tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53085123219466066832024-03-13T17:18:09.185-07:00Dear Void.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.comBlogger598125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-64377411303848473102017-05-28T20:14:00.000-07:002017-05-28T20:14:15.122-07:00RelicsI carry summer scar tissue<br />
at the juncture between my jaw<br />
and the slope of my skull<br />
tight and strained.<br />
It aches in the middle of the night<br />
as my teeth try to sharpen themselves<br />
grinding to a point.<br />
It would be nice to be able to bite back<br />
but snapping at shadows is a waste of time.<br />
To smile is a strain<br />
and I suspect the white filaments<br />
of reknit skin stretch along<br />
the whole of my body<br />
sitting under my skin to tighten<br />
at odd texts and a room that's the wrong kind of quiet.<br />
I don't like to be alone for long<br />
because my brain keeps working to reconnect<br />
these wires that fried themselves out<br />
with week after week of electric fright.<br />
How many times do you press a bruise<br />
before the stain spreads?<br />
May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-23891079087674153132017-05-28T20:13:00.000-07:002017-05-28T20:13:05.176-07:00StrandedThe tide is turning.<br />
At a granular level this must be<br />
apocalyptic.<br />
I wonder absently<br />
if the moon figures as some abstract villain<br />
wreaking havoc on lonesome crabs<br />
who scuttle desperately for cooler sand.<br />
Do sand crabs tell stories?<br />
I imagine between their horseshoe shells<br />
and snapping claws there exists<br />
some tiny spark of brain.<br />
Is it enough to feel the fear<br />
of the future being peeled away<br />
by some distant foe too vast<br />
to do more than shake a pincer at?<br />
The moon does as it wills<br />
and we must scurry on.<br />
Inside of you I picture a blood red moon<br />
pulling at each neuron in your brain<br />
leaving them firing, haphazard, at each other.<br />
I shake my fist at it<br />
as pointless as a pincer<br />
and watch you pull away into some darkened space.<br />
Perhaps the world is cooler there<br />
within your self-made burrow<br />
but it leaves me all alone<br />
in the crashing waves.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-41104680070665570282016-08-03T21:46:00.001-07:002016-08-03T22:15:39.532-07:00brainstorm.Stuck in traffic, I begin to write.<br />
Testing a phrase for sound<br />
and looking for the hook<br />
to pull the listener full-fledged<br />
into the narrative somehow<br />
soothes the numbing tedium<br />
of brakelights to the horizon.<br />
<br />
For two years, it was the speech<br />
I planned to give at my best friend's wedding.<br />
There were Twinkies, and quilts,<br />
and at least one good death threat involved<br />
because there's no solid toast<br />
without the murmur of bodily harm.<br />
I had that speech down cold.<br />
<br />
I never gave it.<br />
The night of her wedding I sat,<br />
staring across the parking lot<br />
to where my husband slumped<br />
across the steering wheel,<br />
adrift on a sea of sedatives.<br />
There was nothing to say.<br />
<br />
In Houston, there's always a slowdown,<br />
highway construction, or some accident.<br />
Storms come up without warning.<br />
I take back roads, mutter at red lights.<br />
The radio plays too loud<br />
I'm considering a fancy bluetooth headset<br />
anything to keep the story from starting.<br />
<br />
These days, if I let myself loose<br />
to wander in my mind,<br />
I spark sentences,<br />
layer memories with sounds,<br />
and catch myself choking.<br />
The street swims within my grief.<br />
I'm writing his eulogy. <br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-71721779554431020282016-07-23T13:11:00.000-07:002016-07-24T07:08:33.644-07:00GravestoneThere is a fist-sized rock<br />
that rests above<br />
the grave of the baby birds<br />
that God watches over.<br />
<br />
Today I wish I could<br />
take it up from its hallowed ground<br />
(for if His eyes are on the sparrow...<br />
then all this land is holy)<br />
and lob it straight and high<br />
with all the cumulative heartbreak and rage<br />
(and the one year in middleschool<br />
where I was allowed to play Little League<br />
because they didn't have enough boys)<br />
straight into his stupid glass house<br />
with the see-through floors<br />
and transparent walls<br />
and the perpetual harp playing<br />
