notebook build-up

Seattlites in May
This Summer's been holding out for so long
we forget our sweaters on public bathrooms hooks.
When the first sunbreak hints it might stick
we plunge our hoodies to the very bottom of the laundry basket
feel a strange inkling of violence between our hands and umbrella shafts

I saw you leave you your jacket at a bus stop
missed it while you were pinching the light from your eyes
your sweet, tilted-up, triangle cheeks
gathering up the the novelty of a sunburn.

We wrote that love letter together
when we took off our outer clothes
eager to expose the places we'd paved over
all winter long.

With purple-throated tulips
bending, bumping,
large 'lips calling us out by name,
Sunlight rolls in thick with nostalgia rebounding bright,
duck feathers swick out like arrows,
seduction swept blue & open above,
Springtime's got all of the wiles.
No matter how late she comes
our hopes always circle back into her warm submission.

Seattle seasons come and go so softly
the roles are often reversed
our cold longing bodies hooking hot on the heels of spring.
Spring is the lover we'll always have hope for
whose beauty smothers out our better judgment.
You left your sweater in the bathroom at cafe press
hooked inside the 3rd stall,
you both seemed the better for leaving each other.

In Case of Rapture (written 5/21)
To ready yourself for the rapture
pick some lilac for your pigtails.
Miss two consecutive buses.
Study the worn down pavement in front of your stop.
Wait for the puddled clothes to become like cracks on the sidewalk,
Emptied of their wasted nakedness.
Some bodies are never fully used.
Always remember
your life weighs nothing if you're not of use.

Express grotesque concerns:
"What about the children
right that moment being born?"
with that baby
half born & half being born
if the mother keeps her gravity
what happens to her body?
Does her pelvis split as the child is lifted?
or is the infant severed?
Each permutation plays out at the same ratio
half rapture and half rupture.

(Blackbird singing
in the dead of night,
you were only waiting
for this moment.)

Ready yourself for broken wings and ripped up skin.
line your pockets & shoesoles with feathers.
Acknowledge that poets
should always hold on to something broken.
Write through the entire ordeal
with whatever materials available.
If you happen to find yourself floating
hold fast to something shattered and indistinct,
if you must, sink your teeth into the furniture.
When your teeth fail you
recite HOWL until the words bring you down.
Don't let the dirt leave you!
It is your primordial home,
Mother of the bottoms of your feet.
Dirt birthed your palms
and you won't gather any callouses in the sky.
Stay here.
Stay dirty.
Stay human.

Allow gravity to collect
in the places your soul has been cracking,
get heavy with the deep muddied filth.
You are more than a weightless rain cloud.
You are a river
and a river isn't a river when it's ripped from its belly
If all else fails
please remember this:
keep at least 1 finger firmly stuck
in the silty muck of being.

Smallish Manifesto
When there's so many pages to fill
they feel thin like sunlight in the wind.
Open spaces invite puncture
paper screens in a karate film.

Ragged creeps up
cornering the weaker adjectives.
Is that a symbol for how it all breaks down?

You should never use a word you don't mean,
if the word you mean is unavailable
fuse together a new name
or use a clearly denoted placeholder.
"Something like soul mates?"
for example.

May 19th List
1. Plastic straws lazing like fish bones
2. Year 7 tears
3. Thumbsucker Yellow
4. Mangled daisies
5. 1,000 splinters waiting to happen
6. Shadow-striped bicycle spokes
7. The hazards of spinning
8. Creating situations for stretch
9. One leg craned out of the merry-go-round
10. Elbows flaking
11. Ball bearing music
12. Big bubblegum haze
13. "Let's play!"
14. Only one bolt left
15. "Now that's the squiggy stuff!"