Mixed Media Collabrative Piece

Reading of "Wash, Show"

This link goes to a video taken of me reading the poem "Wash, Show" at Eastern Michigan University, December 2009. The file is large, so give it about 5 minutes or so to load. The sound is quiet, but its there, so lean in to your computer. Get to know your machine once again...Thanks.

http://www.legionisnoctis.com/lucy.mp4

Wash, Show.

show sun light from the day you died
if you came home
I would wash your feet, your back

wash me
wash your grave wash
your epitaph
wash suffering with
a linen cloth, fibers
soft and stern

show sun light
show blood show everyone
bullet holes and broken
wash their faces with salt
wash their TV screens
their newspapers their truth-tellers

show the moment of yourself
leaving yourself

wash me with belief
show belief
strutting toward eternity.

you died in sunlight

don’t come back through
letters wash me
language washes me
it is fertile it is never free
wash your grave
with language

If you came home
wash me wash each other
wash highways show light
show mountains wash rivers
all the places you were
wash them away

show death, wash life become
sacrifice become understood, shown
wash the sacrifice the feet of sacrifice
lavender water
sunset facing now and always
homeward moving.

Body of Water

Ocean heavy
Beneath the day,
Yawning light.

Keep moonshine
Under the pillow,
Hot white unraveling
Pushing through
Crevices, bad lands-dark.

Now in afternoon
A humming blank
Where we were.

Singing in the mirror
Coughing up music
Sticky, gurgling
Wearing the shouts
Underwater
Around my head

Daylight cuts swatches
Still yawns light
Still heavy
Ocean on top
Melting to keep
Moving.
Ocean heavy
Beneath the day,
Yawning light.

To Someone Who never reads this.

an effort to supplicate
nothing
so close as this cloth
my life held on to
and so sick
of justice
never the same twice

not stopping to bellow
only telling
a short breath
my heart
a raw egg
runny,
clear.

think then
of beds
think you us
a sadder tale so
much
the sheets twine
tomorrow into
a now

we long for it.

the crest
of all
flying low
dipping
emasculated
a books pleasure
only

in the who knows?
places
stop wandering,
I cannot go in after.

Compatibility Report

When words began
to pile up at the corners
of my mouth,
I oozed over to
see
the city and its
night glands
throb
before choking.

Nothing much
was marching
when she called,
and she had so many
sonnets
like glances to squander,
I felt like
buying tattoos of pearls
or ropes of glossy wheat.

It was all
the way time
grunts,
shifts its weight:
a recognition of
kindred,
a hazy sameness
that loves
sitting by the fire.

I was in swoon
over courage,
a red
American
heart soaked
in letters and cities.

This the sort of night.

This the sort of night
where words fly down
in parachutes of water
blooming hard into sweet
phosphorous oceans,
no trenches of sound contained
therein.

This the sort of night
where my face is hot
and my skin shrinks
jives
and throbs
under the docks of sex.

This the sort of night
where against my will,
which is wilting
I wait,
an ever penitent
reader of looks that must
carve the map of time, and
crave
the route of lips.

This the sort of night
that shouts angles
in the curves of vowels
and the sort of dark that
screams at light to make it’s
get-away
in trails of rotten color.

This the sort of night
where I read out loud
the books you taught me,
the rough-hewn letters
like sand on the sheets,

I practically scream the
words of making,
I yell the ‘come-home’ cry
out into the widowed stars.

Daughter of Paper

Where were the fathers
the day that I found
a universe
of casualties so lovely, so vast?
I was a small child when I found you,
a vast ocean
in the lap of my mother.
Remember the cold clouds around her waist,
and even
in the green of gardens
the past knows how to find you.
I felt drunk before I even knew how to get that way.
I am the daughter of paper:
I dreamt pinks, or
wild golds crashing themselves
into greens into blacks.
Remember the blue
the vast, unstopping blue
of learning
and find for yourself
child
the soil of language,
and don’t forget when I was
a sky child,
drinking dust
before the time of art.
Where is the riot of the self
on the page?

