You raise your head, you beat the sun

Yesterday, the sky opened up, if only just for a moment.
Yesterday, the wind blew and the grass turned greener.
Yesterday, my hair whipped up and then soaked down.
Drops fell, drops of rain
of water and tears and the sky
fell to my feet and pooled there.


So in return I opened up
and in return I blew and I grew
and my hair dripped
and my shirt darkened with water
and from every pore and orifice I felt
myself raining
myself crying out for something
anything to happen, but I wanted nothing to happen
nothing to change, but everything to move.

And I wished that even, if only for a moment
I could fly out through my chest and my fingertips
and disappear beneath our earth to where it stopped being concrete
and began to be brown earth, molten red magma
to where there were gears turning and I could take a key and wind those gears
so the earth would groan and turn a little faster
and everyone would have to
balance up on their tip toes to keep balance.
People would find that they liked it there, poised
about to fall but not quite.


I wished I could do that, I wished I could rain upon them like the sky did
pushing their shoulder bones gently down and their faces forward
and their toes moving quicker than before but then
the clouds blew on and the sky became blue
cirrus clouds wandered in, replacing cumulus
it had stopped raining, so 
so did I, and I tied up my hair and kept walking, and dried


off.

Title Quote: Dispatch, Elias

No other road No other day No day but today

Today is poem in you pocket day, april 29th. To celebrate, I will post a few poems--none of mine, unfortunately, because I don't have the files on me right now. But here are a few to inspire you and perhaps lighten your day.

The Poet's Obligation

To whoever is not listening to the sea

this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up

in house or office, factory or woman

or street or mine or harsh prison cell:

to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,

I arrive and open the door of his prison,

and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,

a great fragment of thunder sets in motion

the rumble of the planet and the foam,

the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,

the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,

and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,

I ceaselessly must listen to and keep

the sea's lamenting in my awareness,

I must feel the crash of the hard water

and gather it up in a perpetual cup

so that, wherever those in prison may be,

wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,

I may be there with an errant wave,

I may move, passing through windows,

and hearing me, eyes will glance upward

saying, "How can I reach the sea?"

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,

the starry echoes of the wave,

a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,

a rustling of salt withdrawing,

the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea

will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

--Pablo Neruda



and the original, Spanish version: 
Deber del poeta 
A quien no escucha el mar en este Viernes
por la mañana, a quien adentro de algo
casa, oficina, fábrica o mujer,
o calle o mina o seco calabozo:
a éste yo acudo y sin hablar ni ver
llego y abro la puerta del encierro
y un sin fin se oye vago en la insistencia,
un largo trueno roto se encadena
al peso del planeta y de la espuma,
surgen los ríos roncos del océano,
vibra veloz en su rosal la estrella
y el mar palpita, muere y continúa
Así por el destino conducido
debo sin tregua oír y conservar
el lamento marino en mi conciencia,
debo sentri el golpe de agua dura
y recogerlo en una taza eterna
para que donde esté el encarcelado,
donde sufra el castigo del otoño
yo esté presente con una ola errante,
yo cirucule a través de las ventanas
y al oirme levante la mirada
diciendo: cómo me acercaré al océano?
Y yo trasmitirée sin decir nada
los ecos estrellados de la ola,
un quebranto de espuma y arenales,
un susurro de sal que se retira,
el grito gris del ave de la costa.
Y así, por mí, la libertad y el mar
responderán al corazón oscuro.


and also this:

 Poppies
Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

Red Shoes
by Honor Moore
all that autumn you step from the train as if something were burning something is burning running across the green grass bare feet that day death was only what we lose in fall comes back in spring something is burning from the train you climb smoke between the skyscrapers Paris was so beautiful, the sky–  all that autumn then tears Why do we do this again? she turns to you in the kitchen she puts her arms around you she is wearing those red shoes
Title Quote: Rent, Finale B

The door of lies had lots of flowers growing round outside

This is the continuing story of Bay and Tulya. If you want to be re-acquainted with them, please read the first part, here.

