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yule monster lake tide

12/18/2014

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like something swollen 
with secret: throated, gleeless and aching
for breath, not breath


not enough to fill 
this yawning 
watered-down sub-space


          (it’s edges are filed nicely though: all crystal and sandpaper and shine)

pompous and snag-free,
your holiday sweater’s fully 
intact


no snow roses

or tinsel teeth
or pine needle disinfectant

only things left unsaid 
and bubbling at the underbrush of
baby talk--really gutsy baby talk--


          (we’re talking eyeballs and soft spots and milk teeth here) 

we pray to the ancients for bigger everythings
--fins, humps, gills, morosity--
to fill up this endless home-sick-ness

of blackened wishbones 
and garish garland
eggs deviled with care

Dear Grand-Monster Ness,
(It’s okay if I call you that, right? 
I mean, I know we’ve never met, 
But it feels like I know you.) 
Your gloom effuses all waterlogged cavities.
I really like your tail.
Seriously, I’ll take whatever,
though an anchor would be divine.
With subtlety and haste,
The The Empty. 

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(epi)dermis

12/1/2014

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thinnest on the eyelids 

thickest on the feet 

sometimes cells sleep

or slough clustering by 

cluster in kitchen corner 

corners things hidden 

below (secret things)

stratified layers that burn 

off fast leaving

baby-soft black boxes 

of dutiful silence 

underneath (shhh)

quiet in the eye 

quick on the feet 

but slumped tough 

in the aftermath of after 



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Alcatraz

11/29/2014

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sometimes ghosts hitch themselves to uteri
trespassing indelicately 
to ride the rough rough Pacific
in a semi-watery semi-bloody not-quite-grave.

there’s an ancient stink in the clink
it’s archetypical in context:
crime/capture/confinement/escape
it’s maddening in reality.

someones must have died here 
(they don’t tell you on the audio tour)
i’m breathing in their death like dandelion puff
their confinement is my confinement 
is their confinement; i can’t quite cry it out enough.

we showered meticulously when home
scrubbing at leftover sadness with loofa and salt
i forgot about that empty pear-shaped vessel 
stuck solemnly beneath the constant fullness of gut.

sometimes ghost come to full term in less than 37 weeks
bathed in their own tears and lullabyebyed in echo
they find ways to creep out like they creeped in
seeking comfort in escape, death is footnoted.

my body a cracked egg, oozing with ectoplasm
sometimes ghosts take up more space than they know
cleaving an ozone-shaped hole, they meander on and on

i forgot to be forewarned, now i’m all solitude and clank.

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bone of my bones

11/25/2014

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it’s not because I was formed out of your wimpy rib
it’s because you literally have more blood than me, blood-bag.


I have all kinds of other things that you wish for (maybe secretly):
ovaries, uterus, fat-sacks, thistles.

you are all grizzle and hair. 
and blood.

my girlfriend (on the other hand)
is a bone-bag;

she gets cold very easily.

we have to do this thing with fur-shirts.
it seems old-fashioned and scratchy,
but it works.

we also play a bendy, limbo-like game.
it gets our lack of blood flowing,
our backs bending.



--which is essential, if not scriptural--

because sometimes 
our cold spines settle 
in s-shapes, and we cluck all night in pain:
(gosh darn) hating the snakes that plague us.



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fleeting

9/15/2014

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we came together in a quick celestial pop! 
(thin-skinned and brave)
before melting, like the sunsetting sun
lapped by salted sea-song.

spring-green, neptunal imps slip in, almost undetected
while the hearth of home flickers in the distance;
memories of wintering on this hot hot day.

we read stories by would-be asteroids, dead stars, a flashlight in the dark.
you, with your green-thumb, pollen-nose—you bring spring
i, on the other hand, am practicing royalty: steeped in jewels.

together, we are grounded:
building nests of essence, nests of mother

while coveting the forbidden:
melted popsicle, hummingbird wing, dandelion bloom.

if i were sick, i’d be well now. 
oh, octagon-eyed charmer, you mesmerize.
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celebrations of celebration

8/22/2014

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of the moment when 
my two front teeth
catch your dewey bottom lip
clamp a bit too tightly
and forget to let go.

of the times when i see you after hours
of not seeing you
and you loom unearthly, fawn-like,
in front of the blood moon.

of the way your hands touch 
tomatoes at the farmers market
pick persimmons for the pie
gauging ripeness
with thumbprints with teeth. 

pumpkin/lobe
nog/cell
cheese/plasma 
sprout/tongue


you feed me
full of intrigue, not worms.


i feed you, 
mammal-cozy, no fleas.

and we are swollen with celebration.

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charlotte

8/21/2014

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it is a woman of murderous weapon
by which language commits suicide.
full of spongy yellow funeral cake,
mourning blankets and mattresses--
not quite comfortable, but something else altogether.

without use, we become frail;
withering on stems: little flakes of our past selves
crunching underfoot,
grinding into almost-nothing

but a squishy smooch. 


(this poem was inspired by "The Yellow Wallpaper." Click here to read my post about it.)
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thrice daily

8/14/2014

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we eat eggs or oats morningly:
shedding shells into compost bins,
the tea steeps beneath the boil
diffusing white and rosebud and honey. 

by lunchtime, we’re greened.
you’ve forgotten where your mouth is--
airplaning in each spoonful; split-pea, creme d’asparagus 
it’s basically all the same. maybe a salad
tomorrow, when the day is peaked.

evenings are another matter altogether:
ritual and fanfare, dressing in tails.
potatoes browned like mountains,
butter padded setting suns. 
blood and fat ooze from fire pit spits.
carnivorous things, we snarl sheepishly
and lick fingers clean.  



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