Adam's Dream

My rib plucked in a deep sleep

sleek and smooth it flew

into a rib rest, I didn't even feel

when it left. This rib found real

life, life from my side

life from my mind

I could have lived a lifetime 

grinding through the government 

of all creation, a perfect habitation

where everything is up 

every heart in love not luck, from above

a hidden world pouring through me, be

everything as it should

a creation made of good

the little creation that could 

do anything beautiful in a Holy Hand's Span

a plan that was not yet as good as it should

when night by night I awake

moonlight on my single face

lift my eyes and look

to the tree, the beast, the sea

yet find no hands, no heart, no eyes

sized to my infinite appetite 

I was bound (into this book)

to be broken, bones

borrowed not stolen.

God said, "if in seven days

you're not heart satisfied

mystified, open-eyed in heart song

take a long draw of her

and get blown up by a heart bomb,

you can have your old bones back

cold, with interest." But I

woke up in a belly laugh (God's 

scalpel, sawing, sewing is like tickling,

the way bubbles burst) half was me

half was to see and she shall be

called, "out of me"

it's not fifty-fifty

or split in any capacity

but I am all here very much

as much as she is in me (being)

and is all here in me

around me, through me

A Bone Song of Songs 

born to belong, blood-

born out of my side (blood

cannot hide but through my heart

a lovetide) tug tug touching

new world words

in a many watered Voice

that makes a way, worn

erosion, a hidden voice explosion

in my heart, it's very good to start

heartsing her a bomb song 

on the fortune of one flesh

the creation of one quest

a bone blessed bidding to belong.

Bring her to me

and out of my sleep

I wake in two,

a shared love supremacy

a reality of consummate co-rule.

Creation Day

Out of the van window

parallel yellow lines weave

and then break into dashes

blinking on and off

like numbers on an alarm clock

snooze

the shush of tires

snooze

the swoosh swoosh of oncoming cars

snooze again

the conversation in the van echoes

like voices coming through tin cans connected by a string

then I'm awake in the midst

of the steep timbered slopes

rock outcroppings jut up

like still frames of waves

about to break

their sheer, corrugated faces

hang brown and gold and green

with moss and patches of gray rock

that sparkle in the afternoon sunfire,

hang like movie screens

with the sunset projected in true color.

I am here, in this hillside

in this sunset watching myself

on a living screen

the double doors of my eyes

swing wide and color comes rushing in

and in and in, a gold-red river

pouring through my irises

resizing trees-trunks breaches and leaves-

their bodies hands and speech 

(to have and to hold) I hear

everything has always been speaking to me

(in sickness and in health)

a language of living hues

(for richer or poorer)

inscribing on my eyes

(for better...) 

a creation story ('til death...)

can't part, death can't understand

death's clumsy hands

fumbling through thousands of tree voices

thundering over the hills

their words to the whole happily unhidden world

I am these hills, these trees, these voices

and (I do)

I walk through myself

Life as a Drill

Life as a drill

feel, his sea foam body

electric motor whirs

a galaxy of gears gliding

in a cool concrete universe.

All the years of calloused hands–shaking

his cast iron arm,

fingers with grit-grime lines nails

and tears in the tales

tears saved up in pails.

I hear these two pail pals spill

all over each other

sharing about how it would have been

educated

emancipated.

If it wasn't for the emasculation proclamation

from a freedom-falling-short generation

who like their breasts blackened, like their brains

combusting their babies in the arms of idols

those red hot trails trying to extinguish eternity

in beautiful little hands and feet

blossoming wildflower white and yellow

in a spring green-time meadow

full of bright

full of bring time.

Mama T says “Having too many meadows

is like having too many flowers.”

which she thinks is impossible

but you made your meadows pass through the fire

in your twisted ice world.

Stolen crystal and winter

every living river under ice guard.

It's an ice capade parade parade in pretend warmth.

You say it's spring

but I'm wondering why you have so many layers

and blue lips too cold to kiss

or pray or play.

