random thoughts

divided states of embarrassment

sleeping stories (quiet)

 The knowledge that results from recognition, then, is not the same kind as the discovery of something new: it arises rather from a renewed reckoning with a potentiality that lies withing oneself.

3, Uncanny and Improbable Events, Amitav Ghosh

 silence

softer  stories

in places

quieter

not absolute

humor

listed as

existing as other spaces

less intense

walk above the douro - list 2:30pm

Bear’s breeches 

Greek mustard 

Sow thistle

thrush

Swift

Finocchio

Cow parsley

Bindweed 

Pampas

Red clover

Baahing  sheep 

Sleeping crane 

Oak

Ivy

Fern 

Returning blackberry 

Nightshade 

Jay

Gull

Pegs

(next week peaches)

Roots and vines

Grasses

(Gooseberries)

Nasturtium 

Fig

Morning glories

So blue you know

you're going to

paint the sea again

 barking in the dark

gecko

dog

bird

heard after

fireworks

and before dawn

1

patience, worn round like a worry stone

listening  tethered

to withstand elemental antipathies -

the seven sins against empathy

 

Common Vervain

Greek Mustard

Willow-leaf Hebe

Holcus lanatus (Yorkshire Fog)

 

 cow's tooth in a cow's hoof

peixa

As telhas de terraço não são boas em locais
As telhas do terraço subiram em sítios.

As telhas do terraço subiram de tenda e as suas juntas racharam.

 

Isto não é bom para o 7º andar nem para mim. Tentei uma pequena reparação, mas não está a funcionar. Há também um pequeno buraco a ser remendado no exterior. Pode ajudar-me a arranjá-los pela associação do condomínio, por favor? Não quero que os pequenos problemas se tornem grandes, e caros para a associação.

second sleep

meets

longing for

anxiety about

interrupted by a buzz

because

a mosquito

doesn't care where your mind goes

knows just blood lust

and you?

your second sleep creeps

soundlessly around the insect

settles into

the bed

perhaps even

given time

your head

clear day

but for one soft place 

where a small squall races to shore

The sea now so very blue you know night comes.

Waves lighter, under a white horizon. 

Tidal shadows, and nimbostratus.

One mentha cervina has become seven. These are puzzling plants, endangered yet strangely prolific, native to watery places in dry Alentejo. They can grow even underwater in winter. This history means they'll remain outside, on the roof terrace, in the rain. 

I imagine the air, circling mentha cervina in December, an aroma of strong spearmint tea flooding the wet wind.

 swifts speak

chattering in the wind

narratives on wings

things discussed

and an afterward

written by request

for pipistrelles

 

 Read Jebb

5th Ismian Ode

Theia and gold, with gems

it's light we seek

shining in riverbeds, earth

like an immortal,

without decay

 I could make images from the mind

there are so many there

piles of them lying to be sorted

like a resale shop's back room

 

instead

I'm led to tear up what's been made

a concertina reassembles, divides

is scrubbed of too much paper

too little thought

 

what lies beneath a failed book?

 

Look. Too much of everything.

 

looking through the rain

at the sea 

I imagine the next long wave to reach shore

or

more slivered light, silver,

beyond

the vanished horizon.

 Understanding the beginning to

end

then this in-between

 

I've seen

where nets met light, earth

Say women gave birth 

to mending,

to sending messages

in fish and clay

when woven meant

receiving thoughts

sent by shiuttle,  awl and stylus

when fire consecrated words on urns and plates

or foraging sticks

struck by lightening

turned branches into thoughts

acacia

boddhi

oak 

ash

gave tongue lashings

grew needy

whining pines

seeded

shopping lists in hollow balls

from the first,

writing, reading 

was as round as

as beginning to end

for Chuck S.

It's a merlin up here

clearing the sky

I'm thankful for her,

for the present,

where no gull's eyes

stare expectantly 

at the old arthritic dog.

"The antidote to perfectionism is repair."

Repairing room, the mind.

A kind of sanatorium where the words I want to write down pull me up before I drown.

