it never has to end!

Hello everyone. I am posting most of what I read at Blow-out. Isn't that fun? Other people who read at Blow-out should post their readings. DO IT!

Jill

from 6 hours, a chapbook published long ago. My first chapbook ever, in fact. Tildes indicate a new poem

tin roof cool drips peel
pewter
light like
your hammer like
scales fine as
shark skin
rough as
your stubbled chin like
sand as
liquid as
thunder coloured
chocolate dusked old as
a black egg dark as
your thumbnail
flat and dented as
a dish of pewter
of tin

your

glass insulators
seagreen water coloured
oil acrylic like
black and white Mount Baldy paperclipped
paint chips sawdust
encrusted cogs and metal flakes like
asbestos banded kiln and
lost-wax rings of
crackle opals in soft water in
fogged vials
your sapphires
in boxes honeycombed to the wall with yellowed varnish like amber like pitch on squirrelled fur feathered goose down jayed waxwings
sweaty brass
rusted hooks
smoked shavings
skin

you’re
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
size of my thumb tapered body humming bird heart shiver pulsed mouseleap from the trap after a visible pause clocked invisible between 24:41:23 and 24:41:24, fraser and broadway. that’s in east van, the grown world attic suite lit by ear skylights, cloaked by oak,
not hickory

this other life
that transition

where the flowered sheets are the same as my grandmother’s
where my pocket is a collage of transfers
where the rug is on the table
where the sister hates
just like in the novel
where the novels are
no less artiface than
this
no more artful than
that
needless to say
“we never had a problem with mice
stepping on needles”

on the road to texada island, i am mistake
n for a little brother
for 41 minutes
from sechelt to nowhere, a boy

that painting, by vermeer
where the rug is on the table too.

this hummingbird hanging around
(whose range should not extend further north than south
california.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

memo (published as a chapbook in um 2000? or so. asterisks indicate a new page)

*
Haida Gwaii ravens big as eagles
this morning, big as ostriches, strange as a moa
black & purple crystal boa
ghost ravens
pink & yellow
tippy on a slope with big black boots on, my rain pants are gone
my sleeping bag is wet, orange nylon pseudopod buried in dead leaves
*
a moth died
drowned in a dish
when I walked by the table.
I watched until it was still, out of focus.
it was a dream but the moth was dead in the morning.
*
a moth is a raven is a blue starfish

eye-spots whirl,
radial symmetry, crooked fingers throw it off & the carnival ride squeals like trains, pink & yellow ravens knocked off the cables spark on enameled red & gold upholstered cars remind me I can fly, in the sun, in the stars
*
cables fall, sing down the slope. they hold the ravens up, dark marionettes.
*
down sails across Bearskin Bay, echoes of moon-luminous jellyfish, mesmerized by the sky & reflections of themselves on the surface.
a paddle-current ripples her body
*
what are clouds? she wonders & is washed up at Tlell, on the sand
the otters give her a wide berth, sniff the dogfish, dead in their nests of kelp.
dinner-plate jellyfish, glazed orange. she waits for the leaf-stained tide.
*

jellyfish foam from the river’s leaves churns in the surf & births a gale.
she pulls her dress across the water & sand
sepia strands
lace & tulle
ravens & gulls in her hair.
drags broken shells, magenta seaweed
*
the edge of her salty Cape
trips a wild cow & drags her, kicking, lowing, to the cliffs-- she falls
rust-orange, bones broken, stranded
blinks her downy eyelashes, watches the tea-brown tide come in.
*
foam catches on glasses, on our backpacks & legs
blows across waves of sand
seafoam disintegrates the rusted oak planks of the Pesuta
bow noses through the surface of sand, blind eyes, portholes
wonders what the wind is
steel rusts into the surf, stains Hecate Straight
*
ravens, thumbs in their belt loops, wait for the tide to trap dinner-plate crabs in the Pesuta’s forward berth.
*
a crab is an oyster is a Lewis moon snail
*
eye-stalks whirl,
bilateral symmetry sideways, serrated pinchers & feathers, & frustrated crabs are blind. pebble eyes, raven gullet. sea polished agates grind empty razor clam shells, empty shells fall from rusty cables, from Pesuta’s broken prow
*
it was a dream but she’s dead in the morning.
I watched her break the waves, eyes pecked.
when I walk by, brown foam marks
her drowned forehead, her
mantilla of flies.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from A Painted Elephant


the shy breathing of the radiator. night sighs

my anointed knuckles, a hierophant inhabits fingertips at midnight, a greenglow sacrifice. attracts sanguine cinnabar moths know nothing of boats, their ways, the binnacle doesn’t draw mercuric insects.

at night cannibalism’s alright.

consumptive nasal whine as i ravage wild cattle at Cape Ball, strip layers like thinner strips chairs, strips of darkness for contrast in chryselephantine mosaic of ruddy gold, of yellowed ivory dirt in seams and creases mercury filings, fillings, gild her over with strips, scrap
petition Hecate at the seal

tank with pennies and nickels, nickel and diming “Lori the Seal” wishes for change, change for a wish, chokes to death on pennies and nickels, nickels and dimes, hundreds

of wishes
of coins
ballast in her belly
gags on the medium of exchange
ragged tail flags behind
swallow icons and
chokes on elizabeth r.

swishes lower & lower in a circular current of (not sea)
water tea-brown tepid, cinder black and grey spots sable sleek
cow eyes cloud over she’s slower and slower ‘til

It was a dream but she’s dead in the morning.

breaks the waves, eyes pecked.
rust foam marks her drowned forehead

Hecate’s seal her mantilla of flies
poplar leaf revolves across mirrored skies