lovers

the words are little coins
one of us still dropped

in the grimy well

we are lovers, we are hopeful

the world continues to simmer and burn

on occasion my wrists are kissed 

by somebody who has eyes like stars

what could i have done to receive such kindness?

people continue to die, and to suffer before that

now or later everybody i love hurts and heaves

there is so much that can fail in these brittle bodies

there is so much pain in these hardened hearts

i make my lover laugh but it is true

i feel too much, the great wave of feeling

knocks me over each day, i walk through

it like quicksand, weak ineffective knees,

time thickens around me and i am made

soup, i am loose, i am lost, i have flew.

the calendar flits onwards. loss stays

in the air like smog. love comes, holds me,

loves me, leaves. in the chalk-drawn world

i am still here, i am still learning, i will

learn until i am drawn white and time

eats me, leaves no bones. i will learn and learn.

kiss me, please, and let me mourn.

tip for monsoon

clove oil 

sprayed on every surface

saves objects from 

the relentless armies

of fungus and mold.

who knew the kinds

of things that grow?

little hairs of filaments

gentle dust of spores

if D sprays clove oil on 

their old watercolors,

the pigments may change.

*

two unseasonable 

april showers later,

the mulch is dry again.

but the air nearly hums

with all that held water.

this is where we will live,

in a see-through soup,

until different days arrive.

the rain is many-hoofed 

and persistent. the rain likes

to be heard, to be felt, through

the creases in your raincoat,

in the ankles of your shoes.

the rain knows you are asking

yet again: who will i be 

this monsoon? how will i love?

will it make sense, all the turns

taken in dry months? will it

make sense, the endless days

turning to dust in my fingers?

the rain is thrilled

to blur your vision again

to fill your mouth with water

if you ask too hard

and do not sit in the silence

of thunder and rain-hooves

your skin wet but finally

feeling again

the singing

O broken world

thank you for having

me here & also broken

thank you for breaking

me in this way

long muscle in the leg

aching, aching

vibrant green of my heartspace

muddied by all the grief

there is so much to cry about

yet it is hard to cry

all the grief lives like rocks

in the riverbed of our souls

it is what moves the water 

through, what causes burbles

O broken world

today I cried at how nothing

can ever be perfect or even

just okay: this wild & tender

living breaks me, aches me

yet imperfections are what 

make us, the glitches in genes

shape us: species upon species

& each one buzzing in aliveness

feather colors popping, & textures

& faces, little hairs waving, & all the

delicate physics required to work

an ear. All comes via error. & here

we are, and we can hear.

& how the songs all make us cry.

O broken self, so the songs can slice

through us & beyond. O broken world

you are my heritage & I will learn

to love you, to live you, to sing

word for word

After the thunder rush, in the wide open space
of that moment between us -
I feel the words wandering up my throat.
They come from the sticky honey of joy.
They are only three.
They would tie us together.

We don't know if we want to be tied.
But I must share this sweetness.

I love doing this with you, I tell you,
And my heart widens at the wide truth of that -
intimacy, mother of all pleasure, has been
blooming between us, & I love doing intimacy
with you - and car rides and breakfasts -
you cooking for me & me coming up
behind you to hold you, the full length
of our two creature bodies, pressed up
& warm while outside it pours. Come on,
let's get back into bed. The world has paused.
Nothing makes any sense. Isn't it lovely.

I love doing this with you, life. How many
times yet to fall. How many monsoons,
how many limbs that twine with mine.
Backs yet to discover new scars on.
I am not alone here. There are others.
All heart & guts & ears to the world.
Sometimes their words
line up with mine.
So nothing needs to be said.

it has begun

in the rain

a bowl of oranges. a disco ball.

a cat in a bag. a dusty ashtray.

tree trunk full of little mushrooms.

a purple flower by my purple lighter.

the smiles of strangers, & my faith

now that i know i owe them nothing.

i owe myself - i owe this earth - i owe

ancestors & spirits. i want to live 

my owing life brightly

& with love. i want to pay back

& pay back & pay back 

generously & gladly

by living, by loving

first of all this spirit-vessel.

