Today the first edition of Whale Fall & Black Sage went to the printer. A special, numbered and signed edition of 50 was printed for the Whale Fall poetry and dance performance on December 15th, but some blurbs were missing and there were other small edits. So today is the day that it finally feels…
Although this video from 2014 can be seen elsewhere on this site, I wanted to post it here, now, as I commit to writing more deeply, clearly, and joyfully in this new year.
Here’s the title poem from Crazing, which will be coming out at the beginning of August. (My apologies; I am unable to make the software reproduce the formatting of the original poem.) Crazing Cracked creek-bed red clay crackling – crazed they call it it’s called crazing and I am crazing cracking open like a chick…
Sudden Oak Death Syndrome Down the long body of California,ramalina drapes the dead shoulders of oakswith her bent hair. Lace lichen. It’s the color of sadness,of rain that goes on for a long time,of things fading into the distance. Behind its veil ooze blackcankers of phytophthora ramorum. We are in plague time now,these dead too…
In many traditions, the grouse is a symbol of the spiral dance to the heart of mystery. Here she is also an offering to my own limping, arthritic joints. Grouse spins inward, dancesthe one-wing limp-dance – the hunched, knee-favoring,stiff-hip-lurching two-step. Round and round she dancesdragging a wing, a thumb joint, and the dragged part, flightless,makes…
Snake Swing I’m trying to get a little shuteye under this treebut the snake insists on talking,hanging from her tail & forking her tongue at me. Its time to shed that shit, she says.You’re stuck& the reason is very simple – you don’t have the stuffto just step out of that fakeskinand slither away. Remember…