Nurturers

wise sister beat the meat
so mother could suckle babes

swift
in purpose and promise of readied meals

she followed snake's vertebrae 

tender as ghost

and this our host 

baked into thunder rolls

stricken-ed she says 

that snake out on the counter

was beaten and cold

aware of everything 

around her.

and they came then

-- licking up the salt --

all those squirmy peaches

with their tongues perched 

to dissolve 

behind sister's knees with pleads 

while mother has upon her chest

pinned to the sofa's arm

two like fly to paper

warm and busy

scales drift off the counter

flutter-wobble 

to the young

to the flexors beneath

tugging at the tail and 

gristle in their teeth

tethered there to sister

twitch 

 with teasing agony

every clobby thud 

serenading their

tiny peachy ears

but their little peaching wails

carry not to the one 

up on the counter

who flakes now

swollen now

exposed

she's gone                        

and feeding herself now, 

 on her maker's

salty toes

idol

grazing ,    I 

met with yeshua

 met with yeshua, rich

in dusty leather

and full mouth

I met with yeshua on 

oil sands

and wilting grasses 

I met with yeshua and he told me 

nothing

and I was glad

,    for 

nothing does not lie 

and I 

still linger like seaweed and heather

on the tongue when breathed

and! 

my beloved survived

that breath

safely,

between harp

strings.

On putting to sleep

stolen wet glimpse
stoned as quiver his
readied, rendered
berried, aim, lips

hinting touch sequence
berried, aim, lips

fasten sinking blips
such small turbulence
took his glimpse
whirling glimpse
sole expense

the way the front of my memory
and the back of my realization
                                    kiss
is wet,
 like a slow jelly
and ripples with no break
in its gloss

and color
there is more
friendly and vibrant
as sound and time slow to
a stroll, a coo-ing
             a silence

Takemitsu searched
for the sound worthy
to confront silence
and I think it might be
a baby's cry,
though I have never
heard avalanches,
have I?

And I wonder where,
in this pleasant wetness,
permeates the well
of sorrow and grief and
longing and

    have we wanted a what to want
    or a some special thing?


 washing
   whisper
                                  cries
                              carolling
               calm
              weight
                       

      humm   a-ways   aloft
   

awake.

New Mexico

Primordial purity 

a just beacon

hoping to hook on 

fevered battle.

one-eyed dog 

cheers meaning

out of Crimean 

embassies 

Library retch, 

fastidious ties bled 

shapes

before the spectral. 

Gasping body entire 

wither 

with leafing prism

this language. 

Remove my eye dark,

gaping.  

Entrain wood grove 

and tree ring 

to your holy 

mountain viewing

pleasure. 

Enchanted corpses

drag rotted feet, 

tread putrescence

in dewey wake

in silver cobbed shadow

foreground of maiden sky, 

hovering. 

Is this haunt or hollowed bless? 

Gorge.

                                 Church.

Cleansing with every shadow,

baptismal sun wading belief.

Land empathy 

hydrate involved intermediaries

Green rush, green rush lost gush

Hilly ridge, starry back bone. 

Blessed syllables middle 

these convictions

down the Rio Grande

to loving impasse 

and bridge of emergence.

Scramble next over rail. 

Black sensitive blossom rest

where Jesus killed himself too.

Scare and smash and skull

 in solidarity opens 

between the goated ghost of 

far banks and warmed 

green water lines. Pools. 

Who wouldn't, of all the places, 

groove their existence along this crack

shatter and spill, here. 

Here, of incessant irrevocable reverence. 

Here, where certain objects predetermine 

their ghosts. 

Here, where Emmanuel prays to God to Gorge 

for a better headache. 

Once,

a little blue and red person 

screamed I was her 

imposter. 

I cannot contrive this. 

And when I wept, it was not 

for poets

it was for me

for me, who begs stranger 

to cut away the serpent 

I haven't listened 

the serpent with flattened 

head that flops 

with more alleged anxiety 

than I 

because I 

can use tears and splash 

through them when 

new men come knocking, 

visiting monuments 

other than 

themselves. 

I come to you hungry

bent from watching

my hands and feet 

roam about, making. 

I crackle toward you

grinning and rickety.

You see I am you

but you want you  

for your own.