in the rain this body is moody,

can snuggle for hours. wants

to be kissed in the neck & held

like they are loved. now they know

they are loved. i love them. i hold.

still there is pleasure in the

unfamiliar touch

of another, in iridescent fingernails,

the metal of a lip piercing caught

in a kiss, the serious mouth of one

i might love. i did love, i do love,

i am back to a youth of tossing

love from my basket of love.

have it i have more to give.

but i will not let you take from me.

not now, not irreversibly. 

in the rain i tend

to my kitchen, my corridors,

my balcony garden for hours.

i dig into my compost. i am making

soil, dark & crumbly & rich. 

mud-stained, i nap in the rain,

in a warm hollow in my bed.

here is where it is beginning:

the rest of this, of everything. 

a blink & we are already in it,

in the gluey jelly of this moment,

in the giant steaming pot of time

that never moves & never stills.

there is more to learn & it is

crunchy & delicious to be alive.

& awful & aching. & warm & wet

in this rain. yesterday & tomorrow.

on failing

there are so many zips inside my bag,

& they are all open, like open mouths.

i fumble, try to pull the zipper with two fingers

& i fail, & hurt my little hands, & what is new. 

i fail at loving, at living well, at discipline

& regularity, at tending to this body-boat perfectly.

over & over i fail at perfection, at forgetting, 

at a straight spine, at letting go. i even fail at failing.

the months pile on like yellow leaves at a window,

or dust. nameless and indistinguishable as dust.

occasionally i fail with passion & gusto,

a made-up song on my windstruck lips. 

what else is there to do on this blessed earth,

this blessed & cracked & sticky earth? come

sit with me by a lake or a corner, feed me a berry

& learn how to love me. fail with me & we wouldn't

have lost a thing, we'd be filled with air & float

down the streets, nameless & glad as the dust.

touchdown

every morning i wake up lost
as a lone creature in an odd world

that cycles on regardless

of how i feel or whether

i can make meaning of it all

whether i can make meaning at all

a lover leaves. the leaves arrive.

this story is endless. lovers and leaves.

the sea fills with wind. the sun dips

to horizon, still fat, and vanishes 

at the line even though it seemed

for a second that it really won't,

that the vastness of the moment

would stay breathless and still.

but it keeps moving. it cycles on.

touching the ocean with a single toe

and seven minutes later, no sign left

of the unbelievable orb, just a bright

mist where it was swallowed by sea.

that's going to be me. just some

decades to go, breathless moments,

lovers and leaves, learning and lostness.

the sharp smell of mint in the early morning.

before the rains

In anticipation, everything is dried and reheated
in April sun. Dogs and flowers and sheets laid out

listless in the soup-like air. All the roads are dug up,

in progress, tar steaming at noon, the spinning of dust.

On the scooter ahead of me, the woman's sari

is so perfect, red pleats embroidered with gold,

that I don't speed past them. I follow, let the light

bounce off her fit. It's the best thing to happen all day.

If there is a right way to be, it has not been told to me.

I love too hard     too quick     it does not work. I slip.

The coconut trees shed their leaves like large, tangible

promises. Drying in the heat. Ready to reach the ground.

And me? Some days I am a healthy plant. Some days

a gap in the room through which you can see the moon.

There is something I wait for. But it does not come

until it comes. Until it comes, I will wait for rain.

thru the darkness

this time around i have decided

that even through the darkness

                                                    i will dream.

yes right now my body is gloop

& my brain on fire yes

yes it hurts so bad to be alive

again i am here

again i will return

but that means i get to leave

i do not need to live here among the slime & shame

i get to leave behind everything i want to leave.

i get to build. a life. i get to make new things.

i have gotten better at the darkness.

i will keep getting better at the darkness.

and in the future i will have a little house.

a garden. a black stone pond with lilies snaking thru

the darkness, and the lilypads fragile islands for frogs.

