Hunting Season

Old Mr. Flood



Old man and the sea,
simply for you I flee:
I chase the flailing limbs of sweaty hides
and swallow or graze
the subtleties of these honey nights.

And under
lamp-lighted grill your cowboy shadows,
those brutally sententious features
disheveled and exposed.
tender October moon.

a celebrated time that feels a lot like
When I stain myself with the cinnamon mush
sauce of apples
and I hear your voice in my ear,
or see you in your fall sweaters.
While you read your epic novels
and watch your old vampire films and melodramas
you take on a sort of timelessness
to me
that feels like moist forests of
deep flame
surpassing the most antiquated of ship songs
or the grain
of grandfather clocks.

Gold skin shiny stretched tight
and cracking
in just the right places,
the first kiss
when i felt as though my heart
were nothing but an enormous flower.

The darkness beyond the windows,
the streetlight etchings
of gravel cooling
and blinding those glassy depths
with primal freedom.
Rusty with ragged loss
of control but slick and pliant
with coatings of throbbing frames.

Bubbling threshold of need,
circuits of the present presence of
wooded portals
and crackling brush.

Your margin of power in the wracking waves
of silhouetted contours
beneath the rims of silvery lot,
the peak of picking season.
Ripe fringes of lashes laid
flat across pale plains
of roseate electricity,
the moment of barely grasped periphery
of all that will be undone.







You break upon me,
simultaneous death[drowning] and salvation



I stopped believing
and it was still there.

this is when you know
it is real.

Gem

Even God is Godless



Usually she was busy laughing or praying for her life, but sometimes, at full stretch, she considered sex.




his sickness is back and forth
breaking over them both
she's checking the windows constantly
and fantasizing about progressive muscle relaxation
to keep her mind off old hauntings.
that creep of never quite finishing what you start.



Sometimes I pray for rain,
or for blindness,
for music as a pump that inflates the soul.
And sometimes i sense the burn of drab addictions
I still remember
when i scribbled that only unfulfilled love is truly romantic,
and believed it.
Sometimes I see the 14 year old in me,
sparkly lips and lavender eyes and a salty adoration for the wilderness,
exploration of illumination,
all kinds
of sweet and sticky bitter hot
spice of modulating seasons,
convergence.
Sometimes I find just as much beauty in the creaks of my weakness
as I do
the extremities of my strength.


(not that strong without these open arms)
I am more at ease with lost dances through
the hot glue of me and you.
So real and yet
my capabilities are
old maps of something new,
something shining I am digging to unveil
cracking, blackened fingernails
scratching and peeling and flaking bit by bit
the skin
of hardened soil.
Oil in countries flowing like spilled plasma,
the pretense of war
when really
that's the way we get by,
no amount of strangulation can destroy the lives of rocks.
Those beloved jagged heights.
The symbolization of hearts,
the splatter of rain on your flushed face,
the ache of a thousand lonely nights
magnified then filtered into the pull of the tides
as the clouds begin to roil and you find
Something in nothing.
Heaven is hell.


Sometimes I have these moments when I begin
craving something more real than my measly skin,
when even touch is a lost art
and my insides just keep aching,
stretching,
reaching to touch the breaking point where sun meets ceaseless space.


Sometimes the endlessness feels too enclosed and tight,
maybe it fits just right
or sometimes I need more room to grow.
But sometimes I drive at night and blur my vision so I lose myself in the spin of lights
and sometimes i just know
this fishbowl is big enough if we all just keep swimming.

nobody

belongs anywhere,

even the

Rocky Mountains

are still

moving

-- George Bowering

and after it was all said and done

under blue moon I saw you.

