we fight

maybe its not such a good idea to keep us bound
together by like ideas
i love you so
i take your thoughts for mine
of which i'm so tired
i take your thoughts for mine
the one's i have to leave
running reckless peeves
they don't seem to make much sense to me
so why yours for mine?
see where i've gotten stuck
can almost put a finger on it

i'm looking for a better bind
than fickle ideas that resemble mine
i would like our hearts to sing together
what water keeps together
heart embrace all human weather
with eye wet
how can i forget?
the effort it takes to hold
heat
stealing warmth
from crumbs to eat

what pretends to tend to another
watch them do the dance of we
while i watch
i know its me
i'll be the slave
you get set free
when i stop acting
nothing happens

when nobody's looking
i disappear

don't catch yourself watching
i forget
shapes i take

i will pass myself
again
been here more times
than i can count
when i walk past
lights light my path
when i pass by
bath towels rustle
oh to be of place
following taste

food energy
reflected in your eyes


inside feeding out

post heavy whipping cream; most of us will have died

unsavory bone sore
dehydrated probably
i put on "an ending"
thought i might feel better
but only remembered that i've felt better
when i get home i promise to only imbibe energetic kindness
of green juice grown close to where i sleep
for a couple days at least
not that it matters
but maybe it does
in some small way
just like i've found some small ways to be more comfortable
than most of my blood relations
can't imagine fearing potential lovers' mother's opinions
maybe i'm too worried about my own opinions
at dinner tonight i turned to my cousin
and asked her to imagine us fifty years from now
i looked around and realized most of us will have died
she said at the rate technology is going we could be on a different planet
i imagined myself speaking fluent swiss german
a late life immigrant with exotic children
all blonde

by the grace of god go i

feel like the rug is always being pulled out from under me
or maybe that's just the wool being pulled over my eyes
wondering what this small bit is
that keeps interpreting the world
as something else acting upon it
how do i hold this--

i am the keeper of something delicate
will tread softly on my own thoughts
that way everybody wins

Bodysong Part II

I wake in the darkness
to my heart skipping beats
and it seems nothing can cure me
but the lull of a familiar melody

under closer investigation
i see myself facing the unknown
emotions expand in my chest
of sizable weight and unknown breadth
and i wonder, how long is this going to take me?

i turn towards an old song
attending to familiar territory
with blood on the tracks
we'll run over comforting sound waves
how old is this place?
how old?

I dream of haunting houses
making visits to an apocalypse cliff
i live like this world is my center
even though it's sun that holds me together
whenever I tell myself to keep it together
i'm just pretending to hold that weight on my shoulders
makes me feel important

rings of saturn

the colossal beauty of a human face buried in another's neck
ties me to
a childhood memory, fits of laughter
of being tickled senseless

I listen for the rain
in servitude
as it barrels down
making connections between all of the raindrops
and the warmth beneath your skin

somewhere in time this moment is unfolding
but for now
just my pen pressed against paper
all of my ritual magic
simplified to small wrist movements
on the edge of symbolic empty space
made from the bodies of sacrificial trees
this is what i do to sing in reality
nothing too fancy
just heartbreakingly slow enough to notice---

falling to earth i realize my sense of solitude is brief

When I open my mouth it only means I don't know

what would i say if if i could speak honestly
if i could give you words without need underneath,
other than I love you, I hope you make it in one piece

I was cut from stone
and then was born from clay
now my blood does freely flow
I'll give it back someday

I can see the sun
there's water in my eye
round in circles run
until the day we die

round in circles go
makes time to pass us by

my breath is in the wind
my body in the soil
with thoughts illuminate the dark
say, "time to rest from toil!"

I know that sometimes I like my coffee black
my eggs runny
I saw it it in a movie once
and got stuck on the evocation
of white sky
and vague nostalgia
maybe inconsolable family knottedness
is born of the same motive
of choosing bitterness
as a means to softening

sometimes I think we are the greatest
I know we are
always a pleasure to be us
no matter what happens
whatever it is that experiences us
is great

to look across the table at the cafe
into the brightness of your face
feeling supported by songs I know well
and your vibrant presence

lost loss

I am looking forward into my life
when this happens I am dreaming
no future exists
but I am quick to compensate

marriage from one to another
I expect
with a loss of self
that one can hope to merit

who am I but the thinness
between lonely
and holy

I alone
when uttered wordlessly
I hear in ache
when felt
the greatest joy cannot describe

