Skin

Sometimes I feel

Skin so imaginary

What lies between us

Only a dream

All these guts, blood

And sinew

Pulsating

Together

Beyond

Your desire

The whole or the one

Rushing through me

And suddenly I am in another time

Another state

Speaking words I don’t own

Moved

And here,

Experiencing nothing

But strangeness

You’re swimming through my dreams

Hovering, laughing, needing, holding

Your fire in my loins

Your doubts and visions

Fluttering, activating

Seeding

Confusing

Is it my hand that wants you

Or do I sense the tug of your hunger

Responding in some ancient outmoded duty

Where oh where

Do we begin?

And do

We end?

All these guts, blood

And sinew

Pulsating

Together

Beyond

Sometimes I feel

The madness is mine

And then, realizing mycelial

The roots entwining

And I cannot determine

What to judge, love or medicate

How can a medicine numb

The thing that lies beyond body

How can it tend this that ripples through

The System

Pulsating, twisted

Breathed?

Sometimes I feel

Skin so imaginary

What lies between us

Only a dream

What’s the medicine

For an ache in a skin

That doesn’t

Exist?

Carving

It all began

And continues whirling

Around this sacred empty center

This question mark curiosity

Of what is going on, why we’re here

Always wondering, wandering

A clear eye piercing, perceiving

Pulsing center in wide open field

To world

And then, a thing enters

Many things, haunting

Not hers, not hers

The field becomes sloshing, murky, darkness

The eye is lost, the eye is lost

The core no longer contactable

Just all these ghosts, gathering

She can’t see, she can’t feel

The original vastness

She cries, she cries

Where have you gone?

She’s drowning

In dark waters

Extending a plump arm

No one tells her this is the reason

An open abiding presence

Overwhelmed by the sloshing

Torrents of suffering,

Taking it on, breathing it in

Believing it, weaving

Into tissues

Now becoming self

No one tells her

The only words spoken

Are whispers of measurement

And perhaps the solution, found

Amongst misguided rituals

To the mirror

Many have found relief

She’s told

And soon, between leveling

And starving

And hoping

She feels something similar

To her once present open core

Desperate, yearning

Gasping for an air

Her sacred Space

Gone missing for so long

It’s not the exact thing

But she’ll take it

And on and on

She carves

No one tells her

The Vision Quest she’s working

The simple wish for Space

The direct communion

Once uninvaded

She searches for

Only accolades

And then judgment

And then worry

And then terror

At the wisp of smoke

She’s become

Carving

She thinks she’s finally found it

Not completely remembering

The true Space

The one that holds with piercing eyes

And curious mind

The one that holds with loving

All that exists

The one that abides

Both precious body

And vast contemplation

This interior beating cosmology

She’s forgotten

And she’s unguided

And she’s hungry

And she’s carving

She keeps searching

Seeking

Hoping for the center in the marble

Hoping to just get it out

Not remembering

Measuring

Leveling

Carving

Until there’s nothing left

But space

And now she’s gone

And the Lotus unfolding

The door of her possibility

Her plump arm extending

Around the shivering terrified

Frame of another, lost in murky waters

Can never be felt

No one told her

Tootsie Pop

how many licks does it take

to get the center of a…

deliciously distracting

yet sacred and perfectly placed

core

wounding?

that sticky, viscous pulsation

emanating and informing

operating systems of being

molded and prodded

shamed and avoided

within and without

how long does it take

to bite into and be present

with its actual juicy center?

that center that screams for respect

the center that yearns for voice

the center that, for example

wants to yell

please

not

fucking

insert

yourself

into

space

without

explicit

permission

the vibrating center, for example,

that is realizing its ability

through interactions with you

oh sacred triggering ones

that is realizing

its chewy yet solid, material form

its preferences

its desires, worthy

and its host, open mouth ready

in real time

to communicate the need?

is this how many licks it takes

to get to the center of the…

teachings

to clear the pathway

from gut to song

or will there be a lifetime

of unfolding awareness,

of revelation

of each artifact’s careful dusting?

a-one, a-two

a-forty-eight years?

seems like a good amount of practice

but somehow i’m feeling

there’s many more layers of crust

to peck through

how long will it take

to break into

that gooey pregnant center?

this beak is tired

but sharpened and wily

on the head of a determined bird

looking forward

and within

i’ll certainly

a-let you know

Memorial Day

“The Scalp Ceremony laid to rest the Japanese souls in the green humid jungles,

and it satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors.

But there was something else now, as Betonie said:

it was everything they had seen–

the cities, the tall buildings, the noise and the lights, the power of their weapons and machines.

They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land…

Every day they had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them;

it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever.

So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost.”

The Music

something happens

when you enter

slithering deeper into auditory canal

reverberating inner drum, cochlear spiral

transforming

into light

i hear you with all of my body

your vibrations slowly shaking me awake

down the neckline

dancing across shoulder

you glow at my fingertips

urging them to swirl

and like a hawk circling

further you move down my torso

and enter my hips

the most sacred of caverns

old lives stir

and begin to sway

by your magic

the dark and empty

comes alive

and soon i am moving across the wet grass

a choreography radiating

without a thinker

just you and i

responding

sometimes i stop

and let myself feel you

whirling inside my center

i let you dance while i stand still

i feel the way you pulsate

and the galactic nature

of the cosmos

whirling

and then i return

to letting you move me

sway me

use me

especially those dark beats

to those i kneel and wander

to those i submit

some vast and shadowy realm

comes over and i’m alive

in a dream and we’re here, breathing

then

i open my eyes

and see i am surrounded by others

all in their own stream

of relation to you

that we’re all engaging with your sensual field

and i put my hands out and touch it

this whirling

whirling

invisible

sexy beats

dancing together

through our skins

i don’t even have to touch the humans

perhaps

someday

i’ll touch the humans

and be able to withstand the shock

for now

i can feel you, expanding past their lines

you fill in spaces

and weave us loosely, in and out

closer and further

in silence, we merge

not touching, we fuse and detach

over and over

with you

with this strange, strange thing that you are

with this strange, strange thing that we are

these beating blobs of energy

whirling

dancing you

what about you makes us come alive?

