when we were monarchs, 1994

when we were monarchs
for an entire morning
and the golden dawn and tremulous evening
hung like draperies in our new chemical sky

we blink at the sun and we scratch
my loins stirring like furnaces dipped into serenity

the uproar of blue wine
the new winter rain
loosens peninsulas of my spreading self
that do dances like a diva-Christ across pools
of our voluptuousness

your magnificent shoulder blades
and the telephone poles
run, in the wake of the awakening phosphorous
scattering daylight and the shutters from old shotguns
down to the brown gulf

green night rebounds, enters the corners
hairnets of lightning strobe our bliss
coating our ferment like gunshots
in the abyss of exalted doves

outside the hummingbird, 2008

outside the hummingbird
she'll be just what you want
and nothing at all

hoping someone will take her
without giving anything away
this shrouded dowry awry

i can still see the dull light in your eye
mine to brighten
that upturned lip so hard to impress
i danced for you on the basketball court in my dress

rubber asphalt sheetrock hole

we never spoke that was the deal
i'd circle you and kiss your back wheel

at the sink

on the floor

on the silvery deck above the crackheads' door

i didn't know what was expected
i came out of myself

erected

in this unspoken dream

i was going to do whatever it took
and you were not going to tell me
what that was

so i put the money in the jar for our getaway car

here we are

halloween

halloween, 2000, turner at the tate. my son, my wife, my son. the hallows are upon us again.

father called, 2008

father called
from the city
a breath, a voice
narrow hips, pale skin
memory moved to my fingertips

i am back at the beginning
a kick, a poke, the swell
of something growing

i hoarded what i could
his smile
his blood
his violence

these sonic details
envelop, hard, bright, blindly

i am crying at last

epistrophy

'i am not my complexion'

keith jarrett, october 27th, 2008, in response to people in the audience telling him they were taking his picture 'because we like you'.

train

i just found this image in a bunch of negs from a few years ago. for some reason it has me by the throat. i'd never seen it before but i believe it lived in me in some way, calling to me...'remember me'.

i surf

i went body surfing out at good harbor beach during hurricane kyle, while tropical storm laura was developing out at sea, far off the nova scotia coast. it was a sunday. i had felt pulled to the ocean that day, really since the night before. my sons marek and lukas came with me. one of marek's names is kyle, named for a surfer and artist i knew in nova scotia in the year marek was born there. that was the year of hale - bopp. i can remember it in the sky over the house and how it would accompany me out to the valley, leading the way out, hanging, to see my wife laura and the children. that was the year of crying. that was the fall that brought marek, water unbroken, into the world. that was the beginning, really, of the end. kyle would surf lawrencetown beach. it had the coldest water i've ever felt in the summer. the midwife pushed gently at the clear, rippled film and our son came forth.

there we stood on the beach, in awe. me, marek and lukas. kyle. laura at sea. it was definitely all on fire that day. it was a powerful day, full of raw beauty and return. the ocean is always about return for me. and renewal. i went out into the waves and after being battered and slapped and spilt, went down and grabbed at handfulls of sand on the bottom as i dove and pulled my way through. below, pressed down, smiling, in the cold grey-green underworld. forgotten. i emerged, and took a breath. the pull and release, the joining with the rush to shore. thrown up on the sand. the mist so heavy that it was as if water and air were one. the softness of the bobbing surfers. the disappearing dog walkers. the free dogs wheeling in the sand. the boys called to me. so faint and invisible, only suggestive of sons. small friends of monet’s in motion. arms and muffled shouts. they had found a dead seal washed up on the seaweed line. she seemed to be an adult grey. it was hard to see any signs of trauma, but the back of her head was bloodied. such a beautiful animal. such a perfect shape. the females can live into their 30s. had she brought children into the world? i pulled a tooth from her lower jaw. a canine. my wife was in her 30s. a similar size and shape. reminiscent. perhaps laying somewhere in a similar position. reclining. we were now two years into our separation. can we still count those as years of marriage? are we 10 then? or 12? either way, we didn't make it out of our own childhood stunted. a life cut short. 30 years of living in the oceans sounds really good to me. i could start now. i tried to roll the seal over for lukas. he wanted to see where she was hurt. i put both hands on her side and the first thing i felt was warmth. it felt familiar. the dead weight. the oils and the smell on my hands. i went to the water and sand to try to work them from my fingers, but they would not leave.

we found a snail on the way back, away from the beach. gloucester, we call him. he was on the sidewalk heading into town. not far from the bar made famous in 'the perfect storm'. he has now been joined by a leopard slug, rescued before the first frost, who has laid a pile of eggs and lays curled around them. slugs and snails are hermaphrodites, they are both male and female. i have dreams now of my slug body. ready to be both, as the need arises.

peace

my friend lv and i went out to the peace abbey in sherborn, massachusetts, recently. from wherever you are it is worth the trip. she was performing with sgt. maxwell's peace chorus. it is incredibly moving to be in a place where the fundamental is peace. i remember the 60's and 70's and how often we would flash the peace sign from our car to everyone we saw, just hoping to get the sign back. so often it came back with a smile. we were children but it felt like we were a part of a movement. stop the killing. stop hurting each other. we are not in danger. this can't be our way. that war resulted in nearly 3 million vietnamese deaths and 60,000 american deaths. and of course uncounted casualties and trauma. i was traumatized by that war. the green cast on the black and white television in my livingroom gave improper cover, camouflaging the horrors taking place in the jungle but giving a haunting reality to the leaves and light and suffering. i see fatigues and rifles. i try to see the cong. i am eight years old. i am growing into what will, at full size, be used to continue the telecast.

lock the knee

roots are important. the great unseen. like the unconscious itself. my connection to the earth is changing. i feel great joy that i am here, one among many, of this same soil and water and air. of one. of one moment. the health of the physical body, being in touch with the physical body, the physical body itself, is a manifestation of the earth. we share the earth, this birth mother, and coincidentally are becoming her caretakers. as we spring forth from the earth and learn to care for ourselves we realize we need to care for the earth as well. the earth is our larger self. the word yoga is derived from the basic root yog, which in hindi means uniting, a yolking of one thing with another. also from sanskrit, yuj, meaning 'to unite, to integrate or to cohere and is thus taken to represent the highest state of union, integration or coherence between individual or personal or human consciousness and cosmic or universal or divine consciousness.' so speaking, the yoga is uniting with source. in many asanas, or postures, you are required to lock the knee. bikram says 'you must lock the knee', and 'if you can, you must'. so there is no chance of missing out on this primary connection to earth. in a standing posture, you are rooted through the ground, through the earth. the pull of gravity, of the earth and the complimentary rising, treelike, of the human form. that connection or force can be imagined coming up from the center of the earth through your feet, through your locked knees. as you rise away, with spirit embodied, you can feel the gravity of the earth in all of your cells. the death that is to come, that is ever present. i am in process of both rising up within that gravity and being returned to earth in each moment.

day one

to witness within. without. without judgement. i see witnessing as the ultimate teacher. there is no attachment to outcomes. it reminds me of a return to earth. a sinking in. an interment and return to soil, where the tree begins.