Densities 477

as soon as I quit
playing the game
I felt free
marginalized
uncreated

Densities 465

my heart will self destruct
at the end of its poem
hands and feet enslaved
to the task
it took almost 60 years to open
my fist
with the other hand
that hid itself in shadows
let me say it again
I love you
with a love
that has nothing to do
with you
no matter what you believe
there’s more to it

#2195 20110306

Picking sheep wool
    off of the
Ocean spray
    scratching posts
The raven couple
    prepares
to pad their nest;
practical harmony.

THE HOLLOW MUSE

Finding my Muse
With love
She filled my soul
Overlayed
With vitriol

ARE ANGELS TRUE?

Angels can be sweet and sour
Sometimes happy others dour
Angels can be sable or white
Angels can be wrong or right
Beware what you ever do
An angel's always watching you

Beware what you ever do
The angel is you

#2193          20110227

Ripening fir cones
Dropping
Fluttering seeds
Onto the melting
      late season snow;
Ancient elegance.

Densities 445

balance disintegrates immediately
but leaves its signature
I think it is odd this fascination
with aftermath
the eventual absence of everything
they are installing cameras
to cover the kibble
with a badge and a gun
suicides were never here
in the first place
rain on the wall gone by noon
with a myriad of such incidents to address
there is no stability
and I enjoy that
immensely

Densities 437

invisibility accomplished
a year without sleep
and you're ready to go
the perimeter is all wet
I couldn't help but fall
that was early on
I will stop at nothing
like everyone else
you can be in that world
or break it up
or you can find the holes

flicker

She is moving over grasslands, facing downwards, looking under stones for something precious something known – feels her way by instinct . . . walking as birds do, casting her long shadow, seeing only things of shade . . .
now turns her body to face the sun, shadow also turning, spindly legs their beetle-black, withdraw – until unbidden fade, her own legs cold in rasping grass, she feels (but not enough), the agitated light, now folding in and out of cloud - and soon in stillness stays until, unbidden wind and muttering rain, a sound, no sound, no sooner night unfolding into stars, now out and into cloud, illume, but not enough, the ash grey dove grey sky, and she from stillness turns, by instinct goes – only this roar of nonexisting in her skull and this need to feel the world as
real

Densities 381

He never understood to love does not mean to touch
order and disorder were indistinguishable
unbroken and broken were likewise invisible
later he saw it as a mere bias or tendency for old people
to insist on one ordering of things
rather than a process
a flow of nomadic play things
changing places
all part of the great unknown
the first question he asked was:
what if a pit viper had legs
as long as an elephant's?
fishing for reassurance
yelling in to the void
and listening in vain for an echo
for the first time

Densities 375

still glowing from a fine performance
in front of a packed house
with unexpected superlatives
over punch afterwards
there is something about kicking ass isn't there?
blowing them away
listening to the echo of laughter's victory over tea
until you fade into the color of the carpet
and the numbers at the door
resign themselves to blushing sums
I cleaned dinner
and cooked the house
I didn't expect an invitation

mind your head (and your heart) as you walk out the midnight door

Before the moon breaks like an egg
on your hollow
of waxing man’s cheek,
mind your head
on the cuneiform door—

the frame
that will beg you
for more

as you walk
towards candles
on alters towards

The journey, they say!

It’s the journey, those they ‘s
from the dungeon inside
the dungeon inside
the dungeon of they
say.

What do they know anyway?

HA! Is what I say
to those pragmatic foghorns
of they:

I will have what I will when I bring it!

What will be, will be, will be—

never-mind all those secretive cuneiform doorframes
growing progressively smaller
with each pirouette
and turn;

smaller with each pictograph word;
smaller
until you are the essence behind
every word
like a feather

off bird.

Until I am as low
as poor Alice,
awake outside
of the dream,
dressed in a skin
made of bells
out of sight of the queen
of all men’s
bittersweet
bleeding heart chocolates—

I will mind my head on the cuneiform door,
lest the yolk of this life
eat me whole.

© Kristin Reynolds 12 12 2010

Gutted Fish

Now that my heart has been splayed open
like a gutted fish
Now that I have not run for safety
but stand, open-hearted and bleeding
before the hand who holds the knife

Now that I know (as surely as anything)
that THIS is love – stripped
of all its expectancy, all its dreams
in its raw, most heart-rending state

Now - I stand transfixed
staring into a night sky
which has (at this very moment)
zoomed light-years closer
surrounding me with her bright stars

Now I suddenly know
that I am one of these
and that, somewhere, someone else stands
transfixed …gazing up at ME

Keeping Company

the ceaseless ticking of clocks
the hollow humming of heaters
fill the void where ought to be laughter
and chatter and the clanking of dishes
and the shuffling of feet

tick tick
tick tick
hummmmmmmm…

I rejoice at the smallest sounds of life
my dog licking his paws
or lapping water from his bowl
the clicking of his toenails
on the floor

tick tick
tick tick
hummmmmmmm…

at night there are no birds
to visit my deck-rail
nor roosters crowing
nor children playing
nor even passing cars

tick tick
tick tick
hummmmmmmm…

where is the lovely rain
whose steadfast comp’ny kept me
whose clear gentle rolling voice
sang the sadness of my heart to sleep
and caressed the crinkles from my brow

tick tick
tick tick
hummmmmmmm…

tonight even the wind has ceased
no loons are calling no frogs are singing
no ships are rumbling by
and darkness and silence and I
are keeping company with the dog

Adrift

A lone star adrift in the darkened sea of night,
lost in the vastness of space - and time.
Seeking, searching, reaching for comfort,
the solid ground of familiarity,
confirmation of existence,
of reason, of purpose…

Remembering the solid curves of your body,
the taste of your skin,
the rhythm of your breath.
Oh, how these were my anchor,
my stay, in the stormy seas of existence’s doubt.

Oh, how I long to be anchored there again,
alongside you; to know my place
in this passing world
as surely as I know my own heartbeat.