drizzle

the only thing i have, that nobody knows i have, is this hill when

it is full of weather. i

feel alone in it, watching these clouds puff through the valleys,

filling the empty space between spruce tips with thick bubbles

of sky water and ground mist.

i crave the wind and the singular sound of

rain on my skin, the slick cheeks, salty lips, and light prism eye lashes

at the spot where there are no more horizons,

just one sky that begins on the tiny hairs on my nose.

there is a universe contained in each drop of water, complex and

full and enough for a life of study and love.

the snow bites my ankles as i slip through it, fingers white

then pinched red from clutching through the top layer of sharp.

the lower fog feathers against the sea. it cycles visions of islands that

are sometimes there and sometimes lost, with other things,

beneath the screen of white.

the grasses beneath my feet are matted to the ground

and my thoughts are movements and not sentences. 

i move slower than storms and i think i am inside of this one, inside of a

cloud at least. before, the wet rolled over my back in waves of water,

but is now steady and thick. the rain doesn't seem to be coming

down as much as living in the air as one drop. i miss certain things, up here, alone--

the glow of zoe's curly brown hair in the kitchen as the sun falls,

charlotte's gap toothed laugh coated in melted chocolate and thick espresso,

rachel’s home mugs she makes to go from her white walled apartment.

they feel quite far from the hill they may never know exists, even if they, too,

live in storms, and watch clouds, and feel far from the ones they love,

wondering, each day, how to all

live in the same drop of water.

dls 

the particulars

how many times, this year, has the word love

been spoken (nervously, said inside over, and

over, until it had to be true)?

we wondered on that yesterday, during a walk in the wood

(generally, though specifically, a wander through moss coated

alder that had fallen into trapezoidal geometry between

the big spruce and toothpick trunks of all the dead yellow cedar,

old goat's beard drizzling off their branches, as winter wren

trickled medleys from somewhere hidden.)

i felt closer to the trees then usual,

and at one point, dug my fingers into some bark until it hurt

underneath.

i felt a little absurd, seeing myself push myself deeper into that scene,

trying so hard to be wild like the rest of it.

but i decided, anyways, that i loved a walk in the wood, and

also loved my love of a walk in the wood.

there have been at least three this year (waiting,

fidgeting, darting eye contact, then blurting out, awkwardly,

things they love). they have loved, generally, many things,

and have loved, more generally, loving those many things.

(they always congratulate themselves on finding the specifics--the skin

over your spine, the knobby

cartilage, the dimples where the tailbone

dips). 

i could never pin down the

difference between the winter wren and the pacific slope

fly catcher, between the sassafras and the crucifera,

between the puffballs and amanita,

even though the markings are as clear and distinct

as they have always been.

i appreciate, anyways the fullness of their general company,

their coloring the green walk in the wood.   

a field guide can't own the forest floor--

to name is not to own. 

dls

information

today joseph and i talk about what we think about love, in general terms.

we touch on the best ways to find happiness in life, skim by related poetry,

and avoid any use of the past tense, as you do, when

you haven't spoken in two months because one of you was in a five week, silent

meditation, and the other one claims to have trouble communicating when fog is in

the way. i have always found fog to be a very real barrier to the world

beyond it.

we speak by phone--him, in Boston, near a pink bicycle that doesn't change gears, me, in a field, near tall swaying grasses by a tide that moves in all around me.

i panic, him speaking, as i realize the speed of the rising water, and look across it towards

the bushes of wild berries

(blue, huckle, salmon). joseph talks about the

ethics of enduring the mess of love if a lover is ill. does

true personal happiness require sacrifice for another?

or something in that family of conversations. a bald

eagle ten feet away waves undulating wings across the top of

the tall swaying grasses

and crosses into the woods, wrapping orange claws around

the gnarled branch of an old spruce

stump.

i run along the edge of the advancing water,

the phone to my ear, as I chase it before jumping to the other side.

i run up the bank and sit next to a berry bush,

pleased with myself, with my dry feet. i listen and wonder what to say

to joseph, who does not want to know what i have done today

(or any day.

ideas, not information, bring us closer, reveal where we are).

i lie my head below the bush and collect

blueberries onto my sternum, making

listening sounds, catching the falling berries by squeezing my arm against

my ribs.

the sunshine splits

on my eyelashes until i can only see

distracted rays of light, and a green brown bush with no more berries.

i remember late nights, past tense, early may, memorizing poetry in

joseph's bed until the birds then the cars became loud out his window,

louder than the words we repeated over and over until they started

sticking, hoping it meant they were sinking in where they

couldn't escape,

willing the ideas to stick us together, too,

closer together than this phone call, 

with its broken pink bicycles

and rising high tide, with its

distance and its desire for something, 

something  

like an absence, something like an

i missed you, today, love, won't you 
just tell me something you've done?

dls

thin cold river

we always say things,

things like

be mine

and love me

and hold me

and never let me

go.

