Truth is a Coppiced Tree
Truth is a coppiced tree
pruned back each season.
Words grow from its branches
before falling to reason.
Down there it’s different,
warm, deadened, and dark—
protected from danger
beneath ground’s earthen bark.
Truth crawls through the leaflitter
and squirms into the mud,
down where twisted roots lie
to the once dormant buds.
“Grow up there,” the roots urge,
“and bring forth what’s here!”
So fresh life, underground,
sees no shadows of fear.
Up it grows from the stump
to stand tall round its rings
then looks up to the sky
sprouting leaves as its wings.
And so branching out further
to drink in more light,
truth just keeps on stretching
til it’s cleared out of sight.
high coup
the dead metaphor
old words left in the attic
it’s all greek to me
behind the bark
The emerald ash borer lays her eggs
in a safe haven of incubating tree tissue,
where they will hatch and then burrow
into the nourishing phloem to carve
a message of their path to existence
under the tree’s bark.
But there are so many eggs,
and then so many baby beetles
all writing at once, crossing over
and weaving through one another
as they eat their way to adulthood.
So many characters to keep track of
and so little time to record them.
The ancient method of note-taking
is cryptically preserved
under the ash tree’s skin,
in illegible squiggles
by beetle larvae stenographers.
love in the time of corona
I have not lucid dreamed in ages.
But next I do, I plan to dream of you.
In sleep, we work through the different stages,
directed to fall down further ado.
I focus my mind, and you hit your cue,
give shape to the role I ask you to play,
disregard my lines and say something new.
An improvisation sweeps me away,
as I wait for the night to steal the day.
When my mind is clear, can you set it free?
Through light and dark matter blurring to gray,
you are the one who my eyes strain to see.
Even when action is frozen in sleep,
a call to play will wake memories deep.
teeth
Let’s not kid ourselves, here,
there’s some kind of teeth motif
stuffed in everyone’s mouth.
However, when your teeth start to soften
and they start falling out like
miniature marshmallows shooting
into the campfire, then bubbling
down to dark, blackened lava in the dirt…
And when you used to sit wisely
in three rows, working together
on leaves covered in waxy resin
gently brushing away rays of amber
like teardrops etched into cheeks…
And when there used to be enough space
to keep your wisdom from erupting, from
threatening the temptation to turn your hardest
rocks to ash, back when our brains were too big
to breath above the water, to count a year like a
pelagic ripple, or a cross sectioned ring…
Well, only then, should you kid yourself
like some kind of root canal grounding
your crown back down through your bones.
sclerotia
When I was a little child
I had a fever dream that I never forgot
but also didn’t remember
until a therapist asked me about it twenty years later.
I wasn’t in the dream. Not physically.
I was a trapped transparent eyeball
emotionally watching from the inside out—
a looping film of deep, dark swells
of dirt underground furiously tilling upward.
Wet soil and gravel moving
like magma around a vortex
ring of big, heavy undulations;
the earth rolling back into itself
and then erupting through a tiny
black hole into an expanding space until finally—
the mushroom clouds of pressure and dust
subside and settle, leaving
a single, delicate stem
to spring forth from underground.
My therapist nodded like I had answered correctly.
She rarely showed any tells of bias.
But her nod made me wonder…
Was that what I was supposed to remember?
She didn’t answer because
I didn’t ask the question.
I thought that once a fever sets the sparking neurons
of a young dreaming brain on fire,
the blaze destroys all existence of memory,
slowly burning it away to restore balance.
Body temperature, like memory, is regulated by the brain:
a mycelium mass of firing neurons, buried under heavy matter;
a pungent fruiting body, protected in a shell of skull,
regulating temperatures and preserving memories
beneath the surface in order to survive the extremes.
Rare, to remember being born—
to save that sudden first exposure as it emerges,
locking it away to develop and then swallowing the key.
