Ode to Being Absorbed

I think I would like to be
part of a trunk
that extends back to three or four years ago,
or a distant past that I will
partly connect with
the next tree over,
the shingle on a dilapitated roof,
somewhere on a coastline
that I’ve never walked on.

There,
a man in a long grey overcoat
will extend his fingery hand
to hold me,
and I am met alongside a book with an unhinged spine,
floppy like the ears of a soft dog,
and grey green like moss in winter.

He has no smile,
but his eyes betray lost happiness.
There is a wilderness behind him,
but he has only ever known the ocean.

I tell him
to go back to the treeline
instead of the foam that he so adores,
but only single syllables can
exit his mouth:

yes,
left,
go,
stay,
light.

The name of the sea is petunia,
and he spells this out with me on the sand,
but says “pet”,
and so we play with her like a dog;
flickering her wave tails and trying to catch her as she grabs me,
fetches us back conches and seaweeds.

I did not dissolve again
into the tree,
but I wanted to so much.
then again—
so would the day,
and he wasn’t complaining.

Copyright 2017 Golden Star Poetry

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Dryspell Child

Mother, who made me
you see that child bare with smiles on his
face you see that
lamp that shrouds his color in a peach light of
star you see that
way he grows up to a
fault the way he
smiles in your direction never
sure to start conversation but a
joy to see and hear and though he
may be far away you dream a
strange restricting wail towards the
sky and watch in vain as he might
live to be a year or two as
life would slip you by much more than
he could never love you what with
time and space and friends and what with
him being the
gentleman he is when not a
word that leaves his mouth is more than
ruby sapphire speech and all that
speaking makes you cry with the
sencerity of tone and what with
every thing he says or in the
middle of some dryspell you could
scratch the metal gun from ‘neath his
chest and watch in awe at
transformation of the
kindly eyes and shiny
hats to rocky
stone and hands that feed her
growing hair and
eyes to see him that
that hungry eyed child was scared enough but then he
slept on some odd tree and left a
message in his hand but still
intact and open free:
i saw you
saw me found me pray you
don’t get caught up in this
storm to search for me lest that the
cloud above your head lead way to see
you over the last hill of
streamy sound
Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Internal Dialogue

After “The Pillow Book”

1.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

2.

REGRET

on a  dry, razor- perfect cut lawn,

her red lips are stained with a sort of

forced forgetfulness.

the magenta furls of summer,

like kites or long twirling dresses.

White alabaster carvings in her mind

of a boy she almost left behind,

like a patch of cool shade in the late afternoon,

making her swoon.

 

 

3.

THE DREAM

The wooden chime sings in the air, as

we take a moment to find ourselves once again.

We will sing, like two small flutes,

like proud-breasted birds,

on miniature twigs,

as the wind rides on the current like a dancer on the water,

flickering in

and out

of everything,  as if she were a

skater without skates.

she flies once again through the night

without any means of suspension

not by firelight,or torchlight, or by the sound of her breath,

but by the only sense that she has

which is senseless.

 

4.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Photography Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Velvet Night–Photography post #1

While that sound could be

either your voice

or the strings of a course violin

I find I fear the failure

of my hands to move

my lips to open,

letting in carbon dioxide

(but that’s just a myth, wouldn’t you think?

sort of a saying?– stop talking!)

my eyes to blink,

or my mind to waver

from savoring the idea

that somewhere, somehow

you will embrace me like a great vat of velvet night

encircling the atmosphere

urging me fly to you

like a moth embraces light.

 

what casual thought is this?

you exude a freezing warmness

that I could not touch

but touched me.

like summer in an endless frost

where a bird soars upward gazing at the view

of the lost wandering few

I remember who I am upon the waking,

but discard my reality with the early morning dew.

 

So, because I fear that which is finite

I choose you, not here,

not there not really anywhere

but soft, plush and light watched,

yet hidden in plain sight,

a truth that no one knows,

like a vat of velvet night .

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry 

Photography by Golden Star Poetry

But I Wasn’t So Sure About Me

i.

mango tree

soft and gentle

apple on the apple mantle

garish night

a lightening strike
and the tree falls swiftly down

(only
a
whisper
on the
lawn)

ii.

I grew up
on a little -advantaged farm
where all we had to spool
was threaded yarn
but i wasn’t so sure about me

the timetable tango was a
schooling method
the lights switched on when least expected,
and in the morning sun
you abandoned me
but I’m just a lonely child of Serendipity
the stories always end with peace
but I’m not so sure about me

iii.

