farewell to november

farewell to you dear friend,
gray and wet soggy blanket,
sky of overturned seas,
drowning me in my own tears, salt
i surrendered to the bones ashore
and planted in the desperate
dense mud, into the forest's
metaform, blood washed through
trees kept in pond waters
quenching thirsty heartbreaks.
farewell sweet dream faded and
scratched in sharp bitter leaves
blanketing cemetery scraps,
i suffered long enough under
a canopy of sorrow dripping
from trees clawing the final sadness
from the belly of a swollen heaven.
farewell pale empty echo called
november, you were a miserable
guest that drank up the sea
and pissed and moaned about your
lost leaves under your stuffy nose.
farewell month of shadow and secret,
i bid thee fair travels north of inward,
as soon as you leave i am going
searching for the hidden messes
you left behind hoping december
would tend to your disarray.
farewell lonesome dove who fluttered
around trying to spread peace
when all you did was the work of seagulls,
pasty white shit stuck to windows
and stuffing up sidewalks with layers
of the discarded nonsense.
farewell and don't hurry back too soon,
don't let the door hit you on the ass
and remember that october at least
bears the rust of bronze harvests
and december her ivory fingers
like swans falling with crystal feathers;
therefore november, i bid you farewell
and thank you for your profanities
and colorless terms you had brought
in negotiating the conditions of this
annual death, your gray, your insistent
grays and gray and more gray and the
extinct yellow you flaunt as batted eyelashes
of the saddest tree, the willow.
well, november, you were a test
and tempest, you fought each round
day and oblong night with cold fists
and with your long forlorn tirades of tears
that threatened to drown even the fish
with such pitiful punching rain.
so see ya next year, number eleven,
i am stripped bare naked and fresh,
ready to collapse into december
with the snowberry bog as my marshmallow
strewn mellow marsh mattress
to buttress my burgeoning fire
that will hunt down the solstice
and drag the banished torch back from
the deep shadow and declare winter,
with his powdered wig, the judge of my soul.
november, disband your autumn jury duty,
let winter's wisdom be my judge
and summon spring to execute my sentence
with summer as my witness.
i will emerge from your sea you sent
to flood me out of heart and home,
i will take the challenge of that fisher of men
and indeed i will walk on water,
just you watch, because those tired depths
are soon to be just puddles and everyone knows
what kids can be like when surrounded
by those saucer-sized seas.

sexual fruit

i always dreamed of the day
i would possess a flaming orb,
a globular cluster of fire and blood
perfectly palmed in hands of gratitude;
today is that day, today
i inherit the sun's secrets
dressed in bitter and sweet skin,
porous armor aromatic, descendant
of arbors that are clothed in green wax
in rolling waves punctuated by circular multitudes
mimicking the sun turned sweet.

i am forever your slave,
your servant and devotee,
your ardent and passionate lover
eager to undress you with ease,
always met with the succulent scent
of your lofty perfumed juices.
so willingly you welcome the probe
of these adolescent fingers lingering in
liquid, languid secretions beneath your navel,
secrets revealed in peels.

it might as well be me who is naked,
erect as my tongue feels your smooth circumference,
a cleavage of hemispheres leads to slow
delectable delight, liquid sunlight partitioned
into individual quivers of pleasure
as i shiver in this rainy day, dripping
with sugar fornicating my lips kissing the sun
dressed in a sexual fruit named satsuma.

moth

the lesser appreciated butterfly,
the hairy and mottled, aimless one,
drunken hummingbird without direction,
the moth appears and makes nuisance of light.
for this i love you, the one with the ashen wings
and singular purpose of resurrecting fire,
you inhabit the night, leaving the glory and beautiful
tasks to your more delicate cousins of the day's delight,
the butterfly that kisses the pollen;
no, the day and the flowering sun would decimate you,
that great lamp so distant would take you from me,
far away into heaven in your solitary desire
to transform your flesh into ember.
for you it is the light of humans, the artificial sun
that beckons your soul seeking blind unity
with the impenetrable whiteness of purity:
so much like me, blind and tempted far too easily
to scatter your cocoon and fly into the eye of god,
agonizing in your desire to free your dusty form
of the burden of your featherless wings.
you are my guide through this night, my lamp is yours,
teach me the secret of your wandering
as i search for the moon, that epic and platinum bulb
fixed to the ceiling of night, as i flutter with haggard aim
yearning for her cold smooth flame, tasting ash,
smelling the singed flesh of my heart and soul,
trying not to get lost in the clouds.