(recently I spun out

from the trappings of

your love.

i uncoiled the twists of rope

and jumped into a cold

shallow

ocean, and if I let

my arm drop to the bottom,

it touched the

barnacle seaweed

floor, and if

I opened my eyes

I saw green

glowing dots

of plankton in between.)

we always reach

towards each other

the same way,

with extended fingertips,

marveling at the reality

of each other’s skin,

the warmth of each other’s

flesh, the beating underneath

of each other’s

pulse, the uplifted gashes of each other’s

purple scars.

(yesterday I rowed

out into the middle of the lake,

hoping no one would see me there,

and that my thoughts

would gradually shift

away from syntax and into the rhythmic

pull of the oars, leaning forward and

back, forward and back, forward

and back, before taking off my clothes

and jumping in the water

off the tippy black boat,

squeezing thoughts of snapping turtles

from my eyelids, shaking copper

droplets from my face)

we always pull each other

nearer at night,

give each other squeezes

to resist each other’s

inevitable disappearance, each other’s

inevitable drifting away,

as we then always fit the convex and cave curves

of our bodies into one other until we

feel as close to

one body as we can.

(this morning I woke up

alone, cart wheeled my legs out

from stiff crinkled sheets, and wandered down

in silence

to the cold thin river

where rocks emerged like small hills.

i walked slowly over the slick

hard bottom and sat in the cold thin

water and leaned back until

the burbling white flow covered my ears.

I looked up and saw the swaying

green leaves--oak, maple, hemlock--

all swinging in the wind as one.)

it is all always the same

and nobody owns any of it. the thin river,

my goosebump coated ribs,

the dead twisting branches.

it belongs to the same

nothing and acts according

to no one, and according

to none of it.

and all of it knows no

happiness like the emptying of

thoughts--forward and back, forward

and back, forward and back—

like the blank flow

downstream in the thin cold water. 

dls

“tell me if it’s raining”

tell me if it's raining. tell me why there are fiddleheads in august

when they're supposed to come in spring. explain to me which

violets to eat, when the best low bush blueberries bloom

round beauty below these trees. tell me what you ate today.

did you bake that lightly smoked black cod with the sea

asparagus, coating it with spruce tip syrup and that ancient

clover honey, topping it with chunks of sea salt

and saving the leftovers for breakfast?

tell me if you dreamed. tell me which fish you caught,

and if you made the hook yourself, what color it was, if it had

a feather. tell me about the sun cups in the snow field, why

some of the cracks glow blue, and the top layer

is stained red. let me know

what time the sun will set, if the phosphorescence

was out when you last jumped in the ocean, or waded in deeper,

over barnacle coated rocks at low tide after dinner and dishes.

tell me if you watched

the river, thick with salmon, bubble white water, as you threw

pieces of licorice fern under the current from the gravel bed.

tell me if any of it stuck with you,

if the food lived after consumption, if you still

have the pigment of yellow monkey flower in the well of

your palm, or the song of murrelets in the canal of your

ear, maybe even the spout of a sperm whale reflecting on the shine

iris of your eye. tell me if you wrote any of it down, named

the plants lining the deer trail or peaks carving the ridge.

let me know if you feel sad now

for not holding onto all of it at once,

but instead, slowly, letting little bits of it slip back

into the river.

don't tell me about the permanence

of ideas, of da Vinci’s smile, or dickinson's birds,

or the continuum of violence and the improbability of

love. tell me only the colors

of your universe, which ones pool and splash

behind your lids when you squeeze them shut,

which ones blend into the blurred horizon of

a sea sky, which ones fill your plate before

it is white and empty again.

paint it once, and i won't ask you any more,

until tomorrow, when i tell you

what i did today, when i translate

my electric blues and fuzzy greys, when i try to

hold tight to the magic of existence

in a world that expands every time

i touch it. 