Mango tree
Soft and gentle
Apple on the apple mantle

Garish night
Lightening strike
And the tree falls swiftly down

(only a whisper on the lawn)

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Painting by Childe Hassam

Untitled-poem written at age 11

Last night I was reading Pablo Neruda’s translated work “Extravagaria” translated by Alaister Reid (which you should really make a note to buy, if you are at all interested in poetry), and then I suddenly got in the mood to read some of my older, more random poetry. I have spent a good part of the night and early morning sifting through old binders crammed with small poem fragments, half of which really make me realize how far my poetry has come in almost three years! Then I found this one, which is frankly one of my long lost favorites. I never get tired of this poem, and I thought you might enjoy reading it. So without further adue, here is me, writing poetry, age 11.

Untitled

Trees with stemless
leaves
grow in summertime.

finding the rainbows in the sky
the love, the war
and the blood of mankind

I am the orphan
lost in time
taking in the sights

of eternity

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Hymn to the Injured Leaf

love.
like this,
only stronger.
it’s this forest intertwined over that one.
It’s just me, thoughtless-
contemplating the frosty grasshopper
and the chilly snail.
I”m not sure what it’s really like
but I guess so much and imagine so much
that I think I know
in this midnight hail.
you open your mouth to say
that all you need’s the sun.
we agree-
the snow billows
and leaves whip around
and I sing:

” oh I know that love
is only a strong tree
on the island of submission
on a redwood island spree
or else it’s just cheap rockets
on the back porch of the den
are the grizzly bears our enemies
or are they just our friends?
why don’t you see
the hidden tree
inside of me,
smiling
smiling
one two three?

It’s just me, thoughtless,
contemplating the frosty grasshopper
and the chilly snail.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Innocente

The rich students in their infantries

crawling, wading in between trees.

Half of the crowd is digesting light bulbs

and the other half is downing helium,

coughing up lights and stray flashes

and hiccuping at a high G above G flat.

I’m currently at the edge of the forest

with my lover

touching the string of light bulbs

that hangs through the leaves

and unscrewing the sockets

feeling the sting and the burn that breathes.

I realize that

I’m not even a child!

I am the product of a small embryo

that was formerly a fistful of green wadded bills:

what else could i possibly be?

in this forest full of strings and lights and crowds

we found the unexpected windfall

of littered cash on the forest reserve street the next morning.

The rich students line up by the roadside, and

lights bleed from they’re tentatively strewn hands

to catch it.

x x x

in another place:

a lone girl on the hillside starts feeling her eyes

(I just want to soothe her like a mother with a quivering whisper

and shaking hands that reach out to hold

this beautiful pale fragility)

Do not squirm, I say,

the money was left by the roadside

(she knows, and she feels her eyes once more,

checking to see if she can still see)

She knows the greenbacks have been run over by horses

and that might mean a starting over…

well,

it’s just that-

the hill covering her house

is only a flat shape of an unreal childhood

she was soon to forget.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

the Scorching Blue Sun

His love carried it’s way

through the waterside

and i found myself broken up on the sand

and looked to the edge of the water

that was nearing,

fearing that the sea moss was clearing

knowing he was never as endearing

as the sea moss that cradles my breath.

it is like a tangled up teal bed frame

that i cannot sleep on,

(but oh, so sweet!)

 

love carried it’s way

into an unshakable hurdle.

would i keep hold of the

balancing I had done

on one leg in the water

when seeing his gray body bloodied

through an invisible glass

that could not shatter?

It’s impossible,

when thought of mechanically

through metal.

 

“It’s all for the best”

i whisper

(smiling till my teeth grind)

 

We do not exchange farewell glances

even though that’s what i want to do

we just touch the scorching blue sun

with the tips of our bare fingertips,

like slippery wet crayfish not colliding

but swimming visibly close if seen from above.

 

the sea moss leaves me now,

in a huddle of whispers,

and i do not know where to go

and there is nothing here that breathes

and there is nothing here in sight

only dark penetrating trees.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Toadstoolfindings

A little girl, like the bending tree
Whose only pleasure lies in watching trees
And who only finds the god-soul in the climbing of the trees
(mine, hers, and what of hers that once was)
Whose play things  but the twigs and the leaves and trees
And the jeweled sun, that plays upon her by the hours
Wind shaking her knees,
you found her crouching on a toadstool by the tree-ditch
and that is all bark bone and mud and moss
you picked me up and shook me
and tasted the question “who are you?”
drinking it.
all I said was “Tree, Tree” not tasting anything remotely sweet.
He said “Tara”. Tara, for Tree.
I am Tara, He says, now Tara.
How old?
Oh, how long since I have counted, I think? The day goes on much further
without knowing how to count. But I remeber lessons…
someone…
I count on my fingers and again. Fourteen. I do not know how to make
three more quarters,
so I do not.
Little girl, who only finds the God-soul finds love in trees
and takes home with her
the memento
of dark leather and metal
Love and the jewled memento of the sun
that plays apon the trees
that I see from the glass window,
(and what a
little girl)

I  fog up it’s mirror, and

when I finish my gazing, with it’s white shining dazing

he calls down for his inferior.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry