the macro-and-microcosmic exterior environment is suffused with art
“tree of knowledge”
you think: if I just bury the bitch
one day she may raise up again //
haunt not your nightmares,
but surface in your dreams
and worse,
his
instead, you two
dismember her together
on your walks
at your coffee table
in your marital bed //
until she’s dead
you cremate her in your pristine oven
collect her charred bones,
grind them to ash with your mortar and pestle from Sur La Table
dissolve a spoonful into your wine in secret, and drink it
the rest, you feed to your lilacs //
you think: she’ll never again be whole //
yet, her linger slowly poisons you and your home
and, she waits
like Isis
to collect her relics that you thought you could transmute and possess
her essence migrating into the strands of your wiry, brittle hair
and into the fragrant beautiful blooms and heart-shaped leaves just outside your door, that school children are so tempted to pluck
one night, as you sleep,
she clips and carries them off — clumps and bouquet — in a pouch fashioned from your favorite silk dress — made from the bodies of one thousand worms — to break the curse
while his phallus pulses crimson, like a beacon, erect and dripping with life from his dreams of her
as he sleeps,
she spits in his open, parched mouth
before she soars out
leaves him with an eternal, wet, delicious taste of her
don’t you know,
Continue reading “dream phoenix”a fotographic series of Bucolia
i check the bleuets on the boundary to the west
feral shrubs in reclaimed and overgrown prairie teeming with life
the berries are still pink-sky-sunset blue
not yet dusty indigo blue
i’ll check again tomorrow
like i did yesterday
a lone deer forages
in the freshly seeded field to the north
probably soybean this year, i say with confidence
after observing rotation and rest patterns for nitrogen, for six summers, now
i raise my hands up slow and high
surrendering to the deer
to show i don’t have a gun /on me/
or a bow or blade, bought or made
my tradition is not forged steel and gunpowder,
my ceremony is not stone, bone, shaft and feather,
my nature is not always claws these days
i hold my mouth, soft, open
in a weird smile
to show
i have no usable canines
i transmit a thought, a query
concerning the herd
“where are the six you lived and walked with all last winter?”
there’s no response
to my attempt at telepathy — although — one day
i emanate waves of empathy out from my heart — i imagine them like Lake Michigan gently lapping at the local beach
and hope that kin feels it
because
Continue reading “incidental”I
she cosplays as human
but vestigial dark plasma
long percolating,
now seeps
through
random pores of her pink flesh
don’t bother to resuscitate me,
it won’t do any good,
if you want to [try to] save my life
donate to me what i’ve lost
or maybe, never had
that one essential thing
not love, no, not that //
to save me,
vow to infuse me, transfuse me
continuously
with your infectious
will to live
originally published june 17, 2016, revised june 11, 2023
* please visit the website/app Falling Fruit to add a fruiting tree that is located and accessible in the public way to the foraging database for others.
A clear glimpse
A clear thought
on this clear June night
Of age,
and Alzheimer’s
the old-timer’s disease
A clear memory recorded and archived tonight
An acute awareness of myself
tonight, in time and place
a new track to play on loop for a listener in my future life
a husband, friend, or son
a caregiver, a kind one
a visitor, volunteer, or nurse,
a grandson, or maybe — no one
A reddish dog, eating mulberries
from the sidewalk in shadows
Mottled concrete in the dim light of a city street lamp
obscured by the canopy of that beautiful, June, fruit tree
A woman, middle aged, seems so young, even a tad pretty, in her mind’s eye now
Stretching her still strong body upward for plump, dark berries
Reaching for branches trimmed too high by the urban foresters
or arborists or surgeons, I forget what they’re called
On her tippy toes
grabbing, pulling, picking
squeezing the dog’s leash between her thighs
don’t let him get loose in the dark, don’t let him get skunked in the dark
contorted mulberry tree at night
Some of the best ones are lost in the awkward tussle
before she can palm them, save them, taste them
She triggers a reverberative rain from boughs on high
That precise, delicate sweetness of the bounty in her mouth
The dog’s belly full of the ripe windfall
sustained by both gravity and this woman
His name was Woody, or Digby, I think
He used to climb into our sleep
Smashed and whole
The street, sidewalk and cars stained
by the impressive purple mess
the dark grass hiding perfect treasures for doves tomorrow morn
She and that dog,
They were urban foragers and gleaners in June.
All month long, her fingertips, feet and lips
tinted with their fuchsia dye, it didn’t even once occur to her to check his paws
A clear, recollection of acute melancholy:
this day — that day was also her son’s birthday //
The first birthday he ever spent away from home, away from her — in Nebraska, or was it Alaska?
That glorious tree, that good dog, that golden boy
2023 addendum:
inspired, in part, by a poem from Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin :
how can i “calm down” when all i feel is love and rage, when all i experience is beauty and pain/ no in-between / pass the cab and the kettle corn / and if you didn’t want me to opine on fresh-cut flowers and this film — then why, why, why – did you insist that my eyes see them – yes, i know there are flower farms —— but have you heard that pollinators aren’t allowed indoors around vases? it’s none of anyone’s business how many time i’ve seen “Almost Famous!”
yes, i am a mother, and i drink too much wine, sometimes — but he’s in Albuquerque not in a crib in the next room — i wish time travel were true // and other times, wine is not enough to squelch the pangs – of 18 years gone in a flash but thousands of hours wasted on PTA and homework — fucking homework ! /// i took my kid road-tripping and camping, sent him to the SCA and Grand Teton to keep him out of these systems — how many huckleberry milkshakes at the Pioneer Grill does it take to finally see mountains and bears and rivers and trees as persons? well, i can actually tell you!
we had our deep talks, but not enough, never — how can time spent philosophizing be measured? in life choices and paths — that’s how. and i’m proud.
can you make a pact with me and promise i’ll never have to eat these words – especially the rants — and when, not if, i say something really wrong — you’ll push bowls of fresh figs and olives in my face to shut me up as a signal? salsa and chips will work too
can i tell you i’m broken without you trying to fix me? can you tell i’m broken — or do i wear it well? do these big feelings make my brain look small?
never stop showing me the radiance of you just because i’m dark — someone has to be the shadow, the mourning veil, the contrarian — and i know i volunteered — a long time ago — but “at some point” i would appreciate a different assignment?
— by the way, your auras do wonders for this room
you’ll both never not be in cascade canyon with me
it was
fated, serendipity
oh, june
she crushes me
these roses warmed in her Sun
today, tomorrow, and yesterday, at least
it’s not enough
to see them, touch them,
smell them, now
i want to swallow them down warm
into my heart
and keep them forever
the holy trinity of feminine archetypes
the macro and micro cosmic exterior environment is imbued with art
— if you just fucking look —
art is everywhere
art is more than cities, than galleries, statues, murals, landscaped botanical gardens, paintings, commissioned installations, fountains, graffiti, sculptures, museums, fashion, prints, architecture and the built environment
attention is reverence
arte ruralia
arte agraria
arte voyeura
arte bucolia
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 