honesty is best revised
the flash of wit rewritten
never you hear never
say what’s on your mind
(February 21, 2015)
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the soft ooze
by
to speak as I desiretrue to my knowingsshatters like icedecorum’s scarabtight sarcophagusthese multiplequick linesof dissectionsharply throughmy carapaceslowly openthe soft oozeof truth to thosewilling to viewmy unsettled life(February 20, 2015) -
invoke the day
by
the repeated phrase said againthe repeated phrase to beginthe completed phrase grows withinthe completed phrase said againspin again begin within againthen turn and turn then turn once morea pattern forms upon the flooreach step we take leads to a doorwhich frees us from a life abhorredso spin until we are no more(February 20, 2015) -
What I Like About Writing
What I like about writing, either poetry or the essay, is that I don’t have to make sense. The writing makes sense on its own. The writing begins to make sense as I write, more as an impressionistic whole, a tone, a leit-motif if you will, which takes over the poem, or the essay. I remember watching a program on PBS about birth. When the millions of sperm finally end their race to the egg, as soon as one sperm comes in contact with the egg, the egg is transformed into an impenetrable barrier that all the loser sperm cannot breach. I see the same transformation happen as I write. I have one sentence down, which makes me think of another, and that second sentence then collapses all the other possible pathways the first sentence could have engendered, while simultaneously opening a myriad of new rabbit holes down which I can fall. Writing like this is exciting. As I progress, re-reading as I go, or rather as I become lost, I start to see that I am not lost. One can never be lost if one does not know where one is going, I guess. There is not a straight linear progress, but it still has a form, more like the orgasmic organic transformations of the earth as the tectonic plates grind into one another, where the musings, thoughts of the writer reflexively bend back and out, an Escher-like reflowing; connections made where none were seen, imagistic moves, themed turns, poetic leaps down the trail of thought: Art. -
talking with you
by
“Language is a skin. I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My Language trembles with desire.”-Roland Bartheswith trembling tonguewhich would ticklealong your skinif it couldI speak to youyet again pretendingyou listen somewhereto my mumbled wishalthough what I perceiveas your answers return slowand often more ambiguousthan my words to youI caress each syllableas if they were your lipssilently singing to the nighta slow responsive yesI read into your wordsmy desires as if our intentswere more entwinedthan mere happenstancewhere beyond these linesbeyond these idle musingsI could hold you morethan a brief parting embrace(February 18, 2015) -
Time and Place
So, howallowhere now?When then?Then again,here’s when.Where we’re‘ere there?We’re here.Alwaysa wayin a day.(February 16, 2015) -
insomnia
Any movement in dream wakes;tussled sleep and misery nestlelike cats unto my chest kneadingthe tissue near the heart searchingfor what scraps of love remain.(February 15, 2015) -
love’s ramble
by
“I choose to drift”– roland barthesI walk to the sideaskew to my directiona de-centered shuffledrifting along its edgetoo often I snarllike knots in threadindecipherablein my large handsto be understoodto stitch my tongueto the patchworkwords I speak to yourequires time to pauseits unrelenting desireand unfold the obviouslike now in a dull mirrorreflection unloosenstime’s razored focuslacerating the edgesalong my peripheryas each moment slursa stumbled lurchan aphasia betweenwhat I want to say -
translate the past
by
“the fulfilled lover has no need to write”-Roland Barthesnot a want but a needlike air or waterthe drive to writeto spell oneselfinto the bookto conjure eachtick mark upona page to accountthe sum of whatcould be extantbeyond memorywhich is itselfa desirefor the occultof what wasforgottenin the wordswe spoketo each otherthat last day(February 12, 2015) -
which gestures which words
“most of my injuries came from stereotypes”-Roland Barthesher easy conversation formeda trope he became enamored ofwhich transcended her absenceinto auras like pockets he couldplace bits of string and pebblesphrases she said a tilt of her headsmall fetishes for his reliquarywithout consequence beyondspaces to occupy his anxietythe troubled suppositions of what ifcascading in avalanches of dreadabout him until he became lostin the quandaries of meaningembedded within which gestureswhich words she might have said(February 11, 2015) -
words
by
I go to books now for solaceand some indication of place“you problemitize everything”a peer in grad school saidI wondered how other’s suretyarrived to them so casuallythis is the way things areor the vile it is what it isas if clarity could be achievedthrough such obtuse phrasesso I return to my booksparsing out some nuancehoping within a poet’s clauseI will stumble upon a clueand I’ll find the right wordto make it all cohereand I’ll find the right wordto say to you(February 10, 2015) -
Still Life with Figures
“Now, absence can exist only as a consequence of the other: it is the other who leaves, it is I who remain.”– – Roland BarthesA set stage opensprovision to quick changes,poses without postures.Within each moment’sa tableaux: any movement,like time, but a coincidence.As a pause before entering,he leans in the door way,studied in his nonchalance.Intrigued, his gaze holds her;she looks towards him,bemused, but unresponsive.Not quite the melodramatichand to the foreheadlanguishing back into a pillowon an overstuffed settee,yet – – her spirit persists,to which he still responds.The theater’s barren.Near the stage edge,he listens distantly,surprised by an echo:was that him, or her,he hears before turning away?The stage is empty;he’s the audience now.She is not present,except as absence.He’s always there;she never was.(February 9, 2015) -
the task at hand
to speak honestly without fearto slough off misunderstandingsto take a hammer to one’s beliefslike a statue’s plaster casts shatteredacross the sculptor’s studio floorto be a broom to this disasterto refuse the language that’s offeredto stand naked in the stormto scream one’s name backto change the sounds around usand any one else who daresto define us in their wordsthat is the task of the poetto exculpate the shreds of languageand make them whole again(February 7, 2015)
subtext 