Flora and fauna
heavy objects
i felt one day my own shadow outgrew me.
and so it stood, looming over me
like the quiet judgment of god.
the wait
now that winters’ over.
the wind just
blows and blows,
swimming through
the branches of the crowd.
the sun scrapes
out one hour
at a time
as my hands make a little staircase down.
maple avenue
scanning the gone fences
for wild
asparagus,
too late grows its minutes
by the handful.
so often i find myself
diving under the wall
of storms, and storms, and storms,
the bent debris,
and flooded farm fields,
those mean eyes,
in their abundance.
staring contest
big beautiful sunken eyes,
linger drilling
and then lose focus.
to be alive is to commit
to a long, uncomfortable
stare.
frederick avenue
over the course of many days,
the dishes pile up.
mold flourishes on every available surface
and in the kitchen sink
a stagnant bath of leftover scraps
crusted pots and pans
and silverware.
spring has come
city silence grabs me and shakes me like i’m weightless to it, head held above the clouds, i see it wavering and brightly lit, glowing like an angel’s wing-ed form, just taking flight, The big hands set me down, and I’m drawn into the night.
i’ve never seen the water as a stone walking empty eastward streets alone. amongst the dying breath of night, past the shore, i’ll break ice. the streetlamp purrs and flickers, in the darkness, faint respite. I hear it hum assurance as i’m called towards the light. when the sun burns, and the river boils with the run, the fawn is stirred, when spring has come.
frog alley
at the clearing in the brush,
press on through the reeds.
step to the water’s edge,
and watch the swans’
gaze upon their own beautiful reflections.
dotting the waterscape they leisurely bob along
preening and picking at vegetation.
the daily disharmony
drones in the cool of dusk,
as hundreds of languages ring out,
an endless sea of marketplace chatter,
stretching out towards the far edges of the sky.
Collie
gate swung open,
windlicked twistered,
push n’round leaves,
made nervous the collie,
fur overflowing
like a billowing cloud. like a billowing cloud
hangs over the Kettle Moraine,
and from here
it whines and bellows
like a dog afraid of the rain.
each dead robin
she is a spring tulip
in this brief punctuation,
looking towards the heavens
between bouts of longing and grief.
but when her bright eyes
meet the morning,
she is smothered by the world,
with a funeral held
for each robin dead beneath the window.
pointed upwards, towards her ear
perhaps she hides behind
that hand covering her mouth
to mask downturned lips,
or to hold back
words of sharp recoil.
but either way
it rests, cradling her chin,
her thumb pointing upwards
towards her ear
Lilac
how can you leave
with your love so squandered?
a shadow on the clothesline-
-a shirt behind a sheet.
like this, remembered
half alive
through the window,
the smell of lilac, a bomb.
the beast of beulah bog
silhouettes and moonlight fingers,
an animal following.
a shy dog,
or something more curious
lain footstep beyond sight,
drawing near despite my hollering.
there’s a small honor to an animal’s defiance,
in humor, or fear,
but ten foot within the black curtains,
sat a careful mind.
raccoon
the eyes across the river
shone like mirrors
and by the light of the moon
i’ll be with him soon
with my guide and friend, the raccoon.
by the light of lampposts
we traverse this urban sprawl
like fugitives, we’ll leave this town,
once and for all.
hopefully, we’ll be home soon,
I travel with the wise raccoon.
i left the city, and all my possessions,
a feral creature, wild and pure,
i’ve finally escaped urban oppressions,
I’ll never have to live in fear.
because the raccoon, he knows the way,
His promise, delivered, for which I prayed.
he keeps his word,
a sacred oath,
hidden in the undergrowth.
mill creek crossing
for the fawn in the fog
there were no brakes that could suffice.
without a sound,
he slipped under the wheel,
and into the coffin,
quick as.
is there justice
for the mother of a baby swept away?
perhaps there is none,
and the world just ends.
lids
walking into hotter wind,
into the bookend
of a long, dreamt hall.
you are twenty three again,
and cowering.
