No-People

looking 4 a boon
tiny,
enough to press
just a second
a no-people day
from shoulders
shorts
all this water
curiously

just me and the room
the mirror
computer
yard

marine bio 101

1. stow the boogie boards in your cabinet 2. that tall nearly yellow pine every science teacher seems to have 3. store them near the driftwood the seagrass and seaglass the sea stars the sea 4. but not near the glass jars of sting rays in formaldehyde 4. when your sons interrupt class for the boogie boards 5. let that be a lesson 6. organize beach clean ups on saturdays 7. and sea turtle watches at every full moon 8. take your class to sea world 9. let them in on the mischief of scheming marine life freedom 10. name the creatures but not their feelings 11. leave your door open at lunch 12. notice every miraculous and ordinary thing 13. promise people who can't yet see, that it's all here 14. promise peace at slack tide 15. make ocean mobiles often, weather mood materials allowing 16. gently hook your students onto longer lines 17. tell them you'll cut your hair when all the troops are home from Iraq 18. tell them the ocean was our first home 19. tell them time is infinite 20. and currents are swift 21. and tails are for turning 22. leave them behind 23. return to the ocean 24. send your memory in at ebb tide

The big brass bed
The basement down the stair
The lowlands
The blues wrapped around my head

By Example

It doesn't mean I 

need to show anything

or do anything,

I just actively need to not seem

I'm actively doing nothing

- Ross shared a podcast

and the host kindly asked

if I immediately thought 

of people I know as he

broke down transactional

analysis and I did and

felt such shame for 

writing the world, this

rotating cast on the

back of my hand - I also

thought of myself my

perennial shrug how I could

flay the skin off that same

hand and whittle those tiny

bones to so many tiny shards:

death by a thousand careless

pinpricks, is this needlessly

keeping me young I 

feel such rage towards the young

and compassion too:

they just keep on walking

straight into the traps

we laid for them

it is infuriating and

heartbreaking.

Prayer 1

my pores open for

the softest radiation; 

drying mud of my skin 

cracking and freeing me

to breathe and writhe. 

hope is always something 

you can touch beyond 

the way things currently are. 

I put my favorite objects

on an altar and pray to forget 

them as they are and remember 

them as they might be. 

Student

A year ago we sat across from one another drinking coffee in someone else’s dining room. If I remember correctly (your memory was always sharper than mine), you had just returned from a run, and I had made us breakfast. Something with eggs, toast. Filled with the promise of morning and young love, we played a game. I asked you, What is music? 

You rolled your eyes and answered, sounds organized with the intent of producing an effect. Good music, you explained, demands surrender and self awareness – turns the listener into a child strapped into the backseat of a car lost to || the || undulating || blur || of || forest || and the \\ thumping // windshield \\ wiper // swish. You were trying to convey something about the debris of the past 

but I was distracted by the commanding union of your four fingers as you spoke. How compelling you were. You leaned away from me, your voice grew louder. Seemingly so detached, you clamored after the cascade of ideas that poured from your mouth. I delighted in your bumptious self-interruptions, your slipping into this beat or that, your silent echoes and your sideways breaking-aparts. I felt you there as a whole body and more. Much more. And distinct. You said you prefer the whale’s big bellow, but I’ve always been taken by the cheer of a robin. 

Earlier today I was reading Mary Oliver’s Poetry Handbook, trying to understand the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. I couldn’t. Something about a heartbeat, that buried regular thing, so impeccably organized until it is not. You know, my cat wanders rooms and screams. She screams at every dusty corner and empty wall as if to tell me you will never really be a poet and that’s ok. I am content to remain the child in the backseat of beauty. 

What I want to say is, I am sorry that I doubted your happiness. What I didn’t understand then is that happiness is like the top of a mountain. Only with the hot burn of muscle and hurting faith do you arrive, but you do arrive. You drink water. You take a photo of heaven’s edge. You stretch your sight to the horizon and graze your fingertips against the twirling sky. Eventually the light is drenched in blue, and hazy, and you turn to face your own descent. But the mountain never goes anywhere. The mountain is always there, humming.