Some written endeavors

Simple Twilight

2011-04-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

Our white dresses show through

the simple twilight

Darkness perforated

Father is a fragment

a fractal of religion,

and a lesson unfolding.

He’s fallen into

the only thing we talk about.

The practical things fall

victim to absurdity

and why care much

about the faint faces

on the window of a night train.

You scream delicious

with bags of decadence

dripping a condition of resident nectar.

Someone mingled with high air might understand

the pastiche quilt of sameness—

like midwestern visions of the land

without a pony

a project of honesty upon accessory—

an endless reference, controlling comets

And you are another

gentle singular, solo facsimile

wrapped in a blue tarpaulin, undying ocean.

You suffocate in shine, miss a smile,

creased in the horizon at a sunrise-silhouetted bridge

a generous view, a stately reply

a drawn growth, mapped network of marrow and steel

suspended by seed and steam. I was wasted on me

contrived of brick. A sequined eye on the sail of astonished clouds

unable to blink a mistake.

Lastly, a Limitation

2011-04-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

Soft concentration
thunders inside
siren metal tinkle

i thought lovely
the Goddess of Speech
broken conflict at risk

i insist on a single
weather balloon
satellite lost we--
abandoned thick floatation
expanding outside
stratosphering wicker echo

i thought heavenly
seven times once
an owl echoing in the wood
twice dragon eyes
three imaginary boys
four and so forth

we garden pentacles
with cups of buckles shekels
of safety oil and wheat in the night
now nine and spins a tempest
an endless twisted
exhale into evolutionary faith
a sword of choice and fate will fasten

Eighty-Sixed

2011-04-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Year of the Rabbit
rains without repair.
He wears a red jumper
and plays soccer over the river.

With a splash, I see a flash
of past on the dusty hare.
Children play cards in the black grass
A concrete impression survives the blast
Centuries swell
a countenance rare.

Near Earth Trojan

2011-04-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

A pocket nova sits in a brilliant belt of emptiness
I need a lighthouse barometer to open that window
we mine colors from asteroids
carbon kisses, stone blossoms, iron strings, threaded water and symbol
a bright chalice of clouds circle ivy-like
and frame this story like a cube of cold becoming why

Fold Here

2011-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Dig us
out of ourselves
Holes and hills
He and she

Karen, Kyle and Kennedy
Happen to be here one day
Happen to dig
Their bodies from hive wax
And shale cracks

I was alcohol once
I was clear

Ready Means Happy

2011-03-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

Telling darling
please sincere
comic
seams to join
a glimpse
tales of a fetish near
arrested
incantation
ready for surreal
the struggle in a closet
time it will reveal

The Future is Space

2010-12-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

We are on a white island born from mountains that emerged from the ocean floor and frozen slightly.
We drive to high places in cars that are never really cars; they are more like skateboards.
The snow is so high that I feel it on my chest. People have pitched their tents where it was infinitely arresting--endless sky and horizon. I could spend the rest of my life here.

So many people, whom I do not know, populate this place and they are my kin--white and brown. Something is happening--a build up of years, of scars culminating on this snow-settled tropical island.

In the late afternoon, I sit in my home which is a rundown trailer situation. Bits of wall and siding fall, but I have no shame in my poverty. It is only shelter. A couple appears. I do not know the man, but A redheaded woman accompanies him. She has been dead for some time. She is very friendly and wants to spend time with me because she regrets that she didn't when she was alive and I do too.

I call for my cousin because I do not want to miss the daylight and he arrives in two seconds. I am shocked at how impossible, yet absolute everything is and happens. I am unprepared for this. In the car, halfway down the snowy road, I jump out and slide down the snow in my slippers which continue to fall off without any cinderella grace.

I watch a sea of my family on an infinite horizon. They emerge from the doors of a church. My mother and her sister guide the mourning mass. I watch them head-on as they approach me.

Giving Thanks: A Eulogy for Lola (Grandma)

2010-11-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

Mid-autumn I rise to the sound of wind in the maples. From what I believe to be my secure shelter, I look out the window to see that the leaves have changed. From flames of deep orange to faded marigold, sunlit foliage fills my room with a glow that protects me from the cold open sky.

But even in glory, our old companions fall. Some beauty returns to the earth that has provided us with every need, like a selfless mother. And as we endure the daily hustle and bustle, perpetually acting, making plans, making mistakes, and making amends; we occasionally, sometimes unexpectedly, bear witness to this cycle of change--the vibrance of a luminous sunset to the subtlety of dusk to dark. The tree becomes barren, exposed for us to see, yet restful and at peace with the dramas of the world. And even though our tree has lost a part of itself, in time and with patience, the leaves of the past nourish its roots and make space for new eager buds, preparing for splendor.

We are the tree that remains, so let us be watchful over this beautiful family and the bounty of life that sustains us. As the winter comes quietly upon us, we can pray or we can meditate. We can regretfully think on all the things we did or did not say or do. But the best thing we can do in the absence of Lola is to contribute to life on her behalf. When we devote ourselves to selfless kindness, forgiveness, and compassion, her spirit lives freely among us.

When a Person Becomes a Place

2010-09-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone must have a pocket this deep
Sewn tightly in each corner
Let me know this one by heart
Incise surrender
No crime so sparse

I paint my grandfather
To remember a pinhole
In his forehead

Profound ovals
Upheld by his jaw
I never knew him without wrinkles
Nor the name of his Spanish piano songs

I'll name one Paradiso
Unlike infernos
Drawn in the woodstove during blackouts
Caves in mind

Never full
Shells concave his face
Where barnacles and cancer
Evolve for his fingers landing the keys
Blank and sharp

Single is Nothing

2010-09-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

We pause to see radical change
Endorse it every town we tinsel
A branch where math is sacred

Single is nothing
We hang on

Our ligaments
Wish we thought better
Organic chemistry, quantum physics, astrophysics and neuroscience
Permacultural meditation, galactic alignment
Salmon eggs and skeletons mantra
Hawks, bats, hummingbirds, and manta rays

Fictitious realms and societies
Unseen abstractions laughing

Cryptic illustration of all things combined
A whole body together

Subconscious interaction
Clairvoyance and intuition
Star power and amethyst rocks
Heart tremors

Slipping vessels aboard the solution--saline circulation
What does the hand mean, who do I signify?

A cellular chapel, a chapter unwritten
And what do you feel about death?

And how can you inhale this life without exhaling
How could we think without salt and light

Without clear and dark voyages and voyeurism
A radiant teaching embodied and broadcast

From an island where the sunflowers turn
To the child of the sun

Play peek-a-boo like cats and tomatoes
The nightshade purples and resonates from paragliders

Diaphragmatic flight surrenders to wind and creation--
an echo so shallow and hollow--

Unaware of this frequency of sails and photons
We pause on the road to see a mesa and a man-made lake
All insects prehistoric
and where words don't work

Crazy Glue

2010-07-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

We were surrounded by crazy glue

Surrounded by tools

We had the antidote for snake venom

and spilled all that too

My brother dangled from a rosary

fell far from a bead

The break echoed for decades

Slipped the rosary into grandma’s pillowcase

She never prayed again

He once was a manta ray

Once was a kite

He laid the sticks crosswise
Jumping in kid shoes

I snapped them apart

I can’t find them in the wilderness

Can’t squeeze their stubborn honey

That sleeps in crevices

Wings folded

The colored corollas too timid to help

What if they knew
he lives in a rock

the size of two palms

painted red butterfly?

What if they knew

it could speak?

I leave them all spinning

I look for rainbuckets

I look for letter magnets

I look for windows taller than me

I was hypothetical then

Not a real dream

I was a shard of lamp glass

He broke for me

I bottled his swings

I smothered his voices

I asked him to shine

We were surrounded

Surrounded by fools

We made dandelion sun tea

and spilled all that too

What am I?

2010-07-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

I am a robber, a victim, a thief—I am kind remorseful, unburdened, relieved. I am thick as black and clear as forgotten sleep. I am stung. I am still here, still where I was, still looking to be somewhere else. I am fieldless, mountainless, lakeless, in love. I tremble. I am a jackhammer. I am exhaust. I am raw, unrefined, unfiltered, unholy and I am whole. I am restless. I am a rooftop—imperfect and boiled softer by the sun. I am earth heat. I am basalt. I am volcanic. I am ash. I am fertile, sandy loam. I am part acid, part salt, part quiet, part lion. I am broke and I am awake. I am green, I am chartreuse. I am full of truth. I am unlawful, self-righteous. I am aloof. I am unencumbered, outnumbered and I am childless. I am full of lies. I am thunder. I am panther. I move swiftly in the dark. I am dark. I am speech. I am description. I am hollow, fluffy, silk and smoke-free. I am away. I am remembered. I am thought—a time of day. I am erupting. I am ruthful. I am a pear tree bearing plums. I am a fountain, a trickle, a bone, a white key, a black key, a coin. I am a canoe, a lighthouse, a totem. I am crystalline. I am a reflection. I am a knapsack, a puddle, an emblem, a bang. I am a pair, a leaflet, a couplet, a rendering. I am a stair, a pedestal, a pendulum, a portal. I am out. I am land. I am a cell. I am a sail, an insignia, an island, a tide. I am voluntary, inevitable, indiscriminate, enveloped, unchained.

When I See Felix in Exile I Know

2010-05-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

There will always be outer space
and Negative Capability
In which I saw the depth of time and no time and the spaces
within a spilled espresso pot
and the contagious void that it creates
on white celluloid
That paper could pretend to be
a procession of encumbered dancers and laborers
of dark limbs
of any stature and without nations
A superimposition of white ants
traverse a single planet's path
across the liquid composition
whose common name is god
whose scientific
name has yet to be deduced
One could wield political power by symbols
cut and paste to fashion a custom flag
Indicating
There's less difference
between reading Russian and reorganizing a rubik's cube
than there is variation between the Brothers Karamazov
and amongst the constitution
of one cube to another at any point
in metamorphosis
No limitations to the use of rocket ships
Some enjoy them as large drinking vessels
while others prefer them for entertaining
interplanetary cousins
all aspiring to acquire the speech patterns of Carl Sagan
and Carl Jung
It takes little effort

but is of great consequence
to be a man with several folds

about his face and sculptings
to be a pearl in anything

other than an oyster
to leave everything broken

Trees are livestock - traduccion

2010-03-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

a river arrives

behind the barbed wire & each window

her loins root red in deep clay

hillsides burst

bags of all-purpose flour

and the yellowing day finally collapses

while the ceiling asks & the bed answers

"you will never get there"

the cows are slow

and below the shadows of their hats

brims a diversion

lifting one palm

as if to say, "you're welcome"

we always pass

leaving the beaches,

the clouded space, the unnamed towns

ahead

like the cow

i don't have a country to go to

there is no table for us

to drink honey

like this moment

without a watch

Loma Real

2010-02-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

The livestock are naked Indians
and have yellow bark.
A rio arrives at her loins that root deep
swallowed by red clay
dusted with windblown talcum
from a washed out mountain.
El día amarillo collapses mientras que
el cielo asks
and the bed answers,
"You'll never get there."
Las vacas son despacias.

Abajo de la sombra de sus sombreros, brims
a diversion--estan levantando una mano
as if to say, "You're welcome"
con mucho gusto.

Siempre pasamos adelante
adelante salgamos las playas, las lomas,
y los rincones nubosos.

Como la vaca, no tengo un pais para ir
no haya mesa donde podemos tomar miel
como este momento sin reloj.

So little that counts can actually be said.

2010-02-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

"We are like two old people
sitting in rickety chairs
on the porch
sipping small glasses of beer,"
he says.

The monkeys drop bits of tree from the treetops
interrupting the insects' nocturnal chatter.

Yes, we are as old as we will ever be;
like this,
in the cooling of the day.
In the translation of a single burning star
into a perforated black nylon ceiling
where everything turns clockwise
so many times and so quickly that it appears to be
in the very same place.

We are not thirsty. And I trace the orbit of flocks above
while he plans for the sake of planning.

We are quiet together. Digesting.
When he closes his eyes, I hear him listening
to the crickets
immune to clichés and restless motors in the distance.

Requiem for Anonymous Cadillac Coupe deVille and Railroad Photo-ops

2010-01-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

I. Overture

Snow here. Was. Is. Imagine you didn’t have batteries
No juice. Your claim on light falls
short of capture. Who sees
clear as glue
behind length times width anyway?
Line equals railway
equals river
that tin foil emulates

II. Aurora

All the Arthurs are in Scarborough
today to tinsel. And the Hudson is an opus
bejeweled in icing rocks initialed
by Rubenstein himself. Laughter buoys
as passengers replace passengers
at stations vaguely Canadian.
Large packages on a final stretch of life
as cargo. And thick electrical wire suspends
like bullkelp between steel – être bien dans sa peau
The Manhattans dub this car, “I’m gonna miss you.”

III. Moonphase

Flourish and spin for six hours
steep
drip
ripe
The hysterical pinwheel resolves by wind method.
Beyond the scope of inputs, outlets and speakerboxes,
there are foam shapes on the seashore
battered bays where the cliffs tell what they lost.
There are matchsticks born generous—
pains that have just recently been discovered
every day an average of three new species.

It’s doubtful I forgot my dream
because I spent all night in yours,
but if you blur your eyes a little, the speed will smudge every face’s smile
and your thimble could feel no time.

Sidewalk to Antarctica

2009-12-24T04:40:00.000-08:00

A thin crust country

Flags

A deck of cards

Script fiction
upon daytime

Magnetic youth
sea choke sun
adrift a graph
polarized

The only politically neutral place on earth
uninhabitable by us
without our inventions
to assist

Palpate ice for fuel
dry
years
cores

Gone
fishing for the apices
of fractals

Teeth of’em

Snow-
flake
pieces

Ether R.I.P. Solange

2009-12-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

Sunday I spent in the observance of silence
Recognizing how space manifests in absence
I subtracted many words and movement
from a daily arrangement – a rest

What can take place in an expanse is boundless
What I can feel on a Brooklyn rooftop lacking moonlight
is the shock of oxygen after life in a womb.

