Of Apricots in the Late Spring

Armenian dirt, Hawaiian dirt, Indian dirt, and water --
I fumble to scoop them up with a knife
and spread them on my toast,

and when I do this, I do it in remembrance of home,
of the gurgling sweet goo in the brass-bottomed pot
and the old blue ladle stained brown
by years and years of soup,
of the banged-up metal funnel
and the rubber-rimmed lids bouncing in hot water,
of the foam, the soft stuff spooned,
gleaned from the top of the pot for ritz crackers,
of the popping and the turning upside-down
and the storing-away downstairs
in the dark, dark store room, and
of you, walking in the door with one million pounds
of apricots in the late spring.

By the Thousands

By the thousands they come down
to the sandy and stoop to pick
up seashells and tiny scamperers,
up the jellies and skies between
and I do not blame them, because
interesting, only I wish they'd less obtrusive.

After asking me quests they come
for my and they try to pick
up my arms and legs,
up me brain and my mouth between,
but evade them by clareshling,
by xracti and frgusz,
ti bloooy obn cl'o'aclothing.

Powers

The math professor
is a wizard, he's
not a god, but
he's a wizard.

He didn't say,
"Let there be light,"
instead he said,
"I just wish we'd get some sun today."

And lo! out came the sun.

Lights Bouncing off the Willamette

The factory lights
reflected on the river:

they shimmer and quiver
and turn into long, widening strokes.
They dance
upon the water,
they glimmer and shiver,
swaying and jumping about. And
the longer I look, the less I see.
They turn into blurs, into fuzzes,
and the branches in front of my face
turn into part of them. Then
my eyes re-focus and I keep watching:
the flat river is somehow transformed
and the lights don't shoot across,
they plummet down
into somewhere deep that
I don't know (how
did the river get turned on its side?).
That's what it looks like. Then
my eyes re-focus and I think:
If I were closer to the light-beams on the water,
say, if I were suspended only two feet above them,
it would not be beautiful.
It would be frantic: when the water angled just right,
it would be one sudden flash of too-bright light,
but this happening all around like some obnoxious something-or-other,
and I wouldn't want to be there

(And I didn't even notice it's chilly outside).

Luke suspends me two feet above
the woman of the greater love:
she is not beautiful:
her hair is matted
as it wipes His feet,
her tears are cloudy
as they fall on His feet,
her lips are dry and cracked and bloody
as they kiss His feet. But
then i never want to cut my hair again,
tell me how to turn it into a washcloth,
and i want to purchase ointment in an alabaster flask
and ask and ask and ask

(And i didn't even notice i wasn't breathing).

The Most Famous Poem in the World

Roses are cool.
Violets are a'ight.
Some people love
some stuff, I guess.

If, Then

Everybody's got a crazy uncle,
and if
they don't have a crazy uncle,
then
they want one,
and if
they say they don't want a crazy uncle,
then
they're lying,
and if
they're not lying,
then
they're in bad faith.

The point is, there's
something about crazy uncles.

Delicacies

99 delicacies, pissed off delicacies,
not delicate, but delinquent, I think.
When I pick up my fork (left hand)
and my knife (right hand)
and go for the Cornish game hen
(seasoned with excellence by my chef, George)
it snaps back at me.
"Too long," it says,
and so I throw it out.
I then begin to cut into my
gold-leaf-wrapped-filet-mignon,
and feel my knife (right hand)
slide through the"Hey!
We're fed up!" The hen again.
"You're fed up, well let me feed myself."
"You mean feast yourself. Everyday
a feast, I guess it's
a man-eat-man, man-eat-food world."
"Cool it, game hen, or
I'll send you back to George."
"Give me my money."

I stand up,
all alone
in the dining room
and stomp on
that stupid piece of meat
and its juices
splatter all over the room.

Inner Demons

I struggle
with not eating
a peanut-butter-and-honey-sandwich
five times a day.

Two

Today I witnessed two things with no explanation.

The first was a man turning into a cat. He was a man probably in his mid-fifties and turned into a black and white cat with bright yellow eyes. I tried to make friends with him in his cat form, but he was scared and ran away.

The second was the moon with a perfect, huge circle of a kind of wispy light around it. I had to stop and look at it and I wondered if my eyes were deceiving me. I found out they weren't when another person told me about it.

We tried to explain these things with science but we could not. And even if we could.

I don't see how they'd be any less extraordinary.

10/29/11

Out of my mouth, billows,
not words, just smoke, just like
the fog, rising from the
river, clouding the hills.

Out of my mouth, pillows,
not smoke, but fire, but like
the machines up-river,
it burns the air, then sleeps.