Friday, May 07, 2010

Promontories

Prayer Approaching Nothing

When a promontory falls . . .
mum. da.
I am fearfully,
fearfully propelled towared my own isolated inevitables.

like an appendage whose use I’ve lost, a tail cropped,
banded and dropped, fragments . . . not of life only . . .
but even segments of my own True Self, killed off . . .
and what? I do not know. And so I pray. Whole-heartedly.
Consume me, and, amen.

Jellicle Songs For Jellicle Cats

Cats, Old Cats


My cat, Frances, is nearing twenty, which is very old for a cat.

She must sleep twenty-three out of twenty-four hours each day.

The one left-over hour she dedicates to being fed and being loved.

Oh how lovely . . . to be a very old cat!

Saturday, May 01, 2010

some kinda sing havin' to do with the in-b'tween spaces

Between, and Out, and You

There is this murky world:
all blacks and whites and
overlapping blues,
none of which feels
forced.

The love you do not feel.
It’s all too stark. It’s hard.

In this world I am a kite,
slicing in and out of clouds,
slung between ecstasy and fear,
strung between joy and despair,
tethered to a world of apathy and tears,
a world I'd gladly leave behind for sky.

But they're all One World in the End.

And so I set my self to write a poem,
a poem that flies without a string,
once and for all, after all these years,
salt, seed, cloud, rain,
and me cut free.

I used to be able to describe in detail the tissue-thin
roach eggs lying in a corner of the hot apartment, black and
brown babies emerging, their shit-seeds found
in unexpected spaces, between white pages stained with
the small brown remnants,
baseboard lined with boric,
glasses filled with cheap rum
despair--

When I grew up I moved out,
tried to leave that house behind,
all its dissipations,
I gave up drinking cheap liquor
started drinking wine instead.
Between cutting ties and burning bridges
I'd barely time to think, to drink.

Then to find,
beyond the blush of wine,
You, and the open sky.