all the real things in life are invisible

all the real things in life are invisible:

love, spirit, joy, dreams;

real because they last forever and cannot be

destroyed by time and wear and tear.

 

they may change and convert into other forms:

hate, pain, despair, greed;

but they do not ever disappear—

they only shift:

 

not right before your eyes,

because to the mortal eye

they are unseen—

they can only be felt.

 

and this is why they are real.

this is why they last beyond mortality,

decay, corruption, passing away.

this is why we love tiny furniture:

 

concrete objects we can manipulate while

playing god; playthings that placate before

they break, disintegrate, fall into the earth,

get swallowed up by the energies.

 

we are spirits seeking spirits, wearing masks, boots,

threads, things that give us weight, things that make us

follow them, that make us tread softly and slowly

through water and sand, through this fluid wasteland.

green glass door

if you’re going to
wake it up, you
better know how
to put it to sleep;

opening the cage at
the back of the
throat, setting that
lone bird free.

the silhouette of might:
fueling to felling to
feeling to steeping
to flying

high above the gravity
of being gone, spun hard
and too soon from
a bamboo neck.

waiting is harder.
a long spin of
need; of wanting every
thing to matter again.

in the mean time
it is the
matter
that matters.

unable to use energy
to turn it into
energy
just yet;

holding onto the
objects we have
touched every day
for years

because they are ours,
because we have owned them
and moved them
and made them

while breathing
in the
tall silos
of time:

sitting perfectly
still, silting at galaxy
speed inside the eye of

for ever;

inside the utter silence
of your self while
teeth like
tomb stones

take the wear and weather
of days, the stark
white bite sharp against
heels and eyes.

never stop hunting the human spirit.

moving forward this
giant chess piece of
life, this organ body

holding, playing, splaying
light and music and weeping
over nights of
confessional hills:

trees forgiving

something galloping

spoons clinking

flowers stretching

cards shuffling

green glass flying

grass whispering

bones bending

will crying

peaches summering.

how close to the cliff,
how huge the moon,
how empty and full the
song of hope.

Paintings by Olivia Santiago

our house divided

inside this body are seasons:

orange, brown, white, black, green, pink.

they oscillate in the wind; they keep

trying to tell me who i am.

 

i am a book of years wrapped in

ribbons of non-time; i am matter and

anti-matter dancing along a loop of infinity.

we still do not know what lies at the core.

 

each month i unwrap one year;

every few days is a new moon,

waxing and waning with terror and beauty,

hunger and spirit, numbness and nothing.

 

no one can tell me who i am.

i must move this spectrum through space,

cutting closer to the center:

galvanized by love, rage, curiosity, grace.

 

if you have ever sustained anyone of any age,

you know the cycles we take: trays, cups, utensils, bottles,

napkins, needles piled up all over the house—pills counted

and swallowed, like stuffing wishing coins into a cuckoo clock.

 

we perch and hang onto the edges until we can

no longer fight the urge to lie down, to face

our house divided, to be horizontal like the rolling hills,

waving and watching from a great depth-distance.

fire wall

 

think with the body

every thing

is in a state of

change

 

loose lips

living works

torched

everything is in a state of change

 

energy. matters.

the noun moves the verb:

 

makes love to its

self not in sex but in

love-thinking down

to its center

 

particle by particle

until the sum of its

loud quiet parts tips

a hand and for one

 

evening-span makes

a slip of sense.