ASH & PHOSPHENE

It was the silence that I noticed first
The disorder cured
The breaking of the curse

Then the scratches and scrapes
The scars and the aches
I couldn’t feel them any more

All the little sorrows and rocks
That had lived and tumbled
Inside my heart

Like razor blades in a washing machine
Had transformed into stillness
Ash and phosphene 

Where heartbreak was once the noise that I breathed
For this moment is buried
Under my feet

And now the burden is gone the day is sweet
I see it all so clearly now
I am free I am free


*     *     *  

CELESTIAL MECHANICS

“One of the constellations the Milky Way passes through is Sagittarius, where it is brightest…”


For years I have carried a tiny solar system in a small silk pouch in my purse. A refulgent souvenir of the possible as opposed to the actual. Every moment is a first and a last. But one day my purse became too heavy and I decided to put the little worlds into a Ziploc bag and take a hammer to them. With all my might I tried to smash the glass globes to bits. Not out of anger but out of joy. Not in response to fury but in celebration of freedom. My intention was to turn the planets to dust and sprinkle the debris into the air as if I were scattering the ashes of a loved one who had passed away. But the planets could not be crushed. They would not be crushed no matter how hard I hit them. Perhaps some things are indestructible. Even fragile things. So I remain their keeper, their home, their burning light infuser. The laws of nature sometimes overpower my intentions but they also reinforce my deepest truths. Even still I do not need a galaxy of wishes at this time. Hope is what one clings to when one has nothing else. I have everything else. And when I stand alone in the blackest of darkness with this gleaming universe in my hand I can see the future. Just a flash but it is enough. I already know how this polymorphous story ends. Finally, she said. We are all happy now.


* * *

woman (messiah)

i am many things
br o k e n
and just dazzled enough
to deprive the sky
of sight

soothsayer of the future alchemist of rain

making wine
where there were only
tears

hearting a beat
where there was only
silence

i can do this better
than any other
woman (messiah)

¡Ahora! you fool, i howl

throwing blood and thunderstorms
onto the porches of
your demons

i only want
that you are bliss

my heart a hospital
for the wounded

uncertainty is a welcome guest
here:

pranayama BTW
a chemical and physical process
out of me ~ into you

adumbrate all you want

there will be no aftermath

i am always here

this is effortless now


* * *

HORIZONTAL TRIPTYCH

1.) That the rain never stops falling I take rent of your sorrow. Treading water upside down. How can I not be indebted to you? You taught me how to swim and every emotion in between. If there is a wall in your way let me turn it into an ocean. I cannot drown no matter how furious the flood. When the remains of your intentions sink to the bottom the water rises and so do I. Synchronicity is a thirteen-letter word. A collision. The moment we loved one another was the moment we were doomed to greatness. But commit this to memory, my love: Greatness is a choice.

2.) I will never say ‘What if’ of my own accord. If words could kill which ones would do you in? Brave men never die of starvation. They are too ravenous. Gnaw on my ribs like a mountain lion devours the deer. I will nourish your body and replenish the sound heaven makes when it is no longer hungry. Ask God and he will tell you. The only way to view defeat is through a kaleidoscope pointed toward a dream. We belong to each other and to nothing. You need my flesh to feed the light. I need your breath to expand my lungs. Love is symbiotic.

3.) Without you there would be no graffiti on the backs of my eyelids. Without you I would be well-rested and dry. But enough of this nonsense. I will enjoy shelter when I am dead. Tonight I wish to sleep underneath your thunderstorm. You are my last thought at night and my first upon waking. Why not make it easy on me? I am connected to the rain like the melody is connected to the song. Let us sing it together. You need to learn to stop remembering. I need to learn not to forget. My only regrets are the ones I carry for others. I have no shame. I have only love. Rip it open.