You want credit for your 

agony, and you want me

to go home. You want

to protect this road 

from the demon 

in my simper.

in my simper.  

SONOR

I am on your memory

alone, upon it, as ever 

you were 

and now, perhaps 

we'll be as salt-lick 

as moon-milk 

as axis-bloom 

as monsoon.

What soft curtain breathing 

swell, dissonant

overhead/ballons 

crescendo.

I am livid for your

gracious apparent swoon

dorn my -ish

fasten art and lore 

to my thigh side and 

call it history 

call it anything

call it juice, let it run

but taste its fall

as words fall from me

to be consumed by the 

shapelessness that 

laid them in persimmon

and breathed  

them, held them 

in clay 

and cobble.  

suffer me, stutter, 

and stay your tongue.

ripple, love young.

as green storm 

pour, drizzle

in my cheek, cricket wing

that well-been sung,

my darling, 

portentous lung. 

Shrine

Lately, 

I've been a harlot, 

talking reason to 

hallways of gold paint 

and monkey statues. 

I am reserved among sirens

and clumsy with petals

in my bitterness. 

Long hair, cuffed pants. 

Short hair, thigh highs. 

    He sells pot,
    I'm a road slut. 

I want to impress on you 

my studded infancy

til your earlobes bruise 

and tearfully 

you turn to me, parched

and needing more,

Family is for watching my

things when I have to poop. 

Community is for assigning roles

to feed each other. 

Music is for proposing answers 

to unasked quesitons. 

God is for hovering, unsure. 

  Mom doubts us. 

    Dad condemns. 

Children: all of us,

awaiting the perfect opportunity. 

our mouths half-open

allowing slack, convictions 

slide in and out 

of the corners
of our lips. 

We haven't yet learned to 

clench while we watch. 

With these figure heads, I'll spend 

my whole life waiting on patience

to settle in. I'll waste this page 

and the last and each

to follow, scratching off all the reasons 

I don't deserve to wield ink. 

For Margo, Demented:

   Patterns and fiskers and A/C dialers
and bible study and medications and
skin cream for those bags under her

eyes. She wants to see my breasts, 

just the nipples. She wants to compare
tummy sizes and thighs. She wants
to teach me about make-up and
pubic hair. She wants me to grow
up ugly, but agreeable. She relishes

my quirky nature in public at 

family outings to the boat ramp

shrimp basket and wonders why

my bikini is still on the rack. She 

wants me to believe in the god that 

gave her implants. She wants me to 

pronounce it Tray-SHOOR and sing 

her Celine Dion before bed. She wants

a kiss on my mouth as it wails 

"I Surrender" on the home video

retirement fund infomercial. She 

wants release, respect. She wants

submission to her mischief, and 

more family outings. 

    She wants to claw my 

scalp and the curve of my back 

skin with french-manicure. She wants 

me to like it. She wants to highlight 

my hair, and change my clothes. 

She wants to bathe me and feel me

squeeze her wrist between every 

part of me. She wants to pinch 

my first zit, adjust my first bra, 

holster my first weapons and put

the fear of my husband in my 

mouth with hand soap and wooden 

spoons. She wants to blow my 

nose when she cries. She wants to 

hold my hand when she 

laughs. She wants me to drive. She 

tells me men crave a 

vanilla-scented

young lady 

who knows

her body

time 

and place mats. 

She tells me dinosaurs never existed. 

Sonnet for Miss Ghetto Meadow Landry

  enjoy       thesong

      that cardinal woman screams:

   AAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhPART! 

        Leave  

                  }this place{ 

                                    Ended!   

                                       

        - get!  - cunt!             

     OHHHHhhhhhh

                - h h she
            wanted w a r m
 squish breast / give bless this flying
                          reminisce. 

She wanted beloved
She wanted          be lost
She wants a virgin sequitur 

         She    d e l v e .

three Shes, fours, bared, we
rrroTT them god hands. 

w e    a r t   u n c l e a n l y . 

If we laugh

If we laugh 

we say we 

know our settings

better than 

the likes of those

who snivel 

out/with proud 

sorrow entire 

this end 

of life known

as I and you.

As I and you 

sit perplexed 

and bemused

   there are wars

   and negations

   and other people

   with better jokes.

