Smooth Sound

I would know that smooth sound anywhere. I would know its being. After delivering my coffin to its final resting place I roam freely take in the sights: ship with all rats gone the town with citizens all asleep the incessant whirling of the pinwheels.

Water

You can drink the planet and all its riches. Call it water and then something else. You can drink into your life. See it become you pausing near the edge of the blackberries the hawthorns.

Strawberry Runners

Fall runners in the barley hulls. A lot like love. Stems and roots looking for land. I think of him and smile often. To myself. About the scope of things. Better than all that frowning in person. That ship sailed without me.

Broken Agreement, Shattered Lives

Borage, didn't we have an agreement Thought we worked out details before my big trip back East Now it looks as if you're breaking what was decided by me I mean by us when it was we

To A Leaf

It wasn't like this when I had to watch the drain after the fallen were removed just right after Halloween. Needles when the time usually changes at the edge. Get in there and clean.

Eugene Town

The town did not stand in my way. The town wanted the same arrangement. Plus, all the memories I had to ponder. They were halfway buried. Buried with the town. Yes, I said to the town.

Driving Away

This is what I'm good at before light. World shaped along these lines. What is real becoming otherwise.

Honey

You are not mine to begin with missing your bees even before venturing back to the Plateau's outer reaches.

Honey

Honey save some for the jar we need to feed the others with. You go first no you go first. Your talk is setting all the bees abuzz.

Honey

The lover hummed bees before stinging settling the swarm in his throat before circling. The lover stayed away as long as he could. This is all the information available. Please go. Please go tell the lover where.

Dusty Town

O dusty town your particles quite alive as I dig myself out heavy buildings along the road have settled are disappearing their people describing something else entirely.

Green And Yellow

On my way I lost it whatever I thought it was that I found up against the mount. Their ways were strange. All those echoing calls. My heart ripping itself two valleys at once. Just say the word. All shrieking aside. Then we'll see if pronouncing it the same stays true.

The Haunted Hotel

Miss Old Timey please pass the casket resting on the shelf turned into something useful. Please purchase a lot of those enameled mugs because don't you see we're sinking so close to the marsh no matter where you swim you will be in the same place There is no safe inlet no peaceful anything anyone waiting but only the hour begging for more.

The Not Perfect Day

The not perfect day its recipe for soup salty tears turned up to a boil then frozen convenient for the trip to the reservation where storms are brewing This time Hero will not be here to save the day with his guns slung and slinging This time will be just a lot of checking the weather seeing if there is a pulse a secret a charm a chant helping locate the door and its persistent knocking

Cyan

Hospital flowers growing along the highway Your surgery has spared my heart La Grande alleys never seemed so full of leaves As now the day a dream I had for months Do I languish here as usual or do I step Sideways into the other boxes of yes We learned the symbols and danced the dances I could not tell you the pattern of the steps Out to Imbler and then the rushing of squirrels Climbing backwards and upside down

The Vanishing

The vanishing is known above all else. The time-lapsed roses opening now and they accelerate accelerate trying to be as hardy as the small wild ones.

Dry Drunk

Missoula not caring whether I lived or died. The feeling its old stale coffee smell in a little cupboard where a paper bag served as the trash. I remember Dickinson Street and the unpaved part reaching up the flank of Mt. Jumbo where our landlord lived. Our house still there but the fence I used to sit on is gone. My white halter top borrowed from Mom is gone, our horse, Bree, gone now I look and see the trouble she got herself into that girl drunk even when dry.

White Space

We were told to look at the white space look for it and say what it is and what goes unsaid but it took too long and people could only see the other stuff that was there anyway so I want to know if this is what you've been seeing all along? Why your head hurts? I didn't walk here but it might as well be true. My knees took a knocking and I went swimming. Will all this bring me closer? Do the years add up to anything, even after surviving? Can this room contain them? Its light and shaded shadows.

Bear Canyon

So many up close turning out to be stones zipping by going against the flow or is it the stream I circled round his grave. The tree does not grow well there. The apples a little ways away taste old-fashioned. It was all for those neatly planted at about ten mile intervals. The tracks follow the water-- the murderous fencing beyond claustrophobic. Polite conversation has all but disappeared. Now everyone is free to speak like candidates and even whispering seems outdated and besides the point

Watered Down

I do not live there. How could I live in all that water with land floating trash forever. How could I ever think I am different forever? How could I live on land thinking of water? No land is forever. My life floating different. The sunken feeling that nobody is rushing to the rescue. It is me who is rescuing, who is organized into helping. I got the wrong version of Song Of Myself. Thought I had the right ISBN but no, that wasn't it. I try to understand to feel the long lines. They reach the raft. They dangle over the cliff where I wait warmed by swallows by bees. Some I can catch others are snapping and whipping in the breezes. I want them all but I only have myself, my two hands or so I am thinking, one washing the other off.

Into The Land Of Jealous

Where I salute its flag Crying into my cafeteria salad I know nobody but the cashier Only my face so familiar Friendly like a tourist My boots too new for dusting All the spider webs I see in corners Their little weavers small Bundles of laundry dried tears Histories dying to be spoken Taking so long to get there Not like on the map just a hop And I'll have nothing To cover myself my envy Behind cotton blends Once there it will be usual Quaint cabins to sit in Corridors for pacing Losing any measure starting As regular with a beat

New Thought, Old Day

Gaze into my mind and you will see rain and more oaks with Doug firs dripping dank and gloomy but the good kind of gloom, the cool sanctuary breathing.

Short Life, Long Dream

Above the town above the dreaming Am I dreaming further or just in a dream where I play a minor role? Patient. Killing spiders. Why Would they want to hang out Spending their lives In Architecture & Allied Arts To begin with. Plus all the pizza Boxes and drab entryways.

(Some Have) Imaginations

The story was clear to some, but not all. Sheer willpower helped her stay awake for work. Green tea with honey? That was supposed to be good for anything. Now she was about to commit a crime. It was only a leaky ceiling. And that season barely mentioned, but so obvious, well, she was asked if she wanted to buy bullets at the store, at the counter.

The Treacherous Wheat

My gaze hears mumbling in the wheated rounds and all of Grass Valley. What could cause this worry about--? Fill in the blank. What is changing? Was there really a summer? I remember extreme heat and the jay returning with its friend. But other than that--? This is another night of corridors. Hear them echoing the groaning of the cart.

Oma Mit Tante Fransiska

They were not killed by the bomb but are walking out of the dusty rubble. My eyes carrying them into the present where I watch them grow old and happy not young and killed. You know the story and how I can't let go of it and them and telling. Not like in real life where this is not possible.

Moonscape Children

I listened to hear what they were saying. I heard the voices of the moon children in all that silence. High scape and low scape. What struck me was not their time playing. That was in between. What struck me was nothing. Maybe a random volley ball. Actually, two softballs I failed to catch even though I was quite ready given all indications by readying my position with the mitt held straight in front of my face.