if we’re
counting
sylla-
bles be-
cause each
counts, what
does that
say ‘bout
words, but
words too
must count
of course—but
what about
first things first—
what about
breath—that
counts too
of course
for everything…
**
we speak, stutter, sometimes stop
only a bit before flow leaks, explodes,
reveals, wavers, sings along, slows
and breath we’ve been following
catches up, settles…we see,
collect and again speak…
I didn’t know that I’ve known
the muscularity of speech, the physicality
of language making itself bodily
through us, bodily—say the word
that’s passing by, aloud
or not, we feel it
just the same,
like the curls on tongue and fingers alike
as we write,
lipped acts and sensations, breathed:
compressed-expanded energies
collecting-disbursing exchanged signals,
converging currents of being
being alive—we speak
of senses, of five portals, but there is
this sixth not spoken of as such perhaps
because
something else seems
to be going on—
yes, we see, we hear, and we say
we speak, but it’s equally true and more so
maybe to say language speaks,
language speaks to us, of us, words tell
us: what’s that we see, what’s that we hear,
and yes, tell us our thoughts
and feelings too—
yes, we learn, early, a language, or two,
but to learn a language is to learn what
that language is saying
so we can learn to say too—language speaks,
we hear and we learn
to say,
again and again
we learn—
to learn to listen to hear
is to learn more and more
what there is to say
the morning glory
tentacle reaches, reaches—
passing currents pass
**
scribble, scratch
multiple
framed photos
of people
died and gone
looking out
from somewhere
shared but passed
send me warm
memories
scratch, scribble
**
at work, at rest
in the yard in the sun,
even questions
can’t hold in place
simplicity fluttering
glinting leaves
full with sun-lit lifting…
breathing
**
waking this morning,
nothing to do, everything done
fluttering here and there
**
just off to the left,
what I’ve known all along
waits without so much
as a whisper,
fully operational
**
not a paid subscriber,
my voice un-aloud
,
I ask of morning
what day might hold
by just listening
**
getting up at night
to pee—the sheets save
the body’s warmth
**
—the wife
muffled kitchen sounds
mean morning waiting-time
passes—swallowed meds
need rest awhile before
coffee finds its way in
**
the frog on the shelf
in the living room says nothing—
no water anywhere
**
we rest often now,
often nap, for no reason
in particular
**
whatever someone
I might have tried to be,
this one will do
**
the roller tip pen
ink doesn’t pull at the page
to slow words to think—
they just pour out like this,
morning quiet left speechless
**
whatever it is,
this writing way, passing words
pulling random thoughts
**
a brushed beep—
a car’s horn
in morning
swallowed
**
myriad thoughts trickle
and run unchecked
impressions clicking, glinting
openings opening open…
**
some mornings
even over
eighty
seem somehow
something
new—writing
different ways
to better
feel newness
linger
like scenting summer flowers
**
resonance…
writing is the bell
poems sound
**
circling hawk calls
distinct, unmistakable
to knowing ears…
clouds
sky
