New Work Workshop #2

Assignment – imagine walking through a beautiful wood and coming upon a cabin. In the cabin is a chest, and in it a single piece of clothing, clearly there just for you. What is it? What does it feel like to wear it?

Sky Skin

Everything. Shirt, robe, cloak, sari,
warm wool socks, lightest linen shroud, the sky skin
is every kind of cloth worn in every era.

Sky over trees, sky over seas,
sky over skyscraper, sky over desolation—
these are the same sky
the skin of the earth.

In my sky skin my veins
become rivers
my breasts mountains
my eyes clouds
my mind opening to the universe itself.

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Sky Skin

Everything. Robe, cloak, shroud, vestment, habit,
gown, cape, kimono, burqa, shawl, mantle, peignoir—
sky skin is every kind of cloth
ever wrapped, molded, to a body.
And more. But less.

Gossamer?
Not light enough
for how I slide it on
and become boundaryless

but bound to the earth.
The gravity in this situation.

Sky shaping trees, sky stirring seas,
sky scraped, sky gauzed over desolations—
the dermis of the earth, its hide. Space restrained.
Oceans contained.

Slipped into my sky skin my veins
become rivers
my breasts mountains
my eyes clouds
my scalp, stretching, bares my mind
to the universe itself.

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New Work – 10 Commands

our charge – write 10 commands, pretty much as fast as we could write them down. These, or variations of them, will keep popping up in the various new work workshop poems. And they were fun to write!

10 Commands

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love yourself as you could love another.

You are obligated and you damn well know it.

Love me damn you.

Fix it. Just shut up and fucking fix it.

Do everything, anything, everything to find an answer, and then act on it already.

Stop searching and start seeing.

Make it so!

Act as if women mattered.

Get out of the middle of your life.

New Work Workshop #1

assignment – write a 5 line poem using images from three earlier brainstorming exercises. Make it image heavy.

It’s a first draft, folks, and that’s rarely pretty.

The World is a Moon Bounce

The world is a moon bounce and falling off
is inevitable. But easy, landing ass first
in soft hay at the bottom of the old barn, in the middle
of your life where your grandmother’s skin
waits to wrap you warm. Just so.

________________________________

The World is a Moon Bounce

and falling off is inevitable but
easy as landing ass first

in soft hay in the old barn
in the middle

of your life where your grandmother’s
skin waits to wrap you warm,

just so—as if her flesh could pull you
back from over the edge of the world.