I can see how small we play
how inferior we convince ourselves to be
When we mimic the morphing of clouds
How great and divine is our capacity

I ask the urban ceiling to blind me tonight
to wash my eyes with the broad reflection of tempered street lights
muffling the hum of dramas and masquerades
An endless charade of conversation exacting how to do
and what to interact with whom we injure
and where to coerce a choked reality

What can we murder under the sky? What can we sculpt without textures and angles and dimensions of sight?
How complex a body is built to move and be moved
yet simple to witness majestic truth – time as space

I will let the lull of nothing kidnap me
I surrender to the extent of no extent
the parabolic points of infinity—a gong
an echo and perpetual flight into the depth
of absolute arrival to the tune of om
and I vibrate with perfect resonance when all is gone

I will become the sister I have always wanted

2009-12-13T23:19:00.000-08:00

I will become inappropriate for city life
fly a trapeze in the jungle
maybe do some mechanical work on rocket ships for extra cash
I will become a hobbyist for underwater paraphernalia
I will become the kind of old person who always buys the same kind of shoes
when my soles have worn thin
or at least live and die with someone who does
I will become a spinster who reads a French newspaper on Sundays
understanding not a word, but femme sole
I will crochet all of the hairs and dental floss I find into a new outfit for the Statue of Liberty
I will become the sister I have always wanted

the skyline: a cutout of skyscrapers adjacent to the headstones

2009-12-13T23:14:00.000-08:00

Everything asks for an engraving beyond the graveyard.
Like the sleeves of the riders rapidly representing a rainbow
Charged and Ephemeral passing swift in Deep V rims of wheels
all colored hoops and drop bars and flat bars and riser bars
and all manner of hats and caps and bells and hoop earrings and dangling things
off the bodies we will never know as we dance past Sad Gleeful. We ride on saddles giddy together as we cut each other off Unspoken
etiquette constantly a broken etiquette. We choke together
over gridlock over carbon and the east river running

I wish I knew you in 1903, but here's the Queensboro majestically
manifesting terrestrial rays from the morning sun and the Manhattan
and the Brooklyn and the armpits that unite them. Signals change
and seagulls always stay the same. There will be messengers below
guarding the passage to no end suspended
no beginning cantilevered.

The Ocean Has Fled from Our Faces

2009-10-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Nevermind what the forecast said,
your mother knows better
She read it in the furnace fuel

Behavior indicates
strong clouds
all trying to congregate
one mass
dissipating

Ocean has fled from our faces
and this is nothing new
under our tugboat satellites

Principles of magnetry for a cell,
no different for a star
Storyline to shoreline

I have a dead man's bag
inside imploded parachutes
suffocated
a little hot air
and a handle would help
but the balloons lost
their baskets
and the loom lacks a weave

A calla lily earns her last chance
rarely hails her hand
her clear hair recedes the rain

A lean candle nearly dead
lain against a rail

Under all this land yells a creed
that chains itself to Monday

Keep Laughter Much

2009-10-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Another battleship cat
Down

Every faithful good house
An inquisitive juxtapose

Keep laughter much
and nobody little

Obvious passes Quebec
Rebel against supper
In a territory where
Underwear seems vivacious
Where x-rays in Yugoslavia
Zap another battleship

* abcedarian co-authored with Cedar

I love handfuls

2009-10-24T10:30:00.001-07:00

anything with a shape
breaks, my empty shelter
collapses, my inefficient transport,
its gliterry paint
chips. From underneath my chin
I look indifferently
upon the crumbling
angles of yourself appall
at that indifference--detectable
only with a mirror. In and out of geometries
we inhabit, we traverse
our luster smears, but the kindle and hum
is someone else entirely.

Non Prescription Color Contact Lenses, or Beautiful Eyes For Everyone

2009-10-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight, after supper, the dome of the sky will open in sections
Watch the photons swarm the entryways
the exitways

All the unborn infants have shopping lists
There’s an inflammation of naked mole rats in the turnstile

A man at a booth on the sidewalk wants to sell
a pair of scissors to snip at the excess of this day
to reuse the strips of Wednes-,Tues-, and Satur-
as tickets to an exhibit for an installation of barbed wire piano strings
suspending a pastiche marionette who plays Ella—
a man-made cubist and a hobbyhorse of a surgeon
who historically deems the appendix as unnecessary

The shoulderless sun can carry the world
The heart of the world is weightless from this window
and all it wants is your body

You can go there
with your cart of hot dogs and scarves that gravity craves

I try to kiss your feet once in awhile
You try to touch your toes
and ask,
What do we put underneath this?

citta happens

2009-10-04T15:31:00.001-07:00

From pushy pedestrian, I grow mannered. Deep in their sockets live the heads of my femurs. Extension is white and I am still. My eyes sit back in my skull. I see my spine. My ears slip into canals. The cittam watches. One discriminating sword. The personal self suspends beyond the masks of bubbling mud beyond swarms of unrest even beyond breath. And it is not a struggle.

peak the hollow

2009-09-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

the fastest way to expel--
always uncover--
is to look at the surfaces of three hundred
and sixty
the limestone
the mirrors
the brass
but you insist on
a gerbil wheel
or the cyclone
to play cards
and with weaponry
i shake
admire
the mintyness
of it
the way
what animals
would theorize
then you embellish
a spoke
or rim
to hymnals
and forgetting the war

Ballet of Small Rooms

2009-09-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

cauliflower grows in the stratosphere
it’s a different story up there
it’s too bright for someone disinterested
in the appetite of a youngster
who does not yet have a vendetta
against blue
not yet concerned about facts
like the way rocks change currents in a river
or where fiddlers
or which species of tree are unnamed
what city is october
how many grains of salt to turn water to brine
how many colonies have picked up and left
look
at the lemon pulp
suspended in water
a ballet of small rooms in a glass
how much would you charge to strain
algae from a swamp of this volume

purple stain

2009-07-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

every dwelling belonging to
other people appears appealing
words precede peculiarity

she sits on a suburban box
reads a September gale
on the architecture on
every grave and every
other chimney
a page

he
writes
under
no
other
silence

we
listen
over

Omit

2009-07-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

My mode of life
does not appear
Pertinent
Lonesome
Afraid
Curious
Of charitable purpose
A child
I maintain
Pardon
The books
Undertaken
To answer
Egotism
I
Omit
I got some
It
Some confined
Admit sincerity
To students
Kindred
Skilled
Defined
Outward crowd

Blue Trophy

2009-06-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

shine
my unboxed champion middleweight
all the glory days preserved
amplified
rectified all right
steel ligaments
and lugged joints
resurrected
several cylinders
wood cut
rectangular blocks
doubled for symmetry
in a temporary purgatory
of wrecked geometry

with glue and plans
a chassis of possibility
steps and hatches
sealed the armature
of supports and circles
set in design
no simple engine

Frankincense with Metal

2009-06-18T22:48:00.001-07:00

one hand can
reign and not govern
two hands
embody their arms
inhabit a hollow
beyond a cobalt melody
by a tin
over the atlantic
knit as blue
twinkling saxophone
sack another drunk
on the bump shack
hauling military maracas
ravishing a melody
whose veins do not govern
the madhatter
who offers a whistle
a swig off his rope
you sit on inflated roots
of crinkled brown paper
the frayed wires
forces as red
as rebel
will govern
the clang
bled by metal

lia's perhaps hand and my pointed toes

2009-06-05T12:45:00.001-07:00

lia's perhaps hand and my pointed toes, originally uploaded by enemytree.

photos are like perhaps hands. perhaps cameras hold pointed toes and a momentary pose. ee cummings posed a question as a statement. i held an ever changing crop. all the infinite angles--do they allow us to capture a lot? a little perhaps.

2009-06-05T12:36:00.001-07:00

Everything Under

2009-05-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

The title "Language Body" posted May 11th is still in "working" status. A bunch of the subtitles with separate entries are similar sounding--partially intentional, but not intended to confuse. I appreciate any comments.

THE LANGUAGE BODY

2009-05-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

SIX HOLY WORDS

If you conduct a Google map search under satellite view and enter the coordinates: 32.909982,97.04612, somewhere in the vast nowhere of China, you will see a satellite photograph of six Tibetan Sanskrit characters that have been repeatedly carved into a frozen lake. If you walk through the streets of Tibet, you will find this mantra as a visual motif—embellishing the work of metalsmiths and on the walls as sacred graffitti. The characters embody such magnetism that I tattooed them in a wrap around my left forearm . They are considered to be six holy words or syllables to the Tibetan Buddhists. And while uttered—whether they are written, spoken, or heard—it is thought to produce a powerful effect that radiates in ripples throughout the universe. The phrase can be transliterated as Om Mani Padme Hum—“the Jewel in the Lotus.” It is a mantra dedicated to the deity of compassion, Avalokiteshvara. It may also be broken down by each symbol/syllable: Om = mediation; ma = patience; ni = discipline; pad = wisdom; me = generosity; and hum = diligence.

When my arm was still healing from the fresh tattoo, I stood in front of some bulk spinach in the produce section at an East Village market.

“That’s in my language,” said an employee of the market, who happened to be Tibetan.

“What?” I asked.

He repeated himself while pointing to my left forearm, “The only ones who know the meaning of this are the Buddhist monks who repeat it all the time.” He said, “All I know is it’s, ‘six holy words.” Or more precisely the root syllables from which they are constructed. This linking of roots is fundamental in the Sanskrit language. It is precisely the practice of repetition and correct pronunciation that gives any mantra its charge.

As a poet, I was drawn to the idea that these words not only express symbolism, but the words’ sounds and characters embody power within themselves. Over this past summer I took a course in music therapy as part of the Creative Arts Therapy Certificate Program. As a yoga instructor, I was looking for alternative and holistic ways to practice and promote overall health and enrichment. Around this time I met a photographer who was interested in taking portraits of individuals after reading a prayer. We both knew there was something expressive on the face when words affect people. I had been reading The Music of Life by Hazrat Inayat Khan and began to see how the vibration of sound and words affect the body and, arguably, the cosmos. As Carl Sagan said, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” With all this in mind I suggested, “What if we conduct a project where people chant different mantras over an extended period of time while taking photographs of them throughout?”

So we began the project and both the chanter and the photographer were visibly altered in their energy levels and overall appearance. My yoga teacher training was with the Samarya Center for Integrated Movement Therapy and Ashtanga Yoga and the founders, my instructors, were both clinicians—one a speech pathologist—who had documented the effects of chanting on severely depressed individuals. After chanting for several weeks, the subjects showed improved respiratory function and general mood as both an immediate result and over an extended period of time. And without knowing this in the past, I was able to experience these effects as well. It is evident that there is a visible change when using the body to make these sounds.

SANSKRIT

2009-05-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Sanskrit saṃskṛtā vāk or Sanskrta, means, “well put together” or “language brought to formal perfection” (Devavani, Houston 3). This definition does not merely express some form of ethnocentrism, or I might call it linguacentrism, but it refers to the language as a cultivated “technology of sound that was systematically applied to language and phonetics.” It bears close resemblance to the Greek and Latin in its roots of verbs and grammatical forms (Paul 48). Sanskrit is the closest thing to a derivative language from which the major modern language groups in the West have developed—

what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (Paul 46).

Although primarily a “language of prayer”—one that comprises words describing spiritual experiences and concepts that no other language does—it has been chosen as the “perfect language” transferable to computer comprehension, hence used for Artificial Intelligence. With its case and tense endings, it is “the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet” in terms of its mathematical precision. “By the endings added onto nouns or verbs, there is an obvious determination of the precise interrelationship of words describing activity of persons and things in time and space, regardless of word order” (Houston 6). NASA researcher, Rick Briggs wrote an article in AI Magazine stating that the syntax and semantics of Sanskrit is compatible with the essence and form necessary for “transmitting logical data” in Artificial Intelligence and computer processing (Houston 3).

The Sanskrit alphabet consists of 49 basic sounds. Each letter is individually distinguished by the tongue position and the location and degree of resonance in the mouth and body. The “key component [to speaking Sanskrit] is pronunciation” and the “use of the whole mouth” (Paul 49). There are five distinct mouth positions: (1) guttural (throat); (2) palatal (hard palate); (3) cerebral (where the arch rising behind the upper teeth reaches the roof); (4) dental (behind the upper teeth) and (5) labial (lips). These become important when we discuss the physiological effects of stimulating these locations. In comparison to other languages, Sanskrit is unique in that it requires the speaker to pay special attention to articulating sound and direction of breath in a way that stimulates clear thinking and practice in speaking deliberately. “It is arranged on a thoroughly scientific method, the simple vowels (short and long) coming first, then the complex vowels (dipthongs), followed by the consonants in uniform groups according to the organs of speech with which they are pronounced (Houston 6). The combinations and linking of sounds are produced under strict grammatical laws that prevent the flow from interruption so that the fusion of words and verse becomes euphonic. For example, to greet another person, asking “How are you?” in Spanish, one might say “¿Cómo está?” whereas in Tagalog—a main language of the Philippines greatly influenced by the Spanish—one would say “Kumusta ka?” in which the sounds are similar, but merge to create a rolling effect. In the French, it is similar to the function of a liaison. In Sanskrit, when word boundaries seal together, the term for this is sandhi, where the pronunciation will alter depending on what sounds most harmonious. For instance, Namah te “I bow to you,” becomes Namaste.

In Saṃskṛtā vāk, vāk, more or less translates to “word” in English, but in Sanskrit it refers to the Goddess Vāk or Saraswati. Vāk distinguishes the word as “the power of command” and Saraswati (sr – “to go, “to flow” swati – “auspicious,” also a river in India) is “the Goddess of the endless stream of wisdom” (Frawley 14). Saraswati also represents beginnings and inspiration, which I will use interchangeably as a synonym for inhalation. In a language where words are thought to carry creative capacity, it suits it to be named after this deity because speaking and living require inspiration. Essentially, speakers of the Sanskrit language view it as a powerful and graceful vital force.

The syllable om is considered by some to be the most universal sound and similar sounds form cadences for various prayers, greetings or blessings like amen for Christians or As-Salāmu `Alaykum for Muslims. The sound om is divided into three (or four) parts in a cycle, each represented by the trimurti (three most important gods of Hindu mythology): “A” - Brahma, the creator; “U” - Vishnu, the preserver; and “M” - Shiva, the destroyer; lastly there is an essential silence that indicates the space (akasha) from which all things emerge and to which they dissolve and return. Each god is usually depicted with their respective consorts: Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Kali. Without the consort, the god is powerless as their feminine counterparts awaken their energies or potential.

The practice of Nada Yoga is complementary to this idea of sound as a flow of currents. The word nada means “a loud sounding or droning or rushing,” or “currents of sound” and refers to linguistic or nonlinguistic sounds “that exist in the human body and in the universe. Nada Yoga offers an internal experience of sound frequencies by means of meditation, induced by the external experience sound of vocal and instrumental music” (Paul 118).

“According to Yoga and Sankhya (branch of Indian philosophy) systems, sound is the root of all other sensory potentials.” The sound of the language is meant to “take us back from our gross sounds to their idea content” then “to the perception they represent.” Potentially, if the speaker energizes the sound appropriately over time, then the sound becomes the meaning. This makes more sense when we discuss verbal mimicry as onomatopoeia and frequencies. This is what the Tibetan man at the market was talking about. He could have given me an English translation such as the one I have provided here, but the meaning is not understood until it is physically felt when uttered. Hence the only ones who know the meaning of the words are the ones who repeat it as mantra.

