Napo Napalm 5

HERE ARE THE LAST NAPOWRIMO POEMS
NO MORE, DAMN YOU, I SAY NO MORE!

twenty-one.
look at that hilltop
while you sing me a suicide
the spring peeks out
300 feet overhead


Twenty-Two.
Goddamnit i have forgotten
again
i am walking out that parade
and love is in with the spring

the sky sings slow water
but i'm not listening
in my basement room
i'm just growing older

with a headache, no less

that patch of sunlight
in my memory
never moves
and that's why
its easier to stay there

here in the lamplight
with the dog overhead
just doesn't offer up
much
in the way of meanings

clicking nails on the linoleum
at nine a.m.
or
I should become a coffee drinker
are not new
or my
thoughts

this place is always killing something
i'll be damned if its me, this time


Twenty-three.
your flippancy
lack of care for anything
cuts me from long distance

i cant scratch through the space
between us
to give you a meaningful wound

you who are like the world
i who am the earth

we've got plenty to fight about
but you don't even bother to address
your hatred for me

you dress it up in terms like
progress
civilization
necessity

can you tell me
whats civilized or necessary
about torching my forests
blowing up my mountains
and poisoning my waters?

i have shaken
murmured
sent the winds to speak with you
but it seems you've forgotten even the simple languages

what will you do when i finally wake up?


Twenty-four.
he looked into his coffee cup and waited for a cigarette
the blue glass of water was unusual
everything had a preternatural glow
he scrubbed at his face with his hands
rubbing his eyes

green tea, this isn't, he thought
''i should have known my fortunes
would be told in black coffee'' he said
''what?'' she said
''nothing, just babbling the usual madness''

the waitress appeared to take orders
he stuck with coffee
they talked about her recent trip
in metaphor and simile
she could barely complete a sentence
she spoke in the shallow vagaries of spies

''well, i just noticed that people there were different''
she said
''different how?''
''it was just interesting to see how our lives had changed''
''in what way?''
''i don't know''

it went on that way
he looked around the place
it was like a dream
fog and fluorescent lights
everything shiny came off with a blue light
the empty diner twitched
and flickered

blue the color of leaving
blue the color of knowing
blue the color of mind
blue the color of my life
he thought

she finishes eating
eggs, sausage and fried potatoes
''are you ready?'' she asked abruptly
''sure''
he drained the rest of his coffee

they stepped out onto the handicapped ramp
after she paid
they lit up simultaneous cigarettes and expelled
smoke that rose up and curled around the pink neon sign
that flashed 'Mt. Joy Paradise Diner'
the color of pussy
the color of tongue

they burned each other down
line by line and breath by breath

she makes me as shaky as a month without booze
he thought

a final kiss that was not final
that wanted more than itself
and then they parted

they were freight trains
all jumbled up
off the track and gone

as the road evaporated in front of him
he searched for a song on the radio
not knowing

not knowing


Twenty-five.
maybe i have not understood at all
in the yellow evening
when the city falls through streetlights
and the dust settles silent
on the hood of my memories

i carry in-complete sorrow
to the well
and pitch it in
to taint my water for days

i'll call you Michael or Titus
and sweat you out
like any sickness

i'll write Shakespeare's tragedies
on your photos
and scrape the duckweed
from the forest pools
in your eyes


Twenty-six.
while lidded eyes lead me into damnation
dreams of walking into church
naked
and skulls of silent fishes
Sunday skeleton grottoes
with policemen i half recall

daughter me
soldier me
naked me
how many more me's have i got to become?


Twenty-seven.
so i dream of a you that is not you
and i have returned to our home
we make love in front of my sleeping father
and it my dreams
i do not say goodbye to you


Twenty-eight.
when black kettle rode down the Missouri
in search of buffalo
there was no st Francis
to speak to the wolves in his dreams

to speak to the white wolf and take its paw
and to council the wolf to pledge that all should live
in peace

the white wolf had overrun the land
stripping it out with loud-speaking guns
that made the mountains shudder
and his people disappear

We want a lasting true and honorable peace
he said we wish for the white wolf to stop
killing our children with muskets and bayonets

The Great Spirit made the Cheyenne and the Blackfoot
He also made the White wolf
There is room for us both, for the land is as long as the sky

But there was no God
No st Francis to silence the fever in the wolf's blood
not for the Cheyenne or the Sioux

A false Devil for sunrise
meet me in the powder river basin
so that we may mourn our losses
and die a good death on a good day


Twenty-nine.
to pull your hair into my fist
with the sweat licked
from the nape of your neck
the rhythm of your jugular heat
pressed to my swollen lips
rocket together
slipping through the candlelight
perfectly oiled machines
with fingers to rake the
debris of lust
and cradle your ass
in it's animal palm
when our real bodies
take breaths
deep enough
to split atoms


THIRTY.
I am the dawn of dawning dawns when dawn dawns madness in the dawning dawn

I am buttered toast
I am chocolate shoes
I am rose skulls bloomed from skulling roses
I am Garcia Lorca's fingernails
I am in the kissing with you
and you have been in the inspiration with me

as for the idiot under my scalp
he is unconcerned
and will keep shut
if he knows whats good for him

we can be strange stars
better than Eliot's ragged claws in silent seas
he was too much of pessimism anyway

there are NOVAS!
see?