Saturday, May 26, 2012

Peter's Song


There’s an ocean between
our two springs

between the roses
one red one white

between a sound in the shell
and an ear that listens

to rhythms repeated
through a chorus of time

somehow we’ve floated
through the tide's rip

over divisions of land
together apart

at last we have learned
to navigate this swim

Friday, May 25, 2012

A Request

Bury me in a shallow grave
so the orange of my dress
creeps up into the rain
towards an empty headstone 
ode to a  poet
who may one day write.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Mango


He devoured the fleshy orange
mango of her heart with gluttony
a wild beast half crazy from drought.
He didn’t care that he ripped
her thin skin to get to the fruit. No-

he sucked out her juice and spit out
what no longer pleased him;
left her remains to rot in the sun
.

Poem by Jack Spicer


“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .”
Jack Spicer

Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.
My Vocabulary Did This to Me:
The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Please read - this is sick

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/man-beheaded-bus-passenger-wins-escorted-trips-community-211857168.html

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Poetry Ku

what good is poetry
blood drops bloom
on a pure white page

Sunday, May 6, 2012

What I Do


Leave books out in the rain
until pages swell
like water on the knee
hard to move or bend

Dust infrequently
until all I can see of the cat
are her paw prints
ghosting across the table top

Forget the house-keys
in the door latch
and the poem that wakes me
in the middle of the night

to discuss the notion of
‘sticky not sweet’
something about a gull’s wings
the sudden tack of mid-flight

I hug everyone but you