Not always, not in every situation.

No perfection in thought.

There ought to be but isn't much you can do about that, but repair is one of them.

After rejection, clean up the blood,  flood your body with love, knit together, stronger.

The longer you wait for the right moment, the more you delay your happiness.

I'm not about optimistic forgiveness. I believe in humanity's recidivism. 

But our actual individual strength? Restorative. 

Despite the odds.

 the fruit seller playing loud love songs 

slowly rounds the winding streets

(he's even recorded applause)

the music stays on 

long

after the truck is gone.

sketches

sketches -

language sticks

(to)

Jacob's ladders

(where)

I find rapas in the window

(round)

the corner 

(from)

 

the lengths I will go 

to find

those

words

like fireflies

burned

(into)

memories

(of)

 too much comes in

cannot begin to 

19 and two

you listen to their names

as you would a list

of

plants,

but refuse to write them down.

I don't want to remember, to look for them,

and find nothing.

Eight, ten years old -

school the nursery where we grow things,

and gardeners.

I did not sleep well.

I pot and prune, take cuttings.

The sea is still blue.

The ancient dog walks across her terrace

and forgets why she came to greet me,

turns, retreats.

A honeybee wanders among my flowers, high 

in the sky, looking for sweetness.

                                                                                    

dream of the dead

In the dream,

you watch the house

of two stories

(up, down, yours, ours)

empty.

He

doesn't linger,

not once,

not even a glance.

You above

it all,

as only an eye,

want to cry out,

turn back everything -

the words, the lost kisses.

 

He's left the ring,

the thing that was his, 

that was ours,

on the stairs.

 

 

 

so much now is

small,

practical

fearful,

undone

patience.

I float

seeds

in glass,

bury

stones.

two yellow-legged gulls

walking the terrace ledge

red spider mites

drowning in vinegar and soap

 

 

 plants coming home

some I know

but so many are strangers

(strange to the stranger) -

primrose, mallow found in fallow farmland, roadside,

around old home plots, ruins

clots of cala, marguerites,

clover, vetch, bindweed

living with

these

unknown

seeds and flowers

new knowledge

in the soil

says

what grows

will root

inside me

 swifts

in the air

where

they live their lives

high songs and dances today

and play

 

andorinhãos no ar
onde eles vivem as suas vidas

canções e danças altas hoje

e jogar

 

white to grey

white 

grey

swallow

swift

 what predator is this

white-breasted, dark-winged

something's testing the taste

of the freesias

 

that bird scat

new, tells me

I've had visitors

 

 

 a floral arrangement-

gerbera

germander

marguerites

onion

petunia

ivy

 

unconscious love

a lessened sorrow

visions

purity, innocence, true love

good luck

anger or comfort?

(petunia at crossed purposes)

good luck

 The fog an island

disappearing into sea

 

Edges -

ledge of blue horizon,

the shore a drifting horizontal.

The sun comes.

Two lizards rouse among the gerbera.

 

The clarity of day creeps in from the east. 

I try to stay focused

on this poem.

Eid

The moon sighted

yesterday

water

dates

indigo

blue 

white

two clouds

small squall

a plane

winds

bring

resources

into the sky

I watch 

how high

a swift's flight arcs

mark the tails

as three birds 

swooping 

from the rail

sail,

find currents,

disappear

 

 

amazing

how

many Americans

remain entitled

while not listening

not listening

and expecting

more.

densidades

 densidades 

mentais potenciais 

duplamente 

isoladas 

com potencial para 

proporcionar equivalências, 

potência 

iluminação 

que seja equivalente 

ou igual 

à original, 

agora esquecida, 

procurada, 

ansiada por

 

doubly isolated 

potential mental densities 

with the potential 

to provide equivalences, 

potency. 

enlightenment 

that is equivalent 

or equal to 

the original, 

now forgotten, 

sought after, 

longed for

Teucrium fruticans L.

Shrubby Germander

 

I din't drink enough water.

I've headaches,

an echoing gut,

more,

a fleet of sounds.

Shoals.