moon

at long last the sea retreats to her placidness
revealing the sky in lucid streams,
the dreams of raindrops stop momentarily,
not with rainbows, but a silver eye,
lidless, fixed in a slow crawl across the night.

this moon is a cold fire, a frozen sun
staring from a dark cave,
it is a magnetic mirror attracting memories
of platinum intensity, reflecting
tears without salt, blood bled of iron.

she is the midwife of the night
and sister to the sea, she is the tender of this garden
of small hours, the eye of the owl,
the fire of artemis when apollo sleeps,
yet she also speaks through coyotes.

never can i rest when the moon is out hunting,
extinguishing the sparks from distant stars,
she comes dressed in blazing ice, suspended
glaciers, and declares an evening tide
pulling me out to my deep sea.

i am approaching the fullness she cups
in her luminous hands offering me remembrance,
the blood of forgotten grapes distilled
into these currents of surrender spilling over
onto sullen cheeks wet with her kiss.

psalm of silence

The psalm of silence sits
In silent contemplation
Drawing forth
A template,
Reincarnation of memories drifting
Like swirls of smoke:
Mirrors reflecting remembrance

I sit upon the sand
Stretching from here to eternity-
The opposite shores of destiny-
Holding the open space,
The expanse of this sea of stormy dreams
Seemingly drifting away
Like swirls of smoke:
Mirrors reflecting remembrance

Retreat into stillness. . .
I must absorb the sound of the rain
Dropping like desperate and hurried
Torrents of time,
Dropping like sudden leaves
Fluttering to the ground,
Embedding the autumn with layers,
Sheets,
Streams of endless things
Falling
Away
Descending upon the open plains
Rolling forth from my open palm
Calm within the psalm of silence,
This night enmeshed in memories of now.
The future has fallen from the past
Dissipated
Like swirls of smoke:
Mirrors reflecting remembrance

Watching
The coming and going
The rise and fall. . .
Without cease my mind rolls its everlasting wave
Washing onto silent shores
Watching. . .
I watch thoughts pass in the flotsam
Increasing
Decreasing
And there is naught to understand,
Only the sun to stand under,
Regarding the moon
And feeling her fullness
Pulling tides in oceans of blood
Rolling through my veins,
And I am lifted to serenity
Without holding onto vanity.
I watch the coming and going
Knowing there is naught to understand,
Only remembrance
Of reverence
For petals unfolding upon this open palm
Psalming silence
In silent contemplation of this
Imagination-
An image of disintegration
Like swirls of smoke:
Mirrors reflecting me and
My
Self
Walking hand in hand upon sands
Shored to eternity,
Moored to anchors in ancestral destiny
Riding a wave of peace,
Piecing together my broken mirror
Swirling like smoke through the halls of my life
And I understand naught;
Not that I don’t comprehend
But I choose to stand naked
In silent contemplation of my psalm
Of silence
And scream

Echoes of shadows
Smoke and mirrors
Reflections of me
In you
Where I find myself
Laughing at my foolishness
Blessed to gift myself forgiveness
I press wine into grapes
Feeding a gesture of humility
I can relate to within myself

some old bullshit

something i wrote years back....

