seashelllz word count journal

185

Drinking from bowls, our lives are unchanged. Animals howling, scratching, searching, hunting. No literature or gestures. Only heat and cold, scent and darkness. The instinct to roam, rivaling restlessness. Swallowed like swallows, nesting near nighttime. All the brightness to forget, discover, forget again. All the flaming nonsense, the judges and gavels banging for order amidst ever enlarging chaos. Theories, mathematics, numbers, counting, time and times tables closing in like bars on the heart. The medicine, science, biology of falling asleep, of waking alone and listening. Carving trees into toys. Climbing walls where fences fell before. Barbed wire, electric wire, long low valleys full of fastened echoes. We let sun shine into our miniature mountain mornings. Sledded down snowbanks for freedom’s lost cousins. Broke the cups, massaged the meek moments. Letting loose longings we couldn’t take back. Ate icicles snapped from eaves, tasted leaves. Left hidden hallelujahs in the hands of beggars. Begged, ourselves for famishing. A need to need, more. A new heaving like breathing, I’ll show you my show, when you watch where you look, nothing is prettier than a heart on a hook.

184

Your ghost should have words and be able to fly. I’m telling you this while you sleep. Your dreams should be more muscle than ether, more wood than wind. How about music? Dresses and doorways, things you can move through, effortlessly. Mockingbirds, field mice, pretty fortune cookies on china plates. Sand and seashells calling like a telephone. A tripwire in time that is hard to step over, hard to see from a stand-still. Unanswered, your ghost should eat light, visit film students, dodge trains, make mayhem of mundane mouths. Scream like children stung by bees. A mask, a moratorium on misery. A month of mistakes, strung like a necklace. Your empty skin should stay suspended, atoms and molecules floating like bubbles. Into the ever expanding message, the earth’s wobbling hum. The vacuum of beyond, alive with particles of stars, asteroids, comet tails, sun sparks, rings of ice, black holes. All these telescopes to tell us what we don’t know, can’t see. Your ghost should be made of every constellation, pin-pricked points of light and lost kings, rubies and eclipses. Saved and saving falling graces.

183

swank the sneer of hollow ghost, born beside the riverbank, set afloat in an abandoned moat. now burning bushes become your birthright, auctioned like a poor man’s vote. reflections of the men of old. bled until they creeped like stone. your own statue still uncarved. upset the balance and etch out loud the sounds that never could come out. and dine if you are able at the head of another’s broken table, finding reasons to season the supper with supple touches of crepe and cup and rubble. write down the suspicions, half open doorways, half dressed damsels half distressed. spilled milk will tell our secrets, footsteps wet on wooden floors, raised heads, flowerbeds. chanting the words until they walk on their own. looking inside for an absent observation i could broadcast like a tv station, this new reality show of more than you should know about someone far away. throw your best bones down the mountain and stare lost at a sky too high to spend your breath on evaporating sighs. we’ll be angry another time, and you can tell me next time.

182

a shipwreck, an island, shoreline bound. apart, we meant to pack these boxes. let them loose in the waves. collections of clutter we thought must matter. in the background, the books chattered. the spoons sputtered. the things we saved shivered. insecurity, old keys, we don’t remember what they unlocked. i’m always telling the story of me and you to anyone who listens. and the empty pages. by force, by poisoning, another canceled check, a misspelling. broken guitars, old bicycles. old summers where your cheeks climbed faster than feet. the bay lent its mist to the morning. smell of salt and murk and oysters safe in their beds. a celebration, seventy-nine times around the sun - i asked her how she felt now. sunburnt! she exlaimed and laughed wide-mouthed as her diminishing sisters stood by. and i of her in skin and hair and ferocity mused on my own aging arguments. it’s not so bad, i thought. to see this legacy of little moments meld into a history, an imperfect family. the whole world sprouting whole from the fractures in a wide open space.

181

your red hair makes mumbles of men. devoted to divas that smile on cue. bleak, we met through matching scars. scooped up the dirt and filled in the holes. bled the demons empty. found new ones and ripped up reasons to believe. watched the chaos, the havoc, the left-handed aftermath. maybe it could make sense in time. the hidden, the ache. all the poems flushed down drains. the heroes held hostage. the threats of speaking weakened. all the fields we ran in, ran away in. the kenyan beaches we danced on, in seldom screaming moments. the mountains we told our tales to. the shells we traded when everything else had disappeared. your porcelain lessons learned on cement. my liquid lesions lessened. grew thick and slow like lava. then hardened completely. we never called them mistakes. never fished in deep water. never wanted to be mythical creatures. the words were enough, most of the time. growing up too young. falling off too often. walking into the wind. knowing the heart beat is not to be trusted. nor footsteps. nor second hands, metronomes.