Sand bars.

The grounded dream

afloat.

trunks

As burned,

bombed

holes,

these 

boles

hold

two metres of

language,

a bird,

a fish.

 

At four

in the morning

such

trunks,

sunk into earth,

war,

appear

as  

open doors

to another side.

Dark woods!

There is

more in 

these

trees

than

what,

in

sunlight,

could be

imagined.

 

 

preoccupied

 bylines:

main valve

ground wire

spliced,

glued to

p trap

a wago

pedestal 

pressure

kess

water

less electric

on liberation

language of

sun

sublets

early light

to write

 Will we have kestrels, owls?

A gecko's tail 

under the terrace ledge, 

edges along.

electricity and the swallow

It's late April.

I sight a swallow

clearly blue

against a bright sky

and failing sun.

Such relief really,

to see this hungry bird,

chirping and sputtering

far softer sounds than gulls.

 

No one can come for the lights.

It's easy, I'm told, and

emboldened, clamp wires, cover them.

Switching to on, a pop, the singular note of a swallow, divorced from song,

carries along an arc of light.

Frightened, I switch everything off.

Think.

On the internet, I listen, follow as instructed,

check, change.

Oh, my sister says, you didn't know?

No.

Learning as I go.

That electric arc seemed iridescent blue, to grow a tail,

and the sound grew wings too.

After corrections,  

I understand separations,

follow a welcome silence into the kitchen light, 

now functioning, 

and out into dusk.

The swallow I had sighted, 

flying too high,

has stopped to rest on the terrace.

We're eyeing one another when

she suddenly lifts, 

descends 

into the shadows of the trees below.

 

A

blue

aquamarine

under

stratus,

stratocumulus,

eucalyptus, cypress, and pine.

Vines of

wisteria,

morning glory flower.

The rooster's deep in second sleep

as the herring gulls hover.

Car horns

shorn of importance

by the east wind,

which is

more important now,

as is that sea,

those trees,

the clouds.

Little things

bring

happiness.

Fresh laundry dried in the sun and salt wind.

A standing hot shower and washed mane of hair.

There are more -

a spoonful of cured goat cheese, fresh greens,

a good day of writing or drawing.

Little things tended,

small garden plots harvested with love.

The neighbor's cock is crowing.

Nearly eleven,

the sea's haze  still sits upon him and around him.

Does it cloud his judgement

or give him

the simple expressive joy

of invisibility?

I gave my grocery money as a tip to neighbors

who came up on an evening,

stopped leaks, prevented

electrocution.

This is what working people do,

value time

and knowledge.

Keep me safe, I pray, from insularity and privilege.

Guard against the evil of trickery.

 

 

Fog expands

to

white at the rail.

Beyond?

miss you

here

love

I'm without rest .

The new refrigerator is as battered as I am.

The plumbing limps along

spilling through my neighbor's ceiling or onto my floor.

More importantly

a lie just will not quit giving away

pieces of itself,

such as

badly injured tiles

or

a deep sewage hole full of debri.

You can see the roach eggs

under the knawed chipwood sink,

hear 200 euro doors slammed

as your neighbors

behind much cheaper portals

find leaks and sorrow.

 

Next, he gallantly said, 

I'll  take a stand,

demand to speak with  

o senhor seguros instead.

depois

 depois de
a mulher idosa que vivia num ninho
caiu ao chão há cerca de dois anos
durante a primeira vaga
antes da guerra
ou poderia dizer
então
o seu mundo acabou.

after
the old woman living in a nest
fell to the ground about two years ago
during the first wave
before the war
or you could say
then
her world ended.

sea

 that horizon

slipping in and out about 5 kilometres

from here

under

cloud kinds

altocumuli

stratus

or straight lined ghost trails

has now settled

become a muffling haze

skinning trees

as the wind's rise

calls 

eye's attention

to

vision songs

along a

glinting trail to the sea

Morcega/ Bat

 She's night 

so clearly lamplit

Rothenburg's black horse 

my white slate mind 

meets

two dappled greys

four beat gait

in the street

 challenged

My life will now again turn suddenly into something else.

