In Poems on
27 September 2008 with no comments
tonight i’ll sink into the earth
kiss her dark labia
wrap myself in vines
sing like a quivering spiral of leaves
i can hear the world turning
the sun still on my skin
i am deep in it
and i can hear the world clanging
in my ears in her furor
i am enraptured by trees
and can hear the world wiggle
beneath me in ecstasy
autumn comes, old man autumn
brown beard trailing on his shoulder
riding on rain,
old man autumn
it’s in the bones, autumn
ashes and cracked surfaces
your lips so suckable
the flirtatious wind
and the sweat-swollen bellies of clouds
everything’s in motion
even the rocks are alive
if i could be one
or could be a swaying tree
locked to the earth
but casting down leaves
like the kingdoms of men
i would sing an old tree song
from before the world had words
old man autumn’s coming,
leaves twined in his hair
thunder is his song
and he soothes with rain
tonight i will caress the earth
your tiny wrists strong
and sure as soil
crimson and orange
wet breath and warm fingers
whispering like the slow decay of plant life
green to red
i’m walking without shoes
green to yellow
i’m falling love again
green to brown
i’m settling in
green to orange
and i feel your ribs move when you breathe
elbows, legs, toes,
and i will eat the earth
grey skies and naked trees
i’m tied to the rhythm of the world,
its ample heart and wild blood
old man autumn on the doorstep
fevered and crazy-eyed
he’s here, the world can’t wait
and i want you, root and bone
i want you, give myself to earth
i want you, i’m drinking deep
i want you sleepy-haired and sweat-skinned
old man autumn here again
i am him
i want you
i’m the world
i want you
break me down
and take me,
take me,
take me home.
Podcast info: Keyboards, loops, speaking by John Paul Davis
Drums: Julian Addison
Trumpet: Mario Abney
Upright Bass: Chris Sloan
Recorded and mixed by John Paul Davis
Old Man Autumn [4:34m]:
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In Poems on
28 August 2008 with no comments
My sons, I’m your rabbit.
Right now, I seem quick, uncatchable.
Wait until I’m fragile in your arms
again; you’ll feel this heart
that once leapt strong and furious
through the wash of early spring
now flutters like a fast cranky bellows.
These will be my eyes darting
birdlike for signs of danger,
all of me trembling. I’ll be soft
and crushable. My bones will be yours
and our pulses will drum
together, syncopation of bloods.
Reach out, dear ones, with the birds
of your hands, feather your fingers
to the spaces I’m coming
into. This room, beloved, seems empty,
but will soon be filled with the rushing,
the darkness, the thirst, the racing joy
of me, quick, warm and moving mammal.
Reach out, darlings,
and catch me.
In Poems on
21 August 2008 with Comments Off
The world’s dog barks at you,
reminding you that while you sleep
the whole world
is going on without you.
Somewhere there are water puddles
and ducks being fed
and tricycles to ride
and cement mixers turning, turning
and some kid’s on a skateboard
and another’s in the sandbox
and yet another in the swing.
And specks of dust in evening light
dance and dance and climb
climb the air. There’s the moon
and the mourning dove
and a lawn mower
and half a sticker you’ve been holding
all night like a passport.
The world’s dog barks
but even she will turn
and turn
and turn
and lie down nose to tail
and dream of running
and sleep
and sleep both now
and unto the ages of ages.
Podcast info: Music and poem composed, performed and recorded by John Paul Davis.
Vespers [1:29m]:
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In Poems on
15 August 2008 with Comments Off
You feel surrounded.
How could you have known
your heart’s desire
was a square peg? After
a lifetime of having
been choreographed for other
people’s motions,
who knew there was a dance
you could fall
into that’d get your brain
glowing, your heart
pumping applause to your inner ear?
Having never been free
to move around, your dream
doesn’t know its own voice,
or wingspan. Practiced
at maneuvering covertly,
is it now paralyzed
on freedom’s threshold,
still dodging light?
Open space is nothing
to it but a sniper’s opportunity.
Does it crouch in doorways
then, afraid of sky? Knowing
that moneychangers & marketing
strategists stoop behind boulders,
cartoon coyotes with Acme TNT,
do you pray for a roadrunner’s
whirl of legs, its dustcloud speed?
Or a sapient urbane rabbit’s
magic finger to stop a rifle’s
barrel? How could you have
known believing in miracles
was prerequisite, & tears,
& vertigo, & open wounds
& a kind of surrender or hope
in something maybe spanning
over you, a strong hand of love.
You who want only to practice
kind living and healthy work
but find yourself huddled in shadow
hoping to slip beneath the radar
of multinationals & megachurches.
you roll petitions across your tongue,
hoping your legs are fast enough
to outrun creditors & critics.
You pray for a place in which the script
doesn’t require you to walk
blind, sharpen your incisors
or devolve into a new predator.
Podcast info: Programming, keyboards, speaking: John Paul Davis
Guitar: Tristan Owner
Bass: Eric Leonhardt Brown
Recorded, mixed by John Paul Davis
Enfilade [3:34m]:
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In Poems on
28 July 2008 with no comments
the sky’s a solid gray
that keeps moving north
we seem to have borrowed
warm air from another climate
the rain falls today
like it does on somebody
else’s town. evening
on the tip of our tongues,
it tastes like somebody
else’s wine. close your eyes
dear. let’s go out and hold
on to a cocktail. we’ll find
what we’re looking for.
today the thing i miss
about you most is your thoughts
as they climb silently
out from your burnt coffee eyes.
little ghosts, they can fill a room.
where are you? I want you to look
at me. I’m the house
your thoughts should be haunting.
