How to know the Underworld

I am full of puns

pros and cons

I am full of pores

I am bound —

tethered

when I forget —

( A game I play ) I fracture

my

cells

Dis-place the self

put the pieces on a shelf

in lines I fling it all across :

to a back room

all is : hung

the air : a residue constrained — lingers in

foreign citrus

bright perfume

leaking through

I find in other places : new spaces

connect the dots within

My hands bound red

a string attached

to a wandering kite I’m caught onto

i walk as stained

a red balloon : red dot in the sky

moon is swollen full

the feet they know

I don’t see — but feel through :

this fertile mulch —

I’m plunged into —

a blue herring slipping past

A motion

( notion )

— wisps fall out —

re-framed :

I pulled the crown from the roots

( one day ) —

like shadows caught

( they are ) one by one

strung

a chime : counting jewels one by one

tumbling out —

they roll onto ( a red room floor )

they come

arrive ( again )

leave a stain —-

a seed :

a longing green

a drape laid

laughing : Aphrodite’s teeth start sparks

small embrace —

now all is h ush

little rustle : a season sighs

a wind — he shifts

half in place

sifts stories above

strung to lines —

the hand leaves traces

weaves pieces

A dense thrush of green

gold leaking through

I take all of it in

inhale it all into my lungs :

part the seams with a word ,

( Noah does the same : the ocean floor exposed )

Salt breath

tongue : a fish

Sea story

womb knows

green the colour of the stars below

my feet hung above

REPRISE

[

All’s upside down in this room tonight , Alice

I caught it in the headlights

near a street light

He crushed the yellow bug

on a cross

]

ENCORE —

This refraction is a reflection

the reflection , a refraction

found in broken colour across this floor

Now I find anew —

these lullabies in riverways

Yellow clouds above :

lids of lilies’ eyes —

I am laden with them

Pour a pitcher of mint tea ; she said

I crossed passion off my list today

I stand : without

With an : other

Mirror image : flips yourself inside out —

All reversed

( This )

time within

These seas i carry

These angles lines —

an edge they catch —

Labrys cuts it through

leaves sparks at night —

and angels fly because they are made of light ,

QUESTION :: WHAT IS IT

[ But there’s Something dark ahead —

And something I’ve never seen before

Appearing to me now

From a faraway abyss

a cold white plane

a rising rounded horizon line

An alien labyrinth I hear nearby

behind : creeping out in night — ]

I keep you hooked

whispers tattooed to the backs of my ears

I am wearing you in copper pieces —

The cat’s : a purr

Pull : the flower out again

Plant the weeds

these fish a scale

redemption found in pieces

placed across

speak it all backward to me in tongues —

woven into rhyme

A movement : cliff —

a brea(d)th expanded : lip

inhale the air

these salty lungs

extract the sticky (s)tar bits

inside out

red hands they glean

onto shimmery things

they lay things below —

I’m the cat toying

eating

your hair

each night

once I

washed it

in the river of chamomile flowers —

first grade

now

I am laying underneath

below

alongside

unknowable blue

Simulated —

stimulating myself through

white water waves

sung

now in the old tunes made anew —

fingers get hot —

Vibrate out —

red hot marks —

Chinese hot plates flush my face

Indian spice fills my mind

cargos shipped

as I remember you lying —

As the logos did :

a yellow figure in a sea of threshold blue —

Weeds : a thresh —

thrashed open

through —

My green king fell

down on to the forest floor

3 3 times

Again again

The king is dead

again :

grandfather yells — little newsboy on the streets

From Russia he’d come , I think

Floating in

on a :

new yolk

all a joke

The sky was blue

he said

Look up !

There :

fractur(ed) space

eye find anew :

place in piece

Snake cuts through :

weaving between lines

shedding his skins

A SONG

[ While Yellow cabs like thoughts or cogs and sun drenched clouds roll by ]

The fog is growing thicker

And today may not be a beach day : I am hearing thunder

( Maybe not ) —

But something is coming

just below my chin : in my dreams cut in red —

A fruit stand dripping

re-members me

This is how I find — reprise

I peer into these little green lenses you left — cracked open now

you reach a disembodied hand out of a cardboard box

stored in a closet now —

discarded embrace ,

I eat dirt

you serve to me on Tiffany plates

I put the river stones around the boughs of a willow tree

her wrists were hung / He dressed it as a mannequin

Orange panther shirt with navy denim jeans :

I have no pockets in these women’s cloths so I follow the spider —

A wind-ed thread

Red stone cut in nasa rock

rumbles through

tumble show

corpse body is howling

open mouth speak !

illuminate me ,

I move :

- Move in blue feet / stained in dream

- Red hands / to be bound next week

- Yellow thoughts / a : sticky substance that contain the sun

a threshold near the marshes green

a thread of mucus I throw out to —

a line of music

this unknowable —

passion

a sea dream bleeds

colours tinted through a glass of honey —

market for your wares

A cathedral dress I wear

a compass to follow :

Like little fireflies

blue fingernails that gleam in

Red fairy-lights rest a top —

stretched out over the frame : bars not build / once built / one day : is built

Catching the edges of drift wood —

Lightening strikes

the Songbird’s wings clipped —

I Fell out

Out of a nest the other night

He boiled the eggs this morning

I stay within

again

Crack me open :

I am in a cave

he left 3 cans of sardines inside

A yellow yolk sits between a bowl of sea soup made from China blue

winking : a mask the mad moon wears

I am a bush :

Called by a name

A fire caught your fingers one day &

the green leaves me in daisy chains

for now :

while red river snake

( I’ve heard it called the Nile , Red Sea too )

follows the belly of a stony path —

just below

tipping an edge

a blade left on the table

a thing to look through .

under this translucent piece of glass

his palms grow sweaty

it’s raining here again , I say

and rub the wax the bees left buzzing at my feet

hoping this will dry them out

he pats down his wet hair

rolls it into honey

makes things with smooth edges

the cat’s a purring spine —

a landing till

panic falls with grace .

but panics now a bird

The yellow he told too much

But I see

through extractions

of things :

these eroticized concoctions

tinctures I drink

that teach me how to touch an alien

and find you over and over again —

Earth speak to me

Stones : are a floor

while I hang here on this edge —

metals hook me to a place

Waves move through me

Sun on my breath

Sea in my eyes .

Underworld — I am eternally yours .