I choose Sanskrit as a topic of discussion, not only because it is the “oldest” traceable language, but also it is a poetic language—inherently embodying elements of rhythm in the meter it is spoken, rhyme, repetition, assonance and so forth. It is as though it were mathematically devised for something beyond Artificial Intelligence. It is ideal for expressing beauty and has an ability to convey and move through its use of poetry.

WAVE BEHAVIOR

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In order to understand the mode of this language, we must move away from the definitive approach of the English language to a more perceptual approach of understanding the meaning behind universal sounds. “Apart from the meaning a word has, even the sound of the syllables can bring about a good result or a disastrous result” (Khan 271). Hazrat Inayat Khan, a former master of classical Persian music, was told by his teacher to share an Eastern attitude toward the power of the spoken word to the West.

In the ancient languages words were formed by intuition […] words that have come purely by intuition and that form a language which is an action and reaction of man’s experience of life are more powerful than the words of the languages we speak today. Thus they have a greater power when repeated, and a great phenomenon is produced when a person has mastered those words. Every vowel has its psychological significance [as] the composition of every word has a chemical and psychological significance. The yogis use special words that they repeat in the morning or in the evening, and by this they reach a certain illumination or come to a certain state of exaltation (240).

These special words compose mantras. Mantra is a Sanskrit word—the root manas, signifies the “linear, thinking mind” and tram means, “to protect, free or deliver.” Thus, mantras are “sonic formulae” that alter one’s consciousness to “take us beyond, or through the discursive faculties of the mind” (Paul 48). Hindu texts from the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., claim that a person who chants mantra can apprehend what “cannot be seen,” “impart strength” and “remove doubt” and “leads to inference of an entire matter when only a part of it is seen” (Paul 47). Each mantra is an instrument designed for a particular purpose. Japa is the repetition of these mantras often with the use of japa malas or meditation/prayer beads that are similar to rosary beads, but used in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Typically, they comprise 108 (or a sum divisible of 108) beads. A meditator will repeat a given mantra for each bead up to any number of cycles of 108 times. Not only are the mantras themselves repeated to increase their power, but the sounds and syllables within them reoccur as if to strike the same chord to sustain its resonance. Repetition also serves to help the speaker “realize” what is said. The following are a few common mantras that illustrate this repetition in the form of roots and vowel sounds:

Asato Ma Sat Gamaya

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Maamritam Gamaya

“Let us be led from the unreal to the Real / From darkness to the Light / From mortality to Eternity.” This mantra illustrates the recurrence of various syllables such as “ma,” “sat,” and “rit” as well as a reversal of these such as “ma/am” and “rit/tir.” One might say that these words are anagrams flowing in and out of each other. Manorama, a New York Sanskrit Studies teacher says, “meaning is a function of repetition.” As one chants, the overall feeling precedes the manifestation of the words.

This form is similar to the Gayatri mantra,

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

(a) tat savitur vareṇyaṃ

(b) bhargo devasya dhīmahi

(c) dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt

Swami Vivekanand translates this to mean, "'We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds.' Om is joined to it at the beginning and the end." Gayatri is personified also as a goddess that symbolizes the trimurti as one. This form is composed with eight syllables in the first line, eight or nine in the second, and eight in the last. The phrasing intends to meter out the breath as well so that the thread that holds things together or sutra is an aphoristic formula composed in a concise way for memory retention as these mantras initially were learned only orally.

From this mantra we can see which root is most emphatic.

Om Purnamadah Purnamidam

Purnat Purnamudachyate

Purnasya Purnamadaya

Purnameva Vashsihate

“That is whole. This is whole / From the whole the whole becomes manifest. / From the whole when the whole is negated / What remains is again the whole.” This chant almost visually seems to refer to itself. If we omit the various endings or even a word, the whole of it seems to remain. And another common chant, Om Shantih Shantih Shantih or “Om Peace Peace Peace.”

It seems repetition is a practice common throughout different cultures and religions. “Once we have uttered a sound, we take pleasure in repeating it. We find repetition in magic spells, in solemn oaths, in orations, in ads, as well as in the speech noises a baby makes for its own pleasure.” A poem may also use repetition for whatever its desired effect. Some forms may even call for repeating words, lines, phrases, rhyme scheme and so forth. “When a sound is clearly struck in a poem, it tends to attract similar sounds” when using assonance, consonance, rhyme, or alliteration (Nims 158).

Many agree that chanting mantra is a powerful tool used to heal the body. Dr. David Simon of neurological services at Sharp Cabrillo Hospital has found that “healing chants are chemically metabolized into endogenous opiates that are both internal painkillers as well as healing agents in the body” (Gaynor 18). Khan states, “modern science has discovered [...] that on certain plates the impression of sound can be made clearly visible. In reality the impression of sound falls clearly on all objects, only it is not always visible.” All manifestations are audible first, then visible and “all we see in this objective world, every form, has been constructed by sound and is the phenomenon of sound…. every syllable has a certain effect” (Khan 268).

These “certain plates” refer to experiments conducted by Hans Jenny (1904 – 1972) was a Swiss physician, who founded cymatics (the Greek root kyma means “wave”)—a field of study that refers to the “visual representation of the relationship” between “sound and form.” In his experiments, he used pure tones or “simple sine-wave vibrations within the human auditory range” in order to move materials such as “powders, pastes, and liquids into lifelike, flowing forms that mirrored patterns found throughout nature, art, and architecture” (Paul 12).

Among other phenomena, light and sound demonstrate their presence in the form of waves. A wave is “an oscillatory disturbance that moves away from the source and transports matter over large distances.” Our senses are receptors for perceiving various frequencies of vibrations. Radio waves are the lowest, then microwaves, then light waves all the way to U.V. rays to x-rays. Ancient Indian Rishis were like synesthetes whose faculties of sight and hearing became cross-wired as they “saw” and “heard” mantras, Mantra Dhrista, in their meditations. Therefore perceiving sound waves as light waves and vice versa. We can only perceive a small range of these frequencies through various instruments and measuring devices, but no matter what the frequency, these forms are manifestations of sound vibration. Although the human ear can only perceive a limited range of frequencies as tones, we often still sense waves that are beyond our auditory range. And the fact that a wave “moves away from the source,” or the speaker in the case of speech, and “transports matter over large distances” could hypothetically explain why one might utter a mantra and the effect can be far reaching. Thus, a person who chants mantra actually believes that the words spoken have the power to create an intended reality—in essence, generating and shaping sounds to create physical forms or affect existing ones (Paul 12). John Frederick Nims, who wrote, Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, says that “we can think of words as having not only a mind (their meanings) but also a body—the structure of sound in which their meaning lives” (151).

SOUND SHAPES FORM

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“Words above everything else, are in poetry, sounds.” – Wallace Stevens

The importance of this esoteric language moves beyond the scope of its technical mastery. The impact of words is not merely based on the meaning behind them, rather the spoken words are perceived as “creative living things” that “penetrate to the essence of what they describe. They give birth to meaning” (Houston 5). The primary stuff of the universe is vibratory, hence sonic in nature. It is the creative power of the word that initiates many creation stories across cultures. The book of Genesis reads, “In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And later in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” In the Bible, God only had to say, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Figuratively, the “light” is the illuminating power of the word—distinguishing objects and articulating “what is/truth” in a realm of “darkness” or ignorance and lack of communication. Similarly, at the opening of the Hindu Rg Veda’s creation hymn, Nasadiya, where “There was neither non-existence nor existence.” Everything was water and “the life force” known as prana or breath “was covered with emptiness,” but “that one arose” from the tapas or “the power of heat” and:

4 Desire came upon that one in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind. Poets [Kavi designates a poet or saint] seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond of existence in non-existence.

5 Their cord [bond or a kind of measuring cord by which the poets delimit—and hence create the elements] was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse beneath; there was giving-forth above.

The initial “seed of mind” was the Desire to create something out of nothing. It is from “the desire of Poets” that any distinguishing features of life arose.

According to the developing scientific field of string theory, “the entire universe may be made up of infinitesimally small subatomic strands of energy vibrating at different frequencies” (Paul 121).

A SOUND BODY

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Many ancient cultures viewed physical illness as a lack of harmony in the body; they used sound and music to restore this natural condition. A “sound body” literally produces harmonious music (Paul 10). Russill Paul claims that “sound is powerfully linked to our feelings; it causes our cells and tissues to vibrate, activating a range of experience far beyond what the sound can heal on a cellular and physiological level” (Paul 10). “The hard and soft palates are a blueprint of the body’s nervous system. Sound yogis use this knowledge to manipulate the body’s spiritual channels in much the same way that a reflexologist uses the hands and feet to stimulate the body’s meridians” There are at least 64 meridian points on the hard palate, and 20 on the soft. “Stimulating these points, especially through the rich phonetics of Sanskrit, affects powerful changes in the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus, which govern our immune system, our emotions and our moods. This is why medical research continues to confirm the assertion that chanting produces beneficial chemicals in the body, releasing ‘feel-good’ hormones and endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers.” Paul says that “chanting yogic mantras particularly in Sanskrit,” also “stimulates the vagus nerve, which is situated near the jaw and is considered to be the single most important nerve in the body; it services the heart, lungs, intestinal tract, and back muscles” (Paul 48). In addition, Khan iterates this great effect on the human body “the whole mechanism, the muscles, the blood circulation, the nerves are all moved by the power of vibration. As there is resonance for every sound, so the human body is a living resonator for sound….[It] has an effect on each atom of the body, for each atom resounds. On all glands, on the circulation of the blood, and on pulsation sound has an effect” (Khan 269).

We are “instruments of flesh and bone” with the greater portion of our brains concerned with the mouth and hands (Nims 151). And we know that “sound is ‘heard’ not only through our ears but through every cell in our body,” so that “vibration touches every part of our physical being” (Gaynor 17). Mitchell L. Gaynor, M.D., author of Sounds of Healing: A Physician Reveals the Therapeutic Power of Sound, Voice, and Music says, “the rhythm of poetry can entrain our voices and be felt in the entire body (Gaynor 17). Entrainment is a phenomenon illustrated in this classic example of two or more metronomes or pendulums beating at different rhythms in the same room. At some point, they will synchronize with each other. This also tends to happen with the rate of respiration of people in the same room. Poetic and musical rhythm can provide a controlled space for creative expression and relaxation. This rhythm also allows people who have problems articulating speech, such as stuttering, to entrain to a song so that they can sing it. People with limited control over motor function are able to keep a beat on a drum and mirror a facilitator who is playing with them. Oliver Sacks says, “for people who have motor problems, music acts as a catalyst. Hearing a beat can be enough to carry a person from thinking to moving. (Gaynor 87). Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan has an entire program called the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine “to complement medical treatment for children, teens and adults with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).” One of the therapist/musicians uses wind instruments to help improve the heart and respiratory rates with patients who have these chronic diseases.

LYRICALLY FELT

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After WWII, music and sound became recognized as a legitimate medium for therapy in the West. It was a successful approach for physical, mental and emotional conditions of wounded servicemen. There was a clear result in “decreased depression, greater socialization, enhanced morale, increased emotional expression, and improved contact with reality” (Gaynor 77).

The advantage of sound and music is that it bypasses analytical thought. Instead of taking a scenic route through receptors and electrical impulses to the brain, it directly affects the emotions and nerves. Instead of explaining a feeling to someone’s rational mind, the use of sound vibrates our cells and tissues, “activating a range of experience far beyond what the eyes are capable of perceiving by themselves.” The perceptions of the ear are “ten times more accurate” than the eye. Humans can hear “between 16 and 20,000 Hz” and “can register sounds that spread across a greater dynamic range, than the eye can perceive without damage” (Paul 8 and 118). Perhaps when we become better listeners and more receptive to our surrounding sounds, we can find ways to use sound to our advantage. Here are some ways that music can change physiology:

Mark Rider Southern Methodist University found that sound has an influence on protective cells of the immune system, which fight invading pathogens and perform the task of regenerating injured tissues.
Dr. Jeffrey Thompson California Inst. for Human Science Center for Neuro-Acoustic Research uses sound frequencies to treat learning disabilities and a wide range of physical disorders.
40 patients who suffered heart attacks showed reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates decrease when they had been exposed to “relaxing music” -lowered systolic blood pressure
Reduced blood pressure and heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure
Conversely noise can initiate fight or flight response and increase blood pressure by 10%
1993 MSU scientist- found levels of interleukin-1 (an immune cell messenger molecule that helps regulate the activity of other immune cells) increase 12.5 to 14% when subjects listened to music they preferred
25% lower level of cortisol – a stress hormone that can depress immune system
when produced in excess

Boost in natural opiates. Opiate chemicals induce sense of joy mediated by
endorphins- the brain’s natural pain killer makes for stronger immunity

(Paul 80 – 82)

POETRY IS ANOTHER FORM OF MUSIC

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Based on the frequencies within sounds, we could devise a vowel scale much like a musical scale in which the “vowels are like musical notes and chords.” The high frequency sounds will have shorter waves, hence a higher frequency of waves per second. This increase in activity gives the ear more information to process, which “suggests greater vitality, speed, littleness and excitement” (Nims 155). So shortwave sounds are shrill like the ee of a whiny “please,” or complaining “geez!” The pronunciation of this vowel requires the tongue to rise slightly and the mouth opens narrowly in order to restrict the amount of passing air.

Conversely, lower frequencies create slower and deeper sounds consisting of longer waves occurring fewer times per second. For example, “when a 78 rpm record is slowed down to the 33 1/3 (LP) speed” the record will have a deep downtempo sound. A low-frequency sound could be the oo like a deep “lagoon” or the slow-minded “buffoon.” These sounds remind us of largeness and great volume with slow vibrations. “Avalanches and stormy seas have deeper reverberations than hailstones on the roof.” Likewise, a bass has longer strings and a larger cavity than a violin, thus reverberates deeper (Nims 157).

Therefore, we can determine the resonance of a vowel sound depending on the size and shape of the bodily cavities in which the vowels resound. “The larger the hollow in which a vowel sound vibrates, the deeper the sound and the more clearly our nerves and muscles tell us that we ourselves are embodying largeness, hollowness, darkness” (157 Nims). Our body tries to emulate the feeling of largeness by producing the sound ah, which emerges from the whole space of the mouth— “a large resonating chamber near the brain.” And just as our voices mimic the sounds of what they see, the patterns and shapes we see in nature are physical constructions of “vibrating entities, each with a different frequency and wavelength.” The size and speed at which an object vibrates contributes to its particular sound” (Paul 121). In essence, a sound’s energy organizes shapes the forms that we perceive with our eyes. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake calls these “organizing principles ‘morphogenetic fields’—blueprints that organize matter and energy into their final intended forms” (Paul 12). Perhaps the intelligence of vibration that organizes the radial growth of a fern is the same principle that determines the growth pattern of a starfish. There is an overall visual pulsation when we look at other natural forms such as fractals. It is also possible for the sound of a poem to dictate its form.

