Mynd's Letter; draft #4

In mynd's eye there's a letter I mean to send
but since heaven forfeits whoever it forbids
and writing is not a sin,
this bloody letter
iron rich as the rise of society,
is mailed if in word alone is mailed.

Change the rules and dress up names
maim commonality or at least make lame
and after wringing capital paragraphs to thunderous applause
we all clap and jingle our change.

Down the lane
the dapper dressed walk in unison swinging their canes
dipping quills in pitch black ink wells.
Splendor's reckoning comes as a heart wind terrible to behold
and we cease to feel the wisps of wind that sometimes soft
dance across your face on a hot summer's day.

Outlast the Winter (Draft #3)

In the springy depths of tumbled turves green spiky leaves-full
I lay fetus balled
white tight knuckled fists grasping veiny knees
where maybe I might outlast the winter.

Light shine from the sun crescendos as an arc that too suits the star fruit
carambola eaten at intervals
even though it goes almost unknown among the gringos of the north
and maybe I might outlast the winter.

Reality ice skating scratching patterns
upon an azure deep sky where planes
seen from our shores as what they send
slowly expanding across the atmosphere
streams of thin clouds like long futon pillows
castaway in the basement or second bedroom:
only up there can comtrails become chemtrails draggling behind
or spikes of light become like dagger backstabs at the moment of death:
maybe I might outlast the winter.

Letters written
house or cell phone
communication satellite Skype-like
tech bubbles rising through electronic brine.
IM me FB me Message me
maybe I might outlast the winter.

Adrenaline filled by septic sub-pump
too embarrassed to speak I nevertheless breathe each breath:
exhaling I leave entrails behind;
inhaling, me, the contaminated air;
and then proceeding to pestilent pock marks upon my soul
who want to know who makes me hot as fire on a cold winter night.
Want to tell me what but what
who tell them what?

language loves desire; draft #4 (near final?)

Language loves desire and demands communication
but in words, more than just with body.
Love without language
lusts for body as animals without language.

Language comes from life, a dream to tell
that which cannot wholly be seen.
To make known
to relate in metaphors without body.

Language also is light piercing molecules of air.
Connects without touch. Communicates without
body. Moves without move.

Belmont and City; Final Draft (+/- some grammar revision)

Snow lingers long in shadow
cold clinging fingers of winter scrape
shape sidewalks and front yards:
crumbling concrete bricks beaten by shovel and plow turn to dust.

Ice packed mounds line streets,
aging plastic or fake wood chairs reserve streetside parking,
spaces carved out not for passersby
in the City of Brotherly Love.

Breath takes form in the frigid air
its heart beats mere moments
until it shivers and dissipates in the lower atmosphere.

I am layered against the cold on an otherwise clear day.
Navigating labyrinthine and icy paths
and passing three young men I quietly turn down Belmont Avenue.
Head down, I mark the steps in front of my toes.
Head down, I slow march toward the bus stop marked 40.

From behind comes a low grumbled yell.
Turning my head the three young men again appear in view
but who would want to talk to me?
Who would even know me 2 miles from home,
here in this city of strangers,
here where I spend only minutes walking between work and the Forty
at the corner of Belmont and City.
I continue walking but still wonder: had something slipped from my pack
were these boys
black teens all neat and clean
here to help me?

Packed ice skitters against the backs of my feet
followed by another gruff yell.
But if someone wants my attention they could address me more directly.
Still worrying that I'd left something behind,
swinging from shoulder my backpack gently unwinds.
I check its contents for peace of mind.
Packed ice skitters against the backs of my feet.

Now halfway down the block halfway to the bus stop,
I turn again to see these three boys now halfway again between me and the City.
“Can I help you guys with something?” I ask impatient.
Still huddled, their thin leader asks, “What are you getting out of your bag?”
He sounds angry, slightly afraid.
Does he think I mean to pull out a gun?

I pull out a bus token.
Fears extinguished thin leader demands, “Give us a bus token.”
Anger tinges my voice, “I don't have anymore.”
“Give us some money,” he commands.
“I don't have any.”

I am lying but yet unwilling to forsake the sixteen quarters
tucked deep in my bag
(emergency funds for emergency rides).

I sling pack back on back turn and quicken my pace
but they follow even faster.
And soon amidst craggy mounds of ice and snow,
three boys, their thin leader's teeth bound with braces,
surround me, and again thin leader demands money.
“I don't have any," is all my mind can muster:
chemicals explode inside my brain inside my body.

They close in around me, one on my right,
thin leader on the left, and a tag along somewhat behind.

My glance scans to the right,
a sudden jab smacks my neck where the left edge of my jaw juts out,
but adrenaline fueled, I feel nothing.
I scramble over a snow mound
step out into the streetside parking
create distance where none was before.

