tree bark

Far along the shore 

falls the Shadow on the stones

The shells and sand 

make The bed that rolls 

in views Across the harbor

Out among the seals

And depth 

this deep water Rig roils the sun

and Splits the beam in

murky aurora.

All this is in view of the trees

All this in sight 

and breath And perch

All this outside 

the walls 

Like a breathing texture Stand, 

elbow to elbow,

Feet to feet, 

skin to breath,

meditative in rest

this arbor feels itself

and fills

a terroir of firmness

an assertive idea 

in defensive repose

a clever clinging field

she touchs and knows

the peel and the sticky 

weakening shale, a floral throw

a chipping river froze

in upward growth

a creaking line that slows down to earth

her hand hurts in sympathy

the tree knows nothing

the bark a river of stories

folded in weather

her smell breaths

her taste leaves

she steps and smoothes

removes her shoes

and adds her toes to the soil.

She never wants to leave this place.

Hamlet'ing

Imagine an equation, whereupon one side

tends the cold and lonely, 

the ashen train of Discontent

from the beginning of time straight to her.

A wind upon them upbraids, unapologetic.

Yet the unassailable arms bend while 

bureaus prepare whole, half, and 

quarter measures, (settling on eighths)

to fit a crimson page. And round the room

the hardon load accelerates and brakes--

Confetti flakes across a field.

A basket of paper, an arm of bread

A leeward lead to history bowed

A melancholy median to ask, but in the

Questions lie a truth:

To take these pieces in or lay them bare?

And further, to draw them to the lips and drink?

The taste of each proffers a bond

which over year and miles has found

the fuse removed, but circuit’s on.

Or..to fold these strips and put them back

On shelves for books and boxes black

With teeth, and coins and silver shells

And tickets spent on evenings gone

And folded maps to places lost

And bits of mortar dry as bone.

Here’s another thought: to let

The chapters form the book.

As each to each and both to one

Play out the drama once begin.

Yes, the tale's not told as is preferred.
it's back from the foundry banked and turned

And grown like a rack of elk

(Either roasting on a campy night

Or raking bark in early eve)

Whichever meaning that you take

Each grows and smokes in rates

visible, a forceful writ to travels

like roasting smoke and rut retrievals

heady sort.

No, let the chapters make a line,

because the nearness (each to each and

Next to last works well) as pieces

Touch in midden-tells and ensconce,

and burn down, and grow up again—

there is a blend that I choose not To rend,

and choose not the face to read here.

It’s because, as the story goes, each

Is led to conceive and lead with less.

But, maybe this is untrue. Or maybe not--
one must ask which direction avails

itself to press-- I'll own to lead the road

when it's mine, and the other glows.

No, ill make no modeled

Trade, no step into the comet’s

Trailing glade—the feast of woven fibers

Can the body of another be so

Safely covered So inexorably drawn

Though a leeward spiral rending sketch—

what must one must draw upon?—I have talked myself into 

a question: Do the objects 

in The well of nova spin a different way

On the other side of the universe?

One week of plans

Let's trade--she says

                One for one,
         I collect them two

Let’s tri a fourth and divide again by

Two.

        A third I say,
                you’ll consider But not today.

        A penchant for food and

                Six glasses of wine

See you in one week.

Horace speaks

   be unimaginable, pirouette–able
lustrous westward
   and, above all, thirsty
whence the salted rim,
   that pacific firmament within,
sedent-sluice in the ranges
   like pancake in ink
and where to no bottom cadence
   debris take is place
sit now, in your learning
   and guide these reflections
of chary figures--the berries
   in their skins--loaned to babies trading 
sticky toes.

stamina

The thread of the warp is

wind winded and

Woven in woman fair folded
and Loosed in roils 

to lull the scent of lemons

to knoll the river rolls

that taste of leather.

Then the earth tremors
the bulb unlocks the frozen bed

and  marshals up a single thread
and up upon the knoll
it grows with muddy hoves and sodden sewn
while far below
the lemon river rolls
and pours into the world below.

succulenting this mole
butter mumbles lumpy
in limps, gesture fed fen
tilly
painted on
ejaculust
melt into
roll hillyfully
bent balls
giddy rigid
have these hands
the doctors hate
heads in aluminum trays
but pay the 5k anyway

eating science

tines tines

rayed open succulented

graded tongue

slurp slidden in

open oystered

encephalo-glib

the gouache terminuous

of body color

belayed and qeuleched closed

in dark.

