A poem or maybe a zygote

So I've been toying with the idea of sharing some of my poetry here, just for the art & variety of it.

I decided to start with something COMPLETELY unfinished. In fact, I think I wrote this in a late-night rush, off the top of my head. In fact, when I re-read it just now in an old journal, I had no memory of writing it at all and even wondered if maybe I'd written down someone else's work.  That, of course, made no sense because I only keep my own poetry in that journal.  So I guess I must've written it.  Anyway.  Here is a stream of words from my unconscious to your computer screen.  The birthing process in all its messiness.  Or is this just the conception?  I keep fighting the urge to rewrite this to try to make it make sense.  Maybe someday I will.  Till then, here's to disorderly, dream-like glimpses into the darkness


Invitation

Listen.  I am here in the fire light
with treetops sprouting from my head
and quicksilver birds flitting
from my mouth. I am here.
The river rushes 'round the dam
left from 1987 and the silt settles
into sentimental, sedentary rocks,
but they are not treacherous to climb.
I will leave heiroglyphs etched
with the static of my interior echoes,
I will launch in morse code the songs
I croon to the cold sky while you sleep,
and while all the strangers sleep along,
and while no one can cast a shadow
over the moon's watching-over.
Listen. Can you reach me? I am
both exactly the woman you know
and a midnight frontier you have not
yet mapped. I feel more than I can
tell you, so listen to the direction
my wild grasses lean and follow them
down to the silent underground village
that still lights itself up with flames.




p.s. Nikky Finney would have my head for "showing off" such unfinished nonsense - or maybe just for being too lazy to finish it yet. Yup. Sorry, Nikky, even though I know you're not online reading this, but rather holed up somewhere fretting & sweating over a word choice like the real & true poet that you are.