Let me touch your tongue

and into your mouth

into your mouth of mouths

where the deepest deeds are sung or undone

let me see into your heart

into the something that's there still formless and void

and darkness over it's deep

let me hover over the surface of your dreams

and steam up your atmosphere with a–yes–lion kiss

and streams and streams and springs of light

the brand new

you you you and me–finally

let there be sight

let there be longing for light, listen

if you have hears, you've been in a winter without wonder

under a “cursed is the sound of your song”

that belongs to thistles and the bonds

of a pail generation

brim full

of tears and years and years of terrified eyes

plucked out and plucked out

until it's all just blind and broken

trying to keep warm in your wounds

wound up in your drill press

or hiding behind your excess

until your cistern was all sea foam.

Did you hear that sea tone in your voice?

The sound of waves trying to atone

for your sea sickness gurgling up in you mouth

I expected a shout

but there was only the sound

of a carbide bit burning it's way through a bolt hole

And ME

on hold

on your sea phone. I've been trying to tell you

it's steam time.

Let me well into your waters

and boil them with my lips and red red kiss and tongue

to lick open things that can't be undone

yes you must become

like one of these meadows

for I AM the Spring from heaven

oh tongues, our time has come, come

come everyone

and drink

my green, spring love.

*Inspired by a drill press at Coava Coffee Roasters in Portland with Cully Natalie and Heather.

Amelia Forget-Me-Not

 

The silhouette of your smoke

was so fine to behold

the way it filled your eyes

with the embers of your heart

burning like a funeral pyre

flames lick up the drops I knew

you were shut up in the cellar

rows and rows of bottled beauty

waiting to be uncorked

the corkscrew buried in a dark drawer

I got lost

my smoke-filled eyes gazing 

at your full smoke face

a whole world's smoke in you,
a lava flow of eyes

cascading through your wilderness with fire

and fires on all cylinders an engine

you can't control the lava lanes

with your fire dance

I dance all night

just for you, darling

don't forget me

when your smoke rolls out over the Pacific

and you feel her whitecaps 

grabbing at the hem of your skirt

don't forget me when voices trail off and on

through your radio, your heart

beat beating off our dial

don't forget me when that smoke 

of adventure suddenly clears 

and the sneer of control

casts a long silent look upon you

remember, darling, we are here

on the shore dreaming

oh Amelia dear

I waited and strained

over the Pacific tonight 

trying to make your fair smoke

out of the clouds that appeared.

I heard the hum of your engines

saw your sparkling chrome body

the exaltation of flashbulbs, champagne 

we will toast to everything lost at sea

to freedom

to love

to hell

to air

*Inspired by the movie "Amelia" 2008 with Richard Gere and Hilary Swank.

Confessions

Dear, move those fig leaves

in front of your eyes, I've been

soaking my soul in Epsom salt all night

but the damn thing is still infected–

open sores oozing personality

that's so sweet, confectioners cream treatment,

“problem must be in the soil,

only thing constant is the run off rains

that reduced me to one rich inch

slathered over rocky clay,” chocolate frosting

on a perfectly prepared pan cake.

Happy Birthday everyone

celebrate with a slice

and a candle that won't light

make a safe wish

so good to see you

don't worry about staining the furniture

it's impossible

wrapped in plastic

even the future is tired

watching all these broken pots

pour their insides down hillsides

into the silt choked beds of rivers

that keep running into our quadruple bypass retirements

plaque-for-plaque

and the pressure purses her lips

and hips and trips me up

tips me over and pours me out

God, I've been so afraid–

trying to fill sandbags with collectors spoons

and social security. 

The best thing to do when you're bored

is sleep. In my dreams I'm a man,

in my dreams. Darling I'm sorry,

this whole time I've been trying

to love you with two minds

or two hemispheres, whichever came first

but how can it be fall and spring at the same time

let's get on a plane and fly to wherever

it's always summer and I'll never

always have to stand up for anything finally

safe from safety hiding arm-in-arm

alone, make a wish

take a bite,

then blow.

Picture of Great Grandmother

Worn canvas shoes faded by miles

of sunmiles and gravelly light.

An earthdressed photon travels

from the sun and back

as she walks in time for home

dinner from the grocery store.

Tectonic plates subduct

under her each step as quietly

faint clouds of dust kick up

around her lower calf, up

secrets flow from the soles of her feet

swirl in the eddies of her eyes.

I sit on the shore

of this river photograph,

lay on my side in the rivergrass,

as a somewhere supernova

gathers intimate planets

in a final sunrise.