In my mermaid eye, I

become an eyelid. lidded

glass in the little waves -- skip, skip -- the heart

has it's two halves, it's beloveds, those

internalized twins of kissing. Who

will whisper, pine siskins zipping

threads for trees, little whiskers

on the hillside, over ever water.

All along, I wondered. Your eyes

don't look at me. I mean: Don't

look at me! How raw to be seen --

to be realized. Once I was invisible:

I wanted to be seen. But now I think -- NO!

Let me let you look at me. Let me.

they take a polaroid of me

and hang it up

a woman, well-meaning, uses

a ruler to make lines, to divide

my body into parts

center line as my axis

my spine, my spindle

from there she can show me

where the hip curve is a letter off

where my waist should whittle

it was the day we had to wear leotards

mine was silver

everything felt crumpled like trash

I'm gathering connections. I gather gather gather and this seems to be the only thing I am good at. I may not even be good at it; perhaps it is all I can do. My projects, all of them, take years, decades. the current project is at least ten years old, perhaps more. and then there is the research project, the question, and that is 35 years old. my earliest research was recorded by others, before I could write, or speak even. I can remember the way things touched, the way I felt. fogged yellow mirror glass and the tilted room with the brown carpet and the daybeds and my mother and the sound of soap operas clotting humidly against the fly-buzz of the summer screen. I only pretend to remember. I am remembered by it -- by the house, the titled photographs, recorded in the grooves of the warped vinyl. I cannot bear to hear burt bacharach without wanting to cry. such sour dishrag chords stuck together with sirens and melting vixens all stuffed with pills. This is also true of the Carpenters and Dione Warwick. It is the saddest music in the world.



Perhaps sad is not the right word. Oh, forget it, it's not. But I can't bear it. Not because it is bad, but because it makes me feel so intolerably uncomfortable. It's like 1977 is trapped in the colors and the air.

I am an infected text

feralscape

There is so much for one's attention.

after a week a reading,

I see pelicans in their hovery, undulating, connect-the-dots. They fly in elegant lines that trace the coast.

I see a white haired woman eating bread out of the bin at the grocery store.

I see swim flick of a fin on the horizon.

I see a spider.

The bank of dense and luxurious honeysuckle near the back door at work -- its fragrance is thick and radiant. Sparks flicker in my brain.

There is too much to take in. I must sleep and sleep for what feels like years.

we are not allowed to make pictures of ourselves

light, and ash, and bone

a fine casing like porcelain, enameled pelt

tether of coal, fire

breath and flesh, aspiration

into the dark recess, into stone

the word is a discrete text

a little map we crawl into

Bellum Letters Revisited

look at how young these people are

dancing makes us human

what happens there in the occult deserts

the dissonance

the matrix contains a beleaguered pop star (does she still want to do this?)

weapons |

commercial pop's infectious repetitions

like we've been here before

like we are all just trying to find a way to make it bearable

it's so hot. who lives here? who gets to live?

google anything you want. pretend it isn't there if we can't see it.

Meditation on Plastic

as if I could press myself into a piece of wax

as if it could retain us

we retain it

we make mention of detritus

we accumulate its bits

on top of everything: pianos

falling down, ruined

the place where her lips were

there were lip prints

a synthetic rope made into knots

unweaving itself -- unthreaded

six thousand petroleum snakes

just six thousand of millions

there are too many to count

I count myself among the ruined

I, ruiner --

to say it makes the shapes tremble

I have been busily writing/making poems, but they are on little scraps of paper all over the place. I will work on posting them here.