train

56 Flavours:Chapter 7

July 6, 2009 by openchannel 2 Comments

Untrained I

The last time she had shopped there she had run into a woman she thought she knew. Only she didn’t. When she politely moved away after realizing her mistake, the woman followed her, asking her so what do you do? She drew a blank. There was a job she had, a husband she lived with, a cat she fed, a mother she should call. I’m in transition, she finally said, picking out a $9 package of teriyaki salmon. She was a terrible shopper. She never came for what she got or got what she came for. Ingredients slipped her mind. Instant gratification took over like swarms of bees. What do YOU do, she asked in return. It was the obvious thing to do. I train trainers. Train trainers. I train people how to train people. Well she supposed someone had to. Train people. At the counter, paying for her groceries, she pictured untrained passengers swaying dangerously from the top of the caboose, admiring the crows as they headed east at sunset.

Monday Poetry Train – Dropped Pages – August in America

February 2, 2009 by openchannel 6 Comments

Dropped Pages is a series of poems that were originally dropped from my books and chapbooks. I have reclaimed them here.

This poem was dropped from Everyday Angels and Other Near Death Experiences.

I will mail a copy of the book to the first person who can tell me what famous affair had I just learned about (had just been confessed to the public) when I wrote this poem.

August in America

were you lonely
was the music crisp
was her skin soft and welcoming
curves of an angel             falling like a friend
did you close your eyes
slow down a
moment
no where to go             no sin
no voices          no death

did you hold her in that end of time
forgetting forgotten and full

is there space for tantra in the new millennium
is dancing far away as birth

is your face feeling old do you look there often
gaze at the mirror in stranger
your skin notice something there
a mark not there before
and it’s not going away

did you want to be good
did you miss you mother
did you crawl into her go away and come back
with more than you left becoming less
turning in on itself
leaving a hole to gaze into
thinking of
how much less time
there is to love

Ride the TRAIN.

Poetry Train – Dropped Pages – On the Day of Silhouettes

January 26, 2009 by openchannel 3 Comments

Dropped Pages is a series of poems that were originally dropped from my books and chapbooks. I have reclaimed them here.

left out of Her Red Book

On the Day of Silhouettes

Out the train window she sees cut-outs
mountains gulls
Man in rowboat fishing water like
something one can touch but not hold
defiantly
on the still lake she hears
the word “moon” from a child’s lips
and there it is
she practices looking w/out
naming now that love has surprised her
once again
she goes to church and sings
grateful for the roundness
of the choir

she picks this future
a calm fortress against the long hours of drive
ambition
the release tastes like a careless trip
honey

sunsets always remind her of sunsets
they replace each other that way
like the speed of conversation
between black cut-outs
kisses on the neck

preoccupied with the fragile
blood vein and the question of what is real
she stands guard beyond expectation
a kind of cross-check
like a night-light
like a raincoat

ride the train. it will vibrate your bum.