Luca

 It's the deep night scurry,

the serpentine course round and through rooms

that admits you're here. 

 

Mice on the screen, boxes, and ribbons.

The sound of a small fountain.

 

Hair, and air purifiers.

It's possible to be allergic to love.

 

 

 

 

 

Félicette

Cat like you

kidnapped from the streets,

meets space.

Sent into orbit, where

someone measured your

slowing heart 

and

returning to earth,

cut you apart.

 

 Outside my window

a stone wall

plants

today sun

and lutes

endurance

Endurance found

remarkably intact 

dead dogs

a cat

Mrs. Chippy

it's a bit nippy

where you are

under  the ice

drink tea

don't think

one man can

threatens home

I comb the contract for a hidden clause

 

blackmail three say

I lie awake al night -

Where will I put my washing machine?

 

Home in the heart isn't part

of this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hurrem's daughter

 Lviv-born Roxelana

(the Ruthenian )

was a foreigner

remembered in Maripol and Mecca.

 

Red hair, poetry, a kiss,

she was always much more than this.

I wonder what Mihrimah 

Roxelana's only daughter

thought -

her mother bought a slave

then a Sultan, free.

She herself must marry at 16.

Mihrimah told by her mother -

outlive your brothers, 

never erasing this -

the red hair, the kiss.

 

the sign -, used to join words to indicate that they have a combined meaning or that they are linked in the grammar of a sentence (as in pick-me-up, rock-forming ), to indicate the division of a word at the end of a line, or to indicate a missing or implied element (as in short- and long-term ).

Hyphenated

 

 

Table of Contents

Introduction

nematode

writing quiet

clepsydra

nets

an unfinished account of

new moon projections

reel dream

ta-ke-ya-bu-ya-ke-ta

scrimshaw

record of passages (river)

barbe à papa

well water

third teen

less than, out of or into

the thrush resurrectionist

the spongy moth despaired

the yellow dog (Carpaccio)

the yellow dog (Goya)

peony

float

water tableau

wrote

memento avium

the fisher queen

web

talking stone

trash bird

the psalm

a season’s sleeping tent 

rice field underwater

shunt

allotment

beringia

the tree, the turning pine

bridge

Epilogue

 

net

camoflage

catch

caught

ought to make some

break

You'd been raging,

beating your head 

against the wall.

She made the call.

At the knock

you blocked it out,

answered calmly.

Police.

They knew.

they knew.

You realise

she recorded it.

 

Later you call

from the hospital.

 

I'm fine, you insist,

shuttered, alone.

You need to get me out of here!

We're agreed.

You need to stay.

Police took the gun away.

 

Inside your mind

is a hospital too.

It's in there where

there's no room 

for your children

partner

us.

Inside you,

it's clear

we're just passengers for now,

along with the other voices,

all of us ghosts,

riding

synapses,

currents.

 

 

saqqara bird

 

By Dawoudk - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4332420

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

saqqara bird

manoomin

At lunch in Porto -

a wood spoon serves

wild rice.

 

I recall manoomin

from an Ojibwe stand -

broken bits,

memories.

 

Have you seen 

the tall rice ripening 

along marsh edges?

 

Polers and

strikers

work as one

in a rice-filled 

boat.

 

Seeing

manoomin

is a narrative

of  sound -

summer

ripening,

a harvest,

a roast.

 

At

lunch in Porto,

all this

again

found in the sound 

of a serving spoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

letter to the dead - cooking

 cooking

for jazz bands

hungry poets

painters

I haven't cooked in eight years now

how I rid myself

of oven

hob

meat

I stood there eight years ago

on the deck in the harbor

four hours of fresh water

under salmon smoke

above

blue feet

I wake 

two sleeps

one spirit

fine?