I close my eyes, im in a field,
five foot tall, and towering,
a bumble bee in my hand.
man kicks dog
the mind grows closer to skin.
filthy picking fingers and loud feet.
he is bored: the buzzing fly,
and the swift hand of oppression.
the gnashing, snarling dog
that he cannot see
when his back is turned,
is always bark bark barking
from the mirror.
what pressure could warp
this weakness into strength?
what hunger could turn this dog
on his flesh?
summer as a boy
plucking raspberries
barefoot through the brambles,
all thorn-scratched and berry-stained,
knee-deep in the creek.
reborn blue heron,
stalking bullfrogs and minnows.
and in the golden hour the cool breeze dances
through open windows and screen doors
and the bees bumble clumsily tween
milkweed, hyssop, lavender, and thyme.
feast and famine
trudging through honey, onwards, always.
and as soft as is grass,
it is too, scorching blacktop
moths
you search for the moon
but
wind up circling
this house, home
of the last working street lamp
on the block.
Sofia
whispering across the wall,
useless smoke signal gestures
find me sinking
into a twisted sort of grief.
to watch
the specks
of dust crawl
across
the sun-columns
and to hear
these echoey chambers.
In our ignorance, we seek justice for the dead.
wasp
a wasp on an apple
once told me:
decadence
always finds itself
comfortable
in the company of rot.
hwy 59
mothers and fathers wring their hands,
front yards,
they mow and burn big leaf piles
and the smoke over white fences bloodies the sky;
outside town
a floodlit combine harvester
is a big red freighter
upon an endless sea
of darkness and corn.
South of Campus
Lowlives and lovers slithering from cracks in walls.
the muted smell of pot and booze floats like music into the street.
the wind
the autumn comes in driftless wandering,
carries herself, cautious conquering.
these fiery hues of ascension
creeping ‘long gentle plains, rolling hills.
the leaves falling down near your window,
drawn in with winds’ drafty blow,
and resting on the wings of a plane
i am carried again
till the autumn gives way to the snow
desperation/defeat
alarm ringing. sun rising,
ceiling fan spinning, shaking.
silence breaking.
staccato bird song,
morse code signal flares
for morsels and mating.
the morning’s dew-laden blanketing
bow down long grasses,
hung adorn with jewels
that melt underfoot
and leave the socks
drying by vent.
old man in a coffee shop
who were you,
before you were here?
reveling in a long drawn spectacle.
you smile
but it is nothing,
nothing more
than a run on sentence.
synanthropes
exiles like glaciers
spill into the ocean.
the final contraction of big death,
and the last of the refugees.
suburbs before trees
the repetition sped off, to a blurred standstill.
and it stayed that way,
until the hard outlines
became the phantom borders,
and protest, a buried stone
which history piled on.
racing towards space, blinding sameness.
still our promise boils down to the raw elements,
a deadlock, and a gun.
driving west
i wish there was no stop signs
or rocks on the freeway
or potholes to give me flats.
to pass through unabaited by the suburbanites
sipping wine,
at the ends of their long driveways.
further west,
where nothing happens.
down towards the outside stretches,
where cattle supersedes man
and canvas corn,
pointelistic and towering, crawls up the glacial till.
sympathy for birds
domestic yet homeless,
cooing rock dove perched.
how, but with a long sigh, can we face the morning?
what can replace this long season
when the extent of the punishment
is at the very limits of love?
paper boats
one of these days,
it’s going to rain all over the world.
with canyons cut deep and fast.
down we will go spilling,
spilling, clinging, and slipping
spilling down towards something
we can’t yet quite define.
Winter
winter hangs like a corpse.
its cold breath sinks into our bones,
as the ghost of a long sigh
commingles with exhaust.
pumping gas, and shivering
as the sun sinks over rush hour.
door county blues
a red panel on a cream-colored car,
a dented bumper.
a gash extending from the blinker
to the handle of the door.
eisenhower drove the interstate straight
through the center of your heart, yet still,
you sit in traffic, much like everyone else.
dedicated, technical.
dull, but necessary.
the power line sags like a smile, as the meandering
wind-blown snow drifts across the median.
you disregard the speed limits of these nonexistent little towns.
the tan graham cracker fields are flat as pancakes,
a white painted canvas
on which you dream of dandelion, clover,
and kentucky bluegrass.
