the theme consistent to all of your writings)

The theme consistent
to all of your writings is loss. 
Yes, and wanting.

(oh)

her bong rips, hands
painted mug green hair, eyes,
grunge rock. she dances

(sorry music, soul)

I meant to silence
the commercial but I silenced the whole
series of songs.

(ceramics)

his hands shaped bowls.
he gave them-- green, black-- to me.
I drank from them.

("I'm gonna watch a little baseball")

Blue crabs, Cal,
the Chesapeake. O say
fuck you you motherfuckin yankee

(in parts)

Impossible,
to render love in human form: 
biting, ego, blood.

This is why they call for
God, whom they might call
bloodless. boneless, no-

flesh, deceive me. rise
to his flesh: resurrection, through
insurrection--

We have sex
not to end the wanting but to increase
the wanting which is

paramount-- which maybe is--
love. but born of conflict.


There is a contradiction.
here, take my hand, let me love
you, let me suck your blood

see, love,
how sharp my teeth?

(something)

Music never leaves me
lonely, belly-down on the comforter,
not comforted, with

(top shelf)

a can of tea. banana peels.
probiotics. an empty bottle of cream.
a knife, keys, lighters

(Wednesday night)

we detect something
in the ampersand&wiggling light
bulbs, flying squirrels

(the loop is for infinity)

(need)

We are craving velvet
sunshine, wet leaf-licks, like lace,
like blood-blossoms blooming

(old mattress)

We will not give counsel
to our fears. We will eat candy.
We will go hiking.

(reminders (in links))

Stop glorifying
busyness. Control becomes
rigidity. Breathe

(you have done this before. do you wish to continue?)

I must get back,
said the rabbit, eyes rolling. I must be
the lion I was

(community garden)

Who would bag
the sun flowers? Were they dead?
Was he dying?

(tentacles and wings)

First, there was a bird.
Then an octopus, eight legs strong.
And me, caught between.

(Queens)

Head bumps the ceiling.
You're beautiful. Have a great day.
Late night salad cuddles. 

Type A

Don't bother me.
I'm busy. (I do not want to strive
still, alone  )

(co-author)

Help me write a haiku. 
I'm not good at that. Try. Just say something. 
Something. 

( )

that place where
the music stops.and all we are breathing
is sound

(angst)

I was eight wounds
walking. I was pillows pressed to mouths, crying
love me, love me, love--

(conditions)

But I will only
love you more. But I will
love you more.

(turbine)

Perhaps the trouble
is too much time spent writing
about men.

I am a turbine whirling
round and round, always planted
in the same place.

Would that these windmills
could cartwheel across green fields
to new pastures.

There I would write only
about Things That Matter
like God and Hunger

and the soft fuzz on the back of his ear. 

(it was delicious and for the most part I do not regret it)

I have eaten ice cream,
which I rarely do, which gives me
a bellyache. Still,

(milk alone turns to butter)

I am a bucket.
Water sluices over my head.
Mouse legs churning.

(another kind of poetry)

"And it reaffirms a grand view of a universe ruled by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws, but in which everything interesting in it, such as ourselves, is due to flaws or breaks in that symmetry."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-may-have-discovered-higgs-boson-particle.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

(overheard in the kitchen, sunday morning)

where the fuck is
the gorgonzola? (wrappers rustling.)
what the heck. (the dogs wag their tails.)

(storm)

outside there is
thunder and I am thinking about
lightning, trees split in two

(all the good ones are taken already)

i want to be like
bass (now i want to say nectar)
low-toned ambrosia that's me

(desire: in parts)

I want your unlaced
fingertips slicing down my spine.
Bones collapsing.

Your milky way entrails
smear sand across the harbor.
Fishermen weep.

Cities flee from us.
Our love is an earthquake.
You burn me to ash.

(I want to be lit up: a not-quite haiku in seven parts)

I want to be lit up
like bright
bits of tinfoil on

baby's heads
like
a UFO landing

not like
diamonds, blood, not this
rough

patch I've been plodding through, sand
paper, but like
sand

flakes of mica
shining through
and like

fireflies

in dark fields
forests
blackened

exploding with lights

(I hide behind nonsensical things and declare you a loser if you do not "understand," OR, In Which I Impersonate A Hipster)

stung was a stinging.
baklava shaved legs your mother's armpits.
poop sex feminism.