dls

free

"free"

by june i

was starting to drift from shore. i moved

towards the solstice sun hanging over the horizon

until he called me back,

the dog shivering.

euphoria, he said, is the first

sign of hypothermia.

by july

i was slipping off rockweed into the alaskan pacific.

peeling trees from my skin at benzaman lake,

spinning my spine into an unnamed river near

the goat carcass below the twisty hemlock branches

in south baranof island.

you are like a child, he said, your eyes

so full of wonder.

by august

all of us, were wading in with

neon underwear and diagonal torsos,

holding on to each other’s limbs,

stepping feet around crackles of barnacle coated rock

diving under to find the

flight of middle of the sea suspension.

stay, he said, afterwards, his arms locking at the elbow,

sliding over my wet collarbone as we watched

the plankton glow green dust around our toes.

by september i was drifting across the continent,

floating high in a big plastic bird.

i stepped outside again where summer

meant afternoon thunder

and too humid to function.

the alder leaves stuck to my shoulders,

evaporated by cruising altitude.

summer dried waves in my hair.

the water dissolved distance,

melting topography and in between air, freezing fear

and wildness at once into my skin, reminding me,

thoroughly, and completely,

of where i was.

i didn’t feel my flight home. it was pressurized air and itchy pillows

hung above

the geometry of a landscape far

below. freedom

steals breath and hugs

goosebump coated skin

and pulls minds and ribs

into bodies

and is euphoric and maybe

the first sign of hypothermic

and no matter how close you are to it,

it never really, fully lasts.  

dls 

final

in the sweet indecision of almost spring,

nearly summer, i saunter through 

the silver silt hanging grey in the air.

through this light film of opacity, there is

blurry vision, cut through only for one

crisp, filled to the brim

moon, shining through these sugary webs

of cotton candy, this low hanging night sky.

i spent the day indoors—sleep filled

shorts and hands on my skinned over ribs,

too late in the no longer morning. later, the air

tasted, even to my eyes, and after, lingered

in the twist of my hanging down hair as

i wandered back towards a pile

of plays, a list of former habits.

[in my latest lack of dreams (dark matter,

thick sleep), i thought i may have, for the

first time, seen with the absence of

language a desert words flooded with

that color of that one band

of light that always spills over the line

of the horizon—light blue, cobalt,

anything but navy, i'll never know 

what to call you—after the hills below

have fallen into one uniform black shadow.]

tonight i am contained in the shell of a mahogany

egg and the air is too tense to taste, too moderated

to tell the season. it is full of

wood panels, turmeric lights, the thick

heat of inside earth. i want to crack myself open

and see the words spill out in different sized letters--

the syllabi and assignments, the untrained thoughts,

the would be ledes, the ones that someone

once liked (not me)--mixing together into indistinguishable,

racing to fill the plate of tonight’s white moon

yellow with a broken up yolk.

dls

It's december

It's december
And it hasn't even snowed


LIL

snowbird

the birds feed through the fall. beaks

to bite holds--all bitter

grains and flapping wings

against autumn's palate

of pastel sugar cravings:

motion in a still landscape,

moving to the speed of flight.

in the moonlight the momentum of

survival slows,

the metal of a man-made feeding

machine catches the night sky's

mirror. this inverse

revolution tickles the calendar

of waves and shadows like

a caffeine buzz on the brain.

sometimes i commute by plane, fly

high with

no wind in my hair,

no flutter to wings,

on a never

ending chase of stimulation,

going to work finding another

limit, the feeder with no food,

relapsing once more in an addiction

to temporary, a love of what's away.

sunshine stays vain like a lick of

hair stuck on red lipstick, razor

thin heals clicking marble floors

only under her feet, waves of light

trickling down on skin. she glistens like

a woman who knows what

she wants, taunting us who

don't with a strut that shines

through the night,

catching tips of resting feathers

on wings.

dls

when i was strong

i leave a trail of burnt coffee
and bones broken inside,
wrapped in scarves.
the colors covering what
was once carved in calf when
i was strong.

a woman warrior, amazon
stripes of mud lined my ankles,
feet flew swift, a
blur of faster than you can
catch because out there,
there, i was it. playing tag
with the breeze,
unflustered, a storm of
brain heart and body,
going somewhere.
strong.

