playing dead

playing dead
playing glass
invisible
but catching birds
as they fly in,
too wary, too awake
with their fleshfeather warmth
to realize they might
be making a mistake

sun sprout

the dead leaves know
the white square
of balcony metalwork hums
the answer
to the agitated accountants
in my head this morning

the book I put down
last night
the Buddhist nun I accused
of drinking too much,
of melancholy and mania,
the author --
I did not have an ear for her

and though I filed her book
back on my shelf,
she had fed my tears
to the soil of sleep
and the sun sprouted
from the ground this morning,
once day
was here

in defense of myself as a performer

too quiet
to be a performer
too starched white
to spit it out,
move my hands
punch your hearts

but quiet, uptight and white
are no excuse
for not making a point
for not making love

maybe I am just too impotent
or baseline depressed
or lazy
to put my passion into it

the titanic tension
I put on my head
the price and the self-pity
for having acted without courage,
uncountable, the times I've tried
to right myself,
too busy with these feats
too in need of entertainment
to care enough
about being entertaining

malarkey crumbcake

digging a little darker,
a little floating
into the sumptuous chocolate
into the vault of ocelots

creating a thumb of pillars
a cradle of simplicity
crying inexorably
into the face
of the future

one two four seven
hexes like hand-grenades
cravings and corporates
plentiful parapets
political junkies
hysterical monkeys
eating out of your hand
nibbling a little too much
finger

the end of easy things

I was always curious
about the beginning of things
-- did it happen
all at once?
did it happen
at all?

and once I heard you laugh
I knew
I would never
laugh again
not with all of that
solid competition

that was the end
the end of easy things
of walks by brooks
by moon
by memory

and I felt the beginning
had indeed begun,
and that I would never
ask those foolish
questions again

the exact Yiddish word

my mother would know
the exact Yiddish word
for how I am feeling right now

the clock ticking
is a torture device
the voices reverberating,
shaking the tables and walls,
are wrenches to tear me
from my Earth-sense,
the feel of ground
beneath feet and mind

"Tsamished",
I think the word
would be

she used it
when I looked confused
or when the SNAFU
was all fucked up

leave it to Mom
to know me so well
as to linguistically devise
a new reality for me
out of fragments
handed down in shards
and torn bits
of lost conversation

nothing you could name

Love,
like nothing
you could name,
like everything
felt and unfolded

a life grown down
from heaven
earthward,
feet sprouting
somewhere at the level
of traitor skyscrapers

sand knows itself
uncovers its own grave
wind finds shelter
in its nowhere-ness

and you are the Earth
and you are the ache

and never forget
or disbelieve
you are, likewise,
of them

rite

when fracked fragments
of America
did their deal
unloaded their colons

totalities of geese
with visions words spinning
wildly to an unkempt music
implored the dirt
for a more philharmonic
Earth

and we reached for our staffs,
propped and abandoned,
and un-relinquished our magic
for another go-round,
a chance to put things
rite

the passion of Michael Stipe

"we want to cover over the pain, in one way or another, identifying with victory or victimhood..."
-- Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart

when the shit went down
I was already down
so I wasn't surprised
to see those buildings fall,
saddened, terrified,
but not surprised
it made sense
in a way
your own death does
when you see it
in the mirror

years later,
I am listening to REM on my Mp3 player

through their wet, weepy
watermelon center ode to 9/11,
I feel the birds
the secret flutter of wings
as they adjust their butts
on branches for a night's rest

it is cool in Lakewood
the walk to the library
always pleasant at this time of year

"you find it in your heart
it's pulling me apart..."
Michael Stipe croons
"you find it in your heart
.....CHANGE..."

and I am gyrating inside
to the music,
like Zorba the Greek,
to the bass-line,
which throws up its hands,
letting go, falling

and suddenly this too makes sense,
that all of our violence
is bullshit
our victimhood,
unfortunate,
even while it is
an illusion

alchemy 2 or 3

callous as a hawk
gentle as a pigeon
lusting like a salmon
swimming upstream

resolving differences
within myself
is a cold, stone groove

alchemy, the all- seeing
the nitty gritty
and the shitty mood swings

contemplating nothing
seeing into the distance
the kick into the belly
working its sweet, old magic

creation poem

mooncatcher
waterdreamer
fountains of color,
drawn by the sunset
asleep --

I see into the matter
the horizon skips a beat
every other measure
our ancestors met
confirmed our love,
our lips touched
and the world awoke