Language can be euphonious, both pleasant to hear and to pronounce—involving muscular activity. “Eurhythmics is the art of moving our body in harmony with music or the spoken word; euphony might be thought of as oral eurhythmics.” This uninterrupted flow, the rhythmic nature, the combination and sequencing of sounds in a poem can be similar in form and effect as that of mantra. Its opposite is, “cacophony, the harsh or inharmonious use of language—harsh to listen to because harsh to pronounce,” (Nims 188) but these lines in poetry may also please us because of their effect on meaning. In Jenny’s plate experiments, we see that the harmonious pure tones shaped matter into beautiful geometric forms whereas dissonance created chaotic formless matter. Similar to the effect of dissonance, ultrasound products keep pests out of homes because these vibrations have a negative affect on their nervous systems. These frequencies are so powerful that ultrasonic weaponry has been actively used and researched by the U.S. military:

[The U.S. military] has recently developed the loudest sound in history—ten thousand times louder than the sound of a space shuttle taking off—to detect the presence of submarines in our territorial waters. This Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar technology is known to cause fatal brain hemorrhaging in whales and dolphins, not to mention its effects on human divers (Paul 13).

However, this destructive capacity in anything is necessary and not necessarily negative—just as the role of “the destroyers,” Shiva and Kali to Hindu mythology. For instance, the Lithotripter is a medical machine developed in Germany that can dissolve gallstones and kidney stones without surgery by bombarding them with sound waves (Paul 13). Also, expressions like a moan, groan, or scream can cause a release just as a hum can calm.

BODY AND LANGUAGE

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“The reason poets like to unite sound and sense speaks not merely for the brain but for the whole human being, body and mind” (Nims 179). Nims claims that when the sound complements the sense, “the meaning of a poem becomes physicalized” resisting “the authoritarianism of the intellect,” which races to assert a meaning on sound regardless of its nature. “This figure of speech, far from being the exclusive property of academics, is really best understood by people who live physically, in their bodies” (Nims 175). “Appropriate sound invites the body to participate in the being of a poem, just as the poet’s body participated in its creation” (Nims 179). The poem is a physical body itself and is energized by the speaker. In a literal way, the breath of the poet, the speaker, and the listener all enable the poem to manifest in space. And paying attention to the “quality of individual sounds,” one can “participate more completely, or physically, in the experience of the poem” (Nims 159). In this way, the sounds can simulate the desired effect. Even when we read silently, the speech mechanisms and “areas of the throat pick up electrical currents,” showing that the muscles are stimulated. The body will sympathize with what the mind experiences. We know that colors can affect us physically. For instance, “pure red can raise blood pressure and accelerate heartbeat, whereas fixing the eyes on pure blue can have a tranquilizing effect,” so the effects of sound may be no less visceral (153 Nims).

In his book Lyric Poetry: the pain and the pleasure of words, Mutlu Blasing explains that, sound and “language is emotionally charged because it has to be acquired” (13). The ear is the first organ to develop in utero and the last faculty to fade as we die (Paul 14). Even anesthesia or a coma does not block auditory input (Gaynor 87). In the 1960s, researchers found that the ear is fully evolved at 4 ½ months old and hearing may occur much earlier. The fetus is able to hear a wide range of low-frequency sounds (Gaynor 91).

Although their specific characteristics vary, every culture socializes its infants with language by teaching them “to hear and communicate emotion and thus intentionaliz[ing] acoustic and muscular phenomena.” Verbal mimicry of natural sounds are thought to “account for the origin of language.” We see this when comic book illustrations convey action, and at some point in our lives we have called an object by its corresponding sound (like cricket, slush, or the boom of fireworks) .The chosen combination of consonants and vowels reveals an object’s intrinsic quality. “Beyond simple onomatopoeia,” there have been named “two subtly appropriate classes of words: those in which movement of lips, tongue, and cheek, together with suggestive sound, simulate the action described and those in which sounds are not imitative, but suggestive musical equivalents” (Nims 178). “But learning language is both an emotional training and a physiological disciplining of the organic body,” in which we control “oral muscular activity” in order to produce articulate sounds in a linguistic code or “recognizable phonemes.” As we develop, we must isolate different “noises produced in the larynx” as a response to “auditory and multimedia reception” then we interpret these blocks of code into “symbolic value.” Our use of linguistic code threads the gross body to “symbolic language. The oral zone is a sexually charged zone because it functions as a tool of survival and sustenance. Infants are “seduced into discipline” by becoming an individual who is socialized into a “crux of pain and pleasure.”

Poetry formally returns to that crux, to the emotionally charged history of the disciplining and seduction into language; it affirms the seductions of laws and the pleasures of discipline, always keeping in view the alien code and the pain of language.

And the lyric is grounded not on the body but on its history, which is what we hear in the materiality of lyric language. Poetic language reveals that machinery and the constitutive alienation of the “human,” as bodily produced events are “meta-phore” or translated into signifying units and come to circulate as social currency (Blasing 13).

We express lyrically in order to exchange or convey a physical experience of life—a way for speaking people to resonate with a shared experience.

ODE TO THE EAR

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“The ear, in ancient cultures, was associated with the conch shell, which also resembles the gateway to the female reproductive organs. The ear is feminine and soul-like because of its receptive, deep, interior, mysterious qualities” (Paul 8). Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis, a French medical doctor and philosopher, discovered that learning problems often stem from listening problems. The voice can reflect the ear’s ability to hear, a phenomenon known as the Tomatis Effect (Paul 209). Tomatis found that voice only contains harmonics the ear is likely to hear. When working with factory employees

who had poor speech articulation and opera singers whose own voices had damaged their hearing he, found that there is a way to bring the ear back into homeostasis. There is even a method of simulating sounds similar to those we hear in the womb in order to ground hearing to an infant state. Music like that of Mozart or Gregorian chants have charging sounds that “nourish” the brain with a large range of frequencies, hence a greater number of vibrations (Gaynor 95). These rhythms reflect own physiological rhythms when we are in calm relaxed states.

The ear also is responsible for informing the brain and body, as well as our ability to balance—managing our sense of equilibrium. “It is the only human sense organ able to perceive both numerical quantity and numerical value. For instance, not only can the ear recognize numerical proportions in music, as in the octave I:2 or the fifth 2:3; but at the same time it can hear values that it perceives as specific notes: C,G,F, and so on. In other words, the element of sensing (the tone) is fused with the element of thinking (the numerical proportion.)” (Paul 8). The ear is a primary organ for multiple physical, emotional, and neurological development responses.

As a poet I am interested in the essential sound of poetry—the resonance of its words in the body, how it echoes in the cavities of our souls and how the words haunt us as our lives revolve. We encounter each new situation, sometimes with a lingering message and a recurring rhythm in our individual heartbeats, drawing us toward the poetry of others—our bodies in conversation. Our lives drafted and revised and sometimes sung.

Is language just for conveying ideas or does the sound count? Can it create a feeling within your being that you could not possibly declare in everyday speech? Often some say “There are no words to explain.” or “A picture is worth a thousand words.” However, a painting or photograph may just be another frequency of vibrations that our eyes receive in the form of light wavelengths, but the depiction of colors composed is synonymous to the linking of iambs in a poem. The relation of space to substance and composition to thought is relative. Poetry enables us to use language in an unconventional way and break through everyday speech or the conditioned ways of writing in order to paint with words. We could analyze a painting and ask, “what is the meaning of the relationship between this object in the foreground and that in the background and what is the purpose of this choice of palette or why this choice of medium?” But these questions sometimes take us farther away from what is initially felt. Or perhaps the feeling deepens when we investigate the smaller movements within a work—recognizing brushstrokes or noticing Jackson Pollock’s frantic handprints buried under splatters of paint.

“A poem comes to us first as speech, on sound waves that register as barometric changes against the drums and gauges of the ear, an apparatus so sensitive it takes notice if the pressure against it varies by 1 part in 10 billion. Johann Gottfriend von Herder said, ‘A breath of the mouth becomes a picture of the world...everything that man has ever thought and willed depends on a moving breath of air’” (152 Nims).

And the breath is both the sustainer and impetus behind each action and movement—the act of birth, speech, experience of the natural world. It determines the difference between feeling small and spacious. When breath is shallow and lung capacity decreases, the world immediately shrinks and our existence loses significance. It marks the end of life in our bodies. The materials and the words we leave behind make a liaison with the earth and all of its surrounding elements. Whether in thought, written or spoken, the record of our poetry can resonate into the future as its sounds carry a life of its own.

Sources

Blasing, Mutlu Konuk. Lyric Poetry: the pain and the pleasure of words. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2007.

Coulson, Michael. Teach Yourself Sanskrit. Chicago: McGraw Hill, 2006.

Devavani The Language of the Gods: A collection of essays, articles, and quotes on Sanskrit. New York: The American Sanskrit Institute.

Gaynor, Mitchell L. M.D. Sounds of Healing: A Physician Reveals the Therapeutic Power of Sound, Voice, and Music. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.

Kenny, Molly, M.S. C.C.C.-S.L.P., C.Y.T., Raphael Bernier, Ph.C., and Carey DeMartini, M.A. “Chant and Be Happy: The Effects of Chanting on Respiratory Function and General Well-Being in Individuals Diagnosed with Depression.” International Journal of Yoga Therapy, No. 15 (2005): 61-64.

Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Music of Life: The Inner Nature and Effects of Sound. New Lebanon: Omega Publications, 2005.

Manorama, “Apah: The fluidity of life” (workshop, Sankalpah Yoga, NY, NY, February10, 2009).

--. “Fundamentals of Yoga.” (workshop, Virayoga, NY, NY, February 24, 2009).

--. “Chant to Kundalini, Feel Pulsation.” (workshop, Lucky Lotus, NY, NY, March 04, 2009).

--. “Vishuddha Chakra & Saraswati Ma/ Saraswati Devi: Sanskrit Language of Vibration, Virayoga, NY, NY, March 24, 2009).

Matthews, P.H. Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Mishra, Ramamurti S. M.D. Nada Yoga: The Science, Psychology & Philosophy of Anahata Nada Yoga, 3rd ed. New York: Baba Bhagavandas, 2007.

Nims, John Frederick and David Mason. Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1999.

Paul, Russill. The Yoga of Sound: Tapping the Hidden Power of Music and Chant. Novato: New World Library, 2004.

Perrine, Laurence and Thomas R. Arp. Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, 8th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1991.

2009-05-11T10:36:00.001-07:00

the smallest sumatran

2009-05-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

after
a new elephant walks
aptly as infant mammalia
arrive in self-awareness
eager with teeth and tusks
digging earth
and automatic heaviness
transporting robust grace
under her mother
over another
grazing
bathing
in an estuary zoo
to zimbabwe
and the smallest sumatran
in circus
warfare
sri lanka bulk
jaipur mud sun
grey forest and grassland
exposed soles
lie down
injured unless indian
crush watermelon
on a four-pendulum gait
always one foot on the ground
without aerial phases
marked by grief and making music
the art of altruism, and allomothering
play
use of tools
compassion
bellow roar and trumpet
across the alps
in high-quality captivity
keepers
handlers
teenagers attack
in an unexpected bout of rage

Western Wind

2009-04-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

western wind
is the night’s breath
birth

every dream segment
eggs in cluster

conception
of feather
petal and pearl
mussels shelled upon the rock

where radial armlets grasp
grip each passing tide

ribbon
strung
hidden

along the sea’s glass tongue

will you listen for the last gasp?

polish the granules that sit so close
just to hold
your shadow
your footing
unstripped against each blow
your steady
outline rendered

on the contours
of the landing

where you fish
for every sun

Wingspan

2009-04-08T23:12:00.000-07:00

And her feathers
Fade
with latitude

First
vermillion,
Then summer.

re-vision: there is every fold for you to change

2009-04-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

you’re the only one to be
with you the whole way
please
introduce yourself
a tour guide
changing nametags
origami forehead
and everything else
everyday
until the oxygen thins
along with your feathers
and your red uniform vest
turns carnation
spit incandescent

what wind whipped your eyes in that shiny way?

what went past your head those winters

if we shaved the crust of this world
how much dust would encase our beatitudes
how many layers do we conceive solid
and convince
to melt?

why are questions arbitrary
and how are pumpkins
like punctuation?
where can i produce
a radish and a head
of lettuce

remember when you ate that wrench
then rushed off to be
your brother

nothing makes senses
senses make things
up all the time
five am
the sunrise
a temporary tattoo
a scratch ticket
a wingspan
and her feathers
fade with latitude

first vermillion,
then summer

homemade voodoo ritual

2009-03-31T18:27:00.001-07:00

we splash clean in the mud
cover our dry brown cake knees
sift blood and worries purify
our pleas ooze and feather
on leaves lifting invisible
weight from a heartbeat
in the trees’ arms they say
you are something
orderly and taxable
keep dancing kids and caress
our roots our tense
we demand nothing less
your skin cooled mud
or else seal wrinkles and settle
into soil’s porous soul
your elbows sign zig zag
when you wave hinging jointing
to illustrate tempo when your hips
speak loud as the flower print shirt you wear
peaks a colored petal
through the dirt
an angel is buried
in the dim hum
a humble eruption
white eyes open
a rich luster like dandelion sap
and the okay mist
from a river falling

joyous jackhammer

2009-03-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

sputtering indecent drama
my neighbors disgruntled
and my dinner sits undigestable
I’m rattled like the windows
double pained by its inconsistence
a blutter blutter stop and shutter
pause blutter
machine gun shower
in the midst of coexistence
once again
I wonder what we’ll build there
what solid mass is still there
a mess of impermeable chunks
cobbled morsels once paneled
the burial ground some piping
some wiring now cancelled
like friendship or magazine subscriptions
obliterate unnecessary
broken dishware mere petals
from past people who lived there
or down the block, but close enough
they could still hear the rumble
from where they stood a piece of beer bottle
glass may have shone there a girlfriend’s
glance might have glimmered there once
or twice any and every sound uttered there
in passing a whistle a gust a collection
different-sized footwear step a subtle march
mortar to pestle a pistol to a flower culminating
in the cracking of a thick spectacle

el otro / I am / the other / soy yo

2009-03-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am the other
What structure
falls over
or under
obstruction
the truth
a truck
ran over
turned concrete
crushed destruction
near a current corner

Never earn an ear
for sirens
are serious torrents

Never live too dear
on one avenue
love a lane or golden road
name a damn and damn the land
or Old Man River
absolutely

