I am in an Underground Sea

I am in an Underground Sea

Pain floating riot

drugs on drugs floating

menthol vapors incense

coffee whiskey prayers 

meditations quotations 

transcend art suffering

body and an internet

puppy meme

I write,

eyes rolled up to brow

p’s be

come b’s

waves of sea on seas

sex-less ache washes 

down dirty left

useless arm

traveling without destination, fool

fucker

ice on scapula

ice on shoulder

ice on back, jaw

grinding 

under blade

teeth like, a plumb

line drawn down 

body taking

sides: left right

female male yin yang

motherside merges with 

father, iron blanket 

spread across 

broken not broken

a whole family of

pain its own

language & punctuation, not

broken, I sleep

strange whispers across evening 

spread, Perfect Sleep

hypnosis track complete –

drawers of scarves jewelry

a watch rich finery my

sister’s hand fingers

a message whispered: Lupus

Was it for me?

I wake

before feet descend

into the shallow

end of morning,

next move

In Case You Are Interested

In Case You Are Interested

In case you are interested

I made this cup of tea, for me

But I will share – 

You 

Know 

What 

They 

Say, about 

Buts Shoulds 

and Try

Try not to think too

too much about

such silly little small 

silly things, in any case 

in case 

you are interested,

I will be over 

here

hanging

with Always 

and Nevers

rocking 

them to sleep,

keeping 

arms and alms 

at the ready, ready 

to

break

glass, should we 

try again, try

try but 

forget why

Snake Inside

Snake Inside

I have a snake inside

Me belly

Snake

Snake

Snake inside

My belly it's 

Awake 

The snake

Inside with

This n dat of that this

What to do what to

Do here

Do you snake 

Snake inside

Awake awake

Alone

At night 

Late late

That night

Lake late

Dat snake

Inside 

Wake wake

Standing on One of the New Whitney's Outdoor Galleries

Standing on One of the New Whitney's Outdoor Galleries

since feeling is first
who cares how the wind
makes love to the trees, running
its gentle fingers through leaves

all that matters now
is how that same breeze
draws stray hairs across your face
as you turn your head to look
at me -

      that smile

wider than any skyscraper vertical,
brighter, than any
known quantity of sun





(Note:the first line is borrowed with love from ee cummings)

What My Father Lived

What My Father Lived


Time stopped.
My Father stood still

at the edge of a dock

built by his own hands
nearly three decades ago

"You forgot to ask," He said.

My knuckles white-locked

around the steering wheel, his tone 

calm, despite the forty-two miles per hour down the 10 mph dirt cottage road

"The Fear," I said. We both knew.

He wasn't them, my father, and

he was. Every last trace of him, left

Between the spaces of What Was and What Would Have Been

(Oh forgive us our Sins of Expectation, Dear Mother Mary, Kali Ma.)

Plans are better left broken
lest they be made, kept, and
disappoint.

I'll buy this motorcycle and burn down roads
We never knew.

Unborn

Unborn


How barren the fruit
Of this life un lived.

How much garbage
has filled the veins
where rich blood
would have flowed?

Instead, the heart
Choked. Withered.
Dying on the vine

just as
my womb, a grave
for the child unborn

Better off, lest he inherit
these selfish, female
genes.

To You

To you that has broken

I bow in gratitude to you who has
broken my heart and crushed my
spirit - you have helped crack open
my heart and I can further awaken my
spirit

I will live happy, more joyfully, with this
open broken heart

Break-up Haiku No. 124, No. 101, and No. 36

Break-up Haiku No. 124

Going nowhere fast
I have run miles for you.  Jerk.
You fucking treadmill.


Break-up Haiku No. 101

Peg you, you say.  Huh.
Such requests are telling now.
Enjoy your new boy.


Break-up Haiku No. 36

First real Post-You fuck
Body smiles, stretches, echoes
Remembering breath

This War Moves Through

This War Moves Through


This time the war moves, through

like a raven in my head

I woke up one morning and the world wasn’t there

Bird of prey, fed fat on the energy of the wounded,

Grounded, outside my door

a Single gunshot ripped out, cut across two generations

This is why I never knew my father’s father –

A blind man, his best friend, last saw him

Alive. Hunting. The two of them. That day

Where Once There Was Stone

Where Once There Was Stone


I want to get inside my chest
Lay my body down, straddle it - a Rapist, a Lover,
Witch Doctor with blunt instrument, To hit and hit

against rib cage until skin breaks, Turns, bone and blood
Pools where once there was no space
Get inside - smash and open
To breathe, for the first time

Look with innocence, longingly. Gee, there is a heart in there and Yes it beats. Still


I hate that I must do this. Stone tool instead of sharp knife because I just haven't evolved that much. Yet

I feel a bit of kindness, warmth spread across open chest and realize
I am human after all


And I can die, just like anyone

In The Laboratory For Letting Go

In The Laboratory For Letting Go

I cannot do this anymore.
To me, to you.
Our tongues move like clockwork,
Following the old paths of arguments past, injustices grooved into the road by
wounded tires that never seem to wear
off those damn treads
Words are the same, even if spelled backwards

There is nothing more to do here.

No loss could feel greater than this shame I carry -
In blaming you, I shame myself
I create suffering where once there was fresh oxygen to breathe

I do not own your heart; I never did
My peace cannot be your peace

In this laboratory of dreams, all hypotheses are true.
This loss is the greatest strength you can bear.  Lean into it.
Let it go.  The data
was always there -
Discovery accomplished.
Procedure complete.

