The Hunter, the dark woods, & the dénouement

Ela Zubrowska : color is on flowers

And so your enemy 
stalks you. 

You thirst, you 
stumble; wonder if this heavy 
quilt of night will suffocate or free;

if wilderness conspires 
to make you know how small 
you truly are. Or how infinite. How 
frail. How alive. 

Ancient as this deer run.
      

                                         the drum, the heartbeat, the breath, the warcry
                        the breath, 
          the drum, 
                      the heartbeat, 
                                  the warcry


So now become the seeker.

Turn into the hunter.

Turn around and charge after

what's chasing you down, run with

dark blades emerging from your fear

to stop in the air and turn the other way,

poised to strike as your strange new weapon.


                      the drum, the heartbeat, the breath, the warcry
                                                       the breath, 
                                           the drum, 
                           the heartbeat, 
                the warcry

And then 
when you decide 
you're ready to die,

you'll see the bullet 
as it stops,

blooms, and pulses light, quiet

battle song pouring out of this nexus 

of unseen power encircling you—

                                  the breath
                                   the drum 
                                the heartbeat 
                                  the warcry
The drum, the heartbeat, the breath, the warcry

and here, in your 
near-death, your rebirth by
blood and dirt and hunger and butchered fear

you'll find out who you really 
are. It can't be done

any other way.

The Art of Survival

You say it is waste—and you have a good case.

Your fire for life, for its wine on your tongue—

you’ve had to shut it down. Push it far beyond the

mines at your foundation to just keep breathing.

                                  one – two   three – out —

                    —in—

To forget yet keep the card catalog—that is the

torture that puts 40-watt light in your eyes, pushes

your blood forward, keeps it creeping toward your

heart and

                                                                          out—

you know you can never go back.

All the beautiful plays left unplayed—

bellowing risks simmered down into

a quiet poultice to be clapped on your

wounds at night—tiny battles of

five typed words won underwater

as the rest of the world sleeps, weightless.

This art kills you, you think.

You think it’s killing you cell by cell—

when you think about it—whenever

you see your vanished past leap

into the well backwards, on rewind,

to play out its phantom storylines.

And yet these shackles—

you believe it—breathing—

                               — in – one    two – out —

are something else—not wings, not

some false coffer of visible wealth—

but roots, maybe, not just roots that tear

down to the heart of the earth unseen—

but roots, also, that crack the pavement

breath by hair’s breadth, planning to

overthrow a great wall, a great mountain

one day—in a second—splitting kingdoms

with wide boughs that stretch out to

welcome in every rare living thing

to come build its home. 
Even if in miniature.

Maybe—

             breathing—all breathing—

                                                 in—out—
                                                             in—out—

              then this art will turn

that corner on which destruction

is revealed to have strange design,

on which bitter pathways gnawed

by insect, fire, disease—will turn

into a labyrinth—a waterway—a

motherboard of wonder—a home—

and this time you will live—

                                            and breathe—

                                and move—

             and have being—

—and you will

finally lose the argument

that death had its way

in this longest of 
winters.

 

The Pearl

You cannot reason away the
blast of the sound barrier, the

neon fire that blankets the city
and melts your arm. It is

what it is, even when they
tell you it wasn't. No argument

to dismiss the power of the
pure at heart when it annihilates

a thousand viruses under the
microscope. No words are

adequate ridicule, even though
this cure, this beauty, this

suffering is a foolish bet to sell
everything for. You would throw

it all away for a pearl. You would
let them put out your eyes for a

glimpse of the coming kingdom.
You would ask the unknown

question. You sail in your skin
boat over the edge of the world.

Forecast Map

Storms are coming.

The air so heavy you could shape it into castles. 
You question the prophecies that haunt you 

for the thousandth time and—

A raindrop drives down your forehead just so 
and down you go, stairs sliding, the last one ramming lightning 
up your spine and into an open vision 
of invisible castles made of air—

Held under the rapids—

     tangled in a downed tree—

                   chariots, tidal waves

    rushing at your heels—

A hundred viruses stalk you.

Poisoned grains of rice hidden in every bowl and

ancient snares with kills in the millions 
set on every corner you’re known 

to chase at night.

But the cruel slivers that keep your eyelids 

pinned open drive you toward each sharp exacting 

turn that keeps your feet on every 
fragile skein of web.

So follow your anger.

      Let contempt make you write words 
             on the ground. May your hands again 

     make ceremony.

When sleepless fever 
chains your body to the racks, stay awake for it 

to purge you of bravado before 
you go hunting.

There is treasure in this field, 
in this muck and wet soot. Clues in the 

telltale words of whispering hail,

stone-fisted disaster.

Search out the faces

        of your many hungers.

             Dive into the dark heart

   of this pain.

You think you are looking for me, but I am looking for you

My brother builds a fire. The stars greet its sparks as equals, 

light years apart, saying we will stay up all night watching, 

watching as you sleep somewhere, enfolded unaware in the 

blanket we wrapped around you with our minds as if in ceremony. 