I pour 

sour wine

into the sink

Eating more

what others make

I think 

love's in it

slakes this grief

 

 

forgotten recipes

mother's crust

father's mush

your love of pumpkin

a  sieved

succotash

over there

on the other side  -

spilt milk,

no dessert

I wish I'd cry more

 

 sun

coffee

a night without mice

 

 

 

 

 after

looks a lot like before

or 

another

I told you so

ukraine

 1

a jar

a stone

a lizard

a bone

 

2

a gate

an orange

lichen

corn

 

3

heat

plane

war

again

 

 

cannibals

Herring gulls pulling

red, red, grey

from a dying pigeon.

Cannibals! I hiss,

stomp them away.

rewind

 

when

eleven 

chimes

at

eleven

after

seven

this

evening

it's

time

to rewind

flâneur

 the sun

arcade (sans arcadia)

noses at the glass (Bilbao, Paris)

 

the moon

feral cat 

book, book banned (Joyce, Flanner, Seuss)

 

 

livraria (bibliophile)

feces feeding weeds (flowering)

available at little or no cost

wander

never 

always 

sometimes

lost

immigrant

22,000 Americans read about Portugal

but only

4,000 immigrate

One more (hybrid, invasive) species added 

to over 200 here.

 

For the most part, well-behaved?

Let's just say we're contained,

exotic.

 

As plants go

we´re few,

mostly gardened in pots

but still

not plastic (sterilised).

 

I assure you

woven plastic rattan

doesn't hold a candle to sea grass,

hyacinth, or weeds seeded from

dung and birds (invasive).

 

O relogio,

stay with us,

through the wind up,

the pitch, the throw.

 

More pots to sow.

 

Know

acacias, agave, ailanthus

aster, fleabane, galinsoga

ipomaea, opuntis, oxalis  

(in February bloom profusion)

pokeweed, knotgrass, cheesewood.

 

 

 

 

 

stress 

annealed

but liquid

strong as water

underscore

drizzle -

zirimiri

kirisame

(霧雨)

chuvisco 

fog

craned

sky cart

the color of rock doves

bottom carp -

river  escarpment.

morning

Morning's

smoke

smudges,

shifts

to 

smell of

salt, yeast.

Ground

scat  -

rabbits,

feral cats.

 

Down on her luck,

plucked up courage,

sung her heart out.

Dry-eyed, not a penny

for anyone like her, 

off-key,

not pretty. 

 

Este é o Barney num passeio

He knows where to go. 

 

Walks past the barking brothers, as a neighbor calms me.

 

uma casca é pior que uma mordidela, vezes dois.

 

Down the cobbled alley,

to the

Shih Tzu at the bottom.

 

Menino ou menina? 

Menino. Está dez e quatro anos.

(Ele tem quatorze anos de idade).

Ele é um pouco tímido.

He knows where to go.

I cannot say it 

searching for words

as we walk along the river.

 

Sou um cão sentado para os meus amigos. 

Muito sinto. 

Tenho um pouco de português.

 

The breaking glass

as we walk up the hill to home. 

 

A calma o meu amigo. 

Nada a temer.

 

He slyly attempts a detour

following the urine trail 

of two unleashed terriers.

 

Não desta forma! 

Eu não sei os cães, 

o seu temperamento.

 

He realises we are going home,

moving a quick clip ahead

instead of slow sniffing.

It's as if  he's more bird than dog.

 

Pombas de tartaruga, pombos, 

uma pega 

partilham o telhado 

de um edifício partido.

 

He ignores the cat glaring at him

from across the narrow street.

Gato preto nas sombras. 

Sorte ou infelicidade?

 

In the walk's final moments

before the gate

as I turn the key,

he and an old man lock eyes.

Oh sim, eu sei para onde vai, e você sabe o mesmo sobre mim!

Oh yes, I know where you are going, and you know the same about me!

