The Desire to Own a Cello

Desire to Own a Cello 40

2007-11-24T13:20:00.001-08:00

40 [Bone Hunter]

And sifting time through landslides,

what delights is strewn.

The symbol took

for fact, dry hope

remains

as fossil bone;

a jagged bit of jaw, unfurled

across my palm.

Almost a broken wing.

[And I, almost a giant,

nearly crush it in my hand.]

Desire to Own a Cello 39

2007-11-24T13:16:00.001-08:00

39

I was meaning to say /

not even close to enough.

The choice: between naming and experience-

but what is it that you mean to name?

//

I sing a world into being, where

this, and everything
else, becomes luminous.

Desire to Own a Cello 38

2007-11-24T13:12:00.001-08:00

A three penny moon and a tin

light, too weak,

[the thin whistle vibrato

to carry

cathedral organ ambition]

or a man unable

to warm

himself or her: clumsily reaches

for a hand, but she withdraws.

Desire to Own a Cello 37

2007-11-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

The moon is salt.

Dried tear

to grate her cheek.

How I remember.

O / the quick

line of the meteor's flight is marred

by actual grief.

Dead

Moon, it's you the meek inherit.

Desire to Own a Cello 36

2007-11-24T13:04:00.001-08:00

36 [A New Life]

You will have carved a past

from dry cheese.

Spores clumping on eyelashes

repel you,

mold reeks,

each pink membrane within you

will convulse,

poisoned

by what this past feeds.

Vibrant blue strychnine hairs.

Desire to Own a Cello 35

2007-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

35 ["The Triumph of Self-Loathing"]

I am
the rot at the edge of the pages.
Dust

"having a perfect contempt"
for what it settles
on.

Desire to Own a Cello 34

2007-11-24T12:53:00.001-08:00

34 [Language of Bees.]

A rhythm to the large beats / full

turn. Eyes left after buds,

whole scorched fields

frozen slick / dew-tipped black,

soot edges,

look I am looking too hard.

Red spider webbing veins.

Pollen of my annunciation

dusts this espresso.

I am worn

clean. Jittering

still. I am

what is left.

Nervous equilibrium w/ its alternate reading.

Desire to Own a Cello 33

2007-11-24T12:49:00.001-08:00

I am salt, the dust

of rock scattered

grit man grit air

tongue shred against

apology; this

is not one

swaddled, rocking vowel

wound or birth.

Desire to Own a Cello 32

2007-11-20T15:24:00.001-08:00

By some excuse

it might slip free: the noose,

our judgments, mutilated--

dangling like a modifier choked.

Dear Reader, be

my hanging judge. Your length

of rope, the line

I measure my frail sense against.

Desire to Own a Cello 31

2007-11-20T15:20:00.001-08:00

31 [History]

Packs of dogs consume the streets,
lick clean the cobblestones of footprints.

//

Suet Honey,
I am all a-bramble /
bubbling idiot / pot
calls the kettle
catafalque.

Desire to Own a Cello 30

2007-11-20T13:23:00.001-08:00

30

The womb has turned to storms
of ash. A terrible
sweet rush of whirlwind

--rotting trees, dead animals, cut sod.

The roofs are torn from where we wanted to escape.

Their houses broken into bloody smiles

that signify relief.

Desire to Own a Cello 29

2007-11-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

Ink was the everything left after.

Ink was cartilage, carbon black

bones shimmering from kiln.

Fountain pen welling. Willing the flesh

of the hand to be stained.

Curl of eyelash

scratched onto the repeated

portrait.

Ink over my lips.

Ink like a saucer of milk.

[Ink for embalming fluid.]

Face smeared with the world.

Desire to Own a Cello 28

2007-11-19T15:48:00.001-08:00

28 [Intellectual Cruelty]

I cannot set this twisted jaw

bone of a poem /

tarnished spoon, corroded dentistry.

A mind set

free, adrift in road salt.

Someone weeps for me. I know it.