Let me hold you there. Let me hold you there.
I was your baby, your first baby,
and it was you
who showed me how
to create the world.

I look at the horizon,
a sky coarse through the
grass,
dancing off,
washing the bellies of
birds,
making the backs of
horses heavy with joy:
Blue joy, pink joy, yellow joy.

Two-ness

Two-ness



Rushed there,
in a pocket of the city
or the yelping quiet
of forests,
the boy/girl-ness
has been walking
toward the moons.

I found you
squatting in a patch
of sound,
a servant of highways
and wolves,

the whiskey brother
of a more wild memory.

Surrounded in cornfields
or concrete mesas,
we met weird sisters
and French rappers,
smoked resin out
of dolphin hides,
danced the blood into
our limbs.

Make no effort now,
the quiet has come to
hold and weave
the two-ness
of nature stories,
the dichotomy of
need.

The Gift of Tongues

The Gift of Tongues


Where were the mothers
the day that I found art in her lap,
a universe
of casualties so lovely, so vast?
Remember the cold clouds around her waist,
the angel moments,
calling tongues wrapped around tongues
the trumpets of the devil.
Remember the blue
the vast, unstopping blue
of learning
and find for yourself
the soil of language,
and don’t forget the time before when I was
a sky child,
drinking dust
before the time of art.

Where were the fathers the
day that I found the touches
of flesh on flesh on fabric on flesh
and knew the truth
that was mantled in hedonism?
What ramparts were climbed
that were just beds
to see the heat heat hot
pulse from me, and I ask,
what show of god
glimmered before the peacock
sky to tell the little planets
that they were once only
flesh,
they were once only
rib
they were once with out
songs and colors?

Bacchus In The Neighborhood

(A thin veil
between us and the Gods
is lifted by the paws of dogs.)

The heat heat heat
made in the pot-stills of moons on the
lakes of nothing else to do
but think of trashing
the thinking, leaves you
in the summer the summer the heat
bottomed out.

When they play
the ones with the heavy heavy beats
and the still cloudless nights,
you’ll see your own
mom and dad
drinking beers on the porch
listening to Springsteen.

While you
vanish in the bushes
wild at 9 o’ clock, the sky
telling you just how to live,
or stopping the zoo from
running to your arms again
for comfort.

Tonight
is the party the llamas have waited
all year to spit at.
There is no language for weather.
They know it in
summer,
there is not a way to tell about the afternoon,
the tan lines of thighs,
the plastic of air
the hopes of leaves
the wilt of your face in the soaking
sprinkler pool sidewalk glamour show
lemonade stand drama,
the garden planned to meticulously
spill over while on vacation
to other parts of summer,
(cheating on your own fun).

Your face a Bacchus riot,
slamming the dreams down
on the table like coins,
all the while
panting,
all the while
shimmering,
screaming that
there is no way to talk about
reality.
There is no
speaking of the weather,
the space of time
stretching like a runners leg.

So there is only panting
after each sip,
a tongue lolling out of
each mouth,
trying to howl the gossip
under starry trees
as busted fire hydrants
shamelessly display their relief
in the streets.
A black-out, black-top
world, harbors an
always remembered
time.

Goodbye summer freedom.

An Afternoon

An Afternoon


Document: a portrait crumpled in the brush of night
Anger, the belly is smooth, tempting.
Before the bed: a corset of blankets,
You undo my laces.

And rising all the time on
Tip-toe,
I am old enough.

Or, we were old enough
transiting love longer
the bleep-bleep of telephonics
and flesh games, a space in which
I am forever seeing myself.

Brighton, Michigan.

When
enough of you is
Seen
Launched
Festooned
In the coffin of sky,

Lavender shouting
names of the dead,
(the suicided before
birth)
jumping from cars
high-speed and wailing
in the tall summer grass,

you found yourself
knees smashed into the
carpeting,
beggar words gurgling
from your mouth

while in the next
town over,

all the farmers
slump in their chairs,
(now suburban)
hacking up memories
or lives.