an art studio filled with light. a loft. a balcony with chairs.

every corner mine, created in love with the world.

in the future i will be safe, and my very own.

perhaps one day i will even mother another,

soon as i master how to mother this unruly self.

in the future i will make. i will move thru darkness

as i do today. i will make & think & read & write.

i will eat elaborate meals with ghee & herbs.

i will have company that holds my heart kindly.

i will go for long walks in beautiful places,

& forget all the times i forgot how to live.

this is it, this is this life. what else to do but move

thru. what else to do but make what you want

to exist. every part of it, year on year. let it go

when it gets old. there is so much more to let go

in this life than there is to hold on to. lightness

is the only truth, both infinitely tender and harsh.

you do not need to carry this heavy & dark. meet it,

and shed it, let it pass thru you into rivers & seas.

you are simply a vessel, light as air. what do you own,

but the ability to hold, the ability to drop, the sense

of a story about it all? the ability to make. this breath

& how it fumbles with me thru the darkness, despite.

this body & the space it still has for respite.

spring in the tropics

new moon & the first day of spring:

i missed it. i am still deep in snow,

heaviness is still calling my name.

i haven't yet seen the new sliver in sky,

have craned my head on my scooter

and seen only the stars among the trees.

somewhere, spring calls forth everything

that was buried in ice, allows death

to unfold upon the earth. fertilizer for all

the new beauty yet to come. and here,

there's only flowers on every streetside,

no fists of snow, no undersides of ice. 

december is blue skies and the beach.

january, even bluer. what a life.

and april, the cruellest month, is yet

to arrive. breeding/ lilacs out of the dead ground,

mixing/ memory and desire, stirring/ dull roots

with spring rain. even here, where the ground

wasn't dead: something did die. everywhere

something dies, a moment ends. everything

that ever happened is added to the endless pile:

memory. and even if we mix desire to this

trembling material, what will we manage to make?

perhaps newness, this time. perhaps tonight

i'll see it, the moon, still fresh from its nights

in the dark, scrubbed clean and barely ready

for another cycle, growing to fullness

and then falling away, becoming nothing,

losing everything. sliver so delicately

placed, such a tender little thing,

a fingernail hesitating on the back of a lover.

a lover, the night. springtime suffused 

with love, real love, the blooming

and the death, the tenderness

and wildness

of being alive. 

again and again,

cycle on cycle.

new moon & the first day of spring

a hundred times over,

and then something else.

song from september

 trying to touch an inner stamen

of what is mysterious

in myself

to feel i will do anything

the tips of my fingers sacred feelers

but all skin becomes audacious

when you stroke it gently

and with mystery

the very hairs still and sway

touch remains after you lift

your hand away

delicate touch shadow

feeling feeling a tingling

i am here to feel and also to describe

and understand the relationship between them

i am here, i am here, nobody's but my own

now to bed and i hope i dream

of mossy rocks in a cove

the wind on my skin when i fly

the strange tug of agency

behind my stomach

the fearlessness

that raises me in the air

in dreams sometimes

believe every streetsign

we are at
noon again

again my chai

goes cold

again it will

begin to rain

soon if

not now

believe every

streetsign, i have

told myself

and it's true

all the moths

and raindrops

and light shafts

lead me where

i need to go

even the fear or anger

that rises like a storm

in my bodyvessel

is meaningful, spilling

full with meaning if

i learn to listen

right now all the clouds

and all the people

and all the roadside peacocks

have been telling me it is time

to let go, to cast off

every weight i do not

need to carry. and the thing is

there is no weight

i need to carry

no anxiety that will save me

no anger righteous enough

july gathering

i keep trying to  wipe and wipe my glasses
to see better and better and better

some blurriness remains

some darkness remains

sometimes i get afraid that all this gathering

amounts to nothing, falls away so fast

my remembering always limited

but this time around i am trying

to wander this world with faith

fears gets me nowhere, not the kind

of fear that weighs on my shoulders

and makes me sick. it will come always

and it will always teach me something

i need to know, about the world or else

myself; but the magic lies in being able

to feel it and yet cast it away

to saunter

to the mirror

and do a little dance

stupid and ugly and all mine,

which makes it marvelous.