now i’m going nowhere fast--
wincing with each stride,
feeling no more strength
than the weakness of my bones,
the failure of my body.

today is still like a broken dawn,
time stopped due to lack of motion,
a frozen picture in the past,
in medias res,
and now i am lost in a maze of words
with nowhere to run, and no way to run.

i miss my legs like i used to miss love,
someone to stroke my hair in the morning,
someone who knew how to tell me it was
alright. i was my own answer: my own feet
to cry on, my own portrait of strength.

needless.
when i was strong.

dls

'wings'

she carried sorrow
like an injured bird
caged held cradled
between two hands

dark lids she fluttered,
eyes looking down

and sometimes slowly
opening her palms--
waiting for the bird
to fly.

her lashes spoke
fly away, little bird.

but its wings only
ruffled back the breeze
of moving feathers
muscles still
hidden beady eyes
staying as she stared,
staring into those hands,
thinking only of
flight, and of a breeze
so thick it's opaque,
so strong it could make
sad girls have wings

dls

ode to muskeg

i remember her from a dream--
where fireweed multiplied, night seldom came,
and when it did, it held a silence as unwavering
as an oceanic horizon. in the dream
she whispered. not words--she whispered
something else, something
beneath the darkness of a boulder field
lips pointed towards the earth, the deep
inner part of the earth, hushing
sounds, a faint breath.

awake, she growls.

she sets
fire to the plains, drips
rainbow explosions—psychedelic
polychromatism—texas tea some say,
while letting the rain splash her
face, never washing it away.
rumbling to wake, i wonder
if she will slip back into
consciousness today, rotate once more,
grace us with movement.
and she does. an oil spill
in motion but in motion
when told. through the great
land she wanders, lusting
for mountains, following rivers,
passing under the canopy
of swaying birch trees.

and if she had hair, I bet it would black—long
and black and unwieldy. her hair
would dance with every gust,
swing to every step. she has
heart, I can tell, waves of revolt,
refusal in her brakes,
mud on her lips.

in my dream, the mud
was chocolate, frosting splattering
a counter of sugar
water hard candy porcelain
windows house of candy house of cards
floating in clouds.

when i wake, she is a car that won’t start--
full of grease, no windshield wipers,
a busted emergency brake, fusebox
on fire, but then again,
I’m usually dreaming.

dls

Salsa-knuckled hands dip
triangles to jar-depths
and feet stomp by
dollar-a-log bonfires.
Our appendages
plunge, pound
ground and scrape
crevices. This protest of
limits, my flailing
arms, attempts to increase
surface area.

EWV

dreaming in between gavan hill and harbor mountain

it defines vision, seals the sky,
confines reality, tucks me closer and closer in
to only myself. thick rolls of white pouring into
canyons, sometimes flooding, sometimes
trickling jungle feathers brushing my cheek
not touching, though, eye sight's sometimes
sore sometimes soaring has a touch as
startling as the fingers of his absence,
i hold my breath expecting to trip through
this thick mass of nothing and all it is
is just that--nothing, and up here, here
in this idealand, i get up on top of
the clouds, race through the mist
because it's not there at all
only webs of cotton candy webs
of sugar air frosting the tops of trees
sweeter full of
something intangible ineffable
but full and i don't feel it at all
but i see it, and i believe, what else
can you see but not touch? maybe
only dreams.

dls

uncollected, barely edited thoughts from a train, tipsy

car ride to north station went too quickly,

hand drumming the seat divider

naturally and cell phone

beeping unnecessarily some swerves

and puddles i was happy just to be

there because i had found my fire, hit the

floor or touched

the earth as they say in dimly lit yoga

studios, had found something like earnest

italian and realized my

heart was beating overtime, like it was pulling

water from a well and pumping it with all haste to a fire to be put out,

but a forest fire, one of those necessary if not

controlled burns tree roots tap in

to later (once made rich the soil)

energy and strength, nervous energy transformed to excitement

watching thoughts is almost like

watching the words at the bottom of a singalong

song. don't know if i've ever watched so

boldly but in a book of good ideas, pt. II, i might add that we should

kiss and see what happens. start a business

dreaming of music videos that never

get made but sound really beautiful

fingers playing mountains like a

keyboard and picking cirrus clouds like

guitar strings.

