and the stun

if you became the wind there would be no borders
if you became the wind you would feed the forest floor
you would loose things that stuck
you could make inanimate objects come alive in the street
you could chaperone clouds across sky
morning poem in six parts
how many knots will you bring us today?

______

n quotes a testimony from a woman in ogaden
and the stun
the silence that follows
i want to name it
walk away with electricity in my bones
another file for the phenomena encyclopedia

______

in which
i am allowed the kind of proud mama moments
often reserved for grade-school teachers

______

talking about the bridge between
poems and performance
it’s not going to build itself
i say
but it will come in time

and then the recovery from
some kind of creative amnesia
where i recall
last year’s unperformed performance poems

______

sweet sticky rice with mango
consumed in sun patches atop smurf towel
the best understudy for getting ripped
thank you for accommodating my
worn-out ways

______

in regards to a curated life
just because we don’t have hipstamatic
doesn’t mean we don’t have gorgeous moments too

______

your voice a channel for ferrying
simultaneous rage and fear
timecaught in my phonemachine

______

f29 reports from portland
bikeswarms circling gas stations

______

cecilia vicuña’s saborami
in my hands

______

it is one thing
to share the vagina monologues experience
with a cis-man friend-of-friend that i just met
but it is another to stand up side by side with him
when, at the end, they ask
anyone who has survived domestic abuse
or knows someone who has
to rise

______

perched on volvo trunk
booted feet on black bumper
while eric talks about the three-foot white-feathered wingspan
of a local owl
not to mention the red-tailed hawks

______

clubsounds spill out along university
on san diego nightstreets
clyde and i revelling in the un-vehicled streets
of almost-midnight

______

eucalyptus scent
thickening in night air i
pedal through it
humming

______

bb’s left-over burgers
laid out on kitchen table with lettuce
red onion ribbons
and tomato cross sections

______

cover song #4
semi-complete
(never mind the dissonance)

since language has kept me

ghost scribing with alice notley:
a visit for jahaica
you naked ladies, you paint them in
in the visiting rooms, we trade/inherit family
white paint flaking
open arms
moving aside to let them
the color of this young
i had sexual resources

_______

first song of the day
hair, people, it’s about hair.

_______

digital bank sign climbs seven degrees
between coming and going

_______

it’s ok if you stumble
he offers us through the balancing poses

_______

it’s also a bit like this:
1. splintering wood
2. saltines
3. an echoless tunnel

_______

overheard at the cafe (which was out of tea bags
so i said
just put the tea in the hot water and i’ll let the leaves settle to the bottom):
1. the L-word (the show, not the actual word) mentioned at least three times
2. you know that place on washington
the sausage king?
a true authentic production
3. every once in a while
i get night terrors

_______

internet password: appleseed

_______

about to drop down the hill
i pass a fellow nightbiker
who calls out how you doin
as we crossover and
ride safe
just as in the distance
another pedals across
the next intersecting street
which may seem like a minute detail
but for a second
it felt like portland
which made me wonder about
its chosen land status
and how we create our realities and
how i am just recovering from a kind of culture shock
which is probably more suitable for a long (late night?) conversation
than a detail
which makes me think
it’s been too long since
language has kept me up all night
which reminds me of
how i have been able to out-awake
almost everyone
(even joey
with whom i watched the sun come up
on the edges of the muddy mississippi)

_______

5 cloves
6 green cardamom pods
a sprinkle of cinnamon
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
popping in skillet oil

_______

amy goodman
says something like
african spring
while i am still cringing
over the koran-burnings
and how romney and santorum both said
barak shouldn’t have apologized
and i’m thinking
what part of holy war
don’t you understand
which reminds me that
i’ve been thinking
in random places/times
that if someone were to need cpr
i would not remember how to administor it
and also
thinking about how the first thing i did
after the red car accident
was burst out the side door from the back seat
the grass glittering
and the second thing i did
was hug the first person i saw
who happened to be some woman i’ve never met
walking up to see if we were ok / injured / alive

_______

i did not read the books
i just read the inscriptions

_______

i might do better
than ride like the wind, dear beloved
i might become it

like a sailor’s lover

 

 

i blame the thin mints
i blame the cool edge of air
i blame last nights dream of
the re-arrangement of plants on my windowsill
and stolen curtains
and those affiliated with good intentions

_______

hurtling north
11am shuttle under gray sky
justin and i discuss
the wonder of being in one’s body
where a poem frays/ruptures
how the mfa program has ruined me
and how that ruin is mostly good

_______

it’s kindof like this:
1. scraping seeds/guts out of a sliced-open delicata squash
with a fork
2. treadmill running under water
3. that photo where i am gripping mom’s polyester pants leg
scowling so hard at the top of the lookout tower
forest unfolding below

_______

this is concrete poetry
spelled out in strips of blue
taped to university sidewalk
not far from the literature building

_______

the dirty language river
brings us to this phrase:
the blind leading the blind
some kind of unconscious insinuation
that blind people are incapable of leading/leadership

_______

7% of the population reads the newspaper
he says in from the back row
it’s obsolete

_______

spectacular failure
she says
scramble the samples

_______

how i stood at the kitchen sink
like a sailor’s lover
staring down stormcloud sky

_______

there are numerous ways to say it
including but not limited to:
1. blueblack fabric scrap
kerchifed around mousie’s neck
2.

