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

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Air and Smoke–Stream of Consciousness #14

Frogs croaking at midnight
a twin heartbeat
like moss engraving stones entwining with spongy hearts that bleed
the question now is who will carry the porridge?
who will listen to Sumter describe the events that followed his desasterous night of frogs croaking, camping in the woods?
who listenes to him, the dusky hours grow long
the day widens into a smile
furrows into a frown
the clown
Sumter,
banned from the camping ground just as the air was warm
in the chill,
he knows the only comfort can come from
humming a silent tune
a tune which he will pick himself
in doing so he sounds just like the twin heartbeats of the two croaking frogs
he must find his little world
he must find it
or the summer will drag him through an endless pit
and he will see himself as a small boy
groping for the sidewalk and the sun
not knowing that the only eventual destination was death and lead,
the spongy twin bleeding hearts his own.
he feels the ground
the moist air lightens his eye
upwards is an unforgiving sky
tinged with something else he cant describe,
but we shall call it a vague
and unmistakable hope.
he clings to the forrest ground, the moss,
like a child refusing to leave behind his blanket.
the porridge is on a stove growing cold
it’s breakfast fire
warming time
but poor Sumter on the forest ground
the enemy of which he made last night
sleeping on a bed of firs and pine cones.
the last of his breath escapes from his nostrils,
tendrils of air and smoke in equal measure
percolate the air
but he is not there with his friends to see the fire or to hear the stories
because he has told them his story
and that was the one story
they could not hear
so instead they decided to shut him off
and he, with his breath
and they, with the fires, keep burning aloft in their own separate ways,
he pains to think of them, the little children he has left on the
other side of the mountain.

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

On Size and Truth

1.

in her dream last night

she looks inside a dusty chamber

with walls echoing

not yealding

she wants to be her mirror reflection so badly

but her voice just comes back

again

and again

through that glass and coated silver.

then she hurries through the water

the antichamber and the sand

scurrying out, out, out of

the cliffs

and the rockface.

That image is only a small glimpse.

mother asked: is it like looking at a pinhole of a sweater?”

“of a blanket” I said.

( well, It’s hard to say

when you stare into absolving water and dust.)

Its funny you mention

size:

i was once predestined to marry

a man I had never met.

he told my mother fresh sweet lies

about his past

the sad fate it was to me, her precious little girl. (sweet little good girl)

mother asked “how many lies did he make? a dozen?”

“a thousand” I say.

(well, it’s hard to remember,

they seemed so real).

It’s funny you mention

truth:

2.

I had this itch to see you last night

when the white Pickett fences in Iowa take on a bluish sort of hue in the

fading light

and the birds and trees stoop down to trees–

I wanted it,

I wanted to see all of you–

when i stopped

and i realized

you were just about

as convincing to me

as the lies i told myself to sleep.

(for how could i be sure when the little holes seemed so precious?

when i loved the thought of you, not you? )

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

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

Grafting Rosmerta

grafting
it was simple
I’d place the oil burners full of fat into the tree
and the branch would light up.
simple.

grafting.
i would take a lock of my hair
and braid it with yours
unmeditated
full, like a benediction
and whole, like love.

grafting
i might run like a kite and never find myself again
and my deep interior might grab at me and say
stay close
dont run away
be simple.
graft me back inside.

the milk and warm apples and pearl earrings
and my darling teddy bear and the conversations
the milk spilling sour and turning sour
the apples being eaten
and the teddy being torn
and the coversations empty.
I want to be at the edge of the forrest, braiding my hair and flying my kite
and breathing a cinnamon story of warmth.
do you think i know the truth?
why do you ask me questions, Dan?
I’m just twenty
i need some money
i want a bed full of straw and full of heady hearts
stringing along like electric parts
until its so bright i have to squint.
i am made of you
you, of me:
it is simple.
I am grafting a staircase to the underbelly
you shook, i shake
the world topples over
but we stay on mount balance,
never moving an inch
never feeling a pinch
grafted
and laughed
like bees filling up the cup
with sweet honey.
the rosemary fills my lungs,
and its time,
i realize,
to move on,
steadily,
like a grafted tree or branch:

like a whirlwind
the world is all moving sound and color
and i will hear you when i wake.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

the Story of the Parka

Amy is wearing my sweater
she pinched it on wednesday
but i wont say.

Amy is wearing my coat
she stole it on the weekend
but she’s my friend

Curious,
i followed her to the end of the road where mud would splash in puddles and the rain left scar marks on earth and that street we would cross as kids and that old tractor nobody uses and the tree stump under the orange tree and the grove of trees where it gets thicker-

and the grove that suddenly has five types fruits and three types greens and lemons and apples and then turns corn fields grape vines pine trees oak ,burl, in a whirl, and there-

is the tallest tree in the world,
and five hundred coats are lying there,
and a hundred sweaters
and i swear
she kneels down and puts mine on the branch
and i see this head peep out
and then five hundred kids and a hundred adults
are waiting for their share
that amy’s going getting beds
and she can get them there.

and i run back home pass the whirl and the burl and the oak and pine and the grape vines corn fields apples lemons greens and fruits-

and i pass the trees and i pass the stump and the tractor, street and scars on earth to the end of the road where the mud splashes puddles and makes for chocolate rain

and i heaved and sighed and realized
ill never wear my clothes again
and i know the reason why.

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