Two Poems

SEQUOIA GRAFFITI

Disappointed love was found on walls in antiquity

graffito (“scratch”)

annul-graphy

disappointed love was found on walls in antiquity

graffili (“incised inscriptions”)

omit-graphia

disappointed love was found on walls of antiquity

graphein (“to write”)

erase-graphy

*

slip the space between mud

Brideveil Falls

I CUM ALIVE!

play on prison slip

the space around his body

because here noone knows me

how extreme the granite shaved

is there a path to peak?

because here noone knows noone knows me

how many unknowns slipped from it

*

a predisposition dispensed
the names of travelers

manilla wafers in plexiglass
master bolted

dust followed grooves to
controlled fire

the way the trunk splits
a transfigured tourist

where in the cavity at nightfall
wasps make a nest of bandages

*

we climb knotty references

ladder alchemy

surrounding pines fearing

“universal diagram for the formation of questions
about every possible question”

replacing hieroglyphs

momentous scratchings

few explorers now climb

blood orange wrungs

leggy sap

*

you call this LUV

melon gash

sap bleeding down your arms

Reno keyed on the map

slitting pulp initials

W.B.

you felt a rush between your legs

as finally you hatched

a coffee table

B.C. for Dixie

defaced

under the need to rape

CB Le Gro

not for the name

but to impress

who cut a hole for you

to enter

Note: “universal diagram for the formation of questions
about every possible question” is Athanasius Kircher’s (1669).

the NATURAL HISTORY of NURTURANCE

13th C./

creation a mythic dress

indigenous shift

skeined in dark

a cord of grayness caked in mud

whitened manifolds

she dressed in ghost for the dance

she wore what she’d wear today

hem parting the black woods

her head felt lighter

his marvel hid behind trees

14th C./

nurture poked its pink stone out from nature

a crescent first on lap of smoking lake

O scant contrast
uttered as puffs of vibrious jus

no rings fanning out to dock the afterglow

meanwhile sinews hung from her dress
(bindings
(danglers
short so they wouldn’t tangle

the gods were happy

they made him a teepee hat from a ship’s stiff sail

1660/

Searched women being relational and found duck decoy

tule, rush, feathers, cordage, paint

always looking for a good idea

ducks are drawn to themselves

natives who knew first

1874/

coarse things move as constitutions
nature
that qualify the universe
nurture
lit by birth’s circumstance
nature
trails whipping the encoded
nurture
begetting what your civilization entails
nature
material: masking, unmasking
nurture
begging beyond
nature
so separate, you mother the establishments
nurture
that separate you

1968

search women being relational, come up with women behind bars

“connection not separation…the guiding principle of growth for women”

in certain light, nurturance looks like furnace

“an identity if she is attractive enough to obtain a man, and thus, a home;”

and nature looks mature

“for this will allow her to set about her life’s task of ‘joyful altruism and nurturance'”

home a 2 x 4 strut forest

“a woman’s primary motivation is to build a sense of connection with others”

roomy

in maturity, males break away for identity, but women develop theirs living with their mothers.

see nursery

search females more relational

find relational aggression

“some of the most neglected and misunderstood women and girls in our society are those in our jails and prisons”

Note: “1968” references Naomi Weisstein’s essay “Psychology Constructs the Female,” 1968