finding solace in solstace dance in my solitary garden
surrounded by dreams & lightning bugs---

I've met someone.
He brought me a chess board instead of flowers when he showed-up for our first date a month ago--
We are happy to take things slow. It's too good not to take slow, getting to know one another-- walking and playing and telling stories to each other---

soft

sanity returns
clinging to the curtains
that she stole from the windows of my visions
and ran
wrapped in last night
dancing - laughing - beautiful

through

where I could not follow


paralyzed

and drunk
by a tare in my star-scapes
where infinity escaped

to drown me.

She says she's sorry
She always does, nursing my hangovers and burnt eyes

re-draping the curtains
and leaving the room to make breakfast


but her scent

a lesson in itself

lingers in their translucent folds
dancing slow
in the wind
while I sleep

I.

Tell your tales till you're blue in the face.
It won't erase the nightmare play
that stays on your lips
when your quips give way
to contemplation.


II.

Serendipity meets me wherever she sees fit
and I always slug the drinks deep.
She doesn't stay but to crack the cask.

Total the lifetimes --
one great mistake after another
to take, to break, to fake allegiance
to whatever agency suits you best.


III.

pulse beat
a heart beat
a drum beat
conjured neat
from the magnanimous reigns
on cantankerous veins,
blue
with new enigma.


IV.

Spin all the old sins
into some new jacket you wear without shame
because no one knows the name
of the artist
scratched out on the sleeve
where you used to keep your heart.

Generalizations gather: mortar for the bricks
outside your local haunts.

Ancient demons demand the prayers of today’s politicians
and god is with us all
(that means your brother’s killer too).

You stood your ground and forgot former allegiance,
“never mind the reminder of your mother’s mother’s plight” they said,
and you lost your stripes.
One Hundred Years of Solitude crushed in the shoebox
under your bed – only blood will buy their promise of a better life.

-To link you to the collective, you’ve given up how much perspective?-

watch the women
Watching their lives in the cosmetic mirrors

And I
Am not one of them

And the world
Wanders on
Without a wonder
At the frequent
Fearsome
Litanies
Attributed
To secrets
And lovers
And political martyrs

Angelic, we have never been
My countrymen
My comrades

Paradise lost
Refrain regained

Be what you are:
Live.

and the streets were cold----
and they were told----
that's just the way it is----
and we watched the faces for so long----
that they all went blank----
and became our own----
and walking home----
the only real truth there----
lay trapped beneath the tracks of our best intentions----

It's a south-bound train,
and I'm calling you home.

It's a warm spring rain

and I've no less to show
for the fruits of my labors

have curled up in rings


of smoke
and lost ballads
and still, the night sings....

we wander without destination
and we light upon truths that frame
the window that we've shattered
since the door had closed
and we wanted to walk in the garden...

when all the words have been aranged just so, let the page slips out of my hand to burn rather than read again whatever confession spilled quicker than the blood that boiled when my heart found its first affair.

When....


you make friends just to count the steps home
you remember that you talk faster than you walk
you walk faster than you want to
'cause you can't handle the silence

and you light the candles just to watch them burn
and you light people just to watch them burn
and you make the passions just to learn
what they look like when they want you

and you say goodbye
when you mean goodnight
you let the candle burn
rather than turn the light

'cause it's easier than falling asleep in the dark
and you're far too aware of the night
and what's living there that doesn't belong to you
even though you want it to

but you don't want to feed it
or make it grow
you just want to show
that you could have it if you asked



littered with candlelight
fighting out dreary night
and goodnight means goodbye
and goodbye means nothing at all - but dawn

"That free-living, wild
Animals dont stand
In silhouette
Against man-shaped
Backgrounds"
-Thalia Field "Zoo Logic"

_____________________


"Give me, oh earth, pure unmingling
Clay for the jug of tears;
My essence, pour forth the weeping
Which is lost in you here.