the crows were screaming
raving mad
i could taste their insanity

i awoke in a strange coffin
the lid was nailed shut with a filterless cigarette
still i smoked it

i awoke into a nightmare
a hologram of shrunken sanity
where the walls kept coming like waves

i shut my eyes at the start of the film
and while the opening credits rolled
i knew i wasn't in the cast

i shut my eyes during the required sex scene
strange moans came from the bedroom
i looked by didn't see my reflection

when the band whistled dixie
i didn't get up and dance
i just tied my shoes to a feather

when the band blared stars and stripes forever
i didn't stand and salute
i just shut my eyes and prayed for war

i drove to the cliff at a slow crawl
and observed those who had careened off the edge
their dreams lay beside them, twisted and broken

i drove to the cliff at breakneck speed
and swallowed a feather at the edge
hoping i'd clear the pile of ashen hopes

i climbed a ladder to the full moon
and bared my skinny buttocks
so the crowd could whistle and jeer

i climbed a ladder to the new moon
and buried my salty tears
hoping no one below would notice

i fell asleep upon a rotting log
gnomes came to dance on my chest
and buried me with their collection of pine needles

i fell asleep in a raped and broken forest
where bloody tears filtered into my dreams
showing me postcards from the garden of eden

i walked upon the milky way
trying to lose the echoes of civilization
like a trail of toilet paper stuck to my shoe

i walked across unknown galaxies
chewing on comets and planets
trying to forget that i ever knew anything

the crows were screaming
raving mad
oh how i could taste their sanity

a tree like me

i return to this root like a cloud
dreaming it was the sea,
my blood is an echo of my birth,
some tuesday that long ago unwound
until every moment i felt trapped,
sensing the need to return, yet
compelled to continue exploring
the road map left by yellow leaves
declaring their moist purpose.

i am chained to myself as if
i were a trunk, expanding upward
as silent roots are driven to dive
ever deeper into darkness, until
the bones and damp flesh of earth are forced
to reckon with this dual existence.
year after year different aspects of myself
branch out seeking various fires,
every branch shadowed by a hidden root,
each tangent touches a void unseen
yet filled with eruptive potential;
every year these myriad shoots find their limits
and remain suspended, inviting sunlit birds,
chiming bells and singing the wind's song, departing
when winter comes with cold shears,
making less of me, increasing what is beneath.

my being is strewn about shallow roots,
layers of loss, love and tears, blood and victory,
ego and pride, hope and despair, rose and thorn,
all of me, yet none of me, heaps of shadow and light
negotiating a peace, piecing together my forest,
animating my desire to uproot myself,
to exchange these branches for feathers,
these roots for wings, to vacate this shadow plane,
to tear a gaping hole in the earth,
to discover my worm, my fungus, to find what feeds me,
what eats me, what binds me, rooted with soil and blood,
so i may partition this truncated body,
dividing my flesh, feeding a sacrificial fire.

of time and days

what remains of this day, this pale dream,
that leaves and flies off forgotten, feathering
a new dawn with fresh songs, an improvised cadence
marching toward the horizontal plane of existence
stretched forward anticipating an eternal arrival?

the wind left its shadow imprinted upon leaves
broken from life, impregnating the ground with
the axis of seasonal upheaval grieving for dreams
echoing in hollow slumber, the infant moment
advancing toward the penumbra of infinite mornings.

we are left standing naked, with rain,
with mournful water-falling skies, we are left
savoring the flavor of mouthfuls of promised blood,
letting the rituals of remembrance remind us
of possibilities imbued with hues of blue dreams.

this day passes by our eyes like a silent procession,
a moving funeral of moments adjacent the sea,
beside a liquid cemetery of nascent passion
flowing in pursuit of an exact plenitude of fruit,
the winter garden drenched in minute waves of time.

there is a circular fire tending the compass of salt's companions:
water and iron, blood and skin, navigated passages of
cyclic rhythms embedded in rags, smeared upon lips
and offered to sacrificial gardens, the precision of the moon
offsets sun-dialed passions for shadows.

within each moment an ember smolders, resembled flames
emblazoned with ash grown colder through time's passage,
and the watch-keeper sleeps round the clock,
tick-tocking with head rocking to and fro as fires grow
to consume the day until its extinction by night's promised destiny.

what is remained of this day, pale dream departed,
forgotten amidst the memories of cold ash and
burnt cedar, cast away with the fading dream of forever,
where did i misplace that dream, that day,
that warm river of blood calling out to the sea?

where is its return written upon the waves that
never die, the day that never gives up
in repetition of its dawn, its forlorn fire, its frequent mission to hunt me
down amongst the silver forests and bloody,
hidden roots where i find the secret of spring?

