Muito ventoso no meu coração

o meu coração 

que é um muro de musgo e concha

uma parede abalada pelo vento e pelos sonhos

 __________________________________________

 

Very windy in my heart
my heart that is a wall of moss and shell
a wall shaken by wind and dreams

 

here

at the edge 

of the Taklamakan

not much 

as yet untouched

 

1

Cuthbert

up to his neck 

in a spring

and the acolyte

of Tadao,

under

the waterfall,

both cold,

told themselves

desire had fled.

Instead,

Cuthbert

licked dry by otters,

and the acolyte,

his skin 

dog nuzzled,

were puzzled to find

their bodies aware.

There are ways

one remains insoluble. 

2

In Carpaccio's 1495 painting,

Cormorants Hunting in the Lagoon,

two fish lie gutted in a boat.

Lilies on the edge,

birds among men,

then the sense of tide,

and sun.

 

3

A reindeer's hide,

with hooves, brings meat.

Seated hearthside, we sing songs,

transport color.

Underground round

how much is buried

down there

other questions lurking

in cracked corners

inside structures

shale bracelet

Pan flanged vessel

understanding

fugou

you try to understand what 

is so small

so 

then

this surprise

a simple cooking vessel

and then Romans 

elephants

tribal tin

pythean

wide

countering

insularity

 1/5 of iron age population 

in britain 

not from europe

total depth

of diversity?

grain production

axes

portable cleanliness

of artifacts

stone

quern

coin

axe

 

 

spider

spider

void

 

too many too much

 

a circularity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One year here.

 

I watch the camelias bloom again, 

and sorrel opening in the rain 

as the roosters and hens continue rooting under wet duff.

 

There is enough garbage slippage near the Douro to murder a whale.

 

The homeless have been moved.

 

One guy now camps inside a battered garden shed, 

another nests himself at a tipping point

on saturated ground that will kill him if it fails.

 

I wonder if he worries at all about that.

 

A rat has crept out of the rain,

crouched under a dry ledge at the busy bus stop. 

No one gives it the slightest notice.

 

Worms flooded to surface rise from under sorrel.

Drenched camelias bloom.

 

Blooms as brown as the rat lie shivering in the rain bogged dirt.

All this is ordinary, 

as ordinary as the garden warbler 

that greets me here

high above the earth, 

on the roof where I live.

The warbler suddenly flits off,

remembering to be elusive.

 

Perhaps it's met the rat, or the men below, who have told it how 

it is best now

among us

to remain invisible.

	Dec 4,  1:38 PM  (3 days ago)

1

Drawn to one life and not another

 

2

Seascape shaping the morning mind -

kinds of blue,

and raptors

 

3

Aspects of vegetation -

gutter weed,

seeds of alyssum

stonecrop

freesia buds peering into the cold

 

4

Ryokan

Dōgen

or

Kamo-no-Chomei 

it's clear

they wouldn't sneer

at my American mind

5

Robert Adamson

Juno Gemes

rare birds

in love

6

An aspect of animal

shivering rat in the rain

learning it should pain me

 

7

Husband comes in dreams again

lets me go

so I know

hurting

there's love still

in nothing

 

8

Eggs and peas

pleasing

winter breakfast

new life and green

 

 

 

 

 

 1

her mother died 7 times

 

2

lizard in a plastic pot

got help getting out

 

3

swift

swift

swallow

always, always gulls

 

4

cloud cover

sun

plants up here

have begun to

rebloom

soon

the cyclamen

 

5

no you are not like us

more loess

less

talk

 

6

I have been thinking 

days without drinking

these have made me 

this

7

will there be a record

of the women

children 

dogs

who did this

lived 

where

some have begun

the erasure again

when

does it end?

 

 

 

a  honk, 

the signaling of brakelines

the way

a workday begins.

Looking West, Vilar de Andorinho

2

Slate grey underneath and over dove's white slant.

Cant of slightly darkening clouds

resolves into cumuli.

Linear pink thinks it's sun, but fooled,

blanches.

Branches of upper cloud have been caught

by a heavy bird, a shadow pelican, that

washes darker aloft , and disappears.

 

 

 

 

far off

one white sail

then two

three, four

more than I imagined

right there

where the slurred sea

meets my

sky high sight

Storms are greening the pohutukawas.

Nearby dogs howl into the wind.

Dad said grasses lasted longer tempered by fire.

