You Will Be the Sun (Bed Poem #2)

i am awake
     cradling a child still
          between the clouds

beginnings. my life
     might be reaching
          across our sleeping forms

cool and quiet
     safe from my parents' fear

this day:
     it is too small

          but that is part of
               the morning dance.

hell (bed poem #1)

i cannot sleep

so i dream while dancing cheerful
through my nightmares
       to chain-smoke teeth
                the snakes that haunt
                        the bent knees

red velvet blade
          to fan over our legs
windows let eyelids dark into the pores

          old
trapped in my skin
the shape of robots
from memories of amnesia

presents from my dying

retraction

peel back the landscape.
raze buildings, make unlevel
the clover leafs and straightaways. we are
excavating a country.

we made a mistake.
buried it alive.

it was still wearing a promise ring
when the dozers pushed it under, and
we have forgotten the inscription
in our haste to hide the evidence.

convert strip malls to swamp:
mosquitos swarm bloodthirsty in supermarkets.
fill in parking lots with
carolinian hardwoods.
sap drips
from telephone poles.
vines creep
along fences, consume them. borders
break down.

even the flocks of plastic bags
that rise with the wind to choke the sky
become imperceptibly snow geese,
carrier pigeons, an army of lost avian souls.

foxes run yipping through cracks in my mind.
bric-a-brac housing collapses into eskers,
anthills, patterns of grass in the dust.
we recede.

the one where the stars burn out

it was dark. et cetera. you know how it starts. then
i lit you up, and you lit me. it was
inevitable. it was gravity.

the pressure we exert
on each other drove us closer, drove us
inward seeking fuel for fire

to etch shadows
of weak and watery planets
on the walls of the universe.

we inhaled hydrogen,
sweated helium and gold.
call it love, fusion, alchemy:

call it what you like.
it's the cheapest sort of magic.
it happens all the time up here, you know.

a day comes when all that can burn
has burned away; when we find ourselves
with nothing left we'd care to say

we blow apart, brief candle cores
alone and dark in the sepulchre of sky
fading blonde through red to our natural brunette

waiting patiently for gravity
to pick up the resurrection phone. waiting
to fall back together again.

new lights will gleam in the wreckage:
the rich dust of planets
where life can resume some day.

it's the same old phoenix story:
star death, star birth.
you'd be wrong to think repetition

makes it hurt one damn bit less.

how can you hurt so much?

you are thin -- just a
blade of grass in the wind -- bending
to let this broken world
not break you as it spins.

you are dry -- just a wisp
of white in the blue bowl of sky --
but you hold all the rains
behind your eyes.

how can you hurt so much?
how can you bear the world
on such shoulders?

when i hold you
you hum like bees:
the queen gone, the hive
is too busy to grieve.

your nervous system sings
like wings about to leave.
you forget to eat.
you sometimes forget to breathe.

how can you hurt so much?
how can you wait so long for love?
how can so little serve as just enough?

what care the sparrows?

                                                rainwateronasidewalk

                                                     octobersun
                          
                                         grainsandseeds

                          sufficientuntotheday;


               neithermemorynorexpectation

                        onlythismoment

                    onlythislife


              takenothingwithyou

    thereisnowheretogo

nothingtotake

New Guitar

I bought a new guitar.

I rarely get to say that.

Southpaws like me tend to find a good one and hold on to it.
They marry their guitars.
Righties, having many more opportunities, tend towards profligacy.

This one is red. It is heavy. The make and model don't matter.
It's new, but it comes with history, with scars, with distinction.
I like that.

It feels different. It makes me feel different.
It touches my chest at different points; it weighs on my shoulder strangely.
It resonates.
It leads my hands to locations they would not normally go on my other guitar.
I play differently. I sound different even if I try to play the same.

The fact that it is a new guitar does not make me a better guitarist.
But the fact that I play it with a new mind does.
These new locations, these new sensations, these new tactile maps of music, become a part of me.
I can apply them to any other guitar.
This specific guitar, being new, has taught me a new way to play all guitars.

The more music we make, the more musical we become.
Every new experience enriches us.
We need never repeat ourselves, even if we play the same songs every night.
As long as we have grown, the music grows.
As long as we share who we are today, the music is born anew each time we play it.

I think it's the same with people.
Hold someone. Feel them resonate against your chest.
Go where they take you.
Make a map of their nervous system.
Let their music become your music.

Let every new person be your teacher.
Let yourself always be new.