world sensation

Our bodies are sensation machines

So let the world flow in, we must.

We must be physical with the world,

engaged in relation, experience ourselves

in relation, orientation, with the insects,

we, as we exist to them, not north not south,

but directed to dirt, here within and without earth.

We must be physical with the world

to really love and know, else we surpress.

Smooshed into cement,

between commerical breaks, 

the delicate detail of life sucked out

and discarded.

we know

"First chance I got, I came here.

Don't want to look hootchie mama."

She announced toward the cashier

but the volume is solely for me.

We are thrift store people and

for pleasure or necessity 

we are claiming goods with auras

of all the past owners. Me, a small trash can,

chirpy canary yellow, circus bear-blazen side.

Her, woman-sized girl shoes, panda print,

and a dress with rebel yell of vivid blossoming neon.

Not far from the tree from which we fell

when I gazed at the silvery minnow streaks

under her navel as her cut-up crop top bellowed 

and her behind pressed cheeks as children to windows,

pressed against shorts, short, as she perched,

bent over, hummingbird ready to dive

into a box of used socks, paired and perfect to pluck,

When I wished for a moment we didn't say sorry.

Sorry, I ate an apple. Sorry, I was hungry.

Sorry, my eyes stare. Sorry, my hands shake.

Let us do the silent mating dance of our foremothers,

heavy movements as darkness shrouded night

and tiger tongues were tight. Stretch out our tails,

our horns, our dreadful beaks, and caress invisible 

Through the air, thick and worn, as our bodies,

not apologizing but experiencing

as rising of lung and breath

each other.

tit for tat

To stop and ponder, I am working this land,

as for millennia man has worked land 

Till the land worked him. 

Same prerogative from the tree to the bee 

to the flowers in pots

selfish genes prolonging inevitable - 

for life finds a way,

But not always.

For God will remember man's hubris,

how we thought ourself more than animal.

We, who thought nails made a house 

more than a twig nest.

We, who saw a symphony 

more than shaking branches and scraping bark.

We, who said wartanks were 

more than mere snail shells.

We are here where since the beginning of thought,

People loved and fought and lived

so will we till the end of thought, 

and decay into the fold

of the dirt we thought we were better than 

and tried to control.

corrugated collander

A land where

folded and bent

is stronger and 

pierced and holey

is protected, secure

and nothing down the line

but flowers and trees.

head house

Today's your birthday

or your day of birth

as you would say.

could be, would be 36

but you're a ghost instead.

You just living in my brain,

hippocampus home with

pituitary porch and all the

sunflowers and dandelions

we can dream up.

summer soothe

Air chilled, smooth glass of water

after a summer walk, sun friend and captor.

Like the ease which flows over body

after the long violent cry, shaking passed.

Gulps of air forgotten and it's laid back,

hammock nap, stars sparkling in the night

pour out the pitchers of glistening quench.

There is safety at home, among sugar cane,

bamboo, breeze which gathers me up and

let's me be free as a open meadow range.

feels real

The feeling when

I see the dimples in your shoulders

and want to build a dollhouse

decorate each little room

smaller and smaller details

drill down to the dust of dolls.

I want to know how you hurt yourself

when you think you deserve punishment

or don't think, just slip into old snake skin

too taunt, too old, corseted hold

stretched thin, tearing skin.

I think about how my fingers have bled

near constant since I teethed and could

gnaw and rip and chew myself, never heal

just fresh on fresh, new on new, 

till the grand pattern is chronically old.