Plums are Not Possums

A Dance

2010-01-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Hello Rain,

My shaking knees

will join your many footed song.

For all around I hear the echoes,

see morning’s gleam across the window—
a screen set in front of me.

With blips and bleeps and splashed up soot,

the ebb and flow of cloud and sky

reminds me of a feeling felt, an unblocked glowing surge of self.

But steeped behind the splattered glass,

where thoughts are dread and fear is met,

there on the ground where I once sat,

no thoughts can come.

No thought will come

but the slow, antagonizing call

of the wish-washed thought that begat it all.

For there is no proof, none to be found,

in sky, in sea, beneath the ground.

That gathering storms and burdened clouds

will change by their proximity.

Oh join me, join me, join me now

where wetted thoughts make whispers free,

and Let Rain’s fountain gather round

your hoard of unwashed misery.

Even now,

Cloud comes round,

with whitish face and still grey thoughts.

He heaves his sighs against the ground,

His foot can waltz a soul around.

And slowly, you will hear the call

of rain and man and shaking knees.

And find the world’s been left behind

the dance that happens in the trees.

A Poem is coming, A Poem is Coming!

2010-01-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, a new poem is coming! I finally have had almost enough time to settle and therefore almost enough time to write again and therefore a new poem will be here in a few days.

A note about absence

2009-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have withheld from writing for quite some time now. It is awful, I know. I've been trying to arrange my life and figure out what things to keep and what to throw away.

Anyhow, after much consideration, I am going to continue to write. So expect soon, to actually have more posts up here. I don't like boring you all.

Ignorance...

2009-08-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

is a precious but abundant commodity.

Ghosts in the Graveyard

2009-07-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

This is a song/poem I have been thinking about, but haven't started to write. Here are my words as they streamed from out somewhere between my mind and my throat.

There are Ghosts in the Graveyard and they're rattling bones,
casting their curses out across the unknown.
An old man in a white shirt walks up to you
hands you his phone and says
“Do you know which way you are headed?”

Meanwhile the meaningful progressives are all gathering in shacks
talking about how the white man needs to learn to relax.
And gathering together a great collection of facts
as their elbows turn to dust amongst the cobwebs.

Bob Dylan’s whispering love songs in the presidential ear
In the revolutionary ballroom, Elton John calls someone queer.
The audience all turns away and trembles in fear
thinking that poor man he is so delightful.

The wise children cling to their newspaper scripts,
translate the verses onto their lips.
Develop the notion that they are now equipped
and well rounded and concerned and free thinking.

a free man runs to some master and says, come enslave me
the master turns his head and says you are no property.
So the free man throws on shackles and beats himself to sleep.
Says to live as I want is my desire.

And the papers roll on and the time wheel turns
the sun passes through the sky
the whole city burns
to rise again tomorrow
to see if it will learn
or will it circle circle circle on forever.

Morning Prayer

2009-06-22T23:44:00.001-07:00

For the green leaves that greet me,
for my lungs and the air that they embrace,
for the man whose rake combs the earth's shaggy head,
for the ocean's unending crash,

but most for the mornings that I wake early enough
to see each new day truly new,
I thank You.

He Dreams of Brake Drums and Gears

2009-06-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

The sky sits
watching as stars tick
threaded lines through fabric.

Somewhere in Botswana,
an old man is sleeping simply,
dreaming of brake drums and gears.

His knees scratch the bedpost
hard as cement,
fingers ache
from the turning and proding
of engines and rods.

He floats within himself.
Drifting through diesel,
he dreams of standing
before a car,
"What sound is it making when it stops?"

There, in his dream,
he is finding and mending
the beautiful machine
His fingers twitch without pain.
He smiles in the warmth of his labor.

If In Waking You Find Yourself Lie

2009-05-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

Among the grey stones
sing your praise
statuesque and proud to have

arms held high
but not upheld
see sincere
sincerely see.

My Life as a Deer

2009-05-28T01:15:00.001-07:00

I have eight point antlers and am almost certain that, were we to buck,
then your little sprigs might shatter all across the wilderness,
but what goodness would I feel,
having left you bald beneath the maples.

But what if my untried antlers turn upon themselves
like an old man's back or a politician's words (and I am a bit of both)?
What if I wake up to read the news and find myself already lost?

I will wait here by the pond, you know the place, and you also.
I will confess, it is easy for me, the one who waits and knows, that
whichever way the world is settled,
my crown will be waiting at your feet.

The Flower

2009-05-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Those troublesome leaves are at it again;
there they are outside my window.
I hear them rustle and taunt
me as I sit

screened in by screens;
have you seen my face these days?
It is a woolly companion
whose music has chimed and changed—
repeating lines about loss and hope
and goodness in life
that springs from itself like a flowering seed.

What is it that flowers do?
Grow from within to without—
pushing through dirt and grain
to cool, blue peace.

But this old seed is rattling along.
Its hardness fermenting fragile life
and, with the weakness found,
searching to find which direction
will lead to sky
and which to sea.

There, beneath the ground,
shaking beneath footsteps,
the world is amplified;
the seed nestles in.

In My Room

2009-05-13T12:49:00.001-07:00

The air is dry. Stale,
I lay on the floor
staring up
and waiting for a cloud to form.

The cracked earth shifts
around my arms—
the beggar’s hand
pleading.

Rain comes.
It pools and trickles;
it seeps through the cracks
and I am left faceless,
clean.

Friendship is...

2009-05-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

remembering a time when everyone was younger
and not minding so much
that back then, he "accidentally"
stole the chipped chain necklace
that you kept hidden in your room.

It's staring down into the eyes of
the idiot who just lifted you up by the crotch like a forklift
and thinking
someday this will be funny.

It's sucking up pain and letting it flow
under a shower in a far too public bathroom
where you are never certain if your clothes or towel
will still be there when you're finished
and laughing in the fear that you may soon
shamefully walk naked down the hall towards your safety
only to find your bedroom door locked.

It's quiet words and wise silences
that were purchased by chance
and forged into lives.

It's again sitting together,
casting our words out into the ocean,
as grace falls
like a slinky
down old and dusty stairs.

Self Portrait

2009-04-28T00:52:00.000-07:00

I've decided that at this pivotal part of my life, graduating from college, looking ahead to what's next, pursuing options and keeping my eyes open for other doors along the way that it would be good/therapeutic/informative to do a self-portrait. I started tonight. So far it is charcoal on plywood, I plan on eventually adding some oil.

I'm learning about responsibility

2009-04-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

slowly.

Woman

2009-04-26T23:18:00.001-07:00

Make Me a Sandwich.