The Poetry Marathon

THE EYE IS A CITY OF STARS

even in my dreams it seems I’m wandering off

the beat or the trail or the railroad tracks as it were

one electric line along my being

brushing against the future

brimming with the past

what I resist heaps itself up in ordinariness

uncertain if there’s any help to be had about it

where the whispers of angels never make me certain

where pink trees in pink fields don’t strike me as odd or beautiful

or even Seussical, in spite of them absolutely being just so

where what is ordinarily overlooked becomes astonishing

when breath is caught, Existence does the catching

THE BRIGHTEST EVENING OF THE YEAR

“Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.” ~ Robert Frost

known only by the names we call ourselves

there was a moment across these months

stretching days across the loom into weeks

slowly, more known, we come into focus

our eyes adjust to any light they find

from solstice to solstice woven across the dimness

we, too, stopped to see the frozen lake

there was blinding light as the snow swirled up

cyclones across the ice, whipped up in wind

swept across like my joy when I see your face

may we always pause in breathless wonder of beauty

may we keep our promises across so many dark nights

to be known to ourselves, finally, beyond any naming,

or any darkness

or any light

KINDERHOOK CREEK

for Thaniel, Evie, & Peyton

the coolness of the shifting shallows under our feet

a hot day ebbs away in the shade of the pine trees

I’ve hurt myself, careless, every time we’ve gone

letting my blood become another truth of the forest

we play “kiss each other clean” through a phone speaker

because our histories have been forged equally in iron and wine

we splash and shriek at the coldness as the sun slips down

cotton candy clouds filling the sky with pinks and purples

may we share our secrets equally with each smiling face

holding us through the twilights that arise to match each dawn we see

one more reflection of the ways we hold each other without touching

one frosted sparkling drink flowing down in rivulets from the mountains

we’re alive in the coldness, we’re alive in the heat

we’re alive under the ebb and flow of all these hurried minutes

waiting to see ourselves again reflected back in still waters

while what remains rushes around us, seeking as we do

BECAUSE YOU CLAPPED AND I HEARD IT

longing for firework flares at the lost boys’ campsite

except I forgot all the directions before straight on til morning

and it’s not exactly something you can pop into google maps

so I’m an adult outcast like robin in hook

grown up in a world never made for a soul like mine

ground up like molars on right-angle words

like mortals on coils never-never ageless

or morals on money or even only the idea of money 

who herself is an idea, if not some modern deity

bitten back a thought better embittered

since seeding we have our plants so closely scrutinized

like knowing the time but not the quartz inside it, or like

believing in 401K widget stonks but not the power to fly

so if in seeing you

and making another world with our words, I seem free

like talking to a passionate child about any mystic nightlight

know that you are the star where I finally made a correct turn

    know that here in new neverlandia I’m home to my true self

CHEESE DREAMS: STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN ASTRAL ADVENTURE

like all aspects of magick, psychology and unconscious mind

operating always (if not within your awareness then without it)

(whether or not you agree to consciously recognize their power

or their profound effects) so for the most mundane the solution

is simply to dream, and cheese can help even the most stoic

find new illuminating truth within their nightly visions

the whole thing is really very simple like writing or anything else

start with your favorites and expand your taste from there daily

with dinner, that part is of particular importance for dreaming

(though more general consumption of cheeses of course

can’t hurt even in the form of comedy since our darkest fears

require always the sacrifice of our solemnity in the form of a sacred giggle)

at first there may be a field or a forest (if you’re lucky it will be known to you

a space you feel comfortable in the dark and the wood where you are safe)

there may be lights along the treeline and deep into the mossy valley.

follow them. don’t wonder or worry about it too much. after all, 

you’re only dreaming. some people call them faeries, the lights that is

but ultimately calling them anything but friendly is a common mistake

(which is of course why I’m warning you in advance)

if you manage to be polite they’ll show you the river

if you fuck up before you get there I’m not sure how to help either

all fair warnings in advance. but didn’t you say you were itching

for a glorious adventure?

the river can take you anywhere you’ve been and anywhere you’ll ever go

stadiums, glass malls, towers and renaissance towns

fields, forests, circuses and glittering cities

find another river to get back again

ask the lights if you get lost

it really is that simple

(oh, one last thing. If the cities are falling apart, repair them.
If you see an airplane, don’t get on it. your world is mutable,

requiring your presence to exist. just trust me on that one)

(and I almost forgot! this is the most important, so don’t forget,

if you see the dark obsidian stone citadel on a barren mountain,

if the sky is dark and cracking apart from an electrical storm,
go back the way you came and RUN. sure, The War is a lie

always has been, always will be, but we die regardless. I mean

probably not you, right, but just to be safe. it’s only a dream after all.)