freedom that smells like a very fast wind,

even when i am being slow or still.

the moment is complicated. i understand

this is where everything truly gathers, exists,

in the nowness and right here of my breath.

but things take form in the river of time.

wind makes a shape when i find

the words for it, can tell

the story of my life to a friend.

this time around i am trying to believe.

in what i still cannot be entirely sure,

but it is something good. something

that wants me to be kind, first of all

to myself. to believe that all the work,

all the gathering, every long breath,

it is all coming together

like yarn, but better because

it is immaterial, mysterious, nothing

i can grab with these grubby person fingers.

all the love and learning must remain

somewhere in my body, and even

in the air. buzzing lightly, waiting

to be worn again. synapses always

firing, making new things

that i cannot see. everything so far

has come together and made this

moment, this me

most singular manifestation

sitting regally in stones

in the passing river of time.

and god am i grateful

or learning to be.

two weeks in

sound of water pouring
onto the bright greenscape
dripping & dribbling 
through cracked streets

knocking on red tin roofs
making old tiles & walls
so wet it can seep 
right through concrete

all day it falls
beginning again
after each brief
ceasefire

the land responds 
like an eager lover
no drop wasted
the green growing greener

so green I can barely look
mango trees covered with creepers
the gutters full of monsteras
bright soil made magical 

how can I remain the same
when everything around blooms
so ferociously, is made damp
for days & then transformed?

Monswooning

where i live now

a new season

is beginning.

it is going to be different from the old ones.

and also the same, the selfsame yearning

i can never shed. 

perhaps yearning is where

i come from: all the poets are

clamoring already, telling me

histories that feel familiar,

already buzz under my skin.

monsoon is coming, season of rain,

season of fecundity & drenched greens,

heartspace grown wild & ungovernable.

season of wandering the fields 

with a lover. or wandering alone

so full of yearning you could burst

like a cloud, leave everything

soaking & sharp.

i am trying to be ready. the lover

i will wander with is inside

the mirror & inside me. inside still pools

between storms. inside a rainbox of skin.

even if i am quiet, even if alone.

i want to be fertile this season, waterlogged

with cleansing rain, growing new shoots

in the soil of me, in the soil of this

new place i have been calling home. 

i want also to call

my little body home

i want also the sky & palm trees

to be kind. i want to trust

my own aliveness

my surviveness

my lovable mess.

overgrown & growing.

come home to me. call me with love.

january muses

lavender swirls

in the darkening ocean light

and within them, my body

soon to be another year older

its textures so oddly mine

even when afloat in neon dusk waves

lapped by stranger seaweed trails

capricorn szn has been shaking me awake

like snowflake darts on my small bare face

i am learning i will always

fall in love again, i will 

always learn how to

write a poem again, i will work

i will tire, i will rest, i will work

i will carry this body to the ocean

cartwheel on the sand

hold my lover's hand

on the ride back home the little pink flowers

glow under streetlights, the bar doors are bright,

the moon is the fattest droplet of silver

stuck to the black spoonful of sky

turns out the trick is to remain

bullheaded about beauty

& brave about love

despite all contrary evidence

end of season

there have been fewer words 

written down

more spoken to friends or lovers 

or strangers

there has been less work than 

I'd have liked

but also less guilt or shame

inside

the nights are long & sleepless

when I like

and closed heavy dark when

I need 

the sea is a maze of mirrors

glinting hard

in morning or evening sun

bubblegum pink 

my skin has gone a nutty brown

except

underneath the strappy bikini where

I am still pale

life is gliding onwards like a frisbee

afloat in 

a sudden gust of high wind 

alive 

current attempts

 i have been trying

to find long stable

peaceful roadways 

clean thru 

the marrow

of my days

*

i saw a place once (a moment)

that went on for miles of days

storm skies gentle wavering canvas 

layers peeled to peer at the dream of time

technicolor lilypad geometry lakelevel

my body opened up like a clamshell

stuffed with undersea purplish crystal

and the knowledge that if this

were true, then this was

truth: pleasure. cycles. transcendence

it made me want more

from me, my little body

vase for a little spirit-thing

vase for a cosmos        alive

so i have been working

on my headstands, my pull-ups,

my meditation-mind, my water 

drinking, my spine, my roots.