Fluidity

Of Flight


Fair weather for falling
for dirty bare feet propped up on the sleek polished wood of railing
for a gentle lounge across the Indian lands of an old soul's home
for a thin layer of red dog fox hair, graying with graceful age

the same place she claimed as playground as a little girl, bursting with visionary energy,
worlds upon worlds,
wrapping herself in layers and sashes of bright colors,
adorning easy pride for magic carpet rides.

for shared goat cheese and kitchen shenanigans
for a mother's treat of purified water with sliced limes and oranges
for that certain adeptness with language, familiar witticism

you're smug.
you're charged.

falling hard for the simultaneous synchronization of shimmering reflections

for the enchanted lands living in the panes,
portals to the patio world of her childhood castle and the
new realms riddled with the fluidity of rhythms and meaning.

meaning, dance.

for fresh bicycle crash battle scars and
for fresh peppered tomatoes and juices
for beginning to recognize your own squeals of joyful glee
for falling asleep in class to visions of being spanked
(by a cutting board in your mother's kitchen)

background music of Spanish formal and informal commands,
conjugation station.





and just when you thought of the dying honeybees
one flutters to rest upon the crease of your elbow,
mitigating your mess of thoughts to a simple lull of time and days passed.
a ceaseless peace.
like a lover laid bare,
or the knowledge of the loss of existence and the existence of loss.
then shepherding the incoming front and engulfing the circling vultures
the butterflies will stop by on their way to Mexico,
the earth's turning pages fill your open spaces
(flooding the sky's sizzling energy )
with the sweet static of the season.
sticky and lush,
the senses of metamorphosis.
white owls will find you in your dreams and
chase your nightmare terminology to the shadows
until your equations become instinctive
and you move upwards, in the reach of breaching
the promise of relief.
the breadth of your true pitch of breath.
and the heat, God
the heat
outside is warm as unclothed beds
and the scent of release,
the cats are in the window
and the sheets turn over and over again.
in the wind.


such a dazzler
exploitation of exfiltration
wildly spinning nymphet
when


the aeronautics of a life in flight,
the migration is a sign
that it is when the solitude divides
you find yourself in the center.
these golden moments collide
so collect your guileless limbs and go
while there is still time.




"Because of the burnished mist through which I peered at the picture, I was slow in reacting to it, and her bare knees rubbed and knocked impatiently against each other.."

Elephant Guns

Daddy's Fireworks

Llovía.

I know October is here when he has lips of packed smoke

and I dream of her olive skin in India,

all so temporarily permanent-

Rome calls me in thick, brisk whispers

while some unknown foreign terrain pulls me from the air

and into its swirl of streets and sweeps and lights

like my body knew its own place and

hurried home through the crowds.

I know the time is drawing near when I feel like the fourth of July

and I remember the pierce of blast as he unloaded into

summer's hot charcoal sparks,

the trembling blue stars spoke volumes as I covered my ears

squealing my protest and youthful fear like

the fly of fur

over the fireworks-

dreaming of a suppertime with no gunpowder and no countermines.

leave the airplanes be, daddy.

even some little black sheep

prefer peace.

I know I am older when the hours stretch tight ache

and the shifting atmosphere invades my knees with divisions of

burning bridges. Rebuilt,

then taken by storm as his old bones sigh,

the children asleep in the submarine,

the faded skin of old flame sets in

and the strength seems to emanate from

an Italian hospital ages away

where I first learned to feel safe within,

alone. Myself.

I know the months creep closer to colder when the turtle pond grows

in my eyes, when the windchimes

harmonize with her German,

those wrinkles draped below her eyes

and I recall the animal talk of another time

upon the peeling sea foam ledge of water's edge,

sad yet yielding pine,

older than me.

Mecci's home now her fountain of heaven.

Daddy's supposed safehouse.

up up and up onto the wet deck, remembering sudden dark eyes under the sweep of infinity,

the stars so sharp, so penetrating

blinding with their watchful beacons of subtle idolatry,

before the fall and yet after they came to earth
as lightning beams of alien
sea towers along the coast of me.

as he alongside the jacuzzi,
the old torn porch swing with jagged, damp stuffing

clammy boardwalk of old faith and new breath.

And years and years ago, the puppies laid under the shelter of stone furnace,

the wolf dog escaping the supposedly most impenetrable of wood

to drag home prizes of slain sheep and

crumpled rags of deer.