We will travel before dawn comes to this desert. Tracking you.

||

Wind shuffles your tracks as a chaotic sand painting; your distant scent, 

mingled with the sweat of a thousand others who know nothing of your 

direction. The wind says you are lost and no one knows. So now—we 

track what you search for, the shifting shape of desire and its flight. 

We go by night, scenting still, a map of the unseen world in our minds.

|||

How futile is it to cling to the face of this rock once you’ve fallen? 

After all, poetic death is priceless. Or would it be death? What if you 

could fall like a leaf, or an outstretched wing, down into the world below? 

Then, it would be creation, it would be birth. You would separate the roots 

of the atmosphere into night and day so that conception and thanksgiving 

would happen again and again, seed become light, the tree of the world 

above, reminding you of itself. This is why you let go. Or rather, jump.

||||

Follow the river when you find it, don't let it stray from your path! 
Listen to our thoughts; not those that close in to unravel your way, your 
power, beauty. Don’t die of slow thirst, don’t let them tear you apart 
when they find you. Stay alive! Keep running till you catch this scent!

|||||

We built this fire waiting for you.

We marked the trail with pollen bright as middle daylight.

We wait for you behind this wall of water, drums in hand,

playing songs of secret homecoming.

Ceremony

These great comings-together

These slight turns you made

even as a child toward this place

The scratched slide

of your mother’s record

falling from the stack,

up toward your heart,

moving in you, nearer

with every minute revolution

Ax splits wood,

separating vertical grain

it never knew it possessed

Salt water clashes on stone,

new velocity hurling

every atom with totality

of first or last time

Sure foot of your grandfather

dancing the sneak-up

lifts the unbearable weight

of a hundred generations,

reassuring earth she is seen,

known, pursued and chosen

Curvature of the mounds

one thousand, million layers deep,

bones and the exacting timbre of

each of your ancestors’ laughs,

reaching up toward your lonely back

and rolling you down the new-cut grass

The night you left camp

and climbed the wall

at the border between

these lives you could’ve led,

had you believed everyone then

Gun in hand of the robber

who haunts your house

glints diamond hard

in the moonlight streaking

through glass, your sweat,

your sun-starved skin

Stowaway spirits

in the particle smasher

lunge for each other’s throats,

the one that is for you

tearing at the jugular

in a violence of mute beauty

Steel sparks and grinds the track

in exquisite tension,

keeping the whole train

from plunging off

the edge of the world

The cracking whip

of your hair on the wind

as you spin around

to chase the demon

running after you

There could be holy fallout

These days when I don't have many words of my own...thanks, Hafez.  I run into you at just the right moments.

We are often in battle.
So often defending every side of the fort,
it may seem, all 
alone.

Sit down, my dear,
take a few deep 
breaths,
think about 
a loyal friend.

Where is your 
music,
your pet, 
a brush?

Surely one 
who has lasted as long 
as you
knows some path, 
some place inside
that can give a sweet respite.

If you cannot 
slay your panic,
then say within
as convincingly as you can,
It is all God’s will!

Now pick up your life again.
Let whatever is out there
come charging in,

Laugh 
and spit into the air,
and
there could 
be holy fallout.

Throw 
those ladders like tiny matchsticks
with just phantoms upon them
you thought were trying 
to scale your heart.

Your love has such
an eloquent sound.
The sky and I 
want to hear it!

If you still feel helpless,
give our battle cry again—

(Hafez has shouted it
 a thousand-and-one times!)

It is all,
It is all the Beloved’s will!

What is 
that luminous rain I see
all around you 
in the future,

Sweeping in from the east plain?

It looks like, 
O it looks like
Holy fallout

filling your mouth and your palms
with Joy!

Creation

NASA : Perpetual Ocean

I want you to understand

that there is no flow—

this is all irrigation, breaking

ground to find a vein of water

This is being half alive

but running a message barefoot

from mountain to mountain,

chewing root and imagining water

This is moving stones

in the dry valley when no one’s looking

—then evaporating back into baked air

till the time comes again to do the

miracle that turns dust atoms to water

This is rain in a field

that can no longer hold it—

blind groping for roots that

have worn down to shreds, to

outlines of words without water

This is building a dam without a river,

believing springs will one day rush up 

from deep earth and begin a deluge; 

building a boat and waiting

to be lifted by invisible water

I want you to understand

that I am still half alive—

and the part of me that sleeps

is spinning stories outside time—

And on some other earth,

formless and void, some spirit roves

over the water, waiting for the

word that says light

Old Land

Robert Frost once said something about a poem usually starting as a lump in the throat, a profound sense of wrong, a deep homesickness, a crazy lovesickness—and he is right. This simple traditional-spoken-word-ish poem is, like others, a prayer of sorts for the many spirits of this world bearing the weight of costly experience. If you feel that weight, too, it is also for you.

Finding song

Mike Robinson : Tau Zero

So leave.

Leave them for now.

You lose nothing.

Be alone.

Be nourished by all that rises to meet

your solitary shape on the plain.

As you let the sky make you small.

As power comes through your cells,

fuses into what was not

and yet was always to be.

Leave.

Go, walking.

Run.

Pull yourself onto the back of this animal

that rushes into the unknown.

Don’t think of what was planned.

You are no one else.