In the well-made vessel,
That restraint dissolves itself.
Only the nowhere is evil,
All being suits itself."
-Rainer Maria Rilke (a piece from October, 1924) as published in Rilke on Love & Other Difficulties

___________________


"Whoever named it necking is a poor judge of anatomy."
-Groucho Marx

___________________


"Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

___________________


"We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions -- love, antipathy, charity, or malice -- and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals."
-Milan Kundera

___________________


"We that are true lovers run into strange capers."
-William Shakespeare

Windows allowing for escape prove to have long drops...

tracing steps in the walkways
tracing tears in the mirror
tracing papers covered in beer
tracing quantified time
on the watch of a man who can't stop glancing at it...
"Paranoia? Is it Paranoia?" I ask, smirking, and get a confused face in return. "You keep glancing at your watch, like it's going to tell you something you didn't already know... Like you have to be somewhere. Do you have to be somewhere?" His head shakes side to side. "Because I can drink my coffee all by myself, I'm a big girl these days, Dad." He smiles with his lips pressed together, so that they almost disappear. It's funny, to have known someone long enough that you know what each little expression says, and still hope for something new.

We sit in silence for a minute, watching cars and the couple across the street. They're fighting. I wonder if he thinks about the way he used to fight with Mother when he sees them... I do. Each of us could see the same image, a couple arguing over some little nothing, and not think of each other, but sitting together at a dusty cafe table, drinking over-roasted, crappy coffee, the scene triggers old demons that both of us would rather drown. Receding into our own thoughts, I see just how much like him I can be. It terrifies me. His blue-grey eyes dart again to a slightly tilted wrist.

"You really can go, you know.. It isn't like I have anything important to say. It's just nice to see you." this is a lie. I have a great deal to say, but I mean it, he doesn't have to stay. We both know it, or maybe it's just me... I toy with saying something to provoke a fight, something like: 'hey Dad, remember when you told me I shouldn't come to your wedding?', but can't say it. I'm too glad for the peaceful moment. I choose something else instead which I only see in hind-site as one of those eggshells that I might have otherwise stepped around.

He wants to talk about work, about schooling, finances, anything but what's really hanging in the chasm between us. I don't want to talk about anything anymore, just sit, because we don't understand each other, and I'm tired of trying to bridge the gap. I'd rather sit, and accept that he doesn't know how to know me. I'd rather sip bad coffee in silence than talk about the little things that don't even scrape the surface of our lives. I'd rather watch him check his watch, worried about something, or nothing, than ask him to stop because it makes me feel unimportant, unwanted. So the quiet unites and isolates us, and we let it, because it's nicer to wave across the void than to know the other is gone for good. The sun is warm. We play tic-tac-toe in the table dust.

"Do you want another cup kiddo?"

"Yeah, Dad. Thanks."

This somber topic began with a reply to a friend... but got me started on an old topic again...

Wish I could make it to the Portland Rally… I hope that there’s a good turn out. Every movement needs a zealot, but I worry that in all of these marches across the country there won’t be moderate mediative voices that will make the message accessible and the facts jive for the general populous. I’ve been involved in my share of activism, and I’ve noted that it doesn’t do any good if the group is perceived as “a bunch of radicals”… We’ve got to, always, have our hands out to those who don’t hold our same beliefs, bridging the gap. They won’t do it for us. As activists, it is crucial that we be able to converse in a comprehensive, intelligent and bridge-the-gap tone so that we can really reach out to those who need to be reached… Am I making sense? It’s before my morning caffeine, so maybe I’ll try again later to explain… Unless we can talk to the “other side” or bystanders in a way that reaches them on their wavelength, so to speak, demonstrations are pretty pointless to changing people’s minds. We end up preaching to the choir. (which isn't bad; it's good to show our growing numbers... I just think that there's a lot more good that could be done than shouting rhetoric into a mic, even if it is for peace, which I have done... I believe that showing our numbers is key, but I challenge anyone reading this to really contemplate how we can phrase things in order to actually bring someone new around... )

My thoughts and prayers will be with all who are marching this weekend. I'll be here, doing what I can too.

