Conversation with Rachael
PART ONE / IDAHO
I put your pink art outside, wooden chair barricaded by snow, left dead lily in frozen pot for whoever I must pray to to hear you.
We had so much fight in us, still do – I do, fight in my mind horses kicking the interior of me: dead lily, sage brush, I’d’ve knotted myself together to meet you clearly, to meet anyone.
Do I? I feel weaker & strong at once, my heart a backward walking shadow smart in bright morning. I lay down diamond water in geode cave & wait for a signal, see you shimmer a little to the left, your laugh.
Fight in all alive no matter. Sun set into my eyes though it was not my fault. You saw x-ray vision my tender center, so open it scared you of yours, am I correct? Here is saltier, as I like. Warm ocean body held.
Yes. I watched you sing, slow dance in the rain, driving drunk across a city I love. Dark booth in dark bar we cried, recognized, hands held under table, your endless hair. “Peach,” you said.
As it happens, I could love anything, how even disdain is a form of laying eyes on. Filtered through a glimmer, ugliness become its own tea left to sweat in afternoon heat. Idaho.
I never saw you in the desert, only sheltered by green – thick leaves & flowers, water everywhere. What would you have been, us together there walking soft hill to lower alpine in the sun.
You live because of the desert, which is no longer a question to ask. That water swirling into a drain no use for you. I chose it knowing the exit door I wanted to take. Don’t be afraid to be honest. Fuck anyone else.
||
& here I am for you suspended over creek bridge trying to remember. When you died that was where I met them, even before – the brightness of April ocean, of evening & birds, flowers imagining the love of a child. Later, summer.
You’ve thought of me as water but really I am birds. Here you get to pick the sky – it’s true. There’s a questionnaire at the door you fill out – bubbles, #2 pencil, the whole thing; best test I’ve ever taken no studying.
I’d want wind in the trees, I think. Was that an option? What kind of hair do you have now is it feathers? A man passed by me just then did you see? Did you send him?
Ha! I’d never. My hair is sparkling silver gold everywhere. You don’t have to be just one thing. I’d pick woman again though of course it was difficult. For me, as it has been for you, I know. We recognized that in each other. The propensity for falling, sight of goodness in all & the likelihood then of violation, smooth hand beneath the clothes. We loved them both & all.
Which leg am I to stand on, constellation across the sky, did you have a few more poems to write?
Legs strong together make one & the one you are to choose. I am not All Knowing. Death isn’t like that – voices heard but inarticulate beyond the door. Still in a way I am myself. Just as wise & bobbing just above in the sea of consciousness. What I make here is with my hands. Woven, more direct, uncomplicated by narrative or time. Poet always, the one lone bird behind.
Where next?
The sun.
||
So much of you feels possible right now. What do you think about that?
Do you need to ask? You know well by now. Of course the dead are always possible, though it is true I am closer & will remain so for some time as the grief of me continues to be grieved. It is not all gray water, though, as your mind sometimes makes it to be. Allow your fear to go. The point of your being here is that path isn’t it? The path from loss to divinity? It was my path too in a way, though it both found & took me differently than you.
Why did not I go, continue that direction as I had started it? Atheism, a swollen heart, anger at premature goneness, alcohol dripping from me. I understand it is not so simple—sunglasses in dark late winter bird sounds.
That path we were both walking – let’s be honest, most of us poets were walking it – was so beautiful. Dark ink glimmering, all of us swimming in it, naked together, attached at various nexus points of our bodies. Wasn’t it delicious? I would’ve eaten that cake forever with you, thick chocolate spread over our skin. You’d’ve too, maybe, left to the rainy parts. Problem was I got alone. The party stopped & I was there, suspended in the bubble of my lone apartment, trying to love what I could, sopping wet & gathering dust simultaneous antique obsolescent ornate ruin. I felt the romance in it even then.
& now? In the center after?
I regret nothing. I watch the movie with my bucket of buttery popcorn & I laugh – how clumsy & throbbing with youth we were – cry sometimes, mostly just awestruck waiting for you all to fill the seats next to me.
What if we just wrote some poems now? In weird Idaho spring winter summer all flavors from the soda machine suicide. Hail like Styrofoam in the sun, that sort of thing, a river to wait by what do you think? Stopped for bleeding color, kept walking, called my mother, saw her name cut off from a plastic banner, a sign.
As you know, I spent so long without my mother. What would you have done? Snow gathered in feet inside the frigid walls. Don’t stop visiting even if a poem. I like pink & ribbons, fake statue of deer & outdoor aerobics station. Outside can be everything, not just IDAHO idea of nature. Some swans wading through pond muck amidst the paddle boats, etc. I watched you singing.
For you only, long gone Patsy Cline in my ear dream, your dancing, my.
||
“A memory of us wanting God to be real.”
I thought a couple
of kids laid up
in a sand box.
Sun a radioactive
color through haze
no clouds. A dog
named cowboy.
“Cowboy sit.”
Make the morning
stay all day.
Leopard print
roller skates.
Rachael wrote a poem
called Activities for Love.
Actually it was her
life – butterfly closed
in Mason jar. Exquisite.
“Love like a human
heart you are eating”
was more or less
the argument.
I thought God
floating over that
sandbox grit
between our toes.
“Saturday could be
every day,” God
said then in string
across the sky.
“Actually I’d like the jar
smashed open,” I said. Glass
turned sand again
I’d wash my face with.
No,” God said; putting
our shoes on one
foot then the other.
Our ankles bare
God wrapped
the scene in candy
wrapper & waited.
The moon did a few
circles. Our wings
turned sugar.
“I thought I’d be more
meat than this,”
you said.
