button & thread

said the button to the thread 

i don't want to be led

not tied & buttoned to a shirt 

i don't want this bind this place to lie 

unmoving forcibly dead 

i am the shape of a wheel, the moon & the sun! 

able to roll & tumble & run 

i wish to be free from the flannel & form 

to be a free button 

evermore 

said the thread to the button i've no wish to bind 

my preference is to be spooled, quiet, inline 

no needles no task 

i wish to hold fast 

to my sweet bobbin paradigm 

i've no wish to capture 

to sew & enrapture 

this task set forth from above 

i've no wish to pin you down

to keep you from running around 

so flat & bound 

i merely wish to be wound 

'round my spindle so sound 

simple & smooth 

evermore 

the button rolled free 

to seek fields & trees 

as the thread wound round its wooden spool 

no marriage to flannel

no button sewed, bound & facile

just two things that matter now 

better apart than before 

button & thread 

evermore 

wrapped

you tease me with need, apples & emptiness

struggling to hardwire

lounging there in yellow silk boxers 

against your father's blueprint 

aging with bitter remorse 

without awareness

i hate football

and struggle to understand my own fragility

what is it that binds & stretches to accommodate our twisted, wounded selves

acceptance comes with a cost; 

a kiss of popcorn & fresh red peppers

a blizzard whorls beyond our walls 

and if you would open just long enough

i 

would 

fall

into your blue eyes 14 thousand feet deep

rich with wisdom & words and muscles hard

willing 

our bones are old and speak of chasms of mirth & merit

replete with lovers, summers & wine 

why the goodbye

why walls of blue-glass brick

to find the hole again 

altars of divine care & memory to what was & what could be 

sparked by flannel warmth & distance spanned by

love 

when the sky is green

Celadon 

comes the day from mossy dreams slumber 

rising rising 

movement wicked--articulated back to leg to arm 

beholding a day forecast green-grey 

thunderstorms forming unencumbered 

by night 

by this skin/bone collide (how verdant veins lie 

upon outstretched possibilities charm) 

seafoam turbulence with crocodile rain 

falling in artichoke torrents severity 

no brevity 

but wicked-articulated rising rising waves of nori destruction 

coming coming it is 

while all i can do is recall pistachio dreams

of meadow & willow fields afar 

wake--prepare 

meet the storm with an olive branch of forgiveness 

celadon comes the day 

fern bright will come the morrow 

 

re·dux

Oh Columbia! 
imagined history of our ancients
where is our emancipator of despair?
bison spirit rising
compassionate liberation
against
political collide
pull back the veil of stars
stripes
bloodied suffering revised to fit the supremacy
Oh say can you see--our manifest destiny?
manifest genocide
redress--recognize
indigenous wholeness and right
nationalism expedition colonization imperialism
manifest genocide, again
 ... our destiny wrapped
in
rhyme--rhythm
by
Jackson
Jefferson
Cooper
Whitman
Hawthorne
Longfellow
Poe
Thoreau
darkness
blackness--native peoples demonized
whiteness christianized
in
the
killing fields of the Americas
indian country 
follow the corn trail 
the trail of tears;
Mayans
Olmec
Toltec
Anasazi
Pueblo
Caribs
Maroons
Powhatans
Pequot
Abenaki
Mohican
Shawnee
Delaware
Wintu
Maidu
Miwak
Omo
Wappo
Havasaupai
Nez Perce Nation
Yokuts
Iroquois Confederacy
Natchez Nation
Hopi
Apache

Navajo

Cherokee
Pawnee
Kiowa
Ojibwa
Chippewa
Seminole
Lakota
Sioux
Comanche
Muskogee Creek
Tuscaroras
Chickasaw
Choctaw
Tlingit
Salish
Makah
Hoopa
Pomo
Karok
Yurok
Shoshone
Bannock
Paiute
Ute
Haudenosaunee
Green Corn Dance
Ghost Dance
Sun Dance
resist
redeem
(the revolution was not televised)
repair
.... the soul of America
primal heroism and heart of our humanity
lost
     to
          the
impossible
passable
papable
grief
inherent
to wind
to river
to wilderness
legacy awakened...
Oh redemption!

This land is your land

prey

spirits & ghosts 

thoughts grey 

the hunting kind 

trapped in arbors thick

wild with over-ripe acceptance lined 

stay away from the yellow 

stay away from darkness binding 

oh you spirts & ghosts 

the hunting kind 

no longer a child susceptible to golden charms & wily ways 

with precious fruit awaiting ....  

with pearls of amethyst & shells a thousand years old 

no longer a child hiding from the hunter behind a pink sky 

i am the moon 

i am night--part ghost part wild hope 

rift

who are you
to erase all lines of definition, presence & form ?
how dare you !
is this working ?
is it easy?
there is no sign here 
no trace
invisibility is your camouflage
no bread crumb trail thru the woods
no cosmic footprint in the ether
no blue-ribboned bows upon branches marking the trail
no movement thru the world
merely the memory-foam-imprint lingering on skin
the haunting there within my limbic system
the pulse & heat that lies within my marrow
is this a move of strength or fear?
if you resided in the fullness of will & love
would you circle the wagons so tightly?
wouldn't you crave the space between for the light & love to pour out?
i do
wouldn't you be boldly eager to ride out
wrapped in the courage & fierce righteousness of your path?
i am boldly eager
while in your ancient-retreat--i smell regret & weakness
limited bravado

fear of discovery
and an echo of the sureness 

metamorphosis

with ease 

i slip beneath the bell jar 

trapped & separate from the tangible 

content in the capture 

to rest 

so tightly held 

so highly removed from the churning of the ordinary 

this wrapped nucleus of jade silken despair 

rest comes as chrysalis 

removed to this dome of glass 

to await the mandarin & black of flight

and

the sweetness of milkweed