As I and you 

run our tongues

over the old hare lip

of comedy and critique,

    I and you 

    forfeit the secrets of mayhem

    for algebra

systematically 

agreeing that x 

computes neater 

than skin and terror. 

Reconcile

want to say is trying.

wish is bar the path.

care is trapping blister winds.

call forth is taking back.

(Untitled)

The wanting more of needing less of

counting seasons of wading chest

fluids and viscous broth, this

redundant bloom and receding loss

this vacuum in my skull this

lilac this lie. Silent, ingratiating reply

   forgiveness. 

forgive me, I am in

Some days I know nothing outside

myself because I haven't the 

words to dispel the fumes

from my own mouth. 

I exhaust my crouch 

til I'm somewhere else, beneath 

the bedrock. I love her. 

Rembrantian -Ina

Some sky-scraping shedevil, she leaves

me and I her pitfall

shall crumble into lechery

as a stoned carcass 

    at dawn

as a mutt curls up, as the 

winding of     her bun.  

      - Ina 

I swallow another pill 

and it bunches up as the 

proverbial lump in her

proverbial slope 

on the proverbial green of 

the nouveau riche and their idols, 

slick in faux leather head clutches

Drug rushes fantasy 

out of the trafficked doorway

into the night air, fresh wind, 

crowded patio

and a romantic emptied corner

where two might escape to 

view stars

and the itch quits

each to laugh at respective quip; 

shape-shift under precious heat;

excuse the rust, paint over pearly 

labor with 

extensive muster.

"Bring me to sleep

push me to come closer

bribe me to stay awake"

All this for you 

and you say I'm praying

the gap closed of your knees 

and of your hair I daren't speak

lest my words cut it short

and bake it underneath 

our starry pretense

limping now to balcony's edge.

Come now, darling

my sweetness, my creep

my crookery and wanting

You, my desire, are near complete, 

surprising muse, draw near your 

ghost of precisely.

Some entry point arose about 

an hour ago and you, my scythe

unzipped it before its do-er

could be un-readied. 

You are insidious, my love. 

Come now, 

into her

exquisite peril. 

( )

I no longer wish; I only move to warming moments

scuttle in the claw of my wiry webs -- they should break

have broken by now

I've built troughs I now must fill

with salt water before the tower collapses

What is this citadel I am under? 

What is it I await?

What is this effect I desire? 

I should be curling

into a nothing of awakened satisfaction 

or else

a something of pitted mountain

this will not do

this will not do 

I was beautiful Wednesday. 

I was confused and frightened, 

Thursday morning. 

By Thursday afternoon, 

I was beaten. 

I was soft and faking it, Friday. 

Here I am Saturday evening, 

Here I am a shadow-wait

Here I am I am able I can make 

of this like the others before me 

here I am here I am here I am 

like nothing you've ever seen

a shadow-wait.

a beamer.

Long Brick Tunnel (for Pearl St. Mall)

in vapid hands she rung her toiling back

back familiar and I covered under shades 

turned down that cool voicing that splayed

my thoughts along cave walls

or a long brick tunnel. 

Those tendrils 

he calls fingers

rummaging around in the burned haywire

singe-ing up the end of that cylinder, that

lightning twice afraid and too cylindrical 

to hit. Arounding coil splat spew light

through a paper cut cardinally burned, 

burned on the fringe, 

burned out and inch left and spring

up into that long brick tunnel. 

This dance on leveling dimensions, 

this sonneto, this doesn't leaving limps on 

toward that burned be    on     ends and 

jump, lick latex to spend eternal odds 

roving over new corners in the same

summer-old long brick tunnel. 

The Washtub Remembers

I'm figuring and the washtub

remembers these dreams I've 

tried to make new again. 

The bathhouse wastebasket is always

the last to get taken out,

and is it because this room 

is where we come to know 

ourselves as the least of it all? 

- The spigot our eternal father

- The drain his ghostly consort

And us, slick as babes,

remembering with heavy liddeds

that which we have not seen:

{

       No, the day has not burned

       innocence to a scab, which 

       now sloughs off

       to a damned somewhere. 

  for I am clean.
       No, I did not smoke in excess

  for I am new.