that barely masks the eternal dirge<br />
that rises wailing from this<br />
hump of earth underneath which<br />
are broken wings and silent beaks<br />
and baby birds that died<br />
while God watched them.<br />
<br />
I hope it breaks all the windows<br />
and leaves shards on the floor<br />
and everyone needs to walk carefully<br />
lest they be cut by the tiny slivers of my grief.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-33742230815768667262016-06-29T20:04:00.000-07:002016-06-29T20:04:05.870-07:00BetrayedAlready you have dragged my heart<br />
to death's dark door,<br />
forced me to stand sentinel<br />
with my soul bared against<br />
all the whispers from it's shadowed maw.<br />
<br />
When Orphyeus' string broke<br />
the snake startled, struck<br />
and not all the song in the world<br />
could redeem that discordant note.<br />
I hear it ringing still.<br />
<br />
How dare you take my love<br />
and hammer it into chains?<br />
To tie it tight around my neck<br />
let loose your weight<br />
and call it freedom?<br />
<br />
And can Persephone once bought<br />
with the ruby juice on her lips<br />
be free again from her oath<br />
though it binds her still<br />
in death's kingdom?<br />
<br />
The stories tell us time again<br />
that death, the traitor, always wins.<br />
Love outrageous, love once mine<br />
can only last as long as two undivided<br />
stand as one.<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-8498725659644786472016-06-18T20:21:00.000-07:002016-06-18T20:21:36.857-07:00hostile territoryWe fought first<br />
about the fair distribution of comforter<br />
resorting at last to a peace of separation<br />
with each their own blanket to clutch.<br />
In the 26 days of your despair,<br />
I have tried every way I know<br />
of reclaiming our bed.<br />
I have spread books by the stack<br />
heavy with sentences I know<br />
to provide counterweight against<br />
my tangling of the sheets.<br />
I have crept far to the side<br />
toes extending off the edge<br />
to decrease the chance that sleep<br />
might sprawl me into the gaping hole<br />
of your absence.<br />
I've tried centering myself<br />
with deep breaths as though<br />
there were never two sides to this space.<br />
I have stolen your pillow,<br />
washed the sheets in newly scented soap,<br />
spilled lavender oil into the mattress.<br />
I've curled around the baby<br />
with his chubby limbs akimbo<br />
absorbing all the space he can.<br />
I've stared out the window,<br />
counted the seconds by the glow of my phone.<br />
I've given it up all together<br />
and cried into the couch cushions.<br />
Now in this separation,<br />
I surrender.<br />
There is no peace<br />
and less sleep.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-81810783998392312102016-06-17T11:33:00.001-07:002016-06-17T11:33:39.850-07:00MDD.This disease knows no boundaries.<br />
It disregards any demarcations<br />
I have tried to build.<br />
It strikes on holidays, on holy days,<br />
on days when I have pleaded for peace.<br />
It poisoned the floor of my balcony<br />
with broken glass and pill shards.<br />
It interrupts my dreams, disrupts my breath,<br />
destroys the areas I had marked safe.<br />
There is no negotiation.<br />
Only the demand that despair<br />
come quickly and in many shades<br />
with darkness indulged in every corner.<br />
There are days it's not a disease<br />
but a demon.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-16867627126091357532016-06-15T23:45:00.000-07:002016-06-15T23:45:32.182-07:00Third. There are birds that sing in the middle of the night.<br />
I know this because my window is rolled down<br />
while my headlights light up the spray of the sprinklers<br />
and it is hard to remember the gate code at 1 am.<br />
It has been a long day.<br />
It takes three tries.<br />
<br />
He has tried three times.<br />
I know because I have heard the story<br />
to each doctor, over and over again.<br />
Today I took the suicide note<br />
out of my husband's jean pocket<br />
where he meant for me to find it<br />
<i>later. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I gave it back to him,<br />
told him I wouldn't claim it,<br />
refused the weight of grief he tried<br />
to tie around my neck.<br />
It has been a long night.<br />
There has been night after night<br />
and days so dark, I can't recall the sun.<br />
<br />
But tonight, there is a bird singing<br />
in the blackness that envelopes me.<br />
