Mote

When she turned her gaze upon me,
I was a mote of dust
caught in a beam of sunlight
I was huge and beautiful
and bright.

I laughed and danced
and shone.

And when she turned away,
a cloud moved across the sun
and I was extinguished.

-Keith Trim

Who Are We?

Into the past
I go like a stranger
to discover why at night
I lay alone as a child
waiting for the front door
to slam, my father gone
to night-shift work,
and my mother, Marie, to enter,
unable to sleep, and tell me
tales of childhood
war, pursued by those
who, as she spoke,
seemed to enter the room,
Gestapo men in leather coats
who ordered me to pack
and descend to a waiting truck,
for I am still going to Auschwitz
though a grown man in 1998
I am still boarding the freight,
crushed against numbed, frightened
Jews and Gypsies and Russian
soldiers and homosexuals
crossing frontiers to be gassed

I am her, in my heart,
though I am six feet two
and two hundred and ten pounds
and have played college football
and served as a soldier
and have scars from fights
with knives and jagged
bottles smashed on bars

I am still her, little girl,
hiding in chicken coops
and forests, asleep on dynamite
among partisans
I am still her, brushing teeth
with ashes
from the ruins of nations
gutted in war

I am still her brown eyes
and black hair of persecution
foraging scraps of thistle soup,
a star-shaped patch
sewn to my shirt

I am still my mother
every day in the streets
of New York or San Francisco,
the chimney skies glow and swirl
with soot like night above
a crematorium, or the Bronx
incinerator chute where I
threw out trash in a brick
darkness shooting sparks

I am still her in the streets
of Berkeley, walking among
sparechangers, dyed-hair punkers,
gays in stud leather, Blacks,
Mexicans and Asians

I am still her rounded up
among poets and thieves
and politically incorrect
social deviants
on sun-drenched sidewalks
in the Mission and the Haight,
Greenwich Village, the Lower
East Side, or anywhere the weird
congregate in tolerance

And every day in this age
of intolerance,
in a mental ghetto
affirmed by the homeless,
I pass the dying
with the loud ring of my boots,
ashamed to think that perhaps
my heels are the last thing
they heard
Every day I am a
survivor of AIDS and poverty

Every day I sit in cafes
watching tattoos turn to numbers
and I grow angry
I want America back
I want America to be
the home I never had

And you, who are you
if you hear my voice?
Who are you, stranger
if you read these words?

Who are we
who stand threatened
in these times of darkness?
Who are we, condemned to die,
who do not know ourselves
at all?

-Alan Kaufman

another night has slid by me without sleeping a wink

well maybe i fell into the keyboard twice
but no more than that and for some reason
i'm still going to be fine - today

so it is saturday and i've been
awake since thursday morning...

and the crickets’ legs have fallen off
waiting on me to shut my eyes
and i toss them in fire
just a bit
crunchy and hot
and i like the way they ooze
upon my tongue.
and i saw parrots flying
in the middle of the city
of bridgeport
and i knew overlapping
was possible.

and yesterday i did not think
i'd miss the night
but i did.
and here it is daybreak
and my eyes are just as tangoed
as the day before.

and i wonder...
if the scientists are right -
we need to sleep to forget
in order to remember better
and i have too many little details
still stuck in seat cushions of synapses
and they are gluing up the pathways
and i can't remember the big things anymore...
like how not to fuck up a friendship.
like how not to abandon your guts
like how not to listen to your dick
when your head is flying straight
for a change.

-Maggie Shurtleff

Since a girl and another century

I've been waiting. I also exchange my innocence
for a profitable iris and two words.
I've a dress of color and a puppet of borrowed conscience.
I've sat down to graze sheep and I've walked alone
through the alleys of some neighboring town.
I've breathed the rain on the faces of the gargoyles,
its polished brilliance in the teeth of the shore.
I've gone where there's room and I've also
hoped from the pockets of passers-by.
I've dined at the port and slept
with the ghosts of those full of hope
and the colonels of war.
I've known the solitude,
the whale calf that sleeps
in the conquests of the wind.
Belive me: I've been waiting. I still don't know
what for, definitely.
Let autumn begin.
Let Penelope finish her shroud of love
an elegy of papier mache
a medieval dance piece
an arm that isn't mine
a cat for my sister
a bear's claw
a house on the hill
a forest
a heart

