Ocean Radish: A Correspondence
Dear Ocean:
I enter any margin with such a blend of hope and terror—
I’m writing this letter with a sunburn on my chest and it is processing me.
A pilgrimage — taking a long walk to the poetry bookstore to retrieve a text.
Alexander slipped the book to me through a slot.
_____I write to get ahead of thought
_____I write YOU to get ahead of thought
tree radio, hair bonnet,
an outermost curve
of petal or bluest flume
Year after year
Vowels ovulate
When I hear the word ‘antibodies’
jangling m&ms disco dance
orange poppies— huddled together in a silky stadium
_____This is not a poem!
_____This is a letter
_____like a rascal__gone
_______________gone
_______________gone
*
Dear Radish:
this letter is powered by the
_____steam engine of breath
the trellises of bird song
_____that make their own vine
__________of afternoon light
the way my chest would
_____open up the feelings
__________of the song
Is the poem on the underside
_____if I lift this letter up
__________like a barnacled rock?
the local, the cull of details
_____the loco (maybe crazy)
__________and loco(motion)
the left margin is left spacious
_____(the silence respected)
*
Dear Ocean:
Do you remember that HD line…
“if you take the moon in your hands, and turn it round, you’re there…”
all those years robust with hotel guests
_____cheese platters
_____saying too much or too little
_____kneeling down to fit in photos
What is tentative and what is sensing…
plant a precipice between them
John Prine, is he still in the bardo?
a typewriter stately, and white paper pointing, toward the sky
I’ve always loved the quiet thunders
_____Voila oysters!
_____Hull [of] lullaby
I don’t know why certain news bites our ears …
_____A sieve
_____Caught his sleeve
_____What [strikethrough] is gold
_____Will hold
dry seaweeds / the underside / bright amber
speaks directly to YOU
*
Dear Radish:
after the outermost curve
_____apply the salve locally
the blue-black brush of the crow
begins in cursive but slows
down to individual
_______________letter
__________print
the letter H, like hahaha,
_____not funny, fate
things are growing
_____and blooming
like mad that need
_____no help or thought-
__________form from me
*
Dear Ocean:
Writing must be done
_____at the 13th hour
Moonlight Serenade
_____Soleil
remind me to polish my antennae
notes heard permeating floors
_____God (always God)
_____sweet and weird
bird became verb, an ocean radish
_____and birth is happening
_____my mom,
_____your mom
_____many ears inside your palm
a soccer ball rolls, a field of strong legs
_____shuttled to the hospital
_____in hospital hallways
the sun entered
the sun directly
_____writing must be done
_____the slug poeming
_____the snail amplified
words follow me around
_____a daily music
floored, hard not to be
*
Dear Radish:
I Can’t Wait to Hug
_____My Mom
_____SCREAM
__Heat, a medicinal
use
speech continues
contentment _beyond
_____moist _author
who’s evening star
about the muddle
_____that played
__________the puddle:
isn’t hearing
_____the last to go?
washing the coffee pot
_____black mud
_____musical finger tips
_____astronaut suit massages
sad spills
little_____damage pleasures
__________dream
__________dictionaries
incoheres
_____cutting into skin
of__out of peach _season
_____who’s dedication
_____like a visitation
__________sip