Category: love

i dream of possibilities

in atmosphere

if cessation of air then
if balloon i can hold it maybe
if i can carry it over
if you catch (if you see me)
if in what happens after that i may remember (that point)
if what pierced was the inlet of air (and not skin)
if remember
if i ask you will you (try please)
if to prevent this you may (show me)
if i am breaking and fear (to remember how)
if whether an alternative (or what?) ever was
if can be helped
if this breaks everything open in the end
if asking you where does that leave me or us standing
if to this question one answer is back to the floating again
if dizzy just remembering that vertigo and
if terrified to go so far and high so fast
if needing help at altitude will there be any or only the snipers again
if alone losing air at that distance will there be others
if so and we burst at those heights will it matter
if skins gone
if breathing
if not something
if i knew i could explain at lower elevations
if i go i need to tell you i have tried before
if i go i need to tell you i am scared
if i go listen i could not speak before of this fright it had more dimensions but
if language would allow i would have shared with others i saw shaking too but
if this is time for turning to another, calling hold
if i or you should try
if what is here
if when is now
if_____then, how?
if i am running out of pen

ars moriendi

if it goes like this what now

the week for learning
how it was death
been knocking
on my nerves
was the week for learning
how
now might be
an entry into this
high time
to set some things
down and go
into that long channel
with high archways
of blue-white ice
where a single bird silhouette
flaps waiting, high above
& also you
in that passage
where we can’t take what
with us when we
go

Space lets go

they love their lines, don’t they, love?

they love their lines,
don’t they, love?

like, here body,
there mind &
soul on another
level still but
here’s what i
know, even the
space of no matter
has substance &
pretending some
other way is a runaway
cart horseless after
its fool self while
i the once upon a
river here been
wet and heavy
until a green
scar in scorched
earth & once
no longer moving
find cause
to remember
to weep for
what
mass was
once in me
for carrying
only
to find its
waters
gone come
back to me
Time i am
calling you
now
cross them

current

ache

i wanted to offer once upon you
i wanted to give you time
of which you were always saying
i don’t know where it went
now
there is a city on fire, and
there the burn scar, and
there the wild white sun again
eating the distance between
dream and despair and
it is the smell of you i miss
now
when i leave, afraid you
will wander off, walking
into the flames to see their
dancing because it really
is so much more up close
than what any aerial view
can tell you or high budget
film they miss the terrible
now
grace of those licking tongues
you can only see this when
they are right outside the
window-wall, with only
the glass between you
for now i wanted for you
an hour you could not
lose like your keys
your glasses the moment
we were almost inside
now
i lost it, too, waiting
like come here and
after a certain point
getting out is no longer
an option so you watch
the flames through the
glass knowing that if
it were the glass of another
time it would have shattered
by now but not knowing how
long this new stuff will hold
out

carrier pigeon

re: undelivered message

What I came here for was a thing for the moment. Ancient and entirely present.

Ready? You called, with so much enthusiasm, I thought you understood.

You know? I called back, amazed. Now retrace the original sin.

I do know! you shouted, and Now is the time! I took your slogans for sincerity. That was a long time ago. Now you repeat yourself. Sure, there’s a wolf somewhere, but when?

You don’t know time. We joke that you are it, given the terms of your world. In which you are all but your saving and still the sun. No other imaginable constant, and so not ready when the real one comes.

I am not sure to what extent the joke is mutual, but laughter is a means of survival in transit. Destination? Return to sender, we suppose. I have nowhere else I was planning to go. But here––

Okay, if you want, I say. Be louder. Wear more feathers. I don’t know what you think you are doing with any of that but they say it works somewhere.

Many love it––you constantly remind me, and anyone listening, of this truth. Your sacred red herring.

Go ahead. Offer it up again and again. Confess without words, how you love how they love it, even as they hold the alternative like a knife to your throat.

I don’t want to lead you into a frightening place, you smile. And wink, for the camera, again. Recasting illness as forbidden fruit, infestation as the alluring dragon guarding your treasures, your gilded selves.

What does an old bird say to something like this? With a sigh I assure you, I am not afraid. But for you.

You can lead a horse to water but there’s nothing to do for the one who keeps sending the cart far ahead of himself and away from her banks, to collect.

Okay then, friend. Carry on. It is easy to misread a moment. There is enough here to distract you from presence, and in a moment, I go, to carry back with me an awareness that most of yourselves will never know.

daughter

in the morning dark

only care now.
only open hands
in tremors.

you are still asleep
and I remember.

how

I carried you to the shore
before

you could walk and we
sat there watching. you
collected grains of sand.
between your palms
to feel them.
trembling

and then to the sea
to meet with open hand
her power and know her
press against your own.

the slapping sound,
the open palm,
your laugh––

remember.

Considering Defilement

To sanctify or desecrate.

That meeting space, love, had once been consecrated by our belief in what it was. This is what it means, to sanctify. This power is shared. To make holy. And so, as it turns out, is the reverse. To take the sacred and use it thoughtlessly, out of mind, like any old tool. A resource ready for the taking. Of course, it always is, and any fool may come. But that flame will only continue through active attention. Its desecration is so often a quiet violence. But the effect is total. There you had been, once. Then you were not.

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