In Poems on
10 July 2008 with no comments
Is there one book in which is written
the shape of my destiny
or many, and many destinies,
as many as there are stories?
Tonight I’m in the story
where you’ve sent me away again
not because of any crime,
but because owls have stolen away my words
and can only say things wrong-tongued.
The trickster monkey tugs
at the thread of our love
and it spills at my feet,
unwound, a useless pile.
This is the story where I toss
and turn through nights;
the stars rearranged
so I lose my way. I battle
the sea-serpent whose venom
fills the veins with fear.
When I wake I’ve strangled
my twisted bedsheets, hoarse with dry
poems shouted into my pillow.
So tell me a different story,
beloved. Kiss my eyelids, circle
your arms around me like wings,
wrap me in kind words.
Tell me the story where the desert
sand cooks my feet but you’re there
at the oasis with aloe and spring water.
Tell me the story where the sun
reaches a tendril down to earth
to scorch me but the song
you sing bends it back to cold, cold space.
Flutter your kisses over me, shoo away
the biting minutes, burn your love’s lighthouse
out across the barren sea,
sail down to me, glorious lady
of my mind, from the seventh sphere,
and guide me home, guide me to love.
In Poems on
24 December 2007 with no comments
Supposing the angel come to you
with its prophecy or demand,
a child to be born of you
or one to be taken to the mountain
to be eaten by the god. Supposing
you were given a scroll to eat,
or a word to speak. Would you
be Mary, swollen with the appearance
of sin, celebrated only by pagans
and the poor, destined for loss
as the price of your gift. Would you
praise the god for the suffering
you’ll be given or would you
pray take this cup from me.
For one night of an angel-lit sky,
a supernova and a chapter
in a gospel, would you
take the blessing’s sorrow,
the heartache and bleeding?
When the angel comes to you,
offering to untie your life,
sift you like wheat, would you
be born again, would you
swim into the longest night?
There’s only one person
you’ll become, and when the angel
slices heaven and steps
through with your calling
will you take its firey
hand, will you feel, for the first
time, the hymn of your pulse
ringing through the burn
and face what you were always
meant to be? Your suffering?
That’s the star that summons
sages from their desert caves
to find you, learn the hallowed
sliver of truth you were sent
to the world to sing.
In Poems on
21 September 2007 with no comments
It explodes out of a pile when I sort the dirty laundry,
just like mine, but too too small and momentarily
I’m disoriented, thinking mine had shrunk
somehow while waiting to be washed
when really it’s yours, forgotten
in the rush to get you back home
to a place that’s no longer mine,
where your tiny voice is the loudest sound
caroming off the walls in the room
where I used to write poems like this one.
Not too many days ago this shirt was pressed
against mine that looks just like it, your arms
branched out of it and around my neck
tight, sweaty, heat of your urgent breath
an ocean in my ear as you whisper
that you love me again now that I don’t live
in your red house anymore. Your heart, rabbit-quick,
and the tide of your lungs and your restless spine
filled it, the shirt that looks just like mine.
What could I do? I pressed my tears into it,
not for regret, but simply because I miss you,
because I want so much more for you than to one
day fill my shirt, because the world
is a thing we break ourselves against
and I, broken so many times, knew your
first breaking was coming but did it have to be now,
couldn’t it wait, did it have to be so soon?
In Poems on
1 August 2007 with no comments
You don’t have to hear voices,
hallucinate, or be clawed by unrelenting fear.
You don’t have to hole up in a belltower
peering down through a sniper’s scope
or devise elaborate schemes
to overthrow the government.
You don’t have to talk to yourself,
steal things you don’t need
or drink yourself down to darkness.
You just have to ask a question
no one wants asked, walk on the grass,
take a path not shown on the map.
No need to break down in the canned
fruits aisle with everyone watching.
Just stop smiling when you’re not happy
or stop praying when God quits answering.
Why bother with multiple personalities
or schizophrenia when you could just get angry
when the gears and talons of the powerful
cut the small and meek?
Don’t meddle with depression:
just be sad when you’re lonely,
cry when you need it,
laugh when things are funny.
Just be gay or black
when the world demands straight
and white, just be woman and strong
when the world wants girl and weak,
just be poor and outraged
when the world wants hands
for the assembly line.
Forget the paranoia. Far more effective
to be unafraid. Ignore the terror alerts,
the killer bees, the bird flu, the killer
storm. Stop looking over your shoulder,
stop caring what they hear at the other
end of the wire, stop worrying if you’ll
be fired or if you’re sexy enough,
or smart enough, or trendy. That’s enough
right there, stop worrying,
or really, just try making
the slightest bit of sense
and watch. They have a term
for what you are already, a webpage
and a self-help book. They’re praying
for you, and know the five step plan
by heart. They looked it up,
they’re ready to tell you,
the reason you want to sing
when you have a song,
there’s a pill for that, and hours
on the couch, pouring out your
story to a friend-for-hire
whose story you will never hear.
If you want to be crazy,
no need to pile up bodies
in the basement or drink
the spiked kool-aid.
Just refuse the money,
visit Africa, find the bright
line you need to walk
and walk it, unashamed,
clumsy, but head held high.