teenage dream? admit it build that

fort of sheets and memories brought into

the present

in the yoga room focus on

hands crunching arms,

foot sweat slipping

eyes looking straight

forward or up or

relaxing the (i imagine) three braids of

muscles in the back of the neck.

in the yoga room where sighs make up most of the air,

shaking arch, mind's stories,

pass observed then

find fire, a blaze controlled but

right let the heart (pumping blood, taking

air) want to be

elsewhere sometimes. boom

boom and now the rain is

beautiful

cvp

an island

clouds like strata layer today's horizon,
stacks of thick white drifting on clumps of
alpine grass, gaming hide and seek mountains,
rain mist tip top toes swish on rolls and curves of rock
hide them hide them
but they are there i just know it
the brightest white of wet days
is playing the darkest dark of
the night that never truly comes here
to hide a stretching reality underneath. here
instead of dark we get ink blue spills washing
out to the north, solstice is nearing, and a big moon
has shed color streaking the sky yellow leaving behind
a watercolor of melting light and color undulating
like the swells of sea under my midnight kayak. i have never been quite
sure if the fear of bears makes my legs faster or slower
bushes and trees brushing my thighs do not stop
just go his muscles, so quick bob ahead, mirage ahead and
on mile 12 i swear there was an eagle fishing swooping
making magnificent manifest and here roads end, stop
mid stride the only place to go has not been reached
made closer made recovery the magic
of still unmoving wings breaths taken lost
taken lost losing me trifecta of trombones at dawn
dusk gloam here sink here sit here be here
there is no there there is no they, roads may end
but a we goes on. here i still miss something here
on an island with everything or perhaps nothing
the difference is slight, like the blank slate of deafening noise
whose consistency of sound has the most
hollow silence, the universe contained in the dirt
under my fingernail, in the wet of one dancing cloud
tapping toes on gavan hill, cartwheeling on
the ridge to harbor mountain, in the specks in the
iris of light blue eye.

dls

June 13, 2011

I've

Watched the sunlight trickle in in bars

And I've

Stolen furtive glances

through the window

and on the the street.

It is peaceful.

The shirt is white

And everything that is brown

is glowing.

Not so many scars today,

while there's sleep,

but heavy eyes

carry stories

that stand against a starch collar.

Here's a time for smiling.

A rare moment for rest

the present.

-BHN

sparknotes on chapter one (or snippets of crazy from a leathered journal)

i. postcards of flight fly into my pocket

birds like paper airplanes
float on wind air
the buoyancy of tiny
minnows in midwater
ocean floating
a caterpillar inches forward squishes stretches
at the most steady pace the
minarets here poke holes
in a paper blue sky
construction paper maybe
he left six days ago
bullet holes in a tin wall.
my heart beats syncopation shudders
down my spine his words are like
steel wind chimes tickled by
the breeze a thick orange sunset
sky holds the silhouette
of six birds a series
of black right angles in the sky
string marionettes at the
outer tips
invisible strings i think
i loved him too young buoyant
love an invisible riptide, water wind,
shifts the course of the largest sperm
whale.

ii. synesthesia

there's sunlight in the tea here
rays of light a dark mix of a sleeping sky
slip farther muddy hands
like melted chocolate bars deep caves
and long shadows the wind blew
my bangs a flapping flag
mountains carved of rock a breath
of adventure rolling contours a
fast drum. her hands weave wings for
fairies and her eyes close and i know
a dream lives there
synesthesia musical colors thick fields of
flowers light yellow petals he left clues
in my book i will meet you again someday
dance sunshine with you weave trains of mountains
grab your hand and let tall grass brush my hips running
nowhere but somewhere, perhaps, because we will be
that--a we--going nowhere.

iii. internal forts

land of magic land of one thousand
sheets hanging from rope land of
i love sisterhood and the way
light soaks through thin cloth
here the divine feminine speaks through
our head on lap hiccuping tears i will scratch
your curly hair until She has written us a Bible just
light me a candle if i close my eyes
i can fit on a toy sailboat and weave between
the tiniest of waves you are
beautiful standing in the middle of the street with
no cars wind rushing your hair up in laughter
yellow leaves flying
the air full of them
and i know what joy looks like
She tells us of these things here
the feminine is divine, the divine is feminine.
you are divine, my dear, hair flying up
or hair lying down because a tornado
of brilliant autumn leaves lives in your heart.