Dear Mr. Mean Norman Oldam:
Deal real god. Do not drivel. Read nil
& know oblivion—scant shelf on the corner.
I own her,
who earned a living as a dove
a sieve for amen
and all other ends

Am I the other I am
the other I am
other than I

it’s not okay to origami your forehead that way and there is everything for you to change

2009-03-31T18:17:00.001-07:00

you’re the only one to be there with you the whole way
please introduce yourself
you will be your tour guide
you will change your nametags
everything everyday
until the oxygen thins along with your feathers
and your red uniform vest turns carnation
your spit incandescent

what wind whipped your eyes in that shiny way?
what went past your head those winters

if we shaved the crust of this world
how much dust would encase our beatitudes
how many layers do we conceive as solid things
and convince to melt?

why are questions arbitrary
and how are pumpkins like punctuation?
where can i produce
find a radish and a head of lettuce

remember when you ate that wrench
and rushed off to be your brother

nothing makes senses
senses make things
up all the time
five am
the sunrise
a temporary tattoo
a scratch ticket
a wingspan
and her feathers fade with latitude
first vermillion, then summer

insert a broken jar of marbles or a big wood floor more like

2009-03-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

peter heaped handfuls of copper
sick with a sigh and I pitch
a long tone of low growls
(like a broken jar of marbles
or a big wood floor
more like) lionesses alarms
his giggles
an improvement upon his viewpoint

I turn a stone to find peter
move out of danger to find
the words get longer and the words
move farther from what we are
doing
nothing
to do with our hands
gestures

he sorts a sack of socks and sucks a kiss
between cusses about the cost of caskets
and casts the cull like an ecstatic caucasian
killer brought by oxen

I gloat over the glittery pennies peter gleaned
how they glow in his glove how they glare
when our lips close

yoga for cyclists

2009-02-27T08:32:00.001-08:00

sundays

4 – 5pm

$10

@ golden om
778 lafayette ave
brooklyn
btwn throop / marcus garvey blvd
646 831 5388
www.goldenomyoga.com liayogany@gmail.com

*a regular open-level yoga class follows
from 5:30 - 7pm

la luna

2009-02-05T10:11:00.001-08:00

gathering the lost and spreading as a lotus
there is no stranger
there is only the eternal known, which at times the earth eclipses

like an elaborate persian rug--
composed of laborious knots
there is underlying
a mesh armature
empty and steady in its design
its material and aging beauty
is only decorative furniture
the rug in fact is not a rug
it is a goal for the weaving
a meditation for the weaver

all the colors and the movements therein
beg witnesses to sense the vibrance that underlies
to look at the real of which its material denies

who am i?

2009-02-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

have you ever seen me blink?
scratch?
perch?
heard my breath
or heart
resting?

I seek and hold nectar
I cannot smell
I do not flap
but rotate in figure eights
hovering here
like infinity

It's 2:30 am. Dark still. Almost the moon is full.

2009-01-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

My brother wears yellow
rubber gloves and sunglasses.
He's a crossbreed
between one of the blues
brothers and one of the ghost
busters. I can't figure out
which of my parents are bluesy
and which is a buster.

"You don't know
how to conserve
energy!" Mama says.

“Why don’t you say
excuse me?
Why don’t you
say excuse me?
Why don’t you say
excuse me? Why
don’t you say excuse
me? Why don’t you
say excuse me? Why
don’t you
say excuse me?
Are you almost done?
Why don’t you say excuse me?”

“A junkie walking through the twilight./
I’m on my way home,”
Gil Scot-Heron says.

I’m eating
putobongbong
drinking
pito pito.

My brother’s new fixation:
taking steel pots to the sink,
forcing the water
out of the faucet at full
blast, sloshing a brush
around keeping perfect
rhythm and belching
in between. He inspects
the sides of the pot
for microscopic galaxies
and residual legume germs
while ripping a flatulent explosion--

“Explosive,”
he says.

“A lot of people in the world are thirsty,”
I say.

I wrap the purple putobongbong
in a banana leaf
and cap the coconut shreds.
I can intoxicate the air
with a thumb piano
while my brother talks
to the propane-fed stovetop. He stops
talking to himself.
“What’s that sound?” He asks.
“Mbira.”

Neuroleptic. I smell myself.
I smell
my foot. My feet stink.
There’s a hole
in my shirt. Yeah. I should do that.
Neh. Yeh. Hrcccgh.

He has phlegm—an excess
of yin—an excess of yang. Is that you?
Yeah I’m just talkin’ to myself.
I forgot about crossbreeds. Nah.
They’re nothing like what you think
are mulattoes or mestizos.
You never say a word. Hmmm.

He watches the flame. It’s dark
everywhere else. He’s tapping
with the mbira. There’s a lullaby
rupturing dammit. It’s about time
we are no longer cartoons.
We are no longer jarred
peppers and ceramic pots.

“Do you know how to cook beans?”

Watch a Tamarind Leaf Move

2008-12-30T15:11:00.001-08:00

Watch a tamarind leaf move diurnally
and a vigilante octopus’ skin will be squid-like.
Thermal and chewy. Foam.
He’s contingent upon tentacles
measured in units of elephant ribs
which once lived in a sack of skin—
a type one might classify as human palm-like
sewn loosely and a smile leaking ink
where otherwise a tusk might be.

“Does the leaf belong to the tree or the day?” asks the vigilante.
“Who owns patience of this species?”

“If the tree belongs to the ocean,” the octopus says,
“my suctions might claim
its tangly skeletal branches
belonging once to a bag of leaves alive
the kind you might find in a pile
or blown by machinery
or fluff for body bag. Pillow-stuffing.
And when the black bags sit all in a row
they are pod-like. Boasting eager seeds
whose meat might be sour, but sugary.”

I AM THAT

2008-12-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: 'Who am I?'
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The 'I am' is certain. The 'I am this' is not.
Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first investigate
and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not--
body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that--
nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you.
The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand that on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Cessation

2008-12-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

When in the wind what water sway’d to rise
And children skip’d flat stones along the bank
We steep submerged and laps flip capsize
Our vessel and ripple pools echo sank
We hold our breaths—free-drown a little deeper
Algae suspends like dust around us. Our limbs
Disturb with every thrust: creatures, creepers,
And our thoughts—tokens of our lust and whims
Inept to bottle inspiration
We buoy to the top—surrender to
A dead man’s float and on the shore we shun
All movement. We have worn unto
A restless mind yet one must abide
The lake stops—reveals below and sky

This Is The Very Field Where I Imagine a Good Death To Be

2008-12-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

Orofino, means fine gold
And a good place to be born
In the night under northern lights
At the crux of four colors
Black white red yellow
Within hairs to a pillar
During a moon when the calves grow hair
To when the plums grow scarlet
A blue silo indicates that pines whisper here
That farm cats and dairy cows roam side by side
With dark apples
In their eyes
And yes,
Their tongues trough
And field
Rough
Openly
I am not shy
While shoveling
Regions of the yard
Where vast daffodils were
Underappreciated by mother,
But due to pity
Still made it to a drinking jar on the sill,
Where it wilted in all whiteness bled.
Oblivious to parachutes,
Knowing well the fateful grip of a four-year-old’s
Peanut butter and pinesap fingers

Even the grasshoppers could not escape
Feeling around the creases of a warm
Frond—a darkness we fashioned
Like a mini train car from a tobacco tin.
Perforated from nail punches
They kicked around
I see inside—
Kidnap!
In hopes of trout. Rainbows
Of them. All we caught were crawdads
I took one.
Down the mountain grade
And 13 hours west
Exhibit A in a bowl,
Where he chewed his leg off
Under magnification
After every failed effort to escape.
Grandpa found him on his way out
The crustacean dragging the baggage of his body
To the nearest exit—
The front door teasing
His limbs
I know this now
Someone should have stopped me
From saving him

Cities & Impossibilities

2008-12-15T09:42:00.001-08:00

In the city of Fabiola, the armature alternately dissolves and integrates. Its light evaporates as a rope soaks up kerosene to burn within the lamp's bulbous chimney glass. It brightens with the food of more rope.
The sky is a blueprint that dangles contrails. They seamlessly disintegrate into the solid blue that masks the stars. The funeral pyres remain for mulch. No cars run off the pipeline. Can't you see? Not through the particulate matter, like that which covers the nightness.
In this particular matter, in the township of Fabs, light switches remain a mystery--dissociated from their antiquated uses. Historians and archaeologists sit around the conversation pit; drinking hot clover madhu; playing with "Scrabble" tiles on a "Monopoly" board. None of the original intentions or rules that govern, like that of the light switch, were retained, recorded, or deciphered. The principal spirit or goal, however, has been preserved: to play a game. As long as these professionals have something on the table with which they could occupy their eyes and many dexterous fingers while employing the muscles attached to their fine lips, then they could keep the criticism of outsiders at bay for a time. After all, there are no other inhabitants of Fabiola, who express any expertise on the origins of monopoly, much less the meaning of scrabble letters with numbers on them. Some have a faint notion that they might pertain to something called the "Periodic Table." But periods, whether related to time and punctuation, or elements and chemistry, are generally beyond the concerns of common folk. They would rather enforce their faith that the conversation pit figures are engaged in crafting important plans for Fabiola's future. Perhaps literacy and cultivation practices will be taught or ways to detect mines in the "no-colonization field."
Fabiola is rich. She lacks a lot of the elements typical to a traditional city. Most notably, she lacks hatred. Her inhabitants know neither the meaning of this word, nor the implications it has in alternate dimensions. For the reader, examples might include: rape, diseased blankets, starvation of nutrients, decimation of species, and ego hunger. Due to the absence of hate, there is also little comprehension of fear. Many outsiders might accuse this township to be of little consequence--accomplishing nothing. On the contrary, they manage to maintain healthy levels of body heat, fat, and water.
They survive on little food and darkness. Their chief nutrients hail from clean air and stillness. They use and revere their legs so highly that artisans sculpted and dedicated public sites to pieces of substantial and muscularly articulated columns of legs. One popular site is located at the center of the town square where the townsfolk surround the celebrated appendages and dance before sunrise every morning. Then they stretch out on the cobblestones to roll around massaging their fleshy and fabulously-used proteins. Shortly after, they soak their feet in a nearby stream and gaze at the continuous morphing of their faces reflected. The deeper they peer, the more rocks appear and the sense of cold and wet passes and charges the electricity of their skins. Thus, forgetting all about their limbs.

Because of Words

2008-12-09T10:36:00.001-08:00

Without poets to connect
The consideration of the mind
With the backbones of the dead
We should be two earths
Rather than the sun and its reflection.
The dirt.

The dead are one earth
And the mind is another—
The same, but somewhat intemperate
And more muddled and premature
The separation lessened
At birth.

There’s a spark of the Devil
On the paper below the pen
No moral is intended. Even prone
To dispossess, the language of larks
Into lit protest, and the words
Are broke.

The costume of a corpse buttoned
By the burial in a figure of speech
Destroys not our work
Nor muffles the bell of thought
But the moment of final exhalation to its mute hour
Is rotten.

Flesh is the soul of sound
And breath is the evaporation of indifference
But writing words like facetious and abstemious
Decorates the atmosphere of every vow well
We turn the phrases
And tread.

Wherefore by the bright face
Of each key and point we drain
Our thoughts together with our mutations
In a spectral shower
We rest between expense and expanse
And live.

only the fog is real

2008-12-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

My mind on this beat
Steps
on another beat
When
I see my mind
Step on this beat
When
Only the clock hangs

from the scruffy orange cat to a second-degree murderer

2008-12-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

I have disrupted
your prison
culture and revel
in your attention

you were probably
saving
to keep your head
down
and mind your own
business

Forgive me
the bowls of milk
behind the dumpster
were delicious
and the fur trim
of my matted
burred coat
liberating

Cooking Up String Beans & Squash Flowers, Circus School & Madame Blavatsky

2008-12-08T22:02:00.001-08:00

1. Read with a clean conscience
2. After giving birth be sure the newborn did not sprout a tail.

Saturnino de Brito
& Lal Arifa
in any city square
any humid summer,
the best idea
go tumble by the Hudson
or go back
to her apartment
engender
undying animal
acts initiate
rumbling sky.
“Have you heard
of Madame Blavatsky?”
de Brito asked on
more than one occasion.
“Was she
not responsible
for bringing wicked power
to the nazis?” Lalla asked.
This conversation
they had before,
but this
a new development.
an exchange to move
the dust particles
doing what dust does
in the window-
filtered daylight.
De Brito’s reply
came out static
as a loud pair of Nikes
arrhythmic
clomped upstairs.
“Erishan!”
Erishan Tanaka
from the hall with a huff
emerges mauve steel
bicycle over her shoulder
like one of those guys
on the street
balancing buckets
or baskets from a single pole.
“’Sup.”
“Yosup Erishan!?
Ogenki desu ka”
de Brito said.
“Hey, Niner.
Comment ça va?”
“Ya wernt in classe today.
Just kiddeen
I wasn’t eether.”
(Something you can’t see.)
“Nah.
I’m straight.”
“Word.
Let’s match. Brother
Kenna came by last night.”
“Aw that fool? He got some
weird scar on his face from dat
tribal shit, right?”
“He’s from Mali.
His grandmother did that.
It’s an honor.”
“Damn.
That cat’s skinny.”
Lalla pulled out
a Pacific-centric world
map no less
than four feet wide and three feet tall
Unrolled it before De Brito
as though a sacred scroll
discovered down some alley
or on a lower
eastside sidewalk chillin’
in a free pile.
She weighted each corner
one shoe, one roll of packing tape,
a colored pencil box,
and a book of human
anatomy. I imagine
De Brito felt claustrophobic from looking
at all that
canned expanse. Once again
he saw blue
between them.
She pulled
a pair of black shoestrings—
with which she failed
to properly lace her kung fu
shoes—from her closet.
She placed
one aglet tip
at the cluster of Cabo
Verde (off the west
coast of Africa) and the other
at Aringay (on the west coast
of the Philippines).

“Same
latitude,” she says.

Island
people.

Yes and No

2008-12-05T10:35:00.001-08:00

by Laura Riding

Across a continent imaginary
Because it cannot be discovered now
Upon this fully apprehended planet--
No more applicants considered,
Alas, alas--

Ran an animal unzoological,
Without a fate, without a fact,
Its private history intact
Against the travesty
Of an anatomy.

Not visible not invisible,
Removed by dayless night,
Did it ever fly its ground
Out of fancy into light,
Into space to replace
Its unwritable decease?

Ah, the minutes twinkle in and out
And in and out come and go
One by one, none by none,
What we know, what we don't know.