I pick up a chair in defense
to this thin leader insists,
“I'm gonna kick your ass if you hit me with that."
as if I was the one come for plunder
as if I was the one to trouble a stranger.
I step out into slow moving oncoming traffic
cars slow now that I'm out in the open.
Already the other two slink behind their brace faced leader,
as if avoiding blame.

My eyes turn to the left
and the 40 comes round the corner of Belmont and Ford.
Dropping the chair I sprint
hands waving in frantic motion,
chemicals compelling unthinking action.
But memory's minutes mere moments
as seconds of time,
and damn the feet fly by!

But then it slows down for an elderly woman half hidden behind a telephone pole.
I run the final thirty feet, pull the token from pocket, board the bus.
My heart beats a thousand times a minute.

And though my neck and jaw will be sore for a few days
I am otherwise unscathed
on this my birthday.

Taught to Throw; draft #4

It was you who threw the first stone
and encouraged me to follow your lead.
You taught me the best stones to find: smooth flat and round.
You taught me how to dangle my arm and lean over just so,
bent at the knees head cocked
stone spun and thrown near parallel
whipped fast flicked wrist.
My memory of you plays out against a backdrop of centuries old glaciers
feeding waterfalls in a montane paradise of steep cliffs glittering snow,
bursts of life deep green cling to walls of stone.

You taught me how a slim stone skipping through infinity sounds.
But though we did not share these cirques, mountains, or 11:00pm sunsets,
your memory to me is as azure and deep as these alpine lakes,
wind whipped adventure struck on the way to the gold rush.

Song of the Cicada (draft #4)

Cicadas sing the clack and click of timbals,
a cacophony for hot summer days
when sticky sweat runs down slippery backs.

Their timbals buckle out and bend back in,
disperse a shaking sound as of rattles
rising and falling like deep and repeated knife stabs,
unending even deep past dim light into the night
descending out from trees
off into humid and misty airs over fields
of sword grass grown fat off flood plain waters.

Thus the male hearkens to its mate,
and screaming at me through ossicle and cochlea
he becomes proof positive:
time plays out moment by moment,
burdens are rewards all their own,
and the cicada's empty rust-colored shells shed
symbolic carcasses remain an ironic but muted reminder of the cycle of life.

This Autumn Month; draft #2, finished poem

This autumn month
eyes gaze through a thin window pane
down leaf strewn street
scattered rags plastic bags butts discarded wrappers
black gum-tar stuck everlasting polka dot distraction
faded beer cans smashed flat like aluminum paper.

This autumn month
eyes gaze through a cracked window pane
unable to stop the loud sight and sound
of other people's matters late into the night
of drunken madness and irrational argument,
lost at sea must be seen to believe but invisible to most:
like the late night moan of the trolley
letting the whole house know the schedule of the number ten.

This autumn month
eyes gaze through the thin veil of a window pane
farsighted I bare witness to the long and slow groan
of earth's internal clock tearing a hole through space and time
seeping into living matter finding its way into
blood choked scream screened streets
that are rivers in our lives.

Dream Beetle (draft #4)

I sit and sink into the dry turf of a hillside's fair chalky meadow
clouds mixed crimson magenta
months of ash masked sunsets the world over.
My mind sees beetles burrowing through the dung of my dreams
metallic rose black its carapace,
mandibles grinding rock to dust
palpi feeling for food,
digesting stone-dust their waste back-filling tunnels
like analid these anthropods mix like no sex does.

I now know as no sense can tell:
the sun enriches my skin with vitamin D
my eyeballs turn back toward my brain
my eyelids flutter as a butterfly
and like Chuang-Tzu ages ago
beauty amazes confounds confuses amuses;
leaves ever after an awe of the unknown.