She was a Junior and he a Senior; but being mind smart and not school smart, he had not really gotten into many colleges. And he refused to go to the dingy community college a few streets away. His parents weren't really around, one being drunk half the time and a moody artist the other half, and the other being too stressed with work, spousal differences, and life in general, to deal with Bay. He was an only child, and didn't think much of his parents, so he didn't have many ties. He floated from his family. So college seemed to be out. Who knows if he would have even gone anyway, even if he was accepted into an Ivy League college; he didn't think very highly of the Establishment, and he and Tulya were too tightly bound together for him to move anywhere far away. The end of the year was looming, and still Bay had made no plans for after graduation. Tulya understood that he was thinking, and she wasn't worried. She just buried her thoughts beneath paper mountains tucked inside her bag, and diligently did all her schoolwork. Then, finally, school was over. It was summer, and the jacaranda trees were blooming purple all through LA. Their school was in the Santa Monica neighborhood, just a little ways from Venice Beach, where Bay's hair would bleach almost blonde during summer. It was graduation, and as Bay stepped down from the stage inside, diploma in hand, he titled his head ever so slightly, just so only Tulya could see, and walked to the door, unnoticed. Tulya slipped from her seat and disappeared through the door as well, catching him in the doorway. They kissed and fled out the backdoor, laughing and stumbling until they found a little back community garden. Bay leant down and Tulya lifted her skirt up with one hand  and climbed onto his back with the other, where from there she climbed onto the branch of a nearby tree. Bay took off his blue gown and cap, and followed her up. No one could see them from up there unless they were looking. They sat and stared out at the world, their world, and thought together.

At last, Bay opened his mouth. “Come with me,” he said. “I've got a surprise.” He jumped down and so did she, and he started off again, long strides, large grin. “It's really fantastic, amazing, I mean I can't believe I found it at this price,” he said. “Think of all the places we can go, I mean just think, Tulya!” He turned to her and she smiled, puzzledly. They were on the sidewalk again, they were veering back towards the school, towards the parking lot. Bay led her past rows of cars, and then he stopped. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Look, I sold my car! I went to a little junk car place and bought this!” Bay had gotten a brand new SUV for his seventeenth birthday from his parents, which he grudgingly drove. It was a hulking grey mass that was always hungry for gas and spitted out awful fumes into the air. Now it was gone. In its place sat an old dusty, slightly dented cadillac. A pink cadillac. “Oh, it's gorgeous, Bay!” exclaimed Tulya. She reached out and touched it, lovingly. It had a convertible top, and was flamingo pink, with flourishing tails in the back. “I know, isn't it a babe?” He responded, very excited. She laughed, grabbed the top of the door and vaulted herself in. He did the same, fished around in the one pocket of his jeans without a hole in it, and found the key. Gently, he turned the key in the ignition, and a sweet, slow rumbling sound came out, like mountains moving across the plains. “Where should we go?” Bay asked, but he knew the answer. They drove off through the streets, attracting catcalls and wolf whistles as they went. On they went, through downtown LA, until they came up to the residential area, twisting through orange trees and forsythia bushes. There Bay slowly eased the Cadillac onto the side of the road, parked and jumped out, running around to the other side to open the door for Tulya. He held his arm out and bowed, his hair tumbling down over his nose. She stepped out and curtsied to him, then ran to the house he had parked by, and in through the door. 

“Abi?” She asked. “Abi, you home?” Abi was her grandmother, whom she called by her first name. Tulya's parents were divorced, and both were too  proud to accept responsibility for that thing they had created together, that reminder of  each other, so Abi had taken her in and her parents had both flown the coop, to live on opposite ends of the world. Sometimes life was just like that. But Tulya and Abi lived very happily together with Abi's pet pig, Duluth. He used to be just this runty little piglet, but by now with all the attention he got, he had become a snorting, humorous, lumbering thing. He snuffled outdoors even now, and came to nuzzle Bay's hand, who stood by Tulya's side in the doorway. Bay often stayed at this house when his parents got to be too much, and Abi had taken a liking to him, calling him her “Bay leaf”. “Abi?” Tulya called once more, then uncertainly stepped in. She strode down the hallway until she reached her grandmother's room, and there she slowly knocked. “Tu, is that you?” A faint, weak voice called from inside. “Come in, please love.” The two filed in, and found Abi on her bed, surrounded by colorful African quilts and still shivering, in the summer heat. Tulya walked to the bed and felt her temperature, and found she had a high fever. “I'm sick, Tu, I'm afraid I can't get up.” Abi sounded like tissue paper, crumpled and semi-translucent. Fragile. “Abi, Abi! How long have you been like this?” She did not respond. “I saw her this morning,” Tulya told Bay. “She was fine, really! I don't know what's wrong, I think it's bad.” She looked worried, but Bay looked even worse. He was always more jumpy than Tulya, and all of her feelings were intensified in him. He had begun to shiver as well, and his brows were knit together. Abi coughed, just a little, but it seemed to shrink her even smaller, this strong woman who was usually seen in the garden, knitting fast with her hands and a sun hat looped over poofy white hair. Her normally cocoa skin seemed covered with a layer of grey dust, and her lips had turned faintly purple. Her fingers were icy to the touch. “Bay, get Abi to the car,” said Tulya. “We need to take her to the hospital.” 

