30/30 Four Twenty

The bandage is bleeding
These wounds of democracy

Someone always thinks
They can do it better

30/30 four twenty-four

It started with
a pale blue dot
the letter o
the shape your mouth
makes when you're
surprised, in awe
the orifice, a nipple
the aureola, the shape
of the womb, an egg
(some eggs) cookery
yolks, the center
of a target
street lights red, yellow, green
the insides of flowers
pollen, the iris
a blink, the sun
the perfect earth
the moon the moon
who knows a rain drop
a freckle, a pimple
your cyst, wort, ingrown hair
the dimple
the nail head and hammer
a doorbell the knob
the parts where a strainer empties
maybe the clock
the time 8:00

30/30 four twenty-eight

The river;
It can be damned
polluted, dried up, directed
And we are the stones
scrapping the bottom
of its path.

30/30 four eighteen

Its a lonely city
filling in holes
the buildings are phallic
light pollution
so much dumping
at my feet
I kick it a long
a couple blocks
then get on the bus
to the post office
send directions home
to my apartment
where i feel
more blue more deep
than the Willamette river
eroding shores
humanity is as bland
as the desert
a wasteland

Your apocalypse
is my vacation
i'm bigger then
King Kong
the Big Pink
has a cock ring on
and I sit right down
itching my pubes
with the rubbing
one or two flutter
down on the city

What are we here for
if not to make
changes to disrupt
the silence, sing and
fart and leap
off buildings
make up superheros
because the truth is
our significance
and attraction
all prescribed

Society has decided
what kind of woman
I am

30/30 four sixteen

Meeting with friends
dedication to time
to people who can hurt
but who understand
who also love
having something sweet
for a release
its just dessert
its just delicious
hardness of candy
moist wrappers the unwrapping
sticky
nails, teeth, tongue
sloppy
I wonder about the masturbation
hall where all our dirty
thoughts knock on doors

30/30 four ten

My father

in his swim trunks

on his birthday

takes a breath

a stroke

-unlike Sarahs father had-

that only strengthens

the body

I cling to his longevity

he wonders

how much more bored

he will become

I know there is no end

30/30 four nine

someone tells you
you need to be told
you look nice
the weather is quaint
this is when
it all changes
lets make up more
words to express
happiness
while the cats
stay inside
meaningless conversations
with customers

30/30 four eight

All you can do
is brew evil
i wouldn't have cared
otherwise
otherwise i cared
lets not make mistakes
or give shits
about other people
about their problems
their distaste
for their jobs
what else is my life
but folding t-shirts

Lets make the crooked lines
connect angry holes
orchards of smelly
thoughts perking
to the weather
the way bees
whisper makes me
self concious
i know i've done
something to uproot
your, solitary, shivering
under mushroooming winter
you are causing
global warming

I care about your safety
i can't promise you
once the weather
gets better
it will change
rain is everywhere
its in your sweat

30/30 Four five

Its noon
I walk to the L
Bills diner
that Motel
all so familiar
but not my
memory yet
the flags
on bodega
storefront
release themselves
let down a string
to me
we are blown
to a nowhere
beach town
in Oregon
I can hear Tilly
barking
at the kites

30/30 four four

[This is a poem I wrote on February 11th, 2014]

(Is that cheating?) 

I don’t want India to change

I want to tell you this

While you stand in front

Of a mirror

Pulling and poking at your

Puffed flaked landscape

Tell you (like a boyfriend)

That if it were up to me

“I wouldn’t change a thing”

and you’d believe me

because it wasn’t your mother

saying it

30/30 four three

the Lighthouse

The way there
close eyes
board an Athena Air
flight to Athens
say my prayers to Zeus

Get on the metro
to the port
observing the locals
no need for a ticket

Ah, there she is
board Blue Star Ferry
get coffee
thats mostly milk &
sugar, sit on deck

When my island
opens its arms
hugs the boat in
I hand my luggage
to Jimmy whose waiting
or Kostas or Katerina

Take off my shoes
walk by shy waters
edge mostly sand
then rocky path
houses and stairs
more beach
the shrubs catch
ankles and the stone church

I feel like I am going
backwards in time
chasing sunset

At the lighthouse
I feel the powerful
spray of ocean
slapping against rock
and melt with the sun
into the horizon

under standing

30/30 four two

 Poetry Project (Atel tribute)
"there are too many people for anyone to be needed"

Stacy Szymaszek reading
ants on the churches
wooden floorboards
gravitate towards  
the cracks

to wish you were
to know you are

the shadow
the footprint
and also the dirt
under the shoe

30/30 four one

One poem a day
two slacks
day job
the scissors we swallow
rubber band hands
can't let go of anything
jarred fears
to end it all
the campaign:

An Island
An MFA program
A ride in an unknown place

I quit my job
I quit my job
I spat in their face
I never again asked permission
I never again needed to explain
Have a not nice day
Have a not nice day
Goodbye Good buyer
Thankyou more
It's free today
Everything is free
 
 

meta unfolding

1/23/14 Brooklyn, NY 

___ ______ in the tropics,

This weekend I stayed at my friend’s apartment while she was out of town to take care of her cat. She lives pretty near the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, a huge open space curated with different plant species, a real celebration of plantology! So I go one morning before work. I leave the house without looking outside first (common) and find that its snow/raining. Not too much a bother. The flakes increase and I'm laughing! I get to the gardens and sit down on a wooden bench with a covering. It overlooks the Japanese coy pond. I am sitting and just breathing (intentionally). Not too long am I there when a huge bird flies over my right shoulder (I wonder if it’s fleeing or arriving). The bird flies around and lands on a branch in complete view on the tree above my left shoulder and faces me. I am happy to have the company (even if I cannot identify its species: Owl? Falcon? Hawk? Osprey?). The longer I sit the more I realize what an occasion the creature’s visit is. The bird is just looking at me. I begin to question the encounter. Why did the bird pick that particular branch that does not have very good covering from the weather? Why facing me? Why did I notice? The snow stops and it’s about time for me to head to the underground. The bird must feel the transition and ruffles its feathers, turns to reveal an orangy-red highlight underneath its top layer of tail feathers and takes flight. 

Last story on this episode called Black Box-Radiolab

My sister talks about a point in her therapy when she started to see magic like that. The process the process the process. The thing about the moth and the butterfly’s transformation is that they don’t really change. Everything about who they will become is inside them. After shedding their old skin a caterpillar extracts the cocoon out of their body and once inside their original form essentially melts. They loose everything aesthetically about what they were and turn into a goo. Somehow they come out a different creature wrapped in wings that need unfolding! But the most interesting part, which was tested, is that the new moth or butterfly still retained its memory from caterpillar life. As I confront my past, wriggle in the present, my future self is unfolding.

Hello, how are you? Tell me 

PS I was going to send you a poem but it was too gross? 

Phoebe Moon