Tonight I soaked up death with charcoal<br />
and tomorrow I will set it ablaze.<br />
There is a bird singing in the dark<br />
and I can damn well sing too.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-41132486226862473862016-04-21T20:51:00.000-07:002016-04-21T20:51:53.692-07:00Ode to the PeacemakerYou send your laughter through the room<br />
paired with perfume designed to diffuse<br />
and I wonder how you manage<br />
to arrive always at the point of ignition.<br />
Beauty clings to you<br />
the way a nursery lamp holds<br />
the last drops of sunset the dark night long.<br />
Any other woman would bring<br />
a hint of gunpowder with her:<br />
the potential for fireworks.<br />
For all your glowing light,<br />
I've never seen you spark.<br />
You take your translucent joy<br />
defuse the room, dampen the cynic blades<br />
and suddenly we are determined<br />
to glisten in your shadow.<br />
Shine on, sweet lady, show the way<br />
peace in your hand and love in your wake.<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-91717317568891957722016-04-21T20:00:00.000-07:002016-04-21T20:00:56.453-07:00Changing the tempoThe boy turns my belly<br />
into a drum<br />
beating against its swell<br />
with pudgy fists.<br />
He delights in its vibrations<br />
striking my thighs<br />
to watch them shake.<br />
In all its motion<br />
he is absorbed:<br />
an explorer testing<br />
the outside of the universe<br />
and measuring its edge.<br />
<br />
I want to tell him<br />
that he made me stretch<br />
into a swelling horizon,<br />
how the tight skin ridges<br />
that make him giggle<br />
were mountain ranges formed<br />
by his tectonic dance.<br />
Some days I want to accuse<br />
his bursting frame<br />
for the way that t-shirts cling<br />
and my occasional grief in<br />
harshly lit changing rooms.<br />
<br />
But in the face of his joy<br />
I have no response<br />
because of all the bodies he loves<br />
mine is the one he knows best<br />
the taste and scent and sound<br />
of all I am<br />
for all his life<br />
has been safety, strength, and home.<br />
So I'll sing along to the rhythm he finds<br />
in the softness of my skin<br />
and feel the glory grow<br />
in the reflection of his eyes.<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-44687741484255597422016-02-19T15:17:00.003-08:002016-02-19T15:17:44.897-08:00MomentaryMy baby smells of sweet basil<br />
his boy fingers stained purple<br />
by the blossoms he has ravaged<br />
from my herb garden.<br />
He is all body<br />
full awareness<br />
centered in his own skin.<br />
His knees are wet with mud<br />
and he has eaten<br />
at least two handfuls of dirt<br />
but it tastes like life<br />
so he tries for a third.<br />
Someday there will be plans,<br />
a list of things to be done, a<br />
finish line that keeps retreating<br />
but today there is a whole world<br />
in three pots and a watering can<br />
which clangs against the concrete.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-32779388742999754772015-12-26T14:19:00.003-08:002015-12-26T14:19:45.612-08:00PhrenologyThe concrete nature of the face<br />
inclines itself to support<br />
certain artifices of character<br />
as carved into the features-<br />
the aquiline nose transformed<br />
to discipline, or power,<br />
the lips, when soft,<br />
denoting sensuousness<br />
that touch-thin line<br />
between a smile<br />
and sex.<br />
To build such things<br />
into a face<br />
presumes stability<br />
a certain predictability<br />
that allows the cartilage to grow<br />
at such a rate as to ensure<br />
an equivalent visage to virtue.<br />
It demands the mold,<br />
still wet,<br />
to change and cling<br />
for the merest moment<br />
birth perhaps<br />
and then conform<br />
forever more towards that form<br />
which best connects<br />
the skeleton and the self.<br />
These things may be<br />
but still the face<br />
may grow to be<br />
more artifice, than architecture.<br />
The only sculptor known to shift<br />
the structure of a skull<br />
once stiffened into selfhood<br />
is Love.<br />
<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-61588108414500371352015-12-26T14:10:00.000-08:002015-12-26T14:10:50.956-08:00SinkholeA puddle two inches deeper<br />
than expected and slicked with grey mud<br />
is exactly how this conversation feels.<br />
I am thrown off<br />
(balance, guard, off my rocker).<br />
You are caught out<br />
(of temper, of patience, out of bounds).<br />
