Poetry is a way of translating the mystery of life, but it will always remain a mystery.
The absolute miracle of life.
Sitting beneath the apple tree and understanding the particular set of circumstances for human evolution, which includes the ability to appreciate the taste of fruit and the color green. I am taken in by the fascination of experiencing the universe as this person and the universe having an experience of sentience through me. I am a part of existence as much as an exoplanet full of oceanic mammals; I do not say that with arrogance, but as a statement of reality, which is a prayer to no one in particular--I sometimes feel god is the name we give to the sensation of corporeality, staggering and ordinary.
My existence is the result of absolute chance. I am thankful to microbes, salt-water, death, sex, time, language, and medicine. I am thankful to the knowledge of past humans, who are now intangible, except in my DNA.
To say god, whisper carbon oxygen hydrogen to the grass, your clothes, the dry skin on your hands.
I am purely human--by biology and the spirit given to me by god.
June 9, 2013. 2:47.
I am full of words and useless emotion and when I sit silently I hear a still voice say that it no longer wants to live; I wake and feel the absolute excitement, and beauty, of life. I love summer and the word June, which feels like an exclamation of the neurotoxicity of warm air color and fruit and I love birds because they know their purpose is to breed and sing, with no thoughts on the glorious voice of their songs; I love my white blood cells because they know the pleasure of untangling pathogens and the comfort of bone marrow.
I am here with my thoughts in the middle of the elegance of science and do not understand my own design. I feel weak and unaware but reading the first line of poetry sparks me alive and I have begun to notice a seal-song in the ocean of my subconscious and the deep, androgynous notes are full of a longing and understanding that horrify me, that may not even belong to my person, but to the millions of years that have created one woman whose gray organ protected by a fragile skull contains the amino acids necessary for creating life.
I can do nothing else but listen to the thunder and sit in the sun (a ridiculous star in god's own dark mind) which is not precious in the complexity of space but it was there to create my body and burn my child-skin.
I can become lost in the ecstatic experience of a star tearing the layers of an organ off of my body. Eyes are like planets, an angel's jewelry.
Dream Poetry. May 19, 2013.
Months ago I had a dream
where ghosts laughed at me,
pushing through my skin to lick my ribs;
they said my husband had died,
that I will marry
a dead man.
I saw you then,
your sweet face
crying underneath the weight
of their smiles.
The air was lavender and
pastel-gray above your head,
a delicate, polluted afternoon.
I walked through the noise
and told you a secret:
I have never been in love.
On my knees I promised
to carry your bones
on my back, make clothes
out of your skin, and place
whatever is left of your fingers
inside of me.
You kissed my hand
and the ghosts crawled on the floor,
looking for their tongues.
where ghosts laughed at me,
pushing through my skin to lick my ribs;
they said my husband had died,
that I will marry
a dead man.
I saw you then,
your sweet face
crying underneath the weight
of their smiles.
The air was lavender and
pastel-gray above your head,
a delicate, polluted afternoon.
I walked through the noise
and told you a secret:
I have never been in love.
On my knees I promised
to carry your bones
on my back, make clothes
out of your skin, and place
whatever is left of your fingers
inside of me.
You kissed my hand
and the ghosts crawled on the floor,
looking for their tongues.
This morning I stood naked
in the kitchen, listening to
the silent May,
slicing a pear in half
and placing a plate in front
of an empty chair.
Sitting across from you
I reached to the middle of
the table and felt your
open mouth against my palm,
your fingertips playing with
the strands of your teeth
tied around my wrist,
dyed a soft purple from
the rising sun leaking
in the kitchen, listening to
the silent May,
slicing a pear in half
and placing a plate in front
of an empty chair.
Sitting across from you
I reached to the middle of
the table and felt your
open mouth against my palm,
your fingertips playing with
the strands of your teeth
tied around my wrist,
dyed a soft purple from
the rising sun leaking
through the window.
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