dig the garden
push into heat shovel, water feed blossoms thin greens tick tick tick at keys pull sprouts one idea, another rake past garbage writing is composting churning one thought, another getting lost pluck sucker-shoots spidery grasses, tough weeds sew hope, prune sentences, enrich soil that patience all the waiting slow grow daily in the dirt vigils on chair, by seedlings fight critics, aphids, slugs distractions sometimes the sun sometimes a frost and everything wastes 50 pages pumped thrown away file deleted note forgotten but the harvest after mind numbing stuck wandering pacing slogging to make something of this land is it even fertile? the chance of leaves, blooms, a whole tomato a feast, a draft a completed work something to dream on to return for tick tick tick
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Crunch up foothills Swelter sweat, dust Birch leaves rattle Brief moments of clouds, paralyzed in blue Squint Feet ache, my poor bunion toe Ration water Heart starts to slow To-dos crumble Thighs sting, the climb The path by the pond A sign sticks out Warning ice isn't safe Photo by Chris Leipelt on Unsplash the water the ripples wet grass fog grows over the bay campers crowd around coleman for coffee and tea water in the warm of right now i take off my sweatshirt watch the waves listen to humans plan their day i don't think about my syllabus be here pay attention to my bloated belly the black needle beaked birds and finch-like flappers fall away from the business around the table this green tea my heart of whole damp love and squishiness this view of blue away from phone service sun warms my neck with thanks to Nick Jaina for the prompt I want writers who listen who understand vast silences and shine light in shadowlands I want writers who comb deep caverns of sea who fall in romance with the planet around them and ask fellow beings to seek palaces of kindness writers who deconstruct their realities for each other willing to fly free past small lives to find something scared writers with courage who magnify the depths who complicate air and make sense of the noise I want writers who challenge the everyday who create imaginary universes out of a bunch of blankets laid over chairs for a kid's fort who erupt volcanoes and paint figures ready to jump but crawl back home and rip out large sections of biblical text to make a new reality writers who make peace stumbling on sanctuary humming wavelengths I want writers who sing lullabies to their readers but the kind that wake us up writers who make kaleidoscopic dances on the page that acrobat off and up and tumble into our hearts thighs throats writers who crack me down the middle with a sledgehammer and then offer a handkerchief I want to be a writer who takes wandering walks through old growth forests and has soft conversations with trees moss leaflets who drinks in autumn and pours out spring I want writers who map the stars in reshaped constellations and invent myths that erupt with the same grandiose heat as the ancients but have awakening energy that stirs something deep from our seats something primal guttural familiar in a tribal way in the way of us that is forgotten memory beyond the bottoms of our feet yet glimmering starlight too guiding us to sublime faraways I want writers who don't reinvent circles but split apart the old contraption and reassemble the parts until they disrupt my breath until I stop recognizing the form only to unveil the fresh beginning I want to be a writer with the racing spririt of that seven year old who ran in from the front door to meet his parents at the welcome desk a writer with curious eyes who puts ear to the door throws it wide discovers the secret place and smashes a violin case on the ground but only for good a writer who traces back to finds hope in history and future too I want writers who travel to the ends of the multiverse who can pull back the moon and release the sun who empty their ribs and continue to open I want to float in a hot blimp to survey the whole topography below me and uncover blanketed mysteries float in a hot blimp, survey the whole topography below me, uncover blanketed mysteries Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash In the middle of this world She is falling open She ignores the wind-scarred fantasies behind Sails into new outside over there Her ship made of wings Glowing worms at her feet enjoy marsh pools Water, Water, Water And they fall And she belongs In her skin, her boat, her seascape Everything ocean here Everything made of hands of paint Smells like sawdust, soil, salt Giant earthworms at the bottom of everything Churn this planet Revolve it Into the somnambulant falls Gulls cry Not weep Just loud, louder, loudest Crumbling fevers No sickness anymore Now quiet Living in my stomach She doesn't have the nerve twitch Breathes easy, eyes fierce, a hunter But no blood here, no meat All vegetation, growth and shine The tremble of kill not here Breeze slight, rain drops from singing stars And silver moon Shine on The cracks, waves lapping Always small clouds beyond, beyond, beyond A lot to say She writes in captain's log Where does she go, this traveling sailor on windswept water? Where is she leaving and what makes the giant seem small? Everything ocean here. Photo by Anastasia Taioglou on Unsplash won't you celebrate with me
the cylindrical universes that take us through worm holes from one galaxy to another? time isn't as linear as we think celebrate forward journeys, little stars I see out eye corners when I get up too fast won't you celebrate with me how our bodies move together? where they land when they stop? I'm trying to save memory remnants about my dead father to save my jaw from clenching my mind from getting too jam-packed with information and my heart from splintering from burden to save the breath of cool that comforts in summer Don't panic. Don't fall apart. Don't eat sugar. Don't trip on your face. Don't forget to exercise. sing out music sing out change try to save a life every revolution needs a dagger that starts to guide us wind to our engines every revolution needs hunger poetry can't die because we're always thinking because babies are born and their voices string together unicorns with water balloons poetry can't die because here I am and I need poems to live because birds bring messages from one country to another the strongest of us the bravest because warm cloaks, sleep, fists, paper when I die, poems can't because the sea, the mountains psychic pulse drops she wakes
lifts her head lies back down turns over arm on the empty bedside she looks at that space runs hand up and down pillow as if it were his face, back, front she lies back down the sun won't watch her with shyness anymore blinds her heats her sweats her from covers feet on floor, a little cool on wood, a little sore she's been walking again she still wanders not like she's been running or hiking or dancing hard just walking she breathes in and out in deep ways, trying to remove the added weight at sternum's center coax it away with air face at her feet she changes focus, up to the wall teal sea green wishing it were ocean wishing she were shark something large, monstrous, prehistoric she opens her mouth wide as though her teeth were too jagged/triangle/daunting to close down her jaw the thought of her face full of splintered teeth smiles her brings lips together after 9 and she's a shark in sweat pants, tee shirt, tattered, stained she doesn't look back to his side of the bed listens to morning summer breeze and traffic and with help from her hands on the mattress with an oomph she rises thinking how old lady she sounds shuffling to the kitchen the kettle filling looking out window garden out the backyard forever the maples, grass, sky wishing she were up there swinging from branches not running into walls fall down a rabbit hole inside out looking down and she's a vulture hungry that spells disaster but all she is here is slow grounded stagnant fingers aching heart ink over hands green beans and kale for breakfast Take a walk. Breathe. Allow for sneezes.
