Open water

do we in our moving
move toward life or death

do we in turn sell, burn & prosper   do we raze our haven   as death?

Stroke by stroke drawing us
Out there?   Father of rhythms,
deep wave, mother,
There is no out there.
All is open.
Open Water.   Open I.

Open hearth   Open stone       crucible of love     crux of I

Women, ships, lost voices.
Whatever has dissolved into our waves.
I a lost voice
moving, calling you
on the edge of the moment that is now the center.
From the open sea.

Whatever has dissolved in our bones
as rust
recalls –
we recall the tender
the edges recall, the stone, the work of the sea as the breaking out of open water.

—
Lines in bold are from Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Outer Banks”

Poet as difference

Poet as difference
the smellsweet
    wrungtooth, it keeps us in guess
    in

deference to differ
the snuckroot
    earthsweat, as blade wishes blood
    in

rain – the differed
the nailred
    skyrust, as air as parch as wet as pain

—

that deep inner place where we have been taught to fear all difference—to kill it or ignore it

Audre Lorde

restoring death to its abode

the throes of pale descend;
    a bone is wrought   this the wire where blood is vine   as fern-door tips
    open, the solitary dove coos   whose wish remains,

which house of worm witholds?
    as the cove of ground breaks open love buds   whose wish remains, which
    whorl of tincture roams? restoring death to its

abode   i as the stubbornness of
manhell climb out of nothing into
nothing   serpent! sway us
into call, strum the wet wood into
storm   smoke   mother!

confined to open spaces

the political economy of inaction
is the poem
  it rests
  confined to open spaces
  dense in not being
is the poem
  inaction?
  confined to open spaces
  sense it not being
the poetical economy of inaction
—

by confining yourself to the pure and simple, you will hinder the whole world from struggling with you for show.

Chuang Tzu

the small kali

the small kali whispers a little death
  the orange skin in the morning sows heat the memory of heat & dissolves

this month is not possible as it tires of the motherly yeast, fatherly axe, crumbs of fallen laugh   this month is the apogee of a resisting moondance   it is weary of the sunstory as fillin for snakehead & wolfshine

the small kali can hear the mancloud tremble
  the bronze tint in the morning sows hunger the reason for hunger & dissolves

I-dea

I-dea – goddess of insight   some think it muse
    some choice thought
    some care   less word

I-dea – the flood which brings tooth to tale, blood to moon, hark to riversong
    the shimmer of wood as it ashes into pulp
    gift of her
    sleight of him, the
    tangent/radius/age of world
    wish to will &
    fire   not hound not spear
    my deep   my roar
    some think it muse   some care   less word

rank in box of want

the machinery has glottilitis
the machinery cannot spell its name
the machinery reasons, “can this be
                 what the machinery wants?”
the machinery is want is rank is box is rank-in-box-of-want
the machinery is not possibility
                 is not about to become impossible on its own
the machinery has glottilitis
                 is not about to become impossible on its own