3. snap of light and roll of thunder

_______

regarding public speaking:
amp yourself with confidence
and positive energy
she says

_______

what’s the best way to cut
if not sideways?
an agency
a starsky
a verb

 

 

estuarization

recording of unconsciousness
with alice notley’s grave of light
hardcover and opened in my hands:
every winter dream
is 70 assumptions

_______

maneuvering the new-smelling honda on imperial
f takes estuarize one step further:
estuarization

_______

purple statice
chuparosa bush
brittle bush
purple phacelia
and something tiny and peach/orange
lizards skittering and
one bird in the doghouse (aka the diamond shape of the fence)

_______

although all that plastic scrap was sad
i kindof miss the washed up treasure

_______

from here
we can see tijuana
from here, the border waves crashing
from here, we give our coordinates
and report all is clear
roger
over and out

_______

nestor united methodist church sign:
sunday message:
a sopping wet jesus

_______

we discuss this tshirt over missing french fries:
this sissy survived basic training

_______

tents lined up along
the i-5 ramps
rippling in wind

_______

this moon is killing me
sharp bright slice
i dreamed you last night
no river but connected nonetheless

_______

someone went looking for a
mistaken satellite and ended up here

_______

it doesn’t matter that we’re slide-step-stepping
instead of step-step-sliding
(in fact, i prefer it)
this soft-soled whisking
this boot maneuvering
this strongarm and grace

_______

what if
i assert
frankie and johnny were both boys

_______

i wikipedia’d ‘kurdish iranian/iraqi’ last night
there is so much i don’t know
_______
what i heard on track seven:
i see the ties of kinship are broken/
we are the timber laid out at the mill/
we ride through the fields and the valleys/
our bodies are burning and what does god save
he saves the fire/
vacation bible school tapwater and sadness
that’s where we’re from but i hope that we
did our best/
the world is not as big as disappointment
but it is more variously dressed/
i see the doors of heaven are closing
and i see there’s rifles close to your rising
but we are only pasted to to this landscape/
we are leaning in
but only to listen halfway

attempting legibility

hand-made envelope
postmarked rutledge, missouri
black ink and peace sign stickers

_______

red rosary to lips
soundtrack for one way to move with the dark

_______

what it means
when one’s neck is just as sore as one’s gut
the day after

_______

london fog with too much sweet
in a paper cup at the cafe that doesn’t believe
in washing cups

_______

rae uses words like good and works well
says the manuscript clearly deals with death and pain
therefore she brings me alice notley
who brings out voices of the dead
rae mentions beginning a new manuscript before the previous one is completed
(as a way to sideswipe the fear of finishing
in response to my process vs. product dilemma)
rae says irony was a way for poets to deal with
the most recent political (hopeless) situations
but now, we’ve got santorum
producing the irony directly
she wrote in print
instead of cursive
attempting legibility

_______

there must be a word
for the sound of bike tires
properly inflated
wheels rotating forward
it’s not whizz
or whir
or whoosh
almost a humming
but something smooth and rolling
constant accompaniment
satisfaction i want to hear
all day
against dry grass rustling
and crickets tucked in

_______

and then
there must also be a word for when
the weather is light enough
even in the night cool
for bare ankles
this kind of weightless
this kind of ease

_______

an 80 minute movie
that takes us to iran’s barbed borders
where the sunwashed stone-sand
mountain rockslide setting
doesn’t change

_______

sideview into a house at
wightman and arnold
12:30am
a group of young men sitting in a circle
on a friday night
how i imagine they are
co-counseling each other

_______

track seven:
i see the ties of kinship are broken/
we are the timber laid out at the mill/
we ride through the fields and the valleys/
our bodies are burning and what does god save
he saves the fire/
vacation bible school tapwater and sadness
that’s where we’re from but i hope that we
did our best/
the world is not as big as disappointment
but it is more variously dressed/
i see the doors of heaven are closing
and i see there’s rifles close to your rising
but we are only pasted to to this landscape/
we are leaning in
but only to listen halfway