This Ancient Thread; Strand 2, Draft #2

Sometimes it comes up in conversation so I tell people that I grew up on a farm. Along with that declarative statement, I usually add that it was only for 5 years. I say this to make two points: 2) I didn't spend my entire childhood on a farm; and 2) It was a significant amount of time for me because up to that point in my few and tenders years, I hadn't lived anywhere more than a couple years. This leads to more conversation: you see, my dad built and rebuilt power plants, and you don't keep building power plants in the same town for too long. The work moves on, and so my family did. That all changed when we moved to the farm in Pike township on Lobachsville Road. From that point on, my dad would do the moving and we would stay put. Stay tuned later for how that worked out.
Our driveway made a large loop around the corn crib: on the southeast side sat our stone farmhouse, and on the west side sat our barn: I was always proud to say it was circa-Revolutionary War because I've always had a fascination with history and how buildings and artifacts connect us with the past and how age old these out of the way places could be, along rural routes, fields, and feed mills. To get to the bus stop, we would round the loop, passing the north side of the barn. South of the barn was the barnyard, where we kept our small herd of sheep. Although the barn yard was a shorter distance, we were supposed to keep to the driveway because the yard was always so dusty and musty.
I once went to school with sheep shit on my clothes; there I was sitting in class, and I guess the kids sitting next to me started to smell something. And then I guess I started to smell something. But you know, I didn't really think it was me, just sort of smelled a bad shit smell; and I was in fifth grade so how cognizant could I have been about all these events? In the moment I must have been, but too worried about catching the intricacies of elementary school than anything else.
What could I have done to get sheep shit on my clothes? I did cut through the barnyard to save time walking to the bus stop. I did climb the fence to get into and out of the barnyard. And though I didn't realize it was me until after I sat alone in the nurses suite in a back room near the washer and dryer, somehow, surely I must have wiped my body up against some sheep shit.
Lucky for me the school had an extra set of gray sweat clothes. I didn't look very cool, but it was better than smelling like poop, and really I never looked very cool. Looking back, I am glad this happened when I was only in 5th grade; not yet old enough to care or to feel the sting of estrangement.

Baked Dreams, part 2 (formerly This Ancient Thread; Strand 4, Part 2)

Our footfalls led us west and we walked until in peculiar fashion
we stumbled upon a symmetric yet soft rock
who lost its origins to the sands of time,
but that we named The Mushroom.

It sat in a courtyard dug into the earth
ten feet below shrub-lined North Burrowes;
well hidden enough: people walked by
and didn't notice us unless they stopped and stooped and said hello.
But they never did.

The Mushroom sat cornered in shadow
between Hosler and Dieke,
and we admired it as some odd testament to nature:
this rock on a pillar that we took turns climbing on,
that we took turns speaking on
words belching forth
as if The Mushroom itself gained voice,
as if words themselves were diamonds
whose many rainbow sprayed facets
had caught our eyes for the first time.

Prescience of Serve (Draft #4)

When the ball is held under your breath
it is easy to underestimate the need for calm reason:
with mere moments to decide the course of events
I must steady my hand and somehow stop my sweat soaked bandanna from running into my eyes.
One serve means one chance to get it right:
indecision makes meatballs
smashed back in your face hard enough to leave a mark.

I walk to the table to face my opponent,
ball in hand I bend over and breath on it:
to clean it of dust
to lend it my spirit wind.
Palm up, hand drops
rests near the table's edge,
ball playing solitaire in the leveled center of my hand.
Body tenses as it comes to rest
my breath exhales as a single soft stroke to settle the nerves.
Gently, quickly I toss the white celluloid six inches into the air,
and as it descends racket smacks and sends it flying
a low drive down the line dead ball flat steady but still soft as she goes.

His return this time a baby faced blooper to my forehand:
confidence weighs heavy
my muscles remember how his racket's rubber imparts its own spin
unique as fingerprints.
My second shot: racket swings low to the ground on my forehand side,
my body crouches then motion
springs praxis: hand arcing up and through the ball
body turning in sync with left arm's new come flight.
Racket and ball connect, a SMASH cross table to his backhand
fast and low, spinning away to the far reaches of his flailing reach:
at points end at last he reflects on the the essential nature of foot work.

Reflections on Driving East: A Farewell to the Pacific Northwest of Oregon (Draft #3)

The Pacific Northwest falls away behind me.
A haze of dust masks distance
mountains turn to shadow in my driver side mirror.
Every twist or curve of the road
bares the fruit of glimpses,
my past glides slides to my left
slides to my right:
Three Sisters all too soon fade from view
but remain white-capped cindered cones
splashed across my memory.

Quiet desert basins barbed wire-fenced in,
roads wind betwixt
scrub speckled hilltops and buttes as far as the eye can see.
And even in this high scrub-land out of way place,
runs blistered and cracked two lanes of blacktop.

The need for repair evident in
the presence of work crews and work trucks.
I smell tar and crushed stone
as it mixes with the fumes of air I breathe.
And I wonder as I drive
fast as thunder shoved coast to coast
across a storm stricken sky
piercing this mighty body in two.

Baked Dreams; part 1 (formerly This Ancient Thread; Strand 4, Part 1)

Evening was our oyster, the Juggling Suns
jamming square pegs in our circular holes:
at least that's how it felt, our heads compressed,
cracked and crushed.
Laughter, big thoughts, levitation,
and smooth anticipation driving nails: music
that drifts to eardrum and plays like harp strings gently tugged.

Open field tucked into trees and Old Main,
crisscross of pathways:
soft gray splotches of people
students sitting in circles casting soft shadows in the dark of night.