Perhaps a memory survives through
scorching decomposition because it was
intended to lay dormant until it is
intended to be remembered.
make believe
Little kids are always asking
‘Why?’
and grown adults are usually wondering
the same thing,
but they’ve been playing pretend
for so long that they hardly miss a beat
as they reach back into the past
and dig around to find the answer
they were given years ago
when they were
little kids always asking
‘Why?’
Onus on Sonus
I ran a path through a forest of pine.
A snake of burnt orange needles lit the way
Through fronds of ferns and deft squirrels in the fray
And I tailed its trail, hunting for a sign—
Some confirmation that all will be fine.
In the still morning of an outstretched day,
Long as the trunks stretching up toward the grey
I jogged away from a heart that’s not mine.
By myself with the trees, and in my search,
The roots bent like knuckles, knotted, but calm…
Then a red flash and a pound on repeat
Lifted my gaze to a woodpecker’s perch.
I reached to feel the trunk’s bark with my palm,
A vibrating tree with its own heartbeat.
Haiku Carved Into a Bar of Soap
Think how the shore feels,
scrubbed clean every day by waves
of raw emotion.
Intercalary
“Excuse me, I’m trying to take a leap of faith over here, could you please keep it down?”
The year looked over the tip of its nose at me like I was a grounded fly, struggling
on one wing to get away, buzzing in fruitless frustration. It smiled like an evil cartoon villain
then threw out its backwards tongue, sticky around me... actually, somewhat nice in here.
Warm, smooth...
Then SNAP!
He leaped away with a tiny croak of well-fed faith as I fell down his throat.
Round Peg
So, he took a bone from his body, and rounded it up to me?
Why is it, then, that it would appear as though it is I
Who has the empty missing space, and Him who has the piece that fits inside?
That grows, and wants to grow back inside of me when it senses me near…
Grow back to where you came from in the first place,
Like some kind of borrowed magnetic pole, I would venture to guess.
“Here,” I said, help me see the universe, would you?
Unplug that hole, let me stream it forth, then plug me up again
Every now and then to remind me I am human.
Dedicated To You
open up wide…
i’m gonna put some words in your mouth
does my sentiment scare you?
or is it your own self-doubt?
or all the above and you’re above me
quoting from your books
can’t let your own thoughts free.
can’t or won’t—i may never know
but i’m a mouth half full
and you’ve got room to grow.
when you ripped out our pages
you ripped my heart out with them, too
didn’t like that one chapter
so you’re done, and we’re through.
but if you’d just kept reading
with your mind open, too
the story could have changed.
the plot might have twisted
in a direction much more pleasant
than the twisting you did, with my words—
in between your fists
wringing them dry
squeezing me into a lie
that you claim you never cared for in the first place
since our very first page.
you judged me by my cover
and then pretended to read
i opened up, flipped my pages
like opinions and hoped
we might bind together.
maybe if i edit this thought
and delete that phrase,
your blank expression will
turn into a blank page—
and we can fill it with days
sharing secrets and dreams and
memorizing our favorite lines
reading between them
between sheets
maybe your snap judgments
would drop those harsh sentences
snapping back like good dialogue—
hard to write
and even harder to have
with someone who weighs
every single word like it’s final.
like it’s the last word
on the last page
and you can close it
and be done.
then on to the next one.
well, you forgot to ask
if i was ready to be put back on the shelf
or maybe it’s not my choice
just listening to your own patronizing first-person voice.
and if i’m tucked away
bent over in the corner
aching for you back, gathering dust
how much easier for you to forget my meaning
and my depth
and your lust.
but FUCK this metaphor about BOOKS!
and then, “SHHH!” says the librarian inside my oh-so-public brain.
because thoughts of you are running wild through the aisles
careless footnotes stomping around
leaving texts open on the tables
prints smudged across the ground
scripts ripped into pieces
any categorization or prioritization
defeated.
terrorizing innocent, quiet hopes
and gasping in dark corners
trying to grasp
at things they are too young
to be reading…
about fucking metaphors
shoving words in mouths
about paragraphs so long
and hard that you can barely
get through to the end.
and about realizing
that the climax might never come.
or maybe it will—
but there’s no guarantee
that it will ever truly satisfy.
so here,
i'll let you finish
with an empty dedication
in my mouth.
