Sunday, April 30, 2017

Again and again (ghazal version)

As light as hammocks we rock, you near me, stranger
The bones drinking skin like water, you fear me, stranger

Again and again we breathe hard ragged air not the same
You watch the overheard sweetness sear me, stranger

Little girl, skirted man, bearded strummer, dreamer on canvas,
You are legion, your wings and your wild patterns steer me, stranger

As simple as steps on a mopped wooden floor in the night
As old as the secrets that mock and jeer me, stranger

These words my smoke rings your night dreams tomorrow the signal

It stabs a weird rightness when somehow you hear me, stranger

again and again it is almost

again and again it is almost
again and again it is wanting
again and again it is hope
again and again it is dancing as light as hammocks, deep as couches, hungry as groaning old pianos

your colors are not my colors your mouth not my mouth your language not mine we just sound the same look the same waltz the same stranger

the beat I missed is where? oh there in my oh, bones

I eat your cake you eat my rat poison and it is equally sweet
I drink your skin you drink my mojo and they are equally monstrous
I crave your knowledge you crave my cluelessness stranger stranger stranger

again and again old umbrellas lost
again and again blankets, swamps
again and again refuge, thunder, shouting in the desert

your decades are not my decades your dreamscape is not my pillowland your stories are ash to my flame roots to my wings whisper to my deaf deaf ear and there we were missing the go-round missing the locusts and honey missing the trumpet call how, how could we miss that when all the world is deafened?

again and again it is almost
again and again it is hope
again and again it is breath as ragged as unswept shards, singing as tuneless as love can seize, brain fever deep as wounded memory

again and again it is overheard stories, strangers are plural and speaking strange truths
again and again it is this life, that fierce maroon ache, those people, those people, those mountains of what? grabbing it with all the fists and shaking the what?
again and again it is no, yes, how, please, now, never, drink it, dance it, speak it, shout

born alive
given toes, words, milk, stories
millions of hours to navigate earth by earth
again and again it is sweetness in vinegar, life in these thorns, shouting through days
so long as we can

stranger

Monday, April 24, 2017

Ouch / Better

Words
Hit hard
Hovering in air
Brain's magic made music
Ouch

Silence
Blankets slow
Cannot touch this
But we drink it

Better

Feet / Hands

Feet
Like Mommy's
Resting high, crosskissed
After the day's pilgrimages
Dancenomore

Hands
My own
Curious to speak
Tongue-tied tangles they smooth

Everflit

Busy / Quiet

Busy / Quiet

Laptop
Brings world
Everywhere we go
Fingers quick info flying
Busy

Hammock
Rests soul
Where we breathe
Feet high gentle rock

Quiet

Lune (Millions of blues)

Lune (Millions of Blues)

You looked over our heads
So many blues
The sky behind the trees

I listened to the quiet
So many blues
The sighs behind my generations

You saw, you showed me
So many blues
Each one smudging the next

I dreamt an old song
So many blues
Worried notes climbing the hours

You said, look at that.
Millions of blues

We looked. Night was coming