permission

1.   this is where i ask you for permission.

2.   there are things i must tell you but i must tell it slant.

3.   i weigh the words carefully, and you weigh the words carefully.

4.   polish. over and over.

5.   there are no containers for holding light.

6.   unless bodies.

7.   so emptied we reach for stars.

8.   or other bodies.

9.   permissions.

10. more bodies.

11. sometimes the way forward is through.

12. i know that’s a cliché.

13. does that make it any less true.

14. do we embrace clichés because they are true.

15. truth is derived from the proto-indo-european root deru.

16. or is it dreu.

17. they’re both true.

18. i’m working at being steadfast.

19. let me find my roots here.

20. shape my hands into instruments of peace.

21. there have been so many conversations.

22. volleys and volumes and side glances cast askance.

23. grant me an audience.

24. friends, lovers, countrymen, lend me your ears.

25. gather to me.

26. all the prophets.

27. open up the dark.

28. gather up everything that leaks out.

29. build whatever best houses. 

30. i give you permission.

and so, poetry

Art is anything you can get away with. Andy Warhol

Art is anything you can get away with. Marshall McLuhan

and so, poetry. this thing that demands you be brave.

that doesn’t mean confess your sins. though sometimes

that. unburden. who does the heavy lifting?

Leonard said the Spirit does. maybe. pfft.

all I know I haven’t the strength to convince you

of anything more. any more. this poem is a weak container.

just you sit there and wait. there’s more coming.

is this the burden of language. the hope

something sticks. i’m doing my best. i really didn’t

have fun doing it. i haven’t always done it

since i was a child. not really. not really.

because this is poetry, and the intent is an invasion.

inter/ruption. infection. in. let me in. inne. with/in.

so there you have it. good luck.

appearances

she was beautiful,

though a boy.

i can only speak of my ambivalence

about that.

she wanted to be a poet

“because poets know about words

and how they mean.”

i’m not so sure about that.

there are always gaps

between intention and perception.

“poetry is like dancing,”

she says. then again,

you never know who you’re getting

as a partner.

she likes to go dancing.

she mostly goes alone.

she likes to go dancing.

it is the only time she feels beautiful.

how often we say

we’ve had ten thousand

conversations, you and I,

and still you refuse to change.

are these whispers or prayers?

how often we say flesh.

how often we say spirit.

the arguments keep piling up,

the excuses forming walls.

accusations are flung from the towers.

we need more watchmen on the walls.

hand them trumpets and torches,

let them hail strangers and guard the gates.

we have invited guests carelessly.

i have no idea whose side they’re on.

something sniffs around your door.

i tell you the room is haunted.

you tell me you speak with ghosts.

i no longer recognize these voices.

soap opera

let me tell you about the gods.

with their petty jealousies.

their sense of entitlement.

their utter disdain.

or not. so easily swayed,

and frail despite their power.

all that scheming –

the soap opera of divinity.

*

1.

so you slayed the lion,

its skin now a shield.

then they kept you

outside the gates.

2.

you entered a cave

with sword and torch.

you gathered the blood,

saved it for a rainy day.

3.

you kept moving;

you ran for a year.

how long will a man run

to find forgiveness?

4.

you were assigned a task,

so you met with a friend

to plan and drink wine.

then killed your friend. maybe.

5.

you found yourself deep in shit.

you asked for a tithe,

your efforts and time.

the courts were kind.

6.

be careful when planning to kill something.

determine to whom it is sacred.

try standing your ground and scaring it away first.

make as much noise as you can.

7.

you wrestled it to the ground,

rendered it unconscious.

so much wasted meat.

and still rejected.

8.

your unnatural appetites.

every breath like flame.

you fill your belly,

your kisses bridled.

9.

you thought it was all going so well.

you fought hard and long for every attention.

she was ready to give you her belt.

i think that’s a metaphor.

10.

how much you labour!

and that labour so often fruitless.

or tedious. you defeat your enemies.

you use so many poisoned arrows.

11.

you have grown tired of apples.

they are arbitrary symbols.

too easily shaped to other uses.

yet you still yearn for the garden.

12.

you knew you required more preparation;

you were not ready. death visits us all:

hierophants, initiates, contemplatives.

you hold it or it holds you.

*

you sought guidance

from the gods

and received a jest.

when I told you that

every labour is a gift,

you hid your face.

over and over,

it was never enough.

until it was. until you

confronted them with death.

until its burden has been exhausted

until its burden has been exhausted.

until its burden has been exhausted.

until its burden has been exhausted.

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it matters where

it matters where you put words

on the page. it matters when

you put words on the page.

how much breathing

room a word needs.

how much space.

it matters where you put words.

how you speak them. it matters

how they make a home

in the skin. on the tongue.

with murmur and whisper,

entreaty and shouting and song.

some words are seeds,

others are hammers.

some are dry as sand, or

wet as kisses.

all these things matter.

this is how you make a mark.

this is how you write

a poem. or begin one.

what that means

perhaps it’s time

to reinvent myself.

like putting on new siding.

to make it look better.

i don’t know what that means.

i just want to feel better.

i don’t know what that means.

i don’t know what that means –

i just want to feel better.

i don’t know what that means:

to make it look better.

like putting on new siding

to reinvent myself.

perhaps it’s time.

cartography

the parchment is always larger

than you’d expect.

not like vellum.

i write the world

and its edges.

like an icon.

except that it always changes.

it is good to remember that.

the root of carta means to scrape.

every day i rewrite the world.

i create shorelines

and make things up as i go.

i recite the names.

i establish boundaries

address the matter of scale.

wonder at what point

distance becomes exile.

every mark i make

is only to bring me home.