iv. primary colors

sunshine stripes through clouds
splotchy sky prisms of perpendicular
paralysis one moment
stillness amid movement
water trickles, horn honks,
merhaba merhaba
bright red scarf, flag, sky,
the sky shines red before dark
wind caught fabric sun through
cloth beam. sun beam sugar tea i still
smell you-smell in the morning when
i close my eyes the warm spot in my bed is where
you just got up good morning sweetheart
yellow city shines one color
multiplex matte brick shine he's not
here not even close.

v. istanbul, cuba

my body contained something electric,
an elevator of electricity rising and falling
in shafts of my bones tinkering
between tendons as he dipped my head
bent my back shocks of
i am alive ran through
me and salsa music played.
i dream in memories not my own when
women warriors marched in sedentary
stone and my namesake sang lullabies to
unborn babies and turquoise tiles fit on floors
a mosaic of unmemory mixing like sugar in
my tea with tiny girls in pink dresses
with hands full of Turkish plums
and powder sugar hands and rose
Turkish delight.
2 birds nested above breakfast
and his curls were dark, eyes deep
and warm, coffee no sugar sweet
smell of apple hashish, fingers grab mine,
the breeze on mount nemrut wisps dirt off
Hellenic eyes, light catches birds
flying like confetti in the sky
amid the general wonderment of the
world's largest dandelion, and i like
your energy, there's something, something
something about the way Arabic letters melt together
and his translation of Turkish into
colors sings (it's not synesthesia
when it's music).

vi. jumping off rocks

sun dripped indigo hot acid
brainwaves slow crystalized
sodium licked on dry warmed up
skin freckled on lips dots of salt i
leaned onto the infinite turquoise ocean
hair flew a tornado of hair on
a perfectly still wait
one dimension of mountain horizon
low late sun spreading silver spilling it on
top of wind blown sea
letting go letting go
big jumps off coral cliffs
seconds spent mid air
hair above i'm tall
you see as tall as
the sea sky really they
might be the same i am
the tiniest piece of meat
in the largest sandwich
the universe expands
contracts a held hand a
caught eye fingers two of them
stroke a fresh face underwater world
crash swimming is like dancing
in slow motion, hushed underwater sounds,
hushed swooping legs, hushed wet face,
hush.

DLS

hiccups

heartbeat, i
hiccup
hurt, heave
sighs, hide
salt in my
eyes, hurry
to class
and hike
stairs to a
room where
you are not.
heartburn i
hiccup and
your name
comes out
pops out
out of context and
dressed up like
a rainbow in a
soap bubble.
heartache i
hiccup gasp for
breath dream
you are coming
back wake
blink and find
that the curve
of my waist
is hands free no
hand is on me
tonight.

dls

days spent under the bed

chickpeas, hiding under the bed
on rainy days, i think of chickpeas
and the sugared almonds she
used to keep in a contoured glass
bowl in the room of family portraits.
there are no easy ways out of here,
i must lay perfectly still, not fill my chest
too full of air, the metal springs only slightly
too close to my nose, the shoeboxes next
to me only slightly too full of buried things.
something about rainy days, buried things
and daydreams about food i never particularly
liked reminds me that the blackberry bushes
near rock pond soon will be freckled with
plump berries and thorns that snag the threads of my
sweater--the berries reach full capacity juice-wise
before the sun reaches sink-through-the-epidermis
to-heat-up-the-nerves-underneath strength. i hear slow
picking of tight mandolin strings under the
pelting rain. this house of moving parts in the
darkness of an overcast sky slips silently, loud only
through the consistency of noise.
here we fear acceleration, the intersection of breath
sped up and smile slowed down. three fingers
reach carefully towards my check,
where they bend and the top knuckle of each finger
strokes the tiny hairs of my cheek bone. i close
my eyes and it's only chickpeas and pelts of rain
and tiny upturned hairs, lullabies after i'm already
asleep, the tilling of wet april mulch--i wait patiently
from under these twisty metal bars and fragmented
daydreams for the rain to stop,
for the swallow to break the echoing of this silence.

DLS

This moment will be seen by architects

Today for breakfast I am having
Two oranges
And five slices of pineapple.

I am drinking as well--
Cups of water, tea, coffee.

Outside the day.

Inside they are taking photographs
And ask us if we mind.

