Along the Hudson

I drive all the way to Poughkeepsie to take the train down into New York

Even through it’s a full hour faster to take the line that runs from white plains

Because the train from Poughkeepsie hugs the Hudson River

I get onto the train and I make sure to sit on the river side

And although I have hours of homework to do

I cannot bear to look away from the river

Shining in the first sunny day of springtime

Along the river I look for birds

I see migrating canada geese in synchronized Vs

Finally returning to this land as the sunlight soaks into the rocky earth

I see scraggly crows joking from the tree tops and power lines,

This train full of people is the finest joke they’ve seen in years and god knows, they needed a good laugh

There’s one hawk

Too proud for the bent crooked maple beneath it, I know she is looking for opportunity,

Her hard eyes and dirty feathers hint at a pain I know she’ll never tell me

But she is sure to tell me about the beauty and power of her wings and the way they move even the air to her will.

On the train I see the rolling hills of the hudson valley.

I know the giant who lived in peace with the Haudenosaunee people

Who tread lightly across her back

I see her strong shoulders and I sense the strength of her legs

I am awed by the curve of her belly into the soft green-ness of her shores

And I weep with her that we all forgot her tremendous beauty

And in this way I too am the Hudson River.

Along the river I count every single bud

On every single tip of every single branch of every single tree

Birch, maple, oak, pine, beech, aspen, and poplar

They all promise:

“Springtime”

Whisper:

“Rebirth, life”

Each bud is a friend and lover

I cannot wait to meet each individual leaf.

I’m particularly fond of the red maples in their

Pink bundles, turning the sky and hillsides a cheery red.

I sit and watch the river go by and I watch the springtime start

And I feel the tides pull at my chest.

I would drive countless hours for this.

I universe you

Dedicated to Andre Santana for his poem "I universe you"

I looked for the stars in your eyes

Because they told me I could follow your Polaris to find my truest North.

So I gazed deep and

Fell 

Hard. 

I found countless constellations in technicolor  rainbow.

I found nebulas of celestial creations

And supergiant deaths of unparalleled gravity.

I found the speed of light and 

I understood the background electric magnetic radiation

And traced it back to the beginning of all time and light and heat and energy

The big bang. 

But I think they forgot to mention that there's no sound in space.

They forgot to mention the way stars would warp gravity

And twist spacetime around your heavenly body.

I forgot to calculate drag from my irregular shapes

And I struggled to make sense of Newton's third law:

For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.

You're space was just too big,

Too alien

For me to find my bearings. 

I tried to make sense of the universe in you

But now I'm just floating

Alone

In the dark.

Body Series 11

The acoustic guitar of my body reverberates with remembrance
And longing for your clever hands
And the way they move up and down my strings
Tuned to pitch for comfort, desire, and the softness of my lips
In chords that spelled out the things
We couldn't say with our tongues.

I miss making music with you.

Have you seen the moon tonight?

The moon is loneliest when she is full
I know this because she whispered this through my window on a bitterly cold February night
I might not have heard her except for the snow
Which murmured 'hush' and 'listen'
When the crows and chickadees tried to sing their sorrows into the almost silence

Sometimes the moon runs out of tears
She has cried all her tears and her pale face can't bring herself to hold this profound
Grief any longer.
She has held it day and night,
Seen and hidden as she traversed the sharp blue sky,
So that it is too large even for her gravity.
It falls away from her and she is left even more lonely in the cold air.

Body series 10

A list of ten of the most beautiful words in the english language

1) epoch: (noun) the time it takes between my alarm going off in the morning and when I open my eyes and the measure of the sunlight on my eyelids

2) epiphany: (noun) that Thursday afternoon when sunlight poured into the room like honey and I looked in the mirror and noticed the way my eyes were glowing

3) sonorous: (adjective) when I sing in the car with the radio cranked up as loud as it will go and the snow swirling around me the beat and the gas pedal pressed down to the floor

4) serendipity: (noun) the angle of my hip bones against my skin and the musculature of the legs beneath them

5) nefarious: (adjective) the ache in my lips and the pit of my stomach when the wind whispers "kiss me" through the trees

6) ineffable: (adjective) the perfect swirls of dark hair in my armpits and the way they compliment my biceps

