(I meander when packing. It is good to remind myself about myself. --December 2011)
So Mild, like clay that coats your tongue in soot
the musty mist clamours around me, seeping in
it moves in the wind, it is the wind visible
and heated, pressing upon my neck and calves.
The breeze tastes woody, wet in clods of dirt
a touch of fertilizer leaves a stench
that serves to disenthrall and more admire
for sheer rusty brown and blue, the clear
garua clinging anywhere in search
of contact, invades your mouth and nose
Waving my hand, it shifts and scatters, laughing
and then regrouping quickly, just as dense
and tasting like my silver necklace mixed
with fetid blossoms floating overhead.
It takes my hair between its tiny hands
and pulls the strands until they separate.
Clammy warm and cold, the humid mischief
Stops my admiration and soon I go inside. - 10/5/2005
Coming out of the mud, grasping a post or maybe created
from it. Devoted prayer with fingers matching, rising up
Graceful and chubby with bony wrists, delicate veins and bones sustain the pose
Carved nails, buffed to round and short perfection, cuticles gleam in stone.
Carved wrinkles won't grow larger, move around
hidden sometimes because of the way the hands bend
Simply around the knuckles, lines
that signify past movement and flexibility.
The thumb nail is bitten, signs of nerves
slowly growing until it can match the rest, but frozen
in time so this will never happen.
Huge palms for such fingers. A blend of mother's reach
and child's clutch, serene becomes inquisitive, attracted
to another. - 10/12/2005
Art, too, is a way of living.
What other ways are there of living? An entire life, devoted to art - not devoted to, but embodying. Art in the tone of a breath, calligraphy in handwriting, clothes scattered haphazardly yet planned around the room; art in the dance of walking, speaking monologues into the microphone, gazing around without criticism, just comment. Writing down whatever is in the front and top of your skull, hearing the rasp of graphite against paper in a rhythm that probably could be analyzed, each person having his own reference book of scratch sounds, so recording the writing auditorily could be translated to English, interpreted. - 10/19/2005
Hot tea stirs my breath and fumes it into steam.
Find the fleck! Search through stacks
of mottled, dappled spots and prints.
Cleanse the mind of bold, of drawn out things
and find the fleck!
A bit of green gold
in the brown eye
that twinkles merrily, like Dumbledore, though his eyes were blue.
A fleck, a flash of deer
that flit and glisten in the morning cobwebs,
eyes flecked with gold and amber surprise.
Mm the tea is cooling
flecks of herbs rise
and spread across the murky surface. - 11/7/2005
(the first day I find "PERFORMATIVE UTTERANCE" written in my class notes)
A series of poems on 12/2/2005
Around me
a rail, a rail, a rail, a rail
gleaming black metal slopes
It's dangerous! I say,
and I don't slide down.
"Recycle - It's Good For You"
Cans Here,
but I'm still drinking.
Arc of stone wall
guarded by the black rail
to keep people from falling down
into the gap int he ground
where graffiti lines the plaster
of the rooms where people teach.
The Yellow Jacket Trap
dangles from a crooked branch.
There are no bees.
A snowflake falls onto its lid.
A ring of evergreen hangs from the door
but the door is always open,
so no one sees it.
Perkins sits, hunched over
in the middle of the lawn,
dark green sweater against the yellow grass.
"Styrofoam Cup"
It rolls down the hill,
halting beside the chair.
Twelve ounces of frigid air.
"Peer Pressure"
Around me
descending rails
gleaming black metal
sloping under butts.
It's dangerous! I say,
and I don't slide down.