Allow for phrases like gezundheit, salud, and even bless you. And even god bless you. Give god your best definition -- maybe it's here right now. Maybe it's paper. This is what she was thinking as he yelled at her, as he screamed and she stood blinking, watching the white screen door rattle. "No. I'm not going with you. Your screaming isn't making your argument fasten hooks on me any harder. I'm ready to leave you now." That's what she would have thought, would have said, had his noise left any room for her to think, to speak. His face coarse with stubble like grey and black pinpricks out to stab, his mouth toothless now. His words as foreign to her as his childhood Portuguese. She let the tears retreat into eye sockets as his words and violence threatened to vacuum them out, as he flung the lamp over as she retreated room to room through the haze of yelling. It had been a year of shouting by now, of shouting and selling and poverty and disaster. She was ready for a new ingredients list on how to live. Walk with eyes open. Take long wandering strolls. Write every day. Eat enough to never go hungry but allow the pangs to come back now and then to remind you what this castaway life was like with this abuser con artist you chose for a partner. Live without judgment of others or yourself, as impossible as that may seem, without apologies, as impossibler as that all sounds. Call your mom once a week. Buy a friend groceries sometimes just because, without expecting favors in return. Go into the moonlight and just sit. Cry in the bathtub now and then because you can. Not like it saved you this year, but it emptied you out. By then he backed her into the room she used for writing in that little triplex where they lived those last few months, pretending they could afford the rent. She was on the floor, fetal position, facing away from him, crying dry heaves into her silent chest as he bellowed and swore and left and slammed the door and motored away. Only then did she let the tears fall, as she breathed through her knees and let her list keep building inside. Oh breath Oh skin
The belly pomegranates out in a zillion cranberry fractals Open one like a brain, spurt out power The sweat of heels Concern of families Pressed pores tickling I miss San Francisco Dreams of elsewhere Constricted community in my ribs This place Befriend it yes but long for emergence Break the seeds, burst flavor, pop in mouth I growl a laugh a hiccup a burp There is more to this here than work than money spent Reroot Stop thinking and heal and remember This is the hunger We've lost the earth Walking on floorboards Bare feet bare arms bare elbows and pelvis in air Float away, vibrations Stuck in the crawlspace The peeling off windows the bright The world outside the snow I forgot to mention how ticklish Everything before prepared me to love you Sing to me Write melody While we walk Tracing bends Shoulders over wet palms I miss us on our drive Think of our winding roads creaking planks Here the thirst the yawn the woman sleeps It's okay we're hurting It's okay we're rebuilding There's lots for us to notice together My toes draw spaces between cracks, wave hips at the sun Sometimes I wish Octopuses put ink in my cartridges Sometimes I think the sun will open and we'll return to spring And sometimes I feel my energy wad up into aluminum ball Until I take a nap or practice a jig or play with my cat I remember days I wasn't afraid to open the news When I could look out the window and think progress I can still look out the window I can still make progress I a giant hunk of wax rolling down the hillside Picking up buildings, journeying to oblivion I can surprise myself I can jump out my feet and far down the canyon into new parachute These days are mine Claim them. Reclaim my voice. A pile of young women enter the lobby with a clang The beginning of tomorrow I can write my future and remember when I discovered who I'll become |
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$1, $10, $100, whatevs :) Heidi KraayProcess notes on a work in progress (me). This mostly contains raw rough content pulled out of practice notebooks. Occasional posts also invite you into the way I work, with intermittent notes on the hows and whys on the whats I make. Less often you may also find prompts and processes I've brought to workshops, as well as surveys that help me gather material for projects. Similar earlier posts from years ago can be found on: Archives
April 2024
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