poem 376 of a poem a day for 2012

crawling for my grottoed Callisto

hibernating hive culture

super organisms

breathable membranes

folded velvet

rubbed fingers

felt little fibers

thoughts are part

of networks

tools tooth taste

time records

memory inaccurately

I bear

the gilded weights

of my shame or guilt

like blood longing

to paint my cuts

into some kind

of permanent temple

of erosion and

tidal pool exchanges

stars explode their hearts

all over the involuntary nature

of how all material

comes into being

by becoming other stars

and shaping a perspective

of everything between us

the computers and wires

the concrete and venal byways

the tall buildings and

the spread quiet 
of their comfort zones

the sofas, kitchens and Styrofoam

holding the heated preparations

the food and durations

the pinwheel algebras

the Shirley Jackson lotteries

the taxi cabs running the meters

of paper chances sold

so even, if I were

to ask the driver

to get me nowhere fast

he still turns around

to say, sir you’re already there

why not open the door

and get outside yourself

why not dare yourself

past apathy again

why not trust yourself

through all your clever disguises

all your modern play-scale virginities

through all those monologues 

and diatribes that don’t surmise

as much as they, thug-alley

your compassionate logic’s demise

no, I say to myself 

leaning into hesitation

with my head against the glass

and my hand on the handle fast

the big game is always on

and I have to play 

to win something

in the orbital sweeps 

in the minor to major chords

in the songs I hear singing

when I play for a desire to belong

when I play the patent rhythms

that chain my denial

when I play myself 

masked to each stage

I wander on, like Autumn

weaning a warm licking wind

receding back to the tucked light

bleeding ways to get back inside

to where magic seeds itself again

inside every constellation

that is waiting for a name

in that place
where my perceptual constancies 
are my worn mistakes

are my ritual births

are my skies 
I have cast into

and over and over again

where my ripe is sown

with every part of me 
I've netted and eaten 

so, that someday 
I might be passed

as scat scattered 

into a future

present with the past

to see if I might even

adapt another form

before I learn or not

what can keep me

from being burned

into the norm

EJR ©