Kalachakra

feelings strong like aged perfume
glass bottles in the ornate basket
oriental and attractive
gathers dust in the shed
thought i found it on accident
but of course you planted it
only a relic because we attached it
to a story well fastened
you remember what happened
otherwise just something happening
objects in front of me
objective anomaly
like when i bound my wrists with pearls
memory box is fading gold and wooden
only said that because i thought it might be nice
to have that for a second
if only in thought
then just for a second
just a suggestion
ache in my ankle only sensation
with each step a prostration
measure the earth with the length of our bodies
if we must count,
do
so
to
free
hello stranger i take it you know me
energy meet energy

I pulled off the veil of metaphor
my patience grew thin
want to cover up my love again
so I can take it outside
bring it over in swaddling clothes
to show you what I've done

think I'm hungry and eager
like a newborn's fever
oh what is this?
embedded in my false progeny
I try to make do
without making way
for new life

maybe this isn't the appropriate venue...no it is

i usually gollum out on these...but today i've elected to take a different route.



Damir Doma


Alexander McQueen

.....

faux ! shearling by J.W. Anderson


these and more can be found on http://www.oki-ni.com/
poetry and menswear folks. one in the same.

Having a dream recollection
of a song about death
in awe of this ability, i continue
neighborhood walking
daylight slipping off to the other side
thought i'd put it off for a moment
go and set things right
trees a glint with low angle light
i get bored.
it's cinematic, oh alright
thought i'd put it off for a moment
watch the birds flit about
thoughts in my head
always inside pouring out
i walked back to my house
a faux cry escapes my mouth
all this inside pouring out
i worry that the world is dirty
and we've done it to ourselves

that would be a punchy ending
but i'm almost done with punch

watch me blanket everything in beliefs
i do this to keep warm

pridebinds

I want I want to reach out to you
I want I want to be able to
touch you
when I want to

before I could reach out my hand
I got afraid
that you might turn me away

and so alone I stayed
and so alone I stayed
in solitude prayed
and so alone I stayed


it took everything in me to place my fingers on your back
I offered it all up for that
only to realize that my hand was yours
touching
my old bones in your back

something sensitive

Okay. I am feeling a bit down. I can admit that to myself and acknowledge that I can feed the bummer by trying to figure it out with my thoughts. I roll it a few inklings of self doubt, “What am I doing with my life?” Now it's interested and has started to sink its teeth in, “Shit, I've got all kinds of stuff to do.” Now its little face is covered in crumbs. I can keep feeding the little guy until it eats itself to death.
I got bored. It died. I start to feel hopeful.
I may or may not appreciate a literary personification.
but i'm kind of stuck in one.
like wearing a mask of a mask.

Hopeful for what. New joys to catch in my greedy net. More joy more love more happiness. No not that again. I enjoy my core. I enjoy sensation in my pelvic floor. Sometimes I get so sad down there. Sometimes so sweet. I can grow accustomed. I can also grow. Hello(kindly) you have a choice. That is new. Kind of, but you know.
I can drop expectations. I can drop my shoulders. I would like for you to know that I love you. I want you to know that I love you. Parts that are grasping for God: what silliness is this? Love in stillness.

safflower and cottonseed
all i know is that i've formed some thoughts
on how
these oils aren't very good for
your body
but they sound like nice enough words
as they crawl into my half-sleep and
i might give
them to the box of unspeakable terms of endearment
where they settle
down my spine, in my hands
i am holding on to thoughts of you before bed
it sounds like sex
but is not
is not sex
its knot.
sex
all of this has nothing
and everything to do with you

i guess we are both between those
realizing the lie,
the hoax of loneliness;
felt good

my sister came back from the mountains
she seemed more fit
for what I don't exactly know
we were lying awake before sleep
she told me its easier to die out there
without mirrors its easier to see yourself
without showing others
you are shown
listening to her voice that people often mistake for mine
in the dark of our borrowed bedroom
i noticed her

evocative of today's weather

This is what I come up with
after all that
this is what I come up with?