The ADD of buying
Of selling of breathing
Flecked all over your face.

a vision.

An objection of laughter, a caught throat where death answers a thumping of hands on the back, chorus of angel birds that crash into my windows, feathers full of fear. Vermin crawl on the limbs of letters.

Rotten heart of language, or the secretions of stars a violence of cosmos before we could know the blunt spectacle of flowers colors blackness behind eyelids and book covers. Life made from dust gypsies.

No. if you were churning thinking about sex in the afternoon, a lamp in the rain. The edges of my skin hurting or bending just so around bone and fat a muscle seems not human but equine in its constructions.

In the news everything goes well except reality on the bus or hallway. I am happy to attempt utopia or engage angel birds so lush so impossible. And if there is screaming or singing then death is close or already living in our words.

Sleeping no just the suspension of breath covered in cloth, linen. A robe of fleshy air mantled on my shoulders, you shaking in the hahaha’s of seasons of wind of air before pollen light catastrophe of meaning before animal before sex.

when hands are cupped.

Where hands are cupped
around motion
attempting containment
the lines become unstoppable
the page
is only because of spilling and
not trying you drink from cups
and anger over the phone

a lonely life eating steak
but we must draw lines lines lines
before kneeling
the blooming face of solitude licking
the feet of horses and
loving the wings of birds but they are its children
and I can only pretend to know
the good of rolling in the dirt and the sky and the sun.
I want to roll in the sun before I die.

I wrote history
a letter in modern sickness
and do not expect a reply
but the white hair of your eye brows
makes the wonderment a nonchalance
a porch swing
the pond is filled with oracles.
Nice day for a swim.

And the LOVE will not lick
in the moment of command
or the counting
and recounting of blessings and what does that mean?

When nothing means more than unraveling
the last second of sign language
no politics no sex
just eyes in the last second
before the bombs of heaven swallow

Creation Myth #1

Before the time of tarantulas the Gila monsters lived in the trees and told stories the heart a drum of effort the world a place of no lines only water and the pools of hearts filled with pebbles stories woven with mud and reeds the hole of time a desert a parade of horses and silk worms.

Then scorpions traveled to the stars with bassinets for their babies and began the myths tempting Galileo with secession and tobacco ashes the world had never been the same the fog kept it all in its breast. Eternity had some rules.

The bird that talked to Spain rode a stallion that moved like ink keeping the eyes unfocused the heart was bleating and could not stop the paces were too marvelous for the halls of emperors who crumbled and caressed each loss in caves forgotten.

Colors began because before that they did not exist but now they were bursting in tapestry on the backs of fish and the whales were marginalized but a new world had begun. No one could argue.

Ships were the ticket to deserts to death to the dissolution of morphology where children came tumbling across the land like rainbows and completion was the enemy that could not be stopped in a nuclear sweating sleep the hours were now in the thumbs of beasts
the world held the hands of god and told him they were sorry for laughter at national anthems and Darwin.

ashes

In the ashes the ashes. The margins spoke the language. Say nothing of chalk ghosts shoal the remainder of industry the heaven the motion the cannery circular and no thank you we don’t quit.

Before time before the book the world knew about dogs and there were wolves and the hearts of dogma knew that they were prolific. they were fast. the woods was a secret.

Looking for archetypes in all the wrong places. Don’t quit because the weather is all we have in the ashes the ashes. Longing the longing before toilets giving everything back to remain perfect untouchable the face of god.

Opera pink the paint screaming his name in the ashes the ashes. nobody howling questions childhood finger on the trigger. the river holding on to the bend the bend called to say you were drunk again. Before I go, shame everlasting.

The Heart of Hearts

The Heart of Hearts


As if
bearing all
it bears no name,

multicultural
shadow slumping
on the backs
of words,

As if
effective,
we sleep in
the laps of vowels

stroking the names of
the greats,
irreversible and undulating.

As if
salt packed close, crumbled
often
the sky skims discussion
before the closing of lips
around permanence.

