pulling daisies

pu

s

  h

    ing my hand into wet and loamy soil,

an incursion into earth,

I pull sideways and 

feel tiny tugs along my fingers -

            

                      roots.

       them-upout of the ground

  lift

I

the dead are pushing daisies,

              i'm pulling them out;

inspecting the white/black tangle leading up to the stalk to the flower

for hermeneutically sealed leaves.

I throw the deceased up

so that they, aloft, can kiss the air...

and then they fall back down, eager to return to their hibernation.

Dad just came into the room and
Showed me a picture on his Blackberry:

From when he was younger
       With cheeks that looked madeup.

So I asked him why he was wearing
Makeup and he told me that

back in the day
The photographer'd take photos in black and white
And then paint them in colour after he printed them out.

When colonists came in contact with
Indigenous people they found that the
Natives didn't want their photos taken
Because they thought the cameras would
Steal their soul -

Maybe
The photographer was trying
To give my father's soul back to him.

You kiss
with desperate ferocity -
ironic, especially since
you're so
polite you say thank you
when I call you
beautiful -
almost like
we're both disappearing
(and although I've
completely melted into the moment
and
we'll both leave in a few months
its a different type of disappearing act)
and you're trying to
make it all
unfadeable (like
clenching a fist around a
squirt of
rubbing alcohol to
stop it from
dissipating). Though
I suppose you might
just be mirroring
my grip on
the impermanent,
which is
just as invisible as
any of your disappearances.

A Piece of Concrete, (i guess)

The worst part
(The Absolute worst part)
About being a piece of concrete
Is the splinteredness of things.
Collapse, Clumped in the middle, Scatter

I want you to hold the word in a way that doesn't hurt your hands. The way I imagine you saying "Sorry" is so tightly held to the way I imagine you saying "I forgive you" - something
wrong is afoot and I can't even barely begin to tell anybody about it.
Wait - everybody knows why and what, but we're all patiently waiting for
Time to go backwords and for this shatter to become a full concrete brick again.

I miss the silence.
I miss the pierce of it, how it got through my pores and forced me to speak something real.

So, I owe you that much; that I will

Repay this wordless debt with
Moral bankruptcy.


If there's something shimmering outside:
  Please be a piece of concrete,
  Not some sticky truth.

I want to write a poem without I in it,
Without ---

If the fine red sand beneath
                      (and, uncomfortably, inside)
my shoes used to be the bottom of some great ocean,
the water must have been the sprawling sky patiently dampening all light,
which is littered with small flares that we call stars
(but it wouldn't be a surprise to find God calling them fish).

Seeing through the dark
Is so worthless unless you
Can see through people.