Flight - from Neon journal
Two Birds Falling From Lime Twigs
Gliding toward the bottom I await
a sanctuary-smooth
silt floor with a solid ending
the border following all lightness and floating
where all lie together
at rest.
Turning to you
my thoughts escape and open ear:
How funny your form is, and mine too
like strange dogs swimming
in a school of fish.Your beauty stands with no reference now.
My eyes veer.
This begins my promise to you--
a flower without the prospect of pollen
and I a wingless bee.
You will have all that you need
and I would hold you if my arm weren't so
heavy.
Does it mean anything when I say that
to crush you would mean a death for me?
* Originally appearing in Permafrost, vol. 29, Summer 2007
The Sound
I used to think it was the blood vessels bursting in my brain
being forced from their path by a tumor, or
my high blood pressure causing the vessels
to balloon against my eardrum;
this terrified me for most of my life
yet today I was outside (watching the mountains recede) and I realized:
the noise I hear in my head is not "tinnitus"
it is the sound of the universe
of all motion happening at once--the sun
boiling, lava lamps by my face
auroras reflecting, swirling around
my bounding sockets I hear
Saturn's rings whipping about the nexus
the deep rumble of Jupiter turning
on its axis, spinning electrical storms and
the infinite number of pulsars, blinking on and off like clocks I hear
all radiation between
atomic particles, smashing and colliding against each other and think:
this might be disturbing for some but
I feel a lot better now
that I know what it is.
* Originally appearing in Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, vol. 5.
Thunderhead
Creosote rain seeps into the mangled brush.
Electric pink veins
disclose the pregnant horizon,
a heavy blue cream creeps in clotted boils.
Abysmal milk
yields to black and the mask
of trees
while, like wooden poles, we stand in stiff denial
under the dead daddy longlegs, feet curled
biting poison round the world--
the prints of ancient birds.
Drought
I treaded over the overgrown
park easement to find
a single seeding oleander too dry.
With no idea of the blossom's color,
I was convinced by
the bare tragedy of this plant,
unwatered and burnt.
Neglecting to fight, I picked
a slender pod parachute to lie in
a red clay pot outside. I waited
for a wee shooting sprout to rise,
grown not into its parent but
a healthy, strangled weed
that I could not destroy,
such a perfect motley youth to be
replanted in the yard behind
a bone-coyote fence.
* Originally appearing in The Binnacle, Fall 2006.
Woman, If We All Feel As Ugly, Who Are The Most Beautiful?
I lay here in the lamplight, afraid to be seen. Or--
if my arm were to fall off the bed and wander to the door
then maybe we could meet
outside,
and the coyote with birch wings would not seem so strange
as she winds around these stone-bedded trails.
Through the combed desert landscape
we would use this driving song
to guide us
away from that prickled fruit.
We would follow the musky trail of recognition
to what was forgotten
worlds ago.
Ensnared in twilight, we would smile at each other,
knowing why it never felt right
to be caught.
Apart from ourselves, we see worn and weary
what was woven to opaqueness
by our own bound hands.
It all lies torn and tattered before us,
these fraying unravelments;
it is hard now to imagine how they fastened like a skin.
* Originally appearing in Earthships Anthology: A New Mecca Poetry Collection, 2007.
HAIKU
I do not fear
it is safe now
my tigers are lined up
at the shore
a lost sea photograph
curling in the corner
where I fold away
looking at the sandwich
my mother made -
I cannot bear to eat it
a page falls from the binding -
the kettle calls out
from an empty room
* The first three originally appeared in Kokako, vol. 7, New Zealand.
Poetry by Miranda Merklein
