no matter what else has happened, there are reasons to distrust machines

the google thinks I don't deserve all of my email
(not sure which of the gods would be responsible)
I received a tentative inquiry about my lack of response
or I wouldn't have even known anything was amiss
(oh wait, I am getting an idea)
I am frustrated and angry that I won't know what else
is missing - what important information is gone
(is that a trunk I see from the corner of my eye?)

aw hell!

My eyes already hurt.
I seem to have left my glasses on the river bank.
Today is the first day of gun season.
Wearing orange just isn't enough.

I am reminded of the last pair that I lost
a few years ago. On the banks of the Missouri.
It happened the day he took me to a special place,
knew I needed to run like a dog for a long time.
He patiently waited in the car, reading. Struck me
as funny later on, to be taken out for some exercise
and losing my sight while running so free. But,
you know, I needed a change of view then too.

nice couple of hours

small comfort in the unknown

sleep arrived fine last night
but departed shortly after midnight
and I could not coax it to return
to save my soul

after hours and hours of
a book and some movies
I did finally drift off
for a short time but

pain in my back roused me
and for several moments
before I opened my eyes
I could not tell where I was
couch or bed, city or country

another memorable morning

or
I could smell skunk even before I opened my eyes


since yesterday morning I’ve been reconsidering a policy of mine
you know, the one where I tell someone when I dream about them
I have faithfully done this for years, even told my friend's
hat when I dreamt about it (someone was eating a salad from it)

in the past my dreams have often been more literal regarding
the cast – symbolism seemed exhausting, really
but things have changed of late, many many things

my dreams certainly have and now my sleep is filled
with intensely vivid scenarios; there for a few nights running
it was so frightening so terrifying that I had to work hard
to remind myself of the real world though that is no less distressing

but the very nature of my dreams has changed, metaphor has returned
with a vengeance and my brain has reminded me what an unusual
specimen it can be though people do seem to mention it occasionally

yesterday morning there was a peer, a poet in my dream
our conversation was all very friendly as he leaned forward to say
something hovering close to my face, our cheeks nearly brushing,
eye to eye until he sliced into my upper thigh with a pocket knife

he stepped back, glanced down, removed his scarf and bound
the wound while the whole time continuing to say those innocuous
things people say to each other in social situations, poetry readings

it was such a strange thing to dream, this peer would not behave so
and when I woke up and thought about telling him, it didn’t make
sense – no sense at all to think this man is a threat. my imagination
is grasping more than inanimate objects to point out the obvious

(a thing I need and deny) and this morning, I knew for sure that things
had changed; I’d taken a notebook to bed – the top of the page reads
“symbolism trumps,” “another trend” and “I decide to break my policy”

another dream, another peer, another poet arrived with a playful
flirtation that quickly turned into a joyful seduction as I was held in
some engulfing music, a gentle hand cupping my breast while
the most delightful desires were whispered into my ear

a pattern develops

either I've been spending
a lot of time at my desk
or it has just happened to be
the place where I've started
to take off my shoes sometimes

Humanity?

It is shaking and sweaty,
holding its face in its hands.
It sings to itself
and dances on rainy afternoons.
It is content and knows
without looking what is the deepest part.

why I hate rural living part 1

or
the nights are getting long


it is that time of the year when I want to go to bed
early to read, wait for the world to stop moving,
stew in my own juices but the flies have come inside

or were born inside just now (I can’t remember
their life-span) but somehow they weren’t
here for the summer, I slept well then

the desperate erratic frantic buzzes in the shade
of my reading lamp begin to resonate with the
buzzing in my head, a disturbing distortion develops

and one night last week when I needed the silence
I found myself with a ferocious desire to stop
the relentless cacophony so leaping naked

I wielded my weapon, my bra – it was the thing
I had at hand when I realized they remained
before I crawled into the sheets opened my book

slipped away

impossible afternoons

the skull in the rudbeckia took me by surprise
yesterday when I was lost in the smell
of the upturned dirt and the crushed bergamot
watching the slow moving worms
and listening for the growing roots of the bulbs
that I’d planted before leaving to bury you

there are times the invisible dogs are not enough

today as I lay in the early morning sheets
I heard Edith, long dead dear Edith,
barking outside
it was her polite bark, one syllable with a particular statement
a mention that she’d appreciate the back door being open
just a moment, so she could be back inside
sit touching my foot

ill composed and incomplete but out of my head

there are times
it is easier
to see through the haze
or wait for the fog to lift
but patience
is not one of my virtues

at the moment I was reading

Phil Lesh said in my bathroom: "It was a classic example of an all too human tendency to misread situations negatively, respond in kind and then see the light after it's too late."

no more

no more
mokita
for me