Your mouth moving means<br />
next to nothing<br />
in comparison to the old tree stiffness<br />
in your shoulders<br />
and my silence is shouted over<br />
by my shuffling feet.<br />
The slick puddle sinks<br />
and us with it<br />
till we are both, unexpected,<br />
drowning<br />
thrashing about, lashing out,<br />
a deep grey sludge<br />
that we stick in<br />
slowly solidifying.<br />
There is no reason for this.<br />
Two stiff statues<br />
staring each other down.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-51881376109562071232015-12-26T13:16:00.002-08:002015-12-26T13:18:33.352-08:00ButtonAs I wrestle your fish body<br />
slick and soft<br />
two hands full of fat and skin<br />
no muscle to speak of,<br />
the knothole in your stomach<br />
folded in and creased against itself<br />
surprises me again.<br />
<br />
Your first scar stands<br />
as proof of humanity<br />
the incision which sealed<br />
you into your own skin.<br />
I watch you twist and stretch<br />
making tiny waves against the tub<br />
and remember the warp<br />
of your small foot pushing up and out<br />
my skin distended with your force.<br />
<br />
There is no sense in it<br />
this resentment of a fold of skin<br />
It is symbolic at best<br />
but still I struggle<br />
with your squishy kissable self<br />
to forgive that memorial<br />
of the day you were cut off from me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-87870454382996032032015-12-26T13:03:00.000-08:002016-01-17T17:32:41.221-08:00Votive<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
My bones are one long fuse</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Knotted at the joints</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
With calcium threads braided tight.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
All my life I have feared flint</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Carried water made holy</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
By my fear of fire.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I take deep breaths to smother flame</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Pause before speaking to deny the spark</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Its necessary air.<br />
Fury glows like a coal in my heart<br />
and I cannot snuff it out.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Since motherhood I feel the world</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Is made of loose lit candles</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
A place of danger swelling bright.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Each day a thousand angry matches light</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Hungry sparks reaching for your skin<br />
to burn through your bones.<br />
I carry always this smoldering truth<br />
you need me like cool water<br />
to soothe the heated hate of this place.<br />
I ache to feel so fluid but still</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I feel the anger in my bones</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
And it will burn out the heart of me.</div>
May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-38041990773407278532015-12-26T12:59:00.000-08:002015-12-26T12:59:09.325-08:00Undertone<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Motherhood is a perpetual grief.
I see you, skin separate from my skin
and I am stretched
a hollowing elongation
my body split in two.
Fact: bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh
my breath was your breath
my blood your life
and now the same
life to life, milk to mouth.
But in a series of celebrations
I taste loss on my tongue.
You sit, you stand, you sound out
your own sounds with your soft skin
flexing and stretching and changing
and I do not know if my heart can swell
to the size your distance demands
as though these growing pains of yours
tug sharp in my belly where I bore you
where I bear you
as my closest secret.
Motherhood is one long loss
from skin to speech
and no one told me
how to grieve it.</span>May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-39801800685295707772015-12-26T12:57:00.002-08:002015-12-26T12:57:15.124-08:00The milk of human meaning<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I pour out my life in mason jars
Measuring meaning in ounces
Performing my daily miracle
Transform the water into weight
Into rolls around the knee
Into sleep on a taut belly
Into a spine that sits up straight.