_______

another shapeshift night
on the 10block walk home
wisteria blooming over gateway
my nose tucked into a trumpet of
burgamensia
how the hill of university tricks me into looking like belmont
how the night lighting is a kind of two-dimensionality
apocalyptic-quality quiet
that is always here
a kind of void
but tonight
i wouldn’t use the word like
but again, it’s this kind of lightness
that makes me think
i kindof get it
for once

swarm of shy

shuttleboarded
and the sound of chewing
something pastry-like
in the seat behind the wheelwell

_______

white fogclouds spilling over sports fields
on the western edge of campus
in coastal 3pm light

_______

deshawn schools me
in the culture of
bottle service
between our
greeting and farewell hi-five
sandwiching the russian twist
plank to pushup
burpee circuit

_______

you asked for it
he said
and i am sweating while moving through push-up
to high jump
and this is very
very true

_______

overheard at 4:48 pm
copacetic

_______

six full size chalkboards
side by side
covering lecture hall front wall
with 3-foot-lettered words
chalked on:
march 1st walk-out

_______

my porn collective
she says it
just like that
podium-side at the head of the lecture hall

_______

and then she says fisting
as an example of how transcoding
takes out the hetero-patriarchy
sideways smile blooms

_______

front row
bored and hot
i pull out bobby pins
til hair spills down

_______

you know how you want something
and then when you get it
you don’t really want it anymore?
she answers
in the Q & A

_______

swarm of shy students
clumped
at the podium

_______

how i can reference a song
and that song can be a code
containing more folds of history
than one can begin to count

_______

let’s not mention the croissant

of blood and uprisings

we were allowed to enter
without hand towels
but we had to sign a waiver

_______

working the circuit first
then we journey to dude-land

_______

how it is always places like this goat path
that i talk about trusting my body
stairwell moon crater carved
we walk walled in
by white sandpacked structure

_______

shoes in hands
ankle hems hiked
i ask if you want to tell the surfers
you’re on of them
make a disclaimer about your street clothes

_______

an army of seagulls gathered
on pocked sand and
one crane
white feather wisps
lifting in wind

_______

crouched over tidepools
liz is in charge of alive things and textures while i
am good with color
pointing to a neon green anemone

_______

you’re not pink enough, try harder
i personal-trainer the sky
coaxing sunset to match the hot pink shell bits
in my back pocket
i didn’t mean that
i clarify
you’re beautiful as you are

_______

buffness and feline
as gender

_______

for the resume:
personal trainer
interim therapist
rabbit fighter

_______

forehead ash smudge
descending rimac stairs

_______

this song
as i step on the shuttle bus
how i can sing

_______

there must be a word for
when the air
and my body
move so easily
through each other
for how the negative ions
pull away the burrs
like a magnet
how there is a lightness
opposite of regret

_______

sideways spring sky and
pacific sunset collide
via satellite

_______

in greece, austerity measures
opposed by its people
and when i say opposed i mean
unrest for days
i mean thousands gathering like a stormcloud
i mean a country whose 50% of youth under 24
remain unemployed
a country where a woman who has been assisting
‘illegal’ migrants by providing food and water says
there’s no future for us.
we can’t dream.
we can’t live.
for us this is a disaster.

_______

oh syria
over five thousand killed
and we are still just sitting here?
how if i wrote the name of your country
for every death
how many walls?
how many streets?
how many pieces of paper?
and when
could anything like this ever be enough

oh syria i saw the clip
of a people’s medical clinic
which was an apartment room
with bloodmesses on the linoleum floor
i.v. bags draped from hangers

oh
syria
you are too big and broken
to hold in my arms
and still you find ways to bloom

_______

how to pronounce darkness

_______

what it means to write
in a time of
blood and uprisings

4:32 pm

day after 24 bike miles
this body feels as it should be
light
strong
thin barrier between where i end and
sun-air begins

_______

bartleby burning punchki’s
in the flour-dusted kitchen

_______

grief has been welling up lately
reads emily’s post on the pisces new moon

_______

helicopter 4:32 pm hovering over florida street canyon
loudspeaker voice descending on repeat
the san diego police department is looking for an individual named
john ______ a 56 year old white male wearing all gray clothing
last seen riding a red cruiser bike with a basket
if you have any information on this man
please contact the san diego police department

_______

thank you
for apologizing
for the tiki head

_______

i think we are creating our own
weather systems
i say
i can see it all charted out on a map

_______

photos of carnival, kate
and it makes sense that
you were born around this time of year

more mondays off, please.

how i didn’t want that road to end.
23 miles was not enough.

