Thursday, September 17, 2015

gardening

Photo by Kyla


down under
cloudcover
listen here comes the rain
running inside
shhh shhh shhh
seed heads rot on flower stalks
heavy ones bend down
some break
this is no time for it

later, clearing, hot and steamy
cicadas chanting
chirraa chirraa chirrAAAaaaaa....
stay in shade
be cool
        if you can
listen some more
wait
for a better day.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

and who made that rule?


Doomish. Photo by Kyla

it's illegal
to die here
to expire where you fall
no
you must apply
take a number
dispose yourself
respectfully and quit
the noise
only the decorus
may enter
lethe's soothing waters
all the rest of you
annoying messy fools
must seethe
in your blood memories
until
you've distilled
that essence
we are here to steal
from you
so behave
and you may
find relief
if we are pleased
with the harvest

Monday, September 14, 2015

there's always room for one more


Seeds. Photo by Kyla

clown in the clown car
and every kid born
wants to know how they do that
in clown college, before you graduate
you learn about folding space
that's how
and really anyone should know
because there's always room
for one more book on the shelf
one more plant in the garden
one more guest
at the table
because space
is nothing
but infinite so there's
always room
for one more
of each and all, one more
kiss one more killing
one more ticket to
this circus
one more chance to
jump off the train
but first
let's have one more
visit to the bar
because I don't think
this journey
has a station.
Here in space
it's a one way ride
with no destination.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

not how you wanted it to be

Photo by Kyla

a poet is someone
who juggles her own eyeballs
one up one down
and around the back
all while shards of the day
pierce her gut at random
intervals

later she removes
the shards so
the wounds bleed
dark clots of words
catching up
her eyeballs
she fingerpaints
blind messages
idly circling
the crystal rim of time
til it sings.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Ahna Goes Home At Last



Dance With Me. Photo by Karen Baggott
She's
walking in the air
and as she walks
she finds her fingers
sifting clouds.
She thinks the colors
and they're there.
Sweet starfire kissing
sunlit hair,
each atom sings
its perfect round
and no thing with a flaw
is found
in this realm of blazing grace.

She's found her face,
her arms,
her legs,
her place
to be and to be whole
and safe.

Here is the sea,
the endless shore,
swift surf and plunging
aqua deeps.
She walks in air,
sand crystals shine,
and each blue moment
opens into futures past
that are become
this now's divine
and exquisite
clime. She walks
in air, this air of home
and home is hers
to keep this time.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Inheritance


Photo by Kyla

The way very small things
accumulate: dust, cat whiskers,
scraps of dried leaf,
tiny shards of glass
from that time last fall
when you startled me coming in
and I dropped the light globe
on the concrete basement floor.

The way these find me,
adhere and pierce.

Also, certain quietnesses
such as those in between the notes
of holiday jingles
and commercials. The silence between
your words. The larger, long silence
of absent friends
and the dead.

Various fluids, and containers
of fluids
such as this body
which still holds me
with the exacting skill
required of unnoticed craft,
the only perfection
we are allowed
here.

The expansion of breath,
the way it goes out and on
following mysterious laws
until they become
moot

Where is that? you ask.
As if I knew.
I could say we'll go there
one day
but even that
is beyond the edge
of what we're given,
we meek,
in our inheritance so far.


Photo by Kyla






Friday, March 20, 2015

Many Mice are Hanging on the Moon

Forgiveness14 by Maya Chae
Many mice are hanging on the moon
and singing.

They sing of all the traps
that did not catch them.

They hang on the moon
because it is full, like a balloon.
They are hanging there to keep it
from floating
clear away.

It takes many mice to do this
because they are very small
compared
to the moon.

They are careful not to pop the moon balloon
with their tiny claws.

In between songs, they whisper to each other
of micely things.

The moon is unaware of the mice and sails serenely on
about her moonly business,
and the mice,
later on,
will drop to earth one by one
safely
and go back to their ordinary
mouseliness.

By then,
they will have stopped singing.
We will never hear them
because they do not sing down here,
or if they do,
no one knows
about it.

Dreamseed by Maya Chae