tryingpoetry

I want to drive South

I want to drive South to TX And look the people in the face Who let children live like prisoners

And then walk past them And take care of those kids

Pit

Look up the black gravel slide down again the glittering sound as rocks cascade down

the pit in the center glows and steams eggs rotten rise in the mist

Climb and slide and slide

knees touch the hot stones sweat drips through them down

Get up and run and slide and slide

The horizon high and sharp

For one million years yet younger than the stars

Get up

Declu

There are ways through my mind mad and fey they call me some days

origin and seeds of the things that hide there ungrown

incomprehensible and tangible by turns but Declu gets in the way

Declu that trips me and Declu that distracts me and Declu which never had a name before

Two years hard labor and Declu grew strong wicked gremlin and glare evil

I know your name now Declu and I know your shape and you will be unwrought

One Teacher

She's hard as cocomino sandstone letting time and water to the right place

She's covered in ocean tumult and calm from moment to moment

She's the soft soil yielding and happy to raise new plants

Listen and learn practice and see

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Stinging cold pinpricks on my ears tiny ice hailing down Grit mixed with sting around my eyes soil and sweat Cold plastered to my back and belly cotton shirt soaked to the bone A shoulder's twinging stitch pulling at tangles of roots

caught

I CAUGHT THE RAGE BUT I DIDN'T KNOW IT I NEVER KNEW I HAD SWALLOWED IT GASPING FOR INFECTED AIR MY MYSELF FORGETTING DEEP DOWN THE THING I DIDN'T REMEMBER BLOOD RED FLESH ON BONES SLOW SMOLDER HEAT BURNING MY BELLY ON REPLAY IN MY MIND BUILDING ON ANGER RECURSIVELY BOTTLED UP LASHING OUT

INTO THE NIGHT until i lay by my one true truth and love and a wave comes cold clear water washes my face like a drug floods my veins again slows my heart

Untitled

One tree's trunk and another's bough climb into a dark sky

I lie in the warm water thinking to myself wondering when I'll die

The oldness crept into my body and the worry in my mind didn't quit as my bottle went dry

The billions of human souls and my unending luck feel like tragedy's unlit coals

Far from the noise in a forest once logged where the elk walk at will

And the river's run close, braided behind the dam singing the mist into the air

The hills rise all around and a fiery mountain to the north slush falls down

Switchback to switchback high in the clouds where my mind lands now

The Wearing Off

Silent Quiet Coziness The newness of a change Seeks your delight smells out your deep seated echos

Welcome labor Long steps that think to spill cold between the seams seat under my coat

Heavy weight of water swollen with warmth Whip cracked and a hot hearth flickering mantle

Three Minds

Science peered skeptically at Faery While legend stood akimbo in a garden Faery glowered back at the numbers

They argued about whose people were most fair and noble as though they were gods followed and worshiped

Until one day they saw their people were all the same

Unquenchably curious spinners of yarns listening and reading as though it was air

Everything is Damp

Even the copper bark of the Madrona tree is ruddy and the Moss and Fens and Fungus grow everywhere now The land is dark and wet and the colors are grays, browns and greens

The cold seeps in over time slowly until the fingers don't work and I stumble around

The drips in the woods are indicators of their distance and even the eel grass runs off the water

The sun can't get through the silted water running first left to right and then right to left