Bay scooped her up, African blankets and all, and carried her outside, to the back of the car. Abi seemed too weak to protest, she just looked up with clear brown eyes and closed her lips. Bay thought about Tulya, and about how her eyes looked just like Abi's, and he held her tighter. He remembered how one day, he had found a little sparrow, lying by the window of his house, stunned on impact with the glass. He remembered picking it up, cradling it in his hands, and feeling each little rib so tiny, and the fluttering fast of its beating heart. He had brought it in and kept it in a cardboard box, trying to feed it seeds, but a few days later, it was gone. Bay never knew if it had left through the open window or if it had died, and his parents had disposed of it in one form or another. Bay felt Abi's fluttering heart like the bird's, and he knew something was very wrong. He reached the car and laid her down on the backseat, and Tulya slid in next to her. Bay drove to he hospital in silence, while Tulya stroked Abi's cheek and murmured to her, braid bits of her hair. The trees no longer seemed very green or lush. The hospital staff took one look at Abi and rushed her onto a stretcher and away to a room, leaving Bay and Tulya to fill out paperwork and sit with their worry.

Title Quote: Traffic, House For Everyone

Carry that weight a long time.

Full as the Forest

Veins 

curve opaquely

raindrops fall

fall down

down 

tiptoeing brokenly

upon carved dark passageways.

My heart is as

full as the forest and as 

smooth as the sea.

But the 

azure vessels

coursing by

this scarlet muscle

never fully penetrate

the swirling oblivion

of the mind. 

And my soul 

my very spirit is as

full as the forest and as

smooth as the sea. 

As smooth as the 

rushing, chopping

churning daybreak moonlight

sea!

I rage

whoosh

glimmer

roll and slow to 

a trickle

trickle down

down

warming small

troubled rounded

pearl toes.

Title Quote: The Beatles, Carry That Weight

You are living a reality I left years ago It quite nearly killed me.

Well I wasn't going to post this, because it's unfinished and without an ending, but I realized that I might as well, because that's what a blog is for, right? Im always telling flower to post things no matter what, so so will I. I wish I could work more on it, but I'm going away without a computer for the next week or so, and this is my last day to post it. Maybe when I come back I'll write some more, but for now, this is it, deal with the lack of ending. I worked hard on this.
Anyway, here goes. . .

She wrote things on her hands, cryptic notes, abbreviations, acronyms. They were little reminders to herself, to give a friend back her book, to pick up ten dollars owed from someone else. She was an impatient sort, and she never waited long enough for the ink to fully fade before writing something else on her palm, so it looked almost as if she had criss-crossing semi-transparent veins of words upon her hands. She said this suited her, because if the outside of her was entangled in words, it was fitting that the inside should be as well. She carried a pen everywhere, fumbling for it with her inky fingers, digging through her pockets when something came to her mind. Often, that thought would land on her palm, and when she waved, people would see her mind on her hand. Sometimes though, it was a longer thought, and she would rummage around in her backpack until she found a little notebook, crisp clean sheets of paper, and hurriedly write down sentences. She wore long tiered skirts that furled around her ankles and converse sneakers, and her skin was dark, very dark. She was so dark that at night all you could see were her eyes and the half moons of her fingernails, twisting and blinking. She had long nappy curls of hair only just darker than her ebony complexion, that were always slipping out of her loose bun and hanging down about her nose. She didn't care about her appearance. She was more focused on the outside, or within the outside--the unseen but not unthought. She was thin, but not waif-ish, and she was calm and careful. She answered questions slowly, with a long pause for thought before she opened her mouth. When she smiled, only one side of her lips turned up. It was a thoughtful sort of smile. She was a thoughtful sort of girl.