Read This With a Clean Conscience

2008-12-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Saturnino de Brito would sometimes meet Lal Arifa in any city square during humid summer days, somehow convincing her that the best idea at that moment was either to go tumbling by the Hudson or go back to her apartment and engender undying animal acts, which often initiated a rumble in the sky.
“Have you heard of Madame Blavatsky?” de Brito asked on more than one occasion.
“Was she not responsible for bringing some wicked power to the nazis?” Lalla asked. They had this conversation before, but they never brought up that fact. It was more like an exchange to move the dust particles floating in the window-filtered sun.
De Brito’s reply came out like static as a loud pair of Nikes arrhythmically clomped up the stairs. “What?—Erishan!”
Erishan Tanaka came through the hall with a huff and a mauve steel bicycle over her shoulder like one of those guys on the street balancing buckets or baskets from a single pole. Over her other shoulder hung a messenger bag with a double-bagged sack of groceries tied to it. “’Sup.”
“What’s up Erishan!? Ogenki desu ka” de Brito said partially in jest. Is that not how I interpret it though?
“Hey, what’s up Niner. Comment ça va?”
“Ya wernt in classe today. Just kiddeen I wasn’t eether.”
“What are you guys up to?”
“Nothing.” the two replied simultaneously.
“You guys wanna smoke?”
“Nah. I’m straight.”
“Word. Let’s match. Brother Kenna came by last night.”
“Aw that fool? He got some weird scar on his face from dat tribal shit, right?”
“He’s from Mali. His grandmother did that. It’s an honor for him.”
“Damn. That cat’s skinny.”
De Brito hailed from Cabo Verde, where he said many of the mothers would check their babies’ bottoms after giving birth to make sure that the newborn did not sprout a tail. I suppose it was a most common fear among Cape Verdean mothers, but second to knife attacks as those were more common.
After one of De Brito and Lalla’s late afternoon/early evening sessions, Lalla pulled out a Pacific-centric world map that was no less than four feet wide and three feet tall. She carefully unrolled it before De Brito as though it were a sacred scroll that she perhaps discovered serendipitously down some alley or on some lower eastside sidewalk chillin’ in some free pile. She weighted each corner with one shoe, one roll of packing tape, a colored pencil box, and a book of human anatomy. I imagine that De Brito felt claustrophobic from looking at all that canned expanse. Once again he saw oceans between them. She pulled a pair of black shoestrings—with which she failed to properly lace her kung fu shoes—from her closet. She placed one aglet tip at the cluster of Cabo Verde (off the west coast of Africa) and the other at Aringay (on the west coast of the Philippines). Island people.
“Look,” she said, “you came from the same latitude as me, ma cherie mon amour.” Actually, it was about a degree off with CV being at 15° 6′ 40″ N
and Aringay at 16°23'N.
“Of course, babe. But I grew up in Lyon,” he said.
In response, she took the other shoestring and placed one aglet in Lyon at 45° 46′ 1″ N and the other at 47° 36′ 35″ N in Seattle.
She said, “And that’s where I grew up.” While traveling abroad, she would write down responses from people she met when she told them, “Soy de Seattle.” Some of the common ones were:
“It rains a lot there, right?” or “The home of Nirvana!” or “Kurt Cobain!” or “Quello è da dove il Jimi Hendrix proviene” depending on generation and interest. Others would just go on what they saw in postcards and mention the Space Needle. It always surprised her, however, that no matter how widespread Starbucks became all over the world (sometimes claiming up to three stores on a single block) people would not know that Starbucks nació in Seattle.
“Oh tha’s dope tho,” Erishan said stepping into the doorway. “Ahm ‘bout to cook some rice tho.”
“Thas right!” de Brito said.
“You know that’s the only thing Bruce Lee ate with green tea.” (At least in the movies.)
“You love that guy,” De Brito said.
“Hell yeah! A composite of him and Tupac would make the bombest man,” Lalla replied, “Hey speaking of China—Shan, did you know Niner’s going to Beijing?”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Ahm goin to circus school.”
“Dope.”
“I’ll make some saluyot, string beans, and squash flowers while y’all discuss the influence of Fritz the Cat, Madame Blavatsky, and Krishnamacharya on the state of the modern world,” Lalla said.
“You think too much,” de Brito said.

Collaboration Haiku w/ My Japanese Roommate (comin correct)

2008-11-30T20:42:00.001-08:00

Su
n
da
y

night

the

bloo
d
y

Sa
murai

and

b
ee
t

sou
p
.

Some One-Liner Quitters

2008-11-30T14:27:00.001-08:00

i

What William Carlos Williams Did Not Consider For A One-Line Poem

So much depends upon point five to one inch side margins.

ii

Response to an Ex-Boyfriend’s Email, Which Closed With the Statement:
“Please do not write back, I will not open any messages from you.”

Thought you weren’t going to open this. Suckah!!!

iii

The Problem With the News Headline: “World’s Oldest Person Dies”

The world’s oldest person lives.

iv

On a Message On a Mattress I Saw On the Sidewalk

Follow your dreams. (smiley face.)

v

The Only Phrases You Need to Know While Visiting France to Survive and Have a Good Time

Bonjour! Je t’aime. Merci Beaucoup. Au Revoir!

vi

Entr’acte

Art can create a crater: cater & trace. Art can center: react & entreat.

(Bonus Intermission)
Enter tact crate tree. Enact recent trance.

vii

The Complexities of Speaking American

Where’s John? Where’s the john? Where’s your John?
viii

What To Say Loudly To Someone Next to You When You Fart Audibly in Public

Hey, don’t worry. I’ll pretend it was me.

ix

A Little Red Book Is

A man I fess to.

अ लिटिल मोरे gumption

2008-11-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

Too late. Yeah, you should have gone. But it’s cold outside. I don’t want to quarrel with you. Expecially in writing. ‘Cause you can’t even spell! Imagine how much worse this would be if you could write with the left hand. Hey, I’m not trying to impress anyone with ambidexterity. Or vocabulary, huh? You’re too concerned about space though. & you, time. No doubt. None of it, actually. What is wrong with you. Eh eh, that wasn’t a question. Or just a rhetorical one, perhaps? I wish you would have a little more gumption. Now that’s the critic talking, not the quarreler. That word always sounded like “squirrel” to me. Quit changing the subject. What subject? Well maybe you’re right, no, I think she’s right. How do you know I’m a “she!” Hush, I wasn’t speaking to you. To whom then? To late. You mean too late? Cállate. What. Too late for what? To undo this stupid talk? Now there’s something we can agree upon. Finally. Fine-a-fuck-ing-ly. So dramatique. Oh please Queen. That’s right. Now start addressing me as one. Thought you said you wasn’t a she. That weren’t me. O now you gotsta go on copying me—improper grammar styles. Whatever sassy pants. As though you invented style. Well I wouldn’t be bitin’ yours with wack expressions like, “sassy pantalones.” Get out your trousers already. You know my steaz. Oh por favor! Get out your head already. I done did that transcendental meditation shit awready. It’s much more amusing to taunt you than get into no-time-space-body zone. None a that free your mind garbage. Speaking of which, where in the body are you? Same place as you, yeah? Why do people end their sentences like that, “yeah?” So weird. You’re weird. So immature. You’re immature. So judgmental. Naw, juz mental. Takes a genius to be crazy. No, dumb ass. A crazy to be genius. Huh. What? What. Yeah, I get what you’re saying. Why, ‘cause you know everything. Well, yes. Then why did you hesitate? Why are you so petty? Nevermind, I already know. Good save. Go to bed. Wake the fuck up! I love you. I love you too. Me three. Let’s not fight anymore. I ain’t mad atcha. Why can’t you be original? Always quoting Tupac. Sure, like he’s the first and only person to have ever said that. Well it was the tone. Tony! Toni! Toné! I don’t even have a voice! Quit playin’ victim. Well it’s true. “You can’t handle the truth!” Oh come on. Cut it out. Tellin’ you. My shit is sat-chu-ray-ted dude. Come on Stillness. Where you at? Time to get enlightened etc. Etcetra? Like a bridge over trou—No. Like the London—Yeah. That one fell down, yeah? You sound Hawaiian. You smell Hawaiian. Why you gotta be racialist. You thought it would be difficult to argue. You got issues. Clearly, this could go on for pages. Clearly. Claramente. Now you’re agreeing. You killed it. This ain’t gonna work out. I can already see. It’s not you. Yeah, it’s you.

Anyone Reading This Could Agree or Disagree

2008-11-20T05:58:00.000-08:00

Armando was jumped by six guys the instant he alighted the G train at the Flushing stop. He was returning from the city, naturally. Or was he coming from south Brooklyn?
Positively the five or six thugs had been watching for some time. Weeks at least if not a few moments. Which reminds me of a film I had seen during the New York crime wave in the eighties. Either I had seen it myself or someone had doubtless mentioned it to me in full detail.
On third thought, perhaps I had never seen it entirely. Rather I dreamt it in all honesty.
While Armando lay on the corner sidewalk at Marcy and Flushing Avenues, or somewhere along Flushing, no one came to help or so he claimed much later.
After all no one was around to witness no one helping him. As I was saying earlier, while Armando lay beaten on the sidewalk, any number of the six boys took the keys to his girlfriend’s apartment. So they walked right in and helped themselves to a bag of cranberries and a deck of cards, which none of us neighbors could vouch for them possessing in the first place.
Perhaps they themselves had eaten the whole bag of raisins or miscellaneous dried fruit they happened to have in the pantry at any given time and simply forgot. At any rate, I was writing this paper oddly enough while this was taking place.
By this I mean the robbing of my neighbors in 2R. Neither of the tenants were home. In fact I was the only tenant in the building at the time. At least there was no evidence that anyone else had been in the building for at least several hours before the robbery and one or two hours after. Of course the robbers were there during that time, however.
Doubtless I did not hear anyone at all. I did not even hear the robbers or anyone else for that matter. That is why I could not say for sure that anyone was even in the building. As I mentioned earlier, it’s possible that my neighbors in 2R were never even robbed.
But still.
It is frightening to think that I was home with my window open nevertheless. My window, which I am now closing, rather I did just close, opens out to the back fire escape, which wraps around to my neighbors’ window, which was open after the robbery. More accurately, it had to be open during or even before the robbery took place.
I suspect I was on some level aware of strange men or women entering the building when they should not have been. The things we filter and deny.
We will never know, I am positive, the extent of objects they swiped from that place or what words, if any, were exchanged. Even if there was some tape recording it could have been a set up.
Perhaps the whole thing was a spontaneous act. Unquestionably it was not. There is always some level of uncertainty. For instance, the exact moment that I typed “moment” could never be measured in milliseconds. This immediate instant I could say never occurred since you had to read it to know it and I had to write it to become wise enough to acknowledge it. I do not of course have any idea what I mean by that, but on some level I do absolutely.
It is winter now and I suspect that I can rest assured that no further robberies will occur. Though one can never be positive. Right now some one is profiting off of an idea I had and I am indubitably convinced that is form of robbery. And it is winter.
It is believed by many that most crime in general happens during the month of August when everyone’s liver is a little hot and contaminated. Anyone reading this could agree or disagree with that statement. Even the data could go either way.
Should I even feel sympathy toward Armando or the 2R neighbors? Ostensibly there was no robbery. Ostensibly no one has any recollection of any robbery or neighbors for that matter.

ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN—

2008-11-18T10:54:00.000-08:00

XI XI XI—
111111—

When I was eleven,
my friends and I
would knot different colors
of embroidery thread
and make friendship or truce
bracelets that would
sometimes comprise

arrows – >>>
Eventually I learned
to reverse
the arrows – (<<<) We would alternate rows making more complex designs like >>X<<
We became obsessed
with Xs
making several in
a row – XXX
when placing 3 in a row,
it was
2 fish
k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

Sometimes
the fundamental slant – /
was enough
and after several
rows
of
these – ///
we began to tell a story
as yarn to scarf / as munitions belt
bullet to bullet
– shells

This repeated pattern is
elevens
over and over
again
Parallels
//
At the eleventh hour
on the eleventh day
of the eleventh month*

This day, originally, was called
Armistice day
referring to the aforementioned
eleventh hour
to remember the day Germany
had agreed to hush
WWI
for a time
to allow peace
to settle after
WWII
to observe peace
on that day was backward
exclusive of those who fought in
WWII
or Korea
or Vietnam
Therefore, the holiday
became a day
to remember
20,000,000

who died throughout
the course of these wars,
calling it
Veteran’s day

it then became a tradition
to observe
2 minutes
of
silence –

to remember
20 million –
dead
but in 1939,
this
“2-minute moment”
was bumped
to the nearest Sunday
to the eleventh
in order to avoid
interference with war
time production,
however,
some still
observe silence
on the 11th day
at the 11th hour.

some do not
have a choice,
but to remain
silent.

*(and eventually we’ll pass
the two thousand and
eleventh year,
approx. 39 days and 1 year
until the end of the world –
i.e. 11/11/11
i.e. 404 days
from
12.20.2012—
According to Mayan prophecy
11-11-11
is the holiday
in which we observe the end
of
WW IV)

Lia Ha//

cremating a demon

2008-11-14T14:02:00.001-08:00

if you sit still enough
the rwandan military
maracas and djembes
in hand will shake you
out the conga tree
entrain your thumping
beat an executive
order with six thousand
rebel forces ravishing
women strategic sheets
of boom and clang
embody their arms
inhabiting a melody
in the hollow
emerging from cobalt
that will take us
beyond sun embed us
in a videogame
car crash cocooned
via airbag inflated
by a tin
computer whose veins
knit as blue
and red wires pump
over the atlantic
in your blood wherein
one hand can
hold your mother
and in the other a drum
reigns and does not govern
someone resembles the madhatter
sits on bulging roots at the base of the tree
swigs from a crinkled paper sack intermittently
offers a whistle
wood barrels make boom
beads and rope
a hauling bump shack
stars of david
frankincense with metal
wind and saxophone resonant force of going
. some stop

on the path with basketballs or the curiosity of an archaeologist picking twigs remnants from the trees and carbon and dance steps on resting leaves there’s a reason for boots berets and beards and repetition and interruption

another hybrid

2008-11-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

What color is the bike shed? At night it is maroon. In morning we stand foolish from the moon. Mind will wane and wax back purple. Black kindle and candle fire. Fear the stars ignite our ears in. Our knees canning the constant hum in. Everything blap pop. Boom echoes in the night.

thunder claps

sparring mits

chalk erasers slap

Slap dust seabirds scatter whistle whilst. Locusts not that far away gauge in miles where a body lay low low.

Bishop Luther Dingle explains, "sharp corners / and zig zags

of different shades / make illusions / when the contrast moves from bold to fade /

indicates sound" as living proof we know nothing of plants

nuclear

vascular

Plutonium is chlorophyll for allergies or green. Benadryll.

