Every morning

I have a morning routine.
First, I am a teepee dweller
breathing in steam swirls.

Then I am an Inca king
sipping my coffee and planning the day.

Then I am a Roman soothsayer,
picking around the gray morning in my robe and sandals,
bending down, taking the news from a bag.

Then I am an inkeeper's wife
scaring eggs around the pan.

Then I am a Russian aristocrat
reading how the world goes to tell my family later.

Then I am an old midwife
looking out the window for a sign.

Then I am a medicine man
shaking icemelt gravel on the steps outside.

Then I am a Geat hero
because the ice growls when I turn my back.

This is how all my mornings go.

Waiting for my soul.

Sitting quietly, very quietly, in a wooden chair
with a hard back.
Like a jungle member I watch and wait
for pretty soon my soul will creep out from wherever it is hiding,
towards the wooden chair in the middle of the jungle.

I love her because she has a soul.

I love old people in general- sometimes they have caught ten
and sew them together to wear like fur coats
and sit by the fire and drum.
When their arms move the souls flap and bunch up.
The old ones become a thing else, the thing I want to be.
We the young paint our faces
and dance around trees, naked as anything.

Some of us won't ever find our souls
but instead, through the dances round and round,
life will spatter through us in bursts like some kind of spin art,
Once you stop you'll find yourselves.

But she is the Rothko to your Pollock.
And I, naked as anything, sit in my chair
and wait.

The sometimes snow.

It's snowing:  I smile out a window
and catch snowflakes on my tongue.
But not when the snow is six feet deep
and not when the snow makes a tree fall down. 

When I'm tired of the snow I play with Play-Doh and whipped cream.
I made a mountain
I made an ocean
I made a fire hydrant with a man beside it.
I like them. 
Sometimes, I flatten my hand and destroy them all
and mix the colors up
and put it back in the jar
so no one else can like them. 

Then I go out and play
but not when the snow freezes over and makes me fall down like a tree
and not when it keeps an ambulance off a road
to save someone's life
or not to. 
I like life. 
I like the snow.
This snow I smile at
but I don't smile then.

Instead.

As I open this page a video clip begins on another
What if I gave up writing this down until tomorrow?
What if I gave up writing everything down until tomorrow?
Even the ones who will run away like mice?
Even the exciting ones?
What if I don't have a tab open,
Why do I feel compelled to pause the video to write a poem in the air
Type when nothing is being registered in a text box
Even if I can't find the words myself tomorrow?
Should I bother with a text box? 
Will I understand myself today tomorrow?
I just want to watch a video some days.
But,
you know already,
I type instead. 

The Owl

The owl looked at me sternly
through the round glasses I percieved
were circling his eyes.

Parapluie

J'ecriverai

jamais
la poesie
en francais.
Le son
est plus bon, oui,
mais
c'est
ton son.

Et puis,
j'ecrit
des parapluies:
Je ne peut pas les
construire sans l'anglais.

Pardon.
Je sais.

A Boating Trip

Can we go on a boating trip?
I'll be the boat,
           like when we played equestrian
and you can captain.
Can we rock and bob
          like the dances went
          when we learned them?
Can you take me somewhere wonderful?
Even when you disembark
          like today,
sneakers will have worn your path in the floor
and the wheel will remember your hands.

A friend and I

are writing a poem a day for a year: http://citronetpamplemousse.blogspot.com/

Ados

Do not give that boy
the body of a man.
(Don't give me the body of a man either-
I wouldn't know what to do.)

already?  I was not expecting this
at twelve weeks a fetus could fit into my hand
but it is working somewhere else, out of reach.
The heart is bigger than most any other part
pump. pump. when it beats my baby is dancing.
It has fingers, too.

Devon got a pickup truck yesterday
it was his uncle's
I looked in the bed, and saw some dirty rainwater
that looked like syrup,
and moved like syrup.
it wasn't syrup,
before I even tasted it.

