proust/de salon/des questions

bliss to regret
sleep to death 

to fear or not 

embrace this wild wonder trip and hold all things 

contrast the black to white--grey thunderstorms & tulips 

Earl Grey brewing .... 

scars ignorance weariness cooling cooling 

accidentally shamed small in a shadowed corner under a desk in Boulder County 

Jabberwock pears flying to Borealis flares in northern skies 

Lola dreams pressed against the movie reels of 

Beowulf 

and the golden sun-kissed boy (there in the asparagus patch)

who presses wildflowers & birds into linen rivers a thousand miles wide where 

whooping cranes abide against the alice blue waking 

cardinals blue jays wrens

barred owls repeat it all over again--hold fast! 

safe hands 

warm hearts 

holding gently to the opening blooms of the red bud 

Oh Bathsheba! Oh Anna! Oh Sissy! Oh breath of daylight!

Huckleberry foxglove sorrow waiting bright 

fight fiercely for love 

love fiercely 

        make it worth the fight 

 

we grow accustomed to the dark

 we grow accustomed to the Dark—

the rumbling birth of stars

great horned owls 

trains & leavings 

from shadows i linger 

wrapped in velvet night as familiar as my own breath 

from shadow i linger 

wondering how we got here and will my death become a sparrow? 

from shadows i linger 

observing the blackness of secrets as they lie beneath the linden tree 

from shadows i linger   

listening to the collide of the cosmos 

heroes

no cloaks no masks 

no labyrinths of glass 

heroes sometimes come unasked 

between the lightening cracks 

one smells of lavender 

one of larks 

one with feathers one with a bark 

pearly white--scruffy & wise 

heart of a lion with walnut eyes 

one comes dressed in flannel true 

(that one is you)!

and the one that comes last 

      is of sweet golden prairie grass

heroes come as violets & birds 

dogs 

people 

red buds & earth 

to see their hearts & know their worth 

playing the game from death to birth 

the agate secret one carries inside 

these heroes unmasked 

     become our guides 

button & thread

said the button to the thread 

i don't want to be led

not tied & buttoned to a shirt 

i don't want this bind this place to lie 

unmoving forcibly dead 

i am the shape of a wheel, the moon & the sun! 

able to roll & tumble & run 

i wish to be free from the flannel & form 

to be a free button 

evermore 

said the thread to the button i've no wish to bind 

my preference is to be spooled, quiet, inline 

no needles no task 

i wish to hold fast 

to my sweet bobbin paradigm 

i've no wish to capture 

to sew & enrapture 

this task set forth from above 

i've no wish to pin you down

to keep you from running around 

so flat & bound 

i merely wish to be wound 

'round my spindle so sound 

simple & smooth 

evermore 

the button rolled free 

to seek fields & trees 

as the thread wound round its wooden spool 

no marriage to flannel

no button sewed, bound & facile

just two things that matter now 

better apart than before 

button & thread 

evermore 

wrapped

you tease me with need, apples & emptiness

struggling to hardwire

lounging there in yellow silk boxers 

against your father's blueprint 

aging with bitter remorse 

without awareness

i hate football

and struggle to understand my own fragility

what is it that binds & stretches to accommodate our twisted, wounded selves

acceptance comes with a cost; 

a kiss of popcorn & fresh red peppers

a blizzard whorls beyond our walls 

and if you would open just long enough

i 

would 

fall

into your blue eyes 14 thousand feet deep

rich with wisdom & words and muscles hard

willing 

our bones are old and speak of chasms of mirth & merit

replete with lovers, summers & wine 

why the goodbye

why walls of blue-glass brick

to find the hole again 

altars of divine care & memory to what was & what could be 

sparked by flannel warmth & distance spanned by

love 

when the sky is green

Celadon 

comes the day from mossy dreams slumber 

rising rising 

movement wicked--articulated back to leg to arm 

beholding a day forecast green-grey 

thunderstorms forming unencumbered 

by night 

by this skin/bone collide (how verdant veins lie 

upon outstretched possibilities charm) 

seafoam turbulence with crocodile rain 

falling in artichoke torrents severity 

no brevity 

but wicked-articulated rising rising waves of nori destruction 

coming coming it is 

while all i can do is recall pistachio dreams

of meadow & willow fields afar 

wake--prepare 

meet the storm with an olive branch of forgiveness 

celadon comes the day 

fern bright will come the morrow 

 

re·dux

Oh Columbia! 
imagined history of our ancients
where is our emancipator of despair?
bison spirit rising
compassionate liberation
against
political collide
pull back the veil of stars
stripes
bloodied suffering revised to fit the supremacy
Oh say can you see--our manifest destiny?
manifest genocide
redress--recognize
indigenous wholeness and right
nationalism expedition colonization imperialism
manifest genocide, again
 ... our destiny wrapped
in
rhyme--rhythm
by
Jackson
Jefferson
Cooper
Whitman
Hawthorne
Longfellow
Poe
Thoreau
darkness
blackness--native peoples demonized
whiteness christianized
in
the
killing fields of the Americas
indian country 
follow the corn trail 
the trail of tears;
Mayans
Olmec
Toltec
Anasazi
Pueblo
Caribs
Maroons
Powhatans
Pequot
Abenaki
Mohican
Shawnee
Delaware
Wintu
Maidu
Miwak
Omo
Wappo
Havasaupai
Nez Perce Nation
Yokuts
Iroquois Confederacy
Natchez Nation
Hopi
Apache

Navajo

Cherokee
Pawnee
Kiowa
Ojibwa
Chippewa
Seminole
Lakota
Sioux
Comanche
Muskogee Creek
Tuscaroras
Chickasaw
Choctaw
Tlingit
Salish
Makah
Hoopa
Pomo
Karok
Yurok
Shoshone
Bannock
Paiute
Ute
Haudenosaunee
Green Corn Dance
Ghost Dance
Sun Dance
resist
redeem
(the revolution was not televised)
repair
.... the soul of America
primal heroism and heart of our humanity
lost
     to
          the
impossible
passable
papable
grief
inherent
to wind
to river
to wilderness
legacy awakened...
Oh redemption!

This land is your land