Strong winds like fires consume things,

rip and tear until there's nothing whole there.

 

This is where I stop for a moment,

to watch as a small bird blown into 

a small tree frees itself

just as two gulls swoop to snatch it.

 

Monocultures -

fish

eggs

cereals

fruit.

Historically,

monocrops are

cyclically

ascendant,

grown not 

to feed you,

or for the poor,

but for more power.

It is possible

the idea of one

dominant food

has inherently 

destructed

too many

cultures

to count.

You read 

we feed millions now

on

12 species of plants,

5 species of animals.

 

 

 

 

I slept 4 hours

but found

paper transparent 

a clear fountain

and rag

milled

matte that 

give text and image 

a life

process (print 1)

 insipid

forgotten

in the craft of

but not jejune

or yes, perhaps

I wanted watery and weak, washed out

reading 

insubstantial

rather than 

strong

because

all along

I knew

layers

need to leak through

color (dawn)

remember east light

at

eight in the morning

an over awning of light

not bright still moonlit north

goes forth into day

as payne's grey

and hansa

This week I have tried to give myself the gift of time without doing, time to strengthen those things and thoughts not yet ready to leave me. 

It's a challenge to think without a stated purpose. Daydreaming streams. Letting go of the inner prose and watching new words slip through the brain's net. This a nexus I need.

If I want a sense of forward, I can return to learning languages. I literally need them to store more, as I seek or retrieve new  words

_____________________________________________

 

The morning fog has helped me understand land.

I fret over garden growth, giving plants places to thrive. I've got to get more clay pots, breathable skin for new beginnings.

_________________________________________________

 

Some days I move from desk to terrace like a sonambulist,  other days  I stay with words like a hungry  hunting bird. 

The next step is to let my life leak into more of my fiction.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Rosemary leaves spotted yellow

tell all in plangency

as in too a harp of dark woad

disappearing

into the sea 

near you

is a niche and cranny fortune

your love of

salt air may save save you

as the trees burn.

wildlife

 I kept the bedroom light on

a few extra hours

because of the lizard in the kitchen

not the

centipede in the sala

or the spider in the studio 

I will not kill them

_______________________________________________

they are birds heard 

but not seen

swift

gull 

jay

and

away to the west 

a kestrel

its wings released from the fog

____________________________________________________

wildlife in gaia -

the binturong bundled,

with introductions of

mongoose

genet

infertile polecats

eyes asleep

know now

the blows that

broke the boughs

that brought them here

________________________________________________________________

as

summer

leaves

fall

as

each

one

exhausted

cold

creeps 

into

my 

sleep

plant medicine 1

Every new life brought in draws attention. 

The purpling rosemary requires nursing, calm, a shadow to recover in. I wash dirt and mould from its boughs and branches. I disinfect cuts, clear webs and egg sacs, pluck, caress, water gently. Overnight I see the maroon needles lifting at their roots to green.  This is the work of hours, of love and shadows.

I don't know if the maple will survive the winter. I've trimmed and transplanted it into clay, added better soil, cooed over a single new shoot.  I've read maple messages from Murcia and California. These have made me optimistic. I am going to ensure this tiny acer,  bald and twiggy, has her chance to thrive.

Roots of scalded pohutukawa seek the surface after too many small waterings. Anxiety does grow, you know, and here a tree has caught my nerve and swerved upward to accept it. Now the work of mulch and stones! The need to leave the tree alone!

The mint on the terrace is a wayward child, dropping leaves like stolen buns, preferring the independence of clear water to damp soil. I lesson it as it lessons me. We each prepare to let the other go.  Yet I know mint would love it here if we gave each other a chance.

 

 

written from what you know 

have experienced

use tthose forms for the next stories

days without words

or with too many

 

I long for

one word, a brush of color, a small sung note

 

 

the sweet rightness of one

 

------------------------------------------------------------

one hundred refusals

nothing chocolate about rejection

 

_________________________________________

 

minhas vizinhas -

Portuguese women

who in

middle-age

have become

tree trunks with shoes

their bared neccessities

give me the blues

 

they grunt uphill

dodder down steep stairs 

bags full of meat and gossip

 

 _______________________________________ 

 

play fugues and arias

sip tea

 

 

two harriers

(falção) 

hovering

upwind from

a dead gutted cat

or there

where a 

pigeon's body

 plumped

from being shook

lies near

toadflax, fleabane, 

umbrella milkwort 

along this carnage path

one thought I can't get past -

it was an owl.

critical mass

 1

In her envy of space, light, 

lies

an absence of gratitude.