My friend Stephanie wrote at the end of a recent poem:

“ because some of my friends drive tanks
and some throw rocks at them ”

seductive truffle
cocoa covered confection
yes, I can smell you

________________


salted caramel,
I only kiss my lover
because you did first

________________


you are bad for me
melting in my fantasy
keep me in the dark

Commentary written on the working-man's back promises a rise in the retirement age. Age, which is different than time - Time, which is stronger than watches.. Watches, which bind man to promises, not memory - Memory, which is only electricity - Electricity, which enlivens

and burns.

Tropical storm kisses gather
On the horizon of my brow
Knocking out the power
To electrified gates
Made to keep the sacred cattle in.

Too late for those bleeding
in the barn
The red barn
The blood-red barn

My spirit-sister walks
Through the field
In a shaman’s trance,
A northern warrior’s dance,
Moving her to and fro
Every few paces,
Eyes glued to horizon’s
Blue-green shades
Long kitchen blade
Fresh from slaughter
In her hand.
Bathed in hot blood
And electric blue light
Lightning white
Wisps of hair
Whipped about her face.

…To and fro
Four steps forward and a hop to the left…

Eyes unabated, boiling horizon
Bursts!
Sheets of sky
Slice fenced field
All across the moor.

I can still make out her shape
From the corner of the house
Where I would have taken cover
Had my soul not been ripped
From my body in the barn.

The red barn,
The blood red barn
Now obscured by burning air
And silver sheets of water.
My sister,
My soul,
Stalks
Entranced
Toward the fence
Where wide eyed cows
Who might have looked wild
Had I not seen Her, run.
She spreads her maenad arms wide,
Blade and splintered handle still clutched
In one outstretched hand
Makes no noise
Opens her mouth,
And pointing parted lips Toward blue/black/purple
sky,
Boils the world.

The gutter is broken at this corner of the house
Where I watch –
(Hide?)
Drip.
Drip.
Drip,
Falling on my shoulder now.
(The tap of death’s fingers?)
(Mother waking child from a dream?)
(Just a busted gutter?)
(God?)

Eyes riveted,
Still on
HER,
I look down to see blood
Pass from the roof to my shoulder:
Once – twice and gone again,
Imagined.

This body, still mine,
(My spirit?)
Walking and dancing,
Facing skyward,
Arms outstretched
(Inviting death?
Salvation?)

On a moment’s realization
I see on the blood stained body,
Her body,
The tell tale signs
Of the stricken cattle,
Of her children,
Her husband,
Her right thumb,
Fall away
Into patches of open ground beneath her bare feet.
Her clothes melt away like blood from the blade.

Naked.
New.
Clean.
Undaunted and calm,
She turns to me,
Fashions a belt from young wheat stalks
Sprouting from her steps
Toward my sheltered corner of the house
With the broken gutter.

Slinging the butcher knife into her harvest belt,
She looks into my eyes,
Laughter escapes her lips
Like silk and silver.
My lips part to match the sound in spite of myself,
And it is clear:
My eyes are the masters.
She is the echo.

Ever so much deeper,
And full of saxophone velvet,
In abating rain
And sun spiked fields,
The laugh amplifies,
Is mine and hers,
And then the blade is mine,
On a harvest belt about my hips and battered denim.

And I stand,
Alone,
Soaked in my own soul,
Watching the cattle clip along at the end of the storm,
Listening to my own laugh,
And then only to the sounds of the field
Drinking-in the sky’s passion play,
The bleating of a new calf,
My husband’s humming from the barn:
“Send in the clowns”

Zorba gets the better of me again:
I flail forsaking intention or skill,
dancing the bridge between
happy oblivion
and coming down again
to the lake cottage
where I can see,
in dream-lit backgrounds
the colors of mercury,
my grandfather's laugh,
cracking the cask
of strawberry wine...

After the pallor plays out of his cheeks,
he waits,
face down in the water works of the city
for the one whose eyes he knows he will recognize,
though he’s never seen them before,
except in echoes
of nightfall narcissism
on the faces of strangers.