Energies of the body that paint through me like phantoms
today I will decorate my face
to commemorate life
I would like to think my intentions sound
or at least in accord with benevolence
I'll take that rather than the knitting I do
to stave off longing
I embodies longing
I noticed once from some elevated perspective

I noticed once from some elevated perspective
what the physical world is
or was to me in that moment of observation
in the living room surrounded by things
raised surfaces, cushions, rugs,
film
All that is yielded from discomfort
and the pretension of ease

it must hurt so much to be human
with whetted thoughts
I am constantly cutting me off

Bodysong Part I

The sounds of my ovaries.

http://asianclassicalmp3.org/Udom_Silapin--Northern_Thai_Funeral_Music--Lao_Nok.mp3

Long time no see.

I looked at your face,
heart told my eyes what to see
I wanted you to know
when you're as lost as me
we cling to one another
and hope to be free

so for now take me in
let me in
and settle into me

beyond us there are more like us
we are the spinning sea
you and I will meet again
formless and embodied

I tried to rest my head upon your mutability
to stay here a while,
as a lover, as a child
in the sleepy world
and the enchanted wild

biding the time we invented
for the change I wanted
a change of heart is what I got
all this is going on
while all this is going on
and is going on
and is not.

Look

Keep in mind you're mind
keep in mind your mind

many times before it took an eye to find
I found these eyes temporarily mine

I keep trying to come out of this
when I may never come back in

dabbling

I guess it would make sense to draw a picture when you've got a film stuck in your head.

A Dream

What gathers here while I'm losing sleep
enough to keep a water wheel in spin
but dries up during the day
so deep into the night I swim
and soon become prey


I call to you from cell to cell
in our captor we have won
pretending to know you unwell
this play, more ancient than our fun

I am thinking of you in my arms
how we'll find ourselves in form
how I got to be this piece
that dreams of holding itself
to be born

Rest carries me to a desert
I come across a sexless form
I ask its empty face
Was it in you that our softness was born?
Without a mouth it spoke to me
in words I did not hear
surprised to find myself unafraid
misunderstanding no longer a fear

another bloody metaphor

the clothes are by Makin Jan Ma. He tends to write characters first and then dresses them in his lovely designs. Speaking of desire....I want one of those capes.

here's the writ:

try not to get
so hung up on desire
nothing
wrong with wanting
a heart pulling is no enemy

only love's will to draw you in
only loves will send you out again

we live from this story
watch you change from gory to glory

glorious blood
gathers and goes

my thoughts float on a crimson wave
I shout from deck,
“I want to be saved”
my raft is small and surrounded by sea
I spy you on yours
you call to me,
“meet me in the blood”

in the blood
in the blood
where our love will be
no more screaming from deck
no more sailing around
I will not have you on this flimsy raft
so meet me in the blood

God has been the siren all along
singing you to shipwreck
but you fear the song

we bolster our sails
all float on


really you are burning bright
forgive
your eyes
don't see red light

just acting

Forgetting the beach
the uprooted tree
its side in the sand
worn smooth by the waves' restless tousling
softened and sogged
salted it lay
el arbol del mar
la reina muerta

I cursed my father
overturned his empty wooden bowl,
spilling crumbly remnants of dinner into his lap

in the split second it took to think
this act of violence
I am lost

it is rare that I find myself in pinches of rage
even rarer that I feel compelled to express myself in Spanish
both acts being less characteristic of me
than wandering the beach, worshiping tree carcasses

all being theatrical gestures of experience
the nobody playing the somebody

only one eye in happiness

keep eyes open
prospector keep searching
what would it be to see without looking?

Death will steal my hunger
give me back to vision
until the day i see with eyes open
for now fill up on compassion

Gratefully yours

hello in there with the animal eyes
how did you get your skin to fit so tight
look at you all taut and bright
you build a good wall for such little might



oh I have been so many things
in this life alone
born again too many times to tell
always chasing after
heavens' teasing
while fleeing from the kindness of hell

events unfolding, I claim and make mine
seek continuity in what pleases me
while avoiding the rind

governed by taste
to lumber around like a bumbling bear
slitting salmon in the river
gutting beehives in the pines

the difference between me and the monkey and bear---

human human your body is soft
but your will is strong
the only creature in the forest that can change its song

No need for fingers on the pulse
when you are the blood

I flip and flow
I course and spout

no need for a door
when I am the house

I would if I could
I would if I could

I can and I have

our sight's set on being seen
and everything holds meaning

this is a passing embrace
the blood in your mouth
a pleasantry of taste


what you and I see
the world as it looks like to humans like me
we are born and its brief
once i would have told you to gather your joy
and bury your grief
i can only tell one from the other
but not much else