Last Years Worm Moon Mother-Son Poem Exchange

Son:


hugely orange worm moon rising
set the earth again to moving
--the writhing of her worms

flourish! dirt-movers
take to dancing your
thawed ground ways!

incite the songs of spring!






Mother:


Crocuses fully bloomed
Daffodils bursting
Pansies firmly planted on the porch
Rebirth renew relief
Rejoice! in the constancy of her cycles






Son:


the Yellow Trumpets have sounded!
surely they know this rounding best
--those pioneers of spring

the clouds play games of light
on the waking webs of green
robins swirl their hunger-dances
my soul too, thawing
in the sun we share.






love you mom.

Death, Thou comest

when I had Thee least in mind.

-Everyman

Nicotiana

o take me death-leaf

take and press me

with your thumbs of smoke

into the earth

that I may lay with an open head

and become the hillside;

indistinguishable as dirt,

as black clouds

that pass the moon

at midnight

but the birds are singing!

it is spring!

still,

I've died this time,

relinquished my breath

with the equal night

and only with spring

was born all over

o that

deaths head hawk moth

that came and tongued the anthers

when my mind became

the comet flower

whispered something as it flew

something only heard

by the gone beyond

thus

I know

I have not gone

the curving earth

the curving earth

turns

i smoke

and lower down

a

tobacco death

at noon

the days question:

do the birds each morning

make agreements with

the wind?

hey!

mountain!

you're a sun swallower

O Stars

o stars
what can be done?

o stars
late i face the cold wind
to pee and end up staring
at your shimmering far
past the time my skin starts
cooing for the bed-warmth again

o stars
you rarely speak
in fact you're mute
the way i wish i was sometimes;
never have to try to tell a lover
where your love went
never have to hear your own
voice on the toilet in the dark
"fuck, what have i done?"
or
"i should write that letter
to my grandmother"

o stars

you always send

the same dull light

and fade just when i need you most;

at the flowering of dawn

when i can no longer hide

in the shadows of moonlight

and hope i remain

unseen before the human world

counting the silences of stars

Dried-up Sea Bottom Blues

i'm the big fool
who's laughing now?
no one i know

its like i wove
this net as if i didn't know
i'd be the one drowning in it

and not without tangling
a few beautiful creatures
in it before i sink

but oh that deep
silence at the bottom
beckons still

and the darkest blue
i've never seen
is waiting for me there

the only incongruity?
the ocean left
this lonesome place
a million years ago