Postcard 159

You are the ocean in my arms
I'm desperate to be warm and dry
You're the ocean in my arms
Your water's cold, your waves are high

You're the ocean in my arms
and not a drop to drink
You're the ocean in my arms
I sink. I sink. I sink

The Sea, the Sea!
Ceto's fright is Ceto's hold
The sailors' stories are desperate told

You're the ocean in my arms
What part of you is it I'm holding?
You're the ocean in my arms
and I am finally drowning

You're the ocean in my arms
You're soft, You're full. You're wet
You're the ocean in my arms
I'm crushed beneath your depths

The Sea, the Sea!
It's old Poseidon's awful hand
The sailors' stories are only told on land

You're the ocean in my arms
Your water fills my lungs
You're the ocean in my arms
I'm done for. I am done

You're the ocean in my arms
I feel the pull of that old moon
You're the ocean in my arms
I know the songs they sing of you

Postcard 158

You are the ocean in my arms
I hear the songs men write of you
You're the ocean in my arms
I feel the pull of that old moon

You're the ocean in my arms
Oh how I long for land
(You're the ocean in my arms)
...someone warm and dry as sand

The Sea, the Sea!

St Elmo's fire a crackling blue

The sailors' stories are lies but true

You're the ocean in my arms
I'm swept up in your strong currents
You're the ocean in my arms
I have hope for neither mean nor ends

You're the ocean in my arms
Beneath the surface, placid & blue
You're the ocean in my arms
Do you hold me or I hold you?

The Sea, the Sea!
Between Circe and sirens tie true and tight
The sailors' stories are guiding lights

You're the ocean in my arms
Who knows what will become of me?
You're the ocean in my arms
And I am lost at sea

You're the ocean in my arms
You waters cold, your waves are high
You're the ocean in my arms
I'm desperate to be held  -- safe and dry

Postcard 157

Pictured opposite: A form suspended, diamond shape, carbon black, before -- what are those, cliffs? -- before green cliffs under a night sky. It is the desert, we infer, and the single blue star -- she is Venus. Beneath the floating form: six wealthy men, their faces obscured by blank speech. About them are ornate jugs full of rare fluid. The man in purple fancies himself a leader, a man of action and here is his chance. The man over his shoulder believes the real chance will be his. Neither care for what. The man in stripes has dropped to his knees to worship the shape, hoping it is the right shape to fill him. Don't these three make a familiar trio? The next three are another known trio. One sees an opportunity to slip away with a pot. He will likely succeed. The other two think him small minded. They compete in avarice. One is trying to roll up all the pots in the purple rug. But look, with the opposite corner of the rug, that man has forgotten all about the pots. He hopes to capture the form. They will surely upset each others plans. Six fools deluded by power and fortune, where is only their same-stuffs, carbon and water. Venus looks on

Postcard 156

Heathen hordes are swarming at the gate! Bar it, buttress the wall. Good faith is through for the huddled sick and poor. See what happens when you leave open your front door!

Ok, I will. I will leave the door unlocked to my home. Its old, it barely closes anyway, cockeyed with warm smudged paint and leaning old wood bones. We have no foyer, no wide and empty halls. Just a busy kitchen, little living room, three fogged glass bedrooms and some pictures on the walls. We have very little here to steal, and what we have we freely give: books and food and whiskey, conviviality, and snuggles from us our cat our dogs our kids. Of things that warm a cold and weary soul and body, we have a bounty. Take them please, they are free.

But there are wicked people in the world. with strong hands for violence, tongues and eyes bred for treachery and lies

Perhaps, but still, I will leave my front door open. See, my house is filled with life: warm bodies living, wayfaring most days and nights. A wealth that's value defends itself, that cannot be idle in safe in bag on shelf. And finally, around us is a neighborhood sharing more than gated threat. It is a known community. Our street flows with good will and looking out.

Yes I will leave my front door open and see what will happen. Though I know already -- we will be safe as life and take its risks as given

Postcard 155

And what will I feel?

You will feel that sharp dropping longing replaced by empty anxiety

Like a man with his last match, you will feel the wet fear of cold

and then the easy warmth of immersion

You will feel the firmament slip away like parents of a sleeping child

move down to sipping whiskey and warm rooms -- the resting of a smaller world

You will feel your own moments gently stripped away like scales

and you will see them dance irridescent as wind shaped rain across the face of big waters

You will feel thirstily drunk from by every single thing

and you will feel your shores recede

You will feel in the fingers that you call your own

the fine thread pull-through of pain unstitched from pleasure

You will feel the friction heat of steady spindled spool
-- smooth wood on spinning wood -- gathering and binding wool
each bunch of fibers a certain sheep's own dirt and oily lanolin
The thread a flock distilled

You will feel fear. You will feel fear
and you will feel the centrifuge about which it spins
you will feel the hole which pulls you through

Postcard 154

What will you see?