"again" she giggles.

and again she has it
cupped under waded fix

east barrel broken least

changed, drunk

fern the feast

closed at most

loved

least lived

oldened

crack casted 

opens emptied tides

creature

counted
scienced creature

dried

clayed

glassed

preserves

doctor jellied

microtised, tasted then

given up.

us eating

tines tines
rayed open succulented
graded tongue
slurp slidden in
open oystered
envaginate
encephalo-glib
the gouache terminuous
of body color
belayed and qeuleched closed
in dark.
"again" she giggles.

pooling tides (science)

cupped under waded fix
east barrel broken least

changed, drunk

fern the feast
closed at most

loved
least lived
oldened gived
crack casted heared
opens emptied tides

creature
counted scienced
creature
dried
clayed
glassed
preserves
doctor jellied
microtised, tasted then
given up.

hot sex

waste weaning fact loved
cloth brushes flush living
fast rent beaks brash bowl
leaning wire went
come to me

leavened clitorised
wordened
aloned
cleft love loosed
open bent soothed

oh, my hooved sty
wetted wilted creased
breathed in out overspent
lied

keep this
give to give
take from give
steal from lost
change limbs
metamorphosed

timed tea
a house of bats
buttered flat
fattened rubber
fasting chokes
an pillared illustration
inked
in paper books.

The milk man's new cancer

Drain the lustrous liquid
lid below the ponds of
of rods and cones, the loam
leaves chocolate streaks
in loose arrays.
These are farm cattle,
the fragile bones
selected form in bilious
creeping moth wing wisps
like open flowing water
to malarial pools.
ladies steeping in muck
their hyde a vinyl fur
disappearing like ghosts.

Girl Riding Tricycle

A striving up of old wheels.

A wicker ribbon endless yellow
yields a sickle cycle elbow bone
bent on creases in cement.

Ride like scarecrow

Arms out, wild sent, wind summoned

Like a beast breast
burrowing deeper in dreams. 

burning leaves

Lean in burt like tires

Smoke bakes barn sides bare

Work unshorn, shoes in wet grass

Old leaves a wet nest,

A pudding of decay

Staying pressed.

Stoke the baking slop

The ceiling pushes up

Tipis of smoke

And fossils of burnt

Powder igniting fires

Over the farm shed

While gravity rakes them

Back down again.

hidden in a trunk at night on a train

Loaded on a truck
folded with a tuck
placed in a trunk
listen to the rain

wobble of the crank
banging on the plank
in the middle of the floor
over by the door

here is the bridge

I recognize it

the shimmy in the beam

the banging on the seams

out on the sun
on the bottom of the sea
underneath the dirt
a time to exert

just right for now
a tingle in the brow
the pain in the back
lain on the track

up the hill in snow

as far as I can go

breath out exhaust

move at any cost

Break at the hinge
leverage a winch
weak drifting light
appearing on the right

push up again
cut on the tin
a weak movement out
a tremble then a shout.

cat

That grey cat never was right.
It used to crawl up my pants leg
and to sleep in my
underpants like it had radar.

It could have been the laser pointer
that made it's eyes cross and hiss.
Afterwards it wore a box
like a turtle shell.
It may have been the food.
Watermelon, cherries, ice-cream
whatever it could get it's paws on.
It had preferences.

It may have been the bottle of
whiskey I spilled on it it's back.
"Oh Shit!"
but it didn't seem to mind whiskey.

When I was a boy another boy
told me about jumping
off a counter top and landing on a cat's
back--breaking it.  There was a girl
there who we both crushed for.
He continued that the cat
had "army-crawled" out of the
room and knew that I never wanted to
do that to my cat.
I only spilled bourbon
on mine and later screwed the
girl.

No, put side by side these things
complicate but do not explain the
character.
It was ordinary cat.
Not at all one of the pack.
It was a beast like
all others lost in
the trance of it's own seeking.
It had a rhythmic reptilian gate
oscillating under sable,
peering
beyond the window pane,
ancient with an ear on the
seminal thought
entangled in the ruinous idea
of companionship.

Letter Etched on a Saddle

Stay with me;

with the rain and 

the animals and the fire.

Because what we love

is here and under the knife.

