it’s been said
that a word will
be read
and a seed
will explode

in ohio
or indiana
or someplace neat
like that
and quaint
like that

mostly front yards
sometimes backyards
occasionally fields and things

wherever a tree
can provide
shade and protection
and where it’s
liable to have a heart
carved into it

only certain words
mind you — not all
have this power

to breathe life
into seeds

it can happen too
when you kiss
someone new

particular souls
have it in ‘em
and both parties must

for the seed to sprout

it can also occur
when you dream
i should say
like the time

you buried the knife
in the schoolyard
and couldn’t
bring yourself
to look behind you

or when you kissed your best friend
on the mouth at the fair and
day turned to night and you
woke up hard

or like when you came upon the
giant washing machine
at dusk on the beach
and you didn’t know why but
you couldn’t step closer
and you didn’t know why
but you knew the machine was death

that one meant
the tree was growing
that one meant
the tree would flourish

eo

wild light
blinding
but you forgot
there was water
and then there wasn’t
you sometimes remember
like in the ocean
where your atoms understand
that’s why you sleep
sound on the sand
warm and unencumbered
as though for a moment
you’re there again
before the wild light

eo

smells like the back of an
old hot blockbuster tape
abandoned
n un-rewound
on the dash of
your mom’s excursion
2001 or 2
no before 9/11
but after your papa died
somewhere in the middle
that summer
that last free summer of
your kidhood
and america’s too
the summer your dad
clipped down the hill on his
rollerblades
steep street
wrong turn
and you thought
there he goes
just like papa
on a cloudless
sunday
his t-shirt
flapping
like a battle flag
forever
in your mind
you thought he’d never
survive
but he endures
and now
on this idle sunday
another cloudless sunday
father’s day
you remember this
suddenly
and you can smell that
blockbuster tape
roasting
from your bed in LA
where you are a man now
approaching 30
father to no one
and oh how
you wish to be
careening down
old blackhawk road
with your old man
again
thirteen
and with thoughts
in your head
as cloudless as the sky
ed ruscha
said that

eo

in the unsetting light
of our love’s last summer
did you sense
the winds of winter
already approaching
did you hear in the long
silences of rote routine
— the slow turning of pages
the small siren which sounds
when your youth is over

eo

i saw you
in Loreto
oldie
goldie
by the water
writing words
in the sand
with your toes
but it wasn’t really you
and the words she wrote
disappeared
with the tide
before i could reach them

eo

from the impossible
immense vista of
geological time

our homes
here on
this earth

are as ephemeral
as cobwebs
wisping
tearing
reaching
receding

in the wind
on a wednesday

and our
memories,
merely
reflections
of porch light
gleaming off
the gossamer

as it
crashes
into
the broom
of a potbellied
lady named
providence

eo

do you ever catch
the hint of
something human
caught in
the glint
of another
creature’s eye
something
meek and humble
within their iris
crying “i know you
brother;
we’re the same”
and do you notice then
just moments after
that that thing you
thought was human
wasn’t really human
at all
but rather a snag
in the thread
of a rare, fine fabric
running through
all creatures
and all things
and that that
beast
sees itself
also
in you

eo

anxiety is merely
spiritual nausea
caused by an over
abundance of
too rich
distraction
from the sky
and from the trees
and from the fact
that our time
here on this
mossy wet
marble
is ephemeral
and all
too brief
and truthfully
all about lying
in the grass
and boning
anyway

boy did
we lose
the plot

eo

how would you
describe your
velocity

like the way
the sky looked
in an old
polaroid
you saw
in a bin
in a flea market
once
and almost bought
but couldn’t find
a quarter

or like the
way your
childhood
house used to
smell
after you’d returned
from a long stay
elsewhere
inert but charged
familiar and haunted

or maybe like the tone of
voice an old teacher of yours
had when she told your
fourth grade class
we’re all just apes
wrestling with the curse
of consciousness

do those moods
those colors
those sounds
touch upon your
velocity
or are they off the pulse

let me tell you about
a separation i felt
a broken continuity
i perceived
between my youth
and whatever you call
being twenty-seven

it was yesterday
the sun was setting near
the mountains
and mexican music
played from
some faraway
unseen
place

a breeze blew
through me
and a black cat
stretched
on the lawn

you know the feeling
like you could walk the street
forever and be
happy
like if someone asked you
the point of life
you’d say this walk
this mexican music
this breeze
this light

and i knew then
that to die
tomorrow or
in seventy years
was really the same
difference

two
simultaneous
moments
in the span
of all time

even my birth
i was already a
ghost

and i felt grateful
and i felt small
and i felt ten thousand feet tall
too

and suddenly
i knew
my velocity
just for an instant

though words wouldn’t
due
to depict it

EO

Two days
             ago I woke
                          up to find blood
on my pillow –
                          mystery blood. There was
no evidence
             of a struggle. I don’t
                          remember shaking
so much that I could’ve
             bitten my tongue like
                          some sort of lost
                                       in the
                                                                                  night
LA street cat, who madly
             unfurls fur balls
                          from the back
                                                    of its throat
while making that wretched
             baby crying,
                          close to death
sound that keeps me awake.

 
Had the blood
             come from my mouth?
What’s wrong with
                          my mouth?
What‘s
             wrong with
                                     my mouth?
No cuts or nervous,
             middle of the
                                                                                  night
anxiety attack cheek
                          bites. That is
             certain. I checked
                                       in the mirror –
pulling my mouth
             apart looking like
                          some sort of acerbic
                                       large mouthed bass.
             no bites
                          no hooks
                                       no gills.
Dried blood
             and rust look
                          the same.
In the end,
                          the mystery blood
was of no real
             consequence, which
lead me to denounce
             any and all worldly
                                       or other worldly meaning
it may have had,
             as I simply accepted
the fact that it was my heart
             trying
                          and failing
             to escape
from my chest like
             some sort of chained
                          and shaking
                                       dog trying to
             drink from a just out of reach,
yet overflowing
                          water
                                      dish.

GY