we find ourselves killing time, but time won't die,
we idly drown the passing moments in furtive sips,
filling full autumn's tannic wine with blood
from the sun, grasping upon vines, tangled and torrid
thickets of time pressed like grapes between inescapable lips.

time hangs like a black curtain draped over space,
the sea holds all the secrets of the sun,
the hidden forest conceals the answers to the moon,
and the wind carries dragons circling rainy verses,
only i am left with stones who sing, shaking my bones buried.

i am witness to this coursing river of blood,
silently i am experienced by the rushing waters
flowing downstream from burdened skies clouded by falling voices,
i remain as a bled offering upon this land afloat
fleshing out the skeleton of purposeful, intentional sacrifice.

there remain certain shadows, precise reverberations
of infinite possibilities, phantom hands stretched forward,
paths left unwalked; there are words whose lips
have not tasted their passing form, words whose language
remains languid upon tongues lying fallow awaiting fertile speech.

what happens to those dreams, those words digested by fear
and encumbered with burden? what cemetery, what
mystery of forest and mountain shrouds their presence
in the present moment that does not know the song
of your throat or the petals you palm when sharing your scent with me?

this day, like the other one, like all of them, it passes,
has passed into this horizontal night of incisive rain
bled by the ancient wind circumventing mental mazes,
stirring within my breast, blanketing me with cold and numbness,
and tomorrow is embedded beneath sheets of salt, tearing these dreams.

sky in november

this sky is a suspended blanket,
a garden of circular ash, restless
and hostile with its promise of cold
wet fruit, biting like frozen needles,
dispassionately rearranging foliar mosaics.
it is a wild animal left wandering,
ragged fur hanging like anticipation,
a fury of howling and hunger,
teeth running courses of salivary tongues
licking the scent of airs unleashed;
gray matter, dense and pitted with
pockmarks of sorrow, tumbles across heaven
dragging the skin with reluctant fire
scorching the sea, icy smooth and furious,
gluttonous and abandoned to her passion.
an impermanent sky hangs, hastened by aging water
and infected with a courseless wind,
sky of smoky quartz and transparency,
it is a bloody dream punctuated
by open wells of swelling waves,
swollen wings of water scattering salt,
dictating the art of a silent planet,
a picture of what lies hidden beneath mirrors.
one cannot die in this season,
without the proper language, one may not
depart these waters, it is impossible
to escape the tide of falling clouds, disintegrating seas,
aimless bird of death that nests
upon a faint hint of spring; the winter is
no place for the unwilling, for the hapless victim
of unwanted memories, it is impossible
for one to pass through this windy gate
without the purpose of a gardener,
not without the purpose of pruning
the branches of silent inversion,
those leaves that fall without landing,
those scattered remains of light
that have stayed behind, faded in musty corners,
closets and basements, crumbled in pockets
and stuffed into crowded drawers.
the sun is no longer happy here, it goes
to the place the moon vacated, where
midnight howls dark forests to life,
unspoken mystery gardens tilled with salt
and ashes, cold darkness,
dark and cold hiding in plain sight.
the sky is an overcoat of bitter cloth,
harsh and uncomfortable,
it seeks its way toward fitting, toward its own
perfect clinging, its complete coupling,
confronting the browned earth with its hands
full of frenzy, full of contemplative agony,
the sky trying to wear the sea
like a chalice of wine, trying to entice the land
to decorate herself with a heaven
littered with wet and windy leaves.
unrelenting and respectfully rude, the sky
speaks in horrific syllables, a vocal assault
coming forth shouting an obscene death,
promises of blood, decrees of density in drops,
like a bitter old man tangled by thorns
and thickets of precise prison walls,
the penitentiary wind, isolated and singular,
an immense wave descending, covering what time is left
to die fully, to completely leave the surf
behind, to totally forget the sea's name,
to find my own name, to die another day,
with a new name, a different bell, an umbrella
of thorn and rose, and with a golden hammer,
or silken coffin; dying like a cloud dies when it returns
the blue feather once again to the sky, after the sadness
passes into oblivion, after the tears and salt and
wave of winter have receded, after these and when
the winter swallows its personal medicine,
then this death will mirror the sky, faded gray
releasing the yellow seeds of blue magnetic storms.

blues lips

something i wrote a while back, but i still like it...