Desire to Own a Cello 27

2007-11-19T14:08:00.001-08:00

27

Rushing to prolong.
The nude connective
tissue of a song / and some tongue
trembles

to an alto clef /
a riff of saxophone, a seismic drift.

Desire to Own a Cello 26

2007-11-19T14:05:00.001-08:00

26

What is left of the poet,
the relation, light

ly across the eye, of words--

a gut cocked and a left eye rimmed,
swollen with powder burns.

Each poem with the click of an empty chamber.

Look down the barrel.
Rings of chrome into gray,
black husk.

That this round may hide

[or you
may fold / in your fistfuls of brain]

a kernel.

Desire to Own a Cello 25

2007-11-19T14:02:00.001-08:00

Behind the knees, at the crux

of her elbows,

the sculptor defines four

distinct spaces;

each emptiness

exactly / sufficient.

Desire to Own a Cello 24

2007-11-19T13:58:00.001-08:00

24

Seems as though the most
transparent fluttering / tangles
itself into window's

lace, lust swindles
sunlight from cob-webbed corners.
Smut on fingers, traced

runes. Dirty business.

Desire to Own a Cello 23

2007-11-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

The pit of her abstemious stomach:

brusque, cupiditous,

emasculator-wraith et al.

encumber

what his arrow's quiver will.

Sweet Archer, with it, you are sore

/ or split along a length of quill.

Desire to Own a Cello 22

2007-11-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

Push through a door left ajar,

through a winter abandoned

field straitjacketed.

Shatter through the rows,

stomp down the furrows.

Leave standing a single spike

where a daisy's glass eye is impaled.

Skim off the cataract of cream.

I remember her hands'

blue ice in the morning,

a familiar slap

of wind against my unshaven cheeks.

With the ache

hungering through her joints, with her

too sensitive

failing heart, the two of us

had braced against the hard snow coming.

Desire to Own a Cello 21

2007-11-18T15:29:00.001-08:00

I require a space to compose

the multiple poem of a life unheroic,

trope listless, isometric

/ the ache

sustained by checks and balances.

A life of ease and unease.

Cool / non-corporeal evening / her smooth

thighs cicada-translucent

through the screen. Just fireflies.

Desire to Own a Cello 20

2007-11-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

20

Pleasure for pleasure, dust to dust.

Virtuoso tickle.
Horse tale flick over rosin.

Mother lacquer father bow /

pull stronger, stranger overtones
from throats suddenly vibrant with praise.

Desire to Own a Cello 19

2007-11-18T14:50:00.001-08:00

19. [Kingdom Comb]

Purse like a shark's stomach. Ivory spiked heels.
Cuneiform eyebrows.
"You" slip into your new fuse.

Shopping list in lipstick,

kisses in the shapes of rotten fruit.

Desire to Own a Cello 18

2007-11-17T17:51:00.000-08:00

18. [3 Martini Lunch]

Blur of oriole, photo red-eye.

Olive drab jostling.

Pimento mori /

one of the many pickled stares.

Pictures slip from wallet, edges

curled. Christened with brine. "The kids

have really grown, Stan."

Skinned knuckles

wedged into the jar's mouth.

"Going, going," he strains. "Gone."

Desire to Own a Cello 17

2007-11-17T17:48:00.001-08:00

Rest of something has to give.

Improbable orchid

out of corpse's

lids. Our slight horrors press

through long-closed eyes--

the dream abandoned, realized.

Desire to Own a Cello 16

2007-11-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

a life sufficient

ly broken / o

my soul

/ o my body bent direction

less

listing, right

leg flexed

and left one yet

kick

ing tense: then

slack.

Desire to Own a Cello 15

2007-11-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

The hors d'oeuvre of an evening dries

dusk, salmon,

soot-crusted / evening star

a distant lady's platinum

ear-ring

catalyst in fussed-over hair.

Desire to Own a Cello 14

2007-11-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

Animal jaw /

eyes rip into book, fasten down

furiously / shake

pages like a tossed pelt.

Friend, her fingers

were as nimble as a soul

wavering

between unsuitable lovers.