2

She mocks my towels

for lack of

luxury.

3

He left a half year silence,

returned, 

now half concerned 

he'd hurt her. 

He had.

4

They

told her to grow up.

She grew them out of

her life.

5

We are hyphenating ourselves to death. 

6

There are many senhora and senhoras

but very few samas here.

7

 

 

 

 

 

Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Palm Tree Weevil (invasive)

Yesterday,

this visitor,

a weevil that

destroys palms,

landed on my terrace.

With no qualms,

I handed her back to the sky.

Would I have

been so kind

if had known?

I spend hours 

massaging my brain 

with pictures of outdoor tables.

I want something 

simple and durable, a spare design.

I know now that 6 people

need at least 135cms,

but 150, 200 cms are best.

In tests,

the strongest table material is iron, 

heavy against the wind, 

though wood and steel might do.

You don't want aluminum or plastic, which can easily fly,

at eight stories high, and so become deadly.

I thought about what cannot be left out without protection, 

must be covered from the rain and salt air.

Dirt too, from the subway site below,

blights everything up here with ochre dust.

But principally, after days of looking,

I realise I must consider time, 

which wisely suggests

that I have patience,

wait.

This is the sound after rain -

the burr sanded smooth, 

the pounding

that hides my confusion.

Then, when it stops, 

the placing of directions,

none of them easily understood.

 

I fell and skinned my knee like a child. 

Old men without teeth laugh 

and speak about me

in three languages. 

They have lived

their lives placing dirt and stone before bone.

They are easily understood.

I am warned to be silent here, wear rings, speak little.

 

 east

jupiter closest in 70 years

early morning, Vilar do Andorinho

Southeast,

grey lays between 

trees, hills 

smudged cold underneath

while white strides

skyward and

west

where

a red lit liminal 

heads 

true

north, radiant, into brilliance

last words

for fools 

that said enough

though those silenced

haven't the luxury of this

 

think once 

then again

send notes 

in a line

to the brain

figure 

a reasoned course

 

the deaf church 

next door

was a calmer world

my quiet mother

liked to sit 

Sundays alone

on our back porch

drink coffee

watch 

parishioner hands

greet and talk

in the  parking lot 

after service

history

1

Foot-in-Boot  (cat)

blood on the floor (cats) 

surrounded by

touch, too much touch

(wolves)

 2

babysitting political opposition

when the hit men come (dogs)*

you must run with the children

3

babysitting when men (bears)*

again and again

ask for you

4

I'm laughing

because

girls like me (chicks)

weren't supposed to know

about the absurd

 

 

 

*Stalin's dogs

*peo (fart) bears

 

 

 

 Her surface tension?

It is a laugh that relieves the terror of his screams and blows.

 She knows about untethered.

Rising, the girl blurts out

Dinosaurs have feathers, will be birds someday.

 

 

At eight rape

and cursive

names

What were their names?

Your legacy even then

held an omen of

mutual forgetfulness.

 

You loved others.

I wasn't first or last.

I knew that.

 

I can't remember their names.

I got lost, so lost

took rash advice

left myself 

came back angry

empty.

 

I can't cut anymore

said the doctor

after this, it's all coming out. 

 

I closed up shop,

 

cried for so many things 

but none of them helped.

 

I stopped crying. Just stopped.

 

Then, solitary,

I began to move

through the world.

That worked, is working

more than anything else.

 

I cannot remember their names.

And that's such a joy.

 

 Sleep

keeps

thoughts

alive

you thrive

 

 

heart sutra

hands

too many sounds

too much

too much

too much

 

 

 

a vontade de viver

1

A vontade de viver

Eu vou viver 

Eu próprio irei viver

Eu mesmo viverei

Eu vivo sozinho

Eu vivo para a vontade de viver

Viverei se tiver a vontade?

2

Aqui estão as suas mentiras
pessoas honestas que você é
aqui está o meu silêncio

o meu silêncio é alto
o seu silêncio mais alto

agora
neste silêncio
estamos ambos a dizer a verdade

3

Ontem à noite o meu lagarto Ryu
correr de um lado para o outro na sala
pés minúsculos ao contrário de um rato
protector da minha casa
nas horas escuras
ainda com a sua patrulha
não consegui dormir até ao amanhecer

esta manhã ela está escondida

Estou sozinho com as aves

 

1

The will to live

I will live

I will live myself

I'll live myself

I live alone

I live for the will to live

I will live if I have the will?

