in my garage
In my garage are these pieces
I take with me from house to house
My mother's gliding rocker
against which she'd thrown her head back, laughing at Seinfeld
falling to pieces like she eventually did
the cushions long gone, stuffing lost
like the breasts they cut from her
screws come loose, and an armrest missing
a broken frame, my fragile mother
It sits and nobody sits on it
My grandmother's wedding gown
petite and ivory silk on a virgin
the lace too yellowed to recover
as were the whites of her eyes
some buttons absent, having protested against my adolescent body
hung and exposed in its thin plastic sheath
surely going the way of her body in whatever she is buried
Don't remember when it fit me, or when I last sat in her lap
Skis the color of a winter cloud
heaving with snow
adorned by cornflower swirls that circled turns with grace
dulling and scratched, accruing damage
as incrementally as did our marriage
stored and out of practice
Inside of them, memories of your patience
Blue felt moving blankets
borrowed from good neighbors who made us laugh in summer
having just wrapped my half of our material life
folded and empty now
I should've put one around me, save the cold brutality of separation
These things
for which I no longer have use
whose plastic and wood and fabric hang on the soul
on a traveler through hell
CLH 2015
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forgiving in yellows
lover, where was that place again,
the apartment
where it always rained
our spirits, wrought the same,
as they swam through dusty twilight,
heady, resting on my nose
in repose i spied
between strands of hair
your long legs, turning on toes
your eyes, electrified,
while you broke time
shrouding windows
that apartment where the light was
forgiving in yellows,
your eyes and mine,
heady, our spirits rose
a slick of consciousness,
river-heavy, they wind
gathering them into my arms
to find only a pile of throws
you laughed about something
in time with the rain
hustlin’
like the light in blue eyes
you murmured something electric
and made space
as you chose
and i thought, how kind
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day 29
dear diary,
i’m trying to stay present. i’m trying to be aware of all the things happening right now. as though i’m suspended in a different point in time with every breath, more than with every breath. each point singular. i’ll never repeat any of these moments. they are distinct. but they are connected. but only focus on right now. like that breeze, or that bird, or that cricket. feel the sun, and now the shade, and then the sun again.
i doubt myself. is the warmth i feel on my face not already 8 minutes old? the starlight millions of years stale? does the pain in my heart come from so deep in my trove of moments? how can i still see it? how can i still feel it?
focus on the right now. and let it slip through my fingers, and concentrate, and let it go, and be nothing but now, and think nothing but now. and forget about the source; just be.
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into the woods
Joel Headley, my lantern-led lover
back seat in a canoe
striking out for health and
good journalism
majestic memoir for health
and all else took a back seat
city pleading
receding
your lantern leading you
deeply into the woods
and rifle and knife
Mr. Headley, your letters
are misleading
good journalism breaks my heart
your memory eternal
and teasing
for good health
I love your words
But mostly I love what they’re about
CLH
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Call and answer poetry. This was the answer.
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spaces
are you as delighted as i am by what grows in the spaces by what blooms in tight places inside of what was expected to be something else where there is death something new and i never allowed for spaces wanted tightness and embraces fill my lungs and no traces yet here i am holding spaces for you
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the answer
carrying in their bodies
the answer of suffering
of death
ambassadors
delivering a message we hadn’t asked for
made no inquiry about
floating in the dirty air
descend to defense
they bring along the answer
and we’ll know it at the last minute
all made clear
when the b o tt o m
s
e t
t
l e
s
and the birds flee
a last time
before it comes, we’ll know
as they circle, perfect
hung thirst driving ours
and they’ll feed us
the answer
the death of the old
in their bodies
in ours
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polyappendage dreams
how ambitious is our Mother
or persistent
see the vine splinter the post
stone walls stupefied by youthful oaks
see a crèche of young mosquitos
softly against invisible matter
a blurry singularity
hovering in unison
recreating in their boundary
the living lung expires; they resume
that the lake should shrink and freeze
that the rain should make it swell anew
how tenacious is the wild to be wild
see a lean, sweaty body taking rest
beneath only invisible stars
see the craggy brow of the wild
ridge against invisible matter
a climax of thoughtfulness
dividing beside stillness
populated by polyappendage dreams
the diaphragm snaps; it barely flinches
go ahead and build, she whispers
so resolute in her vibrations
that shake us all to life, to death.
