here's some type of tree,

Into the River Now Parting the Reeds

In the mud are shoeprints and there are parallel lines carved into the
bark, they’re deep trenches so the sap runs out.
 
I’m watching the river flow off, this is a wide river enclosed by birch
trees the branches all hung with flowers.
 
It feels like a storm but it’s really only the white flowers.
 
I’ve lit a fire the light’s spreading from it. I can see everything from
this coin-operated telescope.
 
The sky’s clear, I remember someone was talking about contrails or
chemtrails.
 
I’m unwrapping this one tree trunk so I can roll tobacco in the bark,
the pouch is under my hat.
 
There’s a flat blade on the ground in amongst the feathers. The sun’s
reflecting off of it.
 
The woods I’m emerging from are pretty thick, there are some stumps
and then the trees opening out.
 
Here comes a rush of water. I’m harvesting reeds with a flat blade I
found. In a tent with food dangling over.
 
I’m tapping on a hollow gourd. Some hollow logs are leant up into a
shelter and now I’m hitting those at the same rate.
 
Visualising the water starting to freeze over. There’s a buzzard riding
on the wind, it’s circling now.
 
Lightning hits a telephone pole but it’s fine, the wires have been taken
off. I’m beginning to think there’s some regularity.
 
Finding a woven sheet, folded over a rock. Someone’s dropped a
hammer I can hear it falling close by. There’s also a long linen dress.
 
I’m ashing my cigarette onto some moss. I need to brush off the salt
that’s all over my jeans.
 
I can see a cruise liner and a fishing boat, both kind of far out and the
road bridge up closer to the mouth.
 
There’s an old car headed straight across painted like a turtle. I’m
picking up a fossil rotating it slowly. My hand’s bandaged.
 
I’m feeling the ripples from the port, the beacon tower looks like a
watchtower.
 
In the process of making a pile of reeds to shelter in. There’s a plume
of smoke coming from a clearing.
 
I’m probably inhaling spores, there are splinters right near my eye.
The slope’s so steep I have to pull myself up.
 
There are loads of seeds being carried on the wind. I’m washing my
left then right hand and spitting my toothpaste out into the shallows.
 
Standing on a concrete ramp that goes down into the water. I’m
pushing my hand forwards thru air my palm’s covered in graphite.
 
Several fish have been laid on the ground. I’m covering everything
with a tarp and trying to find a cave to keep wood dry in.
 
The pickup truck’s flooding and there’s someone throwing pots off the
back scooping out water with a saucepan.
 
I’m sure a bird’s scraping the concrete bridge with its claws.
 
I’m counting a pile of smooth stones and keeping my eyes closed.
The counting’s starting to yield some results.
 
This light was left on overnight I think, it’s casting my silhouette onto
the trees. I can feel a low humming.

(Source: shoulddoes.com)

Dulcimer Maker

For Edd Presnell

(Source: the-salad-days.org)

Birdwatching

When the streetlights come on it’s not a minute too soon. There’s a car radio playing but the frequencies are a little tinny for my liking. I’m sitting up this tree. I can tell that the crows and ravens are in some way keeping score. Thirty seconds or so later, the hills stop shaking. As a statistician I find both this and my own reaction to it most unusual. I’m paying careful attention to any fluctuations in temperature. Each sound that is made is immediately followed by another sound. I take off my shoes and socks and climb a little farther up the tree. A cuckoo tries to push me from my position in the branches. I’ve already made a gas mask from piss and potash, but I can still smell overripe fruit. The gorse around here is abnormally high at this point, and mostly on fire. The wind picks up and the last few leaves are evenly distributed. A short distance away there are bears of some kind gesturing at each other. I strip as much bark as I can carry and empty my pockets. I think about shouting “I can see you” a few times but decide against it. The wind and radio stop exactly two seconds before the streetlights go out, leaving everything perfectly still.

(Source: shoulddoes.com)

recordsfromlastyear:

We’re carrying huge blocks of ice tied up with laptop cables.
This is through tobacco fields, and some dude rancher in a
mustang’s gunna drive by. It maybe wasn’t such a good plan
to leave the nearest city, there’s so much light pollution
at night. Back at the house I’m boiling vegetables
with a little bit of honey. It stopped raining a while ago
but the phone signal out here isn’t great. I wrote you
a letter on torn-out bible pages and you read it a few times,
I could see you reading it. Back into town, then. In a low voice,
I tell the child in a photo to stop crying.

This is the first post from my current project. Next one tomorrow!

Wednesday is Obama Day

After coffee I’m showering with shampoo, this is my Obama beard
and I’m making Obama pancakes. Slightly too much baking powder
and the butter and maple syrup forming a coalition. Michelle rubs
a palm on my really short hair. Talking to you you seem pretty relieved
getting tickets and a week off in January on a plane the size up from a 747.
Someone’s blasting Obama BasedGod [actual title] but with not enough
bass. By the afternoon I’m walking round the Obama lake with headphones,
waving a massive flag. There are only a few moorhens and some dude
fly-fishing under a birch or beech tree. It’s starting to cloud over
and get chillier, I end up putting on four more layers, my raincoat
with Obama’s face on it. Here are my daughters with pretty names
and their tongues attached to flagpoles by the cold. We start to watch
the video again, everybody’s faces like laptops being left out to dry.

Local News

Subsidies here, this is corn syrup 
on my free pancake. Again I’m sitting 

at the counter in Olde Waffle same time 
as usual. Local news on mute, 

like in the waiting room of the ER 
with you, another TV was some gory 

medical drama. We waited and watched 
how in Johnston County someone 

robbed a bank, Wells Fargo maybe, for 
small change, made off on a push-bike. 

You said something like ‘typical JoCo’. 
But it seemed nice enough, we drove 

around the days after Thanksgiving 
to enjoy the houses, remind myself 

that I’m in Carolina. That I made it 
over after the sleepless nights in 

Bedfordshire, what I thought was country 
on headphones

—————————————————————————

New poem of mine over at Should Does.

Walk at Ayr Mount

6/29/2012

aborigines use ancestral landmarks not themselves
for directions, the place a point, an origin. for instance,
ten miles north of ayers rock, not ‘first track on

the right’. we’re however far south of ayr mount
in a mostly piney wood, it’s 102° but feels like
107. i’m sweating a lot but we’re braving the middle

of the day heat because i only have a week and a half
left in orange county, in north carolina, with you.

NY/NC/NV

[photo courtesy of Elizabeth Maney]

bu7ch3r_h0g

An Evening In

At ten thirty the tiger moths’ incessant thuds
against the bathroom window finally broke through,
smashing the lights, and in the fresh dark we found
the skittering of wings off-putting when we tried to piss.

We watched TV downstairs with the sound on full
while they ate our towels and laid eggs amongst the bristles
of our toothbrushes. After the news we took turns
at the basin, tasting nothing through the toothpaste.

By morning, our mouths had hatched a mass of wool,
baby worms tickling against the backs of our teeth,
pupating, opening their wings. We clenched our jaws
and swallowed them whole, like scratchy oysters.

###################################

Originally posted over at The Salad Days.