the tear

in the corner of the bedroom is a small tear in the wallpaper.
it is begging to be torn open.

so it is with buildings and bodies and soil.
so it is with sparrows and sunlight and darkness.
so it is with poems.

is there any one thing in the world then that is real;
real independent of its begging?

even my spirit is a beggar.
even the thing that resides on the other side of my spirit
is a beggar.

a conversation; and we eat cake

my son and i are doing what?  something over the kitchen table.  oh, i am cutting and lifting two pieces of McCain's cheap-ass marble cake out onto two mismatched saucers.  what are we talking about?  i can't remember.  but he says something about thirty years from now and i say, oh, wait, how old will i be?

oh, i remember now.  we have been to the library and we have taken out books to read.  he has appraised the return date and as i cut the cake he imagines aloud, what if they were stamped to be returned thirty years from today? 

again i try to tabulate, how old will i be? (what year is it?)  will i even be alive in thirty years?

he looks at me and says, mom, you'll be 72.  you're, like, healthy.  you should be alive, barring a car accident or a heart attack or, as he puts it, something stupid. 

what about murder, i ask?

oh, that would suck, he responds.  i mean, it would really suck, he adds for emphasis.  if i'm murdered, i want to be, like, shot dead, not cut up, or remember what happened to the guy in Fargo, in the wood chipper?  nothing like that.

ya, me too, i say, or, me either.

we eat our cake.

late at night while the self is not watching

i tries to find the truer self~

emergence

it is incredible that you don't see me.  i am ripping into existence right now! i am a fucking super nova right there in your living room! your carpet tears open, your tv tables slip in!  don't you feel my tearing through the veil? don't you feel my stepping forth in terrible and awesome temporary being?  i am a blip in time.  i am the first, the second, the infinite coming!  i am here, goddammit!  i am here! - a toothpick in the stacks))))

birth place

what does it mean to be from here? 

it means this, this topography, this incivility, this grit and wonder has an impact upon the very topography of our souls.  it speaks to us in a voice from before voice and tells us how to eat, how to seek shelter, the necessity of both, and how to love - the necessity of this too.  it reminds us always that we will die, while encouraging our footsteps in keeping inside survival.  it is deeper than a mask to self or a reflection.  it is deeper than skin, than bone.  it is the air or idea around which bone forms.

we are all, in one way or another, from this place.