ballooning of the sun

when red wandered along dust-spoked streets, the orchid 
lamented loss of color as it spun around an axis that 
separated the darkest shade of red from others –  the visible 

dis-unity shook no flower from its root     each knew their 
place in the sun     now ballooning in solitary knowledge of 
starless dreamscapes marking time, marking inkblots of time -

Poet as inkvapor

the ungatekept poem shunned being enclosed -
sun spoke the unencumbered poem before its
spokes were enumerated & circumscribed  -

what did it mean to gatekeep a poem? it meant
worshiping the friend & differentiating the integral
it meant snagging the sung into so many fragments

you could no longer call it song    the new poem has 
the same bark as the oldest tree    soothed with the 
sharpness of water and the roundness of sky, the poem 

meets ink in remembrance, the cord is thrown off its 
moorings & the trail of cordlets form a vapor that 
makes story out of birdsong -

Exigency of water

Take the withered  mountain and try to find its lake whose atoms 
are forever running late    they cannot choose between the exigency 
of water and the posterity of stone    reach of loss equals the reach 
of small equals the hundred wishes that stand with petals & fronds
I catch the passage of these petals & fronds as if it was my name 
carved out in song    as if the algebra of difficulty is measure of frailty
if only finality confirmed origin    would that the child chide sky -

the unbearable succinctity of the Way

truth being part of the overall
whatever, we are beheft somewhat
to mark our calendars & heed our
maps      what was best left untrod
is furious at being charted out so -

rain gossip

If the thread of the song’s
burn kept to the dark there
would be no treebark & no
beesting    they would talk
as if the rain was there for
just gossip     they would talk
as if the forest was all alone - 

the vial of all beginnings

Past the brittle reed of wonder past the unwrit 
unspelt large of words lies the worn underness 
of warm things     the vial of all beginnings scratches 
dawn and you wake as the snake does to its withered 
skin    if you float a lie on a river will it flow as readily 
as one that made its way to heaven, reborn as scripture?

the lips of vapor

When hugeness trots a while
          becoming song and sits
          you can sense the

thrill of small in the quiver
          of lost meanings    it is
          as if the sun was

beginning to read the lips
          of vapor throwing shadows
          where words dithered

the laugh of reason

Yonder the mist that followed
      a dustful path     not a story
      of words that lingered but 

that fell     yonder the laugh of
      reason fallen through the
      roof     not the wellness 

of body but of flesh that weigh-
      ed in on things, the wooden
      density of human things -

morning song

mourning tools are not set by
      stone     they are chosen by
      the howl & sore

of wind     mourning sages do not
       rise with sun-shriek nor
       tire at sun-sink

mourning song is neither presaged
       nor pretooled     it is worn
       by age & tear 

the burden of yesterday’s sleep

Twenty warriors in front -
       words as knives     sharp
       as the teeth of

Innocent windhowls carrying
       the burden of yesterday’s
       sleep    twenty

Wars fought on parched tongues
        longing for song    each
        worn as cloudcover, unsung -