shabbat poem

if I laid my selves out end to end

like paper dolls

(except for all the mayhem)

they would form

a ring around the earth

self-touching-self

like you'd touch your family

touching challah

on shabbat

bright hauntings

bright hauntings are my favorite 

the ones you ride into the east

sword drawn, or pen

Mythological Drift

art by Stephanie Law

Whoever said still as a stone
never watched the pattern of lichen shifting
or the play of light
as a way of speaking
geographies unknown.
In this mythological drift,
every map is set in stone.

From star to stone
from sheep to shawl,
time spins us like a length of rope.
Labyrinthine and languorous,
Minotaur and muscle
flattened into horoscopes
and clocks and endless bustle.

A stone in every mouth
for this mythological drought.
Whales detoured by sirens,
cattle awaiting raids,
dowries still unsettled,
millions of miles of untended graves—
we are left with what remains.

Feckless followers, sordid schemers
march along to unseen meters
in tv-mirrors, silhouettes of scorn
scrying shadows,
while wanderers hear whispers in the wood,
the will of the wisps be done,
their sway: spring dictum, supple thrum.

Riparian relics
bound by the shape of the mouth,
by the mud’s slow tongue, thick with sleep,
slow and low, in slick relief.
Those Bronze Age horns at the bottom of the lake
rise to meet the mouths of ancient men,
not ghosts, but keepers of earth and oath.

Macha’s mouth resounds
with some scheduled tumult.
The earth bunches up, belts it out
through teeth of stone,
shadows lapping ley lines
toward the depths of what we know.

Earth rubbing tongue against teeth,
the friction of beginnings, the fire and relief.
Migrations as earth fricatives,
liquids lush as the forest’s tongue,
the wheel spoke
a song older than speech,
an alignment of stone and sun:

By thorn and thunder,
by rose and roan,
rise now, creatures, rise and go!
On selkie and sylph,
On fey and faun!
The watchers at the gate relent,
The hinges open toward the dawn.

Medical Sonnet #9

art by Ana Muñoz

Oh, insolent body! An organ, a glitch:
blood’s sinuous music, an old folk art
delivering sweetness like a side bitch.
An unction that no other could impart,
But wisdom rides ye wary of thirst traps!
Ye may submit to urgency below
And reap wounds unhealed by salve or wrap.
Ay, sugar-blinded, ye will lug in tow
a thorough arsenal of drink and pain.
Crease thy page in the book of dignity
though, in troth, thy body may abstain—
its last nerves fading like ancient filigree.
Prithee, take the remedy sent from dog above
And remember, weary pilgrim, there ys always more to love.

repulsion

repulsion

is a
natural
force

two      magnets
won’t make out;

instead they do that
handshake fake-out


a glib ellipse
a slick oblivion

a refusal you can feel
a pregnant equilibrium

an offering
of opposition

promising,
through negation,

precision

(what
we think

we’re not)

gives us an edge

but
two         poles
oppose
each        other
because
they are
alike

repulsion

is
 a lookout
point

from which to troll
the parts of us we wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole

I was born without a boundary
and so I've made a moat
to keep the dragons close to me
while I go out and float

hypnotist

I dreamed of a hypnotist who could stop a heart
he turned the volunteer away from us;
if love or warmth filled her eyes,
her heart would keep beating
he whispered in her ear and
thumped her on the back
when she came to,
she said it hurt
I clutched her
in a big hug
to fill her
back
up

Contortionist

a woman will fit anywhere

bend over backwards,
conform to any margin

slim as a pencil
tucked behind your ear

or a ribbon on your lapel

slim as the silence
between your words

can of worms

if you are anything like me

you are sometimes afraid 

of what is on the inside

but without oxygen
this can of worms 

would surely die

if play our lives backwards

the bright swan between us rises,
a falling star in reverse,
low tide of our shining origin
exposing the trash and treasure
between where we stand and stood
the moon slow-talks its blank verse
makes us repeat it back:
blink and long, the stretch of the sand
how the sea licks your name
licks it from the earth, the damp relief,
the mouth of it

You Can't Put That in There

When I was 37, my partner came into the room with a handful of sticks. He had pulled them out of the garbage disposal. “You can’t put that in there,” he said. He thought it was I who had done it, rather than my 8-year-old. 

When I was 8, I was alone in the house and the phone rang. A man started asking me questions. Questions that made me feel uncomfortable. I thought it was my dad’s friend Ken, who ended up in prison. Maybe it was. He asked, “Would you like it if I licked your toes?” I laughed politely. “How about if I put my tongue in your pussy?” 

You can’t put that in there.

When I was 16, my brother’s friend Jeff came into my room while I slept. He laid on top of me and forced his tongue into my mouth. I fought him for several minutes. I fought him with my body. I fought him for my body. I said no. I said stop.

You can’t put that in there. 

My partner thought I had put the sticks in the garbage disposal. What would and would not go down? How big could the sticks be? I cut some flower stems and put them in. A couple hours later, the machinery stopped working. I told my partner that the garbage disposal was broken. I had a puzzled look on my face. He took it apart and then brought me the flower stems he’d found inside. “I think it’s from these,” he said. 

You can’t put that in there.