Put the test subjects back on the shelf.
Time to write your research notes.

In the Hallway of Everyone

In the Hallway of Everyone

In the Hallway of Everyone
there is a compass that turns
Left by Day Right by Night
in the Hallway of Everyone, everyone is no one and no one is Everyone
Over and over Again, mirrors line up and point to
Infinity. This is who you ever were and will be again.

There is nothing more to be done here.

It Was Beautiful, Then (#latervision)

It was beautiful / It is beautiful

Time eventually gave up
and slipped away
Our skin grew light and transparent, dissolving
Two beings intertwined energetically
No backwards no forwards
Just.

Being.  With you,
I felt drunk, intoxicated
Yet I was 20 days sober,
and with that clarity rang an all-knowing vision, intuition
Our past, our future - lives lined up like books on a shelf -
We knew the words of the stories, without reading a damn thing

"But I love to read!  That's my thing!" I say, and
We both laugh
I let my head fall back and my hair sway as I hold my arms
Together around your neck, safe and secure in the perch of your lap

It is beautiful.  This. Is.

And I am happy.
And I am grateful.

And I am healing,
And I am almost
Ready.

So You Will Have Faith In Me

so you will have faith in me

so you have faith in me

i will wear my battle scars as beauty marks

i will kiss every enemy good night on the forehead

i will clean my house with intention, clarify with wisdom and sage

i will bend in the places that are frozen, open to feel the wounds of cracked bones and torn flesh

i will love suffering and treat her as a child that needs to be held, 

cared for, as i was

never

safely held, 

Until you, 

Returned.

haiku, for now

The leaves fall - rake time
Again, a bit of world dies
Rake them up. Again, spring.



Addendum:

This is the belated fall.
Let's see what is lost and what shall be sewn
into summer day dreams of what
was then  was now

I am the Ordinary

The Ordinary

I am all of the ordinary things

You put into a box, and store away

“to deal with later”

I am all of the ordinary things

that tangle

with other ordinary things, Living

in the junk drawer, waiting to be used –

Visible only when searching for the scissors, or a rubber band,

a part of the mess, a nuisance

You are the flashlight

that sees only what it wants –

all else is dark

What little light you spare

falls onto others, less ordinary,

Or just as lucky as I was

Once upon a time:

To be pulled from the dark,

only to return

to the light cast by your shadow

I take what I can get, Even

the Ordinary

Unusual Spending on Home

Often, I have found
a locus, a fly, a cockroach – dead, yet

whole on the ground
the body of the insect dry as a tomb
empty, like so many robbed graves

a Sailboat, a Motorboat, another Sailboat
each covered with tattered, weathered wings – a blue tarp
spread across its carapace

This strip of land is a place where dreams go to die,
good intentions to fix, repair, rebuild, reuse, Resurrect

      Echo through the hollowed shells
      that represent my father’s hallowed vision of
      Better

Stray dogs without a home, make shelter where they can take it
Find food in others’ discarded remains of a meal
      They howl, at something, somebody, into the wind

Cries so loud, so poignant
Unanswered

This is where dreams have died, and
Ships sailed long ago

Take in another stray – someday he might love you
the way he never could

for my sister

We are made out of
the parts of our parents, yes.

Their dreams. Their hopes. Their aspirations for themselves
unachieved.

The fights, the battles, the wounds,
scars and
Scabs
that make perfect Flesh
for the next generation

Over generations, the template of our parents’ parents
has only slightly reconfigured
with time –
a few changes, some patches,
no enhancements, Yes.

As offspring, our Bodies are tumors –
did you know how tumors contain
cells of all types, blindly expressed?

Nails. Teeth. Hair. A would-be Finger

yet, the cells only become what they intuitively know to become.

our Identity lies hidden in our family’s junk DNA
(the overlooked) ripe with secrets,
Potential. ignored,
by the conditioning of our parents' well-worn cellular mechanisms.

Don’t fear the reaper, yet.
Shelly’s Frankenstein is our true Father
Hallowed be his name
his Rising from so many dead parts
so much Death, so much life Unfelt while walking around
this fucked up world
(We didn’t have a say in from the start.)

Neither did he, but it wasn’t so bad.
Yes, he was born of a latten want,
a patch to a personal problem Herr Doktor did not quite know how to fix in himself

Still, despite rallying against the sky
he was given the chance to find Life in life
though as abbreviated his time was

(Which is where we come in.)

Do not fear.
There is more freedom, more Self
in assemblage,
no matter the quality of salvaged parts.

Despite a blueprint, a Product in production
you can always fuck with it,
make it Your own
(real or imagined)

As an artist, as a writer,

you are Born to.

hopefully blogging is on its way out

so i can get back to writing here. jumped ship really in 2004 since the surge of drops in the bucket became too much. inspired to write again upon meeting Simon Morris, Robert Fitterman, and Kenneth Goldsmith (well, virtually via Simon's excellent documentary).

uncreative writing just might be the way for me to start writing again. that, and the fact that i've committed myself to an intense writing-based art project that i have less than 3 mo. to complete.

should i get a face-lift?

revisit the idea of writing on this blog? eh....

what do you think? comments welcome.