In a year's time i would again long to celebrate the Lilliputian villages,

the dark creep of thick beer,

those fraudulent yodeler hats of chintzy yellow.

and I'm in my black slouch boots of last year's faux suede,

recalling that surge of self-anointed appropriate autumn,

still post surgery and craving affirmation,

aching for a tenderness to slough off the small ridged scars, stichless but ruthless

the softness of him brought to me repletion

beneath the snowing leaves,

rivulets of reason in a season of callous change.

and multiple journeys down the line, I apologize,
your young bride
the failure of Tugger a sign, the denial of free spirits,
the solitude of that fateful flight

into the core.

that chasm of vacillation
and the magic school bus game,
the Seattle tequila stroll.
silent betrayal.

on the streets of that chilly Northwest city in her tights and new cantaloupe sweater

she strode past dark-skinned men and imagined the texture of their lips,

lost senses of scattered pieces, a puzzle left behind to simmer in November's dress.

And then the bullets.
the size of stale grudges
and the most simple of celestial deviations,

metal is broken with a click of wrist and shift of hip
one snap of alignment upon the lines
the cycles collide

and once again
intercession of fortuity finds you here,
staring down the barrel and
sliding
like eager beads of sweat
upon your mother's forehead
when she promised herself this was the last time.

Dissemination

Ring Around the Rosie



occasionally the seeds are spread too thin

Sharp and open
Leave me be, this is not sleep
(only sleeping more every night)
The hours become heavier and weighted, bleeding into dawn
Always waiting, hovering between
That cold light
A noise, and then the trembling
The suddenly fragile frame, all wallpaper pants as the figurine tightens its plastic smiles
(spiders inside)
And dust on the lips of this strange vision of hell
.it fell away. back into the

glitter floor, painted earrings. black and white and alone. I laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year. foolish snow.

And me, sometimes it's just me here. I need, need, need need need. Breathe. To feel real.

A hundred other words blind me with indifference, despondence of disbursement

Like an old painted doll in the throes of dance
I think about tomorrow
(please let me sleep soundly)
As I slip down the window
Freshly squashed fly
It means nothing
or is it, I mean nothing?
standby.

I can lose myself in Arabic art and American sex all the time

(Forget my face in the dark)

These streets have too many names for me

I'll get used to this eventually, I know

(Please do it right)
-Run into the night
Because I will find myself again tomorrow, gather and weave it all together
Crimson lines/pumppumpexplosion

/memories in a fire.


You can never say no to anyone but me.

Too many twists,
occasionally robotic, I'll admit
Please make it good this time
...except the same words haunt me
In sequence/ in despair of time.


go on

the lights go off

when things don't feel right
I lie down like a tired dog
licking his wounds in the shade

when I feel alive
I try to imagine a careless life,
a scenic world where the sunsets are all..
breathtaking.

No. I couldn't tell you how the house burned down.
Last night, oh, we were running around.
Midnight surrounds you,
you forget yourself while the full circle moonlight makes you proud.
We were just running around...

Sing for that call, sing for this fall, such was a. Shhh

it was my home, once

and for all.






occasionally the seeds are spread too thin


and then I find that old solitude once again, it's only human.
each and every piece for you,
but maybe one for me-
and when the guard is off duty
i'll be sure my soft shock of broadcast is not too public.



ashes, ashes...

Cimarron Canyon

Memories of New Mexico


Here's to Father Sun and Mother Moon,
embracing me and you

even as we think we are slowly dying
(death is slow life, life's slow death of repression).


In the wet. We wait until we've gotten through the twistiest, steepest mountain roads until we allow ourselves to savor the chocolate covered pretzels; we let the rain clamber in. Weakness- pain leaving the body. The little white paper bag from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory is perched between us, he cracks the windows again and the cold hand of liberation slides inside my lungs. Victorious release. I know I trust him because I'm able to write as he navigates through the treacherous, winding strips; I still remember when I was too terrified to even attempt to drive in abnormal weather, let alone surmise someone else to do so without tearing my eyes off the road.