As if
there were nobody
talking about fire,

stopping to notice spaces
between flames, greedy
swallowing of air.

As if
reason was the heart
of it all, instead
we choke
smiling all the time
on ashes.

Twins
don't dig
their pink hooves
into the steadfast heart

while the women drink
and men
don't talk

because of doubles
i am never sure
how the seasons
make me feel

like a hustler
rustling
among the hyacinth
blooms,
a crossed eye

so i made a nest
in a story,
howling down
the ending

in the trough of
exposed self,
the dirt is laughing
at the moon light.

Whiskey and Snow

Whiskey and Snow


Autos trundle by
Like tanks encased, snow
Cloaked
my own head,
Struggling
to your
Doorstep.

Deep flesh
red
of the
Dining room walls and a
Bourbon
glaze
On your
finished face
While my cheeks
swirl
With early
night flush. You,
Stomping your
boots
Tothebeat.

Then out
Night flash street lamp
Just
enough
Dusky hollow
Light to
catch up. Run
puff
breath so hot and
sour mash
you and I
on the rocks,

or neat.

The Country Weddding

The Country Weddding



Dry crack
grass
under my feet
listens.
Sounds of cars
dusk settle into
me
seems like
I knew
The silhouettes
of trees were the
same
in a severely
Midwestern summer
murmur
the leaves
against
bride and groom
peach fuzz sky heart
evening.

We went away
rouges
from the wedding
party
‘hush’
you said
using your
treasure hunting voice
and slid
into the backseat.
I stared at the
remnants
of an old school house
you could hear
me breathing
under the apple tree
before the
best man’s toast
just listening to the
ebony body
of a cricket
and the marriage
of smoke to air
we cannot know
until we stand there
too.

Pencil black bark
Crisp dry
dry to dry to
parch
thank him for your child today
and the fact
that you weep
and
mean it.

Summer Elegy For Americans

Summer Elegy For Americans


What do you say
To the end of summer
When you feel the grass dead
And your tenderness
Wanders
Off?
Off the edge.

That feeling like
Sweating in the marrow
Of your swollen
Bones
You came home too late
to see the sun
Passing the weary
Trees
It was too much
Like minerals
And earth pressing
Against your skin.

Dredge up
The motion
Deep from the
Bottom of a
Low lying
River
The valley telling stories
That you thought
You knew.

Called the air down
Around you
Laden with open windows
Lashed with temptations
Listening to the end of the world
Tom Waits
Waiting to play
Your funeral
Lost nation
On the side of the road,
Your hair spilling down your
Dirty back.

Shed-antler

Shed-antler


White-tail ghost eyes,
You ask me to be a sentinel
in my time
on winding back roads.
It is dusk.
I am watching for you,
hesitating
at all the turns.

I once found in Montana,
a talisman of your kind
lodged in a ridge,
forgotten.

Yes, lodged in a ridge
like the bend of a knee.

The stand of poplar trees was
chanting.
Then,
barely audible,
the words “shed-antler”
grazed the back of my neck.

White-tail ghost eyes,
I’ve known your gentle
heart
all of my life.
When I die and go to heaven
I will ride you.
Together
we can pass
into the great leaping beyonds
of ourselves.
I will be free with you.

Then headlights scream:
Maybe my hopes are too slender, too brittle
like your legs.
Maybe my heart parts in two
like your hooves.
Maybe I am hard cut bone
like your antler.

Is that you there
in the ditch?

My White-tail ghost eyes,
I always see you on walls
betrayed martyred pious
your expression is not angry,
and I cannot pity
your rigid stare.

Tonight
just clear my car in one Olympic vault.
See your lover
on the other side
waiting for you
in the next alfalfa field,
blinking out her devotion.

Ride Out West

Ride Out West



Speaking through gritted teeth,
The mountains
Early in September called to say
That you were missed;
You should come home.

On my way out there,
I looked back twice.
When I looked forward,
I was carving through
The badlands,
Like mars,
Looking for water
To put in some whiskey.