2

Here are your lies
honest people you are
here is my silence

my silence is loud
your silence louder

now
in this silence
we are both telling the truth

3

Last night my lizard Ryu
running around the room
tiny feet unlike a mouse
protector of my home
in the dark hours
still with his patrol
I couldn't sleep until dawn

this morning she's hiding

I am alone with the birds

uma vespa
um gato
um teste
de testamentos

 

a wasp

a cat

a test

of wills

uma mentira
uma mentira
cresce cada vez mais
e engole
que pouca boa vontade
ainda é deixado
um lago de mentiras!
Um mar!

_____________________

a lie
a lie
grows ever larger
and swallows
what little good will
is still left
a lake of lies!
A sea!

 

 

notes

remember 

1

the severed foot

the river snag

the sierra shale

 

remember

2

intangibles

the two men

who were going to rob you

interrupted by

the gun

in the garden

shots fired randomly

breaking glass, damaging brick

 

recent

3

a carpet of dead cockroaches (clean)

broken plumbing (fixed flow)

roof tiles lifting in the rain (mortared)

 

recent

 

4

renters (spent not saved)

whine, wrangle 

assume 

resist fairness (more is never enough)

 

recent

 

5

assume

you need

someone or thing

bring the wrong thing

to your heart's

equation

 

present

 

6

a gift

an introduction

and all that

remains

 

7

to remember

recently

present

is what remains

in the brain

 

 

 

 

 

 

`

 

 1:40

above taurus

uranus

pleiades near the bull's bile

mars upon a horn

beside the moon

below

is bellatrix

al nilam

rigel

orion's stars

east

of the great bear

 this morning 

saw a swift sitting

on my terrace rail

first time I've seen 

a swift

not uplifted 

by the air

last night

a delight

friends

excellent

art

and places

where living

has been embraced

afterward

I walk an incline 

down to the metro

past teens teasing one another

enter a cave of a station

with tired clerks and backpackers

at trinidade 

I change

to the yellow line

find 

I'll wait for the bus

because my bones

ache from hours of Porto walking

my Gaia neighborhood's dark, dark

stepping carefully through debris

finding street lamps blinding the final meters

shielding my eyes from them

the neighbors I've asked to stay away laugh loudly 

as they

come closer 

returning too

from a night out

I enter the lift

the laughing neighbors

shift their gaiety to rooms below me

I remain happy in our distance

happy they are happy

and I am happy too

you find those you 

have meaning with

you find

a quiet darkness and a brightness 

that both unblind you

make you open and generous

when you are with friends

1

stratocumulus

nimbostratus 

sun's begun 

to break through 

2

follow the sea

look north

but it's possible to 

look south

follow the sea up

to Irwell's mouth,

the Mersey,

or find it

higher

springing

from 

Deerplay Moor

3

clear mind takes time

4

west 

Bootes 

Arcturus

south

Mirfak

and Perseus

east

Jupiter

north

Lynx

5

thoughts coming and going:

 

The anxiety I feel in groups of people will be tested tonight.

I've sat long enough to see the sky blanch, and brighten to blue,

watch a tree I see everyday sway in slight wind.

The less I have, the more I see.

Empty space, grace,

my small towels drying quickly.

 

I love being alone, no songs, just the wind.

 

 

 

 

 

 1

falling asleep

dreaming of the Taklamakan

While most researchers agree on makan being the Persian word for "place", etymology of Takla is less clear. The word may be an Uyghur borrowing of the Persian tark, "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan.^[1][2] Another plausible explanation suggests it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, describing "the place of ruins".^[3][4] Chinese scholars Wang Guowei and Huang Wenbi linked the name to the Tocharians, a historical people of the Tarim Basin, making the meaning of "Taklamakan" similar to "Tocharistan".^[5] According to Uyghur scholar Turdi Mettursun Kara, the name Taklamakan comes from the expression Terk-i Mekan. The name is first mentioned as Terk-i Makan (ترك مكان / trk mkan) in the book called Tevarih-i Muskiyun, which was written in 1867 in the Hotan Prefecture of Xinjiang.^[6]

In folk etymology, it is said to mean "Place of No Return" or "get in and you'll never get out".^{[7][8][9][10]}

 

a few things and thoughts, rain for two days

 1

rain changes direction and intensity

yesterday furious

last night 

drops thick and humming like locusts

this morning

the rain awake

remembers something, forgets something else

creating

rounds of wet sounds 

wailing up and quieting down for hours

 

2

tiny lizard tangled in my hair

found near the bed, dead.