The World Turtle led the way:
beak pointed north, the universe at her beck and call.
Thus she led us into day turned gray then night,
but not lies led on high
enjoying our destinies as if fate itself could be contained in this uncontrollable world.

The World Turtle and us her disciples,
following as dogs wag tongues,
and the saliva they drip
evaporated but slowly in the humid State College air.

Clammy Hands and Homemade Looks

Clammy hands and quiet looks at girls
sweaty ass crack on a split plastic seat.
I shift in my seat, back sliding down then up, awkward in my cramped chair.

Shorts too short
the price you pay for homemade looks
shorts too short,
Daisy Dukes, says a friend.
Bad enough that here I am, young man spinning clay
into forms bestial and ugly, one of only three guys
in a class run by a hippie in new-aged rags,
dark purples and rainbow sparkles shifting and swaying
with every move of her hips or hands.

My stomach turns and I feel pale pink puke
spattering my throat like magma splashing the rim of a caldera,
and all I recall is the feeling of fear:
of being being called out,
being singled out as someone other than them.
Daisy Dukes, they would say over and over, not all at once, but still
from time to time, Daisy Dukes-Daisy Dukes-Daisy Dukes.
The General Lee was parked out front at my high school
so how was I supposed to feel?

We grow out of this, so some say, we grow older,
but memory yet keeps the past alive
as embers snug in cow dung,
carried from camp to camp.

Of Remembering Kittens (formerly This Ancient Thread; Strand 3)

There always were a lot of cats on the farm,
and kittens birthed so often that imagined
irrational fears of mothers like Black Mama, a dark mottled calico,
stuck fast in mind and memory.
Suckling her litter out of the way in one of the pig sties,
our lookout posted so she could not catch us unawares
should she come round the corner.

Another mama had one tell-tale eye
puss green pale filament stabbing me a ray of evil light in the dark of middle night,
one leg curled up useless by her side,
mangled tan fur rooted with burs.
She reliably had kittens two or three times a year.
Some one thought she was sexy. Someone thought she was too good to resist.

Most of our kittens survived barely long enough to remember,
and far too short for names.

I remember kittens:
crushed under the right rear wheel of our shit brown Suburban;
eaten by wild animals, left to rot as hollow shells of ribs,
headless empty of innards;
shocked fried stuck stinking caught up in the electrical underbelly
of the freezer that sat squat and cold on our porch,
but the death I remember most deserves a story all its own.

To keep kittens away
my dad built a wooden plank across our porch top step.

One day,
a friend of my second older brother must have been in a hurry leaving our house.
He rounded the corner of our porch enclosed by age-old stone wall
quickened pace stepping right through said wooden plank,
plank kicked far ajar, now dislodged
scraped stone, but could not hide the sound of kitten crushed
and killed faster than it ever knew what hit it.

A Thousand Threads In One (formerly Thread Prologue); finished poem

I bend to look at a thread:
it runs ahead too far to see
and the beginning of it, far off behind,
a dot in the endless distance.
This thread worn but not frayed,
copper brown through the long passage of time.
And as if peering down a microscope
I see that it splits into a thousand smaller strands,
some thin but well worn burs whose itch tell a tale;
others robust, full and smooth to the touch, lightly used and ready for any task;
some long, pulled thin but still clinging with what little it might pull;
some stained-changed color to dark red, brown-blood wrought from tears and toils;
some colored the color of love of life;
pale gold and silver reflections of starlight.
One thread in a thousand. A thousand threads in one.

My hand in time

My hand in time
motive-spread like jackals
seen scattered cross the savanna:
a backdrop of boom-clouds
puke pale white-dry their tongues,
wag and await the photographic memories
of rain bursts and shadows wrought
not in pigment.

Walk through.

Walking, hands in motion
agitates the cool layer of air
beneath the zippered underarms of a rain jacket.

Feet, ragtag holes through worn soles
damp clings to feet
yet still my pace brings me nearer,
yet still I'm left wet bare on the rock:
limestone dissolves
into sinkholes and sunshine blinds my sins.

Walk, step left step right and on and on...

Exhale into soft spread fabric covered in cool condensation
until it's life warmth fades and sublimes into this air we share.

Walk up await
the coming morning
and from dawn's perspective see
people
between the lines
people
the prickly sensation of red weather-raw flesh
and goose bumps too loose
people:
some stand their cheek skin stretched
thin, pale lips groping for life as barely
as a five-cent return on a beer can;
some apt to hone skills,
the genius of stale tobacco turned into streetwise cigarettes;
while others, stumbling foot in front of foot
walk in suspended time,
broken and half-human but for some inexorable craving
for beer for meth for crack for crazy
for tears mixed crimson
in the world's grim grochan.