a waking mind aware of being here nor there

(or, mental amusement before seeing the light of day)

I am older than the selves of life leap-frogging along the making of time and place.

I am before the restless generations of becoming and dying and becoming. Before the chaos, the watery womanly demos of unthinking flesh and bone generating the moon time. Before the history of fallings from the womb and returnings to its vaginal elections. Before the breeding laying beneath the seeing of me alone unpartnered, uncoupled from the frenzy of fucking before corpses of stone deadly silence.

No music without the knowing nothing drumming, knowing everything in the dance. The eros of engorging, the nippled firming of magical wands, then seed spewing and lactation. Who understands the middle churning between the alpha and omega, the bearing of souls from wet wombs spasming the vibrating stream of being in and out of touching its accordian stops and starts. Attuning done by ear in darkness, not seeing measurement in light.

What withstands the onslaught of viral memories of how to suck the energy out of nothing and be being begun. Rosy redness sainted nick clauses of coded connection, spitting of flakes of blood frozen in falling from night sky of the womb, here and not here, there and not there. Which is it after all?

return to poetic stuff

a very short story for Christmas

Mom sat us around the table
and opened a can of baked beans
which we quickly emptied
in our barrage of cold spoons.

Our chilly kitchen darkened
when the sun went down
on our playing ball in the yard
behind our building and
Mom called out the back window
for us to come in to eat.

It was a December meal like most others,
familial as we mumbled through mouthfuls of beans
about Mrs. Jackson’s cat who’d caught a rat
under the smelly dumpster we used as a backstop.

But on this particular day, just as we left the table,
not quite finished chewing and mumbling
and about to find our accustomed places to play
on the floor in our dimly lit front room, we heard
voices approaching in the hallway outside our door which were singing:
“We three kings of orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar”
and soon a knocking which brought Mom to open it
as we clustered cautiously behind her to see who was there.

When Mom unlatched the door and opened it a crack
to ask what was the matter, we heard the chorus of cheerful voices greet us warmly in unison, “Merry Christmas,” then a kindly voice ask, “Would you take the food and sweets we’ve brought?
It’s God’s way of loving us all, whether we give or receive.”

Mom didn’t reject the gifts brought to us, thank goodness.
We celebrated eating turkey and mashed potatoes
and oranges and oatmeal cookies and other tasty nourishments
for at least a week and thanked God for his love at our kitchen table each day even when we once again ate beans mostly.

am I the together you want?

(written Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 6 o’clock in the morning)

Am I the together
you want
to tickle toes
and rub noses with?

Who knows
no truth but
what embracing you
awakens?

Who seeks
no good but
laughing together
at silly disagreements
between us?

Who tries
no gain but
being friends
warming the dark
and lighting the way?

return to poetic stuff

that scent

(written on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, at 8 o’clock in the evening)

He knew that scent.
She’d been here
not long ago
looking for him
to share a pillow
with her.

She fell asleep
he guessed,
tired and alone,
then woke and grabbed
her keys and left.

He lay his head
where she’d laid hers,
the pillow case grown cold
without her.
He knew that scent
she’d left for him
to dream on.

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the unkindest cut

(written on Tuesday, March 1, 2005, at daybreak)

His billfold seemed more youthful and less patriotic
since it had been on a low-income, no plastic diet.
Its breath smelled less the chew of greasy greenbacks
and more the leather holster of a lone cowboy.

It didn’t come ‘round much anymore
to salute the American Dream,
but stayed behind, shy of company
that used to call on business
before stocks fell and depression struck
and work was hard to find.

But the unkindest cut was
not lost portraits of tendered presidents,
nor demagnetized swipes of other peoples’ money,
nor forgotten deals on cards of calling past.
Gone were love’s pictures without a kiss goodbye.

return to poetic stuff