Desire to Own a Cello 13

2007-11-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

13. [Sea Turtle]

Intent, slow-moving

life-on-earth, worn ponderously or blown--

loose shingles in a wholly predictable gust.

Leave behind the sand-churned

cathedrals of egg shells / to lust

openly for open water.

Under current and under skin, heat

rises in bubbles

of demented inspiration.

Love holds all things

courageous

to swim in its depths.

Desire to Own a Cello 12

2007-11-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

12. [Fossil Leaves]

Soft parts

have long since diffused

into currents of thought

/ scrubbing water / combusting

air, to leave

carbon smudges / black on black shale,

indistinct shades to disentangle shadows,

textures of articulations, growth rings,

cracks forced apart, contours

swollen under the push

and need of fingering earth

that are only incidentally eternal.

Desire to Own a Cello 11

2007-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

11. [Martyrs out of Gadflies]

You comment

on the social role of the cynic:

a pearl,

to the oyster, remains

an irritant.

Desire to Own a Cello 10

2007-11-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

10. [Drinking Song]

If the world were a cup,

if you up-

ended all of it

and raised it to your lips

/ do you imagine

that the world entire

then / would be enough?

Desire to Own a Cello 9

2007-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

9 [Goldberg Variations]

With pleasure of disuse /

may the abused body

awaken: the ear

hone itself against precision.

Measure to be restrained

/ while Bach's

musical variation / unhurried

through a night entire /

repeats.

Desire to Own a Cello 8

2007-11-16T13:36:00.000-08:00

8 [Creation Myth]

Out of nothing, nothing aches.

The sky-blue robin's earth will break,

and out will spill the sun for yolk--

dull yellow eye to stain the cheek.

The embryo will caw and yawn,

new-sprouted talons,

socket lined with down.

Desire to Own a Cello 7

2007-11-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

Lord of Mayflies, here on earth

we value patience.

As the sun makes stiff

those wings the next night's wind

will purpose

to be scattered.

Ash on updrafts

pitch above

our lives' transparent flickering:

too brief, too weak, too voluble.

Our names are written,

but the pages curl in flame.

Desire to Own a Cello 6

2007-11-16T13:21:00.000-08:00

Taste the sweet that you are given. Grace

is not a finger dripping,

nor the taste of honey

far, ever,

from the fury of stings.

Desire to Own a Cello 5

2007-11-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

5

If someone asks me I will say
tonight I came close.

Tonight a white coal

burned through the contralto's throat.

And my hand, guiding

the nape of your neck into opera,

lost hold of the cliff-face, my eyes

rolled into the balcony,

the open air sped between our toes.

Desire to Own a Cello 4

2007-11-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

As if the moon

were a woman that you stared at

from across the room

but could never approach.

Our jag of tranquility becomes

an open scar.

Sea of dust pulling with tide. Always

the lust glistens there, as ice.

So you count out the blemishes

on her beautiful, haughty face.

The metaphor is exhausted;

there is now no way to live

that is not thoroughly worn.

Desire to Own a Cello 3

2007-11-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

Drooping

from the eye of a gargoyle, stone

tears / yellow quartz

bursts out of lime sockets.

Behind the deformed face, a fossil

coils smaller and even smaller thoughts.

Inspiration that is weight and force.

Offers no grace. Except

that one may yet be cut well

/ beaten into something beautiful or fierce.

Desire to Own a Cello 2

2007-11-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

Gargoyle, drudge

and syncopated bone

/ throttles the ear like an anvil

accepts a hammer's "suggestion."

Now there are chances to be

something strange and unknown.

Unproved.

Desire to Own a Cello 1

2007-11-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the beginning of the illustrated poetry series

Something blank pushes through.

As a knife's shadow

cuts shadow substance, without effect.

Details of the script inhibit /

tight sounds through pursed lips / exact

retribution. Incoherently comes

kaleidoscopic sense of home.

& I am so shaking to be left alone,

to have created--and become--

something real.