shady side of the moon

As a young alien i read mostly to learn who i was,
which is the first use of stories--for the newly formed
to find what words in what order pulsates
through the fountanelle to resonate the zygomatic &
sphenoid bones--how else could they know
how they feel about spaceships & fairies
& monsters & dragons?


if i could be any bird i’d be
a magpie--if any animal, a hare
or maybe a cat. A magpie’s tail
is as long as the rest of its body.
These things are important &
worth thinking about.


i learned that i am someone
who wants to build inverted cities on the sky
& stare up at dusk at the streetlights as they
flare to life like newborn stars--i want to be
an architect of winds, of air, of thoughts, of playing cards,
of scrabble tiles each with a single letter, piling
up into words & sentences & paragraphs up into
the sky.


I am, i guess, one of the quiet ones--i knew
how to look through people, had to learn
how to look at them. It was, i think, in the stories
where i got the idea
to look inside them.


i love living things--i love things
that create themselves--i love
to play with them, to understand
how & where & why they grow,
& to gently guide them. The best stories
are alive too--a story, written, is only
a blueprint, a seed--a story, read, is a great tree of thought
that takes root slowly & springs up & branches into
who knows that kind of tree, or what fruit or what shade,
what shape & colour of leaves & flowers
you might find there.


The quiet ones have no spoken
language--though some are fluent
in human soundwords, they tire--we take shelter, sometimes
neath silent wordtrees with paper leaves that
take us to worlds where you can see
into the soul
without making eye contact.


I’ve learned i like words too much, i think,
to be a deconstructionist--for all their failings
you have to admire the brave little letters,
‘t-r-e-e’ for saying: i signify treeness--
look, i have seen many trees & they are
not all very much alike, and there is little of
t-r-e-e about them--yet, the wordchains can also
take you places: four letters can carry you away to
an entire universe of tree, which is surely
a sort of magic.


I’ve found the bad words, too, which bind & stifle
the growth of living things--names that burn brandlike
into the named, impose their meanings on the real:
weak or strong, natural or unnatural. The worst kind
of lie fights always to become true--look: i have seen
the sickly cities built from these lies; their supports are rotten--
they daily demand blood sacrifice
to oil ill-fitting gears & always they whisper:
“this is what must be done, there is no other way.”


I would be not just an architect, but
an arsonist of thoughts--i would build siege engines--
hurl flaming oil--sing firesongs. Bit by bit
the lies are burning. Piece by piece repair
the skycity. One by one the stars ignite
to light the way through the midnight gloom.


I want to burn it all down, & build a city
where it’s safe to be a boy or girl or
magpie, & to believe in everything or nothing, &
not even the quiet ones’
wordless language is drowned out. This
is what the stories taught me.

See the footprints –
here, and then here
ten paces apart at least –
See how she moves
smooth-flowing leap-to-leap
her feet strike the ground like a mighty hammer –
the earth might shake – spin backwards, but
instead she flies on.

for, see, the hare does not run. She flies
across the ground
flies ten times her length and when
the earth reaches up to claim her
strikes it down and flies on still –
faster than winds, faster than talons
that ride those winds –
faster even than her own fear she flies
& one day maybe death will outpace her
but today see! it lags behind, and her footsteps
shake the earth still.

i wrote a poem about hope once before. it was about whispers and wings and open cages, and it was very pretty, but it was sappy and i think it was wrong. i want to try again.


deep underground far from sight of the sky
under miles of concrete & stone -- left to die
from the pain & the fear pressing down from on high
every breath breathing poison too sickened to cry -- yet
there's a sound -- far & distant
but steady & strong -- it's a pounding,
a drumbeat, a heartbeat, a song
full of banging & cracking & splintering wood
till the doors crack wide open
& walls fall for good -- let the logs beat the gates
till the earth starts to shake -- let jailors take cover,
let barricades break -- & until that deep fortress
gives way to the slam --
let your hope be the sound
of the battering ram




(ouch my head rhyming is hard T-T)

In the room

the air is still & cold & lonely.

unshed tears linger in the air around

& mute the feeble candlelight.

insomniac ghosts drift by half-dreaming

down ancient roads on forgotten errands

& i with empty eyes stare up at the empty sky & ask

'why?'

 

Outside the room, the west wind blows.

Autumnal gusts uplift the fallen leaves, & dance

dance with the pine needles & plastic grocery bags

till the wind rises & all blow away together

to meet the sunrise.

 

i open the window

& wind like a memory disturbs the dead air with wild whistling song,

song like the wind howling over trees between mountains,

song like the water crashing down the rapids, & roaring,

song like heartsblood pounding in my head, pounding

in rhythm to remembered laughter & running free along clear water

as the moonlight shone above. & i spread my arms like wings

& feel the wind catch them. i speak,

& watch the wind blow the words away. i laugh

& watch the wind blow the world away

to meet the sunrise.



i'm trying to sorta figure out things that i can't say easily in prose, so i'm doing a bit more poetry here than usual, i guess.

"Who are you and why should people care what you have to say?"

Once upon a time, in a annoyingly personal high school course called 'Career and Life Management', I was asked that question on a worksheet. I found most of that course annoying and silly and awkward, since I hate talking about myself, but this question struck me. I wrote a poem to answer it, and rereading it recently I still think it describes me better than anything else I've written, so I've replaced the cryptic nonsense I had in my profile before with it and I'm just gonna stick it here as well for the heck of it.