And we feel solid. Rocks. Real. He told me he doesn't feel lonely anymore.

Occasional map glances for mere reinforcement, he and the land know one another, here. The best smelling air of anywhere. He wants to keep that scent in his nostrils for all time, hands sneaking out to grab droplets of New Mexico's cooling blood ("It doesn't look real"). We always share the best drives- surreal, ethereal spheres of peace. Terrenes like my painting visions; he is my blue tree in what dreams may come. My journey...the night fog creeping in and those hauntingly esoteric flashes of light in the distance. Always to the East. And in this damp paradise, I don't take out my camera, I know the futility: absolutely nothing could record or accurately capture this beauty.

I can see the ghost of fog-writing edging the window (Love)
...to see my own utter elation,
echoed across his face.

He wished for just one kiss while he blew the frost fuzz of the dandelion in the wind
breaking the mountain tide, outside the center of a community not our own (but of our kind).

Great chasm of sky bestows the steeples of earth with invisibility, this never ending solid wall of precipitation. It's just me and you on this road:
"Looks like we're driving into the abyss."
"We are. We always are."

Nihilists enamored.
(I can nearly slap Colorado's left buttcheek from here.)



oceans and grasslands and deserts and forests and mountains and plains and valleys and canyons and rivers and bays and gulfs and marshlands and swamps and pastures and meadows and creeks and lakes roil and meld and blend and meet and then a centerpoint of sudden light...
bursting over me and ciphening the poison out.

and then
a hand on a knee, a head on a chest
breaking (someday the) waves with the most pristine of whitecaps (think pre-sunrise Swiss Alps)



In the mountains I feel as though I understand myself better in my dreams,
like I am more in tune with my most raw subconscious desires. I awake believing that perhaps I had never really been sleeping, merely stepping out of one skin and sliding into another.



My life has finally truly begun
by the language of his movement and
the rhythms of his tongue.

Blood

Generative Capacity


In the parking lot of an oversized, corporate grocery store in a small-standard college town, a chubby nine-year old Hispanic boy was choking on his own blood.

Streamers of it streaked his dirty cheeks and chin, gobs of it coughed down the front of his oversized and now undecipherable T-shirt (quite possibly black with a familiar wrestling logo adorning the fabric front). He did not know where his mother was. His mother, who was more concerned with her grocery selection (quite possibly not the healthiest given her own overweight appearance and casual disregard) left him in the car for "not very long at all" while she chose her poisons from the long shelf lines in Capitalism's clutches.

A kind, middle-aged woman found the boy stumbling deliriously around the cemented plains of the parking lot, where heat waves rose and bounced off the glares of mirrored metals. She spoke to him in soothing tones and pressed a miniscule wad of paper towel against the scarlet; he struggled to recede from hyperventilation and spit fat piles of the thick fluid onto the dusty pavement. It stained the woman's carefully manicured hand, swirled around the edges of her carefully placed gold ring, and threatened the careful floral blends on her blouse, but through calm questions she ignored it.

Another concerned couple caught the scene in passing and found an old red dishtowel in their backseat, rushing it to the boy, who was now surrounded by strangers and sweat and blood but no worried mother or father. The solo napkin drenched with body dahlia:discarded and replaced, as more curious bystanders peaked and briskly turned away. The male measure of the couple, a selfless and wise Capricorn, lowered the bleeding child to the hot asphalt between the cart return and a vague Suburban as the workers were alerted of the parent-less boy's distress. Warm-hearted Cap's inherent quiescence placated the boy slowly, while the girlfriend quietly and gently distracted him.

The milling marketing masses tuned out the loudspeaker like always, and the unfit mother blended into the aisles like the stale frigidity in the meat section (plump with preservatives and mindlessness, the rankness of exploit). While her son had stumbled out of the deserted car in a panic to seek help, unable to manually cease the flow of his blood, she tapped her Target flip-flops and tried to decide between instant rice and potatoes-in-a-pouch (might I add, neglecting to pick up repetitive cell calls).

