Nothing Now Between The Earth And You

you never planned a comb-over...
it just kinda happened—
you comb over

***

the memory of you then,
the sounds that came out of your mouth
under the too-bright lights of the football field
on graduation night,

Captain,
Our Sorry Captain,
set sail Exile

***

“see”
“no”

see

***

embed:
wrongness
panic

sense of escalating mistake

soundless

flailing
seen across space—

at first you don’t know you can’t move,
can’t breathe

((you))

you start to move

***

this bathroom, this morning
it ain’t far away...
it’s right here:

a wide, flat land-scape:
the few trees pushed over,
strands,
and you long on top of it:
the earth your head

oh

clay you can push and move around with your fingers,
thinking and kneading

you so like to touch the empty spots

Ah, mom, I’m still here. Are you still reading? I imagine you are. The creekbed’s quiet again. Little minnow song, little crawdad dance. I’ve been writing in other places, other books, writing on the air. Know I’m writing. Searching for one true sentence. Well. Paint. Fashioning petroglyphs and pictographs. Finally getting to that screenplay about people running. We’re cracking ourselves up, know that. My smile an Ozark faultline. The Mississippi run backward. The Missouri. We long to see, know. Hidden cave. Topography. Throwing a vintage curveball, buckling batters’ knees. Know that. A city of light and glass. Mindful. Outstretched. Faces in cliffs, faces in the timber. We are slowly, steadily discerning. We are slowly, steadily. Deep earth springs. Various reels, spins, ballads. Carefully notated collections. Brown. Green. Blue. Maroon and tan. Building mounds. The panther, buffalo, bear, beaver. The otter, hawk, eagle. Even the spider. We had lightning in our hand out in the desert. I received the dreamcatchers. Thank you. The Little Ones. The morning light remembers everything. The song sings itself. The one thousand things. The one thousand glints. I will meet you out there. I am going long. I love

A peak into some of my dreams:

Midwestern Myth & the Acolytes

A fine and lovely book of photography and poetry by my good friend Arianna Willow Parsons.

Go, look!