Why wonder about the bike shed's color. It only matters that it has a roof. We converse in predictable cycles perceiving what. We please dismiss all else as. Trivial / forgetting what to do / about a house full of bicycles.

Lolo whistled ivory teeth of coconut meat meant he was shoveling or having coffee with Acidophilus Milk. or a smoke with Dan the 'Nam vet, who sold him cartons. Shuffling made the dingle gamble sound simpatico. Frederick M. Sutton wore flip flops in the garden. Carved canyons in his soles. "Saw clearly beyond cataracts." Filipino expletives. " Ukininam" at the mahjong table. Like the tango he danced on the piano. Lolo called us from the trees, "Peanot bahtter toast!" Fed us with his thick cracked fingers nails like moons. Kamayan style coconut meat. Lola read, Are you my mother? to the audience, a page-turner, age three in his lap and when you fell

he spanked the concrete

with vengeance

for a scraped knee

handfuls of coins convinced you

shhh—you were his favorite

In the morning basement he hacked a toilet cough. Yesterday's ivory phlegm in the bathroom where his dentures slept. Where we split his menthols. Flushed them like

What color is the bike shed?

2008-11-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

At night it is maroon / in morning we stand / foolish from the moon
a mind will wane and wax back / purple, no, black / kindle and candle fire
Fear the stars ignite / our ears in our knees / canning the constant
hum in everything / blap pop boom / echoes in the night
thunder claps
sparring mits
chalk erasers slap
slap dust / seabirds scatter whistle / whilst locusts
not that far away / gauge in miles / where a body lay

Bishop Luther Dingle / explains, “sharp corners / and zig zags
of different shades / make illusions / when the contrast moves from bold to fade / indicates sound” as living proof / we know nothing of plants
nuclear
vascular
plutonium is green, no, yellow / chlorophyll is good for allergies / no benadryll

Why wonder about the bike shed’s color / it only matters that it has a roof
we converse in predictable cycles / perceiving what we please / dismiss all else as trivial / forgetting what to do / about a house full of bicycles

The Village Pet Shop and Charcoal Grill for Banksy

2008-11-11T14:50:00.001-08:00

stop the dolphin
on the sidewalk
blue five feet
coin slot saddle
and red fishnet
the leopard lost
his coat tail swinging
red satin lining
five thousand golden buttons
bone not included
the chameleon wears Louis Vuitton
and Krylon splashes
the bonobo clutches
the remote watching
the discovery channel
monkeys procreating
pushing buttons—rewind
fish fillets magnified
in the bowl swimming
in circles
vienna sausages wiggle
and hot dogs snuggle
in the aquarium thirsty
for dripping mustard
the nuggets take a dip
sweet and sour
under supervision
from mother hen
sitting on her scramble.
we step out
seventh ave south
hungry

Mash-up for Cobra

2008-11-06T08:26:00.001-08:00

TO MOTHER TROUT

You came to us dancing in feathered stockings. We bring you five claws. One soft. One visible fingernail like a nevus in a pine tar sky. A finger sweeps the public frosting. Nature now dry trees and replication and dead birds keep flattening on paintings— Venus roller skates while steering the stroller and the dog walker limps and has twenty-four legs. Exploded heavens. Anatomies of rats in the street—morsels and a mouse remain. Light particles. Nervous gleaners take a sleepwalk around midnight. Take a gander at the air.

I diagram the firmament –nine elephants steady the atmosphere.
I cease
to look behind your prefrontal cortex
to stomp in the hollow
between the rattlesnake
and the peacock.
I hear you.

TO WOLF PANTS

She fan-dances with an implied hum as we coax her by rattling our sun-dried and seed-filled gourds.
Vowels and shakere! Until electric crimson shakes each dangling lobe. Leaves and feathers. Seeds fall into uniform blue emptying. Loveless vessels.

we vow
solo love
we see
love solve loss
else we see
love sow woe
selves we woo
we lose
losses we levee
we owe
we sell
loose vows
so we love
less well
so low
so level
wolves evolve
— Christian Bök

TO LILY

With polished scales
I am she
waking.

Render: a lotus afloat the mise-en-scene. Consider: the gamelan complementing this diegesis. Sink in. Lily ovulates near svadhisthana chakra. Undulating vines—serpentine. Skating unfrozen body. Stalks appalled at her armature uncoiled. Beneath a glass sheet of chlorophyll. Succulent green— no, yellow blossoms. Reflecting the historical trajectory of clouds. Substitute an immmmmmpressionist palette for aphoristic affect. Implement color, comma, conjugate light tissue. Smoothly encased concubine. Cake on calcite. Make icing-face. Purse your lips for pucker power and kiss her to coagulate. Not ravenous for root vegetables just crushed out on the ground whilst the Monkey God leaps over the ocean.
The Sun God erupts through cirrus wisps and our Chieftainess smokes
a cornhusk pipe with tattooed lips rapt in velvet contemplation. Pigeons peck at chicken drumsticks. Eyeing me. I see cave paintings embellish my stomach walls and will please our occipital lobes stretched over a cannibal’s drum today.

Pretend I’m Talking About You

2008-11-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

I.

Who are you? rainbow-rusted route
What brought you here?! Your palms were read.
“Write poetry,” the palm reader said,
“And you will find true love.” You doubt.

Fluorescent lights flicker reflect
off water criss-cross currenting
betwixt the subway tracks something
is argyle and you recollect

Marine Bio. was your major
‘til you started trusting psychics.
Follow your bliss and dreams will stick
you oust Jesus as your saviour.

At home you post-it posit post—
the chaise, mirror, banana bread—
examples of parts of speech said
with no relation to their hosts.

“This is life and language,” you say.
You vow to battle speech machines
What happened at age seventeen?
“Got into wind-up toys to play,

spent summers on a fishing boat
to experience ‘harsh living.’”
but you stayed until Thanksgiving.
We are glad you wrote what you wrote

that you have an affinity
with music and the room you grew
up in where covering the view
of lakeside of virginity

a faded curtain yet hangs there
patterned in steam and tug boats
you are not fond of kids but goats
not embarrassed when your grandma
(whom you called, “Nonny-ashen-hair”)

held your hand on trips to market
even now you feel a closeness
to your toes even in adultness.
Wiggle them in their sockets.

II.

You were born on an autumn day—
that held both crisp and soggy things
maple leaves among mushroom rings
apple butter ripe bright decay

hot cereal gone cold and starched
shirts the crunch of sloppy kisses
under awning reminisce this
your lips were cracked sucked and parched

ergo, you know several things
about orange and assonance
ships, harbor, sea and ambience
about mulch and daylight savings

when you first smelled the East River
you released your cogent control
to transmigration of the soul
you believe relive deliver

you see a child yourself you posit
or as a female passing on
away across the street at dawn
you pull receipt from your pocket

to postulate her fears scribbling
plans to find a Brooklyn rooftop
where you pop open your laptop
to settle for the evening

to roll a cone of tobacco
to tuck behind the cigarette-
holder growing out of your head,
denim jacket stained with stucco

rummage through its pockets and find
hardened tissues from wash and dry,
an old matchbook from your last high
and a receipt with some late-night

epiphanies that do not sound
so smart now in your “creative career”
Appear austere with beer not ear,
you laugh stepping down underground

take a train as far as it goes
to watch a woman slip and knit
a story with each hook and stitch
she’s Scandinavian, you pose.

III.

Some of your best friends used to squat
in abandoned houses and hopped
trains and hitchhiked to thumb across
country. You regret you had not.

Some of the kids from your preschool
turned to cocaine for mind expanse.
You’re glad you didn’t take a chance.
Sometimes lonely at the New School

but mostly you’re relieved to skip
stuffy train stations and social
functions—one mathematical
thing your mind could not let you grip.

You haven’t owned a real raincoat
until today and even though
your pocket took a hefty blow,
frugally, you remain afloat.

Laid off from your construction site:
you stood proud in your union-grade
boots saying to your foreman, “I made
pro-dignity and will not fight.”

My feet will smell glorious now,
you think aloud. It makes you sad
to always see busty ironclad
women hovering a cash cow

you name him, Shepherd. He gets
the loot in some story, but not
yours. You are the line and the dot.
Despite your doubts and debts.

IV.

The true love you find in poetry
is what makes a true poet
one we cannot forget
as we trudge through the debris.

2008-10-30T00:13:00.001-07:00

Don't be frightened. This was intended to mimic W.S. Burroughs. OK, I guess be frightened.

2008-10-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

October 29th, 2008.
Manhappenin'.
In search for some relief we took our subject, an O.D.ing-mixed-breed-bipolar-paranoid-schizophrenic kid, to this polyglot of a Russian Shaman. A spiritual materialist he was. He had some deeply rooted obsession with handling mixed breeds in a "magic circle"—a pair of words he repeated to coax the participants into obeisance. Typically, he conducted ceremonies in that circle to invoke or wake up Grandmother and Grandfather. Our Shaman spent a great deal of time in Amazonia, where he learned direct from the Shamans proper. (Note: Grandmother and Grandfather are phone-tap-safe alternative names for Ayuahuaska and San Pedro respectively.)
Well the O.D.ing one couldn't be brought down as we tried to pour the viscous brown mixture down his throat. It was full of tongue—clogged with frothy mucous bodily excrement or just disintegrating evidence of the medicine cabinet cocktail he managed to concoct. I found him floundering dry heaving bubbles. His skin boiled and limbs flailed shapeshifting maybe into another kind of man.
On dark days, he took to digging through his neighbors' sock drawers or nightstands. Something always turned up whether it was an expired bottle of codeine or oxycotton or even some prescription cough syrup. He took it all in any case just to get that whipping sense of lift. Stumbled often to the fridge to take a few hits off the canned whipping cream. That became all the comedy on subsequent mornings when his parents tried to top their waffles and all that sputtered out was some white wet fart resembling that shitty froth he had tried to vomit the previous night.
Grandmother was like straight acid scraping the internal organs like it was nobody's business. If she had her way with you, she'd take your head right off. She would've been kind to this one. Wrap around him and reveal her self as a protective vine, but he had his fill. His nerves took over and there was no mind in that body, just electricity and chemicals back to electricity shocking stopping and shocking again. He laughed reflexively and battered himself as though demon-possessed—smashing the back of his skull into the edge of the brick fireplace. His pupils slid upward as if to gaze up at his fluorescent halo. I took the fiberglass insulation and laid it all about him to catch his fall, but he got microscopic glass slivers in his rashing epidermis.
He wasn't trying to die out of his half-life. Taking in by mouth or smoke might make him double alive. I thought I might reverse the situation by telling him that everything was its opposite, but this disturbed his nervous system even more. Every nerve was crossing and crossing back again. Like a braid of sensory overload he was visibly tangled inside and then a full blackout. Just humming. Buzzing.

2008-10-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

I roll Dekalb. I
watch color walls. I
illegal scrawl. I
feel
Fall. I
keel haul to
port of call. I

kill oak gall. Jackal
dolls bawl in
mess hall.
Ah !
ritual alcohol
non-habitual. I
waterfall

default to
thrall crawl

no wherewithal. I
drawl to
downfall. I
anchor

ancestral temple I
follow falsetto to
steeple to
people to
purple pall. Je
suis pas mal. I

Overhaul big
basalt ball
bearing to
Nepal. I
maul dhal
enthralled
by witwall craw
FAUGH!
I
am
salt
to
this
call.

Sundays I am Full, Not Me

2008-10-23T16:38:00.001-07:00

[You] Script stitched
the inseams of my legs
I would like to ride it out till Thursday
if I can
I avoid hot baths
distract this temptation by braiding
felled telephone wires
no one needs them anyhow
we might as well make art and table salt
from the things over which we might otherwise trip

Boards fill the arched windows
indicating the interior is more than shady at night
cracks spill that familiar artificial quality
fathered by fluorescent tubes

If I were a native of this town,
I’d devise a new calendar
based on absence and the reflection
of gathering sidewalk moons
and the cracks that fake us
into jolly arms smashed
between a glass slide
prepped for inspection

Man will gaze down at our limbs
naming each after a day of the week
everything between the follicles
of Thursday and the cuticles
of June

Jazz hides in the cement
with little crevices where ants assemble
in configurations
which from outer space
resemble chevron and gingham

Alas, the neighborhood hound huffs them out
chews on the housing of my wire corn rows
I beg the wet of his nose to translate
the cursive I walk

Still Evenings in Dry Apricot

2008-10-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Still evenings hit
the woody stems
of jasmine in pots
on sills curling
from the steam of content and radiator.

Something is so blank outside
it attracts nameless
birds of exotic origin to paint it
briefly here and there
chasing the idea of occupying
air of someone else.

And what is the point of a pencil
wearing it all down
from belly and beak undressing an angle
of blackened brick stack and the eastern twist
& texture of a decaying iron bar.

It’s boxes like these that say
the world is blank also.
I age like an astronaut
suited for a new moon. Meanwhile,
I can’t prevent the squirrel
from getting winter fat,
figure out what keeps
tomatoes green. I look around
all I see is steam
beside the jasmine, some empty red
wicker baskets and outlets
with nothing to plug. Condensing.
All the natural sounds of a world
with nothing to do.

I’ll bet there’s a sphere
where the lotería cards come to life
and the characters pretend
they only dance while you’re asleep.

I don’t want to do you
Saturdays anymore. It’s too late
for that kind of continuity.
I’d rather kick the radiator
activate a gurgle
sketch the dullness out of my 2B
find an eraser to introduce light
interact with space a bit.

She Brought the Contents of an Ode By Way of Lady’s handbag

2008-10-21T13:59:00.001-07:00

The Gun Metal Grey Clutch She gripped
As she tripped past but the content blew
Like a silver clam belching or a compact coughing
Nude dust Out came the talcum powder
As she lay snowing her hosiery

Toffee Brown Tote Floats Along the Thames like a maiden sailboat
Meant for fins Inside soak the batteries for the remote the moist toilettes
And a bachelorette’s street maps and Maoist leaflets miscellany O ketchup packets O saltine cracker packages O soup yesterday afternoon…

Basura Bags O Yesterday’s Soup and Crackers
and Socks you will send To the kids overseas
Who wait with empty juice containers and pop rings a laminated portrait Of a Papal order and the impossible 24-hour lipstick of every possible red To smear the collar of an infallible landfill

Chinese Laundry Oversize Zipper Top Hobo Bag & Braided Buckled Small Bucket Satchel—Inside, which sits a license to drive in some state
A pocket-sized journal that states she might even sell her clothes at a stoop Sale & trainhop westward with nothing to wash but her darkened hair Held up by chopsticks reading all the literature folded in the cookies and Greased on the metal cars

Money is a kind of poetry. Wallace Stevens

2008-10-21T10:29:00.001-07:00

A kind of currency. Lingua franca. Electric voltage to jumpstart a body or fry it to a crisp. Everything is bark. Words. Mots. Palabras. Pesetas. Copper. Argent. What a verbal illustration—a tip dessin vert—a mint species. Poetry is green olive and foliage. It will buy you a lover. Keep you in debt. Make you use bills for scratch. Jot your bliss. Spend it. It is vibrational. Tonal. Clinking in your pocket. You’ve got some. Everyone hears it. Wants it. “Just keys,” you say. Honestly. We’re bound by an imaginary trust to compensate for a world we could never afford. A cent is more magnificent in its power than its form. The opposite is true sometimes too. Shells. Buttons. It attempts to replace all things it cannot be. Tender to feed children, who will always hunger. We want it we want it until our change is perceptual. We see trees different. We learn the value of patching a deflated tube inside a tire on the shoulder of an empty highway. No promises, but to leave a memory imprinted on the grooves and creases of our palms and fingers. We exchange notes on a history of dead men and wonder. Is it a means or an end to suffer? I drop heaviest coins into the mouth of a washing machine to shake the debris from the skins that protect me. Spin. Slide on a magnetic strip of data. Plastic. Rarely seen or held. Easily drained.