Once unconquerable,

the ribbon

inside reached all the limbs

and was not simply

a land by these rivers.

The water now 

follows a different path;

chosen by obstructions 

upstream.  

It flows without purpose

and sadly empties itself 

out of itself like a old

summer wind.

We have known

this step is the sky and is

fertile to swallow

armies and lovers whole.

This is why we chose this spot.

I will stay and mend the felt;

a promiscuity of twigs and lice

like ash. it

takes sacrifice

to ride 

where we were shaken out

from. Be ready,

be ready, be ready because

it is not enough to busy ourselves.

We must walk 

where all the seasons

grow and desiccate--together.

I know the place.

Let's eat: fermented mare's milk 

vegan spring rolls

horse flesh,

coconut water.

A Day at the Office

The labors screech dull.
Monkeys eat
and pull out their
eye-lashes in supplication.
Beavers turn trees to impaling posts
for mummies to suffocate
though a corky-hole.

Fruit plates, cakes, an army of
the fattened, diabetic, gout ridden
robbed, forgotten.
A new desk lamp.
New task chairs.
Executive laminate.

WAIT A MINUTE.
I have it now--
Let's drink poison
and hold our guts
like totemic Andean children.
Let's die bound by wool
alive for hallucinations in terror.
My gums tighten.
When will I get new office chairs?
Centuries pass.
I am wrapped

alive for death

and yet I understand

the mechanism of

buboes and the oxidative stresses
only because I work until 3pm.

broken plate

Let's look at the broken plate.
It fell from atop the door frame
scraping our children as it fell.
He cried, she didn't understand
the protective eye, the red tail in the
branches of the oak that soaked
an icy day.  My hands froze, we had coffee
on a snow day.

It's probably this way because I smashed it once
in anger.  I blamed you because talking is
easy, thinking is easy, prejudice is easy, feeling
free is hard, being happy is hard, taking things
hard makes it harder.

It's probably this way because I used the wrong glue.
When I tried to piece it together the face still glowed
recognizably below the new yellow lines.
Yet, I liked it better this way and it
seemed normal for us.  What a state for such a bold person--
though she is dead and is broken beyond.

It's probably this way because the materials were not strong enough.
Why use china when non breakable
plates are available? I remember my mother dropping
a bowl on the kitchen floor--she was proud.
It did not break because it was a space-aged invention.
It bounced and roiled
and cried but stood strong to the fall.
My father brooded
and suffered-unbreakable.

Is the figure too bold
a role for such a fragile medium?  Why restrain a tiger
with paper lines.  It must have exploded from within
coincidentally when it hit the wall, like a great gush
of pressurized steam.
Yes, this is it. I believe in and love this explanation.
Does she have the courage to do it again?

The Link: Uncovering our Earliest Ancestor

Just finished this book By Colin Tudge

A study of the fossil "Ida" and her history as the earliest known complete fossil in the pro-simian line.
This create represents a missing link in at the split of the Lemur line and the hominid line.  Lots of
taxonomy in this work, but still fun for the imagination.

On Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.

The book focuses on the rise of the Mongolian Empire with Genghis, raids into eastern Europe and china, and the establishment of Kublai Khan, Genghis' grandson, ans the Yuan Dynasty in China. The book spans the 12^th and 13^th centuries. The innovative brilliance of Genghis on the battlefield is nearly matched by the state-craft of Kublai. On balance, and OK book Short on details about Persian and European military campaigns, rich on details about the consolidation of the Chinese state. This book could have been called “Genghis Khan and the Unification of China.”

Ice

The brook along my
morning ride
is a beast
flayed in shame.

The hide in this dead weather

is rigid under the saddle
of the blue sky.

I can see its cycle of death;
once informal, then glutinous
now found simply.

(I can smell it in heat

somewhere in the weeds
from the truck cabin.

Asphalt, garlic acetylene, the narcotic

zinc oxide lethargy, the Cicada-ian
neuroses.)

But then it will be gone

hidden in the foliage.

Here, I am scandalized
by the ruin
smeared into
the sticks, like a beast
crushed
under wheels.

I would wear the sad thing
across my shoulders

in supple health.

But, no, I am glad to pass
this trap and ravish
organ now
and swing my body,
and expel animal
steam like bison in deep
cold.

wicker

Here is a basket of weight.
You may keep what portion
serves you
or
you may leave the collection
as you found it.

