Catechresis

if

she just won’t conflate me

for every truth, mix match

socks, slide from body to

body, from pearl

to wisdom, from whistle

to an empty – cleanliness

make a bear into a man

a cat into a woman

have a marsupial child, say

this may not be an actual

this may not be your hand

i love this maybe

the hand of Moses over the rock

the helping hand of caring

Ngos and girl scouts and Joshua

and Aaron. she may be talking religion

may be talking to me

if

you wish a story

let it be. this palms out

having to give

Tried

for Dorner

–

let’s drop it at the end of a long fight, i tried

a do not disturb sign hung and sliding

off the handle.  it can’t hold a place

in the perpendicular. at the end,  just one man

-

this participle has been through a whirlwind

the toss tumble of the sheets and having been clean

they will never find you innocent just because

they will never find you

-

but jewels have come out like steak: bleeding

little tidbits of the family sad about the fire

the cabin, the car, the rage and the stolen things

including justice in the smoke, and silver linings

-

but they won’t let it rest at ashes, must get at

the single gunshot wound to the head

head bowed with ashes, I fast and root

for openings, a soft point, some little thing

–

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (2013)

The Fact of Blackness

…

but I am pretty

sure where ever there is

trash and impossible

organs whistling out

a long digestive howl

; a bend of machines

and now  fabric tied on

a different limb is all

the rage– where a sweet

ugly comes up out of not

 

“My Stars!,” You Used to Say

It’s been over ten years still sometimes i forget

the shadow passing under the table legs

and the cluster of notebooks is not a cockroach

or monster but a cat.

 

It’s been more than some years still sometimes i forget

the rattle of the heat turning on and begetting

sharp melodies under the blinds is not your voice

not cat, not a monster

Coffee and Storm

In this storm at least one person died in a house fire (and it’s curious because this storm was in the summer, and just a couple of weeks ago, this place caught on fire–the proprietors and customers are all okay).  Another person died by tree accident.  I know it’s not a mass tragedy.  I know it’s blasphemous in some ways to say so–and I am grateful that we want to remember all those children–but it is hard to deal with knowing that as people sat on pins and needles to know just how old were the kids who got shot … there is a silent, unintentional I’m sure, implication–that our mourning seems to expire at a certain age.  That after a certain age your death is not a tragedy, except perhaps to some few who have gone around wanting to know you and love you.

outreach