I spend my day in friction
The constant act of pulling forth
Contractions left over from the birth I didn't have
Squeezing drop by drop into the jar.
The bulging cycle consumes me
Minute after minute the fear of not enough,
The fear of overflow. I sink my heart
Into glass jars all creamy white and cold.</span>May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-31628388164950820542015-12-26T12:56:00.000-08:002015-12-26T13:25:13.421-08:00Forge<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I ate iron daily
Small pellets ground smaller
Dust mixed in food, in drink
Sinking to my stomach
And then disolved
To drift my bloodstream
The globules gathered
drawn one to another
Till their weight distended the balance between skin and spine and something had to give.
I smelted within myself
In the heat of my longing
The fire of my fears
A massy thing
All iron and blood tied to me</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">through red communion
This daily pill
Dust to dust
Gave form
I have birthed my anchor
And will never drift again</span>May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-57103225371195881932015-12-26T12:55:00.003-08:002015-12-26T12:55:20.784-08:00Gehenna<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; margin-top: 10px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
The etymology is important
The distinction between hell and the burning place.
I still smell the smoke around the corner
Normal in the breeze between new rice and river mud.
The long slow burn of tin cans and last week’s vegetables,
Old cloth and twisted lumps of refuse.
The heat curled sullenly beneath a layer
Of newer waste, still shiny plastic or damp newspapers
But its hunger gnawed through it all
Spitting out chalky soot and sudden belches of stench.
It was a dare, the sort of whispered threat
When a fight was imminent but no one wanted to be caught.
Dare you to stand, two feet in.
A half minute, a full stretch of eternity with the sting
Coming up through the soles of your feet.
No shuffling or dancing. Penance means pain.
When in anger, I think of damning you
I see you there, ankle deep in your own spew,
Feet on fire smelling all your wasted love</div>
May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-46017584807932043332015-12-26T12:54:00.002-08:002015-12-26T12:54:33.920-08:00Terms and Conditions <div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Misophonia
is the spike of hatred
that shoots through the spine
at the sound of chewing
actual rage at molar grinding.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; margin-top: 10px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Hydrophobia
is the shrinking of skin
away from fluid
life from liquid life
because the fear is electric</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; margin-top: 10px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Motherhood
is the sprinting from bed
at the sound of the wind
the ache to wake my son
and to keep him sleeping</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; margin-top: 10px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Terms give rationale
a treaty between the neuron jolt
and the neuroses
once identified, then nullified.
To name it is to know it. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; margin-top: 10px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
What is the name
of seventeen death scenes
and a mental list
of who to call at the end of the world
because your brain can't stop
telling the story
of what if
the baby was dying?</div>
May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-90870257573551758152015-12-26T12:51:00.000-08:002016-04-21T20:56:58.638-07:00Intentions I wish to be for you a tea cabinet,<br />
well apportioned<br />
with shining panes of transparency<br />
through which you see my purpose<br />
all my purposes, in small square tins,<br />
a disorganized jumble of intent<br />
to wake you gently in jasmine green<br />
or with brash Irish boldness to lend you strength.<br />
Sometimes I brighten your day with a burst of color<br />
hibiscus and cranberry and ice.<br />
I plan to soothe with lemon and ginger<br />
those things which might, in time, irritate<br />
and in the evening, coax you to sleep<br />
in chamomile fumes.<br />
There are a thousand reasons for myself<br />
hot and cold and sweet<br />
but still it comes in the end to this<br />
a kiss and opening of lips.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-18699902862234087692015-07-31T14:58:00.000-07:002015-07-31T14:58:03.944-07:00TeethingThe rhythm of the days is<br />
suddenly<br />
accelerated.<br />
