Her words are not for me not about me Her words are not for me not about me Repeat
am i allowed To float Her words aloud To sink them in my mind To lap them from the page
i accidentally swallow, then gulp down Her Salt words/ like when the surf breaks and surprises an exhilarated, Great Lakes girl with a mouthful of seawater during her first swim in the Ocean
Her words were not meant for me Her words were not meant for me Repeat
it’s mid evening east of The Lake and the night is dawning like a second morning
the Full Moon’s light in a clearer sky gleams through the generous panes of this blessed, old green house
Moon’s rise / Her Light
February’s Snow Moon is glowing in a familiar dance with her beloved Earth/ Sun, their invisible chaperone, is voyeur to their touchless, perfect tango
a family of four deer mother and children, i think/ are gleaners here tonight while i consume their Moon play
silent and sitting in the dark, i admire: coat, tallow, hooves and hot, flow of blood is all that’s between them and this howling wind and frozen ground
let me mimic their resilience, integrity i’ve been so weak, so broken this winter a fractioned shadow, i am disintegrating, disappearing / my light given or grifted away
“The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become ‘somebody,’ and frankly, I don’t have the least ambition to become anybody.” — Frida Kahlo
in the end, we are all just holy ghosts
lone, holy, haunted ghosts who sometimes want to feel, to be seen or felt by others who occupy our realms
if anyone were to have thoughts or draw conclusions about this particular ghost, about my collection of words, photos, ephemera, art, altars, or the microcosmic worlds i’ve built — now, or when i’m dead
— in the end, and at the beginning, it is and was, for me to better understand
my Self for myself by my self
as well, to understand my relationship to others, to the world, to the Earth – the pain and beauty of it all – and my relationship to my creativity – the conception, process and act of creating, and to existence itSelf
/ no one else is essential to interact with, interpret, interrogate or validate any of it, ever – yet they are welcomed to do so/
the imperative in my work and my art is not to be known or understood by another — even though, even when, that exquisitely rare experience occurs – it may conjure deep feelings of true homecoming or true love
further, being seen or felt – as creative, evocative, provocative, nouveau, derivative, debased or talentless – by someone is wholly different than being truly known and understood by another human being
and although communion, consummation, and collaboration in experiencing, creating, or releasing art can be gratifying, challenging, inspiring and evolutionary,
i must always remember:
all my collaborators are ghosts; i am my own, lone, Earthly muse; i Am my holy and whole audience of one
everyone else is collateral advantage
“in the end, you will find [only] yourself at the beginning”
“This used to be my playground” and our proxy for church on spring, summer and fall sabbaths
These were the halcyon days.
Load up the International Harvester TravelAll with wooden doors and quarter panels – it has two gas tanks, you know Bought it used, but pristine on payments – from the showroom on Logan Boulevard and Elston Avenue with zero credit history and all the usury
Have mercy.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of fish
He will bait your hook on the bamboo pole he bought you Later, you will insist on the “Pocket Fisherman” – as seen on TV
i add my most intentional breaths to the land, to the atmosphere, for the birch saplings, for a man i knew, bent over frozen in a forced deference mimicking reverence won’t, can’t hold [it never does]
I set out natural stone salt-licks year-round for deer in two spots on the perimeter of the land I occupy [I’ve witnessed birds, and I suspect other wildlife enjoy/require them too].
I buy bags of apples on sale and try to set out 5 lbs a couple evenings per week for the deer during winter; I cut up a few for possums and rabbits nightly.
Deer in the full Wolf Moon’s light right beneath the triptych windows, January 28, 2021 A deer foraging not on apples I set out, but on “weeds” – wildflowers, herbs and grasses just beneath the triptych picture windows of my living room as I went to open the drapes to the Full Moon’s light – a second dawn, just before I retired to bed at 1:00 AM in the morning.
I feel like the salt lick, the small sweet apples and fruit scraps are my insignificant attempt at respect, alms, honoring and reparations for all we have destroyed and to the survivors who endure and remain in the middle of a cold winter. This is agro country, and not a speck of corn or fruit is left behind for wild animals in the barren cornfields and orchards that were once forests filled with acorns, walnuts, pine nuts, pawpaws and twigs – and prairies filled with grasses, herbs and wildflowers.
the velveteen poet 