where is it that you come from

and do you return when the song is over?

i don’t know what i would do without you

how i would possibly bring myself back to life

but on this dewy lawn

squishing tickling metatarsals

sunshine dappling extremities

and wind shaking fur

and you

pulsing

whirling

through all of us

alive

thank you

Photo by Ron Graham-Becker on Pexels.com

thank you, great mushroom nation

thank you, great plant spirit nation

thank you, great animal nation

thank you, oh well and healed ancestral lines

thank you

even you

great human nation

thank you, for helping me see

thank you, for helping me release

thank you, for cleansing away

what no longer serves

thank you, for helping me transmute

thank you, for making space for new vision

thank you, for showing me the Wand

in my hand

the soil beneath my feet

the particular and ripe seed that yearns

for my attention

now

thank you, great mushroom nation

thank you, great plant spirit nation

thank you, great animal nation

thank you, oh well and healed ancestral lines

and thank you

yes even you i give thanks to

oh great human nation

for helping me

to see the cracks

to feel the hidden reflections

to know

i am not alone

thank you, great mystic family

furred, finned

mycelial, epithelial

meeting me on the dusty trail,

at the seashore,

in frustration,

and beneath cardboard

down rank cement alleyways

filled with death

and despair

thank you

for helping me

to feel this heart

to hold center

as this great Wheel turns

to dismember and remember

to know, to hear, to see

how this Wand and this Garden

wish to become

thank you

the letter

i’ve been waiting for years

to write this to you

barred at first by politeness

then the plague

and now, just plain resistance

but the time

the time

has come

i remember parts of the day clearly

a sparkly seaside

the dark hotel room

a dusty family bible, splayed out on your wrinkled jeans

pictures of him, ones i’d never seen

and your smile, covering

it’s hazy

but i think i remember

the brother leaving

you starting to whisper

secrets

secrets from long ago

as if needing to confess

before his ears returned

it’s funny

but not

how i don’t trust i remembered this clearly

did you tell me?

am i making it all up?

mirrors and mirrors and mirrors

of questions

of secrets

from so long ago

so i’m writing

to ask

once more of the hushed words i think i heard

hoping for one step closer

hoping to help me re-member

hoping to know if it’s real

or if i’m crazy

hoping to stop spinning

through these clouds of a dream

what you said

what happened

why the secrets

why the forgotten years

why the distance

i write this letter

hoping you’ll tell me

so i can just know

if it was my mouth

if it was his hands

if it was her neck

if it was only

a dream

I’m writing this letter

before you, like they

die holding keys

I’m hoping you’ll find it

I’m hoping you’ll tell me

what is real

cause she keeps disappearing

she keeps

disappearing

and i want

her back

The Tower

She built a Tower

Of someone with no needs

Of someone with no voice

Of someone with clouds and confusion

Keeping her wandering and lost

Of someone, who simply

Wasn’t there

The Tower kept her doubting

Of what she felt, what she saw, what she heard

Echoes and wraiths chanting

You can’t really think that you know

You can’t really think that you need

You can’t really think that you want

You can’t really think

That you’re real

This Tower shamed her inkling, calling it projection

This Tower shamed her receptivity, calling it emptiness

This Tower shamed her process

Of feeling the way through, a body’s knowing, calling it lack of vision

This Tower shamed her power of presence,

The release of personal desire and drive, calling it

Impotence

Now somehow, the bricks, they started to crumble

Likely through diligent mirrors, hard-working gnawers

And the uncontrollable effectiveness

Of the electric bolt blowing

The top of her pretty Tower

All those perfect bricks

Crumbling

Tumbling

Falling

Down

Falling

No stranger to the process was she

In fact she’d stayed in successive destructions

Watching her flesh dissolve along with the skin of her worlds

This time, however

She realized she did not want to vanish

This time

She realized she could jump

And watch the massive dismemberment

Of a Tower needed no more

She could watch it, standing

On loamy, fresh earth

Planting seeds with the electric fertility

Reveling in the rumbling

Shaking through her tissues

Allowing herself to be

As it all

Came crashing

Down

Standing there

At the burning edges of her old realities

Looking down and onto a great mystery

A great risk

Not knowing

Never knowing

If she’d survive the fall

This time, however

She knew it had to be different

And stepping off the dissolving parapet

She dove

Laughing

Finally laughing

From her Tower

Of no more

The Wheel

Sanskrit laden, gold gilt shimmering

From the central hub of ignorance

Along its spokes you’ve carved your word

Along its spokes you’ve carved your commitments

You keep them

In the soft morning sun

You point, showing

The pulsing core of your fire

You lift the watch

Handcrafted and rippling with reds and oranges

You tell me its time

I’m listening

It’s taken us down a long road to get here

I’m listening

To what you’ve chosen most dear

You tell me you will take me

Take me somewhere I have to lean into

A guarded realm

I can’t quite understand

But I must choose

And now, you’re disappearing

The real dawn, commanding

Rays overtake us

You become slowly unclear

Your Martian edges hazy

The lilting passion of your vibration

Wavering, vanished

And I’m left

With only astral echoes

The wheel

Spinning

Shimmering

Asking me

Where I want

To become

Letting Go

Skin

Carving

Tootsie Pop

Memorial Day

The Music

thank you

the letter

The Tower

The Wheel

witches’ britches :}