balls 3, for ms. c. e. moore

it is in the noticing--
the catching glimpse of the world
rolling its way down oregon street
on its way into the lake of merit
of yes, of still and how and in this
moment here and now
that captured wholeness
floating by
the real of wondering
wondering why
that reel of seen
forgotten still
that thing that's not forgot
a sliding foot
unraveling ball
a looking still
without a wall
a wonder not at this be true
a seeing still
through eyes of you
and yet
and still
and round
or flat
or even that the end is that
i wonder, yet,
is this still true?
they eyes of what becomes of you
i love the shadow
pinching
out
the real imagined
here
on out
and words
so luscious
rolling by
the ball to find
and wonder
sigh

it's 4am, where are my boundaries?

i am standing in a river of my own blood.
of my own making.
i am seeing my own babies--
my beautiful babies--
my beloved children
killing themselves
killing one another
killing each other
i am standing in darfur
i am standing in rwanda
i am standing in witness at the borders of america
watching, again, the walls
the berlin walls of separation
threaten, again, to go back up
i am watching
i am witnessing
i am attending to the death
i am attending to the ravages
unleashed upon this earth
i am standing in a river of blood
made from the leaky red stuff
pouring out of all i have made
to come here
to be here
alive
in this eden you speak up
here, alive in this world of love
i am standing in a river of blood
i am standing in the deepest waters of new orleans
i am standing in the crumpled towers of manhattan
i am standing with the women crowded under covers
of darkest darkness
causing them unspeakable pain
i am standing under the hood of my own despair
i am standing under the helmet of my own knowing
that all is beautiful, as you see it
that all is good and right
that all is all and always
and i want to scream
i want to scream my kali scream
i want to scream my angry scream
i want to show you your eden with the eyes of my scream
with what i speak
with the sound of all i hear
with what i know is mine
killing mine
taking mine
before my time for their time
and i want to scream
i am screaming from here
i am screaming under my veil of silence
i am screaming and bleeding
i am attending to the red river of death
that flows deep in me
when i can hear and see
the death
the death
the purposeful killing for your crucified god
for your abraham and his seven sons
for your muhammad
for your bible and your talmud and your torah
for your christ
christian love expressing
singing songs above the hatred
holding hands above the pain
making offerings above the in deep despair
the grief and longing in the way
in failure
in crisis
in homelessness
rampantly raging across this good green earth
this eden
this dream
of heaven
you, with your practiced words,
and you
you
you with your big gong
and its beautiful sound
and your practiced hand
and your stunning ability
and your expansive joy
and your generous heart
and your kindness extended
and your gifts bestowed
you are simply pissing me off.
you are beautiful, to be sure.
you are kind and knowing and good.
you are offering, truly, your gifts.
you are offering, joyfully, your words.
and i receive them.
and i love them.
and i am strengthened by them
in the way i am strengthened by a visit to oz
a visit to heaven
a visit through a dream
a promise
a truth i know is there
but at the minute, my son, my beauty,
i am looking through fun house glasses
and seeing what your eden is made of
the dead bodies and bones piled up
in catacombs
taking my limited time in france
away from the louvre.
i am crawling through the dead--
as you know, bone does not decay
in any of the regular ways
and it takes centuries to wear the stench away
of something burned
in ovens
six million
twelve
how many did we count before we stopped counting?
and what of israel now?
and the middle east?
and the threat and promise of threatened peace?
and the whirl of the sound of helicopter blades
and the damn postcards in the mail
marines taking my oldest son
not even back yet
not even here yet
from africa to war
i will not stand in the rivers of that blood alone
i will not stand, picking up the bones,
bending and burying and mourning alone.
and when i tell you that i love you--
that you are talented and good--
and that you make sure i see you
and hear you understood
and i know, i agree, i find you as the god,
you abdicate.
you go away.
you climb up on your cross.
and you, yourself, wad your art up
and trash yourself anew
and i am left here in this blood
now, too, attend to you.
and you tell me as you're leaving
that you've put all your beauty there
and of course it is my choice
but i go and gently care
for what you yourself have wadded up
you, yourself, have trashed
and take my attention, yet again,
to restore you
to hold you
to heal you
to prop you up
to find a space that's big enough
to fill what you have emptied
and i resent it.
and i know you didn't ask--
you were "happy" in the trash--
but you are beautiful, too--too beautiful
to leave all wadded up
and when you're in the bin and spin
you cannot help me
you cannot stand beside me
you cannot turn the tide
and make a block
and be a ride
a guide
a star in the sky
by which i can find my way
you are only there to grieve
you are only there to save
and i can remember
only just
what it looked like when you were you
there on that wall so beautiful
there on the wall so true
and i need that still--
or do i?
and the ravages still rage
and i need the needing needy stuff
no longer
now
what i need is play
i need you with me in the river
coming up, again, with games
and planting pretty bodies gone
in eden once again
and then a story, sweet and true,
that has you always being you
and never getting on or off
the crucifix of truth
i need you working in the garden
tending to the weeds
i need you working through the winter
helping me to gather pleas
i need you standing, sweet, beside me
picking up this mess
and stopping all this craziness
and tearing at my dress
i need you full of your sweet self
and glasses off, now, too
i need us seeing this same river
damning up the fools
that start the thing with hatred
and cause the thing with fear
i need you standing next to me
knee deep, head clear.

comment, balls 2

for carolyn moore


the shark in the world
glowing at the edge of the gutter
of the sidewalk
nearly not noticed
gleaming
from the bike
looking down
riding onward
noticing
the balls
to save
the one verse
the one word
the word of the one
explained
with explain nation
a tongue used to tell
a finger, ten maybe,
or only nine really,
and only one at a time
at any rate
yes-sharing
animating
shining
emanating
here.

