the call

in the riverbed
i bend to wash my hands
as water-worked stones

in the forest
i scratch my face against the ghost of moss
constricted upon the poplar's coarse bark

as the morning lifts
i breathe
readying my bloody heart

oh, my dirty dirty soul
oh, my one tooth in time
- living

somewhere there exists a quiet and empty room
it calls me back through the slag of my matrixed marrow

yes, it says, one day, yes
perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow

bird

emerging from the dream of longing

to become

for a moment

one word, bird

and then to return to the dream

investigation of the self, x: the yellow flower

the yellow flower leans toward its reflection
if i can only see myself, it says, perhaps i can know myself 
and the world around me

but where does the real yellow flower exist?

where the real world?

the one

i take one photograph
i only ever take one photograph
it doesn't matter where i point my camera
i take only one photograph of this journey
i take only one photograph of myself, of what lies behind me, beyond me
i only ever take one photograph

this is much the same as 
i only ever say one word
there is only one word
(there are, however, many letters)

we all speak the same language if we stop long enough to listen

autobiographical landscape

Morning again.  Wind.  Shadows

of clouds trench and fill the fallow ground.

A difficult light staggers across the stubble.

Crows drag their saws toward the trees.
Everybody knows they exaggerate their torments.

If you begin with, "I remember..."
you must translate "the foot's worn threshold,
an hour is the doorway..."

Reader whom I will never see again,
the sun throws its hooks into the frost,

and wind is dialogue - the light comes and goes,

comes and goes.

poem by: james owens

existence, part viii (form as root?)

we are just spirits trying to be here

investigation of the self, ix: intimacy of self, turning toward sleep

we do not know what it is, can not know what it is, to be beyond our particular bodies.  (as i write this i know the error of this statement, for i have gone beyond this particular body, but it is a rare occurrence, so short in duration and impossible to hold.)

this, and to be defined by our senses through the shield of these particular bodies, and as chase twichell says in her poem, horse, 

i've never seen a soul detached from its gender, but i'd like to.  i'd like to see my own that way, free of its female tethers.  maybe it would be like riding a horse.  the rider's the human one, but everyone looks at the horse.

to be subject to this accidental state of gender which is the fodder on which (through which) we experience all life, there exists the great divisiveness of i, self, and of gender too.

but unhooked, unguarded in the moment of turning toward sleep, relenting our hold on life and allowing life's gentle touch upon us, regardless of gender we are all one thing, human.  we are alive, vulnerable and temporary.

the summer when (?)

what of time?  

the photo taken years ago, the limbs since lengthened 

and yet the water never dries.

the sudden place on the other side of attention