 

 

 soft silence of warm

slept deeply

above

a lighted river

woke without

shivering into

another

day

it's overwhelming

starting

over 

 

as though birds 

heard 

my thoughts

 

anxiety, worry

(those whiskered cats!)

try to leap up

and seize them

 

when

all along

without

realizing it

I've been

airborne

 

 

 

 

 

corvo-marinho

mimosa

black

black

yellow

tiller

 tiller rudder oar

no keel

sealed planking

with oakum and resin

low in the water and balanced

spined

saw the sail sewn

flown above 

wind 

river

land

and wondered if this 

boat

kept afloat

could be me

place

cobbled, cut calcete

plumbed streets

facades girdled

iron

stone

delicate tiles of childhood stories 

lost under granite

 

my room has no windows

the stars at night

a skylit pause

mice trafficked walls

cats on the roof  

I am learning to say

Ela prefere andar em espaços abertos

and

As casas antigas são belas cavernas

I am learning the irregular heartbeat

broken boned

calicoed skinned

liminal

of Porto

 creation lessons -

gratitude  has

strange

range

of 

forms

and

norms

sport

thrown 

not kicked

strung

flung

spun

leapt

lapped

landed 

pedaled

pushed

vaulted

shot

got

gap measured

grip checked

as

head over heels

reeled

in

and out

again

 

 

 

 

 two sleep nights

as I dream

of that house

the one

with the sun

this is  the place where

grain trains came

fruit cars

vegetable cabs

here

unloaded,

warehoused 

under a cliff

covered with graffiti

the tracks

a walking path for urbanites

surrounded by 

small plots

free

city gardens 

I watch from across the river

while a few hoe and clear, harvest root vegetables

Someone, can't tell man or woman, stands 

stretches, stares to

where we are 

under the Maria Pia

I think the gaze isn't for us

on this low river trail

but directed up

under the bridge's foot

where a palm-sized quinta,

barn,

a working farm,

remains

Food is expensive, Luis says,

since the trains stopped coming,

the warehouses closed. 

Erechtheion

Ephesus

sculpted

youth

maid

or matron

marbled proof

that women

lift roofs,

annunciate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

eternity 

don't know

though

many

believe so

 

 

between us and Henrietta Lacks

bright unfading colour

that keeps us thrall

though for all we know those outlive our loves, our deaths

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not alone here. I've met aspen seeds and sentient phosphorescence, Henrietta Lacks and the last Neanderthal   

 

 

 

 the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii.

Eukaryotes have a separate membrane bound nucleus, numerous mitochondria and organelles.

cellular, amoebic,

small, transparent animals 

to an earlier stage of their life cycle.

this story should be an homage to a bond between 

Aspen trees 

that don’t reproduce sexually but asexually by essentially cloning. In Colorado there is a stand of Aspen trees that is 80, 000 years old 

between our lives and Henrietta Lacks

bright unfading colour

that keeps us thrall

though all we know has a limit, our lives out loves our deaths

 

 

cat

Ginger tom under a car's carriage glares at me.

He, the bob-tailed calico, is the mouser, I'm sure.

Twin black kittens stalk leaves

while tortoise queen on the wall,

above us all, yawns.

An old woman feeding you tells me 

there are nine in your tribe

points to rousing white cat, tattered ear

and here, a striped tiger tripping down the steps

and over there, where a green-eyed bi-color 

is coming up the hill.

Still one missing, I say.

Where's nine?

We've more than one life,

the old woman grins,

spins round, bound for home, 

tail tied up 

with her apron stings.

dream

I've hurt your arms, bruised them by hitting you.

I'm hitting everything now - the walls, the bed we're in, myself.

You try to stop me.

Now I'm clawing myself, deep red ruts in my skin.

Calm down, you say, calm down.

It's over. I'm dead.

 

 "Do you think the dead really care about our lives?"

"Yes. They do."

A Bronze Age woman, and Jane Austen,

left written records.

We can visit fields where their demolished villages

plat the earth under drones,

show paths where they walked, visited friends,

found moments alone. 

I think of these women, with their egg cups and necklaces,

full households, dances, and admirers, seeking

solitary, a desk, light to write in.

I begin to form an image

separated by centuries but oddly the same -

2 soft-slippered woman, storied intellects, aflame.

 

 

http://historicalfictionresearch.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-hittite-and-mycenaean-women-did.html

https://www.judithstarkston.com/2021/09/10/powerful-bronze-age-women-in-spain/

Ulu et lunellum

You knew

woman, scholar

animals held histories

Made moon knives.

