thoughts from 28 Sept 2009

Before the true heat of summer comes rushing at my North Carolina home, I thought I'd take a second to look back at how appreciative I was at the breaking of a long, hot, summer:

Cool breeze, cool day, take away the heat of this summer's journey.

Chill the coals burning for something else,

something not here.

Let the wind blow and take with it

the foul stink of sweat and tears
spilled from too many days

of hate and despair. 

Make my air move.

Make me leave this state of mind.

Take with you, sweet cool air, my stagnant destitution

and days and nights of asking.

Cool breeze, cool day, awaken these sleepy hot senses

made dead by the exhaustion

of breathing thick air in and thick air out.

Lungs, breathe deep today. 

Inhale,

all the way down,

fill up with good ice.

Take this fire out.

Sweep away with the fallen leaves and dead grasses

my hot hot heart and leave me

refreshed.  Alive.  

Awake and ready to go another season long

in this body and mind,

and soul,

that was thought surely defeated

by the long hot summer behind.

one day in class

What?  We are not scholars?
This is almost pointless.  who will know?

to whom!?

Most days sitting and chatter
or other things, maybe too
but mostly
just sitting. and chatter.
I'm not even listening to you.
Your voice is nothing.
or rather, something, maybe too
but mostly I'm just
sitting here, not listening
to you
or anything you say

"Pointless?"
yes, it is.
but still.
I'm sitting here.
Not Listening.

thoughts from chinois

In preparing to write the big China paper, I found this stuck in my poetry book. Oddly enough, it rests between two poems "To Send Far Away" and "Out Drinking on Dragon Mountain".  I can't tell if I was ready to come home or dreading it.

Foot first,
then, as legs fold,
fall back.
Back into brown grass,
red clay,
dead ground Uwharrie.
Sweet Stanly burnt Earth.
This, too, shall pass.

more esoteric bullshit.

Two whispers: 

it starts slow and cold

chills that begin with the neck

and work down the arms,

to the knees

and to the feet.

Quickly, but on looking back

each raised hair is a memory,

one by one Pronouncing, 

"I am here" and "you

remember me",

"you can be who you wanted to be,

you can be what you thought."

Acid is what makes the days go so leniently by

lacking purpose

lacking will

But spirit like two whispers

reminds the deep corners that it is possible

to find yourself

inside yourself.

It is possible

to live without fear,

to go out into the world with

hands at sides

instead of covering eyes.

“I cannot paint what then I was”

but I can,

and such remembrance causes synapse to fire:

Emotion in direction,

Emotion in motion.

I cannot paint what now I am:

misdirected,

but not lost,

off track and kilter,

unbalanced.

My name is spelled correctly:

  I am not.

Coffee cakes crumbles,

sour milk...

yesterday thoughts.

Then sighs and ah,

airflow humming those

sweet whispers in my ears,

delicate and strange,

begging to be heard,

to listen to,

to be listened to.

There is music where there

was none.

There is beauty where there

was None.

So we

sit

in the middle,

like a child waiting anxiously to grow up,

not knowing how, really, or even understanding,

but somehow sensing the ebb and flow

of good air in and out

of lungs, good blood running hot and feverish,

the precognition of who will

emerge when transformation

is finally complete,

but never whole;

only half can ever come to reason.

Life is on and on and on.

So then, shall I be with you?

And you with me?

Spirit sweet like whispers creeping slow

in my ear,

Processing

Processions.

Spirit calling softly, then so loud and thunderous like a thousand voices all clammering to be righted and returned to the place where even wild man dreams make pure sense.

Somewhere inside the spark insists upon growing,

brighter,

Louder,

"I can be who I am supposed to be."

paper writing is hard.

What road makes me travel on so far can’t be so long.

I’d be damned to bend and break before the destination,

but these knees support only so much

and this weight has grown too heavy

to bare much more.

The cool air refreshed a moment too short.

Hot lungs seek one last reprieve, a heave and sigh;

we’ll never make it.

I peep a head higher just to glance what makes it’s way.

The blow diverges this skull, brain open for decision.

Deep breaths make this soul less weary.

What can I bring to show my worth but my own pen?

These inks display skill of form, Skill of Nothing.

We take organization and make it god.

I feel too weak to disobey.

Insert header here proves stifling, stiff, and gory on my paper.

No lines, I asked. 8^1/2x11 is poetry.

splatted

nothing is working nothing is working

there are no words here and really never were

we can’t find them anymore

shes taken them and hidden them away

deep deep

where no one can find them

she wont whisper i love you

she wont say anything

she just sits back

and watches

and laughs

wont let us out this time

stuck inside forced to eat what she does

fathom what comes

what evil she does when she is

loosed

the serf

we are crazy in here and we do not know the way out

she wont let us go

toes curl up on the vine

fat and purple little grapes smash

and juice

under the pressure this will pop too

if one hand would reach up to the light

then fingers could go on working what they will

but then again

the memory of choking seems so sweet

burning hair

penny taste of blood

lick those fat lips this wicked tastes so fancy

silver hot and tender to the touch

Silky black like toasted Brains. Make me whole you sick fucking beast.

sweet jonny

sweet jonny

or, dear boy; but lost

favorite son of Prince Stanly

of proudest men in his

big blackwool over coat

qouth the mourningdove:

“don’t forget to keep your chest warm”

High Shine: shoes with

buttons out not

on top

like, when we were kids

and thy grand est old oak

(deciduous forest green and brown like earth and like lust)

couldn’t, wouldn’t

shake us from

That Knowledge

right. and then

there always, is wrong