He, on the other hand, was not the sort to look before he leapt, or to think before he spoke. He was easily excited, and moved like a train running. First, he would raise his eyebrows, blink his eyes, lean forwards. Then, just as a train begins to gather steam, so did he, becoming animated as he stood up, his mouth working, his body moving, as words began to flow and his hands gestured slightly. He had man-boy hands. They were becoming like a mature man's, with protruding knuckles and pronounced veins, but they had this innate softness about them, sturdily delicate--that edge of vulnerability that comes with development. They were the perfect hands for skipping stones, she thought. She would daydream about his hands holding a dappled gray stone at the seaside, about how his fingers would grip the edges and then loosely hurl them out across the waves. She would sigh and tuck a curl of her hair behind her ear, and write this image on something, the underside of a leaf perhaps, which she would tuck amongst the pages of her notebook. He also had this little hemp necklace, weighted with a stone in the back and with a thick metal loop hanging from the front, pocked and dented, which lived around his neck always. The pockets of all his pants were ripped, as were the sleeves of his hoodies, which he would absentmindedly tear and bite at when he was daydreaming. Often, when he was bored, he would reach into those ripped pockets with his man-boy hands, and pull out a ragged crossword puzzle which he had taken from the newspaper. He would sit with the paper, his teeth nibbling and the edge of his sleeve, his chair tipped back, oblivious. He would sit there and do the crossword, slowly filling in the little white squares without registering whatever was going on around him. He would be oblivious to whichever class he was ignoring, or whichever teacher was droning on, and he would just read the clues to that crossword puzzle, mouthing the words with his lips. She found this habit charming, the whole crossword deal. He liked to read, and he was rather smart, but he was none too keen to do schoolwork, and people didn't really know why or how he passed any of his classes, since he listened none during class nor completed any of the homework. Still, he always passed, and did not badly either. He read book after book on his own, and had amassed a huge vocabulary. People knew he was smart, but it was an odd sort of smart. He was not school smart, he was mind smart. She understood this.

She did well in school as well. People often called her smart, top of the class, genius, even. They didn't realize how much this angered and hurt her. She didn't want to be known as smart, she wasn't just smart, she was Tulya. And she didn't spend her time alone learning the lessons before they were taught, or whatever people thought she did, instead of hanging out with everyone. She wasn't socially inept, or too shy or ashamed to be part of their big clique, their band of high-school kids. She just chose to flow in a different direction. She would go outside, to the park, while they would be watching a movie. Or she would go to the theater when they were at the park. And all the time, she would be writing, words leaking from her ears. That's just how she was, how she chose to be. He understood this.

He was well known among the school, though. He was friends with the collection of teenagers roving the halls, the friends or groupies banded together in a one for all, all for one situation. You could often see him walking with a few of his buddies, his neck tilted back a little, his face smiling, his hair tousled up. He had olivey tan skin, and soft brown hair. Someone would call his name, "Bay, Bay," and he would lift his chin up in reply, in challenge, in question. People liked him. He was likable. So he hung around everyone and they hung around him. But if he ever saw Tulya or the hem of her skirt whisk around a corner, he would smile doggedly, almost apologetically, and he would break off from this group and lope down the hallway to catch her.

The two of them were wrapped tightly around each other, bound together by a ribbon, a ribbon of words. A ribbon of words she had written, of words he had read, a ribbon of words they had said to each other without speaking. The words said Bay and Tulya and love and brown and lines and train and happiness and a shared mug of hot mulled cider, and they said tears and ocean and frustration and bare bellies and sheets of paper and sheets of linen and they said the infinity sign. They were strong words, and she and he walked strongly together, arm linked with arm.

Title Quote: Crosby Stills & Nash, You Don't Have to Cry

Shootin' rockets to the moon Kids growin' up too soon

Ode to an Ice Cream

Cone. Cardboard brown, lit with sugar to a honeyed hue. Brittle, crissed and crossed, filled with diamonds of dried batter. Ice cream cone batter. Rolled out flat with a pin on a butcher's block, heated in a pan, wrapped gently with the tip tight, the lip opened wide, ready to swallow gulps of ice cream.