-Anisley del Carmen Miraz Lladosa

Death in Motion

We met there,
In a forest of others.
I closed my eyes and reached for a black stone submerged in the dark water;
Sometimes black is so delicately constructed.
But with my touch the explosion of gunfire flashed.
Then I could hear and smell more clearly the death and life of shotgunned ducks,
of the disgusting jubilance of destruction: when the hunter injects the heroin
of the not-being-prey.

let them pretend but not us:
the animal trembling is all around us,
in between the air of each shared breath

and no amount of canyon-yelling or
other-killing will quench it

the dark forest world:
the rush of birds flushed out
just before the death-dive

what is it like to be comfortable in flight
then to plunge half-dead where nothing is centered upon you
like leaping into the pavement
from 20 stories but when you hit it is nothing but ordinary;
cheers even erupt - it's a celebration

and something beautiful has died in full motion:
nothing a photograph could hope to capture
but like a bird's beating heart,
slowly arcing downward to towards death.

you are beautiful you are beautiful

that is why they kill you
isn't it?

-Thomas Goss

Stones Speak of the Earthless Sky

Memory hasn't a chord of what the family has lost.
For centuries village ancestors potlached salmon's
return so we could dance on the water like bugs.

Today the stones quit asking not to betray
their ceremonies, our ears deaf to their winter
story of mountain, river, cormorant, red-flowering

currant. Our car tracks trample their children
who vanish down the street like moonlight
into gutters, our abbreviated hours.

Topaz stones brought us dream circles in order
to never forget where the earth's heart cracked,
our shadows became ant fodder; we laughed

like flies and drank the blood from mirrors.
Flint raised his arm to the hummingbird's
fragrances, healing our eyes, spiky as sea urchins.

We ground Flint to a machine that exploded
with roadkill floating in toxins.
From a cave, ancestor stones gave us the cells

of trout, madrona, butterfly, eagle and grizzly,
gave us our birth song born of the sea,
gave us eagle feathers for the sunrise dance.

We chose instead to shoot the spotted-owl
from its borderless clarity,
turn off life like a video, including ours.

-Duane Niatum

you're too far away

Did I get to sleep today?
didn’t i?
Is there enough light?
I can’t see
i’m tired or i’ve misplaced my glasses

I can’t sleep
it’s dark i think but
theres light inside my stomach
and it shines on the back of my eyelids
or else someones making noise
are you making noise?

No, you’re too far away
and any noise you make is irrelevent
or strange when it reaches me
or at least
i couldnt dream of responding
its too tight or narrow
it wasn’t built with someone of my size in mind
how about my size? everythings changing and i cant tell a nickel from a dime
How should I remember what it looked like?

You’re too far away and it feels like arrows
I’m not at home
I have no home.
Are you home?

I met a nice woman with a nice ass
She winked at me and not too many people wink
my hands hurt they’re covered in splinters
wrapped in gauze cut bandages and packing tape?
no
some blisters and some bleeding only
but they feels like im not there for you

where are you?
are you home? where should i put these beauty supplies?
you’re BEAUTIFUL
god damnit you’re so fucking BEAUTIFUL
theres no words i couldnt tell you
im slipping from the page
theres too much
i want to get fucked up and forget all about this but tomorrow these words will still be here

I’m the most important thing in the world to you
and to my body
its too late
its personified
its eating me away im rotting like meat
im meat like rotting

im too much concrete in too little space
and im starting to set

my chemicals are punchlines and it hurts my feelings
my punchlines hurt me
ow
FUCK
SHIT
UP
i wish i was drunk i wish i was stoned i wish i was fucked up i wish i was trashed i wish i was wasted i wish i pissed myself
my stomach is full of piss and my bladder is full of lead
Help me!
Call a doctor!

pens scratch itches
i have nothing to write down but
i think the sound of the pen against the paper is
keeping me from killing myself
so instead i use words
even though words and scratch pen noises
are entirely different things

I don’t know if the average person could tell the difference
even if their life depended on it
like mine does

I don’t want music
You’re too far away
I don’t want a cigarette
You’re too far away
I don’t want to eat fish
its flakey and it tastes like sedimentary rock
You’re too far away
I dont want to make toast
You’re too far away
I don’t want to put sandals on
You’re too far away
I don’t want to spend my money
I don’t want to save my money
You’re too far away
I don’t want to miss you
You’re too far away
I don’t want to do pull ups or shovel shit or split wood or drink coffee or smoke a cigarette or play guitar or laugh in your face
You’re too far away
I don’t want to have a cigarette
You’re too far away

