ceaseless oceans 2

Something ends where the reeds grow sunset.

Starting in pale white clouds of snow,

they brown and shoot dark

raising themselves into shades of red,

then burnt orange and yellow

culminating in almost invisible tips

pointing into the ice blue water.

I am a flea in the fur of the earth

Bristling and waving stiffly in the oceanic breath.

Within reach, purple berries of the cedar

Cluster like crystals in the rock,

Hustling themselves deep in the olive green leaves.

I will make a house like this shadow grove.

When I climb out again to see the bay,

Boots crunching into the prints of deer

And mixing with the coyote,

I am face to face with two swans,

Muscled necks U’ing to fix their eyes on me,

scabbed feet swiftly paddling them forward.

Nothing sounds except their heavy breathing

Through the nose, close to their eyes,

As if some congested giant had thrown their heads

From too little clay.

We would have an unpleasant fight, my numbed limbs

Sluggish and encumbered, their winter-hewn beaks

Accustomed to violence. I imagine

the taste of their blood, thick, metallic.

I go closer.

They stare and stare, somehow warm in the half-frozen

Water. The ducks cackle in my ear.

A cold wind blows and there is the hum

And thump of small birds taking flight.

All the while it grows darker and neither i

Nor the swans will give of our temporary territory.

This is the way of winter.

There is no better life to be lived than this.

Find a way to survive.

Some fly away, others stay

and weather the season.

Everything gives way though.

There is no resisting what you must give up.

Even the geese as they fly

Make small noises with each wingstroke

If you listen carefully, their bodies stretched

To make organs with the wind

Against a burning sky.

This is to be paid attention to.

I worship what is in us that survives,

That wants us to-- the hot muscle

Of fascination, the deep sensual pleasure

Of the thing that we are and the world we experience

Splitting, reforming and combining

Like the half fresh watered bay

Forming sheets of ice along the shore

That at some point, without you noticing it,

Give way to the tender grace of the ocean.

ceaseless oceans 4

What joy there is in the hoofprints

I find in the snow

From shivering deer who after snuffling

Wet noses for green things have gone back

To a place I do not even know the name for!

How good that the world

Is so much bigger than me.

That birds whose species I do not know

Congregate beyond my sight in the sudden darkness

And warble throaty patterns which I cannot

Put into words. That there is everywhere

Around snow and ice that is melting at an imperceptible

And yet precise, rate regardless of my attention.

What a world—where the fox knows the joy of

Its teeth first splitting across the living skin

Of a rabbit whose heart beats fast from running

And I with rotund belly lean back,

Turn on a lamp, and open a book of stories

Within which are references to the names of men

Who have written thousands of pages I have never read

In a language a thousand years old that I have never spoken.

That the earth continues turning this day is a miracle to me

For I have nothing to do with its turning

Its gravity, spin, and momentum predating all human life.

What a wonder, what luck

That I might explore these soon to be ruins

Alone with but a plastic flashlight and goosedown jacket

That I found in my grandfathers closet.

What joy to walk down to the edge of the water

Where there was once only water

And touch the thistles with cold fingers,

And hear the laughter of ducks and the gurgle of frogs

Where once life had not even been imagined,

But where somehow now the imagination grows

So large its worlds expand beyond all comprehension

And infinite worlds of dreams open

Inside this one hovering about every thing and beyond it

Creating like manifold gods things never thought of.

The holly now stings my cheek,

How hard it is, cartogenic skin

And small, bright berries a mystery to me.

I could live a life transmuting the sun

Into sugar, or counting the minute bits of dust settling

And becoming my grey stone bones, or swirling

Bits of glass in my teeth then spitting them on the beach.

How good it is that the world is huge

And can hold within it

A body such as me

Filled with an illegible sadness.

ceaseless oceans 3

I wake late in the still house.

Birdsong drips over the roof as

Ice melts in the cold sun.

The tree I once climbed as a child

Still stands, solitary and with arms

Spread wide. There is another,

Of a kind, I have never noticed,

Protruding from the thicket behind it

In the back part of the house where I have not

Stepped since my memory began.

What if this tree has grown just now

To grant me access to the silent

World of the dead, where mute birds

And dreams build their nests?

Last night, we stood by the ocean together.