       I have not traded my goals

       for a scrub brush.

       I am not obsessive

   I am washed without sin.

       I am not disappointed in this skin.

                                                                }

and in this place we look down 

and see that we are greying 

over our bones,

becoming sagged

with each accountable shed

crisp becoming.

and pouring to steam

or to canal

we are thinning. 

we cannot flush our dreams 

with slice by vigorous slice.

they do not bleed by pummice stones

and they will not drown. 

Sonnet for the Un-Wanderer

I've wuntered away all blue eyed bales of hay 

and returned with a jacket of crosses. 

Upon this good sight a flat pool abides 

by a tune of thicket and locket. 

Libation to reach and good faith beseech 

the moon and her ineffable springs 

to come sprawling right near a sweetheart so dear 

and teach her of permanent things. 

I've messed with the moon. I've messed with my head 

and I'm done with the cars and the men. 

I'm having fun now. I'm taking my bow 

til she tells me to get up again. 

Not a gap in the tide, 

not a moment too soon, 

Comes the call to face up 

and stand on the moon. 

Upon Eating an Apple During Invocation Class

Muse says chomp. 
    do so carelessly, 
    Tribute. 

The real voice of the revolution
   is that of the dead. 

Incantation

my sickness:
beneath lousy market squares
   my tomb:

   upon stems and leaves

   resting like teeth

my resounding:

in the bellow 

in the hill to burn

       to burn

          and die
burning

oh, make me flame, 

ash, cinder, dust

oh, make me forgotten
and if you must
heal me
make me
numb.
    

make me numb
to music
that my knees
not buckle and sway

numb to lovers 

who'll not kill me

responding to split & stay

numb to worship

that I dream not 

of distant day

numb even to your hands

when you finally steal me away. 

Wildfire

From a distance,
she calls her brother 

  manic.
                  Right-hand man
           in a yellow hat
         stitching twine saches
            like he planned it.

     hard hunk of cowboy
 across the comedy
        trash-hauling off
     some chihuahua's
         fragranced clichees
         for the boys

         to peddle on 

     shedding Amazon,

all the while these

ridges burn and 

she is calling. 

be-

During certain days, 

all other given days

line up between

their frames

in some way that

has all been here

before. 

the cogging lingers

it thanks you

and this nostalgia 

bears no weight

holds no crown

but dapples its trot

where worlds 

entertain 

coffee at night. 

Come back yesterday (w/ Ian Herman)

Come back yesterday

and dance upon my rage

here, tomorrow.

having seen yours as mine

as wine

bloodied by sun

squeezed by heel and dirt

and finely made drunk on dissolution.

Come back yesterday, 

My Clearest Poison, and 

may I drink you again. 

and again 

in blue-throated ecstasy

as you were ever

there, making the nectar so sweet

for tomorrow. 

My Dearest Elixir, tomorrow

               is mad.

And if I swallow you then, 

I surely will drown-in.

In the inward emptiness of I 

      full in We

filling as tides pale

the fringes

fill, polarize

silt from froth, 

from fiction and I, 

I cannot

        breathe. 

   Embraced by Life's wane --

rising, eternal -- awaiting crashed wave

               crested. 

I have been arrested 

in your toss-back

this gasp, drenches, 

My Sieving Drink, 

held by heaving heart's cup,

Drunk in rhythm

to rebirth's song

My wretched chalice

trembling

for your ambrosium. 

Dear Diary,

I don't have it figured out. 

I am immature. I like the heaviness 

of my boobs. I still shy at the term

tits. I'd like to feel another woman's 

tits. I'd like to compare. I'd like, 

I want to lie side-by-side naked

with a woman and laugh and 

say "look, you look like me" Discover 

ourself in each other's form for the 

first time. 

When I walk, I look at my 

surroundings, am drunk by my 

surroundings. Walking with is the 

most intimate encounter. We do not

promenade. We walk. Discover, race, 

share. 

Though stillwater flies'

droning chorus goldens each pitstop

succulently, we move. We brush, 

we press, we flex flesh, we break and 

grasp and clutch and gasp. we swollwe

yollwe yum we young yum we 

barrel and we bone and we elbow 

punt bold apart no stones thrown and

we punch space between we glom we

unhooked unarm.