Contra Dance

My heart is fed by so many tributaries
and spits and splits at least two ways!
How difficult to keep straight
what quickens circulation, who eases its pace:
a lose-lipped smile here, fingers dancing on letters there;
the openness of letting and the strung bow;
the tight wanting of one truth and still, wide planes
that laugh at those.

What is love if not a contra dance
where many arms spin many beings,
where we share the floor - no one's territory -
and the music moves the mood we've got to ache with to obey?

How to Read Poetry

"What is poetry? And why has it been around so long? … When you really feel it, a new part of you happens, or an old part is renewed, with surprise and delight at being what it is...The first thing to understand about poetry is that it comes to you from outside you, in books or in words, but that for it to live, something from within you must come to it and meet it and complete it. Your response with your own mind and body and memory and emotions gives a poem its ability to work its magic; if you give to it, it will give to you, and give plenty." - James Dickey, author

                                      Did you ever 

                                           see a hummingbird

                                             Try and flirt with a hedgehog?

                                                  It is an odd sight indeed!

                                                    First a hedgehog is walking along

                                                             Minding its own business

                                                               Then a hummingbird swoops in!

                                                                Wings beating one hundred miles an hour

                                                                                 And examines the situation.

                                                                              Upon deciding that the situation

                                                                                          Looks sweet enough

                                                                                      It begins to poke the hedgehog

                                                                                         With its long pointy beak!

                                                                                                     Then the hedgehog

                                                                                     Not knowing what else to do

                                                                                       Curls up in a ball, spikes up

                                                                                              Even though it knows

                                                                                          The hummingbird advances

                                                                                                     Are not threatening

                                                                                                    But merely annoying.

                                                                                             The hummingbird hopes

                                                                                          To tickle the hedgehog

                                                                                          Between its quills

                                                                                     Until in a fit of giggles

                                                                           The hedgehog rolls on its back

                                                                          Legs kicking in the air

                                                                   So the hummingbird can

                                                                  Fan cool air around

                                                             The hedgehog with its

                                                         Very tiny wings                                                                   

                                                        Letting it relax

                                                       Defenses down.

                                                       But the question

                                                        Remains still

                                                         What kind

                                                           Of Bird

                                                          Flirts With

                                                           A hedge-

                                                             Hog?

                                                            Just a

                                                      Hummingbird

                                                   That is delightfully

                                                      Kind of crazy

                                                       And Strange

                                                       

Tires

If you want your children to be safe

Buy them tires for Christmas.

Go to Michelin, ask them:

What are the tires that ambulances use?

Ambulances are like twenty-seven year olds:

When they do move, it is always an emergency

They are skidding toward, through red lights

And around corners fatal with ice. 

This is how emergency pile-ups happen:

You start with one and in your efforts to get to it

You cause twelve more.  

But since you can’t teach them this,

Because everyone needs to do her time as an EMT,

Just buy your children the types of tires

That they put on ambulances

And let them care about for their world

In this quick, bright, heavy, wild way.

Reminding Myself of Bodhicitta

When the path is unclear

And the way feels confused

Restrengthen bodhictitta

Restrengthen joyful effort

And realization will surely follow

The blessings of the masters

Are not mystical, not magical

They bless by example

Because we can identify

With their wisdom minds

The path we take in this life

Is not important

So long as everything we do

Is completely surrounded

With pure, simple, loving intention

The fruit of this love

The fruit of this beautiful intention

Is the merit we dedicate

To all sentient beings

This love expands inexhaustibly

To take on the suffering of others

Is ungrounding because eventually

We don’t know who’s giving

And who is receiving

Lost, we melt in a field of awareness

In this field of awareness

Is suffering, suffering thoroughly

Thoroughly pervaded with love

In this beautiful, awesome, lonely place

Our bodhicitta is our only refuge

As our strength and resolve

And confidence in bodhicitta increase

Through our own great effort

This profound space

Becomes more refined and beautiful

To be comfortable within

This groundless field of awareness

So uncertain, yet so very firm

Is the greatest blessing

And the greatest goodness

From within this space

What is most beneficial for oneself

Is what is most beneficial for others

Because the only way to stay relaxed in space

Is through great love, and love is selfless

In opening awareness through bodhicitta

I know I have no realization

Nothing compared to the masters

But I see their examples

And I cry tears of devotion

Hummingbird Wars

A house surrounded

By emerald trees and hummers

Is where I grew up!