All about seagulls cut the sky

And a wind skipped from the lighthouse

To the bridge. You were quiet,

Looking out with narrow eyes

As if you could see all the way to the other side.

I looked at you and you blurred

And I heard the water tapping at my feet,

But I did not want to go.

Lights started up on the waves

First one, then two, then a hundred,

What wonder, whether stars or boats or fire,

But nothing compared to your hand

On my shoulder, your short fingers

Pressing your weight on me

As you turned and mouthed something

That the wind took away

So all I heard was the laughing of the ocean

And then I was alone.

campaigns end

Cup this 2 year bottle draining

light out of the doorway.

it is the cold night, it is the short morning

it is day old croissants eaten by the punch clock

and notes furiously scribbled down on menu scraps

and hidden.

it is the cooks dropping out of school,

cutting their hair and moving back in with mom

in blackwater new jersey and

the gun sticking out of stewards’ belts

when they answer the door unpaused call of duty

triangulating the room in blue light.

He said he could fix anything,

He said he and the other seafarers tossed

Their boss over the railing one night

Because of what he’d called them.

It is midnight but I am sitting down to mint tea

and pulling apart fried fish with my fingers

with a view of the bed with 2 different color sheets

splitting it for mother and son.

Will you walk down this hallway with me

Where the broken glasses pray to the god of forgiveness

And the booms of raucous banquets make them sound

Like chandeliers crying if you close your eyes?

Hold my hand and tell me why Mario keeps getting the kids

Ribcages jutting out of the floor

And Rose must bottle it every night

And play it safe with a legal team

She could never afford.

And after we make love I watch her sleep

For the first time in a year, lips puckered

And cheeks slack like a baby. How close to bliss

We are at times, held apart by inches of breath.

How close to death, tied by our eyes looking

Everywhere else—I hunger for elusive honesty now

When the streets and I, the cold trees and i

Are the only ones awake, I crave the invasion

Of the real over everything.

Oh conquer me so that it might not feel this way.

If I submit to sleep tomorrow will begin,

And I do not know what I will do tomorrow.

Where do the winds go?

How can I flow like water with this loss

In my belly like a snake, the things we did not do

Slithering through my veins, the lives we could have led

Bleeding into me like venom?

I howl with the wolves tonight,

I keen the end of day.

I am collecting dust and moisture to rain down from a great height

I am winters heart beating fall into submission.

It is over and for all my love,

People will suffer. I am leaving them in their rented apartments,

In their vacationless years and scuttling smiles when their boss comments

On the deep cut of their uniform. I am leaving everyone it seems

And may not find.....

Well, forget what I was about to say.

I am with the night tonight,

An end is an end, and this grief will pass too,

Like the gravel moves from the bank and settles

In the bottom of the river.

new zealand poems: shifting seasons

Unlearned habits speak for themselves in our bodies

As we work, as we fuck, as we eat.

Come learn a universal language, come speak it

With me so we might hear your voice in the eternal song—

It becomes so much more.

This is a dream of the mind body plunge, first of its kind

Kind politicians pleading a case for spirituality

Against nothing, but within within within.

Are you the religious kind? Are you seeking comfort?

My father told me a 20 year old is firing him

On his birthday.  His body never looked so much like mine

As climbing out of the freezing water. We were mourning something

And celebrating it too. I am searching for the door--

A way in, ancient language counting points

Of light, only to find myself in a room of runes

Carved by one hand, or holding out my hands

To the walls and finding a way in—

Is it cultish the demand for new central living?

Is it cathedral reclusiveness?

How does one live a life devoted to that which is most holy?

The droids are bending their knees to the trees now,

And our Marxist eye is robed in light, is singing

“the necessities of life will come to you.”

The hearkeners, the beckoners, they are here

In the long ripples, they are not forever

Nor do they know it in their supine positions

With heads shaved. But that which has not been is coming.

Where will I catch it, in the pine barrens

Or by the barren Baltimore coast? In the unseasonal

Heat of los angeles or in the brass reflections of new Orleans?

Or will I make the novel? Or will it come to the rituals of my forefathers?

My grandmother’s tallit covers my shoulders with silver images of Jerusalem.

The kipa fills my limbs with stiffness. I am a white bird in the migration

with ice caps melting and poles shifting

And I do not know where my body knows where to go.