whalefall
a whale may sink down,
towards the bottom of the ocean.
draped in midnight terror, she falls
into the arms of the water.
staring up
at the shattered flighty light mutations,
staring up, at the eye
that cuts easily
through the peaks of her wisdoms.
straight down through
the whole goddamn deep blue thing.
drugs
like a bird run aground,
a metal on metal sound.
i know i don’t need you,
But I want you.
i say “take my hand-
i’m crashing, good god”
and then you nod,
and you do.
want
our brave and pointless hungry multitudes
shout out from our open eyes,
our feet we plunge,
and through thick mud we rise.
flags
how dare you look at us to apologize
as if you are the fragile victim
of some horrible crime?
as we take a breath in panicked desperation
and cold water rushes in.
as we raise our hands,
and nothing falls from the sky.
nothing falls but the cold, wet snow.
and hallelujah,
it is the big red white, and blue,
gesturing indecipherably.
like some loose tarp
flapping off the back of a truck.
seasonal affective disorder
geese fly south but I buckle down, heavy sweater and scarf.
night stretches long into the morning as the day is again swallowed. the ever-dimming golden glow of the top of the four-floor apartment complexes fades to black as the sun is overtaken by the shadow of the earth.
easterly winds smell of burnt hair and rotten eggs, while westerly winds carry with them wet dogs, lumbering and slobbering. the skeletal moan of the bungalows ekes out, as the night’s frost jaws bite down. steam spews from the manhole covers, from the depths of the churning earth. I wince and squint, like a crumpled old rag, rung out till every strand and fiber stretches, to a permanent flinch.
roaring past the corner of oakland and capitol, cars work their way through the polluted air, muttering to themselves, radios blasting. salmon in the river to the west, fighting their way upstream. smoke drifts into oncoming traffic as I exhale and mixing with exhaust into a slurry of smog, the ghost is swept away.
do they know they live only to die?
to fuck and then rot?
thoughts dulled and muffled, reduced to a whisper under the weight of textbooks, and rent.
I catch myself through the eyes of a shattered side-view mirror, scattered across the pavement and my face is all disfigured and disjointed. as the sun grows higher in the sky it beats down on me. I wither and writhe, with sand in my eyes, and under the magnifying glass my skin cracks and blisters, it burns a hole straight through my head.
wrapped in sheets and blankets, I am an outline. Unsteady, and half-formed, the sunlight carves the marble. I know every inch of this veneer, a blueprint of the makeup on a pig. I slip past the smoke-stains, as the timid hesitancy of early spring reduces the last piles of muddied snow, hardened into glaciers along the curb.
mercury falls
a sheet of paper and two thin black lines,
driving wind and shipwrecks.
the late arrival finds
a sandhill crane frozen to the ice.
“we commit nothing to you,
we will not cry blinding icicles
or waste a prayer to god.”
eyes climb higher
as the blood red mercury falls.
as the snow slips past him
in a flooded farm field,
a sandhill crane dies of natural causes.
broke/force
acceleration in pure distance-
-asteroids on their way to strike an object—
—descending through black clouds
a jetliner swims
in the same fresh air that burnt up a rock.
Animal Habits/How To Read A Room
I still remember the day you introduced me to fear.
are there other animals
who imagine what doesn’t exist-
-or do we alone apologize for nothing?
a creature caged, while others run around.
Do I have a right to die like an animal?
Or will I go in a hospital bed?
i’ve forgotten how to feed myself,
but still, I demand a reason to deserve to live.
Look at me,
but don’t look at me,
do not ask me
to weigh infinity against impermanence
when in my eyes they are the same.
elephant post
the betrayal of gravity only strikes
when you can’t get any higher.
at the top,
like the roiling turbulence of cream,
skims the oily skin-
-remembers the taste of fresh air-
-only to flip, and fade into the deep.
tethered to an elephant post,
to realize
you’ve taken only time.
the consequences of living alone
all lit up like christmas
the neon street lights hum
replaced then
by a roaring city bus.
silent packed like cigarettes
we rode.
i hope
i live long enough
to see a new world.
please
don’t let me die in this dying one,
still facing the consequences
of living alone.