Negatives of the Mind
In the dream, I love no one.
A green man I will to marry
leans in for fruit. Doves file
in heading south toward red
clocks & block entrance
home. Near the tussle of
wings, oxygen, sorocco.
I taste hot-blue labels as
indigo green-winter light.
Envelopes folded sealed
for a greaterwhite stormday.
Light hangs on; I wilt as a
hotdream drafts on without
a tramp of lavender in a sky.
No one hopes. We angle
cold orange pekoe tea;
it isn’t evening. For now,
we aren’t close to even. –
Onto a new street,
all doors hold steel,
fade of melted glass,
faces, children. A dress
shop has the red smear
across the door—smudge
of a child’s hand print
into an adult one.
I want to go. Take me
home where I can be
warned . At the church,
I am aiding a dress
to adhere to my body;
staples enter in weaves.
Fortress, lace all its
discriminating factors blush
red cool from my body.
My hair is woven into five
fraying knots; a woman on
my right notes how lovely
I look caught. A heart-glass
ring on my left hand;
a diamond sea no one keeps.
“Your hands are mine,” says
the woman flocked in gray
smocks–holes of mice run
in to devour pieces.
She keeps a flood watch near
a long chief sea
of pullulating goats.
Rustic \dirt inside of her
palms. I do not marry;
I do not wilt.
No one eats.
–
No one comes. I kneel
from branch to trunk
gathering purple ash,
white ore, gliss.
Pipe the tune. Soon
the burning of
elements will hide
our ways.
–
In the first draft of one dream,
there are merchants—the trace
of ships wilt into horizon
toward shoreline. No mountains
hide behind them; orange leafed
trees with the color of fire blaze
to the left. I hold light look
toward a horizon
that never speaks.
–
Even the boatmen know never
go promenading in ferry weather—
get goods now go on into night
to higher water or weaker boats.
No one should wait here at night.
New boats come fresh. Green
out of a mist they groan;
on they come, near—
they beach. We must
prepare a way. Father
builds houses in the trees—
to fly arrows fire shots, light
into warned evening woods.
Men exit the boats
look for women
to hide for a night.
–
Here is where I entreat a man whom later
I could marry/break into bounds.
Someone traps the trapper of trees,
I am stolen, dragged into forest,
hunted through nightsky.
I hold.
–
I hold the way I hide when hunting fruit—
use long limbs, find a sturdy trail in a mid-
night sky. As watchers wail laughter, all
mocking up into air where ear leaf acacias
hold and hide me. I don’t fall.
I don’t drip a leaf near their ears.
No one can find the tree wharf,
where we hide our boats in the sky.
–
Then, a man comes.
A kind man reaches
for me from another
tree—he will keep the night with me.
We hold. As the morning rises, no one
comes. Ships gone from sun’s passage
meet land move on.
The man sleeping near me breaths/rests.
Shadows seem to know;
they fold over from trees.
I hold on to morning await
a passage back to my home
hope for my father.
No one comes
to make an offer to the sea.
All voices salvage
their dreams.
We gather near shore as sun catches
a fight of stars. Gilded beds abutted
on sand hold our loved ones,
wrapped in bressingham blue hosta,
open tops sewn elegantly shut
by the flower weavers. Then all
cast to sea carry behind orange/light
viking poms weave arms of green
toward us. Waiting holding there.
Wanting to wake sooner than light
can ride a star, we begin forgiveness calm. No one can take what isn’t left behind.
In time, when boats come, we will be ready.
None will be found lost. Father leaves
in a boat of birch covered in elder flowers
adrift on blue light— waves into a horrible/
horizon of dreams.
–
The next forest brings wet blooms;
boats offer no shelter cannot be
two sun-days away. Shelters made
by five-leafed clovers, burrows
dug deep beneath wet shore-lines
bait as wet flowers denature select
yellow from viridian. We await
a new coming from the boatmen.
Some will trap themselves inside
a shore, eat a sea into exhaustion.
Some will flee leap all arrows
until none scratch back to the sea.
We hold rustic dirt inside our palms
pursue old revenants near the sea.
We hold rustic dirt, hide our psalms,
pray reverently for ice storms.
Our dream comes as many are lost.
My father holds a whitehorn branch
and smiles at me from the brume.
A dove flies in heading south
as we drink blood orange
until light no longer haunts.
I do not wilt. Now, we are even.
–
No one comes to salvage the dream.
All around voices rest on the water.
–
More boatmen will come. All who know
will find the name: the sea.
Mapped men go into the sea.
Those who cannot return whole, wait
for others who will live among mist.
–
A cloud moves itself into old eyes
(watchers roam sounds) as lost as
a sapphire falling into the rage.
The sea keeps many. No one
keeps the sea.