trying to understand

you mumble to me but i cannot hear you

it is raining and the rain is insistent

rapping on the roof and roads

drops nose-diving into paddy fields

how can i hear a word you are saying

my glasses are dripping so i cannot

even see your lips move

little petals in the rain

your lips

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?

reminder

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.

Braveheart

Is it worth it
to walk through
this world with
my chest peeled

open like a fruit?

I want to feel all things

as electric as a nerve

sharp as orange rind

smell in the nose.

But the hurt 

when it comes

is armored tank

against civilian child,

callous foot on fruit peel

squashed black beyond repair.

It is safe to say

I can be brave

but can I be sturdy

enough to take on 

the stray thunderstorms

I invite to my porch?

Everybody loves

their own selves, own stories,

even if sometimes it makes

for an ugly love.

In this world

I am both alone

and not, can never be

alone if I tried.

I am meant for love.

I am made for love.

Tender like the inner

segments of an orange,

beyond thick peel,

beyond paper skin,

the little pods that nuzzle

against each other 

and burst into juice

if pressed too hard.

You can press me hard.

I am ready for bursting.

I will not be numb. 

My skin has regrown

over so many bruises.

I must trust, I must trust.

I will fail, I will fall. I will stand

again, as though for the first time,

as though I have always known how.

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 pt ii

I have been trying not to hunch,

not to wake so late, not to give in

to graceless urges

like going to bed without brushing.

Brushing itself doesn't feel so tiresome

I scrub hard near my molars so the

twisted wisdom tooth doesn't dare

infection. When I floss, I go dutifully

in a row, note which teeth produce

most scum from their shoulders.

I want something from myself.

I have been trying to divine

what the nameless need might be,

what the interminable want.

Where am I? What needs are mine?

Somebody has put me in charge

of a largish crude me-child

and I am tired of reading, of googling,

of trying to decipher what ways

this me-child should go. 

I understand, reader, that this is not

the right way to think. I am trying to mend.

Daily life rises like an unexpected wave each morning,

washing over me before I can steady 

my feet in the shifting sand.

All the time I am searching. What for I cannot be sure.

Every day I try and try, and in moments

I do manage to pull the thin blanket

of ease over me,

find joy like a place in the air,

feel my body becoming somehow significant

in a universe briefly made sacred. I am here,

I am standing, my muscles buttered into my skin.

I trust, and that trust forms around me, goldlike. 

I am here, I am here to make, I live, I am able

to love and be loved, what a blessing.

What I need to do (how I cannot help but try)

is thrash less in swimmable water,

find rhythm, let my spine be one

with water. 

sleepwords

I wake at 4, or else

have not slept at all. 

I do not disturb the bathroom dark,

I pee and scratch in dimness. 

Back in bed I coax

this body of mine

to relax. There is an aching leg

I must carry through this night.

I have been here before, will be

here again. Sometimes still

the aloneness makes me panic,

makes me uncertain, reckless.

What is it I believe in? All words

muddled without light or love.

Through is the only direction

to go. I dream of the sea, of jokes, of friends,

of sleek playful dolphins in the dapple of waves.

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