*

daily life 

never forms

into a gorged crystal

always tatters remain

always remnants

*

but more has been crystallizing

than ever before

my heart open so wide 

my fingers reach all the way

to the ocean

from inside

*

i hold A's black watch in my hand

like a hand

and realize it will mistake my pulse for his

my life for ours

i held both A and S's hands today

as my heart spilled again

& every 

intentional 

moment alone 

has been a little gem

*

i must gather, gather,

pause

let go of some

keep what stays

make what i can make

shape what i may shape

a june song

this june song

will be a long one

i hope

time has been transforming me 

holding me up to the wind like a sail

i flutter & stutter & am wider

than ever, broad as a boat, as the taut

aloft windspan of a bat or a bird...

i am learning

the colour of honesty

the texture of it

how the air around me feels

when i am honest with myself

i am learning, or rather

relearning    the sacredness of things

of plants & rocks & ancient trees

& the sundust carried

in the hips of the breeze

i am admitting to myself

my place in the world of things

i am one

of the world, the world is one

of me, there will always be

endless ways i am tied

to everything outside

i am connected so sharply

every light of me    every shadow

in this world of things

where everything glitters

with light    memory    tenderness    life

i am learning

i can never be 

alone

*

may was a singular vast purple sunset

at the spire of a streetside church, my hand held

april each meal i couldn't eat alone

each cloud of smoke that made me spill the right words

march was a return to my solitude room

the walls decked with patterns & old griefs & joys

*

deep in the green suburbs

we were reborn in a golden egg

wet but warm, huddled, held

i felt very deeply 

the thinning of walls between things, between worlds, between us

and the beauty too 

of these walls, the patterns they made, the shapes & colors

the delicious textures of all the world around us

*

i am learning

how everything moves in circles, in snaking twining cycles,

how everything returns, but everything

leaves

how the silence allows me to enter silence

how the air lines up inside me & turns to light

how the column of light beams up my spine

like the slowest, slightest smile

i am learning pleasure is possible

along with that museless space of peace

i am learning my attention can be sharp

like a spear or else scattered like sand

i am learning, relearning, so many times over,

that i am here to make, to sing these songs,

to open like a door, spill like a vessel,

so the songs can unspool

out of me while i learn

to sing along

a january song

is cold and hard at the edges

yet arched, like a door. like we have

somewhere to go, and it has been

hard getting here. the chill is

sometimes blinding, and even

the circles of life begin to lose

their trustworthy rhythms. at some point,

everything you lose is too much to bear.

feral, we march onwards. wolfmonth,

it was called. wolflike, I feel, some

mornings in winter light and wind

outside the door. here is another

door. janus sits here, knowing 

what happened and why, what

might go wrong, what joy

might look like, this time.

in my nightmares all the same

people come and go, catching

me in some dark corridor, a moment

of uncertainty or uncontrol, a recent

fear. in my happy dreams, I jump lightly

but am able to leap and stay in high air,

enjoying new motion. sometimes I solve

a mystery, or one step of it, deep in an

underground chamber I might never

access again. it is dangerous, the same

balconies as my fifth grade classroom,

cops outside, or teachers, but always

I reach the secret rooms, find hidden

doorways, a story behind a wall.

after the nightmares I wake and pine.

I miss a life that used to be mine. this one

is working well, it shines and lurches on,

but some mornings I hold my blanketed

arms and wish they were yours. 

I keep trying to be accurate

about my pains and joys. 

I sit like a fat cloud in this january night,

singing to the thinnest slice of moon.

I am not flying, but there is joy here, in this low air.