In the grass I read

While they fought sharp and speedy

Wars above my head:

Elegant and fierce,

Flitting, darting past my cheeks.

Fear shrunk then shamed me.

Don’t crash into me!

I thought. Be still! I want to

See how green you are!

Sometimes, on the porch

Ropes, hung with cups of nectar

By my mom, they did.

Then I would watch them

And I wouldn’t breath at all

Until they flew off. 

Some Poems on Holding

In the Soul's Soil 

It takes about seven hours.

And they do a few thousand a year,

about 800 people die waiting

for a suitable heart.

He knew a kid who memorized amazing facts

about the heart.  It’s hard to do,

but not that hard to understand,

the kid would say about transplanting.

It’s very different from a tree –

the soil will take any tree, but the body’s big on rejection.

In My Father’s Woodshop, Learning to Hammer

“Don’t hold it so tight,” he would say,

bouncing the hammer by the very end

of the handle with ease.
I gripped the narrowest bit of neck,

right up under its iron head, and tapped carefully

like it was a hard third thumb, not some wild

wonderful limb full of as much power as danger.
From the corner of his eye, he watched
at the smallest angle from glancing away
so that each time my nail went slowly crooked
it took only a slight adjustment of the eyes not to see.
He did not believe you could gently create
a corner, a union.  Either you flattened your own finger

or someone else’s.  But after the thumbnail

had turned black and fallen off,

the box held treasures inside

its square hand and held together.

Types of Dishonesty

She took a perfect glass orb to bed.

In the morning, her palms glittered

And her sides ached as if she’d laughed all night

At some unimaginably happy thing.

He went to bed with a cup of paint

And held it upright all night.

No one could guess in the morning.

And even he sometimes forgot the color.

At the store, at the check out,

They dropped a bag of peaches.

He cut around the bruises and

She insisted upon eating them.

A Grip Holds No Release

Sudden falls revitalize the enemies

of deceit: Maroon is not purple,

but maybe we are me.

For any reason, emptiness 

volunteers to leave.

Time proposes many mountains

then takes some down. 

Just cast a stone to rip water! 

But know: it can’t scar, 

it sews itself back up.

(I’m having a harder time.)

Trees also won’t negotiate.  

But if a fence stands too close, 

they’ll swallow its wire very slowly.

Think of those barbs, shouting on

their sharpness inside a trunk.

Such patient humor lives in trees!

The work finalizes the reason we began it. 

But some work has no reason. 

Some reasons need no work.

Avoiding Detection

Editing inspired by Geoff's lie detection know-how. 

Avoiding Detection

At the airport, at security, I’m not.

I’ve got the look

of someone with sneakers full of little bombs,

detonators between my toes.

On the interstate, when a cop car lurks,

idle in the median,

I can’t seem to keep straight the wheel

as a sober person should: without trying

too hard. You look at me, I look off.

The bomb behind my ribs wobbles

my legs like a drunk’s legs;

your voice resonating in me: the detonator.

Why feel so suspect trying to get any place

as if love takes lives on its way?

Only lint is between my toes, and it’s not you who’s going

to explode if you find the button your finger is on,

it’s me.

I am going to buy you a tuba because you deserve to understand

If you want to know the truth, the truth is this: when you lived in the apartment under mine, I use to jump up and down on purpose.  I've lived under people with toddlers and people who don't trim their dog's nails and maniacs who seem to be dancing with their furniture all the time and people who buy their teenagers stereos with bases even though their kids like death metal and clumsy people and angry people who let it out mostly through their heels. I've lived under all kinds of loud.  So I know how it is. That's why I did it.