180

fed up with not being fed. thinking of the fertile nile. patriotism and appalachian smoke signals. made-up stories we thought were real. caves we kissed in. trains we missed. pianos we never played. pool tables with worn felt coming between us. burnt tires and pacing. angry mothers, closed parks, complications. buried bath tubs, easter eggs in the mud. the salty rain. untied shoelaces. tv movies, record stores. open window to foreign sounds. neighbors and dogs, trees in breezes i was thankful for. i still am thankful for. loud clocks and whiskey. your fingers around my morning wrist. old photos i stole from the dresser. let wash out to sea. a commander of this army i am building from stick sand stones. waiting out the red eyes, the number thirteens, the fire alarms, the floods. broken steering wheels, lost, looking for payphones. say it again, into the microphone. the reel to reel will capture every word, whether you meant it or not. wear a dress. sneak some trinket in your pocket. it’s for luck. and the music. don’t forget the music.

179

junkyard tripping, watching through small cracks. honored by fireworks, names for places. middle america frowning as we walk by. not meeting any eyes. nonchalant, mouth open like a dog. the worst minds of my generation, wasting use of opposable thumbs in a cavern grand canyon numb. car toys and smart boys and that’s where the money goes. clapping at last, the right angles shield the sun. the antiques we made ourselves in some other lifetime. another shot to blur the lines, to learn to stretch the cords. crumbled queens, drowning sorry tomorrows. laying out like laundry on a line. we rehearse this. in between bites of blueberries. a new life found in a harmonica. the rest of the loneliness bitten off, more than to chew. simple, quiet town. industrious lusciousness peeling through the layers of us. building new salty views, thinking steady things that won’t come true. an instrument you used to play, a mock orchestra blind with blame. envelopes opened with steam, evidence tampered. tornado shelters we hid in all night. one can of soup, no can opener.

178

A cold bookmark, pages purveyed. All we need is more freckles, constellations colliding. A wood-shed stocked to keep warm in winter. First autumn will come tramping down the road, jumping up leaves oranged with October. Then we’ll don the masks and revel in our own un-us-ness. Marquees and matinees. Silent movies we like best. The way the mouths don’t move at all. We remember that, shared, in dreams. I slept on the floor next to your bed. You spoke in your sleep, drank water, wandered. Sometimes yelled at me. Only not at me, at someone in your mind, awake while your body slept. I was startled and had a hard time falling back asleep. Had a hard time waking up with the daytime you. The one who helped me build rafts that sunk. Played trumpet and sang things I couldn’t. Put on your glasses that you shared when there was something exciting to see. I hated the ones I had and never would wear them, hid them deep in an old drawer where no one would find them.

177

oh you pretty words, new roads to new cities, roses on the wrist. scratched out names, edged in gold like you…let me thank you by turning around to say goodnight to this night, this skyline you were born under. songs to sing alone, growing seeds of stolen seaweed. gratitude clumped under fingernails. remember the hair, the dress, the music that played, the way she cried all down her face. moods for mona lisas and monarchs, trees fell and drowned. wet leaves spent like money. all the forest can kill and bury…the smell that lingers, moss and mold. to have and to hold. santa ana oleanders fading in a man-made desert. all the echo the ears can carry. the way the skin falls in spring, in light, in disease, in rushing lust. packing the suitcase for another chance to stay somewhere anonymously. wondering how much is left of me. in this place. in your face. oh you messy words, wandering on your own, missing the mark and falling short but still somehow standing down the sinking sand smiling.

176

favorite things like eels, electric and musical. in sushi. octopus orange, floating alongside the sailboat. little curls cooked on a plate. prisms, sprinklers, french toast. cartoon conundrums. repetition except the way she does it. fourth of july, fireworks, demolition derbies, clowns, balloon animals. outdoor markets, the color of watermelon, butterflies, iced tea. cypress trees, graffiti, skateparks, breakdancing on cardboard. halloween, mardi gras, masquerades, crawfish, catfish, red beans and rice. roller coasters, ferris wheels, wonder woman. the bionic woman. cleopatra. elephants. kangaroos. old jazz, the raging twenties, demented poems by demented ladies that knew how to die. flair and flamboyancy. seashells. sand. volcanoes, constellations, record players. snowmen, sledding, trains, waterfalls. poppies, freesia, trumpet solos. harmonica, freedom fighters, cloud forests, tree frogs, iguanas. harry houdini, alexander, mister rogers and captain kangaroo. j.p. patches. whales, dolphins, starfish, stingrays, coral, kelp. bubble gum. fruit candy. fresh cherries. crows, crabs, old books, thrift store treasure. surprises, road trips, blue mountains, bonfires. ukulele music, mojitos, windchimes, swimming. cherry coke. mystery keys, stomping in puddles, morning frost, birthdays, christmas trees. then there’s you.