flowers – other animals

Fragment 13

that’s almost as good well maybe take my word for it until we turn the corner then perhaps we can talk more openly I’m not asking you to trust me completely just yet but here take this swamp sparrow and hold it in your hand and every now and then give it one of these seeds one forenoon it may want to fly then you will open your hand and make a quick motion like this yes that’s perfect but for now what it needs most of all is warmth and song in order to steadily face those challenges that

were placed upon its softness as it agreed to this world and yes we all have imprints of twigs from our first nests and some we suffer through like summer some we hope no one asks about and some pierce us so deeply that they but let’s not dwell on that you can see where I’m going and I’m sure you can connect the few dots that I may plot so where should we eat today I’ve heard good things about this burger place they have a decent vegetarian menu and the air is so pleasant it would be a

sort of single purpose or theme. I thought of doing one bit all about leaves changing color where I’d get into that image and name the colors in as many ways as I can. Or maybe start with the dog snoring and see where that theme takes me. I also

slight shame to eat anywhere other than under the sky sure it may be a bit of a romantic notion but on a day like today I think you can allow an old man an innocent indulgence and perhaps begin to but do we have to be so well no a few too many steps on the surface of a slippery metaphor but you shouldn’t take any metaphor too far though at the same time all of life is metaphor so you also have to take it far too far or much farther than you want then again you may

want to set up certain resonances throughout but also want to avoid getting monotonous. That’s perhaps a better way to think about it. This is why I enjoy the process of writing. I have an idea like this and I want to play with the words, try to problem solve,

leave it all here and walk away and no one will be the wiser and with the roaming lives we live who can keep track of half or it or hope to keep it organized in the luxury filing cabinets we have on our wishlist but two rules one at the beginning one at the end are never broken but between there’s plenty of room to improvise and dig your own trench and I meant to mention this before but those flowers aren’t for us someone will surely notice and press a button so we are chased off the property

[And click here if you’d like to take the plunge.]

the dreams of sea urchins and all the flowers we could be when

(First published in Heliosparrow.)

Or a Musical

like a bird flying
past the window you
notice in the corner
of your no let’s

assume it was a bird and
the little early
spring flowers by
bending
down to

look blue
white purple you want to

reach for it
but don’t
want to scare
away that thought

running down the corridor
rattling
every knob
like one of the
doomed you

root for
in a horror movie

Excerpts from My Autobiography

xxxxx

once the image has life an emptiness says
it will always be so I stare into the distance
blind to trees and flowers
begging to be born but the refrigerator hey
are we doing stream of consciousness
cool and the snow gets sharp in these
huge piles in the back of the lot
days later my handwriting
starts to rot never to recover

xxxx

suicide off the table you start working again
with a miniature saucepan and the clock trying
to rid the mind of all the rules you’ve
made &
feel your hand tight around the thick
rope now only good for that
silly exercise you love

xxxx

away from the neighbor’s dog
across stinging fields we grow
smaller so slowly we don’t
notice until grasshopper parts become
our yard sticks and blades
of grass jostle and topple us in this
dream-familiar landscape we
learn secrets of slow growth, the rootlike
lineages of wormkind and a love
of the sweetness that writhes up from
dark earth and we long to pass
it on to our children who have
grown monstrous in the orange light

in the forest where they planned that nasty surprise tiny flowers try to take over the world fish look surprised and sure he was never one to

and what could we do but invite him if we were going to the summer house as you waited with the light straight down from the clouds in planks and the ducks looking like they’ve lived through worse though

the party that night with everyone still feeling a bit raw from the afternoon staring into their drinks waiting for someone to mention going to bed so we could say oh yes what a good idea me too

some cloudy mornings it’s the feel of the favorite pen in your hand you charge off not caring about a cracked phone screen the band-aid covering bone the stomp of the neighbor through the ceiling hope and calm caught in little chunks we string together to make a necklace though perhaps even that was a way to dig down to the level of the excavation you needed to see with its as yet untranslated script and inscrutable editorial cartoons which they say

the flowers this year will be late and unequivocal

scars of store names where once flowers

how many times have I written the letter over these barren rocks listing flowers in the year’s afternoon a dislocation of fog ferments

she laughs as the pink purple flowers of wild mint might

this tender wound from which flowers hope it never heals