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In both places
Old trees
So old and wide
So tall their bottoms are pulled away from the ground in their skyward stretch
The shoulders of their roots, and the caverns in their trunks
One opens itself to me
I lie in, rolling on my back
The cavern embraces me
Eyes closed I push back, pretending you and your spaces
And for a moment I’m in your bed, belly down
Your perfect body fitting itself behind mine
Arms on arms
And the water rushes by
In both places
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By the
Rolled over by the waving seedhead
Touched lightly by the breath of June
Made brighter by the light of thousands
I stood beneath a crescent moon
Pulled inward by the spinning giant
Made holy by the sweet festoon
Turned empty by the world around me
I stood beneath a crescent moon
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Repair
My mind assailed my heart,
and my heart beat back my thought.
Nothing could be found
in the fugue of violence brought,
and the tension twixt the two
warped all the progress wrought
from civil, dumb control,
and unnatural patience taught.
Here, then my body bends;
flexibility hope mends.
Yet fear made brittle bones,
so the framework of resolve
was a fragile skeleton
of decisions that would solve
a series of mistakes
that from path hath led me off.
Delicately I would step,
hoping to find sin absolved.
Unhappy trio I did make;
body, mind and heart all break.
The three of us pressed on,
one tormented by the other,
fain to hold the blame,
while the solemn truth we smother.
Yet an angel in my ear
said, “The unrequiting Lover,
the one who made you whole,
has set you all asunder.”
We stopped dancing, weapons drawn,
to take in a newborn dawn.
My mind drew in a breath
as if to focus sharpen,
and a soft’ning of my heart
as if to fine words hearken.
One party in forgiveness
and in brotherhood did mark him,
and thus the two aligned,
a new humble journey starting.
Caught in revolving plight:
that which divided did unite.
In reverent observation
my body found delight,
to witness heart and mind
emerge from chilly, hopeless night,
freshly bound in common goal
having bathed in dawn’s bent light.
I pushed my shoulders back,
the horizon in my sight.
What’s beyond I don’t yet know,
but happy, three of us, we go.
CLH
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72
Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure Love that I
One from the other scarcely can descry,
While each doth blow the fire of my heart,
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part:
Venus is taught with Dian’s wings to fly;
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;
Virtue’s gold now must head my Cupid’s dart.
Service and honor, wonder with delight,
Fear to offend, will worthy to appear,
Care shining in mine eyes, faith in my sprite:
These things are left me by my only dear;
But thou, Desire, because thou wouldst have all,
Now banished art. But yet alas how shall?
Astrophil and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
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at Greenfield Center, New York
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the night is still the night
at least the night is still the night
if i am caught between
the brook racing by the field
building globes
throwing it’s papery rustle from
beyond the trees
and the piano inside
deep and sweetly
pulling at my daughter’s heart
her hands uniting beats and strings
i see the space where it blends
snow become warm by the glow from my windows
and the sky made big by tiny far stars
at least the night is still the night
and the owls beg tales of each other
despite the branches curling with snow
their dark plumage a shock
against squalls that fall like a curtain
bleeding white in the air
before reaching the ground
obscuring everything
all the way down
when the night is still the night
i can make my breath whole again
and round
my dog runs, dark against the ground
sprung like the tension of a baby’s laugh
and i can count on tracks in the snow
seducing his nose
at least
the night is still the night
and my feet slide under covers
as the light surrenders and yawns
i come home to your arms
and my dreams can’t compete
all i need
is my foot against your calf
no matter the day
when the night is still the night
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Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence…
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince (via books-n-quotes)
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woman
today I saw a woman
taking a picture of her own paintings hanging in the Community Art Center. She recently switched to acrylics and hates it. Though as a medium, it is more forgiving than water colors.
today I saw a wedding
in Congress Park, and a crowd gathered around the guests. At first, you could only hear the violinist and see the group’s anticipation. At the third chorus, the bride emerged from behind the garden wall.
today I saw a woman
parallel parking her SUV while another SUV passed. It was full of 20 year old guys who yelled out, “Nice job, asshole!” A line of cars had been growing behind her, and she had short hair and a smile.
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drying up with time
Ideas, bad ones, landed in her mind like spores, charging her faculties with their nursery until they were ripe and ready to explode with consequence. Impulsivity festered inside of her, scratching at the underside of her skin.
She grasped the weapon she’d recently found, the space inside, the movement from then to then. It was heavy and awkward, but when holding it, when attending to time, she found that the spores withered, some drying up entirely.
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