Saturday, April 16, 2022

Day 16: The Naming of Things

The Naming of Things
                Curtal Sonnet

      Praise be to gas station bathrooms
           & halo of piss around ceramic tile.
     Truth lies in our bowels & I, oracle,
             roll up my sleeves, divine poems.

         Do not touch your face with this poem,
            wash with soap and water. Words are
              disappointment, mirrorless walls
     poems, bitter & fleeting, not quite right
        all this naming as if we are God, but this bathroom
     is God, the sink, halo of piss, me, poeming;
                                             all of us God.

Saturday, April 9, 2022

Day 9: Nonet


Nonet: Sapphire Ring

It is my ring, but it is yours, too.
Wait and your finger will grow as
a tulip lengthens its stem
into spring; you’ll love
it like I love
the treasure
of your
laugh.

Friday, April 30, 2021

Day 30 NaPoWriMo - How to find my heart after I’ve disappointed myself

How to find my heart after I’ve disappointed myself

Dig under any oak tree, between its two largest roots.
Dig with just your hands, let the twigs and pebbles harm you,
Dig deeper past large stones, earth worms, cut worms,
potato bugs, ear wigs, the white eggs of fire ants.
Dig past the smaller roots, cut them if they get in the way.
Go further under this heathen loam until you can’t find your breath.
Take a left into your body, download the data for breathing.
Let your sweat drip numbers down into the widening hole.
Take a right into lost, narrow your hands into claws.
Dig further until you become an animal that you don’t find in the wild.
Become an animal grown from a lab of test tubes, beakers, and regret.
Grow scales on your back and broken beer bottles for toenails,
long lost candy wrappers for skin, rusted car parts for hips and femurs.
Dig further and you’ll find me under a membrane of resin and plastic.
Open the skin of my rib cage, root between my computer wire veins
and the audio files of my diaphragm and speech. Under motor oil,
slit open my cardiac sack and you’ll find my heart,
cowering like a mole that’s just surfaced into broad daylight.

Day 29 NaPoWriMo - Paper and Honey

Paper and Honey

Some poets write with ink
others with their blood.
I write with honey
to invite ants to march
through my sentences,
twitch and leave
their footprints
along the page.
I write with honey
to attract
the unnoticed things,
the small ones
no one looks for.
I write with honey
as if it were my finger
guiding your eye to see,
look at the world,
its sweet details.

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Day 28 NaPoWriMo - Disturbia

Disturbia

Can I have another life?
Can I have another wife?
Can I wish for a knife?
Can I wait to make it right?
Can I pause and roll the dice?
Can I count to one, two, thrice?
Should I give her more time?
Or should I sing her to sleep with a nursery rhyme?
Can it be ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
Can I sign her grave in iron and rust?

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Day 27 NaPoWriMo - Occhiolism

Occhiolism


I am a worm, a flea
a fly on the wall
a mote of dust
floating in a sun beam.
I am a singleton
one brain one body.
I have two eyes,
but I only see
through me.

I can’t walk
in someone
else’s shoes
and I can’t borrow
someone’s body
for a day.

I am me and me, alone.
and that is a sorrow
to only exist as one,
never able to dip
a toe into someone
else’s world,
never to pull back
their curtain, look in,
see.

Day 26 NaPoWriMo - A day in April

A day in April


The whirligigs of wind’s delight twirl,
their fans, jingle, chime and chung night and day.
Flowers push themselves through soil’s tight fist,
sun willows the clouds away blue, blue, blue,
sky like an ocean to set sail on
and the lilacs reveal their purples.
They smell sweeter than lavender, grow tall,
clusters of button sized flowers open
their breath tastes like violets candied in honey.

I will take everything from this spring day,
create a girl with a name made of spring.
She will smell of lilacs when they first open,
her hands will dig into the earth and loam
and find the treasures of bug, root, and stone.
She will make whirligigs to catch the wind
and weave it into her own blue blue sky.
She’ll wear her name like tulips wear petals
with rain and sunlight, she will bloom, bloom.