It’s moonlight time
and I decide I’m insane–
with Seneca and someone else’s dog
for company, I consider life
beneath Davis jazz and note
I’m nothing like them.
O, Them.
The elusive
plural my mind’s convinced
pronouns the masses.
Have you met every single
one of Them? I ask.
My mind replies, witty as ever:
“Have you ever met
me?”
Touché, dear anima.
We can stay insane. For tonight
at least, moonlight is too
precious to waste.
A pint of strawberry stems
sits plastic and dull
on the bench in New Lynn.
We share the space;
least I could do.
Around us swirls the ghosts
of the tai-chi women,
still clad in fashionable plum
sweatsuits and moving like
Santa. These ghosts provide
the intention and presence
today; I told them it’s up to them
I’m too slouched to do it.
I’ve been tasked with
entertaining myself, and I’ll tell ya:
drains a soul. Those tai-chi women,
even so long gone–weeks, I tell you–
cached up enough life
in those magic palms
that the clouds curtain God’s underbelly
and my hair still grows lighter.
I’m here in random New Lynn
for no good reason at all,
steeped to the socks in overcast melancholy
and a pint of strawberry stems
which got me through five Grace Paley stories.
Boy, that woman can teach you
more about humanity than a mirror.
I imagine most of my problem
is that I’ve eaten too many walnuts today;
futile efforts to gain a few points
and my microbiom is in uproar.
Gentle! Creatures!
Like mother, like daughter–they remind me.
I had already apologized
for thinking the microbiom mythical,
like some Atlantis or El Dorado.
I tell my nutty biom to think more tai-chi,
gesture towards the women,
they bow.
All this melancholy makes me
sluggish, thick–
“languid”, I would say,
if I were in a more ambitious mood.
I’m surprised to see
I’m still scribbling words;
possibly just to not wholly
dishonor the tai-chi spirit monopoly
on this part of New Lynn.
I wonder how many words
proper representation and articulated catharsis
is going to take.
I wish I could earn a plum sweatsuit.
I wish I hadn’t eaten so many tiny brains.
Lucky that my mind folds slower
than the laundry
which gives us plenty of time.
Lucky I’m facing into the wind
so my hair witch-flies behind me
which makes me feel magical
like my friends, the tai-chi
ghosts, still going at it.
Although, come to think,
witchcraft is most likely
anti-chi.
I have to go now.
Attend to life’s many expectations
of a soul just trying to digest
and earn a few points.
I bow to you, too.
When I signed up for this,
I was told it was my soul on the line;
that to do nothing
was as good as having nothing to do:
and that
was unfathomable.
Warm summer eases against
my skin, a kitten, pawing
for affection, pawing for
attention—the grass beside
me is envelope haven
and the wind, which raises my
hair in caress, is a friend,
it sings, only ever friend.
But I find myself resolute:
tight-lipped
arms-crossed
brow-fixed
sat, shiftless, in the midst of murk
determined, sort of, to sift through the mist
but not sure if I seek clarity
or more
clouds–
This is what I talk about
when I talk about the wandering
vagabond muse: truly truly
the difference between “getting”
and going that of “seeming”
and being that between “rare” and raw.
The wanderer, alit with the muse of
equitable bliss
rarely gets anywhere.
Instead opts for the slow
methodical languid locomotion
of going. Going where?
Going here. Perchance
there. Going
anywhere, and
going no where
at all.
The inefficient stapler, what with its
effeminate undertones, emasculates
the opposition into petty submission
to do its bidding til the end of time.
Inefficient? It asks itself
as it gazes with lust into the hallway mirror.
Hardly.
Subtle swagger lights up steel hips
and the stapler sways back to its black hole.
When it happens, it is my toes that feel the thrill the most.
They are housed in sandals, and in their breezy half-naked happiness they wiggle against the black pedals. If I were better at balancing, I would stretch out my arms like an albatross and soar (I usually attempt this one-armed to not the same effect). I wish I could chuck off my bike helmet and let my hair toss about like Beyonce.
I’m giggling just writing this to you. It’s a ridiculous thing to be so pleased about, I realize: but when in your life have you ever not 100% rational, huh? I ask you!
It’s this, sweet and simple:
By the passed humanity,
whose active progeny is
the heart beat rocking my sense
of soul—as I clutch the
leather-bound covers of
Burroughs, of Whitman, di Prima
and Ginsberg, in the soft lamp
night, rain shadows wrapped against
windows, me, folded into
fresh sheets, with a cup of tea;
hungry, Alive, washed, I sing—
and selfish do I less than
pause before the monkey juts
to this:
Solitude is a bridge.
I clutch the railing and can see
a panorama of worlds—
the ancient child
the youthful vigilante
the compliant adult
the manifested—
I, on my bridge, pad about in the middle.
Well: not in the middle;
I’m removed from it all,
If you could see, right now,
this piece of notebook paper
upon which I write, you would know
practically the whole story.
The ink smudge bullet holes would be enough
and you, in your intelligence, wouldn’t need
the sight of my speckling jeans
to know that, now: it’s raining.
Tendrils of time
hang loose
sloped
dampened a bit
by misconception recollections
the sorts of stories recounted in dreams
and spread like gospel bonfire.
I should not like to entwine
with those loose hung tendrils
of sticky time.
