Signs Of Spring

Little moth, faint chartreuse
Beat the red-breast to herald change.
The word "visit" was invented for them.
It clung to my night's window.
Made itself seen.
I killed the outer lights
And burning bulb above the stove,
All the false beacons, to juice the moon.
Like a ginko leaf its shape remained
Hardly visible in my dark reflection.
At some point all that I wish for
Becomes my imagination.

Offering

Golden hair, sun gold, all levels of the day
she lowered her mug, smiled, said
you can always stay with me.

Shade pulling long, summer noises, moon
half-painted over the faraway copse,
I gripped rough grass in ten fingers.

We haven't spoken for months.
Memento of my green years, she said
time takes forever to pass, surprise.

Vacant spiderweb hammocks, empty tent
caterpillar clouds, acorn caps full of dust.
A waterless existence, and yet.

It doesn't have to be, she sighed.
Cloy of the crush of plants filling gaps,
filtering star fields, in orderly rows beneath.

Freedom, virgin sister of a natural death,
I am ever homeward drawn to you.
Red feather, young oak, endless lake.

Come back to me, she said.
We hung up our chairs, dishes for morning,
door just ajar so the moths could escape.

The Rambler, Midsummer

When his legs won't let him sleep, he gets up with the first light and packs his bag. They won't know that he is gone until they rise to breakfast, and then they'll talk about him over eggs and sausages. He will already be a mile down the road, walking at a leisurely pace, the grass still cold with dew, the day heating up one songbird at a time. Tiny frogs will dive out of the road ahead of him, or crickets, or early grasshoppers. There is no radio music, just silence broken by his footsteps on the crumbling shoulder, or the occasional chorusing milieu of life in the reeds of a drainage ditch, smelling of rot mixed with fresh wildflowers. Not much in his bag, really. Just a couple reminders of events falling behind him, girls he has loved, and temporary homes.

"Affection" by Jonathan Richman

Download

Well, people all over the world, people all over the world, people all over the world are starvin' just for affection.
Well, but to me this ain't funny
To me this is real
So I thought I'd tell everybody
How I feel
About affection
I said affection.
Now, you guys, you all know that your friend Jonathan likes to eat food a lot. And I like to do other things, I like to run around, jump, but affection is the most important thing to me. I'd trade everything else in a minute...
You know, I used to starve for affection
I blamed the world, and it could be the world's fault, I suppose
But I was a star of the type who said, "I don't have time for them,"
And the type who says, "I have nothing in common with those."
But then I relaxed a little
And I met more folks who liked me
And they helped me to reach out and give
And that helped me to get more of affection
And that helped me to live.
So I say that people all over the world are good,
People all over the world ain't bad,
But if they keep bein' snobs about it,
They ain't gonna get what they wish they had
And that's affection
Affection.

Well, there's telephones, televisions, and cars, yes
And there's records and books and magazines for you.
But poor affection sits there standing in the corner,
Saying to itself, "I wish someone would give me something to do."
Well, I know it takes nerve to reach out and give affection
To folks who seem to want your touch but you can't tell.
Cause they can laugh at you, and that's rejection,
And you probably won't like that so well.
But I say that people all over the world are good.
People all over the world ain't bad.
But if they keep on chickenin' out,
They won't get what they wish they had
Affection
That's affection
I know they want affection
I know they want affection.

Cataract

I am proud to announce that my second collection of poems is now available at Lulu.com

He Makes Me Laugh

My preoccupation with making Photoshop art continues...

Since Sliced Bread

I woke up with
metal wheels at every joint,
pipe bones to clang on the bedstead,
a metal bucket head and boots,
left hand lost and gentle pincers as a substitute,
a scoop for the right, and a tick-tock heart.
I never imagined a fresh new
start would involve real spark plugs,
but better this bot
than a bug.
Hey, I should download that book...

Inscription

I've posted this photo once before, in my Livejournal. Awhile ago I ordered a used copy of a "A Stone, A Leaf, A Door: Poems" by Thomas Wolfe, and when it arrived by mail I opened it and found this inscription. It asks so many questions--are Edward and Harry (Harriet? Harold?) still around? What sort of person would pass something like this off to a used bookstore? Whatever the story, I would love to know it. It's almost too intimate to display, but at the same time, it's so beautiful I want to immortalize it, share it to the eyes of the world. This is a record of someone's life changing--don't we all long for someone to have such an effect upon us?

Husk

We went to the Mihsihkinaahkwa pow wow last weekend, camped at the park in the heat and humidity. Sunday morning I got up early and went wandering with the camera. Saw this... thing... on the side of the road, which turned out to be a roasted ear of corn someone had lost or discarded. I might use this for a book cover in the near future, just something about it...

Door

I've been doing a lot of Photoshop art lately (well, I flatter myself that it's art, anyway). I don't have the full program, just Elements, but it's pretty versatile nonetheless.

I Know Why The Caged Bee Stings

The power in these lines
I cannot tap without burning my fingertips

Liquids and lightning
Seeking their own level

Pink is for girls, blue: a boy’s best friend
And fishing nets and city maps
Can both be worn, don’t count for clothing

Charged, you turned your glass eye skyward
Full of tears devoid of artifice

I saw your live wire masquerade
To your hidden hum I wrote these lyrics

Buildings Of Night

Hundreds of miles east,
Moments before I can see them
The setting sun kisses the evening sky
With his flame, in your eyes.

