the passing of days

Seems like forever

            since she’s been

            the Good-luck Girl;

but the spacing between Fascinations

has inched from months into years

measured by too many Degrees
and boredom with the offerings

Incomprehensible

            are the passing of days

and the growing older

            while staying younger…ish

she lives in a limbo of learning

            and perpetual hope

            difficult to suit

“You can never win or lose

if you don’t run the race…”

            ~ Psychadelic Furs, “Love My Way”

the ache of bones

winter brings

what is not a sadness,

but a stilling

a slow stretch of calm

and the ache of bones

and the ache of hours

in the after

she is happy in the concreteness of a thing off-kilter

as long as there is breath and flesh, laughter

and the unconditionality of impermanence

or the other way around…

she never knows this in the moment, though
only in the after

where she lives again
happy in the white space…

between words

char

sun-lit sparks then char

the surface cools

black smoke turns white

and the air that fueled

is the air that belies

it’s just her heart

she carries it with her

mooring

On the tipping-edge

of a mooring point

Valhalla teeters;

In falling there is a knowing,

and the earth ever her beloved

where men fall short.

life is bigger

In fevered dreams

I had always dreamt

            of sitting

in long grass on a cool day

feathered braids falling

            lightly

Buffalo grazing

While you were dying

I found solace in myself;

within me

the strength of a Nation gone to war.

little heart tethered

unfurling

stiffly she stretches

to walkabout, still

in the haze of Soma, unshaken

even over the hours of years;

little heart tethered

to the sun and the moon and the stars

ever drawing her forth

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

the air that sparks

The curve of his hip and thigh

the air that sparks

and the words

between them;

something

won’t let her move on
despite the ever distance.

vision quests

her body wants to push a fever

sans peyote tea

the new ink, setting slow

it’s in her breath and bones

a dull ache and weight

a mourn of never was

in each shallow exhalation

flittering shadows

on the back of heavy lids

a long deep ohhhhhm

on the brink teetering

her body wants to push a fever

the same old fears

Nestled on the knuckle of my left thumb

there’s a c-shaped scar

with large hash marks slashed at intervals

from black waxed thread

a tiny woman in tall heels painfully stitched.

It covets a glass shard close to the bone, grating.

honu

This morning I stopped

in the road for a large man

who motioned with his hands urgently,

then emerged again with a shovel

bravely scooping Honu

gently and gently laying him

in the tall grass; cars piled

behind me, behind him,

no one honking.

Honu, about his business,

slow, going into the brush.

she think she pretty

Evernew, she walkabout

all bobble-headed

in her skin, bones rattlin'

each stomp a waddle,

a heavy drag then lift of the foot.

She don’t care,

She think She pretty,

coy

Gilgamesh skirts Valhalla’s shore

Where Ragnorak once turned and went

She coos and calls, and throws him bones

While he plays quite the coy gent

some summers

Some summers the heat just…

sinks in bone deep, overtaxing

the body, the brain, the heart;

Shade affords little reprieve

and cool water turns warm

well before it hits the lips.

Even the sloughing of skin proves vain.

Even the shedding of...

things burrowed deep where

some summers the heat just

sinks in...

yet it all feels further
than the nearest star.

Elephants journey to a yard of bones

that girl asleep in the shade

limbs askew with moss and dust and drool?

she unfurls to find the days, the hours, the years had got behind

and her Electric Demon powered down still standing

in the distance, Elephants journey to a yard of bones

ease their bulk low to the ground

Ladybugs land about her

whither into the dust

her brow furls into a frown 

before a deep sigh hits her hard.

something has snuck in, a flutter just off center

that thing that woke her?  could be a Yearning?

and she sighs again, to the low hum

of her Electric Demon powering up

dead eyes now a'fire

doors in limbo

All around me I hear

doors opening, closing

clocks ticking

indiscreet voices purring

machines in their low hum;

I fold into a limbo

of being here

of fitting in

of being not quite hired

All around me I hear

doors opening, closing

I fold into a limbo

of being…

on tamales

New third-floor neighbors across the way have been pulling their blinds all the way up at night. I see them in silhouette. I don’t care. I still walk about in various stages of dishevelment, my own blinds askew. Tonight, sitting in my bra and slip at my desk, eating "southwest vegan" tamales that are mostly just black bean, I drown the tamales in local salsa verde to get some flavor. Scowling, I vow to never trust southwest-anything again. Writing, looking up to think, my gaze goes directly into the neighbor's window and someone hastily closes the blinds. A girlish man? A boyish woman? To the right, more blinds open. They've painted a wall bright cherry red. And those blinds shut with a snap. It was okay for them to look unobserved, but not to be looked at in the same way.

My blinds stay as-is, my state of undress stays, as-is. I’m too focused on the Texas heat, on writing, and on my late night, semi-tasteless southwest vegan tamales to feel the guilt they tried to infer withe snapping of their blinds.

buoyancy

It could be her

It could be…another

It could be no one in particular

Or a thing imagined

Or a thing ghosted

            from past interplay

Isn’t that the way she thinks?

            The way she writes?

That girl kicking out…smooth

          in the floating backstroke

          gazing at the sepia-Gray sky

          creating her own calm

              her own buoyancy

              her own groove 

of being still

letting the current take her...places

a thing interrupted

in the Gray Matter

there’s a gray space

where her wild things roam

where square pegs are chased

            by round holes

where doors are halls

            and halls are doors

a space where she waits

            for the unknown

            for a thing…

                        interrupted

learning to breath

Twelve years dead

            Two years numb

            Ten years living

                        AT the speed of light

                        UNDER water

Finally,

            a slowing

            a learning

                        to breath

            a knowing

it’s okay

that girl

Take me to the fair again?

Feed me

fried foods and laughter,

arms entwined

holding hands

we'll ride the rides

more than tipsy;

And on the morrow

after little sleep and

flesh on flesh,

I will kick your ass out the door

So…call me…

take me to the fair again?

as was

she was not herself these past months

with you, she was something…more...

it was only a moment, but she knew herself

knew you;

possibilities scared her, thrilled her

you took her…as is;

Returned her, as was,

something…less…

tiny supernovas

Of all the things she’s wrote,

many were more born of hopes and dreams,

than of things

never manifest.

They were…thrills in a fleeting moment.

They were…pleas for someday.

Today, all the things she wrote

flutters

in tiny supernovas…            

ghosts

when a lover leaves
an imprint lingers
like a lost limb
phantom
ghost
poltergeist

the trickery burrows

and I can feel you still

Caliente'

I offer mint

to cleanse the pallet, but

No, he says,

I want the taste of the meal to linger

We had a meal rich with onion and garlic

Caliente’