I saw then
The ghosts of Souix warriors
Riding war ponies
In my headlights
Under the ripe cherry moon.

Understand
That I knew you,
Gentle wrath,
How you followed me
Across my country.

Kings

Kings

Royal blue talons, you
Boastful dog, smiling cur,
Ranging through the filth of modern smiles.
Listen roadkill:
Whisper the transit, mindful of endings
Clacking and singing
Guns discharging
their ember hearts
into flaming flowers
that soak up grief
And are conduits of culture, they say. So they say
And they’ll always say. You
The glugg-glugging one in the corner
Leering the leer of kings common, white and pallid
With hospital eyes
And a stiff nostril, you the charmer
Of the fragile,
Scour the sour crumbles of roads
For the stash of gilded lily yesterdays, and the
Hoary sunrises, only a pocket of daylight
In an everblooming night.

History in Hair

History in Hair



Just before you left
I laid your hairs
End to end
For three
Days

The map
Of the edge
of time,
My Darwin,
it became
a map
for the edge
of you:

north to your brain
south to your guts
east and west to the
steppes of your hands

the strands were shimmering
wires with
all communications
sprinting along them
like
sunlight on
the first copper
to stretch across
a new and disconnected
nation.

You emerge
An emulsion of time
Tumbling toward me
On the floor,
The gold and silver
Of under the bed
dreams glinting
scattered
over the ages
of us.

Unused

Unused


Narrative gone supine,
DNA a fugitive of the
Future.
Somewhere,
You’re longing.

Concentrating hard on
Unraveling
Daytime hotness,
Don’t ask me what the
Matter was,
I’m already off to
Moscow.

It’s a shower curtain
Destination,
Syntax of caress,
Plucking the hairs
Off your coat.
Intimate was the ultimate.

Never understanding why
Ghosts linger
When god waits,
An elegy suspended in liquid,
The stars make it difficult.

I am passing,
And it is most important
To relearn your smell,
Your shirts stiff
With you inside.

The DNA of love,
Unused.

The Hardest Part of Spring

The Hardest Part of Spring



The ragged edge of new field,
An egg:
A hollow bone.

A noticeable sagging
Of skin under eyes,
The economy of
Cells.

Pinch of salt,
Mashed and muddled
Weather:
My inability to get
To the root of things.

A long,
Low-slung day.
The world is never new,
As if the rituals of ancients
Were caught in our teeth.

Dab the knife but a little,
Beat your retreat.
The scorekeeping
Of our endless
Country drives.

Sore thighs
Wrapped around modern
Concerns,
The strides of ghosts
Down the backroads
Sing
Before the wet ditch,
A pink graveyard
Of hearts.

A Report On The Year Thus Far

A Report On The Year Thus Far


Italian Earthquakes,
Avalanche of antiquity
Creased eyes
The same thing worn
Everyday

Open and honest
make me sick,
And seek.

World banks
Icelandic problems
Cradles in India
Madonna and children,
Celebrity only a dollar.

Hidden mornings in the café
A time of gathering
No one talks
The same fifteen songs
Over and over.

Banks of skin
Crests of hair
Stock in nipples,
Laughing in the car.

Your CEO and my CEO
Sitting by the fire,
100 days away from
change.

Victory, a little seed
Splashing in the atmosphere.
Yes, bring me a pan full
of pandemic.

920 W Liberty, #2



Heliotrope,
The wind is open.

An age of letters has fallen
near the doorstep.

Words can only be folded
Seven times in half,

While your mouth
Can only listen when it is tired.

The birds get in the way
Every time I try to speak,

And the car makes no noise
In the snow.

A life is lived
Everywhere but a home,

While your mouth
Kisses only when it is hungry.

Heliotrope,
The kitchen is lonely.

The spoons beg a touch,
Plates ache in the cupboard.

The edges of talk
Are strewn with jagged tender,

A description is never enough
To contain the meaning

Which runs rampant
In every home,

And no one can keep
An eye on it.