I'd match a mirror to this face
but I've been searching for a place
they call identity.
I'll show you
what I find
when I come to understand the workings of my own mind
but
I need to figure out
how I can be looking out
and in
from me

And I'm not sure I know
and if all of it's hidden
in fingers and toes
or if a mind
is stuck
in a brain
behind eyes
or filling spaces beyond the skies
now
and
of course I have to ask
when I die
will there be an I
that still breathes
and beats
some
rhythm
heart or no
and calls it me?

watermelon stories

you know that sound when you cut into a watermelon, but only cut the rind, and then break apart the halves and the flesh cracks juicily
and you know it's gonna be good?
and then you see the bright red dotted with flat black ovals
all the way down to the hard green and white rind and there's only a little pink
and you watch while grandpa cuts a sailboat and you can't wait for yours?
well, right now I feel like the first bite.

watermelon stories--it's all about the slurp

some great folk philosopher/grandad
said
that watermelon is best eaten off the rind
red juices
dribbling down chins
hands sticky
nose wet
elbows wet
and he said it takes someone
proper
to cut it up
poke out the seeds
(so you can't spit 'em!)
fork and knife and napkin it
and realize how bland it really is
and prefer cantaloupe.

winter

this thing in me
is
grey ice puddles
pale sky
if you listened,
my soul would sound like wind
my veins pump white rivers
my heart beats silent
dormant
cold

if I jumped off this dock
plunged into icy water
surfaced
let it run in
frigid rivulets
from my hair
down my cheeks off my chin

if I hid my shoulders underwater
dipped my face in
shivered
skin tingling
I think I would feel as naked as I am
under this sky
in this universe

dreamer

you are a whisper i thought i heard
you are a dream and i'm awake
but i have not forgotten
you held my hand
i touched your hair
silky
black

your skin i think
i ran my fingers across

bronze smooth

i felt your lips on mine
soft red
then you opened a door in the wall and walked out

don't go, i said
you looked back and smiled
and passed on through
I hope you are real
i sleep so i can find you.

thank this earth for mortal cages

Thank this earth for mortal cages
because I'm already lost
and floating
and can't bear to think
how I would fall up too without all this gravity
and all my carnal baggage that
can't keep my feet on the ground.
and if there is a forever part of me,
some everliving essence
of my psyche
I'd like to find it first
before they set it free (if this
wide
smaller round place isn't already limbo)
And if there is some pure unbiased holy planner of bigger plans,
I'd like to say now
that if mine's a joke
I don't get it.

december morning

december morning.
I liked how the words flowed together
like the thin, cool light,
pale blue.
I imagined the frost
on grass,
white ice puddles--
no romantic dew;
no rosey hopes
just the crisp,
frigid air--and you.
I thought of dim sky
early gray-white
and water,
still,
or faintly rippled like a dream
blurring
before it clears away.
I can feel where night pressed
chilly fingers;
night mists'
white tendrils
curl back
to dips and shadows
and breath condenses
like a memory,
pale and cold,
of something gone.
december morning,
blue, blue...
yellow sun up,
melted,
warm, replaced,
forgotten.

something meaningful

love,
life,
lovelife
family,
friend,
family friend
hm....something meaningful
soul,
purpose,
sole purpose
understanding
i want something meaningful

meaningful things,
they have a warm glow,
like firelight
not hard shiny
red car paint
because I want things that keep
my core warm, bright,
that stay with me when i walk away

breathing

I don't need a god to make my prayers meaningful
I pray inward
and out
to fill the empty spaces
with a calmer silence.

"1(a ..." (e. e. cummings)

loneliness
has shown me
the emptiness
of a single soul

i am a leaf
(no tree)
i am a
drop of rain
caught
in the limbo of a photograph

the very quietness aches
of a profound loss of something
I cannot know
except
as a faint echo of need

(never?)

Until spring
I am winter forever.

I was flowing
in time
until you
dropped like a pebble
in my
mirror of the sky.
Your face, your name, your voice
plunked
away the stillness.

Ah, your touch!
Your fingerprints
are
ripples
on my heart--
my soul has
circles
spreading out.

I had a dream that I could fly
I showed you, soared around the yard, flapping arms like wings,
I pointed up into the sky
wind in my hair, joyful mind
then down beside you
did you see? I asked, knowing you did--
I'd felt your glowing eyes
No, you said. I saw you walk
expression bored
the floor dissapeared, and i floated up
gravity pulling me the wrong way
towards clouds
I reached at tree tops
grasped at telephone poles, trying to climb up to the ground
the wind blew me over houses
and you stood, feet on the ground, eyes beside you
talking the other way.

"But you could explain better than that?" the kid in me said.

It's so hard to explain, and no on understands so why can't I write like I say it and I can know, (what) I mean, because the better I say it aloud the more el-oh-quent-ly I'm missunderstood (or/and the words believed better, but worse) thought-through for the wrong reasons, so 'll just blurt it choppy (in the only [out of] order it makes sense in).

Do you want to know what I think?
I think that
trees
fish horses
you
me
are gods and demons
and that we pray aloud

oh, earthly father, sister, mother,
may we hear us
oh, that we may grant ourselves.

wisdom tree,
old as wisdom
and wise as old
will you show me?
I have not the patience to grow
sure and strong and slow
wisdom tree,
will you show me?
I have no roots in this place
I have a stranger's heart, and a stranger face.

counting seconds

time
has been
thinning like honey in hot water
running by
slipping by.

but
here in the waiting room
it has slowed
to the consistency of cheese
lumping by.

I am glad now for the minutes of forever
almost frozen
in white walls,
grey and purple carpet.

count your blessings, someone says
but I've been counting seconds.

I think this, remembering (when I had seen so few,
days were long, summers endless.) a time
like
luke-warm mollases

voices

smooth, slow
but not too slow
skimming along

in conversations.

and I,
weaving between legs in a forrest

of relatives.

I remember
chicken on the grill, squares of charcoal,

I forgot to freeze
the flames that lapped
at food, and twilight, night
slipped in
and darkend the rooms
and sky
and outside air.
the porch light turned on, yellow. bright.
my tongue
felt the blackened skin

and corn on the cob

I savored it, and time glug, glugged by like

barbeque sauce

I remember
abuelo,
daisy,
muchos tios,
mis tias
tia maria
tia juana
tias. muchas tias.
I remember
Daddy blended in
like one choclate in a bowl of candy
spanish rolling off his tounge
in a lovely jumble
and I remember Mommy faintly, nervous
(hiding in the little kitchen behind a stove of pots)
bella, they said
rubia
linda, touching her vanilla face, her blond hair
when she came out.

count your blessings, a nurse says
(has she been talking?)
but I've been counting seconds.

read me aloud

read me aloud.
I am a peice of paper, world,
read me aloud.
my
blue and black
inked
innocence
was smooth and proud;
you bruised
a poem
on my face,
now I have word and sound.
read me aloud.

Windows and Water and Wind

Windows and water and wind.

It is a world of phantom things,
like gods and hope.

and all my senses grope

the falling leaves
and graspable things

(windows and water and wind)

for
love and soul
and demons all.

Windows and water and wind.

Bubbles

Tomorrow is a bubble
that bursts when caught
and all the goals
and dreams I've ever sought,
weightless,
iridescent
and unsound,
puddle
in my palm when found.

a poem for fall

i stood beneath a tree
in autumn,

its fallen leaves
strewn
at crooked roots
like a golden cloak dropped slowly,
slipped sensuously
from grey-black boughs like careless shoulders
down, down
to rest at toes and ankles
half exposed
in mossy earth.

I'd never seen a naked thing so proud