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.
A pint of strawberry stems
sits plastic and dull
on the bench in New Lynn.
We share the space;
least I could do.
Continue reading “Maybe One Day I’ll Earn My Own Plum Sweatsuit”
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.
