Self-reliance is the wind
coming through the prayer flags
whistling like a pair of overalls
on a hot autumn’s day.
The gravy’s cooling
and the counter is clean
and strong as the willow
that boy doesn’t bow.
The front door opens
so soft and sweeping
his lover comes home
her arms full of rain —
It’s pleasing to the mind to find
that I have everything I need. All I had
previously reckoned sub-par, I now waggle
my fairy wand at and pronounce: ample.
Ambition, improvement, constant venturing
to be better than average, this shit is addicting.
From the top of the stone tower
to the daisy chains below, I cannot get enough.
To now breathe deeply, objectively assess,
let the senses take wind with the changes in scenery
over the changes in gear, this is good.
This is not only good, it is right.
a good one,
with acrobatic knights and archers lancing
cupcakes full of candy rain. Dogs had tongues
like streets-sweepers, properly fed they slept happy.
It was a victory dream.
Nobody lied. No tears were shed.
The dogs lived the longest of all
and there was naught a cat to take the blanket.
The sun and her spectators clapped wildly
whistling blades of grass between long fingers
until the moon grew jealous and picked up
a pair of bongos. I know not how to wake up
Stella sticks her toes in the grass and she don’t know
the impact — the moonlight bending on the bowing
blades of grass, casting long shadows like tracks.
I follow her, relaxed
Stella don’t know her own impact.
The first organizer was Noah. Tied to a boat
he counted giraffes on all ten fingers, mumbling
as he went, here Dolly, HERE Angus, no not like that—
chocolate-like he tempered himself to the toes.
Did the predators forget their evolution? Pocket eyes
staring out of lacy skulls, daggering antelopes
like hot summer cantaloupe. A gosling gets a splinter
do the hyenas go mad with the scent of carnage?
Oh Noah. I feel ya.
How to keep the plucky chickens and the white rabbits
nimble-footed and sure of themselves, how to encourage
gazelles to daily run ark-perimeter laps so as not to become dolorous.
I seek solace in the company of cafe tables
and black aprons. Hair that sways, liquidly,
under a rotating fan. I write in the company
of strangers, in order to be myself.
As if I could hear the words from their lips
instead of feel the conversation like a forest.
As if it could not matter when the forest was on fire
or still, peaceful in dew dreams under a rising sun.
So many things exclusive in their tandem
and yet, so much, unsaid and unstayed. Will the fawn
never leave the safety of her rose hollow? Will the fox
never scamper when he hears the bellow of hounds?
Clasping my hands behind my back,
I survey the sights from the kitchen window
and breathe deeply the wind that docks
from the mountain tops tucked in clouds.
All is fair, if one counts birds and lemon trees
against the straying plastic trash kicked up
by flattened car tires and pulsing hydrants.
The neighbor boys clatter skateboards
against the stretched asphalt, heat dust
wavering between ground and sky.
Crisped linen shirts wiggle freely
on laundry lines, and I count that as good, too.
A blue bike leans against the iron railing.
It is bright summertime in Ukraine
and the railroad lady tends a garden full
to blooming with cucumbers, beetroot, squash
she bends over in a frock like livery.
Her blue buttoned uniform blossoms from beneath
the frock, the cuffs kissed with splashes
of dirt kicked up from the motley flower pots.
She hears a distant whine—
she unties the bow and drapes it
on the trellis, taking a yellow
flag from her unbuttoned pocket.
Stars and stripes & a purple ponytail
jiggling up and down on the winding
road fur-lined in Douglas Firs and
pocket-bullys straining on chains.
the Hydrogen Jukebox 