Placed him outside - a wide, wet funeral

 

3

my homeostasis

less

and less

until blessed with

loss or balance

 

4

my incomplete portrait -

(age-related )

increased risk of wet leaks*

or absorbing too much of life**

 

5

gulls flying in rain

again

and again

staying in

for two days

testing the terrace's wind -

though dirt blown,

nothing's flown away

 

6

the repitition of language

in numbers

on paper

in sound

 

7

what wake my life

will leave behind

is blindly just this,

moving toward

nothing, 

but an hour

and an our

that awaits us all

 

 *macular degeneration

**  hereditary hemochromatosis (HFE-related), elevated creatinine levels

   

Trying to find good paper and old typeset

routing through foxed books

in a cellar

where a tail disappears into shadow,

and letterpress becomes offset

by the darkness

Even from 5 kms west I see whitecaps 

a winged something blown off-course

Little shelter

on this roof

for an old dog

 

The wind that surrounds

the roof

goes through the dog

makes daily sounds

birdish

accompaniments

to her wobbly processional

 

The four months I've lived here, the dog herself has never uttered a sound.

I coax her close, stroke her bony nose, give treats.

Tonight, stumbling into

my hands I stand her,

feel her warmth, under

fur the color of a thin fire. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

what could

where would

 

why should

 

2

aim

less

name

less

 

3

three

you 

me

we

 

4

or

more

 

 

 

 

 

Herring gulls

A gull up here is

clearly immature.

All eyes,

cries come

from a big-boned beak. 

I seek proof of

his lineage.

Pink legged,

he walks around this ledge eight stories up 

as if he owned the place.

I almost believe him,

though swifts race by, unimpressed. 

He and I have guessed wrong,

hold misplaced assumptions.

My bold friend,

know

less fish now

so studies show

herring gull numbers too are low.

 

My mother's mouth is mine

grinding teeth in sleep

deep dreams

worn canines

 

Will I

become

sponge-hipped

slip into death

like her, alone

all broken bones?

 

Alone, yes

all cursed or blessed with this.

But I'll go boned stronger,

no Parkinson's

live longer.

 

 

 

 

who is to lose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

erasing my own history

power in that -

a legacy that doesn't outlast 

my memory

or

let go of the outcome

this unequal teeter

between

wealth and bad teeth

between who is

telling your story

I am not impressed by power.

My high school gives the wrong graduation date.

My gallery has the wrong year and

what place on earth I was born to.

I cannot erase their mistakes.

They can insist upon these.

But

they cannot erase my grandmother's knees

or the piece of swamp in my heart.

They cannot erase the muskrat, beaver kit, surprised stoat, motes of fresh water between

me and the present.

I could. 

I could wipe it all away and stay here without it. 

If I so chose.

 

talks about minimal but

rewards reaped in full

still

you'll try to find empty 

try just enough

and leave this sieve in place

1

if not hope (full) (less)

youth (ful) (less)

or age (d) (less)

 

2

After stars, sleep.

deep dream (s) (less)

rest (ful) (less)

 

3

if not eye (d) (less)

if not youth (ful) (less)

age (d) (less)

 

 

 

 

 

 night sky

vega

zeta hercules

aldebaran

landscape of sea

trees

a dog barks

hammers

out

warning

 

To the east

bright

moon 

waning gibbous

and Mars

near

Aldebaran 

t r a u m a t i s t

Degrees of truth

Memory is not truth

Observe 

Choose

Feed

Lose

hungry ghosts

stories

without end

 swifts so busy and talkative this morning

smarty pants, working class

reading Greek and Latin

put class to bed

got shot in the head

another one dead

the rich man said

I think it's becoming a pattern

- dedicated to director George Romero

 

 

 

tree of heaven

norfolk pine

seven eleven

five and dime

(continuing)

Introduced

 

Araucaria heterophylla 

Araucaria da ilha de Norfolk

Norfolk Island pine, an ancient tree

conical conifer not a true pine

dined on by dinosaurs

(Jurassic to Cretaceous)

It is a wood made into bowls and  crucifixes

 

Introduced

 

Ailanthus altissisima

Tree of Heaven, Chinese sumac

(can be confused with black walnut)

In Portugal it has an invasive score of 20

Allelopathic,

limiting the growth of other species,

it is a medicinal plant used in folk remedies

(diarrhea, asthma, cramps, epilepsy, fast heart rate, gonorrhea)

It remains unsupported by western medicine

Planted in city wastelands,  it tolerates pollution, breaks down cement for its lime.