When I was 24 and working at Home Depot, my coworker Angelo asked me to go out. I went out with him on New Year’s Eve. He made us drinks. He pulled down his Murphy bed, and kissed me there. I wanted to leave, but he wouldn’t let me. He got on top of me. He removed my pants. He raped me. I said no and Angelo raped me. I said no. 

You can’t put that in there.

Ken. Jeff. Angelo.

I said no.

And I would feel guilty if I said their last names. 

You can’t put that in there.

two
drops
of nectar joining

I go down on bones and stars and stones
I call down the dead and bring them to bed
I lay down with gods and beggars and frauds I go down in history like any good mystery

colonizer

we are colonizers

cannonballs
shot across the water
projectiles of pain

crashed out past
our own keening

who but desperation 

would pursue such
disruption

we come from
nowhere

we come from fire

we come from night

we drink the sea
as it pours
down
our
faces

This is your love poem.

It can’t get any worse, 

so we might as well be in love.

I hold you like language, gravity, sleep— 

the things that hold me back.

untitled 13

Standardize your child. Primer: Neat rows of square desks forsake the circle. (Passive-voice) lines are drawn between math and language, art and science, music and movement. Math is a living, breathing, moving mass of color, sound, and light. Find the stained glass window to the temple deep in your meaning. You will recognize it by the shape of your gaping mouth.

Correlate anything with everything. Forge philosophy in a fire, not in the upper stratosphere of academic ash. Fuck meatless metaphysics. Look infinity in the face. Take the gut-punch. Take its air in your lungs. Bellow into the depths and befriend worthy echoes. Pound for pound, this is smithery. We step over the homeless woman dying on the sidewalk.

Justice is the gavel in my heart, pounding when I see myself in the mirror of you. Register the demons to become human. Justice rests on our convictions. Parole the margins.

Let's count the things we know. 1. We are whole. 2. There is no land, so let's stop flapping our wings. Let's freefall through the winds of change. 3. Not a muttered shrug, but a diamond-eyed revelation: I don’t know.

Where the head reigns without the heart, walk out the door. Only read philosophy that holds up from the curb of a crackhouse. Wear an amulet against what? Be a selfless sieve, so ghosts drift through. Ante up. Be the paradox of taking ownership of no property: I have nothing, and I stake a claim on it. 

Pedestals make parallax. Evolution does not imply upward mobility or improvement. If you don’t build a tower, you can’t fall from it. We forecast our own future in the turnstile of oppression. Prescription: A sprig of thistle. A fervent blip from the vagrant who spouts deep, unbidden truth. Forge with your hammer a cradle that holds the old woman you will never step over again.

Poet, heal thyself! Form with your tongue a remedy. Every pronouncement, a decree. Your body will still become ash. Cremation is a cure. Until then, we break in fragrant throes, the scent of truth hot on our hands.

we are evidence of old magic
bodies are an ancient language
some of us are still alive
we are endurance artists

the brightest are the darkest
rainbows are broken light too
the oracles are convulsing
the dead are near

even the saints are fucked up
certainty is rooted in terror
some lies are honest
we are what we deny

we are enchanted pain
small tragedies are easier to grieve
black magic is self-harm
all of these are spells

we are the only animals who think there’s something better
we are fighting the sky
we are forbidden books that must be read in the night
we are fugitive clouds, destined to rain

Medical Sonnet #8

art by René Milot

Hear ye, humble followers: my image shall be held on high! 
Neglect hath shrunk my heart, a weight 
that moors us to the blackest sea, while I apply 
a golden gilt that fashions an alluring bait.
Depth of sight I haveth not, and thus I do collect
façades that shineth hugely brighte;
my biggest mirror is a wall, unfairest
since I needeth not to contemplate nor self-reflect.
I grant to ye my gravity from such tremendous heights.
What’s slick as oil causes falls, embarrassed
from the tower’s suite
(no room for anyone but me, for I, of course, am self-replete).
Revolve 'round me like I'm the sonne! I’m just as full of gas—
I lighte the way by leading with my egocentric ass.

sky and sea

the sky is meant to lie against the sea

every night line between them disappears

the sea is always wet for the sky

the sky is covered in signs

the sea sobs its ecstasies

the sky beholds it all

the sea conceives of everything

the sky withholds its beholding

the sea spills over the lip of its cup

the sky reads the remnants

the sea comes in long lines

the sky opens like legs

the sea is prone to lunacy

the sky is over the moon

the sea is always pregnant

the sky delivers us all

the sea spits out all glittering things

the sky inhales your last breath

Medical Sonnet #7

In winter’s hoar, thy absence leaves me chilled
with fitful feelings tugging at my breast.
Uneasy, restless, desperate to be filled,
A breathless, longing woe: I must redress.
Spring wakes me from below, and insects stir.
A thousand spiders hang upon their thread,
While I dangle from the open sky, in turn,
by a solitary sigh of whispered dread.
Now the grasses blow in summer’s seething,
A gasping roused and kindled by the night.
Yes, summer is a time of heavy breathing,
Yet something also keeps it very light.
Autumn does a strip-tease, leaves are falling.
Desperation suits me not, I’m on my knees.
I beg for inspiration; now I’m crawling,
While waiting to exhale without a wheeze.

___
art by Miles Aldridge