We are just the same as I watch them
Tussle from my front porch,
Two drunk lovers
Folding into a darkened alley,
A purse dropped onto still-wet bricks.

Arcana

Fan your bad hand
palm down before you—

hard yellow demons
displace the tarot

and tell uncertain chances:
tea leaf bruises,

the tale of the Empress
inverted like a bat

ill-dignified
by no fault of her own,

swallowed
but scaling the tongue.

Update After An Absence

Just to let everyone know (who might be interested) I have not vanished. In fact, I've begun drawing again, and will try to start posting my efforts here for your viewing pleasure. Tonight I'm working on a poetry assignment of sorts--my good, good friend SaraEve and I exchanged three photographs each to be used as prompts. It feels good to be creative again.

Check out my newest link under "In The Forest", called Auld Manhattoe. I found this blog when I was looking for information about an old tale I read back in elementary school, about a fisherman's daughter tasked with appearing before the king under a set of paradoxical requirements--neither riding nor walking, neither clothed nor nude, etc. I don't think it has any single title that everyone would know it by, but the story is sort of archetypical.

While On The Warm And Faraway

Enough of absence becomes a presence.
The void of your voiceless days
Becomes a pulse in the wrist, after a time
A throb in the wind in a bottleneck.
Broken green glass in chiming chips on the blacktop
Settles into the imagination
Like rain upon a parched garden,
And all the little million wriggling
Words surface to fit themselves together.

Photo Albums

Our ghosts are biding
in the photo albums of strangers.
We are background to life:
Douglas fir, canyon rail,
a concession stand,
your face or mine.
Somewhere I am holding a soda
staring off into the distance
while in the fore a beautiful man
is kissing a beautiful unknowable woman.

Job

It could be one cold interview at the end
And maybe that is why we get buried in suits
A gin and tonic and a sinner’s cigar
Dry-cleaning ticket taped to a security deposit

My uncle gave me Elvis, “now I’m dead, now I’m dead”
And I made an excuse for that rhythm
It could be one chair and a stern fatherly stare
At the end, or it could be sex with someone’s mother

Better list all your strengths and boyhood pranks
In the margins where a careful heart could see them
On the cover, dead center, an olive branch
And a decent guess of your worth

Between The Hours Of Cat & Bat

I.

blue-black wing thrashing
a thrush in the night

so my mammal goes unfed
the worm too far along by dawn

those subways of a vein
aflow with burning novels

the fruitivore in a field of nicked ears
who sees by screaming

in my sleeping eye
peaches bobbing on a river

and the raft of feathers
threaded dry through the rafters


II.

a pocketful of tokens for ferries
in a country I'll never get back to

gold hair spilling over the forearm
of the unwritten chapter

long thin bony arm
long dark empty night
thoughts flung far back into the lost

sunlight unexpected in the raindrops
spinning her back
the way the spinning top rebounded

I've been sick she said
crushed into a man attempting to hold
his planet in place with love

years and years hence the phrase
search forevermore
rings in the downy ears of a cat

heading to the window for entrance
and is tranced


III.

somnambulating in a blanket
a marionette in a coat of dust
never reaches the front door
but cocks ear to muffled birds
at dawn at the front window song

Windjammer 2.0

I spoke with my uncle again on Thursday night regarding the re-booting of Windjammer Press. We are talking about using blogging software to re-build the site. Going this route should allow us to get better exposure and more traffic. I'm looking to add a forum where contributors and visitors can start discussions, so it's not just a silent art gallery.

One thing he suggested, and I've been mulling over for a few days now, is finding a way to specialize the site a bit more, so that it's not classified generically as a poetry journal. Midwest poets? Online poets? Something like that--something more defined and thus more apt to come up in specific searches, where the competition to be the top link is less crowded. If anyone has a good thought about this, by all means, toss some phrases out there... I don't intend to drop anyone I've already got archived on the site, but looking ahead I may narrow the submission requirements a bit to fit a theme.

Anyhow, the actual re-launching of the site would probably not be occurring until later in the year, as this is really a side project for both my uncle and myself, and he has actual paying customers who need his talent and attention. But the literary magazine (or whatever it may become in this next iteration) is something both of us need to do, I think, for our own reasons. Because we're both artists at heart.

And that... is really cool.

I Have To Do Something

Windjammer Press needs to come back. Last year, I allowed one bitter message board moderator to convince me that the site didn't hold merit, that it wasn't doing anyone any favors. And while it's true that my site will more than likely never be a stepping stone to anyone's literary career--well, if you're only in it for the money then you're doing it wrong. Call me a Socialist, whatever. If I have to bill the site as a personally curated museum of wonders, then that will have to do the trick.

One thing it does need is a board of its own--some way for visitors and contributors to interact, discuss the writing showcased on the site. If I build it, maybe they will come.

I'm off to go see when my renewal is due; tonight I'll speak with my uncle about giving the pages a facelift (something he's expressed interest in already). Maybe if I can keep this boulder rolling I'll start feeling more like a poet again.