When I have a house of my own
it will have no doors.
there are too many doors in this house.
doors are to cry against, or lean on when telephoning.
to close.  My house will have no doors. 

children get fat
on chemistry they do not understand.
sometimes they die
from diabetes
that I understand.

men and women were made for each other
there is so much besides the heart now.
they close the door on the child.
inside and outside:  there are always two sides to a door.

pump. pump. somebody bothered to name a brick for me today.
nobody told me what a brick was before. They make walls. 
walls are good
except the ones with doors.

no.
walls are bad
at least doors can be opened.

Who is that man? 

Compute

I have very long hair that sometimes looks lighter in sunlight
she took a group of it from halfway down and with both hands, twisted it, threaded the spool
wound and wound
it was taut, tension equation, taught, homonym,
and even in the closed room with halogen,
condusive.

I could see Mary with her long dark brown hair
a little crinkly, like a washboard road, rill erosion
in the sand-colored grass the woman pulling my hair
is responsible for
(she thought it was pretty before)

like she knew she was being watched, Mary turned around,
her feet crossed over themselves in a happy pattern
on the short grass, underneath which I saw the other millions of feet
voles and ants,
to each of her footprints.

My hair is not very long at all
and I want to make the grass grow
foot to foot, upside down, follow her footsteps, Mary's feet
pad against pad
from under the soil
where I live now.

and anyway
I really like curls.

Both puppies and scientists

He liked to squat and
with a funny L-shaped telescope
look at the stars
that twinkle always.
Peering into the eyepiece,
the young man almost didn't notice an astronomer at his shoulder.
(stomach muscles tightened:
a long white beard: spiderwebs and snow like afghans resting on a broad mattress)
With no introduction, as astronomers require none,
"Why
does your beard twinkle?"
the astronomer was looking upwards
to twinkles in eyes
The young man followed his gaze, eyes up,
and the beard dissapeared, man with it.
To soggy grass:
"But you never answered my-"
he rubbed scratchy underside of his jaw, wondering
whether, actually, he had.

Converging in a lecture hall

I am firmly decided
we were all actually raised by gypsies.

our mothers roved around in caravans
and picked up magic tongues
in sand and grassland
                and maybe ate sushi
                and maybe rode elephants
                and maybe threw rice at the queen
from behind a pillar.

sometimes I stand back
and
      there is no other explanation.

That is why
                     beth speaks Japanese
              and rachel races Porsches
              and q eats raw food
              and haley likes eyes on her paper
              and macy misspells things
              and ms. brenner dyed her hair green
              and linda works so hard

I also think
                    that gypsies naturally group
                                                                       like us
Obviously distance does't matter much.   to us

we were all actually raised by gypsies
and we are all pretty wonderful
I am firmly decided.

At the dry-cleaners

Sometimes I want to tell you
how excited I am
that the rosin for my cello bow
smells like rosin

or that it got all over my black concert pants
just to tell you.

I wait and wait for
a hardcore
metaphor
implore
galore
please come?

But no,
I am stuck wondering at the
finger-sized-round-blue-plastic-tough-pop
dome I press to dispense detergent
and the bulbous shape, big drip, sliding fluid
so greasy it is wet.

Wait and wait,
for a poem to come. But maybe
the outside of the onion can crackle
like turning an old page of a poetry book,
before my love does or my hate, before I tell you all about Ge and Ares
in the armfuls of clean soaking laundry
maybe waiting can be.

"Little Placards (never read them)"

"So it was you? Was it really? It's my favorite museum. I know
     our eyes caught -- I remember it well -- but I thought you wanted to see
          the drawing behind me, called "The Widening Spell".

That's why
     I ducked. I also remember watching you
          leave the room, a strand of your hair caught

inside your coat's collar. The rest, each tread, full of light.




(And of course I’m older than you)
Thank you for that poem.)



Laure-Anne"