gracias!

make an offering

enter your piece of peace
heal thyself oh writress
share the sharing parts
let go what is not offered

MAKE AN OFFERING

enter the silence.
you are here, together,
entering the dream
of being together
heal and grow
heal and know
this be that
forever

speak they name
speak my name
say it
what needs the
saying

then come
when you are
ready
we are always
waiting--ready--
for you

come.

homage to night

homage to night
against white
the moors, violet
of day, keening
severe, honest
at two or three or four
old women
worried about paying bills
they came, each one
and i ask you
if they did why can't you
if they would
why won't you
but you do long for midnights
shared around a fire
you, embodied spirit
telling tales of whispers
shimmering
silently
watched from a comfort
under blankets of dark
inspired by dreams
stopped dreaming
enter your peace of piece


be
your
piece of peace
only pieced together
happiness
quilted gatherings
sewn and stitched
over gossip
spread thick with
metaphors
toasting the needles
of schemes
yarns connecting
then and now
voices discarded
traded for the hand
dancing across the
blank witness of the page
after your words
and go--speak if you
must--through me--
to me--but torment
me not--
i have let you go
now, please,
let me.

could it be enough

could it be enough
that i know the power of the poetry
or is it that i must speak it, too
is it that i must stand and deliver
the silent words voiced and uttered
is that what can release me?
from me?
do i hate myself so much to keep
the truth from even me?
the mess of insecurity
spilling out in false bravado
the weight of all that's carried forward
into now.
what is it i bring with me?
all these bags of someday
wandering willingly through the
bump and grind of what is here with me
needing to be healed
will i carry it from this now?
or leave it finally in this moment?
when will i bury my dead?
and let them rest--a piece of the peace
they have become
if only i will stop resurrecting
my need to hear their voices,
feel their arms around me
reassuring me of my goodness
and right ot be here in this
womb.
when is it my arrival in this
world could be accepted--
by myself--by my soul--
as enough--
permission
to live.

for all the alchemy of form...

for all the
alchemy of
form

i find my way

through the space
of piles cleaned
up, shuffled,
rearranged,
i move the
energy that
lets you
surface

for this
moment
of stillness
still in this
presence
silent
i drop into you

and we
are together
again
for the
first time.

i want and then...

i want
and then
stop wanting
have
and then
stop having
speak
and then
stop speaking
give
and then
stop giving

in the presence
of witness
i be here

seen or heard
felt or imagined

i be here now
being


s t i l l

just one silence

just one
silence
shimmering
in the space
for maria
in cluded
here as
what could
have been
if the gift
of her
came wrapped
in human
packaging
to this
joyful
saturday
circle
of lovely day spilling inot
remem-
bered
silences
still.

i occupy a space--

i occupy a space--
as a being being silent
doing the nothing allowed
by breathing--but that is
not nothing--is it? inhale
exhale, padum, padum, swoosh
whoosh the waves waving
through the silent space of
being a being who bes

no buzz or hum required--
inhale, exhale, pa dum, padum,
swoosh, whoosh, ahhhhhhhhhhh

if i make a space

if i make a space
if i leave a path clear for you--or
even overgrown
if i sit, crazy in the emptiness of
without you or the full to overflowing
only you could get glose enough to give me
if i sit in the piece of now that's offered
quiet, silent, empty as the upright glass
and wait without waiting for you or
anything else--you or anyone--this
or anything--if i empty of self and
song and story and little pieces of sacred
paper or quiet words whispered to
the dead leaves in the ink that
flows when i hold the pen
is it you or me? left there as the
glass of emptiness? the vessel of
yes? the empty space of peace?
i am ready for emptiness--
i just can not bring myself to let go
when i go...
but i will go.

dearest yes maker

dearest yes maker
what holds me here?
in silent fear of fearful years
passing ever into gone?
i wander lost and on and on
forever circling round the thing
what holds me in this spiral ring?
in and out the dance and shout
of yes and no not now
but what is it that keeps me
keeping boxes stacked of weepings
weeping let it go to flow
dear river
heal me won't you let me know?
help me let it go?
beyond beyond in dervish
whirling
stop this digging up and
squirreling
letting ride the sweetest bet
take me home--yet not quite yet

i ask to see the daughter grown
the son of heart to come back home
the son of body dunking dreams
the husband featured in my seams
of all sewn up, fastened securely
here we be so of this worldly

wander just
the apple blossoms
leave the fruit
to drop
i come in season
to this yearning
hopeful here this
page now twirling
oft the shadow
here this night
a glimmer, flicker
final light this tide
does sweep out undertow
this weather sure to overblow
i come into this windy place

and ask my light go out
to face the
curtains call
courageous
bowing one
not stumbling
but allowing

here the winters wisdom turns
thee old now
one and all
go out now--
into fall.

for you

the one who gets the worst of me
on a regular basis
and the mixed signals
and the strange, un-voiced requests
that leave you ever guessing
every wondering
what it is i
REALLY
want
you
you
you
and all that has issued from my love
for you
and your love
for me
that continuously renews itself
despite the conversational utterances
of desperation and insecurity
raging hormones and lonely planets
orbiting the dark side
for the long moons
of an eternal seeming time
you
you
you
you
your forgiveness
your careful editing of bad behavior
your precious clinging
to a truer truth
beyond the fear
of words
so easy to say
and never mean
the meanness
they imply
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
and every single moment
of every single day
since i met you
and we became us
and us expanded the love
that crossed continents
and bound a white girl from kansas
and an african prince from oguta
together
for eternities
of time
that doesn't matter
you
and me
you
and me
us and we
he and she
ours and ours
now
thirteen years together
in an unfolding eternity
of love


i love you


happy anniversary.