(fracture)

and you bit me,
and blood ran, and you demanded
I make a choice

(shake)

This world has got
the best of me. Seems like time
for Tennessee.

(meditation: feeling mind)*

Oh, look. Here's fear.
Here's that swampy hollowness in the heart.
That's the way grief feels.


*with thanks and attributions owed to Sally Kempton

(unless and until)

you are my
harmonica. I play you over
chances of rain

(love poems #3)

You come running.
The Silver Jews are so fucking good.
I don't feel lost, any more.

(Thomas Jefferson)

with this pen I sign
signatures in stolen ink
your face blacked out

(and memory is such that I can no longer remember)

he is no longer
nominated. I was, though I was 12, though
I might have rigged the ballot

(pull back)

little hands reach for
mine, careful and hoping
a happy childhood

(when they fought it was)

When they fought it was
like caverns battling,
mountains crushed to dust.

(poster sale)

postered boards, haggling.
the man with the black beard looked at me.
hard and so I left.

wobbly-kneed to the
apartment. I threw up and laid
on the bed, covered in mirrors.

(opposite)

I scorn you, you
moon of treacherous pearls.
He said, do it again.

To say it is
lizard tongues, severed, flicking-- the picture
not coming in words.

(ocean metaphors 2)

swan-like she dove for me.
her face was my own and I gagged on her.
underwater, piano sounds.

(aperture)

Illumination. 
Chain link fence in the moonlight.
A dog's leg lifted. 

(grunge)

cold apple warm.
a mother salivating.
belly aches, aches, aches.

(break form)

We were tigers running.
poem-crazy and blood-thick.
eyes for wolves, skies, fire.

(morning light)

In my dream there were
hands. White bones curled round doorframes.
Me, grateful to run.

(meanwhile)

too many, too, too much.
yellow jaws caterwauling.
he sleeps in my lap.

(tupelo wind)

I am a woman
who needs space. Feed me figs, still (thank you)
I'll take walks, alone.

(ocean metaphors 1)

What I want is not
this wanting is my sandbag
pinning me to shore

(untitled 6)

I have never been
more sorry. I was embarrassed
by loving too much.

("I'm happy you're happy")

I am happy that...
your happy cracks me: jealous-
lie, my love

(shoe shopping)

I want your simple
carat coffee liqueur (brown,
pink laces, size nine)

(Musical Mash-ups XI)*

My sweet one, I call
you. I will buy you a ewe.
We'll love; he'll be true.


*thank you, Phish

(Musical Mash-ups X: know)*

We go back to the
start. Come back and haunt me, you
how lovely you are




*thank you Coldplay

(burn me)

call me names, names
change me same, same: you in flames
burn me, burn like you

(untitled 29 #2)

I want to kick your face.
Twist-legs in hammocks; contradict
such enmity: love.

(literary burglary #2)*

I'm a burning boat
that carried me here: astute,
blind, courageous.



*with grand thanks (and apologies) to Danielle Laporte

(livepoeting the bachelor women tell all)

Once is hard enough.
You were three steps ahead of me.
Better then than later. 

(we)

We're gonna do this. 
Oh me oh my oh you are-- not
mine, but we are ours.

(weave)

not always constant.
not even kind. but there, like stars
cross-stitching the sky.

(crescent)

you want me to sing.
to the moon (which I cannot eat) and love
which I cannot speak.

(January)

He smokes cigarettes.
She writes poetry upstairs,
pretends not to love.

(takeout)

Use your broccoli spoon.
Cottage cheese will get you nowhere.
Forks even less so.

(I say this and I mean it; I mean I say it's true)

This world needs you.
There are gaps, here, space between.
Step into the breach.

(with)

face touch hands lips, crest
body my body your lift me you rise--
music, ethereal, light

( / therefore )

I need this. Poetry.
One's own fills what's fallen;
Give me pounding light.

(turtleneck)

leave me, leave me, leave
weary veins and tight-knit heart-
sweater pulling thin

(like that)

I want to write like
that. Like my heart is liquid
and you are the glass.

