Used Rain

I

Into the used rain, not soaking yet,
by the freeway
I go walking wet,
to work out a new
midmorning plan:

a route to keep to me unkilled,
bone-warm but skin-chilled,
hunting for the first fill

I hop a fistulated drain,
a bob and weave to dodge backlogged Japan—
from the hand of the skilled to the land of the build—
accepting the suggestion
of my first selection
as these shoes decide to choose
and I yield…

Entering the open dry,
queueing in the brimming red,
breathing with a steaming sigh,
directed now by beams of men,
cheering on correction of the children
not my own—
heredity does not condone I die
before vicariously fathering
a world that’s passing by—
until the abattoir
gregarious has grown

I eat in
animal sterility,
Alone

And then out-starting-I steps forth,
destination screened, darts north

Rain holds its tongue, I bask
in glorious traffic on forbidden
sidewalks, rumble roads and
borders,
iron horses bark historic orders, Phaedric
explorations, seen and sung,
blow from carbon’d lungs
against the fuzzy hotness of my mumble,
a wooden-masted crossbar screams
monotonous framed attempts
to tumble,
I slow and stow the
heated fabric hatred of my mask,
I kneel and ask it
to belay the slippery crush of
precariously sudden murder,
unruly cones deterring men to wander
or to pass, but
I go
on, mercifully allow my blunder

Perhaps for this reason he who leaves his
father and mother
acquires more power

II

As time progressed, so legs did too,
to mount the hill whereat
they codify Jehosophats
in northern flavor,
remove the syllables that southward waver,
and print them onto bricks of stymied household favor

On touring course, by walls unmoored, uncouth—
my drownèd hair, o’ertaken by oceanic influence—
I gathered these reflections in my drippy eyes, I spied them in the glass:
Eleven times eleven shapes that wooden pegs may
join under a roof
to home a house
it seemed (it proved to seem)
the earth could always store the past

And as I moved, a sign appeared:
two ravens in the breeze
I thought to search for beauty’s gift,
to bring within my reach,
my ease,
my own reminder
each belongs to each
I strolled the aislets in-between
the lowly, printed hills
Among some fighting cubs I passed
and, practicing my skill,
I spoke a ruddy phrase in threes—
investigating stacks of trees—
the call to listen and appease,
though none obeyed my will

You could not hold in hand the birds
These sons don’t hear your words

I watched the wretched voices rise
and wrap the air in casted truth—
a pair of tongues that emphasized;
a pair of clouds that drained my eyes;
a pair of restless, birdless cries

Whoever wants forever in their youth, their house is filled
But nowhere heaven finds a nest, and so we build

The exomotive emptiness addressed,
a pair of lonely elements, expressed,
now split and float and spill into the drain, confused
This rain is used

Melissa Michelle Mariposa

Melissa Michelle Mariposa
La tendresse de l’air
Entre nous
Bids me to silence
The peace of love burns
Like an untended fire
An unintentional consequence
That grows in the honesty of the undertow
That shivers and hopes that it glows

Take what weapons you will from the wall
The axe, the pole, or the awl
My master, my shield, may call out a name
this hour
The sound I imagine is framed by a fearful, deadly, distant, famous power

Melissa Michelle Mariposa
Un abime d’espoir
Entre nous
Bids me to idleness
This wasted love falters
An untended fire

Dragon’s Breath

Quiet, little ones

We are trapped, momentarily, in the room that has no
sound, black and white, around and around and around
shake, squeeze, but we are fixed, these conscious
monuments of wax and sticks and marble
bits like
Babylon, whore, what dost thou intend to do to shake, manoeuvre
shift the weighty blame, thine own unholy name
from you?

hyperion sends his love. He says you
should have called. I asked you about the foul
things you wrote to me, but you said go away.
What is wrong with you these days?

i am four feet tall, mortified by love’s music.
baby, you know i adore you. dynamite in my ears makes
me curse, rehearse and curse the worse. solid state
crayons are crying to remember their names, trying to find
the way home, I am just recording the stuff I am
saying inside this bubble, cloud of mine own. Inside this cloud,
I fight and I crowd around the fiery mound, snuffing out its
sparks of holy sound. This nonsense makes me all the worse
for wear. I can’t find the lightning bolt to ride into
the thunder storm and be translated into Heaven. Put out this
fire, then, and pound me down, slowly, softly,
silently, into dusty, breathless earth,
that I may whisper you sweet nothings,
as always.

