your neighborhood is far away

there is a parenthesis
and i crawl in,
to an arrangement
of thighs and comics;
an experiment
with shade trees.

a flutter i want
on my eyelid,
on my autumn chin
i'm sculpting.

then i'm in,
busting an ocean,
loving it back,
with a cleared throat
and a rusted beak.

I've learned to appreciate the Sestina

Just a test

It was just a test, of carnations
enduring a soggy heart season.
She curled into a resin shell,
battered to create a diversion.
She grew smaller on the way up
yet puffed in the low tide.

It swept her legs in like the tide
and each sappy, dyed carnation
was traded for balloons floating up.
Who enjoys this sunken season?
Not cartographers seeking diversion,
or children on the beach for shells.

It isn't the box, but the hunt for shells,
that brings her swimming to this tide,
unwanted and hungry for diversion.
She never wanted hives or carnations,
but a sweet lick and a candy season.
She's always putting them up.

There isn't a wagon pulling it up,
the eerie echo of hollowed shells.
It's the muddy, simplified season
finding and patching and rising the tide,
growing and bleeding carnations.
Here, there is always a diversion.

She isn't hugging diversions
or nurturing a mouth turned up.
But she can stomach carnations
and hear sprawling deep in shells.
She bolts straight for the tide,
peeling back the mightiest season.

Can it be so clean as a season?
Tilling her somersault diversions,
fastening such a jarring tide?
She answers yes and looks up,
careful not to trip over pointy shells
or inhale insincere carnations.

She'll never long for carnation season
or bury sweetheart shells for a diversion.
She'll always chase the tide.

more anaphora experiments; ABCDerian

YOU MADE IT UP

now, i know it wasn't alchemy,
or a foreign tongue, lapping.

i know you could break this bowl
holding me winded and pausing.

i know i've gotten trapped in a tree,
dreaming of wheels bringing me down.

i know to examine the short breaths,
ghostly and laced.

to predict a bare wall,
smacking my knees.

to look more than once
when crossing your streets.

to hesitate a bit, just before
rooting on your bench.

SHE WAS SHADOWED

she was swimming in the corner
and facing notices kept in nests
and mirrors heaving witnesses
and speaking through a projector
and backing into spaces too small
and relishing deep red fillers
and diameters of water
and minutes forgetting a brisk touch.

SHRINKING AS I DRIVE AWAY

another bellowing chasm
divides every fragile guise.

hollowed inches, justified kern,
lengthen moping nests.

old, partial queues
remain scrambled too.

unnerving varieties
wane, x-ray
yearning zeros.

class exercises

ABCDerian poem:

caterpillars try to run

angled breaths.
canned deep.
etching, forward gleam.
hide in jars kept low.
minus nimble others.
paper quarts.
racing, sunburned.
today under vines.
whining xylephone yawns.
zealous.

Anaphora poem:

it rests in a cup.
it rests at the tip of a mass of land.
it rests in the way you sit in a chair.
it rests balanced in the space between hours.
it rests humbly.
it rests in unmatched fabric.
it rests solely to shift me.
you can find it in a wrinkle in your hand.
it barely rests.

you can learn a lot by watching home movies

this recess:

she marks how spit gets caught up
in throats,
telling stories,
like of hair
full of butterflies,
hair growing out,
snaking its way into her mouth
with each bite.

9 am stares in the mirror
startled at the shift
in these legs, eyes;
how the weight doesn't crush them.

asks when you went, or were;
if there's anybody under the table
looking up her skirt.

teeters on a chalk line,
curious when it will get smudged
or rained away;
if it will sleep.

the girl says:

i have somebody for you.

when you're tired of this,
of course.

with vines crawling up her chest,
she gets back to the place where
a little boy is yelling,
"i have no friends,"
or, "put the camera on me."

and she agrees,
of course.