 

Also

 

Ipomea indica

glória da manhã 

is a laxative and headache remedy used in Mesoamerica and Asia,

that flushes hillsides, ruins gardens, loves old stone walls.

left behind

 

Galinsoga Parviflora is an ugly plant, leggy and awkward.

("Fresh leaves and juice of GP have been used in folk medicine throughout the world to treat dermatological disorders including eczema, lichen, and non-healing and/or bleeding wounds.")

 

left behind

 

Datura is beautiful, helpful but deadly. I confuse with brugmansia, the angel´s trumpet, and also toxic.

 

continuing

 

Who or what shoe brought broom here, another useful but dangerous weed?

 

 

 

 andromeda

pegasus

pisces under the horizon

aquarius

east

 

west

virgo 

lying down

over the  sea

 

Altair above

below the moon, saturn

(capricornus) and

microscopium

 

North,

and perseus

 

 

It is not uncommon for survivors of abuse to favor the peripatetic.

Do they find peace in roaming the world? 

Are they freed physically from the weight and entanglement of site-specific memory?

 

I am fascinated by stones, their geologic nightmares and dreams.

I imagine streams of stones, also survivors, flushed from melting glaciers.

 

Where are they now, those souls, those stones?

 

Erratic behaviors.

 

Clocha an fhile

poet's stones

 

Damaged souls seek each other,

build refuges 

in stony rooks and nooks. 

 

Their rock-worn poems?

 

In runes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Swifts so talkative up here in the fog.

Deep inside,  pain

never goes away.

Boys are burning on sofas

or hitting their heads

in shallow watery quarries.

Small girls open like broken blossoms -

one killed herself because of you, 

I'm certain of it.

Tigers are increasing in Nepal.

Flame colored,

one swims a river,

strikes grass gatherers,

kills a mother, brother, daughter.

 

Still

wondering if killing

is in our bones.

Will a man

ever

begin

to turn upon himself

from within,

try to rinse out sins

like a child's

blood spotted cloth,

or become a moth aflame,

find a waterborne accident?

 

I was thinking about these deaths and injuries this morning.

 

I realized I don't wish 

human predators dead,

but burning,

sinking,

terrorizing dreams

instead.

 

 

small seen things - a record

1

An Iberian 

(wall lizard)

roams between the studio and terrace.

2

A street poet

reads Camus 

opens

my world again 

 

3

August

haze wrapping

sounds of

children

playing

 

3

This bird in air or 

another there 

on the terrace

where an old gold dog

flanks like bamboo

lives out her thin life

 

4

Blessed

by fog

and sleep -

rest!

 

5

Leaves 

collect

water from the night air

eight stories up 

6

Beyond the rail

white

and possibilities

7

Shouting last night

same fight

husband and wife have

anywhere

wages are stolen 

8 

more cool weather

happy for my nest

 

 

Tarim desert burial boats

 

A girl buried with a bird's head in her mouth

 the dead girl with the head

of a finch in her mouth

a cave for the Karelian

a forest child

with the soul bird

sielulintu

 

finch chick mouth 

rimmed and spotted with light

mother's tongue runway

 

the dead girl's arrested growth

opens into nothing

unfledged

 

what voice

heard by a bird

to lose its head

to a dead girl

in a cave

 

 

 

 

https://www.audubon.org/news/whats-weird-mouths-these-finch-chicks

betrayal

A friend's betrayal

though long ago 

kept me awake

last night.

His mistakes

remind me of my own.

How cruel

it is

to hold

past wrongs

so tightly.

Those betrayals, 

even what inspired them,

have left us.

Now that 

we're old

those cold and

terrible

things we did -

words, deeds

sources of past pain

why not let them go?

