Now the birds speak in secret rhythms
and the trees bark in secret sounds
and the people rush in secret thoughts
and they push the thoughts into the shape of words

and sometimes someone among us
sticks her head into the
shiny phosphorus blue vat of language
and listens, like a skeleton
to the pulsing of life within,
and she tells us of secret rattling angles
to watch for and to reach into
with strange oceans and deafening skies
that can be mapped and measured
only by sounds and never by meanings
and once we can tell where we are
using the nearest star
as it relates to the ragged water
then we can plant our own feet into the good ground
and go to the rodeo
and answer the plum-colored hawk
and sing to the river in good faith

god presses his mouth around our head
he breathes out...he breathes in
and we are resusitated in the goofy atmosphere of god
where there are highways and bowling
and tatooed by the sun
a circus
made by the prayer of breathing and living hope
and barbed eyes where coyotes hang
and cowboys hammer posts and branches to keep us inside
as much as keep someone out

and the prayer that is
and it is answered with a breath
gods lips against our own
we breathe in...we breathe out
he breathes out
and sigh, alive again
the unexpected discovery of
a B side of life
a map of voices
a warning to others who would come this way
an amimal who has seen things
a horn twisted into shapes
understood by strangers
recognized by demons
an invitation in the secret language of trees
sung in wild shapes by a child

-- Rikki Lee Jones


5

Someday - when
you have the

time - you will
really die.

-- Cid Corman

Gram

Peter, call home. Email me.

This goes in your numbering system, not mine.

one.

   The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak
     she burns like a piece of paper.
She burns like foxfire
in a thigh-shaped valley.
A skirt of flames
dances around her
at dusk.
         We stand with our hands
hanging at our sides,
while she burns
         like a sack of dry ice.
She burns like oil on water.
She burns like a cattail torch
dipped in gasoline.
She glows like the fat tip
of a banker's cigar,
   silent as quicksilver.
A tiger under a rainbow
   at nightfall.
She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
She burns like a field of poppies
at the edge of a rain forest.
She rises like dragonsmoke
   to my nostrils.
She burns like a burning bush
driven by a godawful wind.

-- Yusef Komunyakaa

Fifty-one.


I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

-- Richard Brautigan

Ash Wednesday

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

(T.S. Eliot)

Fifty. notapoem.

The Window, by Sevim Burak (1931-1983)

Well, when's the last time I read a short story by a Turkish feminist author? Thanks to Kris for the link.

Forty-nine and perfect.

from (prep.) 1. Starting at (a particular place or time): As in, John was from Chicago, but he played guitar straight from the Delta; he wore a blue suit from Robert Halls; his hair smelled like coconut; his breath, like mint and bourbon; his hands felt like they were from slave times when he touched me — hungry, stealthy, trembling. 2. Out of: He pulled a knot of bills from his pocket, paid the man, and we went upstairs. 3. Not near to or in contact with: He smoked the weed, but, surprisingly, he kept it from me. He said it would make me too self-conscious, and he wanted those feelings as far away from us as possible; he said a good part of my beauty was that I wasn't conscious of my beauty. Isn't that funny? So we drank bloody mothers (Hennessy and tomato juice), which was hard to keep from him — he always did like to drink. 4. Out of the control or authority of: I was released from my mamas house, from dreams of hands holding me down, from the threat of hands not pulling me up, from the man that knew me, but of whom I did not know; released from the dimming of twilight, from the brightness of morning; from the love I thought had to look like love; from the love I thought had to taste like love; from the love I thought I had to love like love. 5. Out of the totality of: I came from a family full of women; I came from a family full of believers; I came from a pack of witches — I'm just waiting to conjure my powers; I came from a legacy of lovers — I'm just waiting to seduce my seducer; I came from a pride of proud women, and we take good care of our young. 6. As being other or another than: He couldn't tell me from his mother; he couldn't tell me from his sister; he couldn't tell me from the last woman he had before me, and why should he — we're all the same woman. 7. With (some person, place, or thing) as the instrument, maker, or source: Here's a note from my mother, and you can take it as advice from me: A weak lover is more dangerous than a strong enemy; if you're going to love someone, make sure you know where they're coming from. 8. Because of: Becoming an alcoholic, learning to walk away, being a good speller, being good in bed, falling in love — they all come from practice. 9. Outside or beyond the possibility of: In the room, he kept me from leaving by keeping me curious; he kept me from drowning by holding my breath in his mouth; yes, he kept me from leaving till the next day when he said Leave. Then, he couldn't keep me from coming back.

-- A. Van Jordan

Everyone passing this window turns
and smiles. The wind loves me today,
all cool kisses and smooth hands
down South Street. We stopped
for lemonade just past the last holdout
of a downtown iceberg and resisted

a ride on the carousel. She resisted
my smiles, headed down the turns
tile past cardboard signs and held-out
cups - winter lingers and today
it leeches from our bones. Stopped
by the T-line cap and badge, hands

and pockets empty, I turned. Hands
felt for cigarettes, gloves, resisted
the urge to snowball cars (stopped
for me anyway, polite and taking turns)
waved at policeman whistling today
in the sunshine as he held out

orange flags: two if by sea. "Hold out
your coat - honey, your hands
will freeze like that!" Days like today
taste April sunshine and the girl resists
the imposition of winter, turns
and wriggles away from mommy stopped

in the middle of the sidewalk. I've stopped
for warmth at this lace-curtained holdout
of small town before South turns
into Prospect and outstretched hands
disappear. Who could resist
"Coffee and 1/2hr web - $3 today"?

Even holes in walls have wireless today.
The wind is back, the construction stopped.
I'd happily stay, but I resist
another cup of coffee, hold out
my face to the sun, my hands
to the wind, and in the street slow circles turn.

From the PowerPoint Anthology of Literature