Short snatches of sleep<br />
and frantic driving fingers<br />
into a gnawing mouth.<br />
The relief, too, is fragmented<br />
wails into a space of silence ruptured<br />
an eggshell snapping<br />
a treebud bursting<br />
a tooth poised to puncture.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-53843942023709711892015-03-29T17:57:00.003-07:002015-03-29T17:57:40.401-07:00Seeds and students There are seven steps to sprouting<br />
a sunrise circle that revolves<br />
retracing itself in soil and air and season.<br />
So it begins:<br />
Step one- a sparking in the green<br />
the wet vein of life thickening, slowing<br />
solidifying from pulse to potential,<br />
an idea taking on form<br />
the single seed.<br />
Second- a secreting of the seed<br />
in sweetness bright and scented.<br />
The thought must be sold<br />
to the senses that seek it.<br />
Third is the thickening<br />
the fruit and flower grow<br />
more complex and heavy<br />
It's own weight begins to wax<br />
a separation verging.<br />
Fourth falls<br />
the snapping of stem<br />
and swift descent through air<br />
Sudden independence<br />
seeks its own space, sounds alone.<br />
Fifth in line is lying fallow<br />
waiting in sudden darkness<br />
to sort out the sense of self<br />
stripping the sweet flesh back<br />
to the single seed, the green spark.<br />
Sixth is a shooting star<br />
in all directions new webs<br />
stretch for sustenance, for security<br />
It centers itself in knots<br />
and shoves aside dead ground<br />
to make room to grow.<br />
Seven steps to sprouting<br />
and the seventh sends itself<br />
strong and shouting<br />
a green thing grown<br />
with roots and stem all its own.<br />
Secret in the veins is waiting<br />
a seed to be sown.<br />
<br />
So I send you<br />
with thoughts and dreams<br />
that have been my own<br />
and now are something new<br />
an idea waiting for you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-77555114317751274302015-03-19T11:06:00.000-07:002015-03-19T11:06:54.546-07:00Second sightI have taken your city map<br />
-Thank you for that by the way<br />
such careful annotations of traffic<br />
and potholes and places to eat.<br />
You have a gift in noting such things,<br />
precise and to the point. A city<br />
well dissected.<br />
I have taken the map, that is to say,<br />
it is in my bag<br />
growing new streets and boulevards<br />
by virtue of crease and wrinkle.<br />
I am quite proud of its dexterity<br />
such an dry old thing comes alive with<br />
the right ink and eyes.<br />
For example, in the warren where the<br />
old poor were placed, snug stacked<br />
against the concrete alleys, a burst of birds<br />
have found themselves all crimson in flight and<br />
stained the page.<br />
Along the river, I have marked at least<br />
three monsters metastasizing at a<br />
fantastic rate in green grey mold below the bridge.<br />
There are fifteen locations by which<br />
you may clearly see the sun rise and<br />
twelve where the sunset is not as<br />
melancholy as may be expected at such times.<br />
On average, the crossing of train tracks<br />
by small cafes that use chalk primarily<br />
creates a whorl that I have marked down<br />
so a fingerprint of sort develops.<br />
I have taken your city map, I fear,<br />
but the city has taken me. May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5308512321946606683.post-8778732924634275262015-01-13T20:05:00.001-08:002015-01-13T20:05:35.856-08:00KickedTo map the tremors<br />
one must first accept<br />
the truth of two living things.<br />
A warm expanse stretched taut<br />
with crisp bones and ridges<br />
a landscape pulled smooth by tension.<br />
A second force with ranging need<br />
that spikes and drops<br />
beneath the first<br />
a sudden eddy against the weight<br />
a shoving buoyancy demanded.<br />
After this you may proceed<br />
with hesistancy.<br />
The mixture of the Richter scale<br />
and dowsing rod<br />
with jolts that spring unannounced<br />
in the night to ripple through the dark.<br />
The pattern rests, and swarms again,<br />
a certain inconsistency<br />
to breed obsession, to hook a fiend.<br />
Each tremor fades, the map redrawn,<br />
and untouched surface settles.<br />
There is no change to eyed horizon<br />
but in the mind<br />
the hunger grows,<br />
another pulse, and then the wait.<br />
Some needful knowledge or<br />
pulsing ache.<br />
There is no satisfaction found<br />
while stillness haunts the hunting grounds.May-Bellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01763288138337343533noreply@blogger.com0