Cow udder. Gently squeezed, smooth milk cream flows out, splashes into a tin bucket. Sugar, frothy milk, vanilla bean, churn churn churned. A bucket holds sweet cream ice cream, glinting frosty ice crystals. 

Silver spoon, glinting dully, curve, turn, concave, convex. A reflection only just missed, steel cities, sky scrapers, machines, machines; machines. A clean incision is made. Pure, smoothly separating ice cream from its brother, its mother, creating a crater on the surface of freshly fallen snow, an untreaded planet. 

And each comes together, plop bang smush: round melting scoop on top of ridged unbroken cone. A small pink tongue will lick the ice cream perfectly spherical, its natural roughness smooth, and small white teeth will nibble at the sugar cone. The child will pull off the paper wrapping and pursue the last ice cream trickle tickle until all that is left is the space where the cone tips almost meet, and sticky fingers licked another time, in the hope of one last bit of flavor.

Title Quote: The Tempatations, Ball of Confusion

And president of The United States of Love

Chaos

Pantomimes of nonsuch

whirl round

trodden down 

anarchy

intangible joy

gathers at the 

heart, its

bent wax

ropes free

mangled swirling 

solemn snowy

silks.

Inflections of the mind

slide into

spheres containers oceans

pitiless veins

leach 

shining golden

acrobats warriors ideas

darkened mirrors

blast

lethal grenades

empty empty

hollow, hollow.

Woven dangle tied-up

walls 

scrub

wrapped purple 

precision incisions.

tears minutes shocks of grief.

hours

of grief.

Title Quote: Hair Soundtrack, Colored Spade

And be a goddess in the planet wars And save the living things.

“Who wants to see the world?” They said.

“Me." I said. "I do."

“No, not you,” they said. “You can't. You're too young.”

“But I want to,” I said. “I want to see the world, I want to save the world, I want to be the world!”

“Too bad,” they said. “Come back later, come back when you're older.”

“What if there is no later?” I said. “What if this is the only time we've got, what if I need to do this now? What if?” I said.

They did not answer, they only turned away from me and called at others to join them.

“Wait! Wait, don't you believe in me?” I said. “Don't you think I can do this, don't you think I can have dirt under my fingernails, holes in my shoes, aches in my back? Don't you think I can see the world?”

“No.” They said. “Sorry.” They said. “Go away.” They said.

They turned away and began to ask other people again:

“Who wants to see the world?”

 Well let me tell you this, let me tell you: I can and will see the world, I can and will save the world, and guess what, I can and will be the world! 

What do you have to say to that?

Title Quote: Neil Young, Sun Green

You can't watercolor a fire cracker

She watched her reflection in the streams of light filtering through the half closed blinds on her windows. The bed she was lying on felt unstable, as if rocking on the sea, about to pitch over, yet the sheets felt as crushing, cold and lifeless as stone. She imagined, idly, that a poisonous viper had been let loose from the zoo that very day and had slithered in to reach her the same way the light had, and now, it was resting on her, curled tightly around her legs, a tight skirt of emerald scales. That would explain why she could not move them. But then she chuckled at herself, chiding gently, in the place of a nanny, that she should be so silly as to think it was a viper causing that. For many months she had lain here, nauseous and weak, sipping tea and crumbling dry toast beneath her lips tasting nothing but cardboard. She thought she saw the sunlight flicker, just out of the tail of her eye. Her mind returned to the viper, its tail fondling her toes, its little tongue darting out, eyes glowing in her own. It must be getting pretty hungry for a meal by now, she thought. But here she stopped, for she knew she had crawled to deep inside her mind and laughed too loudly into its tunnels, the laughs turning to echoing screams vibrating through her skull. She repressed the trembles that started from her eyebrows, and proceeded to ripple and contort her whole face with fear. Taking a deep breath, she looked for her reflection in the light again, but all she saw was darkness.

Title Quote: Beth Orton, Heart of Soul

When you find yourself in the thick of it

Haiku (untitled)

nestled in the snow
a tiny jeweled footprint
among busy boots.

Title Quote: The Beatles, Martha My Dear