This is the unveiling. This is the snow turning into spring.

This is the covering. This is the light filling leaves with death.

I am fiddling with the keys to her apartment, with my car doubleparked

In front. Always the goal was to be like a stone, like a tree,

Like a river. But has it gotten closer? Jake is dead and the dead

Do not play any music. Here are some goodbyes. They renew

Themselves like vows. Perhaps it grows like that,

In furrows that change the earth. In drunken texts and decisions

Which hold one part in particular up to the light,

At least for a little while. I am keeping the plants alive,

But I have too much stuff to move and stay the same.

I think I’ll trust my hands even if I cannot know the mask

That turns away from me. In the twilight of summer here,

Asking the one I love to change, I know

I am leaving this world perhaps forever, and noone

Is making me go. But what,

What are we going to do?

new zealand poems: on taking a shower in the glass box by lake wakatipu

everyone wants their picture taken

while looking at something magnificent.

My mother cries out in startlement

And we all jump: “oh, look at the birds,”

Albatross on their silent wings against

A grey cliff. Everything lives on top of

Everything—like children clamoring

for a front seat at the sun, like dads

on a wine tour, like anyone scrambling

to make sense of this life. It is uncomfortable

not knowing where the top of the mountain is,

snowcapped and glassy above the clouds,

or is it another hill, stubbled with growing things,

surmountable. This strong current carves itself

down, leaving impressions, I am

struggling not to say depression,

the way these trees struggle

quietly and constantly within the vines

swelling with sun. i do not need much.

A place to take off my jeans

And a light to read by.

I long for the naked gesture of the toki.

From her. From myself. Back home.

But surviving is a simple thing.

It continues in pain,  like a duck

With a split beak, like a sheep

Limping up a hill, like a day

Hour by hour.

And so what if I am angry that everyone

Wants to be seen as contemplating

Vastness? Hera Lindsay Bird slaps me

Says, so what if it is ugly to hate?

It is yours and I say it is beautiful,

Like our patience laying itself down

Behind the mountains in a bed of gold and blue.

I do not need much, I think.

I spend little and often go

Without food if I cannot get it free.

Id rather walk 5 miles lost

In a city than grab a taxi.

Id rather love than be indignant

About what I deserve.

But I want so much.

I want the world

In a distance I can walk in my lifetime.

I want sun breaking through clouds

When necessary, and wind ringing

Everything around, and rain on my face

And across the fields, purple and moving.

I want to always remember

The wonder of waking up

And my heart strangely beating,

The cold outside of dawn’s mist

Clinging to the lake, and the world beyond that

Bustling about, but making itself huge and beautiful

Like the love of your life in streetclothes belting her favorite song on the highway on her way to the love chapel in vegas with you.

new zealand poems: glenfern

trapped like everything

but blue, holding fast to

curtains drawn in the dark

and looking where we know are

mountains.

Cook for those who cooked

For you, sometime, and tell me

About the disappointment

Of sunrise with no sun.

I am tired of days spent

Holding out for no rain, counting

Dollars spent like karma

Leading me to this life.

Welcome to now, slow

Flowing stone of ice, I feel

My sockets carved like a valley

By deep and groaning movements.

I am reading poems about my own heartbreak

Written by a bisexual woman halfway

across the world. I guess that also describes

the one I love. I guess I want them both

laying down a bed of apologies for us.

She should be sorry the way she treated

Mary Oliver—the way her brutal honesty

Caught my soul like jade in the river—

Now I am raw in a sleeping house wanting

To cry out, it is too much,

All of it, too beautiful this

Green that is life that takes over everything

like the lake that gives life, this grey

That is water that changes and pulls

and covers the world like night

And is kb’s eyes even as i

Struggle to be here and she is

There—too much, the world

Beginning anew, looking up at new stars unable

to find a pendant to prove it to myself—

Too much knowing these others in the dark

That look like me but who’s souls

Do not, knowing they are going through it too

Equal and strange like the

Glacier moving down the mountain

With new snowfall, its foot

Curling up as it melts.

Discussing north korea

And oblivion we say—

It never touches who it should—

Being here is hard

Because now is sad

So many are gone

So much of me is gone

Washed into the ocean of longing

I know I am on dry land but

Right now, not all of me

Can love the rain