My life is the blues printed on these lips:
Blueprints of ships sailing the same old storm
Seeking the shores of unknown destinies.
I have a propensity for memories of mysteries
Mingled with melancholy history,
A heart bound in a love that propels its own glory;
This love is a story that writes its own words--
Though I don’t know where it’s going.
Through the years I have found
This heart ain’t completely mine
Though I find traces of myself
I collect evidence of divine providence
As proof that love is aloof
And I can’t seem to find a place to rest within myself
So I see that God is nothing
But this experience of living in reverence

rainy dreams

i dream of raincoats,
umbrellas and rubber boots;
the sea is risen
and she flies about
unhinged
she flows unlimited
whipping the air
dissipating her body
flowing like scattered blood
drops of rain
constant
incessant
relentless

i need refuge from this sorrow
this skin is only so thick
already too salt-ridden;
i need protection
from this advancing sea
this sky descended
this land awash-
becoming the sea itself...
there is no difference,
merely her density
-stretched
to encompass
to fulfill the promise of air
with her suspended tears

last night i dreamed of raincoats
lying in a muddy puddle
alas, i almost forgot
this warrior needs a shield
not a shiny coat of armor
but a rubber raincoat,
muddied and broken in

ancestral wind

this night is a breath,
branches and leaves vocalize
unveiled voices -
trees speaking ancient tongues.
the wind is the body of the dead
a swollen memory
shaking the bones of earth

ancestors pray through canopies
there is a chorus of darkness
singing this night.
the wind pursues the new moon
the sun is a fire beneath a lake

leaves scatter before this procession,
transitory ghosts
departing from branched navels.
the soil is mausoleum
for the perpetual memory -
the dearly departed
arriving now

slow embers burn,
i am shut in
listening to strange voices
whispering in shouts
wordless in the trees
tears streaking fogged windows

there is no rest
there is no death
only the wind
always chasing the new moon
only the wind
to watch this darkness unfolding -
a phantom breath
stretching into soft spaces
asking for my attention

the blood of lost bones
calls out for a flame
to be rekindled,
formless and eternal.
ancestral wind,
breaths unbroken,
thinning the veil,
siphoning life
inward

two-fold

unwinding
release
dying
peaceful
seaweed
floating
blood
untangled
lips
parted
salt
magnetic
storm
attracted
sickness
embedded
darkness
unleashed
fire
exploding
potential
sunlight
inverted
gravity
swallowing
bitterness
medicated
forgiveness
healing
unmasked
questions
answered
answers
asked
emotions
masked
truth
revealed

waiting

waiting happens to me like this:
i watch the air thicken
a moist breath creeps along like fog
the wind whispers its mystery
caressing my skin, open like wings,
and i am a cloud
holding shadows in my lungs
cradling a saltless sea
flowing tears carving cavernous sorrow
flash-flooding joy into those canyons,
sudden with intensity

i watch the sea roll into oblivion
i wait for it to cease...
when will it ever cease?
so i
w a i t ,
it happens in s l o w ,
delicate
in cre ments...
between breaths the sea sighs,
if i listen closely
i can hear silence--
insubstantial--
like the taste of sleep,
that void between waves.
it waits for me to nod off
and then it happens all over again,
without cease.

waiting happens to me in this way:
i watch myself dissolve
as the moon pulls my blood
into the sea's tide
and i span the shore,
floating in a dream of sinking,
encompassing the depths,
one mind to wait
another to watch

disintegration

i have a new found fancy for the word integrate/integration/integrity/integer/integral. integer implies numbers, specifically whole numbers. integration is to bring into wholeness, to unify, like a magnetic storm. integrity is a state of being intact, undiminished, principaled. i floated through this maze of word forms while receiving a body healing session. i like it, the integration of these concepts are orbiting an integer, an integral awareness....but first there is disintegration that needs to occur, which is what i am experiencing. this is the tao of me, disintegrate in order to reintegrate the needed parts.

