Audio Recording of Feeder Emptied

Audio Recording of as spring came

as spring came

the azaleas spoke but only god could hear them

you ached for a lasting warmth to lay in

you understood

lots of things: 

how to unearth a fossil in a hotbed: that time of the cow's rib, the saber tooth, 
the mandible: one bone every two to ten minutes: the luck

the sorrowful bees, the honey that oozed like molasses (from the troubled hive

where we met-- veiled-- your velvet voice a balm)

the sacredness of vowel sounds, drawn out from the mouth to god in hymns of

   why?

& yet the azaleas so early to bloom, spoke and didn't compare

themselves to the dandelions    to the roses     to anything & you understood, again

how like girls they are    blooming    tall &bright, even in Spring's early, harsh cold

Feeder emptied

          by the smartest of birds-- crows bully away with flapping

purple wings all the bright ones--- the blue, the red, all the winged who all ache

for seed-- a collective of need.

          When a sparrow flew in through the window the promiscuous woman with crowblack hair said A sparrow is a bad omen...be careful, and cued, my life split into shards of obsidian. Even now, I remember, remember the echoe of her omen. Had I not palmed away the cold

          feathers: body of sparrow and buried her in earth, would my life have been 

different—path paved in feathers and blood-veined leaves fallen in their own due time. But now I spin

circles over stranger's graves with glitter in my hair sparkling

         down to black grass I rip a patch clean,  till my fingers bleed, I'm so hungry I pull from the earth 

a rib-- lick dirt and gnaw. 

Oh mirror, why have I not cracked and crunched you to silvery dust with my bare feet and buried all the obsidian reflectors-- for my outwards have come to mean

         more than the black horse drinking the stream, more than the willow-swept night, more than shadows on the moon, more than the ash of my beloved.

A mouth full of nest to heal me, I want the built-up wildness of fledgling out-grown its nest, want found songs between my lover's long legs: to speak there in tongues. Most days I accept I have no beauty to sing-- no song, just this great canyon of need.   

Audio Recording of Thought Stream

Thought stream

My dog has something caught in her teeth     she is smacking her lips she is

looking at me like she wants to speak something    perhaps it is help me

get this thing out of my teeth, please    though it was delicious    now she is licking

my computer    her mouth must be very strong    it is how she loves the world

she licks and smells it     personally, my olfactory sense is quite 

acute     when my partner gets home, I smell her    I am spending too much time 

with dogs     (is that even possible)      we lay in the light stain    all day   

a hammocked existence     dreamy warm like that place Ive imagined 

in therapy where the angel holds me      but today I am not thinking about that 

today I am thinking about time      how slow

it used to be      how it didnt concern me      doubleknotting my shoelace

on the playground      but how time now concerns me      I am 33      I am divisible

by 11 which means I've had 3 cycles of magic      that is a lot      time drips 

from the faucet       I hear it and ponder      whether I want a child      drip/drop perhaps

they aren't so different than dogs      they give and take but once it's inside you

it has to come out and that's not even the hardest part      you forget the pain 

they say but not till after it tears through you      I understand how much I would love it 

I have a craving      I want an old soul of a child     one with starshine in their eyes 

and dimples     but I shouldn't be so particular     10 fingers/10 toes       a face 

that'd be nice    I expect the child would change my body forever      it could go 

either way      i'd love my body more or I'd love it less      but the bleeding

each month I want something to show for the dues I've paid      I have worked

hard to heal/I am wise and time's faucet is dripping faster

and faster      I am like a dog      so little time/so much love to give

Audio Recording of If I were a Fountain

If I were a fountain

I am in love with a dog-god A famous poet

once told me to never write poems about dogs or dead grandmothers

Did I mention he is famous and is a he I am a not-he but it would be nice

to be an oak tree-- an oak because of the o sound when people beneath

look up and say oh, look at that oak-- sounding painful,

but good-painful like when you are about to sneeze or cum Just listening

to the sound of their o's would cause me to tingle as I would be

a sensitive tree, enjoy pointing my branches at hummingbird-clouds

and dipper-stars, saying look, look But as I was saying, I am not a tree,

a not-he I am a vagina-me I could be better--

I should point at the sky more often I should

put only dimes in a mason jar should not sleep

with a bat beside my bed should vacuum

all the god-hair more often

       And if I were a rose I should open slowly

       If a box I should keep secrets

       If a mirror I should never be touched

       If a table I should not complain

       If a nude portrait I should never blink

And if I were a fountain I should not feel so sorry for all those humans

who live on hope, for all those beautiful wishes I could never grant

That first time I died

I remember the carpet on which apartment

scorpions hid in corners, cloaked

in shade. The first time I died all the baby-Buddha-ness

gone from my eyes, zapped away

in a flashback of fists immeshed with pain

of my teething—the icey ache in my gums dulled

by the sound of his voice overcome hers as light

hits shade and wakes it. I died that first time

he threw her to the ground, sparkles surrounded

her body, and ache purpled inside as I had no words

for one star shooting down another: I did not

make a wish when she fell/I scooped

up the spiders and let them loose outside.

Audio Recording of I have resorted to dust

I have resorted to dust

I've counted 74 boxes inside our house I have a thing for

counting and for boxes all I know is this boredom is painful-- these yawning

days of dogs asleep, these empty boxes full of Want. Mahogany, pine, oak

I wait for them to collect dust so I may blow on them and sneeze to be taken away temporarily.

I saw a photograph of a star and it reminded me of your oldest self, how

I'd put you in one of those boxes if I could, to open when I am in need of awe.

These hands want to make and be lost in some thing, buried deep in warm wet tissue or scratching nails over bark. But it is so green outside my window-- so green I think

shiny thoughts, I think lavender toe nails and new sandals but the air has a chill. And boxes know nothing of today's green's deception: they only know monk-sit and they don't remember being alive.

I will give them the benefit of the doubt: they'd probably spin in circles if they could.

Imagine all their corners wearing away and the sky gone dizzy.

Imagine a day as green on the inside as it is on the outside: imagine warmth: imagine this body

leaving the loneliness it was earth-born into and all those boxes at last filled with old letters.

I can barely take

I drive past calfs playing in the field every day: so, very-sorry-feel. Ache

the color of bruise swells in my throat, an aura of purple

behind my eyes, presses as though I should always wear black

& earlier I'm dangling my legs from a branch in an orchard on a planet I hum

a bright song that goes sour in my mouth: no candy to fix

this feeling I can not name & those cows get me

by heart every time I am so utterly more human than most-- ears tagged

yellow tags murder

yet still they lay calm on grasspatch beneath sky. It is the roundness

of their eyes letting in all the world. It is what cuts short

their promised-by-God days. A truck ride

and they scream bloody I have heard. If only it were different here, if only

we'd ask nothing of them & let them lay with the lonely girls when it's cold.