The Missing Days (Which I Spent in Utah)

An illness, or an injury, is, or can be, the body's way of expressing doubt:
my jammed fingers, your infection and grumbling gut.  At the Walmart
(again), when you need the cranberry supplements, and when
I make a suggestion about what might be a better place to park the
car and sleep, you get your pills, but I get shut down.

I am hoarse, psychosomatically, and tired all the time,
and get psychosomatic headaches that reveal to me
disappointing similarities between myself and my father.

And in the Virgin River, where we're playing with the current,
crawling upstream against it, then capitulating and letting
ourselves be borne back down, my left middle and ring fingers
hit a rock and are bent almost backward.  (A sharp, distinct feeling,
not past week's dead irritation.)  Two days later, the bruise is still growing.

Carl's Yinward Way (a found poem)

A gradually growing estrangement
arises in the dream, or after I awake.
She seems entangled in my entrails
as if I have just stuck my foot in a black hole.
It feels as if he is always here;
he has shed his denims, shaved his beard, and he drives a small sedan.

b etter w orse than every b dy else,

b ein g around children.

eyes wide with sisterhood, or safety.

defend the word safety as a sensation,


categorizing lately seems right,


c ol d liver, cou ch sink


ever y b ody that i love and

stay ed re pea t ing to see and d id.

oops

sometimes

other things happen
i can't be everywhere

Swallow

amazing,
going on four
and I still can't swallow
the truth about you
I look at the photo
and feel you
as real
as this hot breathed cat in my lap
tricky damn business
this living
this losing
our birthdays came and went again
then thanksgiving
christmas and new years
things we loved
I am sorry
I hate them now
I am a poor fucking loser

yesterday was not a day for writing poetry.
today was a day for poetic justice.

Mourning

the house feels empty

now

I refuse to say

she left the world –

planet earth, maybe but

I swear her body quivered

with energy hours after

this so-called death –

I’ll believe it when I see it

a white shadow tearing

through space fields

perpetual smiles for passersby

I haven’t even left my bed

this morning

the house feels empty

small emotional and/or physical danger

got a gulp in a fist like

making a thumb face

forefinger lip exhale crunch though

cartoon sphincter I'm totally

freaking

out.

My hands hurt.

air squirts through pretzel limbs I

can't breathe I

can't breathe my

chest is full of cornflakes and mud my

lungs betray me I

got chills

In daze

Do you know what my brother is going to say when he gets home?

Something.

He's going to say something.

And I'm going to tell him a secret,

by using sweetness,

that's how the otter gets away.

It's Not Like the Movies

I looked over what I'd written.
I picked up my red pen--
sighed, put it back,
got out the black,
and went to start again.

There are one thousand million infinity
predicament tragedies
to any tiny town.

Rolodex rattle off the ones you know –
etcetera hands like ribbon
that sheds across the floor.

You need to make a place where the people want to be.
But never let them know the truth.
It is your gift to them.

Zen Rock Gardening

A
garden
might

glimpse
water
falling

things
which
have

chosen no place

Battle of the Planets

They are off, door closes courtesy caution to the wind

mumbles unwind pitched up, are unbound.

Placation motioned muffled incentive.

Absurd growth in the kitchen

the mangling of passion.

For a dynasty soaking up the disaster,

god, it's ripe

suffer a fool

so suffer the tripe.