this is death, this is disintegration...
reintegration of dissipated parts
rearranged in a mosaic of memory
like life flashing before my eyes, dying moments,
memories of fire
memories of blood,
of ice and wood,
dormant seeds sprouting in winter
growing phantom fruits,
birthing this season of death,
each breath is my last;
each one, my first ever.

this is death, remembering disintegration,
recalling the recipe for a funeral,
flowers for fire,
salt for blood,
ash in the eyes--
ash upon the soil...
soil employed by passing seasons, progressing,
growing and falling away.
soil in this abundant cemetery:
dense matter scattered over the sea's boundary.
the gates to the underneath
are guarded by blood, unlocked with blood...
living blood bordering death,
birthing death, each breath
my last
my first

Dear Ocean

why, dear ocean, do you come dressed in flames
when all i want is cold ash in your stare?
i come from a cluttered garden,
wearing the tattered garments of my uprooted heart,
i come to seek your icy comfort...and
because you call me to you....
but instead you present me with this funeral afire,
with this burning death, this implied cremation,
and i find my memories cast ashore,
strewn about and rearranged by crabs,
under the envious eyes of seagulls.

mother ocean, you come because it is your destiny,
to caress the sand, to comb the hair of this shore,
and to rise in fury, to strike blindly with your fists
the seawalls that would deny you entry upon this land,
this land that defies your yearning for what you have yielded.

still i come to seek your calming anger,
your rage that strikes like a hammer upon the anvil
weighing down my heart,
my anchor in your shallows
tethering me to your tides
rising
falling into this season of fluttering.

i am come to your edge,
this shore is the outline of your destiny
and each solitary wave is a beat of my heart,
all those waves wash ashore
shaping this sorrow
making hollow the holograph of dreams
laden with wispy smoke.

and always you reach for me,
i come to you
bleeding,
i return to you this blood
these tears,
my essential salt,
this elegant sadness.

and your waves flounder upon the sand, each one
a tear dropped in your outstretched palm
calm and complete
glistening in the sun
receding into your embrace once again,
and i stand at the edge of my world
beside your transitory figure
cloaked in the wind
on fire with inaccurate sunshine
killing me by degrees.

surging winter

always this surge of winter hangs
perched above a swollen sky that
sighs with cold tears for leaves left to
lie prone upon fallen ground,
summer's high sky ground down to a halt
as autumn's storm buries its sword up to the hilt
in a fit of colorful rage,
and the ages turn pages upon
the lives of trees
and every being beneath their canopies,
this panoply of gray remains the constant backdrop of
rusting foliage dropping
solitary remnants of seasons past,
seasons come to pass ever faster
as the master of ceremonies grows
whiter in winter and the
hinterlands of life lay wasted today
until the sun brings renewal
to new life imbued with wisdom,
wisdom that comes in dreams of lives
unseen with waking eyes,
wisdom that comes with age
and the secrets of winter preceded by the cold north wind,
that all life lives in order to die,
in order to feed the coming and going of seasons,
in order to keep this order of summer bordering winter
buffered by ruffled feathers
blanketing the bed of land laid fallow by
shallow waters receding from the sky.

the sky cries its raindrop cadence for this
maiden ground farther down
upon fertile and sound soils unspoiled,
this dance of heaven and earth constantly
reenacting the birth of seasons,
giving reason to the rhyme of the sublime
underlying current of tides turning
burning suns into frozen moons,
a river of progression flows through each quarter turn of this globe
robed in seas and green trees
floating underground yet rooted to the sky.

swallow the sun

i want to swallow the sun
incubate its passion
in my belly
in my heart
i want its fire
to be my fire
i want the sun to burn me
to ashes
to dust
i must be transformed
from form
to essence
the presence of the sun
must inhabit my being
i need to swallow this fury
and bury its fire under the moon
let the sea quench my thirst
let the seaweed be my perfume
point this passion
at the most distant star
and let it light the darkness
so i may cast my shadow
let me cast a sculpture of moonlight
and fire it with the sun's fury
i want to swallow the sun
and spew forth radiant wings
dragons with wings
winged thoughts
feathered prayers
returning to this temple of ash
to feather this naked bird
this empty dust of me
i must
swallow the sun