I call it Voiceterbating

I'll hum and click and sing for hours
keeping my fingers busy
dice or jewelry
loose change and trinkets


humming clicking
playing with the sounds, holding them

mouth
throat
chest
nose

nonsensical syllables
chopped up and delivered
into rhythms
that go on for minutes
that wind along like lifetimes
and get shot through
with bursts of birdsong,
crystallized howlings
and whooping exclamations of joy or regret


I couldn't tell you what I'm thinking
starring blankly at busy fingers
dice or jewelry
loose change and trinkets
voiceterbating

Small Wonder

a tiny ship on a vast
expansive sea
sometimes there are
many ships
usually there are not
sometimes the weather is golden
often it is not
sometimes the roundness
of the world is made apparent
and sunlight makes the water a mirror
of heaven
holy and reflective and transforming
but usually it is just lonely

To prevent the moon from disappearing
Stare at the moon
Never blink when others are blinking
and always think
about the moon

Doing imaginary favors for strangers

in an empty super market
super well lit
I smile
you shyly smile
and for such a small while
our eyes

but besides that
I catalog your face
and your pear and that place
late in a super market
when the produce misters go off

you wear red well
and like pears
brown eyes, hair and pale
it was only for a little while
our eyes

Walking away without consequence
buying single servings

I don't like the way that you move: Spider Tim
I don't like the way
your arms buckle and your legs crack
I don't trust the way that you swing
your big gray sack on your big stupid back
I don't like the way you move
spider Tim

That Thesailie Sim

Thesailie Sim took thirteen days
to get to the bottom of the big red gorge
Stomping on Shrubs and snakes
letting his beard get long

He chewed on the end of an ugly empty pipe
The pipe was black with teeth marks on it
his teeth were white with pipe marks on them
and he smelled just terrible

The Frankin-lover

He is a gauze wrapped mummy
A hackneyed premise
tilting and lumbering
ungraciously towards me
with both arms out
like a big dumb equals sign

A poem was being written
while the planes were crashing
High up in the sky colliding
in the depths of a sad mans soul

Station

Dancing to that Spanish music
The clearest station on the radio
bare feet on bright clean tiles
Cowbell ringing a jay bird smile

Humming with that Spanish music
rolling shoulders slapping toes
bare feet that could dance for miles
maybe all the way down to Mexico

tiny creature

hand lenses
and long slender drawers
replete with thousands of pinned insects
arranged to display
the clever gradient of life

Puppy

You can fix anything
because you are so small
I can hold you in one hand
you can slip through cracks
and bring back keys
cherish useful puppy

joy ride nebula

Lets get on a rocket ship
and ride
through stars as thick as flies
wiping star dust from our brows
picking star guts from our teeth
in a rocket ship with the top down

The broken screen snapped back into place as the indoor cat slipped out into the great wild world. I did not know this. When I heard him meow I thought it was just a friendly exchange. This went on for a while, until I recognized the growing terror in his cries. Your fucking filthy, don't ever do that again.

Because the world is round
round, and nothing is real,
nothing has to be real,
no one is looking
so everything
is
all right
right here
but next door
a few feet over
the stress
factors

There is a black vein
that runs from
the back of her hand
to the bottom
of her heart and back again

Three poems about the moon

Sapphic Lights

Reflecting light back to the moon
And broadcasting our girlish love
The moon and I

She can be so far away
And hold me with intimacy still
I swell as she swells and wane as well
With her and only her


Giants in the sky

The sun will burn and blister
And torture the sky with fire
But the moon is a milk sacrifice
Who cools and stirs the mystery



Unrefined is better

Shadows cast from moonlight
Hide the sweetest secrets

Only the truly curious
The naïve and raw
Have the power to unravel

“Damn the refined”
The shadows, they whisper
Just like their mother the moon

There is no need to be polished
You cannot out shine the moon

What may be now be in idioms

I'm not clear that I think
in the way that you think
because I hear you speak
and that's all we can be now

is language in bodies
ghost in the machine

it's as if I'm poorly subtitled,
and you'll never understand my idioms

Do you hear me?
whistling in the dark
abundance of albatross
hung round my neck

but I am true blue
I am the real Mccoy

and all I want is some truth,
or to be understood

tell me when to lie

I walk through waves and waves
Of information everyday
And I’d claim to feel it
If you’ll believe
With flexible language
Comes flexible reality

It’s freak flag is roflishly high

Wearing the hive mind on its sleeve
Marching out of step
More like goofy dancing really
In a coyote costume
Wiley without direct purpose
Into the future
With contradicting intention
But great whooping joy
Hiding hard dark bird shots of malice
Spit with appalling aim
A toddler a teenager an angry mob and a dance troupe
OH ERIS! I do so love the internet

time's at fault again

That handsome man is nearer to death I know
Thrilled by an old lecture
On the tee vee

Like dancers with extravagant costumes
And porcelain skin
In old musicals

All dead now

How cruel
That I should fall
In love with ghosts