7) eloquence: (noun) the sound of each foot slapping the pavement, one after the other

8) effervescence: (noun) the act of my lungs expanding my whole chest, pushing open the cage of my ribs for air

9) ephemeral: (adjective) the way the calluses on the pads of my finger grow stronger with every day I use the tendons and muscles in my hands to hold myself in this world

10) aurora: (noun) this body and this mind in agreement and the way they think "we are here. now"

Body series 9 (a reimagining of mixed metaphors)

"I treat my body like a temple" she says

And her words spin into the air thoughts of high mountain monasteries

The chill of the air upon a pristine rock garden

No traveler has ever before laid eyes on.

I think of thin mountain air that will not nourish the travel's lungs:

Leaves her trying to breathe a full breath.

I think of tall strong walls and a closed gate

And the grey of eternal winter.

"I also treat my body like a temple," I agree

But I mean that I will welcome

Anyone who knocks on my gates in good faith.

My body is a temple with huge doors and huge windows

To let the light in.

My body is a temple in the biggest city on the best traveled road you know.

My body is the sort of temple where

The spires are worn smooth and polished by many hands

It is the sort of temple that holds an abundance of

Plush pillows lounging on my pews.

It is bejeweled by stained glass windows

That transforms all light into God.

My body shelters weary travelers with storied hands

Who hold my warmth like a miracle,

And echoes high priests who recite its history with their clever tongues

from the pulpit,

And echoes back the sweetest songs of the most beautiful women from the beautiful curves

Of its ceilings and walls.

My body is a temple and I would delight in offering

Any pilgrim who kneels before me a temporary salvation.

Beowulf parody: Act 1

Act 1

The first place Monya stopped, in her silver chariot

With her life packed in the back

Was a big brown house in the land of cows and dirt roads

And the cows greeted her with a sweetness

She had never tasted

And the roads rumbled their casual solitude

Every time Monya’s silver chariot rolled across them.

It was summertime in the land of cows and dirt roads

And the days were long and lazy

And filled with the ballads of Adele

And the smell of hay.

On one of her days of leisure, Monya, lover of dirt

Determined that that day of leisure would be the first test of her mettle

She stepped into the sunlight’s clear view

And bared her chest to that most powerful star.

The sun saw her and decided in her aloof curiosity

To send the most powerful of creatures, neither cruel nor kind

To pass judgement on Monya, lover of the earth.

The beast came out of the wood in tooth and claw and fur

And Monya opened her bare chest to the creature

And took it in her strong arms.

In it felt her wrap around it and judged her worthy.

And as it decided it melted back into the woods

As quickly as it came.

And thus Monya had proved her mettle in the first of her adventures

In the land of cows and dirt roads.

Monya met many brave women of the earth in that summertime

Eager to hear of her encounter with the creature of tooth and claw and fur

And boldest was Maddy with hair of sunlight

Who wiped dust from Monya’s face

And kissed Monya with lips as soft as the naked earth

And hands as rough as the raw mountaintops

And whispered kindness into the lopsided ears of her hound.

But Maddy with the sunlight hair and her lopsided hound

Disappeared with the dawn. They took Monya’s

Trousers for memories and Monya was left wander the dirt roads

In bare feet, search of the rising sun.

She looked about but the trees whispered taunts

And the ground prickled at her bare feet.

There were no signs of cows or other travelers

And then--

The smell of sun cooked hay

Monya breathed deeply and began to walk

With tired tread, and thus

She found the sun and her home.

That day in the land of cows and dirt roads

The sun rose and whispered death into the ear of the king of that land

So that he did make a sacrifice of birds of the sky

Who were earthbound with gluttony.

And the king of the land of cows and dirt roads

Called upon Monya, lover of the earth

To help with this sacrifice. So that she too

Did spill the blood of the birds of the sky.

And that day as she spilled blood

She listened to death work next to her.

And by the end of the day Monya, lover of the dirt

Had heard the secrets death whispers

In a voice too low for most souls to hear.

Death had told her of her next adventure

And so the next sunrise Monya, lover of dirt

Packed up her life in the back of her silver chariot

And drove again, into the sunset.