Uneven pitches of tone and breaths of frantic pants as his chest heaved in beats of two and three; between all these he admitted this bleed was the first with unknown cause and the worst one yet. His grubby white sneakers were now gilded with the cardinal spattering of a day he wasn't soon to forget...hopefully. His mother, on the other hand-
she is lost already.

His sable hair shone slick in the perspired drops of sun, a close cropped sort of flat top, and the blood kept ebbing nimble and sticky beneath the pressure of rag. His own wet, coagulated gurgles brought cries of near terror from his throat; the couple murmured comforts and convinced him to lean, lean and breathe deliberately,
it's okay, it's slowing,
Mom will be here soon.
She'll hear her own voice through the overhead and come running.
He drank the cold water Capricorn brought him and attempted communication through muffled fear.

When Mom came, however, she simply walked to the corner between cart return and car where he was slumped and wedged. With demand to know what had taken place in her innocent absence, annoyance a plenty, her only worry centered on abandoned groceries and the possibility of her car doors left unopened in her son's haste to find a pair of attentive eyes. As she went to check on her vehicle, he spat more wads of red on himself and averted his eyes in shame.

His rescuers patted his sweat stained back and hesitantly took leave with hidden disgust,
sinking into the sanctuary of themselves and trying to fight off the anger and creeps of disquietude.




and on a night that silent sirens swirled with patriotic colors that penetrated fall's new stillness,
and outside the open doors the air smelled of moist, sunken earth,
she almost stepped on dried wax the color of dried blood in the bathroom,
a simple tealight spill after he lined her bath with candles and incense,
turning off harsh fluorescents and opening the window to let the cricket music in.
But now as she studied the clammy, hardened splotches of burgundy and copper,
so oddly reminiscent of mummified plasma
she was no longer thinking of their wedding music,
and instead was remembering the involuntary twitches and visions and impulses
as the energy cross-haired her body and electrified her pore by pore.
She remembered her dreams of harvest,
of strange Indian women lying upon her mother's bed unclothed from the waist-down
in search of healing-
she kneaded the dark skin and dug for the abnormalities she feared in herself,
feeling the entity of her own fertility impale her
with questions and a truth she could not uncover nor deny.
She felt the call, the sting of semiotics,
remembered her own blood being pulled from her core like clockwork
or moon hypnotism,
the red tide,
or return of fruitfulness after las inundaciones y la sequía.

And then, the choking...the painful, heavy inhalations of heady sex in disguise.


He left his roseate juice in disregard and
She imagined the ghost of a teakettle to be a train

but this time, when she fled the bathroom,
she didn't forget to close the door to keep the heat in,
the oxygen out.

Alpha

in the beginning

before Shy died.

When she was a child of no more than seven, she began to long for traveling rollerskating rinks she was yet to know existed. Circus tents of bright carmine and vivid sapphire pitching above smooth wooden floors that shone in the Texas sun. It was autumn, and she sunk into the season with glee and a soft grace that already spoke of her magic and lined the folds of her imagination. She hung plastic pumpkin buckets in the most modest of the front yard branches, and when the time was ripe she would delve into the scarf collection and cloak herself in labyrinths until she wore thin. In the trees she was at peace. Sometimes the air would get too thick and her throat would tighten, but up there, against the stains and curls of bark, she could see her veins more clearly beneath the youth of her skin.


When she learned how to roller blade, her body taught itself to move.
She slid her callused feet into the pads wedged between the gleaming plastic and streamlined strange driveways, catapulting and churning visions into asphalt battles. Her hours were injected into dimensions of pebbles and crystal mattresses beneath the sharp wooden starburst of home. The backyard forest of nonexistent broken bones and the berries;
the berries, that mystery of eternal clusters of
ever present red planet pomes
and lines and lines and
corners and droves
of...
borders.