Eeks mark the spot where I once stood
under the shower’s needles, blood-red
dye from my hair running in rivulets
through dried volcanic mud tight on my cheeks.

Inked in: a pound-sign for a tramp stamp,
hashtagging myself criss-cross to show I’m it,
I don louche lacings and bows and snaps,
finding each tight and tender trap-

ping of my manufactured allure
a spear-lined pit that instead snares
me: for all my intricate cottons and rubbers
were ripped by force from earth’s tender nethers

The trees stand shivering
in their lacy skivvies
thin arms, upraised hands
held out in surprised outrage

I bring my coat back out of the closet
and button it up, bite my lip
without thinking, till there’s a deep
fault where my teeth just were

The thaw sends a gush of mud
and trees as large as houses
root balls like huge dish brushes
They pull at any living thing that’s near

which includes whatever’s bloomed too soon

May is a moist cake with a large crumb
a month that makes loam squirm with life
when lightning slices like summer’s first knife
through the last few buds hesitating to become

OED word of the day:

Lang Reed, n.
[‘ With the. A period of scarcity just before the spring, when winter stocks have run low.’]
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌlaŋ ˈriːd/,  U.S. /ˈlæŋ ˌrid/,  Scottish /ˌlaŋ ˈrid/, /ˈlaŋ ˌrid/
Forms:  pre-17 19– Lang Reid,   19– Lang Reed,   19– Long Reed.
Origin:Probably a borrowing from Norn. *

The furnace ignites but goes out ere the fan clicks on.
The lemon thyme has dried into a crisp sachet.
I set it out on the back porch and watch the sun sink
behind the warehouse lofts a block over at close of day.
We have an hour more of twilight than we did last night.
And yet we have, as well, one hour less than we did then.
From far off, the neighbor’s pear blooms look snow white.
We stay at home and bundle up, content to bide with kith and kin.
In one week, spring will come, at least in name. The hardware store
has not set out its store of herbs. Tonight the low will dip to 22.
The freezer holds a block of stock that’s redolent of shrimp and corn.
It smells like summer’s peak, a haze of honeysuckle and dew.
The moon wanes away till it rises late, a sharply convex horn.
The stars are sparse, faint crumbs of light on a cloth of frigid blue.

________________________

*  Etymology:Probably < an unattested Norn compound (compare Old Icelandic langr long adj.¹ and Old Icelandic hríð snowstorm, period of bad weather, Norwegian ri, (Nynorsk) rid period of bad weather, onset of bad weather, illness, etc., Swedish regional rid onset of illness (cognate with Old English hrīð storm; probably < the same Germanic base as Old English hriðian to shake, tremble, have a fever: see note)); compare Old Icelandic langafasta Lent, lit. ‘long fast’.

Old English hriðian is cognate with Middle Dutch rīden to shake, quiver (Dutch rijden, (now regional) ridden), Old High German ridēn, rīdōn to tremble (Middle High German rīden), as well as several nouns meaning ‘fever’: Old English hrið, Middle Dutch rēde (Dutch †ridde, †ritte, †rit, †rijde), Old Saxon hrido (Middle Low German rēde, rēte, rīte, rit), Old High German ritto, rito (Middle High German ritte, German (now archaic) Ritten, †Ritte, †Ritt), all < the same Indo-European base as Early Irish crith, Old Welsh crit (Welsh cryd), both in sense ‘action of trembling, fever’.

Sad that your facts don’t add up when they’re
wrong. When you start with a claim, not a question,
hateful preconceptions may cause you to go
wrong. Whatever you recommend, there’s another
alternative. Whatever you espouse, there exist other
facts. Whatever you say, you know it’s true. I know it.
Everybody knows it. Have a little couth. Don’t
fake it. But more than that, have respect for truth.
News that you might not like, look at it a little harder.
Failing that, no one wants to hear about your yawningly
big leaps in logic, which take us all nowhere. Truth is
a beautiful thing, while all this noise and ruckus looks
pathetic. More questions. More questions. More questions.
Enjoy the closed doors. Knock at them. Inquire within.

I’m purt near
bout to splode
I’m a bear
with a sore head

ornery as hell
ready to yell
or else to leave
the holler

deprived
of my druthers
my once-brothers

now a use-ta
I don’t miss

call me blue
and too big
for my britches

but I do hew red
around the nape

and see that hue
with folks who think
their shit don’t stink

or folks who
know it does
yet still will shove it
near my nose

Spring’s buds ache into bloom, swell tighter
till they burst with blossom. The waxing moon casts
new rose-leaf shadows on the floor of the front porch.
Things grow, and it is not beautiful. The casings fall
and litter the ground. All these splitting pods must
scream in some way we can’t hear. The air’s too cold,
the frogs complain in the creek bottom. Today the sun
warmed, Saturday the sky will dust the earth with snow.
The spring rain drops its excess on all that lives
or not. Beneath the soil, the bulbs premeditate. By dark
of night the spears of grass get gilded. It happens
while we sleep. Next day they shed it, belying winter’s last
stab. But still: the pear trees vacillate, like a candidate
unsure of when to come onstage, who stops, then starts again.

it marinates, concentrates
its essence cannot help but coalesce

give it one slow hour to consider
listen to the tick of the oven rack

expanding, the element warming
it to a sizzle, froth, and frizzle

at long last it inches past
a certain temperature

and then, at once, begins
that sweet inkling of lengthy thinking

which turns a golden pool of molten notion
into a periphery, a sugary

Maillardian outline,
a verge, the arrested surge

outward of whatever word
lays ere unsaid in that deep hoard

Yesterday I wrote a poem about misshelved books, but of course it wasn’t only about misshelved books. It was also about the kinds of memories that get misclassified in the library of my mind. We all get it wrong from time to time. These days, searching for, happening upon, and reshelving these wrongly placed items is part of the inner work I’m doing.

I’ve been angry lately. Angrier.

Last Wednesday I had a long talk with my analyst about this new ire of mine. She is supportive of it, for reasons I’ve mentioned recently (she recalled that an analyst acquaintance of hers used to say something like, “Sadness is bottomless, but anger gives us a ground to stand on”). As I talked, an analogy spontaneously occurred to me: it’s like I have all this terrible stuff that I filed away a long time ago, believing I understood what it all was, but now it appears that I filed most of it in the wrong place. And now my task involves retrieving it, looking it over, and then putting it back – into the appropriate file this time.
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a long tome, it belongs
between a study about aretaics
and one on vulcanology

years ago it was misshelved
by a girl who snapped it shut
in fright, shoved it

roughly and randomly back
in any old place where she found
some random gap in the stacks

when you type in its title
you’re sent to the airy
sixth floor, suffused on all sides

with light from large windows
packed with tall shelves
lined with reams of wisdom

what you don’t know:
it will be years yet before it’s found
the book you’re looking for

lives now in the basement
caught in the ragged jacket
of a volume on mnemonics