 

 nothing grew as I expected

the lavender and mint expanded

but the sage

flew away like a white-winged bird

Avocado seeds calcified

brittle boned, algic

basil seedlings rooted quickly in water

grew sturdy as trees

These

familiar plants

here

in altered seasons,

longer than the north

I am

beginning to sense 

how little I know about how or

why things things grow

 

I observe sorrel leaves closing at dusk

to meet me opening mid-morning

So many plants under the earth

yet to grow

hidden like ghosts

 

 wu lou

facing

northeast

the e y (for Bob G. and Saroyan)

inside, waterlogged, bent

he sent this poem

which

offered

me

a sister's eyeye

close

and loved

but he,

I

imagined

e

y

1

A sooty gull

A weathered hull

An empty beach

 

Dusk 

 

2

Deep heat seeps 

into everything marine,

as if even

the sea wants to burn 

itself pure again.

 

3

I lay in bed unable to write,

a cool damp towel upon my chest.

Here above the water

I've sprinkled dry plant soil with cinnamon,

see it caught in the finest nets.

Poor thirsty spiders!

 

4

I go out 

onto 

the terrace

into 

the grey evening air

where,

stooping,

I scrape dry soil 

from the roof's 

rain troughs, 

hope.

 

 

 

 one swift

flying in the fog

hungry ghosts

I pass

ninety days

in an ango,

enclosed

within my rainy season's soul

as hydrangea open blue cold in the heat.

Then again

I spend nine hours,

a novena,

reciting 

Maria plena

to understand kindness.

It's the dry season now,

in Japan and Portugal,

full of fires

and pilgrimage.

Later, in autumn, I may ask to join Segaki

or an All Souls feast.

Offering food,

I understand ghosts want to see me eat, meet me in my body,

observe, regret, rant.

Afterward, ghosts retreat.

I try to step back, but can't.

I remember the cold blue blooms in rain- soaked June,

Too soon they dry and die.

During my novena

I pick milkweed bursting like stars for the dead

as

Molded sugar bones melt into early clouds of snow.

The ghosts met here will come again, or send others,

when another season turns.

No matter how much I pray,  

the dead never stay away,

remain hungry.

 

Notes on ほうじょうき

 

Hōjōki

 

 Finished first reading today

may need several

returning like a bird to words

 

 

 

Kudzu arrowroot cloth and Chomei's Hojoki

“When there is something to be done,
employ your body.
It is hard, yet simpler
than using someone else,
and being obliged.
When you need to go somewhere
use your feet.
This too is hard, but not as hard
as worrying about horse and saddle,
ox and cart.
Now, I divide my body
and I give it twofold purpose.
My hands are my servants,
my legs my carriage.
This suits me well.”

Excerpt From
Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World (Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature)
Chomei, Kamo no
This material may be protected by copyright.

 

Dividing the days

peace

a place to listen 

 

“A place of beauty
has no owner.
So there is nothing
to spoil the pleasure.”

Excerpt From
Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World (Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature)
Chomei, Kamo no
This material may be protected by copyright.

A beautiful prayer too or a poem, the lyrics of the birds

words without end

live within

and cannot be erased

or stolen

 overtime isn't paid anymore

afterhours get pitted and patched

no match for sore muscles

receipts unable to be issued

tissue or water to cleanse

reserved for who?

not you, or you

bowing -  to bend, to kneel

is sending unheard

wordless offering from

those least able to afford it

the rich usually switch it all off

as if

receiving prayers depended on them

unacknowledged who?

I think you know it's not you

it never was

because what you wanted and what you are

represent the scars that scare them

Lifting the light wardrobe up.The inside pine emptiness, waiting for washed and folded, hung clothes.

The mind at ease, pleased with openness.

Discarded cardboard now brought to the bin, nudged in between an old wicker basket, grey plastic bags of kitchen waste.

I follow the taste of cold wine, after giving gifts of salt and bread, into a conversation, and out of an end to conversation.

Rising, passing the pine wardrobe, the bin. Leaning in to listen to the elevator's descent.

Bent-stemmed red gerbera, geraniums are outside. I walk through sand, see a man standing, looking up. Laundry is drying at open windows. Too much is stuffed into another bin. A broken sack of used clothes spills onto the street.

At night, I sneak recyclables into the trash, study catalogs, order online. This night I watch the sky slide blue to black.

Back and forth, between the old and the new, fly owls, and scurry mice. Fish test the depths of fresh water mixed with salt. 

At sunrise, you recall the smell of old pine, and an old man, alone on his rooftop, tossing bread to gulls.

 

 

 random thoughts

divided states of embarrassment

sleeping stories (quiet)

stepping stones

 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 within 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 shuttle,  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

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.