Day 16 of #the100dayproject

Hibernation

It is hard to untangle my limbs from yours.
The morning weighs heavier than our comforter
and the sun is not the sun, but a diffused gray
like fluorescents flickering through shuttered blinds.
I do not want to move, but I move, my feet touch
the floor in a shuffle of warm skin on cold hardwood.
I am always the first up and the heat must be turned on,
the coffee made, the toilet flushed, the naked body
weighed on the scale. I am too much of myself.
I will not relent, but I want to crawl back into bed
and only weigh the same as the air between cover
and sheet, slip my feet beneath the mass of down,
hide my head until like a fever, the clouds break,
until winter breaks, until the world is worthy
of my presence and the sun shines through the window
perspiring my forehead and the slope of my upper lip.

Day 79 of #the100dayproject - Poeming

Poeming

A poem moves through me like static,

lifts the fine hairs of my arms.

My pen and paper the conductor

draws out the electricity of myself

to spark and snap into words,

into shape, into a new kind of meaning.

Day 76 of #the100dayproject - Praise

Praise

I praise your tired palms

the underbelly of your joints.

I praise the curls of your hair

their tangles like a black crown.

I praise your chest where I rest

my head to feel your heartbeat

against my cheek. I praise your

belly where all the sounds of you,

that constant labor, the beautiful shape 

over and around the smoothness of you.

I praise you with my body, my hands

idolizing the rituals of your limbs,

the slopes of your neck. I praise you

with my lips, each kiss a type of incense

the gentle touch of smoke and prayer.

I praise you with my ears, the sounds of

your voice erupting in laughter and ecstasy.

I praise you as you move through this world,

I praise you as a dream alive. I watch you 

with my eyes, your golden form. How you are mine,

how I am yours is the serendipity of life.

Day 74 of #the100dayproject - The Game

The Game

I show him fir cones,

but the cones are too small.

I show him moss

and he stomps through it.

I show him mushrooms

under a pine tree;

He shrugs his shoulders

and plays with his toy gun,

carved out of cedar and pine.

He pulls back the rubber band,

squints his eye, lines up

his target, the soft

underbelly of a redwood;

it hardly has a chance.

The band snaps,

a trajectory of conquest;

a tree, in a little boy’s eyes,

is the shape of defeat.

Day 73 of #the100dayproject - Even at Five Years Old

I'm behind in posts, but I have been writing in my notebook many poems. I haven't had a lot of access of internet connection. We took a family trip to Glacier Natl Park and Yellowstone. Now Ashish and I are in Olympic Natl Park. We parked our travel trailer on the beach and are enjoying life.

Even at Five Years Old

And when he discovered

grass with its tassels ripe

with seed, he also discovered

conquest, grasping the stalk

with his small hands, pulling

until the stem separated

from the whole plant.

Then he raised it above him

Like the flag of a conquistador

or a sword used to weaponize

discovery as if land could be

discovered, claimed, and owned.

And that long stem of grass

an extension of his arm.

And in that moment, he knew

what it was like to destroy

and show off his handiwork;

the fruit of his pillage.

To everyone, he thrust

his trophy into our faces,

“It’s mine. All mine.”

Day 72 of #the100dayproject - Wild Thoughts

Wild Thoughts

Wind kicked a can through the gas station parking lot

into my path, onto my foot, and I thought it might

have coronavirus on its flattened aluminum and

that is how my days spiral, into flaccid thoughts

of pandemics and wind carrying coughs and

sneezes into the cruxes of my nasal passages.

Where will we go from here except further

down the abyss of fear? That a soda can

turns into a vector to destroy nations?

Day 71 of #the100dayproject - Michigan

This is an image during the coronavirus pandemic that has stuck with me for some time now. I can't get it out of my head, these men posing for the camera as the sieged the Michigan State capitol building, protesting the stay at home orders.

Michigan

The checkered floor of the capitol

with checkered men, wide stances,

mouths covered in homemade masks.

Assault is not the word to use but rifle

and conceal and carry. Their second

amendment right to bring their bodies

full of violence and red plaid into

this building and pose for this camera

as if they could claim this earth

theirs with the power vested

in their AK-47s and AR-15s.

Day 70 of #the100dayproject - Obit

Obit

They raised themselves from adult to old,

schooled their grandchildren in the art

of sitting in a chair and watching the world

pass them by, showed those children how to

fiddle with their hands like playing with time.

All that gray hair on their head a countdown,

just another way of saying settled and

content in every language except death

and obituaries. They lived and they died.

Their bodies summed up in the column

space of the local newspaper in past

tense, only read by those closest to death.

Day 69 of #the100dayproject - Night Shade

Night Shade

Morning glories fold their trumpets,

white petals like moon sticks at dusk.

My feet tired of the longest days;

they want to close themselves

onto cool tile and perch atop

a pile of pillows, rest in the night

as the stars unfurl their light,

illuminating plants in the garden

creating night shade beneath

vine and tree, dark within darkness.

My body has spaces where even

the brightest light cannot shine,

yet petals open there 

when I fold my eyes.

Day 68 of #the100dayproject - At Dusk

At Dusk

Barfoot and the sun slows into gold;

the cottonwood tufts and dandelion

seeds turn into specs of shimmer.

The miners and panhandlers never

needed to rush to California or

to the vast Yukon. All the gold is here,

glowing on this slope in the foothills

of the Cascades. Their hands rough

from their labor, their faces lined

with worry; here, the only labor

is to watch barefoot in the dry

summer grass and wait for the sun

to slant and tilt the earth into

precious metal. They would

scramble then, arms reaching

upward for their fortunes

like the vines of the

blackberry brambles lusting

for the last piece of sunlight.