-NSG

simply sitting here

simply sitting here
i watch rocket rain drops
plummet
streaking the window
freckled with dots
striping its pane with descendants.
simply sitting here
i get distracted from my books
look up from the pages
and place my chin
on my wrist,
and instead of pages passing
words i watch the
rain. plinking puddles,
dressed up clouds,
newspapers covering
heads hands pulling up
pants runners with fierce
faces children jumping
with bright green rainboots
briefcases held close
like lovers.
i once loved the rain too--
screamed out into the
night laughed with a
wet face stuck my
arms straight and
SWOOSH, i am superman;
i fly on command i fly on the wings
of muddy grass i will save
lives if you ask me and i will fly and he
often flew with me, our clothes
sticking to our skin, our arms
out our voices
loud our faces wet with laughter.
simply sitting here,
i softly hum a song under
my breath and think of
my grandma and wonder
if she is okay.

DLS

wakeful dreams

today you are here
and so am i! together, we
are here together today
and your hand has found
all its five fingers on the
dip in my side the cinch
of my waist the spot
where i ache in my sleep
and slipping into wakefulness
you mumble with closed
eyes, do i want coffee? i smile
my eyes still closed back--
i have never once in my life refused
caffeine and we stretch legs feet
tip off the foot of the bed eyes open
you are here and so am i! waking up
when we are both here and soon
we will drink coffee in bed joking
about how unfunny we are, laughing
only at only our own jokes, and
despite the buzz in my brain i'll rest
my head on your arm, the curve
of your shoulder will fit into the
bend in my neck as one lock
of hair falls from my ear, catches
my nose. the sunlight
stripes square shadows through
the windowpane it's a spring day,
summer seeps
through windows with every passing hour
spilling pent up yellow sunshine onto
winter's white canvas. i love the sunshine,
the way light splatters from my eyelashes,
fuzzies my vision, the way it feels on
my face the way it stirs me in the morning,
fluttering lids, waking smile.
soon the sunshine
will stir me with a flood of yellow rays, liquid
laughter tipped over, finding its way to the spot
where your hand used to be, that achy aching spot.
i will be here, dreaming of
dressing in florals for the sunshine
and in the morning when i wake you will be
far away--a typeface,
frozen pixels, a breaking voice--jumping
ahead, still here, lying in
bed, eyes closed, skin warm of sleep,
and you are here too with me, together,
seemingly asleep.

DLS

bird feet

birds fly on sundays, their
wings swoop and swallow,
their melodies trickle from
trees, their tiny feet
tiptoe with scintillating speed
across the sidewalk. i
saw them, three of them, today
flying with the smallest
wings, together, their
melodies trickling, the tips
of their toes raised and brushing against
the wind. my own love abides
strictly to the laws of gravity,
it stays incorrigibly
inside, stuck there,
bird feet in a puddle of
corn syrup, the sugary stick clutching
tiny toes, mute and mangled,
alive but asleep.

DLS

more candles in college courtyards

she slipped away
before passing me
on a street just
a ghost like many others
all seconds of the day
passing into some
existence where
movement resides
out of sight after an
ephemeral exit,
an opaque process,
and there are
no cross outs in my
date book to prove this
proximate
stepping out slipping away
just flickering candles
and the saxophone's
wail. (the night sky then
briefly fell under dreams
of oceanic wonderfalls
and celestial dark
clatter and poetic spring
rain.) it is always
night if you close
your eyes, you know,
the sun may also rise
but there is
no steady rise of the
sun when erratic
motion of eyelids
enclose but also
expose the
splattered paint
of a starry sky. the college
years ought to be bright,
strings of moments when day
is chosen with a swollen
breath, a beating heart,
charged with caffeine
and ticking with motion
until it suddenly stops
shattered glass on the face
of the clock, a mug on the counter,
untouched,
crashes to the floor. i don't
understand this, really i don't,
but i know i miss
the clock that broke, the
coffee left brewing in the kitchen,
the sound of a pocket phone
buzzing but not picked up, the
ghosts that never passed me
on the way to class.

dls

Wednesday

Sakht-e esta

pesadez que

traiemos estos

dias, sakht-e

So heavy and

hard to carry, the

newspaper full of

radioactivity and cuts

to Planned Parenthood,

rebels down in Libya and

unemployment up and

this rolling sense that

no one in Washington

gets anything other than

lobbyists across their

desks. Tan pesado es,

one more death among

us all trying to

live bright

college years under this

sky not redolent, just

so heavy with

rain and gunmetal

clouds.