 You will see a woman and a child walking across the grass under haze-filtered sun.

She holds a bag. They hold hands and cause eddies in a muddy river of pain.

You will seen hosts of common birds swirling and diving about them

Their paths are, each, marks of your own desires.

You will see the horizon spread at your outstretched hands

You will look on mountains with pride

You will grip clay and shatter obsidian

Shale will slide under your calm feet

You will see sand ground and moved and feel grateful relief

You will touch the slight lines of your own face

You will see your loved ones weather with age and fill with a comfortable despair

Time slides around unseen and leaves like crisp air

You will watch dispassionate, pain and pleasure flow unceasing

batter your body like a wave beaten pier

You will see the world you made, the self you made become unsustained

Conflagrate as an offering to a fire

You will feel the weight of praise and swell with righteous pride

You will see a march of ants in your sink, caught by spiders, hefting dead flies

and seasons blinking by will wash your eyes

You see yourself their progeny

You will finally feel humble and free

Your familiar cat will mount your chest and purr

You will realize and forget, forget and realize

You will realize and forget

Postcard 153

It has been that we are base, venal and mean.
Sure, I have some flesh between my teeth
The world is wilderness.

We got beer-can cannons,
heterodoxing any priest we see
We got streetlight sway.
Red means burn baby burn
Jersey barriers & California speed rails.

Neon baby, metal fucking halide, L.E.D.
Light em up out on hwy 80, bright as freeway night
Build our walls up from the air, cluster bombs and tracer lights
Green is go, pickup baby, shrapnel, fucking IED.

This land is my land, built on venereal,
diesel and steam. This land is your land.
It has been that we are invasive, noxious fumes and weeds.
I have this wont wash red stuff all over me,
on my hands, I mean...

flyover highway walls dropped all around.
Arc light, glass blown sand, twin overhead cam
glass packed -- clear empty and serene

Postcard 152

circle six
sixty rad
symmetry
hexagon's
space suffice
structure strong
shape secure
wields security
all sides hard
held bees know
a bee knows
nothing gets
loose nine eight
three neat hectare
acres to ares
bound by bind
brick wire bar
twine zip tied
secure in case
just encase
cease bees no
he can she
can't they cannot
mark strike
line by line
circle six
Hecate cross
persist no
bees regular
cyclic tangential
tile the plane
tessellate
aegis by refuge
criss cross christ!
whirl refused line
tight efficiency
no bees know
isotox by
isogen beckon
Hecate flame
all this know
Queen of Drones
is no queen

Postcard 151

It is a strange kind of special to be, he tells me, and takes a drink
I don't mind it, and even most the old hands would rather not
These trees here, he gestures before us with the glowing bottle,
I'd take em out. Then we'd see the stars
The trees, unmoving, hold the glow of our woody fire
He had been talking to me about killing cows
I had not said a word and maintained my silence
I wondered about the trees
Every herd needs to get culled, he went on,
cleaned out of the ones got no more use
His eyes were glassy in this outward introspection
I just walk up and do it quick
No feelings about it at all
I'm not pathological. I've thought about it
He, again, brings bottle to his lips
I feel things, but you've got no use, its time to be out of the way
Its a strange special to be, but its got to be done, culling the herd
We sat for a bit in quiet
the fire's crackle
the bottled swish
His eyes were hard and dry, but his mouth flowed wet
filling the dark low places around us
Cull is about the worst thing you can call a man
Make a lot of enemies that way, call a man cull

Postcard 150

My lover's hands are imminent

They are a net of fine scars

My lover's hands disappear in me

Is it they curl with that morning pain

They are always set there like dusty sacks

My lover's hands are concrete

He spreads them out before me 

on a desk beneath his dusky eyes

The desk creaks, a clear plane 

beneath them do not

The morning sun is dusty

His hands are clean. He 

washed them in the workshop 

sink with rough soap

Everything that set them there

was imminent

His hands, my lover's, are contingent

It was a certain blade that cut

this board intimate

another blade, bitter blood

that snapped

My ring wraps his finger. It is

the only ring, right now

that softly raps

That scar was first sight of blood

the only child behind his gentle eyes

The other knuckle strip a cloud there,

a man's weak moment. 

My lovers' hands are imminent