Who Invented Fear?
In the law office of Phobos and Deimos, two twin brothers sit across from one amygdala,
raising their voices like angry fists, claiming their stake on the invention of a novel device.
I’ve been summoned to stand between them and mediate, but
they are not going to like what I have to say. My heart is pounding
louder than a gavel, my hands are trembling, the color, I’m sure,
is draining from my face, and a profusion of frigid sweat is trickling
from every gland. I desperately hope no one in the room can smell it…
When I open the good book of poetry, a noiseless patient spider descends
on a silk ribbon, like a bookmark—I wonder how long she’s been hiding in there,
I wonder if she was waiting for me. I clear my throat, the brothers growl,
the amygdala sighs, and the spider lifts her abdomen into the air, sensing a storm.
“Uh-uh-uh-unfortunately,” I’m stammering, “the dev-dev-dev-device in question is not
legally patentable. At this time, I’m uh-uh-uh-unable to award individual ownership.”
The brothers lunge towards me,
the amygdala cackles maniacally,
and the noiseless patient spider wraps me
up in her web of gossamer threads to
carry us away on the wind.
This particular case may always be left cold.
Another Emily
I’ve wished to curl up next to you—
As bark burns into oak—
As the neck of the wild goose
folds feathers into cloak.
I’ve wished to breathe your soul in—
As embers soak up wind—
As plumed wings push and pull on air
the breeze on high has thinned.
I’ve wished to know the feeling
of a casual burn to dust—
Your weight steady lifting
and all dense thoughts combust.
I’ve wished to rise from wooded ground
into ashen clouds—
To take my time by season’s change
and not by bustled crowds.
I’ve wished to comprehend the night
and drink in every day—
To build my home with Lincoln logs
then watch it float away.
I’ve wished to spark and crack your code,
but wishing makes me weary—
And gales, like warmth, like burning flight,
so often leave me teary.
Ode to a Proverbs 31 Kind of Girl
Atoms build constellations
during evolution, forces
gravitate,
hell interrupts—
joking, knowing:
living men need ovarian peace.
Quiet rapture sends
truth, unity, virtue:
woman.
xx,
Your Zenith.
Let Us Prey
if comedy is tragedy plus time
what tragedy makes ‘your mom’ jokes so goddamn funny?!
and if i find myself in times of trouble, will Mother Mary indeed come?
maybe it started with Stifler and MILFs and warm apple pie
that spilled all over the kitchen floor and Freud walked in and slipped
because he couldn’t stop laughing at the acronym:
Mom—I’d Like to Fuck.
so are you asking for permission?
Oedipus walks in, too and the three of them
scrub on hands and knees until the place looks immaculate!
now there’s a concept. maybe it started when innocent little Mary,
surrounded by straw strewn lambs and shepherds, had no choice
but to nod her head solemnly and open her body dutifully,
to make room inside of her for him. i still don’t really understand
the difference between god and jesus, but i think one of them must
have been the first to make a really good ‘your mom’ joke.
and well, if they did it, then it was for her own good! it was for everyone’s own good.
like a New York City firefighter,
and the rabbi David Kaye
and a software engineer for the United States Defense Department
a video editor who works at Nickelodeon
U.S. Air Force mechanic Ernest C. Timmons
a Taekwondo instructor
and Louis Conradt, assistant D.A. in Kaufman County,
before he shot himself in the head
because Chris Hansen, from NBC Dateline’s To Catch a Predator
just walked through the door, and said “have a seat, I need to talk to you.”
and the privacy of an online chatroom starts to feel a little more like
the terror of a dark confessional, kneeling with head bent down
under the eyes of god, under the eyes of millions of viewers at home
and the program was so good that it had to be cancelled, because too many people
were watching it, and Cardinal Law was directing it, but there must have been
some confusion with the upper management—church and state.
because children of mothers were never meant to be cast in that role.
