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This metaphysical romance,
breath, cloaked in supernal dream lore,
smells of cherry blossom.
But pestilent abysmal winds
slide between clay clods on graves.
Tombstones forgotten by years,
The epitaph is striking,
The appraisal of life is bland.
Moss has crept inside each letter.
Nature claims, and claims again, her own.
A marionette of bones, taps brittle music
in a dry casket and
speaks of moistness:
how the teardrop finds the ocean,
How the desert seduces the clouds.
There, in the hollow stone,
where the snake eats her tail and
gives birth—
one finger finds the navel,
another finds the pulse.

Dream Poem 2

We had planned for a river,
but the tide was not in our favor.
Fearing you will quit the journey,
I push the raft and giggle madly,
to assure you that I am pleased.
You will not look at me,
your face is everyone’s face,
we have become indifferent.
My ankles tingle as I imagine
alligator tooth, and cottonmouth fang.
The sand bank teems with puddles
in these mirrors I watch the sunset.
It is a glorious display of orange
but I dare not lift my eyes from the ground.
We stop at a giant sand dune
in the middle of a boreal forest.
a crowd has gathered to chant om.
I leave the raft and try to join.
Peaceful eyes turn angry and ugly,
burning hands turn to ice.
The people shout in unison–
You don’t resonate with us,
look at your energy…
pushed into the center of the circle,
alone and shamed with attention,
I eye the dark forest and sigh,
I never intended to rest here…
I push through chains of linked hands
with a frantic hunger for solitude.
I am called to the forest by the
distant murmur of mountains.

Dream Poem 1

Death Valley perches atop Mount Everest,
here there are no gentle breezes or lazy clouds–
just a stillness that echoes in sounds of
shifting golden grains of sand,
bending blades of yellowed grass,
and the occasional scuttle of insect feet.
I peer down at a desiccated valley.
I have no sweat, no scratch, no struggle
with which to claim my place
on the mountain.

Technology transported me here with a camera
to document the features needed to brave scarcity.
To stream the intelligent design of reptile and insect
across the internet with labels like cute and unusual.

Black and white is bold against
so much yellow and gray–
a cat comes and rubs his ribs on my leg.
His bulging green eyes are hungry.
I will adopt you I exclaim
but my mother comes and
peels back his gums–

each tooth is tainted with decay.
Think about the vet bill she says.
We love only the things that do
not cost us.

The ranger’s sun lined face will not emote.
She tells the story of the first mountaineers
who died disgracefully, awkwardly even,
in search of glory. She holds up a battered photo.
One man meant to leave his mother’s photo
on the summit, her photo almost made it,
his body was never found.

I look out at the horizon and see
boulders leap and fall, the mountain is heaving,
yet I feel no tremble beneath my feet.
I take pictures and know my purpose–
I exist to document natural disasters.

The crowd screams.
The ranger pushes us to cower
in mile high cement cylinders.

For our safety.
We are each given a pie shaped cell,
separated by sheets of metal.
The mountain is falling, but we
can no longer see the sky.

The cat is outside–I cannot breathe.
On my cell wall scrawled in red it says–
pretend you aren’t here, imagine you are in your special place.

I want to be outside cradling that damn worthless cat–
loving what I can, what I choose, as the boulders
pummel my body, and I earn the mountain’s pain.

Dream 1

I’m at Rum Island, the spring, trying to swim against the current of the Santa Fe river.  My belly is swollen with child and I feel the weight of my creation pulling me under.  I am heavy and my arms are useless I feel like I am drowning.  On the shore people stand idly and watch me.  Finally I realize I can not fight the water and I get out to use the outhouse.  The outhouse is situated on the bank and water from the river laps into it.  The outhouse is floating like a boat almost. I step inside there is not hole, no toilet seat, simply a wooden platform that I stand on.  I understand that I am supposed to stand and pee and so I do.  The platform dips under the water and when it resurfaces a pile of excrement appears I am certain that it does not belong to me but I’m afraid that if I come out of the outhouse someone will blame me.  I stare dismally at the pile for some time until I hear commotion outside.  Everyone is running to a tree house where they will try and figure out who is sleeping with our spelling professor.  I climb into the tree house and take my place.  After listening in for what seems like hours I realize that I am the one who is doing it but I can’t remember doing it.  I realize that I probably did take a dump in the outhouse too and that my mind is going.