pebbles of thought

boom boom pow

oh blood. what is this vicious

stuff pouring out of me-

i feel it; jealousy;

it sucks and stings

and bites through my thin skin

like a sweat breaking---

i WANT i NEED i LUST

i dream and dream and dream

and dance till morning

clutching anybody's hand,

knowing it means nothing...

heart thuds. skips. stops.

----

runs on again.

words spoken in a sea-shell

again there's this hollow wound

a space in me filled with the glitter of the sea

and the grey cloud-bellies above it

brooding, about to burst;

there is a humming thread,

perhaps it is a tornado, a hurricane,

a twirling raging blackness!

from my eyes ropes snake

and you my darling are lasooed

you are entwined - the pieces of you,

the ghostly fragments, the photographs

and the smiles i dreamed of.

and in my dream i wrapped my arms

around you and found your neck

and fitted my palm around it and

i leaned in and my lips brushed your ear

and i spoke it out loud, over and over and over:

i love you i love you i love you i love you

drifts touch the stark city
to monotone. sun
tattoos a pale disk, grating glass. bitter past
numbness i
crave heat and taste.

*

kazimierz walls me in.
under ice, history complains to
the small of my back, rusting in mouth-corners
and eyelets and industrial zips
( chanting: )
I was oil I was wax I was tin and lead
and paper and
you, what are you?

on stone step of bakery and bank
rooks huddle discussing news. fur scraps tatter wasted muscle
and bare ankles swollen by a century of winters.
button eyes.

*

we plaster facades over (bullet riddled lintel),
hoist up flags over (smoke stains), wear heels or lipstick or sew
satin flowers on our hats.

but our hearts clamour,
drumming behind viscid tissues
of these wearied eyes:

(ee-lie, ee-lie, this is bad, all right.)

picture by aga_stasz

spiralling

I dreamt there was a tornado in my back yard

like the finger of God

it swept up black dust from forgotten crevices

and threw out lightning

and in my dream I put my hands out

my two hands together, cupped together,

looked up at the raging roof of the sky,

everything in me about to collapse.

I thought of you.

image from prairie pictures

emergence of a poet

she was reborn both legs kicking
in a rush of pitchy blood,
the nubs of her shoulders gleaming
with birth-sauce,
fresh with the lick of the womb.
she was already a chalice: waiting for the world
to once more fill her to the brim

startling blue eyes as any other baby, screwed up, blind,
brow wrinkled in a prophesy of old age,
balled sausagemeat fists hiding
palms to tell a future from.

her hair seaweed dark, and steaming,
plastered to her geographic scalp-
inside, her brain was ticking over itself
bellowing and crashing against its walls

her infant mouth opened in a gloomy yell

her tongue like a worm
she sucks in the rushing air