as long as there is kissing, we will never forget how to shake at the knees,
how to forget our own names, how to start a hundred fires with one pen stroke, how to stand in the moonlight yearning for more.

as long as there is kissing, we will never lose hope.

as long as there is kissing, great.

“Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted.”

—	Abraham Verghese, Cutting of the Stone

I cannot remember a better day for sleeping
suddenly a nice fish is good to eat

my cats, reminders to sleep and bathe more

More echo poems

SPOONS, NO LESS

Here, on the east fork of the Illinois
the water runs black with oak leaves
walls ache and clench with heat
nasturtiums whispered in the morning:
"frost."
                                            Certainly, somewhere fall away spoons
                                               have never been conceived of.
                                     There the leaves stay put. Stop.
                                             White like fading memory.
                                                Forever moans with a slight wheeze.
                                                    Calendula! This night does not deserve you!

Oh yes, we have thought of spoons.
We have too plucked the leaves
  from their perches; I'll show you,
Start now -- in this moment
            the only moment
(we deserve it, if only this)

                                                      Posh. pish-posh. a pock
                                                       full of i-told-you-sos.
                                                       You've hid all the canaries
                                                        and now the sun is gone.
                                                       We will never finish the work
                                                       of refinding the bright.
                                                       And more.

ughhhhhhh i've empty pockets but
well-soled toes
and your chest is a-twitter, don't
           deny, I see the light radiant
Put down your work, pick up your fork--
           black hands, no less.






INTO THE MUD

The ditch does not dry well
The freeze has taken all but the
eaves
Faster time stops to further
forward
Tomorrow, we go home

                                    The bitch does not fry well
                                      The skeeze has bacon
                                              all butt, # he grieves
                                      Plaster rhyme mopes to tether
                                              more words
                                     Through sorrow be(come) poem

The snitch does not dwell.
Crying is bad.
Ass for days. A whole freezer
      full of ass makes all
        the babes say yay.
History follows the lines in
             the fibers in the splinters of wood.
I laugh and shed air.

                                                    The rich cannot quell --
                                         Well. Cry! be bad!    no tomorrow!
                                                   "YAY" -- it passes for glaze
                                                            History?! burns like wet wood
                                      I weep and weep my feet sinking into the mud.








Giving Up

Chimes down the alley
          like women singing songs.
Dangerous. Don't follow.
They say pants are
                made for wearing but I
     seen them the breeze flow
through them like chimes.
I don't follow.

                                                     Hey baby, hey darlin, wanna take a ride
                                                      with me sleek swoop sweatmobile you
                                                      know you want it huh-nee so be kind
                                                      but don't lose your mind just remember
                                                      that I'm your bay-ay-ay-ay-bee-ee (come
                                                      a lil bit closer child)

take take take your fingers next
to me i lay down pretend to
need anything at all to keep me
here to keep me breathe a
sail a story a locket one glory.
gasp. The world is wide.
                                                                      Ah. (rest)

                                                                      It's yours. (rest)

                                                                      No, really. (rest)

                                                                      It's not (rest) up to me.

..

Do you ever wake up to a painless spine?
A smooth whip of angel's ivory.
The relief of standing up, of
never swaying, of taking one
easy long trip to a tall and comfortable place.
That's what I want.

Echo poems

This is surrealist poetry by eliot-n-fox in the style of call and echoing response. that is: one person scries, the other cries its opposite, and so on.

written in a small cabin filled with the anxious insanity of early late twenty-something, surrounded by a dark winter garden, surrounded by the quiet vigilance of pines, surrounded by an inky black sky, surrounded by a world at pains.

YOUR DEAD MOM IS HERE WITH ME

Speak slow, my bones are still waking up

                                  I flash through the inter webs like neon panda and open all the windows
o p e n i n g
  l i
    g h
       t s
          t r
            e a
              m s
                  i n
                                    myselftiny
                                     hateways
                                           i

I'M THE FUCKING BEST THING SINCE GOD AND I HATE ALL YOU HATERS CAUSE YOU DONT SEE IT

                                sh, i'm still asleep and
                                   your dead mom is here with me.
                           



TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT

Religious turmoil steers our fate.

                                   Prodigious rock'n'roll leers at the gate.

Who goes there?
I do not know
your guitar Gods

                                           hey sweetheart, it's me i miss you i love you
                                                i'm sorry please forgive me     it's me     it's me

Get off the phone, Susan.
Eat your boogers and say your prayers.

                                                   get off on the phone, Susan--
                                                      yeah, yeah. eat em. yeah.
                                                           say it -- say it -- tell me what you really want




I HEAR THE GLASS EMPTY

Fawn settling into my belly,
lay low the fear-of-crazy
hermit's glee
esoteric rabbithole
down the fog-float-ing-on-the-pond,
i drink deeply

                                    Empty tightening of
                                        never knowing enough.
                                        I get strung out on surrealism
                                        daily. Strange. Satisfying. Say yes.
                                        Silence. The one language we all speak.
                                        My mouth is parched.

I'VE GOT IT I KNOW
I KNOW ENOUGH, I'M FULL
YOU THE STRANGE, YOU THE
      STRUNG     OUT
IT IS TIME WE SPEAK
THIRSTY MOUTHS WIDE
SAY  (YES)  SAY  SAY

                                         you don't need to scream.
                                         sticks and stones make up my bones
                                         and words are the dirt i eat.
                                         here. drink some water.

                                 

how being on the computer makes me feel kind of weird and empty and sad

standing still, it is impossible to see how things have changed so much.
from longing comes movement.
from movement comes the recognition of change.

small changes add up to small movement,
or perhaps not small at all.

a warm house, a cold day, quiet breathing,
reaching out for poetry--adrienne rich, marge piercy, t.s. eliot, rumi--
to locate myself in this ever-shifting world.

to remember, understand, anchor
the feeling of my body
filling with the light of the full moon.

did you know
that come
comes from the moon?

as life is becoming quieter
the voices in me become shriller.
perhaps this is anxiety, or fire.

i have filled my new small cabin with bins and boxes.
there is not space for all my books, so i will have to choose.
for hours, there is no sound unless i sing or speak aloud,
or the pings and pops of jar lids and things ready to fall from their perches.

i am afraid of getting lost. i am afraid
of the quiet incubating desperation of winter
of dreams without movement.

love, fear. fear, change. change, death. death, sex. sex, desire. desire, liberation. liberation, shame. shame, silence. silence, waiting. waiting, wanting. wanting, giving. giving, taking. taking, opening. opening, change.
change, love death fear death sex death desire liberation change waiting silence death shame opening giving love silence waiting fear taking opening change. sweet potatoes, woodstoves, pine pitch, bitter leaves, coconut oil, toothache, blankets, car exhaust, gasoline, cancer, collapse, elections, morning rituals, small songs, the moon my body the moon my body.

we are moving into the darkness now,
sun stealing away earlier and earlier,
even noon gray-dark with clouds.

missing times, longing times, quiet times,
dreaming times, visioning times, cozy times,
wishing times, deep times, learning times,
resting times, planning times, slow times.

so we dance--
around fires,
on wood floors,
in parking lots,
in the grocery stores,
in the waiting moments,
like our lives depend on it,
like we are dancing for the dead who long for the pleasure of being in a body.