Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away (regina spektor)

You've gotten to parking your car
under that tree that's falling down,
even though crazy John next door
used to warn you about it.

When he was there,
we wanted him gone,
but now who is there
to blame the silence on?

Butterflies ~ Inspired by Rumi

What are all these butterflies
that spiral around,
beating their precious wings,
ascending into the sky?

They are always around.
Let them fly!

Take the desire to hold them
and turn it back
into the love that is always there.

Do not grasp their little wings,
it is their only means of flight.
We have so many other ways to get there.

Find light and lightness in the music of all things.
Beating wings, deepening desires, these are all blessings
and a chance for communion.

It can't be chance

and it probably isn't that we never saw it
as it wandered down the alley towards us
as we were smoking all kinds of things.

no, this was clearly waiting for us.
there should have been neon lining
the brick walls, teasing the muddy water
and highlighting the garbage in the gutter.

but it still caught us
with our pants on.
Sure, it was expecting more.
So were you,
clearly.

the love that i give becomes the love that i get - string.cheese.incident -

Shake a little sweat off
pronounce the curves the body
with the appropriate essssss,
moving as the music moves you.

I see you watching, dear,
looking to understand indigo.

thanksgiving 2008

Territory is faith
where I come from.
Land and family,
food and community.
God is standing on the mountain
sharing my view of untouched wilderness,
though no names are spoken
as I sing. The tones find resonance
in a pile of rubble, stones shaking
to find their way deeper, further home.
To change the world, one must change,
and the articulated scales
or droning strings of melody
are where my decision is made final.
My faith, my voice, my country,
my god, where else could I be?

Oh see the men of action falling back

To say that angels voices were echoing
through the digital media
like a bird through a wire
to my ears
would be to ignore the gospel they sang

Sometime in this cold winter, a young girl needs
Just to find someone to walk comfortably beside
There have been times when words were needed more than now

Chasing Ether

There is strength
in the spines of birds.
It seems so clear
in retrospect. Wings
taking in the air, so
capture! release!

Oily eyes, so small
we hardly ever see,
they are so connected
to spaces between a breeze.

Is the attraction to fire,
the lust of the burn,
the freedom of form
that which holds me midair?
I am wingless in this life,
Hawk-friend overhead
scouting the void.

Ultimately, we are what we want.
I am the burning
during which cooling embers
lift
off the coals,
hot and grounded.

I am the dancer
on the wings of the night
stirring without reason.

When we fell off the plane

Walked into Penn Station and smelled metal
hot against the snow. Someone had been welding,
meeting seamless planes aside the bus line.
I was listening to Gene Stoval sing Courtney Love
and a song about working for Bush and W. Bush.

I was thinking rather literally,

about what my girlfriends had said.
"The last part to leave is always
the part you hold onto
and think you'll never find again."
I had walked in and found that on our bed.

The houses have new roofs,
white and too cold for bird feet.
The swish in the air is the direct product of wind
and the change in seasons.

See, I'm looking for someone who will dance with me,
who shares my vision about more than the divine.
"Being validated is not enough:
you want to be known."

We built a humble castle,
a three-bedroom apartment in Wilkinsburg,
where we treated our dog as a neglected step-child.
He used to share my bed.
I used to be a princess, but my human nature
has been locked in, humility imposed.
"No one really changes,
even if you bring out the best in each other."
No one really changes, love.

But love changes,
over time it has stretched and flexed and spread its wings.
I have seen it waiting in the branches of leafless sycamores,
chasing skipped stones into the ocean,
sleeping at strange intervals on my couch,
road trip after road trip.
It sometimes gets stuck in my teeth,
or woven into my hair,
often placed delicately into song.

You are this love, the love of now,
a celestial and timeless friend,
and a tenderness I will never fully let go.
It's just that
a crow flew away with your light,
and I held in too much breath
to grow a new flame.

For someone who could never read this

You said,
"embrace what the future holds:
go towards it."

I said nothing,
but hovered still.

The holidays are approaching,
a decision to be made about going
further home than I am now.
Further away from here,
pushing down the highway
or crossing northeast towards the coast
as a bird would, if not for winter.

The birds said,
"what happens to the world
happens to us,"
as they were circling the church
at six am. I waited
for a bus
as they spoke,
staccato tones
and the vibration of wings
attempting to warm.

Anna's Billable Hours

"Wise men count their blessings, fools count their problems.
But you're both of them to me..." -M. Franti

Little Anna,
drawing hair on a turkey
behind an empty pastry case
at Anthom's Diner,
tries to give me two pieces of candy.

Sweets must be to children as good
as vegetables for older mothers,
or intimacy for those in between.

For kindness, I take one piece,
which has since melted
across my phone,
disabling my ability
to reach you.

New Music

.forHarryPartch, DerekJones, & my better self.

Chip-Chop-Sand-Coat
In my hand, float
in my hand.

You speak no new words,
but exude excitement about experience
and its context.
Embrace this
this
this
plurality,
dear.

A man replacing dirt
falling in the ocean
dancing
with Indians
and brush cloud

How do you live, sweet song,
if not in my mouth
and my fingertips,
if not in my ears.

And the answer is that you live in dreams
of the status-seeking
as a rambling man
a home-bum
tramp
hobo
stockpiling sounds
and essential human experience.

Flip flop
Hip Drop
time stops
when you don't.

a draft is a draft, whether wind or in writing

A mantra, before reading your poem, and after a reading of the world...
(a freewrite on the flight of tonights)

If there is a moment for clarity,
let it be now.
Let it be not at the highest high,
but now,

as the wind clears vision
as the dawn picks a new day.
Regardless of the news
of the dawn.

Let it roll through you like your belly were the sky,
thunder upon you like your vision gave it light.
If there were to be peace,
if that were in our blood,
let it shine now,
otherwise we debate endlessly
whether your knowledge
or my power
exists higher;
whether our faith
or their misconstrued constructions
were built as a manger.

Let it be now,
that I can speak these words to a brother
who calls me by name
by dna,
but as a debt collector
or a bounty hunter.

Let it be now,
that I can forgive my vision,
call to a companion
to trust in the movement of glass
the movement of the levees
the movement of our bodies
our celestial selves

now
that we can forge this trust
without knowing one as another
and without the need to know more

and aside from words
and thoughtful people's knowhow
and the status quo.

Let us be not students,
but the lesson to be learned.

poem4theancient1

From the other side of
well, anywhere.
The cosmic universe,
Planet Earth,
the state of Pennsylvania.

From there,
which is where I am,
I feel your blood pumping
on the other side of here.

That leaves me missing
your most alive moments
& has caused me to recall
hours we let sink into the tide
as we were busy
with more important things

like undressing,
forgetting time and space,
finding our breath.

for BL

In a few words, you can know me.

Though stretched apart by eyes,
you can still see
where I stand
and why.

Fingers which slide on cello strings
tap tap on guitar frets

sweat starting to secrete
starting to cover me,

oh how these things
can move a woman.