In fact, when you moved in, my bedroom had wall-to-wall carpeting.  It was green and thick and I liked to sit on the edge of my bed and wiggle my toes in it like it was grass, yarn grass.  But then I realized how it muffled the impact of my jumps, so I had it torn out.  I paid the kid who lives next door, the one with the lopsided haircut and those hideous cargo shorts whose mom pretends not to smell that he's always sneaking cigarettes out his bedroom window.  You've seen him from down there, too, I'm sure.  He came in with some big pair of red garden sheers and tore my little bedroom yard right up.  That night, when I heard you come home, I jumped from the bed to the floor 17 times, instead of just jumping in place.  I'm sure you remember this.

Sometimes I did it because it felt like justice.  Other times I did it and felt like an elephant.  Sometimes, I just needed something to be sorry for.  You don't know it, but after the worst bouts of stomping -- the ones where I ran from wall to wall in high heels -- I often put my ear on the floor afterwards to see if I could hear anything.  

But your very quiet.  You are so, so quiet.  You only ever make noise when you are coming or going, practical noise, noise in passing.  At first, I thought that's what I liked about you.  I thought that's why I was doing it.  Like: you would knock on my door and I could say it to your face: oh, I am so sorry!  Then I would make it up to you some sweet way that maybe would become just sweet with no making up and then maybe after that just making out.  

Later, I realized I was doing it because I hated you.  Because you were too quiet.  Because no one has a right to be that quiet.  There are a lot of reasons to make noises, you know!  That's what I am trying to say.  Because you love, because you hate, because you want to be an elephant.  Or even a kangaroo. 

You moved out.  At least, I think you moved out.  To be honest, it sounds the same -- when I lie with my ear on the floor I only hear the pipes snickering like before.  Still, I feel like you did.

But look, you deserve to understand about all this!  And so here is what I am going to do for you, I have it all planned out finally:  I am going to buy you a tuba.  There's a store in Watertown.  They sell used instruments, tubas that have been rented to middle school band students who became too popular and had to play soccer instead, pock marked tubas, tubas covered in dents.  They're the sort of ugly that means no-expertise-required! and nothing-to-lose!  If you get frustrated, you can even throw a tuba like this at the living room floor.  It won't matter.  Things that can survive middle school are virtually indestructible.  

But you have to play it.  That's why I am getting it for you.  The jumping and the high-heel running, it isn't working, I know.  But maybe if I get you a tuba.  Maybe that will help.

Everybody Needs a Geoff

Everybody Needs a Geoff

I first saw you on the grass

Wooden swords you swung so fast

I was swift and on the go

Who is that there? Fucking weirdo

Hours passed, the day was late

I knew you were my new roommate

Fear gripped my heart, for I could see

You touched too much, damn, don’t touch me

Later on that night I found

That we had some common ground

You had taken mushrooms too

A different aura surrounds you

You told me then infused with love

How heart’s broke open, spread above

Tumult and strife, and death, and sex

A strange and wonderful, loving hex

The hex you spread to me as well

Through hundred days of vajra hell

I wrestled, shrieking, scalding pains

That filled my chest, I shook, insane

You kissed my foot a fated night

And I recoiled for in your sight

Spontaneous moods arise and pass

And I was thinking of my ass

About my ass? O yes I say!

The love between us grew each day

And in that vibrant loving space

Confused thoughts of sex were laced

But later on I came to see

You did not want to cum in me

Nor I in you, and this is solved

Our love so strong, and uninvolved

4 months passed, retreat was done

In pre-dawn light we climbed, for fun

Protector’s hill and in the ice

Glittering diamonds, dazzling, nice

Supporting me through each tirade

That my restless ego made

You showed your friendship right away

And now continue every day

What joy it is to live with you

My dharma brother, Vajra boo!

This poem seems silly, uninspired

But so deep down my love is mired

Cause everybody needs a Geoff

Until no suffering is left

In all the worlds, in all of space

In you I see the Buddha’s face