God make you green, belching out your chords of
courage. Atheists caress each other’s tongues with
testimony times ten. I am broken glass, lying in
a field in a war-torn country, somewhere cold and
hopeless. Maybe I’ll cut you. Maybe you’ll bleed and you’ll
see your red life for the first time.

Rush at you, I speed, I run, my soul ascends
a muted major third. Bedouin farmers get hammered
on fake moonshine and pass out in the field, sleeping
in the stars. I weep, I wept, there’s wind and there’s
water.

I am tripping on a distant ship, I’m slipping: see I slip
I keep my head above my hips, I rock, I rip! I count to
ten again, again.

I clobbered you in the brain, my spittle mixing
in the air with your rebuttal

I am not real, so pretend I’m not here. I’m done; this
dragon’s breath has had its birth.

Shibboleth

I put tequila on my breath
to contradict my shibboleth

I play these cards like Western Wayne
heaps Heaven on his Western brain

Arches

Under the arches of your lip
You breathe out coffee, bacon, popcorn, candy scents
We mingled breaths between us
when we kissed
I tasted happiness…and industry…and fear
I tasted wild death

You must have bathed your hands
In the blood of the wild hog you caught
Your gang of brothers closed their eyes
and joined the rite
Your heart, like others, cast aloft
Erect with equal parts damnation and design

And while your body could not transmit
all of that power
Your eyes shot open wide
and you sought that figure of your imagination
who might receive
The outpouring of your imaginary strength
In your mind, you ran and leapt at him
In dauntless fashion, bowed your back
and beat him ’til he slept

Having borne the sword of justice that you wrought
You lose you grip; your trembling hands cannot
hold their strength
The rite has passed and mourning comes
Under the arches of your brow

Avé Woodland

To survive the night
They stand together in the cold
While Earth and time delight
They collide,
Erode
And decimate the older world
Their reciprocity springs forth from
Nothingness
And to everything they give as thus:
As cloud, as void, as public smoke
They shift and suck and cloak
Until we all sit bold-faced, in the dark

The man returns to the unknown
And knowledge, useless, falls, dethroned

What’s needed here is something green
Such that its virtue can be seen without
The light we snuffed
When all the suns were swallowed, stuffed
And shuttered in a canvas bag
Rightly sorted, rightly tagged
“Unready for this heady draught,”
The King of Glory kindly laughed.

He motioned to the stars to play
And dancing waters sent their spray
The wagons did not mind the wind
And wheels spinning did not end

Ol’ Ben

The trees have ears—and God, of course
will make his war upon his horse
They listen as a desert missile,
a dromedary guff-whistle,
bears up, upon its back,
a sneak attack

The man with lightning on his lips
Ol’ Ben, a silverfish, he slips
Upstairs into the ghostly hall
Discovers portraits on the wall
And calculates how much to charge
For living large

While leading men into the space
His arms imbibe the staircase
And flailing through the muddy dark
The man surveys the mark

A club was formed, the house was moved
Beyond the mountains, as it proved
That people signed much bigger checks
The farther on they had to trek
And so the gang made dynamite
From fear and hope and pyrite

With flimsy arguments to strangers
Leading down into the danger,
Ben and friends, they tunneled through
And counted as their coin accrued
Until they reached the other side
With nothing left to hide

For just a moment, there it stood
A mansion made of cedar wood
Until Ol’ Ben, he got the chills
(A voice escaped the windowsills)
He touched his finger to his ear
And made the mansion disappear

The trees all cheer to hear the sighs
That from all pocketbooks arise
While some from sorrow, some relief
There stands a man who once was thief
A camel and a horse depart
Into the forest, pulling carts
of women, mothers, fathers, men—
offense to God afeard again

Chant for Taco Tuesday

Today was
Taco Tuesday
Chinese food and
Meetings
Celebrating consequences
Working-eating-eating
Buried under telephones
Chewing through the mountain
Taking second helpings
From the corporate coffee fountain*

*This rhyme scheme is clearly a ripoff of Pepper from Butthole Surfers.

Cardboard Hymn

I listened, but
I wasn’t listening to you
I was
touching the clock
Watching for hesitation
and the head tilt,
holding out for harmony of heart
and Holy Spirit
as you handed over help

The parking lot was
hostile to my health
but it hosted him
on heavy cardboard,
a habitat and hazard
holed up in hidden heaven