* * *

the linguistics of death

in language

tense is the time of action
not the time of death

if there were no past tense
could anyone ever truly

disappear

and how would we feel today
if we had no way to put into words
what happened yesterday

last month
last year
or when we were children

why can’t language consistently aspire
to keep us alive

imagine no simple past (he was)
and no past perfect (he had been)

only he is and he will be

in that world our hearts would not ache
the way they now ache, ached,

have ached, will ache, and will have ached

we are bound by finite forms
and conjugations that allow
for the lives of our loved ones

to come to an end

and that makes language useless to explain
the chest-crushing loneliness
and the need to put our rage

into question form

why didn’t he—
how come I—
when will this—

can’t you see that without the past
we would be invincible

love and sorrow can begin in an instant
and yet they take forever to go away

perhaps the only reason to stay alive
from this moment on
is because we are free

for when one has survived the darkest hours
and lost what we have lost
there is nothing left to fear

VALENTINE

To my beloved
my be loved
my be all and end all love

Believe me when I say
I am still chasing you after all these years
and like a forest fire I move
faster uphill

There is never an absence of song
when you are within my view
But there is a part of me that cannot stop grieving
every moment I don’t spend with you

If I accepted the idea that love was impermanent
my longing for you would already be gone
But here I am word painting you a valentine
and still wishing I was in your arms

Had we never met I might be invincible
but my spirit looks for yours in every room
And whether near or far I belong to you forever
the way the tide belongs to the moon

♥ ♥ ♥

SHE DOES NOT DREAM OF IGLOOS

She asked him to meet her in Sausalito so they could sit on a bench
and stare at the Golden Gate Bridge.
She didn’t want to talk she just wanted to hold his hand.
He never came.
She thinks about how only love can make a person believe in love.
She thinks about his hands and where they are now.
Out there in the world without hers in them.
She wonders if he knows what has been lost.
There is no word for yesterday in the Eskimo language.
But there were laws that governed him.
Laws she would have complied with.
He thought she didn't understand
but she knows that sometimes words aren’t necessary
and that sometimes you can touch someone more deeply
by not touching them at all.
Now even the letters are gone.
Drowned.
She has no record of this ever happening.
What she wouldn’t give
for a haiku valentine
an everlasting hallelujah
and a lock of his hair.
She does not dream of igloos
she dreams of the way
gravity pulls a hammer towards a nail.
She would rather be a carpenter than an Eskimo.
Broken homes can be renovated
but no one would exist without history.
It is better to build things
that can’t one day melt away.
We are what we love
after all.

SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS TO DIE

At first I did nothing. I wanted to write a poem about the
intruder who broke into my car and took my yoga mat and a
bouquet of lilacs even though my computer was on the seat
beside them. I did not want to write about love, loss, or grief.

And then I realized two things.

First, I am a woman filled with sparks, shadows, and the
crimson sorrows of all of my ancestors. Love is an element of my body.

Second, one way or another
someone always has to die in the end.

* * *

Wait. How’s this for pathetic? He was two steps away from
victory when he pulled the trigger this time.

A catastrophic failure of epic proportion.

Naturally this stirs up some grief.

Or is it pity?

Perhaps this is a poem about pity.

* * *

Dig: Larceny and murder are still against the law but suicide is
just a bold way of speeding up the inevitable. In other words
don’t kill your lover when you can kill yourself instead.

But before you do, consider putting your dreams up for sale on
eBay. I would like to buy them and set them on fire. I would
like them to keep me warm when you are gone.

What else can I do? My grandiose ambitions have always been
set on love and sonance. (Arguably a catastrophic failure of
epic proportion in and of itself.)

Then again, most of us have only ever accomplished anything
because we were terrified we wouldn’t.

I don’t care about the stupid yoga mat.
It’s the irreplaceable items over which I shed my tears.
It’s the people that I memorize.

* * *

Cold comfort is an oxymoron.

I will live forever on your skin but my eyes have been swollen
too many times and I have nothing left to prove.

I already got a new yoga mat and lilacs grow wild in my
backyard but I do not know if you and I will meet again and
that pretty much sums up the ridiculous sadness of life.

Some people never learn.
I am not one of those people.

Maybe if I leave my pity in the backseat an intruder will steal
that too.

(Insert self-inflicted gunshot wound here.)

And then his brain splattered into a million little pieces
just like my heart.

I told you.

Some things happen before they begin.