You live like me I think
in boxes and in between walls
we’re human being insulation
insulating human being bones
my bones will not give my body up
it comes off in strips like boy jerky
kid fabric
waste product

metal is sick
the stainless steel is ill and
ceramic tiles are filled with disease when they get wet

Are you sick?
I miss you
come back
im sorry
im sorry
i cant believe im doing this to you

does this count as fabric? i still cant tell but
this time i still dont care
i mean
this time it seems like it might be glass
or plastic
or maybe it’s water or a cricket
or a stream or a peice of paper
loose leaf like autumn

why am i doing this?
it makes me feel cold
its cold in here and its not worth it
you’re too far away

When I read these words tomorrow
some of them will be good words
and some of them will be bad words
and none of them will be true
that’ll take years

It’ll take a year and a half for you to live with me.

in half a year it’ll take a year
and in a year it’ll take half a year
how many years is this going to take?
you’re too far away

now I’m starting to feel as if
I’ve brushed my teeth and I’m heading for bed
you’re still too far away
but if you arent here today
you might be tomorrow
I can’t prove otherwise
I’m going to brush my teeth
and take off my pants for you
roll a cigarette for you
close my eyes for you
all it takes is eyelids and the years arent even there
the miles arent even there
and its not too dark to see
or too bright to think
the music turns off and the lights go out
the animals all stop
and you’re too far away
the lights all go out
and you’re too far away
I love you and
you’re too far away

but at least you’re somewhere
i’m always losing important things
because i forget all about them
but i know where you are

-garbage juice

Havasupai Medicine Song

The land we were given
is right here,
right here.
Red rock
streaked with brown
shooting up high
all round our home.
Red rock
shooting up high
right here.
A spring will always be there
down at its foot.
From way back
it is ours.
Right down
the center of our land
a line moves,
bright blue-green.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
cattails appear,
bright blue-green,
all round the water.
This is what I'm thinking.
At the edge of the water
silt is being laid down
in ripples.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water skaters walk,
gliding, gliding.
This is what I'm thinking.
Water grasses growing,
bright blue-green
under the water,
waving, waving
This is what I'm thinking:
Under the water
tiny pebbles.
Flowing over them
the water we drink.
The water is gliding toward the north,
into the distance, beyond our sight.
This is what I'm thinking.
We have arrived here.
An illness.
I sit down,
I sing myself a song.
This is what I'm thinking:
A medicine spirit,
a healer,
I am the same.
An illness.
I sit down.
I sing myself a song.
The things I have named
I leave behind.
This is what I'm thinking.
We arrive there.
We are leaving the canyon.
Out on the rim
horses that are mine.
They roam there
at the junipers,
where the junipers are straight,
and low.
They are right there,
horses that are mine
are gathered there.
This is what I'm thinking.
Here we arrive, then
we swing back down,
moving back down the rocks,
white rocks streaked with brown.
Down at the foot
a spring will always be there,
a spring that heals,
it is right there.
My horses drink the water
that is there.
White rock streaked with brown
shooting up high
is right there.
There is my horses trail,
zigzagging right down the center,
the color of dust.
It leads to
the source.
It is right here.
That is what I'm thinking.
And now we arrive
down in the canyon,
red rocks,
down in the canyon,
they are right here,
down in the canyon,
red rocks, low down,
they are right here.
Here I walk,
I go alone.
This is what I'm thinking.
Red rocks, streaked with brown,
shooting up high.
It is right here,
down at the foot,
red rocks, boulders
streaked with brown.
They are right here.
My illness is absorbed,
right here.
I will this to be.
I will this to be.

Celebration

I want to fill my house with people
to drown out the silence and lonliness
to fill up the spaces and
ooze in the cracks
- pour food into their bodies
and fill their minds with loving music
and hug and laugh and cry
then sigh
when they leave

-Denise Coney

Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go
And the traffic was hissing by
And i was homesick
And i was high

I was surrounded by a language
In which i could say only hello
And thank you very much
But you spoke so i could understand
And i drew a treasure map on your hand

And you were no picnic
You were no prize
But you had just enough pathos
To keep me hypnotized
Hypnotized

The map led to an island
In a sea of store-bought dreams
Where soulless singers sang
Over beats built by machines

And lovely girls were hovering
Above my head like gulls
With their long slender necks
And their delicate skulls

And i was no picnic
I was no prize
But i had just enough sweetness
To keep you hypnotized
Hypnotized

So that's how you found me
Rain falling around me
Lookin down at a worm
With a long way to go

-Ani DiFranco