lingua interna

nickleback, rolling waves of days. spent penny, blood penny, violet amaze. rain willow, wind pillow, tossing on breath waves. sung song, sprung wrong, toppled in a haze. catapulting wishmares, rocketing rolly dreambeasts, slow minutes, fast years, funhouse mapless days. second person in the dark, first weird in the mirror. you'll be here, I'm leaving here, here falls through the map. they talk about bermuda, but iowa stumps the compass just as well-- or anywhere the traveler works with a sensitive instrument. chasing waking sing-words, they rattle through the bones, hollow want, swollen urging-- difficult to turn off the conscious mind and just listen, tune into the singer... shhhhh, quiet, mind-- who's humming in the dark, so tiny? shipless, rock-weary, speaking in riddles, humdrum harmonies on looping raw wings-- stop stopping it! let's try automatic writing-- king space wrecked window lenses drawn dastardly down spilling raucous ringlet tears-- so sad how the judge stomps in and says, no, no, no-- turn him off and just transcribe-- harmonies in my heart, silly songs that carry codes richer than dna-- dreamier sequencing-- shiver-plated rest wind, show sarah something-- friable freezedried wicked will, hush, husk. tumble the sounds to see what pops out of its own fine accord—loud sprung half-cocked from a mussel shell—who baked it so literally—black naturally, but if you chip it, white lurking—tho then no longer the thing it was. reason here is twisty—stop chasing it, trust the sounds. she’s walking over miles with the small one on her shoulder—what should they encounter? confounding tribulations to get through in the end, with a minor base note setting the final harmony just off center... stop talking, and listen-- shush me, somebody-- words work wiggly-like-- shape trader, shipwright billy, clubbed and smelling of smoke, sleeping in the dockside urban noon-- pierced quite through-- billy boy, where to? the inside of your head looks like something unfamiliar, hankering for a glimpse. all you billies, so other. slipping here, tiles slick with listening-- tread too carefully and it will all get away... winter-spun cloud crowds staking down treetops, smoke stairways, vapor trails, paths through the blue so unsteppable-- what looks solid, looks like something you could put a foot down on, doesn't hold weight and you slip through. only in dreams does gravity give upwards. so this is writing, just-writing, spilling the words willy nilly, order hoped for later somewhere maybe, even just the wash of right now, this letting-go, discovery of something I didn't know I could do. the spill on the page. whoso rude, so lavish in trash, split felt, rigorous-- nonsense with sound-- some sense where. hope alone. hope. so small, so much. slipping transcription, holding the reins only lightly, keeping loosening, trusting the animal under me, gallopy and frothing at times-- bigger than me, certainly, never tamed, but courted with sugar and the occasional oat.