(this afternoon)

Today I am sad.
Rife with apologies. You who think
I left you I love you.

(this morning (February 11, 2012) (four parts))

I am nervous-antsy.
Writing with a pencil.
There is genius in me.

I know it. I want
to let it out! I am trying
to convince myself.


No. I am trying
to convince everybody.
That I can do it.

Then they will tell me
that I can, do it, so that
I will. Do it.

(Musical Mash-ups X: where'd my body go?)*

Have you seen my ghost?
She forgot to float away.
A ghost just needs a home.



*with attributions owed to Wintersleep

(I think I am)

Your silence slays me.
Meantime feign indifference.
Telling me I'm brave.

(I am in love with my chiropractor)

Everything changes.
Spine aligns and thoughts free-flow.
More is possible.

(day 242: your fingers were spears (three parts))

Your fingers were spears
and they skewered me. I languished.
John Travolta laughed.  

I want to be fancied.
I didn't know better! Her purse is gold
strings, cut from your hand.

More needs to be said.
I write it! Still you are running, pant pant.
I will not follow.

I want to be fancied.

(hardly at all)

You don't know me. Fuck!
Words frenetic why's to why
can't I tell you me.

(sorry Death Cab*)

My heart: a full room.
No more possibilities.
I'm not (not) alone.



*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p3UKzLgVhc&feature=fvst

(a paroxysmal, often allergic disorder of respiration)

Hard to breathe, harder--
yes, weak lung; yes: achy heart.
Doctor says I'm fine. 

(literary burglary #1 OR, Sorry Dave Eggers)

First off, I'm tired.
I am true of heart! You, too: tired.
And you, true of heart.

!

(if you are not happy with the way that you are [do this in your mind])

See a place. Go there.
Name the ground beneath your feet.
What are you like, there?

("a dark and brilliant achievement")

im person ate
me, slick with olive oil and
body painted lines

(But what are your feelings about going to the beach?)

blood red blood blood veins
see shell quick slick cutting
mouth wrist open sea

(snow day)

If I could move this wall,
the better to see:
universe, white white white.

(the artist nascent slowly arrives)

You are shy, but I
push papers to your lidded eyes--
look. see what i have made.

(I trust [your] fingers beside [my] spine)

They search for-- some
thing: tickling aches, dipping into knots
and turns, tenderness.

(Labia (a), or, An Exercise in Comfort)

Labia. Labi
a. Labia. Labia.
Labia. Labi.

(how long it took to believe it)

My arms are stronger.
Fuck you, yes, they are larger.
Beauty self-defined.

(mock encomium)

Sometimes, it's truth: 
You are irrelevant.
Liberation, there.

(day late)

Visionaries, note:
It is your job to speak loud.
Do not be bashful.

(this is how we count to three)

First noise, movement,
Sparklers unleashed. Jubilation,
The silence at the end.

(Musical Mash-ups IX: to sit before you here today)

Hello, I'm a monster
too. (but) When we were young
our eyes were blue.


*with attributions owed to the Barr Brothers

(headlights)

6 AM I'm cranky.
Brake for fur, quiet hoofing.
Suddenly worth it.

(untitled 29)

What coward you are.
Cut cut cutting people down.
Afraid of the saw.

So I pine for you.
You, aliveness. You: Joy.
Licking at faith.

(not made)

I'm brave for others.
For myself I grow afraid.
Thus a teacher, born.

(upon connecting with "strangers" online)

I am filled grateful.
That friendships are made! Connect
us, without bodies.

(and thick brown soil presses fast to your hands)

Just what you've wanted:
Sunshine, air, land for planting.
You have to be brave.

(Love Poems 1)

My darling, you are
like water for me, coaxing
pebbles into glass.

(muse though I have pined for you right now is really not the best time, OR I am sorry for continually being so self-involved)

I'm tired. My head hurts.
I, me, my-- meanwhile you
try to say something.

(Musical Mash-ups VIII: when the dam breaks down)

I am a book torn.
Gone the things that hide all fears. 
Trusting you write, too. 



*with attributions owed to Manchester Orchestra

(Love Poems 2)

Your brain is a dream
unplugged. It nestles skyward.
I watch, becoming.