Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Appellation

Struggle for the word, the just right word
you would stamp on me
on my forehead spine bottom of my foot
on me.
I try them on, try them all, see if I can wear them
these words
these words you use to name me
to name us,
if there is an us,
a concept that makes my mouth dry, my tongue stick in its place
unable to speak any words now at all.
So so precise because choosing the wrong word
or even
the not-quite-right word, the less-than-perfect word
would be, for me, an excuse for tears.
Try them on, discard, try again,
prefix hats and ending shoes, adjective bracelets and adverb hair ribbons.
And slowly, slink a piece of silk satin over my hips,
my calloused hands pull it up,
settle it on my shoulders, smooth it on my torso, zip it up.
This word I will wear as a shield buttress gossamer nightrail

future.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Robyn translates...

odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

i hate and i love. you ask me to explain, but i cannot, it is beyond my words. i am thrown against walls and battered. i am taken to heaven and exaulted. i do not understand this, this madness. i cannot understand, but i feel, oh god i feel and my insides are pulled out and eaten by dragons.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

What Kind of 3 a.m. am I?

Waken, sudden shock.
Reach for the phone to call you
fingers cannot dial.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Tazo Haiku

He drinks my tea, hot
not iced, when I am not there
to feel me inside.

Tony's Shirt

There is a small tear in his shirt,
right at the shoulder where the thread broke
or perhaps missed
and I itch to fix it.

That tear/rip/open seam fills me with lust
two inches of flesh exposed when he moves his arm
to sign another manuscript.
The arch of his neck reminds me of you
as I listen to his voice but never hear the words,
staring at the pulse at the base of that thin neck.

His glasses, hanging there, pull his shirt askew,
reveal one or two freckles and
I wonder if his wife kisses those freckles
as I kiss yours. I wonder.

Monday, June 2, 2008

It is the lark. No. It is the nightingale.

Low tocsin cry
it is the train-or perhaps, a tugboat.
It blows, I never heard it blow like that,
blow so much, so slow can't tell what it's from,
echo of an echo of an echo.
Blow across the top of a half-filled Abita,
punctuated by the cackle of dying trees.
I stop to listen, parched.
It stops me here, between the in and exhale.

Look up. You can hear it, you can.
In the sometime, you will hear it
you own faint whistle pitched to you, only to you.
That tinkling bell,
sudden chime of broken glass which comes before?
Is it a warning?

The cry will fade, when you cannot make it go away.
It is out there and you will stop
and listen.
You will.
When it's time.
When it's time.

Safety is Leaving the Nest

Is it safe to swim here?
Is it safe from biting fish, quacking ducks, hungry gators and ferocious sharks?
Is it safe to swim here?
And if it is, why would I want to?

Quiet enough to hear the noise.
Never heard bird call before
and I know birders. I know people who fly
all over the world to hear the birds.
"See! Can’t you hear that?" they say
Its clear as a bell to them, the individual twips and chit-chits and oh god the poo-ries
and the leekas-leekas-leekas. I hear nothing. It all sounds like so much white noise tweets.

But a quiet inside lets me pull apart the strands,
unweave this fine fabric of car tires on asphalt, snapping branches,
wind shifting my hair, voices across the lake, all the way across the lake
I unweave this blanket until
I hear the too-wits,
alligator ripples
sudden plash! of a branch dropping
ripples go clear across
I follow them with my eyes, envious. Will I cause ripples?

The low bird, this archeopteryx, sits there staring.
Eye to eye, it dares me to say the word
to say one word.
I don’t.
I know I will lose this match
and that is okay.
Its not a win/lose situation, not really,
It is a dialogue, for as long as it is.

It is blending again
No, not blending, not even reweaving
It is a bloody pastiche,
the individual pieces next to one another
louder, attracting attention