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.

even in doubt there is conviction

Dear Air.

I call you this because I do not see you. And I’d rather call you something that maybe you haven’t been called before. I write letters to you but they pile themselves into my palms and my arms shake. My wrinkles drown beneath the words I do not send you. But if you are all around me then I just may leave these notes on my body. You will find them as you wrap yourself into around me. Forgive my misspellings or unintelligible gasps. This language is heavy and I am tired and I am tired and I am tired. My prayers are edible and I forget to chew and there is choking and sometimes the spice causes me to lose control and when it is bland I rub my sweat into its soundlessness. You will never find me on my knees and my hands do not clasp and I do not wear beads or count blessings. The songs are only about the soil I wish cluttered around my bones because blood is too thin and much more grows out of dirt and clay.

Dear Wind.

I call you this because I hear your hum. And even in my tears, you climb into my salt and press them away. The other day, you lifted me up from path toward underground subway. My toes flew for a moment. If I threw paint against your invisible, you’d be stained glass. You’d be oil slick puddle of rainbow. Believe? Does it matter? I feel and this sense does not need to be in buildings or engage in holy. I do not need to memorize your songs; I have my own. I will not starve or separate or cling. The thing is, I’m still here. I’m still here.

That is enough.

(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