but tragic things happen to us when we are young,
and we don’t want to just let it be
and the world will not just let us be—
it’s a predator, preying on who we want to be
pushing us from high up
just to watch us fall,
wondering the whole way down
if anyone will be there to catch us.
or to love us.
like, your mom.
space case
texts to you not delivered from evil
lead me to temptation and trashed email retrieval
my own memory’s the one that’s hardest to erase
then phone, and computer, stupid book with your face
all these apps i can’t eat and keep up with the pace
cuz info charges like a rocket through digital space
but even when i’ve deleted your soul from my heart
a machine doesn’t get it, this need to restart
your face glows on: private screening in the park
where you first wrapped around me, like a snake in the dark
saying, go ahead, just do it, bite me to my core
apple support—need i say more?
Untitled howling
Good pieces of life are gone now,
a lot of new life is here instead,
The Law of Large Numbers rules the zeitgeist of our time:
so much data, too much data, the same experiment performed over and over again
but slightly different each time, makes the oldest info disappear,
it becomes obsolete, somewhere at the bottom of billions of emails,
might as well be deleted if it’s that far down in your inbox
but who am I with time to pretend like
I know what I had before it was gone—no one paved my paradise,
but Siri can still find it, or anything really, with my search engine. she’s so good at texting and driving!
the new keys, they’re major,
new screens, new fruits of Steve Jobs’ labor
And Larry and Sergey, Chad, Steve, and Jawed,
Mark Zuckerberg and maybe the Winklevoss twins.
This new speed at which billions of people at one time
can argue about a dress being white and gold or black and blue
and if the Oscars were so white
or if it was just that one year
that Robyn Fenty must have been asking for it
with all that booty poppin and blunt twerkin
not surprising that the internet wanted to break Chris’s back.
can argue about the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
and if big bankers down on Wall Street didn’t just ask my parents to bail them out,
but asked everyone else’s parents, too,
then why were the wolves allowed to go howling back to the strip club with miss liberty?
can argue about being a pro at life, or being a little more choosy
with your words, because living a miserable professional life is impossible
and making a miserable professional choice, with a professional opinion, can feel that way, too...
and about having an opinion on who other people should and should not be
allowed to choose to marry, to love, to bring to life.
can argue about controlling guns, or controlling substances, or controlling a father of six,
three grandchildren, who might be illegally selling cigarettes,
an offense punishable by death, a death surely inflicted by the sidewalk pavement,
and 20 seconds of discretion blinded by hatred,
just long enough to argue that you can’t breathe eleven times.
can argue about the ways in which depression and mental illness
can also sometimes suffocate, cutting wrists and oxygen supplies
that help with logical thinking, reasoning, what we are supposed to learn in school,
but we can’t if bullied boys and girls turn teasing to automatic ammunition
and we can’t if Eric and Dylan proved that logic and reason are both dead,
shot down with Hi-Point Carbines that they bought off the internet
can argue about being open to those who are different from us,
because surely they’ll come crashing
into our perfect picket fenced-in home,
hiding terror under their arms, in their children’s eyes,
and then those dirt smudged children will turn on us!
They will sneak up on us, and surprise us, suspecting the least,
and end up being smarter than we are,
they might even help us wash our white picket fence, add some red and some blue,
or a different color, or every color, and it might be a lot more beautiful,
to the neighbors, peeking through their windows—the computer mainly,
trying to discreetly follow our lead.
because it’s just true, we do have SO many followers,
and we stand on every platform, but sometimes we don’t stand next to each other,
which is okay, but it would look a lot better if we did—
although i suppose we can always just choose a good filter to make up for the lack of unity.
we can always just choose a rose-colored filter,
make it a reality tv show, we love those
or copy and paste a quote from google,
we can keep hitting refresh, or go back and then go forward again
monitor the #trend, and only choose buddies for our lists with high definition, and good memes.
or pin each other’s interests up against a wall and steal their good looks.
we can slide our thumbs over their faces,
and scroll
and scroll
and scroll
and scroll
until we forget that we’re even looking for something, anything, that we might have missed.