mardi 31 janvier 2012

afterthought


5th floor, reactor 4, fukushima daichi


yes i'm sitting up now
reading about fukushima
watching the world split
like an atom and then
the inevitably collapse
in an afterthought
of what went wrong

plate tektonics
continental shelves
pressurized drilling
beautiful new weapons
into the ionsphere
like blown plutonium
into lung tissue

i need to ask because
i have an imagination:
do they really think
they can get away with it
this silent but deadly
manipulation of
universal chaos?

dimanche 29 janvier 2012

Snowflake - 50 Words for Snow - by Kate Bush

Save our mother earth, save our children!




I was born in a cloud...
Now I am falling.
I want you to catch me.
Look up and you'll see me.
You know you can hear me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
There's millions of snowflakes.
We're dancing.
The world is so loud. Keep falling and I'll find you.
I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken hearts, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
My broken heart, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song.
My twist and shout.

I am ice and dust and light. I am sky and here.
I can hear people.
I think you are near me now.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
It's midnight at Christmas.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
I think I can see you.
There's your long, white neck.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Now I am falling.
Look up and you'll see me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
In a moment or two.
I'll be with you.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Be ready to catch
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.

mercredi 25 janvier 2012

stuff in boxes


i don't know where anything is
but i can't think about it
because the chaos that's around me
begins to tap tap tap at my head
until i'm crazy

my house is filled with boxes
a melange of documents
perfume bottles and birthday cards
vitamin pills carved gods
novels and japa malas
a scarf i bought on a whim
last year at a thrift shop
or the dvd of a concert i saw
in 2004

god help me if i need to find
my passeport or tax return
or the vitamin d because 
my levels are low
or the gold-flecked scarf
to tie around my throat
because it's cold

chaos has entered my house
and taken over my stuff
and not just in my house
but in my head
and not just in my head
but in my body
an extension of this illness
no less painful than
my right trapezius
nor less nauseating
than my vertigo

no i can't go there
i just leave it alone
the piles of garbage
the dust and the boxes
and the knowledge that
inside are the precious objects
of my life before chaos


vendredi 20 janvier 2012

new politics


photo by John Boyd (1865-1941)

let me be what i am
a fragment
changing ions
gross matter
and something indefatigable

i log in
to comment
on politics
i'm not in the back rooms
puffing cubans
i'm flying over icebergs

i brush against daisies
warble in maples
sit stonefaced
animal vegetable mineral
i've been all of it

on the rock and roll summit
of sisyphus
i stumble and get up
i do not merge with anything now
i touch i yield i move on

vendredi 13 janvier 2012

battered



battered back again
to my previous pain levels
right arm throbs to the wrist
big muscle across my shoulder
grips and burns
rotator cuff in front
burns into my breast
and it's constant

i'm still fighting
for pain meds
fighting after
15 years
explaining
what my disease is
to family, friends
and doctors alike
when will they
get it?

i can't stretch it out
eat it out
walk it out
accupuncture it out
meditate it out
or psychoanalyze it out
nothing works but opioids

and when it's
this bad
i can't think at all
i can't know
what to do
what not to do
the sickness
the nausea
the vertigo
the pain spreads
throughout my body

if they don't
give me
what i need
i won't be 
able to
stay here

what will it take
to stop the battering
not by pain
but by doctors?

if i only had a glove
i could give them
let them put it on
and feel what i feel
they would treat me
in a heart beat

samedi 7 janvier 2012

my fear of pain




i survived the ghost of pain
at midnight
making the transition
from one medication to the next
overcoming the nonsense
i had told myself

fear of pain is my motivation
for everything
fear of more pain than i have
suicide-making pain
that suffocates my reason
because i've become

animal pure mammal
licking its wounds in the brush
under cover of darkness
hypervigilant and alive
ready to flee or fight

the human in me survived
to try something new and untried
and now i have less pain
less pain and some clarity
about what drives me