CVP

Tree of Names, from a Different Branch

Tree trunks of inter

twining names and

hearts grown into

elephant skin bark

reminded me that

this is the time

of year when we

hurtle to the

end but tingle with

beginnings, when we

rejoice at

grass and daffodils

become luminescent

after dark.

CVP

tree of names

have you ever climbed a tree
and wondered at the not
quite top if you are going
to cry because i certainly have
not ever done that.
once i noticed, though,
that the tree was full of names,
and more importantly saturated with
love. elephant skin its bark
was elephant skin and i pined
at its dry wrinkled elephant skin
with my fingernails until its
waxy flesh appeared. everywhere
on this tree, engraved in its bark, its
ever so rough elephant skin bark, were
letters, and each combination
of letters was a love affair. swollen disgustingly
swollen love was etched into each scar
on the trees' rough skin. i leaned back on the
branch, folded into the trees thick arms,
and slowly closed my
eyes and held my heart.

dls

an infinite history of short loves

this one is

not to be published but

here i am

again at that

feeling of wistful freedom

after a few days, or

weeks, never even

months of minor misgivings and

doubts and then a moment of decision,

or occurrence, really, like

finding one's breath after

touching the bottom of the pool or

capturing the flag or

dancing around on the

lawn summer

joys simple joys skin

to skin to lip to cheek to

eye and shoulder that

linger sometimes smoulder

sometimes burn out.

i get soft

quickly but only

for those days,

weeks, never even

months where i hold other

hands and now this one

slant of my

shoulder seizes, a little

fidgety a little untethered

collar slipped

so free from everyone but those

who know i tie myself in

tight hugs, that i don't

run too much, only when the

frontier gets fenced,

only when the

way each story starts

then stops and i, content a beginning

even began, feel

maybe i should

feel more remorse it

ended but everything moves

in circles

right? everything moves

in circles until

two ends

meet?

(february's)

Remember when Sextus said

we couldn’t know anything

because of the shapes

of our eyes?

When I kick ladders out from under me I fall.

There is no equivalent to

“to thunder” for

lightning. We may say

“it lightens”, which technically means

something else but essentially means

the same thing—a buildup of

electricity is released.

I catch a moment, here, there,

between thundering when,

things lighten.

Our very eyes condemn us.

The “I” is not within our field of vision.

We cannot see ourselves.

The “I” is a convenient grammatical construct but

otherwise meaningless.

Everything is meaningless.

Still there are clearings, small patches of

forest ground penetrated by sun where

it lightens.

If you begin with immanence you

end with immanence if you begin with

material you end with material, nothing

from nothing, from nothing, from

nothing, from nothing, from nothing,

from nothing.

And so on.

EWV

Proust on the novelist

For what feels like the first time in my academic career, I have lately been consumed by the reading I have been doing for my classes. It feels as though every book I pick up, from Schmitt's Political Theology to Freud's Moses and Monotheism to Rulfo's Pedro Paramo has been chock-full of pieces of advice; keys to the locks of the mysteries of the human condition.

We were assigned a selection from Swann's Way for my "Roots of Modernity" class this week. Even if you've already read bits of Proust before, I really recommend going back and checking it out again. I am open to the possibility that he's speaking to me particularly as I'm in sort of an anxious and undecided state right now, but I have the feeling that he'll touch all of you. Here's a bit from "Combray" where old Marcel is describing young Marcel's love for reading.

None of the feelings which the joys or misfortunes of a

"real"

person arouse in us can be awakened

except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes;

the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the image was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of "real" people would be a decided improvement.

A "real" person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, remains

opaque,

presents a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to life. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion;

indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either.

The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one's soul can

assimilate.

After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings

of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth,

since we have made them our own, since it in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall,

as we feverishly turn over the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes.

And once the novelist has brought us to this state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more

lucid

and more abiding than those which come to us in sleep, why then, for the space of an hour he

sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which only we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slow course of their development prevents us from perceiving them.

It is the same in life; the heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change.

I'm really into this idea—that somehow there is a reality we have created for ourselves as readers that only fiction can ever fully describe; that we are incapable to discerning reality within even ourselves and our consciousnesses without the aid of fiction and prose. Hope you're all reading tons.

LIL