You may also donate these items.

Yet, breaks are rarely available

for the perfunctory.

You may wish to
unpack the basket
(if you can discern breaks in
the dissonance)
or repack it around you
as a kind of fossil.
(what will we find in your stomach?)

If, however, your bulk is extraordinary
you may need a porter, servant or translator.
Your caravan rich with silk, babies and wine
can turn to art, disperse a job,
or bake loving touch to clay.

Well, here you are,
and good luck.
Please expect strain
and watch out for
substance abuse.

Prehistoric Fish Chalk

I say: "let the heavens do as they will.
Let the beach sand break up and
sift to the bottom.
The trees shall grow,
the trash will grow,
the mildew in the shower
will grow."

We agree that the reins of this carriage
command a hefty charge.

The baker knows it when
a cake falls;
the barber when
he tilts the scalp one way
but the face works another.
The painter knows it in drips.
The parent in profane utterances
and the patient in pain.

Nature knows it in
lean winter tracks
between wisping and willful.

So, let's walk a while and talk
(as you step notice cracks)
and observe the roadside weeds
like shavings of a metal lathe;
let the afternoon go unplanned,
I want to know what you know
when you have told yourself.

Yet, Even trees have bony faces to hide.

Make a sound deep in your chest.

Creep out your window at night.

Glide on a glass table

in your own 50 yeald old film.

Be a hero if heoism has currency

in your field of terrors.

In the corner
is a tiny table an chair.
Sit, enjoy a cool drink
and survey what you see.
Some of these women only
"do Kennedys."

Methuselah

Make way for me

clear a path leaving town

the time has come.

The other side breaths like I 

beyond I breath like it

leaning into the harness

practice for death

eat the vines that

fasten us 

feed the bugs that

hasten us

make a path for me

you will hear my call

hold this version of me

before you speak 

empty vessel,

oh hemorrhage

lattice frame

of my spectacle

sober as sand

nourished as a broken beast 

leaning upon a post.

I loosed love

and drunk these days dreary

and

bent the boar

back to see it its own ass

and strode upon the 

mussels black

but now am warts

The first time I put my
hand on a girl's buttocks
I was pleased.
I didn't know what to do
when she didn’t mind.

I was 10

and I put it there it again (she blushed).
The line of my
forefinger and thumb a
perfect crescent
cradling her.

I thought about it.
We were both 10.

It fit like setting a wooden beam

tight without fasteners. 

She already understood
my hand was made for this
but I had loosed something
I didn't know how to value.

I wanted to tease,  to
exploit or antagonize.
Tugging her pony tail,
covering her with leaves.

Instead I was
drinking the waters at
Bath,
tasting a cheese,
noble, vital,
distinctive, out of my depth.

Over her shoulder

a pudgy thing with freckles

pants too tight and short.

(I blushed) I needed help.
A smiling fragility.

(Months later we kissed
in her bed with the horse
canopy, touched on the leather
bench in the 18 wheeler
and rode her
golf cart down the dirt
road to the edge of the woods.

I never met her family;

this awkward girl was

the only living thing

in a house of wax.)

we knew to embrace
before it was real.
My parents
called me home at sunset.

The Lascaux Nebula

This layby seeds the dream

wakes the dizzy bird

wilts the wild

bares the wires like

sinew moving electicallity

this ruby green gas  nebula
familiar like visages in wood
The mind papers the gaps

above are the cave works
obtuse, deceitful, recondite with
formulas of simple intimacy.

breaths of carbon monoxide

iron oxide

urine

brothers and spirits

or are they   

the mind recoils with the distance
this superlative smells of animals

draw the bow string,
and release (this is not about Archimedes)
a fantasy of pressure and dust and
imagine the sound
that seeded the fallow field

we below breath quietly and ask
and scrape

for DBW

Why is it that you never left
how can I bend my path to collect the ink
cloud?

Why measure bones for marrow?
This glass is empty; the liquid drained a dozen times.
hasn't it?

yet, and there is a yet, the vessel remains.
and functions; for blood, medicine,
milk into old age.

this obstinacy of quartz
movement lost in the bowels of the shelf.
--why did she save it? beyond singular--alone.

This is the cup I drink from--the one that
dies quietly and is forgotten.
Lovely to see you, the glass rim
a new vision of an old form of perfection.