swing

we swing
aaaaaa with such an appreciation for snow
against gravity
aaaaaa it was in her nature to forget people’s first names
so many books you couldn’t breathe
aaaaaa soon she began to call everyone
john or betty
chains holding us tight
aaaaaa this is the kind of winter i can bear
when we would get a rip in out panty hoes
aaaaaa a free newspaper everyday
an apparent lack of colour leads the imagination to think of spring
aaaaaa green was his favorite colour
she would send us to the nurse to put an ace bandage on it
spring swing sing
aaaaaa i returned three books on & about Robert Lowell to the shelves
cheeky is not an American word
aaaaaa two flannel shirts the same colour, but with different designs
he tried revising poems years later
aaaaaa push me
an exploration of white space
aaaaaa cities are works of pure happenstance
the tilt of the earth causes climates causes biomes causes
aaaaaa concrete (poetry) to be less concrete & more free than paper
he highlighted texts
aaaaaa A MOVE OF THE CURSER NOT THE SCROLL
(nearly all the words so what was important
aaaaaa went unknown)
renaming the earth to reflect its watery nature
aaaaaa spacing comes into play, but not in the sense of
open field composition, but rather arbitrary fun.
aaaaaa perhaps using the wrong interpretation
half off all books lured me inside
aaaaaa a tale of going around or over the bar
the wood door to her room is broken
aaaaaa but you need the space to breathe
when escaping from a car that has driven into water do not panic
aaaaaa a misuse of vocabulary words
assembling is half the fun
aaaaaa a lock that won’t close
the circulation of air, hot rising, cool falling
aaaaaa a fist size shattering of wood
the top of the coffee tasted like roasted marshmallows
aaaaaa i saw my teacher in the bookstore
wait till the pressure has equalized before opening the door
aaaaaa a rush of wind, a gulping sound
windows will not crack from kicking or keys
aaaaaa a safe stocking stuffer
her room became warm because the thermostat downstairs was set to 75
aaaaaa things i forgot to do
yellow leaves on my floor with writing on them
aaaaaa perhaps you should have purchased that safety hammer from wal-mart
it was awkward and still, me with my hand on a book about Ezra Pound
aaaaaa old post it notes with the glue failing fall
winter without snow
aaaaaa you can make a sentence academic by inserting a term
a topic to write on
aaaaaa a list of due dates past
her mind always shut down when I started to talk of schools of poetry
aaaaaa i could collect them, pressing their patterns between book pages
after my teacher left i had a conversation with him
aaaaaa fascists can be fun sometimes
the cover is orange
aaaaaa cut into wedges, like a soccer game snack
frost in Florida
aaaaaa there in the crowded stacks warm with winter coats on
I bought a book by T.S. Elliot (I know Steve will be mad)
aaaaaa so to avoid a price hike we bought two bags
salt had been spread to keep students safe
aaaaaa a landing pad in the grass
but his poems were illustrated by Edward Gorey
aaaaaa a small peel goes well with wheat beer
the wood shook from the transfer of weight
aaaaaa not because it was cold, because it was alive.

set swing

Despite the sanding of wood &
tightening of screws, the swing
set in the backyard always
creaked & gave splinters.

Buried in slippery summer
hands--raisin pruned from the
pool or sweaty from a game
of tag--the shifting wood

fragments could be ignored

or brought to mother for surgery.

swing set (earth&memories)

ground between fingers after jumping
from the swing set, a landing pad
pierced the grass a

small cloud or poof of dust--
I can jump farther than you
higher than you

longer than you I am better
than you run faster than
you--rises & disappears

but we always land on the ground.

(retelling) hit and run

It wasn’t snowing but it certainly was grey
the way in which concrete reflecting off
concrete reflecting off steel can be &
my knee shot out--a bruise that shook through
The frame of a 70’s Schwin--limping not walking
gasping not breathing
after the accident.

911 took 40 minutes to come &
I wanted to ride in the back of the police car--
child locks and metal
mesh gratings a clear division of
power-- but the police are not a
public taxi service, even for those
with hit & run

busted bike wheels.

walk on campus (not a state poem but a rest stop for a snack)

The carbon cycle includes
converting CO2 to
oxygen through
photosynthesis
via plants.

naked
trees leave
the unrecycled
air cool & stale
with the scent of cheeseburgers.

There's no place like Kansas

There’s no place like
sunflower fields as far as the eye can see
the great plains where
people of the south winds
once hunted buffalo &
houses could fly from black & white
to colour.

There’s no place like
oceans of wheat
bending in the breeze
equidistance from
the Pacific & Atlantic,
a convenient central point
to start maps from.

There’s no place like
sharecropping in circles
and negros who speak of rivers
flowing from the state in
rural flight leaving
6,000 ghost towns
to the wind.

There is no place
like home.