the sanity of soil

 

“In the garden of gentle sanity. May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.”   Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

This palm is fibrous, a woody husk hanging on to the instrumental shake of its juice. It grows in order to be eaten. This garden is progressive. It is hairy and hungry for soulmate of medicinal consumption. Annually, one wakes engulfed in the fear of placebo lust. Here, in this perforated part of Brooklyn, lucidity is found nearby between full-figured moon and switchblades of grass.

(lit) bulbs.

Spring is approaching.

The soil we step on beneath the cement or bricks or what secretly whispers beneath buildings is preparing for its arrival.

As frost fumbles against mouths and breath is replaced by Winter’s smoke, gardeners press their weight into the earth. They bend. They dig. They bend. They dig. They rip open the dirt like impressively wrapped presents. The gift inside are the earthworms, the curiously creeping spiders, the bugs that haven’t been classified yet and the aroma of roots.

A poet walks around Brooklyn where roots are spray-painted on buildings and dirt stalks sneakers and dragging hems. Gardens are on rooftops or windowsills. But as the sun emerges into the sky like breakfast–a scrambled omelet in the sky–humans may be found on their knees, planting light bulbs. Which will become tulips or apple blossoms or lilies or blue bells. Scarves choke necks and wool itches the exposed skin on bodies as this soil prepares for a giant surprise party for the springtime.

in the dark of the brain, find Foucault

violence is a garment on the body (Bhanu Kapil)

I just want you to know where it comes from.

imagine a pit of soil
watch out for the earthworms
spiders larvae the wingless the roots

watch out for delicate stems and snapped off
petals

brain like a garden
it reeks
squashed rhizome

imagine a mother dipped in razors
measure chemicals and lose track of
imbalance

try to belong here
here with the lopsided poets
here with Brautigan and aroma of Plath’s poison
here with Hemingway and Woolf’s drown
here with Mishima and Thompson’s bullet
here with Berryman and Kosinski’s suffocation
here with Sexton and Gogol’s starvation
here with mangled metaphors and disillusioned stanzas
here with your own tongue swallowed on the eve of resolution

want to memorize your pill collection
cut you open
put lips to bloodied forearm and cracked clavicle and climb over the edge of any bridge before the costumed men carry you toward the rubber and drool