doxology

You who are the word waiting
behind our monkey chatter
the slivers we cast up and grasp
the scraps we paste onto the great
deep space where you eternal
Are, and were, and will be.

Confetti, tesserae: our little
square minds weave little
webs. You who resolve
the pixels, zoom out, who hold
the little cells that fizz
and fade--Who sees the plan

imago Dei, we weave flat
ikons of your will, with our small wills,
we retell that great dark Word
with little scraps, that flash
and fizzle. Map data points
with neurons, bright, like glass

mirrors, sliver small. And you whole
skinless vast and frameless All
who waits behind our words
wore cells. Divided, multiplied,
housed parasites, grew skin,
grew blood, grew brain,

saw through two eyes. You walked
bone, muscle, skin; you died.
Whom we throw silver pins at,preserve and classify. Unheld
by ending, you rose, you opened
into Are. You go on being:

burgeon, bloom, divide, diverge, adapt, diffuse, direct.
You were, and are, and will be;
this little praise, pinned up
on endless word--

You, always, Are: purpose full
and thick with power.

I hate spring

April, you're the cruelest:
you flirt your frills at us

your daffodils, your narcissus,
your tulips. You sweet lipped

sass. We've had enough of
you, sprinkling your glitter

threefully, gleefully,
our eyeballs itch with it

you giggle at our sneezing, you
slip breezes at us sweetly

as if we'd smile through our misery.
You tease. Too fecund

floribundant. Spring is
tyranny. We itch and weep

admire your ruffled twirls.
We've had enough of  this

soft torture, this lovelines.
Of all the spring months, April is
the springiest.

i feel

snakes in my throat,
their muscled thickness warm
in my mouth, pushing,

i will spit out snakes

my snake full throat is
revolted
like when a foul
sweetness curls
its thick self
back
behind my tongue

I would gag if I could
close my throat
but there are snakes
in my throat. I could
open my mouth
let them slide strong and
smooth scaled
out

i could
open my mouth

glass would fall out
and cut up
the world into
thin slices

i would taste my own blood:
metal, electric

my mouth is slippery
cut up
i could spit glass

at

glister

Maybe I’m too old for this

glitter, false lashes, but

I’d rather be a fool than

dull.

Sprinkle on some dew
fresh perversity

it lasts a little, till
the glitter 

rubs off, beneath
it's the same old--

overdone.
It gets so 

every fresh wet gleam 
looks greasy,

stale edged.

Take the edge off.

It's the ad age. I
buy it

all.

I’d rather be a fool

than

see

After the flash and bang fade

take a little ease

a little slide

away

don’t watch the edges

legs 
scurry

Don’t

see

teeth with holes

holes with teeth

beneath

sic transit gloria.

Monday. Let's

live large, die young

contra mundi

Don’t you dare

see the cracks

in my eye crease--

Let's

live forever. Let’s die

young

Kyrie eleison

I guess I’ll paint more glitter on

my eyelids. Come on,

let’s beat the old drum

one more night again

Christe eleison

one more night

it's Monday night again

Has it been a hundred years asleep

a hundred years backdebt of grief--

I don't think
about it. See,

it's Monday,

time 

for one more kiss

with teeth

Sick sick sic

glitter it thicker,

gloria let's

transit

one more night
again

it's like this, see?

cicadas

The cicadas are shrilling. They are casting
a great yellow net of noise
around the town

treetop to treetop
and pinned down
to earth

to crisp, hooked little stems
--each wing shriek and scream
intwisted to the web--

We giants roll and lumber
thick fish, our thoughts and chats
caught in the strings

our world of meat and bones
enclosed in yellow scream

november

1. It's November:
a warm month
in the afternoon at least
when the sun slants through brown leaves
Its touch turns us to gold:
the patchy grass, the wide wood slats of the fence
standing and rotting,
the weft weaving through leafshadow stripes.


2. Autumn light touches down like Midas—
the old wood slats of the backyard fence
turn gold;
we are enclosed in God's jewelry box:
the sky above us turquoise, silver veined,
the ground beneath us goldpatched,
glittering:
emerald and tourmaline and topaz

3. It's November:
the neighbor's vine
climbs like a curious child
to peer down the brown slats
of the fence
curls dangling down
Our ivy grows green hands to it:
hello,
little visitor,
hello

4. I want to write a poem about November, but
I hate it:
the dead gray sky,
the cold that curls uncoziness around me
like a blanket’s evil twin,
the long months till light.

the glass hearts

ONCE there was a kingdom of glass heart people.

They were very proud of the music that they heard in their ears, whenever they moved: they said it sounded like wind chimes wrapped in silk; or like ghosts playing marimba; or like drowned men dropping bells underwater. Most of their composers tried to mimic the sounds they heard, but it was a music that could not be shared. Each person heard only their own music.

Most of them died young.

There were three sisters who became philosophers together, who learned that their hearts had been shattered at birth. They realized that the music that rang in their ears was really the sound of chips and chunks of glass rattling and singing against each other. And the pieces of glass were cutting into them as they moved, biting into their organs until they bled.

The middle sister was frightened. So she swept up all the pieces of her heart that she could find and put them into a small box; they glittered and shivered at her. And she closed them up carefully in a little drawer, and locked it with a little key, and went on about her work safely. Sometimes she would remember a snatch of the sparkling music she had once heard, and feel wistful, but she never unlocked the little drawer. And she lived a long life, although she was not much loved by the glass heart people.

The youngest sister was brave—or perhaps she was foolish. In fact she was not much of a true philosopher at all; most of her thoughts were tangled up in fairy tales, for she had a great love of stories and sought out tales from all over the world. “I have read of a man who mends things,” she said to her sisters. “Let us go find him; perhaps he can help us.” But her sisters were not willing. So she went by herself. It was not much trouble she had in the finding of him, for the kingdom he lived in was nearby; and she found him there by a lake, mending nets. And the man agreed to help her. Her heart was in so many pieces that it hurt a great deal, and in the end he said it could not be mended. He gave her a new heart, and would take no payment for it. 

The new heart was made of something softer and warmer than glass, and would not shatter, but it gave her trouble and pain all her life; when she returned home her sisters shook their heads at her foolishness, and would not go to the man themselves.

The eldest sister was the wisest of the three. “It is the brokenness that makes our hearts sing so beautifully,” she said. She put her thoughts into a book of poems, which were set to music by one of the foremost composers; although, she said, the music was not anything so beautiful as the chiming and shattering she heard in her own ears. The poems and songs were much loved by all of the glass heart people, and when she died a year later they did not forget her for a long time.