Ascent

2008-10-12T22:02:00.001-07:00

Beyond your name came a love absolute
Neither trick nor gesture could prove this truth
But the height length and breadth of fields & countries—
O, oceans I would traverse! What yields me to you?

Like two rocks pressed—
We magnetize
If seasons shall blow us
South as migrant flocks
We both shall plunge
If just one in flight may fall
What sweetness to descend & reach;
the varied pitch of madrigals

What peaks! To find the surprise voices that rose within
My chest sinks to my insides where posies appear
At the touch of you—I invert you—inside out of me
like a kirtle I have swallowed in the cold
you are the fragrance
of purple-
Black
Oval
Berries
From my myrtle

You came to be the wool on my eyes
As you pull me into your rumination
My skin emits steam into the cold
Until coated
In the heat
Of your black gaze your gold

In permanent Spring we are perennial buds
From a perpetual night sky protrude these fine studs
That glister as beads trickle
Down your purple-black
& move me to speak in words I do not understand,
but love

Soaring uncovered regions to sing
As high as a morning eagle
You move
Possessed
By necessity
By love
Of broad wings
Lifting

A Red Breast Passes

2008-10-09T21:33:00.001-07:00

Not possible
To know the point
at which Blue Possible was
no longer.

Blue Possible
nested in the grass
Reckless mother robin
I thought
to be walking around
like that
No proper time
set aside
to give birth.

Growing up
means understanding that a
Possible predator
stole it
dropped it

Growing up
mother is justified
Save that egg
Pluck it
Out of shady showered grass
embroidered shed patch
old pigeon coup

Brother and I
adopted Blue Possible
Tucked her under our iron woodstove
No idea nor measure for sufficient heat
but steady watched
waiting for a kettle whistle
No steam
No beak
It quailed
collapsed

the Room is Smoke

2008-10-09T19:48:00.000-07:00

Smoke has filled the room.
Surely the vegetables are filled with carcinogens.
Everything is downtempo and that’s alright.
We have only a finite set of breaths.
I venture to hold them at times
to relish the feeling of verging on death.
I practice at the School of Evanescence,
where we study the expenditure of living
like we’re dying and discover we have little
to say, ergo we go soft upon the damp carpet of leaves
in such a lightness we leave no footprint.

If you are not accustomed to the television-regarding world
no need for constant conversation
commercial interruption—
How is it that you could want more than a consumerist could?
I want it all and I want it all for everyone. Real bad.
But it’s not working.
I must be tired.

If every channel could hold a dimension
and each dimension had several truckloads
of buckets—buckets in abundance on every station—
then we may have the amount of buckets required
to alleviate the ocean. And even more shelves
to store the dirt.

If we tuck all the stones away into drawers
or treasure chests from cartoon environments,
then where might we bury them?
Will we be able to hide them well enough
to where no one could find them
or wonder what might have happened to such a thing
or eventually—generations hence—
the significance of a wave or sediment?

All Along the Billyburg Bridge

2008-10-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

I slalom shalom and salaam
inhale the aerosol vapors evaporating
from the infamous anonymous like, “Spaceinvader”
I scan the dried up ostensible words misspelled.

“Save Domino” is code for “Welcome home, Sugar.”
The repeated stencil that reads, “you wish you knew,”
becomes a refrain to the path on the way.
Throughout the day you wish you knew who wrote that
and what they meant. You wish you knew
becomes an unabating audible taunt and I wish I knew
where I heard it first.

We skim the constructions to measure the progression of time.
Steel red bars run parallel perpendicular acute and obtuse above us—
a tricky sundial to reminds us that we’re all asymmetrical shadows.
Plastic steel and wheel have stopped beneath us
as we barely steal a glance at each other
a smile perhaps a nod perhaps in camaraderie.

Where are you going and where have you been
“I wish I knew”—cries the collective reverie
Gotta go Gotta leave Gotta run Gotta arrive Gotta be there
not here now the painted arrows agree
and disagree when the towers are barely lit and barely
extinguished. Somewhere someone can see the skyline
a cutout of skyscrapers adjacent to the headstones.

Everything asks for an engraving beyond the graveyard.
Like the sleeves of the riders rapidly representing a rainbow
Charged and Ephemeral passing swift in Deep V rims of wheels
all colored hoops and drop bars and flat bars and riser bars
and all manner of hats and caps and bells and hoop earrings and dangling things
off the bodies we will never know as we dance past Sad Gleeful. We ride on saddles giddy together as we cut each other off Unspoken
etiquette constantly a broken etiquette. We choke together
over gridlock over carbon and the east river running

I wish I knew you in 1903, but here’s the Queensboro majestically
manifesting terrestrial rays from the morning sun and the Manhattan
and the Brooklyn and the armpits that unite them. Signals change
and seagulls always stay the same. There will be messengers below
guarding the passage to no end suspended
no beginning cantilevered.

everyday is a festival where someone is always cremating a demon

2008-10-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

if you sit still enough
there will be a handful of maracas and djembes
to shake you behind a conga tree
entrain your heart to beat in between seams
sewn as sheets of sound within me
boom and clang can circle round
and hollow melodies found to embody the things
in the habit of emerging from the ground
recognizing that underneath a microscope
our veins might be knit together seeing
that blood moves centripetal this way
and to be perforated with 32 arms akimbo and radiating
looking something like an occasion
to which you may invite your mother and bring a drum
someone who resembles the madhatter
and sits on bulging roots at the base of the tree
swigs from a crinkled paper sack intermittently offers a whistle

vow to come every Sunday as you recognize old people who resemble aged versions of everyone you know.
like the one who looks like an extra man
with a pink backpack slung over his right shoulder
legitimizing the swagger in his gait
and the baby girl jounces along
which explains the waggle in his walk

the extra old stand on the walk
wearing all white tennis shoes curtain skirts definitive hats
starch and bold and bald and the flow surges by default
everyone belongs and the asian with drumsticks and mother and the man with a laundry cart and all wood barrels make sounds with beads and rope draped and off the sides and tied on like a hauling bump and shack and stars of david and frankincense with whistles and saxophone the resonant force of going. some stop

on the path with basketballs or the curiosity of an archaeologist picking twigs what remnants from the trees and smoke and dancing happens on resting leaves
there’s a reason for boots beanies and beards and repetition and interruption

Unexpected Birthmarks

2008-09-30T06:42:00.001-07:00

Pigeons peck at chicken scraps
& no barks respond as sirens pass

Nature now dry trees & replication
& dead birds keep flattening
on paintings—

Mistranslation is missing
the brushstrokes.

One visible fingernail like a nevus in a pine tar sky
& a finger sweep in the public frosting

Venus roller skates while steering the stroller
& the dog walker limps & has twenty-four legs.

Awkward pedestrians overlook
our mannered postures as we regard a solar eclipse
before a gazing apparatus

& continue these steps despite exploded heavens
anatomies of rats in the street—morsels & a mouse remain—
light particles

Perhaps for orphaned armoires & what they could contain
& ex-library memoirs expunged from the system

Nervous gleaners take a sleepwalk
around midnight & take a gander at the air

I diagram the firmament & note twelve elephants
steadying the atmosphere

o, mother

2008-09-26T13:54:00.001-07:00

o, mother

You came to me dancing
with claws so soft
I cease to look behind you
dancing in the hollow
between the rattlesnake
and the peacock.

o, friend

She came dancing and fanning
as we coax her with the shakere
electric crimson shakes the lobes
leaves and feathers and seeds fall
from the gourd into fluorescent
blue emptying

o, sometimes with polished scales
I am she
waking.

It’s Not Enough To Think Planets of You, Saturnine.

2008-09-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Nothing grows until there’s a crack
a breaking of eggs and earth crust. My liver
my lungs etched in pottery motifs
Cave paintings on my stomach walls will be beautiful
stretched over a cannibal’s drum someday.

You are all silhouettes
statuesque embossing my eyelids
like the sun erupts through cirrus wisps

While you wonder about favorite pastimes in the arctic
you will catch this drift
that earthquakes never skip a boat
a beat to dance around this axis is perpetual morning
stopped abrupt by an equal or greater opposing force

I witness the body dissolve
I become a chieftainess smoking
a cornhusk pipe with tattooed lips
rapt in velvet contemplation.

Her hands deserve
a machete
for your eyes.

Your Inner Vision Is Illuminated By This Realization

2008-09-23T15:02:00.001-07:00

Enough have you wandered
during the long period
of your quest
states the Yajur Veda circa 2300 BCE
and less than 1/32nd of the dime-sized world
knows it is embedded in darkness
and weary must have been the ages
of your searching in ignorance
and groping in helplessness.

Going to the polls, they believe,
can be a spiritual exercise
that can bring a positive change.

Is voting good
for your karma
or your soul,
besides being good for society?
All elections are important,
our psychics say—
how can Americans not vote
in a presidential race? Especially with so much at stake (with the country's soldiers in harm's way, a global energy and health care crisis, recession and more).

1:32 was once so common a scale
for toy trains, autos, and soldiers
that it was known as "standard size"
in the industry. A man is 2-1/4 inches tall (55 mm)
in 1:32 scale.

Behold the superfluous!
Nietzsche said, They steal
the works of the inventors
and the treasures of the sages
for themselves; white (or mixed race)
liberal democrats who drink five dollar lattes
in eco-friendly cups, listening to NPR
in a bio-diesel hummer (don’t they make those)
with a "He's not MY president" sticker on the bumper;
that also has a miniature dreamcatcher (1:32 of original size)
hanging from the rearview mirror; while carting around
an adopted black (or multi-ethnic) child (three-fifths human)
on a return trip from COSTCO and IKEA; welcomed home by Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the front stoop
"education" they call their theft –
and everything turns to sickness and misfortune for them.

Your identity has been swallowed by the media
and fed right back to you on the market
for only $2,349.99 per month
for the rest of your life.
To sin against the earth
is now the most dreadful thing,
and to esteem the entrails
of the unknowable higher
than the meaning of the earth.

This is the threat to our lives,
says Mr. Campbell.
We all face it.
We all operate in our society
in relation to a system. Now
is the system going to eat you up
and relieve you of your humanity
or are you going to be able
to use the system to human purposes?

Then he realized:
"I, indeed, am this creation;
for I have poured it forth from myself."
In that way he became this creation.
And verily, he who knows this becomes
in this creation a creator.
Your inner vision has been illuminated
by this realization.

2008-09-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

The nocturnes. The sacral superimposed on the sermon. The nocturnes
the ornament and the hearse and the ornamental near the heart dangled.
The sacral. The temperate humor traipsing along the fulcrum.
The nocturne. The nascent sunshine eastern present ascent.
The sacral. The fulcrums. A temperate hour traipses along them.
The nocturne. The haste. The sunshine nascent nearest ascent.
The spore. The haste. Sacral superimposition on a sermon. Porous.
A temperate humor shifts inside it. The haste. The spore. The ascent.
The melancholic. The fulcrum. The haste. The spore. The temperate
heart traipses among them.

I Fear It’s Not Enough That I Think Planets of You, Saturnine.

2008-09-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Some stars you can see even during a morning sky,
although I guess those are planets as well.
I indulge a need to compile songs essay-like
for you. Layers of tone say more than all the reasons
I could name for you. How prison-like this form—
all tissue and organ-bound
ceaselessly aspiring for more
celestial routines. Contortionist dust.

Nothing grows until there’s a crack and a breaking of some kind.
Eggs and earth crust show us. My liver & lungs are marked
with common pottery motifs. Cave paintings on my stomach
walls will be beautiful stretched over a cannibal’s drum someday.

You may wonder about favorite pastimes in the arctic. As I witness
the body dissolve
as I become a chieftainess
smoking a cornhusk pipe
with tattooed lips deep in velvet
contemplation.

Her hands deserve
a machete
and your eyes.

O'leary is left with a dead guy and it's not right.

2008-09-16T14:46:00.001-07:00

O’Leary is dead,  and O’Riley don’t know it.  O’Riley is dead,  and O’Leary don’t know it.  They both are dead  in the very same bed, 
and neither one knows  that the other one’s dead . Ba-rooom, Ba-rooom!

~Some rhyme I heard as a kid that stuck with me

What is right and what is wrong are difficult for many to decide. Just as figuring right from left.
Upon first learning to write, I was told that lowercase b faced right, so the only right answer left for d was to make it face left. Now dexter starts with “d,” so it can be tricky to remember in terms of direction. But if left is sinister, then I guess it’s not right.
When I was four, I did not know it was wrong to write left to right (or right to left for that matter) on the living room wall. Left to my own devices I continued to scrawl, but right when my father came home I discovered it was wrong.

; Meditation:

2008-09-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

She came to me dancing and now I can remember longing
for obliteration with claws so soft I close
My eyes behind she dances in the hollow
between the rattlesnake and the peacock.
She came dancing and fanning

My brain is electric crimson
lobes leaves and feathers
fluorescent blue and I am
sometimes a serpent

o, Divine Mother
teach me the emptiness
show me eternal erasure

Purnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudacyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya
Purnamevavasisyate

The jungle doctor speaks:
“The first Inca was extraterrestrial. She was so beautiful. It was only her. He knew. She came to tell us that we are in our bodies like wild monkeys trying to fly a spaceship—always pressing the wrong buttons. Leave the chatter, my brother.”

I close my eyes and we are all silhouettes of statues tattooed behind my eyelids. How did you become embossed here like a sun always breaking through? When will you understand that the earthquakes never miss a beat and the rotating is inertia—perpetual morning until confronted by an equal or greater opposing force.