Day 65 of #the100dayproject - Existentialist

Existentialist

Anger is the taste of coffee without

sugar or milk to sweeten it up.

I want a little bitterness in my body;

the taste of caffeine straight up,

keep me lucid for argument’s sake.

I want the edge in my voice to stay

awhile, put up its tired feet and sip

that dark black brew. I want to flex

and sharpen my claws; a window

is a window is a window into my soul;

window being a different kind of

mirror to see the person reflected

behind me to view into them, reaching

for the blunt object to rid me

from this earth. Or it is me reflected

back. It couldn’t be me. It couldn’t

be my eyes or mouth curled in violence.

And yet, it is. I can hardly recognize myself;

my form like iodine in a clear glass of water,

the stain of coffee on a white carpet,

I have become the streak of bitter glass.

Day 64 of #the100dayproject - California Poppy

California Poppy

Wind

of semi-trucks, traffic and concrete,

bitumen, litter, shredded tires. Leavings.

Detritus.

Homeless objects lost in our creations,

our architecture of efficiency. Then, there.

Look.

The poppy, at home in the soulless

spaces, roots digging into every corner,

groove,

and crack. Living on the shoulders

of overpasses, freeways, or between

slabs

of sidewalks, roads, and medians.

Subsisting on the smallest speck of dirt,

oracles

              of life beneath our crumbling

structures, our failed attempts to build

better

              than what the earth provides. All

these orange flowers shaking stems and

petals

              as if they are bodies in trance

divining the language of the earth,

conduits,

              as the planet cradle us,

and continues to give and give and

give.

Day 63 of #the100dayproject - Constant Companion

Constant Companion

I am married to the ache of my body,

tuned like a musical instrument

That must be plucked and played.

Pain my life long companion,

growing old together towards

a horizon that, naturally, ends in death.

Day 61 of #the100dayproject - Grace

Grace

Stripes on spider legs, how beautiful they

must be to spiders. How long and lovely,

agile, like thin boned fingers threading

a needle. The embodiment of grace,

walking on walls, ceilings, and water,

dangling from every surface.

Skittering across kitchen floors like

ballet dancers rushing on and off stage

to form a union of organized flurry.

Such design to give so many eyes

to view the world, to give the will

to weave string into webs, the work

to capture mammal dreams to ponder

like reading tomes of books, something

to be watched and observed, if not less

than, at the very least, equals on this earth.

Day 50 through 55 of #the100dayproject

Hello all!

I've been working hard on many revisions and then submitting them to a couple call for submissions and contests. As I wrote in my last post, I am using days 50 through 60 to take time and revise poems everyday that are either from the last 50 days of #the100dayproject or older poems that I have been working on. So far I was able to submit a group of poems to Granta by the 26th; I submitted my trio of poems "Eating Practices". Also, I just submitted to the International Bridport Prize in poetry. I submitted "Manifest Destiny, East" & "Aperture" to the Bridport Prize.

Back on 4/15, I submitted to the Ohio Review's poetry contest and will be waiting to hear back from them still for sometime. Around the same time, I submitted to the Kay Snow Poetry Contest held through Willamette Writers.

The oldest submission I'm waiting on is from Rattle Magazine. I expect a long wait from Rattle, well, because they're Rattle...I submitted "Janitoress" back on 1/25/2020 and I am still waiting to hear back from them.

From day 55 through 60, I will continue my path of revision and then begin writing a poem a day starting day 61.

Day 47 of #the100dayproject - Gatherings

Gatherings

Even in the heat of summer,

With its abundance of sunshine

promise of flowers and fruit,

the squirrels still gather

Their food into themselves

As if winter were a close

Companion, waiting behind

The evergreens, the essence

Left deep in the squirrel’s nests.

The grip of it so tight on them

That they would eat themselves

Dead, rather that feel the bite

Of the tundra or the emptiness

of a body without the warmth of food.

Day 46 of #the100dayproject - Ritual

Ritual

And so he prays behind me,

Completely bare, naked,

In his purest form

A statue of vulnerability.

His skin itself a prayer

His body the body of god.

Elevated by the vermillion

And the nutmeg nuts

Painted with grains of rice.

Each one of them a planet

Orbiting his body, his nakedness

The center of a humble husk

Of bone and blood, his hair

Curling outward, a universe

In each inky strand.

Day 45 of #the100dayproject - Sight

Sight 

The scent of flowers would hold a soft tone,

A music, a humming that captures color

Behind my eyelids.

Even when I am blind,

The world will be visible in flashes of light,

An aura that is beyond sight, only seen

When I close my eyes.

Day 44 of #the100dayproject - Shame, Shame

Shame, Shame

The weather is titanium, clouds unbreakable,

the tops of the evergreens cannot puncture through

the day’s armor. The monotony of sleep and breath,

building up like the scales of soap scum on

the brushed nickel faucet. Everything can be made

into a guise of protection. My words can move around

you as if to keep you safe, but they are the horse

outside of Troy, a mane made of driftwood and nails.

I am not what I say, I am what is inside, a sword

that hungers for so much undoing.

Day 43 of #the100dayproject - Old Flames

Old Flames

I am wheat leaning with the wind, the untouched earth, waiting to be opened like a zipper.

Root and burrow, the tunnels and network maps of creatures inside of me.

My scent like the big sky, tastes a cold glass of water;

I am all of these things. I never had old flames

that fanned out to torch the prairies of my body, scar me burnt or sad.

I want only one man to wonder my vast spaces and move through

my endless fields, his hands touching each tassel of grass

gentle, coaxing as if to draw me out and tame my infinite fervor,

to quench my wild thirst.