HORIZON

walk to the top of a hill

any hill will work

lay like a log on the ground

when you are ready

roll down the hill

eyes open

where ever you stop

rest

when you are ready

stand up in the spinning world (you might fall over)

when the world stills (this might take awhile)

walk to the top of a hill

any hill will work

big picture

so much of life dissolves

into half-remembered pools 

my inner environment becomes

a planet of mist, moss

only certain smells 

clear the haze

of the past

and still

 

I can't ever hold it all

 

I want to unroll my visions

emotions

experiences

lay them out to study them

a treasured tapestry

read the smudged faces

touch the stuff of it

ODE TO COLUMBIA, THE RIVER

Laughing tongue between layers of stained teeth,
Against you, Gifford's bristling green cheeks
milk arctic tears down the arroyos
of dark peaks;

Little sister of Canada's South,
grown big
Tossing whitecaps at Astoria's mouth
"Come in!, Come in!"

Silken curves, Chinook road
belted by damns and twisting 
against radioactive wounds—

carrier of men, 
sky's message-wearer,

bearer of tides,
princess with silver hair

what are you if not a place?
and if not a place, a being?

what are you if not a gorge passageway canyon corral trough swim bathtub cold drink—
splintered shard from the fractal thing—
figure cutting starlit,
coming always between

Columbia, O! Columbia!

haven for renegades, waterer of dreams, deep mover
Beautiful, beautiful, beauty queen,

Columbia!

Forever bound, forever free.

Six Thousand Hertz

It's strangely satisfying to experience my cats consuming their food.

Truly, a sense of relief washes over me when I hear the high pitch from their tongues 

lapping at mealy and watery combinations of tuna and chicken. 

It's the second thing I think of at the audiologist's office 

upon learning I have lost some hearing in my right ear, the 6k range.

Perfectly normal, she assured me, and really not bad all things considered.

The first thing that came to mind was of course my mortality, but that feels less rich

ruminatively speaking. 

I've been reminded a few times that I will surely die, 

but the thought of losing

a window into my cats satisfaction with their situation 

truly frightens me.

Is the slurping of two cat tongues in the 6k range? Crash cymbals and cats?

There is an app for this, and assuming I wake up tomorrow...

I was telling a friend about Bing darting around my bedroom how I couldn't 

decipher if it was play or a cry

for help.

She told me I projected too much. 

I think of the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' as I schedule an appointment 

for moulds of my ear

to be converted into plugs I must wear in loud spaces. 

I leave my cats again this week 

so as to acquire money and potentially

more hearing loss.

attuned to the washing machine

I am the dial that spins from normal to heavy, I am the agitator,

I am filling with water, my lid is locked,

I spin so hard sometimes I lose my balance, lose my place against the wall.

wearing holes in everything,

nothing is meant to last.

gifted

it's exhausting to try to be

all give

no take

what's offered

much less wanted

asking for crumbs

when i want the whole loaf

 

learning is knowing

is seeing is trying

is believing

is failing

 

my neighbor (he's 2)

has a habit of claiming everything

and once in hand

unceremoniously trashing it

on the tile floor

 

and a friend who has an uncanny knack

for asking for water the moment

the well runs dry

 

offered me something i didn't really want

but accepted anyway

and then it became less about the wanting

or the not wanting

of the thing

and more about the softness

of wanting to be given to

Night in Yellow Chicago

seized hard by

2 sped-up sisters in pink

lapsitting fast on

2 sons of a junkyard operator

1 wearing a plastic bag hat,

1 crying and offering

cherries and

sweaty tap water

within plain sight of 

belching smokestacks,

saying

u look resourceful

u hardly capitalize

and u have hands that some may

consider even graceful

January 1st

 On our way to the Peace Pagoda, I sat quietly

in the passenger seat listening

to my friend's children fighting in the back.

The petty taunting followed by a reactionary slap.

They are not my children so I keep my eyes out the window

and comment on the lack of snow.

We walked the woods path to the temple

the kids continuing their row, then the first glance

of Buddha in meditation pose; giant and white

eyes cast down on the ground.

I tried to reflect on the year I'd spent - the times I'd been kind,

been cruel, been indifferent. 

Life is suffering, read the engraving on the wall. 

Life is a river always moving. Do not hold on to things.

were Buddha's last words on his death bed. 

I imagine myself being carried by white light like a river

weightless from all the things I've shed. 

The kind of peace that comes from absence.

Before we leave, I step inside the temple and I pray

at the altar adorned with orange and gold offerings

for my eyes and my heart to open wide - and then wider 

for a year where I am kinder

and braver and heavier 

with the full weight of this suffering upon me. 

a normal being

 anything that happens next 
will be a soft piece of land
so gently unyielded
on the other side of a chain link fence

I felt a welling up
when you gathered flowers 
on the side of the road
a triangle and looking 

there was room for me at the table
in a way that meant so much
as to almost embarrass me

here we are now
still astray 
but/and like knotted branches
bound and rebounding 
finding each other over the years

CANDLEHARP

I am avoiding you because
you are what I want,
and what I want is everything
and nothing

the axis basket says otherwise
so does the mist, quieter 
than hushable

what about the body and the spirit?
when’s their moment in the mist?

lake of my life, holding it all 

ancient trees and boats
and aircraft carriers, 
my summer blood and baby teeth 

what a word, carefree

The Brand New Heavy

A hangover like a death in the family

that needs my younger body to claim,

I've had it foreshadowed in my back,

my hamstrings, the pained smile 

in my pictures and the clothes

hanger shoulders, the slow unannounced

stiffening in anticipation of worse

days to come that never quite come

on as hard as this hangover that's

like a death in the family, please,

my airframe is bent out of its

service window, this hangover,

come claim me as I once used to be.

I shake from time to time

With the pincers of memory I pluck 
the scene of his death from my eyes,
and rehome it in a snowglobe 
I shake from time to time. 
Death is a curious thing,

and stubborn. 

I hesitate to ponder the contours 
of his dry-skinned limbs as they searched 
flailing, failing to secure an exit route 
from the flood of light that burned life from his body, 
and the wet eyes that begged for his wife
to follow, and the hardness of linoleum at nighttime – 

    but do anyway.

There is a certain solace in watching 
it all drift back into place.

for Karen and Jerry

There are rooms that only exist when certain things are aligned, only once, or twice maybe. 

My vacant expression in an unfamiliar room that I live in, 

Here in the the here after

living is cavernous, a profound dream half-forgotten 

but mostly lingering as if it were just 

around a corner, waiting to be summoned 

by the most demure architectural details;

scrupulously re-arranging furniture into occult formations, 

Pushing planets into alignment with my uncontainable envious nostalgia. 

I swear, I was standing right there and 

I reached through the walls and found a 

place to burrow in my first winter. 

I promise I went beyond that corner of the basement and lived a life there.