(another tree)

-- and yet this tree
stands still
straight stemmed, limber

nods, and listens
breathes
the insect gossiping,
the small change-scented breeze
a warm October brings --

its leaves no less rejoicing green
for all their many fallings into gold,
their quiet dyings

Wind dropped or landscape planned
it greens the same
xylem and phloem  -- oh
it goes on growing
with that deepest green intending
bound up and flowing
every rootlet, leaf, and grooved stem
unbinding the heartdeep
the wordless hymn

storm splitted, blight bitten
scarred and pitted
it goes on growing

wormvisited its buds go on, imperfectly
unfolding
ceaseless its leaves their legion breathings
their numbered autumn goldings --

this tree, still
till it falls and dissolves
will green on -- going
on with its ceaseless little dyings
its beginnings
its beholding --

slack

washed and stacked, and
watching
in their chipped and shiny stares
not speaking their reproof, they glint
they glare
at the bare cupboard where they,
transients, briefly sleep

the floor smacks sticky kisses
on crumbcaked heels

a thin line of brown grease
weeps beneath the stove-eye lids

and there are drifts,
are little gusts
of dust in all the edges
settling
in their slow micrometers
down to rest

(A little sleep! a little slumber -- a little folding
of the hands -- to rest)

Apathy, entropy, ennui:
the sins confessed
hang your brainstrings out to dry
close your eyes
don't watch the world fall down around your sighs

(he who is slack in his work)
but i have done with destruction
i have washed the dishes
tomorrow

(maybe)
tomorrow, i will sweep

Let me --

Cut off my edges. Let me, roughedged, feel
and weep. O, let me weep
until that roughedge melts
into Your skin, and then Lord
let me weep
repent
and sleep

can i then only feel
rape murder dying
all other actions -- i
am still, am sighing, i
am not here, i only want
to miss the pain and truth and blunt
realities of what we say
to one another, day by day
Give me a punchline -- or
a pun, and i will laugh. I will
watch on,
until the next commercial break,
and then
i will skip channels till another's sin
in tangerine and orange flickers
once and again
then i will watch
O stop!
i will not watch --
and yet to think is time
it shrinks
my brain into the outlines of this game
The little pain
is paid for by amusement.
Distrait --
i am not here, i cannot tell
the punchlines roll and roll
and roll and (hell!)
unfleshed skeltonic
my crazed  brain
would think, but cannot!-- reaps
such -- rotted
grain --

infected

hebrews 4.12

(As if you were slicing merrily into your tomatoes
cucumbers, cheese)
  
when truth
that twoedge tongue
licked swift and silky
striped your palm: watch
red beads, glassbright, thread a glossy string

then pooling, welling, dripping
watch that newopened eye
weeping and weeping:
(the smell, too, a sharp metal tang)
you wait for the first pricks of pain

and then the eye
redrimmed and staring
still, beneath the bandage
has ceased its weeping, is
festering

you have slapped on it perhaps
a chilly, numbing cream
(a fairy tale--a film; a cause; a class;
a glass of pinot grigio or three)


beneath its taped-gauze veil
it pricks and bites
threads thin fingers through your palm
seams, red and waxy-yellow
your wrist
your arm

you ache, you itch, you flush
bite your lip
take a sip
flip the page
your streaking skin
your deepflesh seamed
puffs pink and angry at its touch

you ache, you itch, you flush
your flesh (you feel it!) shrill and outraged,
dying

love song

you are everything i need
(don't tell me not to bleed)
let me be the poison seed
buried down beneath your earnest heart
let me ring your heart in fire
that thing you call: desire
let me be the redvoice choir
that sings flamerings around your every inward part

Don't tell me that you love me, when
You don't know who i am
I can lick you sinful skin but i
Am more than your woman
Don't tell me that you love me till
You know who i am

you are everything i need! i
will be your poison seed,
i
will root my longings in your heart,
and sigh,
and say Complete me!
Love me!
til I die --

Tits ass and sweetfat
wheatfat stomach i

am more than the sweet skin you  hold. More
than the name you cry

Don't tell me that you love me
Love me!
I
Seek in you gold and cinnamon. Why
I look inside your skin for myrrh,
for mary jane,
for sour rye --

Be everything i need
Let me be your
let me be your poison seed

be
Can you be
everything i need --

Don't tell me that you love me! be
everything
i
need

Daddy

Now at last i love you
daddy
daddy
me --
you
who love your ease

cartoon Saturdays
playskinned knees

we boasted, cried
we lied, and hid
our playskinned knees

Just wait! she said
until your Daddy's home --
the enemy

we thought of you as one,
you two
you two
unspeaking islands in a wordless sea

You are not she

You who by heart would let me lie
and love
You put me in an Em shaped shoe
You made the shoe

You made me, crippled sad
rise from your brain
unwise
i did not do, i did
not say --

You wanted to know How and Why
The gray
Soft places did not frighten you:
i cried

You were the rock on which my gray rain fell
and did not bite
and did not kiss
nor did you tell me what --

Daddy
shallow
thinker
shifting
shiftless
cartoon
screen

You listened in

You love the many skins that we
lie
in --

like you a shallow lover i
love the shoals
shun the deep (the dark)
the wicked souls --

You choose (peacelover) to bite
the sweet, white flaps on skin
To hear (not to let lie)
the smooth and lying thin
Skin of our hearts, that lie --

You listen in

you love
you do not judge

You listen in

Dear man, you give
your own sweet skyblue soul
your thinroot, thirsty tree

Dear man, you speak

You gave me, dying, your two ears
wrapped up in tissue paper
yellowgreen

you listened to the love
the rot
the stenciled green

You loved the soft wormheart -- you said
In truedeep gold believe

Beloved, thinsoled, wormheart (you said):
Believe

brigit pegeen kelly

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/144/6#!/20600016

mama

Pampers
Huggies
Luvs
Storebrand

Each brand -- four varieties
Or more
Wetguard, clothfit, baby dry
technology
To buy --

And formula
(my breasts are dry
with diets -- but this,
ironblessed,
digestible,
with live and active cultures
is better still
than my own milk)

And babyfood
already pressed
organic squeezable
kale quinoa acai

foods healthier than i
unwealthy
eat myself --

You see
how you are loved --


Your toys are handmade wood,
BCP free
organic cotton
approved by me

Your mother --

Dear, in Africa
penniless,
I would
Defend you
knife
and teeth
and fist --

Here, blessed
with health insurance,
costly crown!
and monthly paychecks,
see how i drown
your little needs in bounty ==

Baby
see
How much
(organic
 hypoallergenic
dye- and gluten-free)
you are
to
me