DON’T GET LOST IN STORY FOREST (OR, IF YOU MUST, BRING GOOD GALOSHES)

that damn puffy vest was cool for five minutes in the 90’s

when bulma broke up with yamcha on toonami

let’s face it folx aliens are always hotter to a supposed sapiosexual 

human makeup is unevolved if you ask danhausen or gwarsenio hall

I’m so sorry officer, was I making spaghetti too loudly? 

(that damn shapiro snitching again you can bet your desert panties)

dawn in a frozen forest and you’re like wait, this morning isn’t fanfiction

I did remember shoes when I left the house, very nice, very good

that was always a pet peeve when it came to kids in adventures like

really little dude you didn’t think to change out your pajamas? 

or were you just not planning on becoming a protagonist?

(hate to break it to you but it rarely is a choice even retrospect)

mist revealing freeza or bigger dragon balls on another planet

like when we find out the gods get upgrades too

or how when I really thought about my depression

I remembered saiyans get stronger every time they almost die

shifting the fireside story with the zeal of the zeitgeist

faeries becoming demons becoming aliens and no one bats an eye

maybe we were always down a drone or two for the true view of the forest

(knowing neither our roots nor our grey halo before a crown of satellites)

FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICE (a prayer)

earthen and so often overlooked

not a thought past our doormat 

unless we’re calling for a broom

Dirt! Ground! Soil! Clod! Sod! Turf! Loam!

never held us on a pedestal with You looking up

but You / supporting us wordless / demanding so little

Mother Gaia of the mountains, forests, plains and gardens

may we never grow weary in wonder of your raw abundance

remembering the root of our meal / where-so-ever be our table

BLUES BUELLERS

                 how often does the train come by?

headlamp glinting off a silver moon river

sign slow blinking red-red-red for the ATV idiots

chugging slow low rolling steel wheel thunder

through the stricken trees along electric lake

I come crunching dark gravel pebbles in lieu of homework

                      static starlight tangled in the street lamps

craving early ice cream frozen hillside rural suburbia

it’s sleepy here and the shops are long since closed

listen with a loving heart and become another radio

open source airwaves by the cover of another night

blues belushi doesn’t notice the train or any relative silence

even streaking with the lights and roar neither do I anymore

wandering and watching jealous of an unalterable destination

MOTION BLUR MURAL

I could write this piece as a landscape

where it’s always dawn or dusk

                                    never night or noon

where it’s flat and mountainous

where it’s grassy and rocky

where the cliffs are worn away by water

where the sand was forged of the cliffside

infinity’s hourglass / roaring shore / tiny beads of release

oh shit you meant like a portrait of the poet?

that one’s a watercolor rainbow in profile

looking lost in thought out over the water

wondering when I’ll grow into my voice

wondering when I’ll grow out of my tits

and then there’s you, asking why I didn’t choose vice

as if a moral judgement on my body would purify me?

are you actually asking me to tell you who I am?

can’t I just side with Eliot here and say the person

who began this poem is not the person who will end it?

CONTENT WARING: mental health, incarceration

BUT DON’T CALL IT MASKING TAPE

right up front for the brutal truth

there’s only one difference between prison

and the psych ward

and it’s the cafeteria offerings

the slunking whispers are the same

the blank bright hallways and gleaming fixtures

dinginess and long hallway flickering lights

just enough to gaslight an average man

so she said there’s a strict no cuddling policy

and I said honey I get it I’m crazy not stupid

here we are for your horrified amusement

the black-eyed children of the new millennia

we’ll consume your crime scene tape

wailing another older kind of siren

where instead of either soulless cell

I imagine that brightness is the seaside

where I’ll wake up next to you

on another cloud deeper in double digits

where I want to hear every passing thought

behind your eyes and your reserving smirk

so I pretend with the rain that I’m hearing sand and waves

imagine you wrap your arms around me and the color returns

and I’m left with no desire for anything

except to be here, to just be still, and listen