not pictured:

heather’s home-made pumpkin ice cream
in fiesta-like striped bowls

the sound of the other heather and i’s laughter cascading
and the heart-shaped cheesecake
her boyfriend sent

salt-water hands held to chest

rob buys us sheets of 25-cent-machine mustache tattoos
rob clears away the dishes
rob hops up on the sidewalks with his bike
to pluck flowers
to stick in heathers helmet
bag strap
bike rack

karthik and i
pedal side by side
gravel crunching underneath
ocean to our right
picking apart multiple things including
san diego’s critical mass

at some point this song rolls on the mental reel
pedaling bridges over channels and i think
this one’s for you shiz

laughing at the solana beach station
when rob points to the mini binder clip
on my brake cables and asks
what’s that?
oh, that’s my gps system
i explain
that’s where i clip the directions
i write on pieces of paper

the you’ve-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me
sunset boulevard/fort stockton hill
how even when i want to pull over
i pedal through the resistance

my arms outstretched to chicago
how i say that when i think of you
i think of your light
its brightness streaming

doris and brook
knocking on the front door
during a nightwalk
before they go in tomorrow for the birth-giving
thank-you cards in their hands

thirty two

(corinne! this one’s for you! you are in vermont! on your 32nd birthday! and we are celebrating you all up and down the west coast! don’t say i never gave you nothing.)

1. we first meet over scavenged succulents
at the threshold
of the squirrel ship side door

2. our second crossover involves a potluck table
us gathering around the plentitude
drawn in by the familiar threads you were woven with

3. perhaps it was our third
over a plate of muffins
you baked two doors down
banners toothpicked in and waving defiantly
of love
against an eternal enemy evil landlord’s abuse of power

4. the zombie movie
but more importantly
the walk and talk around the block before hand

5. how it was in that streetlit-dark
we pressed into the question

6.  plastic animal menagerie
and celebratory bubbles
arranged up the pink palace steps
a celebration
of my being set free

7.  cardboard mailbox i
tacked up near your door
for the first official collaboration

8. the quiet of the white walled room
where you hang and arranged frames
i lend an eye

9. the rainbow that breaks across the sky
as we sidetrack on the rainy ride home from
? farm
you are telling me about visiting that writers house
in ?
(and his figurehead collection?)
and even though i can’t remember the writer’s name
or the country you were in
i still remember
how i imagined blue
and warped glass
when you spoke

10. the news of your grandma’s passing
comes in on the i-5 south
between vancouver bc and portland
i secretary
as best i can

11. the crunch
of a tortilla chip
one table away
in the echo of a cement-floored library

12. i can’t remember the name of the dish
(veganomicon)
but i can remember how good it tasted
and how we gathered around it
during your mom’s visit

13. the music
and the motion
of you
moving out of your backyardshed studio
summer double doors hinged open

14. on your floor
in front of the typewriter
how most of the time
you are too good at holding it together
but this night
you are a spill
and i hold you together for you
best i can

15. a dance party
at the secret garden
how we met before we really met
or, how we really met before we met

16. yellow walled kitchen
tortilla in each hand
you give me the smackdown

17. how you remind me
at the sea shanty
of leaving the house with
medical gloves in my back pocket
of the sounds you could hear through the floor
of a time when there were goodnight kisses on a
pickup bumper and
five block walks to someone else’s sleepover

18. along those lines how you tell me
how my ass looks good in those jeans
in a time when i forgot
i had a body

19. top gun with fancy speakers
after an exhausting hike
thus the phrase wingman is born

20. your weekend presence at the counter
sending cursived notes back to the kitchen
while i work the biscuit dough with short-nailed fingers
while i spin lettuce into a green blur
while i whisk the almond gravy
atop the industrial stove
stool standing to get a good angle

21. the conversation in the kitchen
my elbows on counter
where you tell me
i could get paid
to go to grad school

22. the morning i dodged your hug
going in for a plastic bag
from an overstuffed drawer

23. every time you have ever
cooked me food
including morning greens/eggs and
kitcharee

24. two stepping
along the clackamas river
on the fourth of july
while we wait for
the forest fighters
to put out
the burning trees

25. you tell me
you’re going to have to tray a lot harder
to get rid of me
i’m not going anywhere

26. the quiet shuffle
of tarot cards
in the morning

27. steam lifting off the asphalt
as we arrive
at the trailhead that will take us to
cave of the winds
again

28. some anxious night
you read me a kids book
with kittens
or was it a badger

29. the sounds
that have risen
from that room

30. 3am we wake
to watch
nasa bomb the moon
in search of water
three to a bed
i am a conduit
for what’s to come

31. you curled on your dad’s lap
sitting in the secret garden
red chair
the night before he leaves

32. any story you’ve ever told
especially the one about the cake