Scraped skin.

Snowbound

saw this

sustenance

above drums

below gods.

mythos gynaikon

 

(Jardim da Sereia) 

 mermaid "the Halfway People of the Mi’kmaq and the Lampeqinuwok of the Maliseet, to the story of Ne Hwas told by the the Passamaquoddy" 

amabie or ningyo? 

In Africa, the most well-known mermaid, the one who is known to a vast array of West and Southern African peoples is Mami Wata or Mamba Muntu, mother of the waters.Yemoja, the water goddess of the Yoruba,

• Yoruba: Yemọja, Iyemọja, Yemọnja, Iyemọnja, Iyemẹja or Yemẹja in some Yorùbá dialect variants^[1]
• Portuguese phonetic spellings of Brazil: Yemanjá, Iemanjá, Janaína, Mãe da Água

 

Pietà

Antigone

sun goddess, moon goddess

Amabie

nem

 The gynaikon was where mothers nursed their children and engaged in spinning thread and weaving (31.11. ... In addition to childbearing, the weaving of fabric and managing the household were the principal responsibilities of a Greek woman.

one one twenty twenty two

Two

twice

thrice,

This year,

a new day,

sunny, globally warmed.

Flies swarm,

disperse.

A ginger tom

dropping from

a stone wall

stares.

 

 

I lose time,

cannot sleep until deep morning.

The rats in the walls wander

like dogs in chains.

A cat on the roof pounces,

an animal squeals

like a rabbit.

There are no rabbits.

worry

My gemstoned anxieties

worn everyday

as pierced earrings,  

ordinary things,

with a "not good enough" gleam. 

                                                                                                                                                       

Words leave my tongue

axially off, wobbled.

 

A broken rib, collar, or rim,

are remnant anger, or hypocrisy, 

held in. 

 

As a woman I must sense

be vigilant 

of all things that define my surroundings.


Why was I "gifted" a candled insight 

that illuminates but never warms, 

a warning, not a companion?

Will I find, too late, 

 I’ve fled

some part of myself 

I might have saved?

 "I'm all alone."

"And who do you think isn't?"

- Hugo and Josefin 1967

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the independence and grace of solitude in urban and rural places. 

To see and meet the world on your own! To me, this is one of the great 

joys in life. For most women, this experience is indeed hard to achieve, 

one we have had to train for mentally, spiritually, and physically in 

a far, far different way than men.

We know also it will be a cyclical battle, one repeatedly fought throughout life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

these  two

renew

2

southern wind

rain

I see your tie

again

3

it never feels like much

such busy

lives

 

 

 

 

Ultimately, where do we want our attention to go?

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

barbed stone tools

 

 Hard-wired lives

we work in tribes

conflicted but resolute.

What we really need

is to ignore more,

live with less.

Rest.

Test the limits of you

who are your own disturber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not easy, this new life.

I've been searching for

3 years reprieve but I'm offered days,

paid one by one.

I'm left a bit unfit from this, and the cold.

A barking dog at night delights me,

as do playground voices of children,

gulls shrieking, animated conversations,

and cars grunting up this hill.

Here's the clank and whine of the iron gate

next to my house that's opened and shut.

What comes next?

I do not know.

Did I ever?

yellow

It turns out that the absence of color makes you more attuned to everything else."

- Olufur Eliasson 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

notes

 

 

 

Binaries of Tikum Olam

or more, with polyphonic overtones.

Sing, Anne Marie.

Bring Eliana's ashes here.

It's twenty-twentyone's end.

Charlemagne Palestine's bejewelled

notes

aren't

alone,

knows

Pauline Oliveros 

has an accordion.

Columba

 pigeon or dove's gone feral

as did jonah

swallowed by wildness

and waterbeasts

both men islands at sea

abecaderian he

altered, zealot,  not

without violence

his learning,

his poems

Iona

there where

refuge and raid met

he set stone to bone and paper

wrote gods and liturgy

into Latin.

