long discursive fever dreams
drift without effort but still somehow
heavy with the heated weight of story
not mine always
slow building intense profound
teachings light and delicate as spun fairy sugar
reach too tightly and they dissolve
relax and they linger
sweetness dropping as a seed within
I never knew my father as anything other,
though from stories I heard he lived a life
rich with travel, music, art, and other dangerous things.
for years I carried with me my sole testimony to this,
a charcoal self-portrait he had drawn of himself as a young man,
the paper creased and worn from years of being folded
before it passed into my hands, and I chose to keep it close
in the left back pocket of my jeans just like he had done.
one day it simply fell apart, and I went to a bridge
and scattered the tattered remnants over the water.
I doubt he ever traveled in this area but think he would have approved.
as the heat rises, as the dome settles into place
and even the mountains lose their cooling air,
where now do I go?
before I could slip easily away into a boat
and take myself into the shaded silence of bayous overhung with cypress.
the local alternative is a trail which offers some canopied foliage
but also people and dogs and bikes and noise.
summer has become overwhelming at times,
too bright with sun; too loud with all sorts of clatter;
too noisome with industrial odors.
in other worlds I find the hush and stillness,
so that is where I’ll be.
how can I not remember you? how can I forget?
at the market you would gently pick through summer squash
to find the ones that were just the color of the sun
and hold a blueberry to the sky before tasting it for sweetness,
then at home, you would spread all we bought in riotous display
and circle it talking aloud to yourself of the delicious possibilites.
sometimes when we cooked, you’d dance around the kitchen
and grab my hands to pull me in until I joined you.
you said I was too serious always and your job was to make me laugh.
oh love, long ago and too soon gone love, you did that so well
that still I remember your lessons and the beauty of your smile.
did I hold you enough? no, never enough, yet I tried to the very end.
though you slipped away to wander the unknown fields of death,
you remain with me in unexpected ways, forever my abiding joy;
forever my happiness; forever my heart.
when I was young, I knew so many dangerous things
boys risk their lives for chance
in brief suicidal encounters with other boys
girls buzz their hair in swagger
for langorous forbidden dances with other girls
bodies hide different meanings
with changes and revisions often unseen
words and stones hurled from car windows
are equally capable of inflicting bloody wounds
queer fag dyke tranny used on us like knives
to carve their imagined shame into our very being
but
the most dangerous thing I knew is what I still know
we are here, have always been, will never not be
our risk brave, and we pay love’s cost
our swagger pride, and we openly embrace
we have taught each other magic
made our scars into marks of beauty
transformed their scornful terms into rallying cries
when we look at you with clear unafraid eyes
we see who you really are, so that you turn away
because you know, have always known:
we are the dangerous things
what can I offer on a day that begins
with a walk down the street
in the company of a small dog and a small duck?
sometimes the world presents whimsy
wrapped in thick mountain fog
and the wing-beat of swallows rising in the clouds.
this is enough to fill my heart;
just this, reason to breathe.
I am no maiden
to be approached with shining countenance
or offers of love and wealth
I will laugh and show you my empty hands
only the foolish think that another can give them
a charmed red thread to lead them to safety
I know the secret of the labyrinth-
have always known- and will freely share:
no key, no secret, no hidden escape
we each stand in the center of a self-created maze
you alone know your way through the twists of your heart
go and walk
I sit within the silence of distraction held by the noise of morning’s rush
rumble of trains and shriek of car alarms
industrial counterpoint to ongoing birdsong and chatter of squirrels
louder than any of these the clangor of mind
bang and buzz of thoughts going here there off in every direction
follow me follow me follow me each one cries
I pay every due a brief nod of acceptance bid farewell continue to sit
aware in the swirl of cacophony
not yet gone beyond but here and here and here
as a child I moved so easily between this world and hidden lands
that I did not realize that this was not a usual thing
one step was all I needed, one breath
and the noise of streets and people fell away
into a great vast quietude in a shadowed realm
I sat in silence within a fellowship of ancient trees
where they shared stories from worlds yet to be
in a language that I had always known
eventually I would return to the flash and hum of this-born life
subtly altered each time by forgetting who I was
though when the wind blew through the leaves, I heard
remember remember remember
body made of dirt and rocks
mouth filled with bones and feathers
heart dug into a hole in the field
mind weighted with rain-filled clouds
such fundamental knowledge