This dove of death in life, peace in prayer

there where stones remembered,

a wake and its night soil 

left for the rest of us.

_______________________________________________________________

Altus *prosator, *vetustus
dierum et ingenitus
erat absque origine
primordii et *crepidine
est et erit in sæcula
sæculorum infinita;
cui est unigenitus
Xristus et sanctus spiritus
coæternus in gloria
deitatis perpetua.
Non tres deos *depropimus
sed unum Deum dicimus,
salva fide in personis
tribus gloriosissimis.

High creator, Ancient
of Days, and unbegotten,
who was without origin
at the beginning and foundation,
who was and shall be in infinite
ages of ages;
to whom was only begotten
Christ, and the Holy Ghost,
co-eternal in the everlasting
glory of Godhood.
We do not propose three gods,
but we speak of one God,
saving faith in three
most glorious Persons.

Ocula

 

cauterize

 

tetramorph

 

 sister's grandson 

upside down 

tells 

me 

he 

loves 

me

daddy too

we 

few 

who

remain

far

the little lonely

creeping

preventing me from sleeping

mother, father

I return to you  

what is yours

 

 

 

Homer's

dead -

dark path

dark river

an owl

 

 

takes longer to recover

from what's said

when you're led

to translate

everything

even english

your tongue

among strangers

and friends.

losing the skin

to begin

to understand

 

papagaia (the parakeet)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papagaias?

Não, senhora pombos. Porto não tem papagaios.

Ele ergue os olhos.

Não papagaios, senhora. Apenas pássaros estranhos que eu não conheço.

Não papagaios?

Não papagaios .

found prose poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

remember

trembling

 

 

 

teasel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

housekeeper

who sweeps

with slender arms

through the night 

 

 

a

warbler

rose 

over those 

eucalyptus

seeds

ripening

in 

the

weeds

 

 

 

salt

Was it an r, full sailed,

or an m sinking below the waves?

Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru, cover continents with eyes, ears, and mouths. 

 

Salt at the door. What for?

 

Where is that word for something? Anorexic recall.

 

Ondol, onsen, earth and water. 

On a warm floor, dreams remain, and sleep keeps them company.

Steaming pools admit fugitives, drown downed ares and ems .

 

saw in the mind, this bluntness of date -

 

1543 - when three sailors were blown off course.

The fourth, Shizaru Xavier, arrives,

survives as a worn stone and shadows.

 

You go first. No, algo.

 

Mallows brought on ships, and other seeds of weed.

Thirty-three weeds, 

seeds growing where they're unwanted.

Unzen admonishment.

 

Sizaru Xavier earlier, instead, dead

on Shangchuan. 

 

なにか.

 

Waves separating us. Divisions of sounds,

salt surrounding homes, and fish.

Dishes of salt

turn to seas in the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

António Mota, Francisco Zeimoto and António Peixoto 

(also presumably Fernão Mendes Pinto)

 

 

 

Soseki translated by Merwin and Shigematsu

(random selection on a cold moring)

Pine Shade

 A hedge

of a thousand trees

standing in the cold

The green haze so deep and dense

it keeps out the light

Don't blame me 

for staying alone

with my door shut

The guidepost

always stood open

for anyone who passed

 

 

 1

Spent camellias 

and five lichens

2

 persimmons

and

Araujia sericifera, 

cruel vine, 

moth plant, 

bladderflower

 

3

cool rooms

common mallow

goosefoot

 

4

black mustard

rosemary

fennel

 

5

marigold 

fields

a dusky dog

6

Flax-leaves 

daphne

yellow fleabane 

7

soon

Field Fumitory

Fumaria agraria

Fumária dos campos

8

now

Common Morning Glory

Ipomoea indica

Glória da manhã

9

autumn squill

(Cila de outubro)

spindled groundsel

10

Black Nightshade

Solanum nigrum

Erva moira

year round

11

and

Corn Spurrey

Spergula arvensis

Cassamelo

12

saw 

navelwort

(out of season)