“Don’t worry,”
I said. “We’ll
be meat tomorrow.”
||
POEM WITH KARENA & RACHAEL
I thought it could be fun us all together
black ink while fake cops roam the sidewalks
in clown car four-wheeler side-by-side.
Pink highlighter tied to a tree branch
pink comb on the ground pink lunch
box ice pack placed at the root, okay, God.
Cold wind past wintertime & dry despite
snowflake come into my mouth no ask –
that’s what does it. Long walk gray February
old spring, make it out alive.
Yesterday heart pain traveling from one side
of body to the other I pressed a fake tattoo
into my shoulder to help, your hands held
wet washcloth where mine couldn’t
reach. Soft kid palms, blanket broken
with rain, a difficult beach.
Real bird real dirt real heart real wind real life.
Karena & I walk a square around the center
of time, a street called Pandora, a school
turned condos haunted by gone babies.
I leave you in my bag in her house to rest
before we pick back up again. The books
near you all titled for ending I let you seep
into each other, wait for what else.
We pass the many mile markers of our lives,
pathways, the hair of a girl, the name of mine.
No dead birds today but a cloud of crows, three
hawks separate in each their own allotment of sky
while we find new ways to say “It’s okay to feel
bad” & “It’s okay to feel bad & stay alive.”
Resolve to trade in holding tight to shoulders shaking
hard screaming STAY, wait to make some other alchemy.
||
Wind carried me to meet you in dry end-of-winter field, your brother’s song ends as a truck turns HOME in block letters on the side. I wonder what you thought of that, where & where now.
I like that you can all be happy. Life is long even when perceived to have been shortened, you know? Home inside a joke or standing a few feet into stage, dark bar on a Friday night swaying. Clear-eyed as any of you may be now, you can’t deny that sparkle. The liquid of it gold or iridescent bubble floating into night no knowing how high. I didn’t want to stay for war beyond what war there already was.
What does that feel like where you are – war? We felt through each other into it between evergreen imagination of sea.
Where do you think that image came from? Bright burning hole in atmosphere crows between. I & the rest of us beyond are often one being. I myself at times alone in each of your living minds, but often what seems like separate entity messages is actually all of us up here, whatever layer I wanted you to grieve me, to wash me with rain come not so far from the ocean. I thought HOLE IN THE SKY CL. See? Stitch me with ribbon to this home & I’ll stay.
Yes I see & have been assured of this from those wiser than me without fully understanding the utility of separation. What is it?
For you to understand the quality of the message, what it regards. You’re psychic but you don’t have to see everything plainly & in accuracy. More fun to work in symbols, anyway. Find whatever form brings forward the puzzle, ya know? One fun side effect of being god now – become anything for love.
Wind carried me to meet you in dry end-of-winter field, your brother’s song ends as a truck turns HOME in block letters on the side. I wonder what you thought of that, where & where now.
I like that you can all be happy. Life is long even when perceived to have been shortened, you know? Home inside a joke or standing a few feet into stage, dark bar on a Friday night swaying. Clear-eyed as any of you may be now, you can’t deny that sparkle. The liquid of it gold or iridescent bubble floating into night no knowing how high. I didn’t want to stay for war beyond what war there already was.
What does that feel like where you are – war? We felt through each other into it between evergreen imagination of sea.
Where do you think that image came from? Bright burning hole in atmosphere crows between. I & the rest of us beyond are often one being. I myself at times alone in each of your living minds, but often what seems like separate entity messages is actually all of us up here, whatever layer I wanted you to grieve me, to wash me with rain come not so far from the ocean. I thought HOLE IN THE SKY CL. See? Stitch me with ribbon to this home & I’ll stay.
Yes I see & have been assured of this from those wiser than me without fully understanding the utility of separation. What is it?
For you to understand the quality of the message, what it regards. You’re psychic but you don’t have to see everything plainly & in accuracy. More fun to work in symbols, anyway. Find whatever form brings forward the puzzle, ya know? One fun side effect of being god now – become anything for love.
PART TWO / PORTLAND
& now on the rain side, water in one ear, a mile away we are here together late night victory lap, the air it sparkled, out of gas to drive.
I never got used to an airplane, metal star in sky. I’d pace around, make circles of myself in spirals, decorated sky.
Are we too much the same voice? Or is that all any voice is, if beckoned to properly, a coming together imperceptibly.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Twinkie, HoHo, rubber chicken, etc. What I would do is lay facedown or on gravel, stone turned to shards. Do anything to become an atom away from earth material. I could have stood in life to do that more, though you seem to have figured it out. Each measure a beat away from human time. Turn a few circles around & you find.
What else?
More tomorrow &
||
Reclined, I see! & preparing to begin. Don’t be afraid that the body takes time to catch up. Without one, it’s easier to appreciate that. All flaw & human filled with water, slow matter made of stars. I come into your view as the sky does – always here & working, language isn’t everything, as you have well begun to discern. How in the periphery to show what shadow next to shine on. Always another once one has been seen.
& what is that – this time, the shadow? Hello I am happy to hear you. Is this okay?
Don’t be stupid, you have my full permission. Shadow is about fun & hiding ourself. If you want this baby to come you have to find again the capacity for complete joy uncomplicated by notions of responsibility, knowing all will be accomplished through such an allowance. This is the doorway to expressing yourself filterless, allowing the divine to speak. You must not fear, trust your capabilities, your body, your own tender & beautiful heart. I help show you what a waste of a life it is to silence.
Thank you. I am ready to step into that light & I will stand barefooted each morning in trust. & you? How are you? Where? What now is your vantage.
Oh I am all vantage. No need to worry so much about the dead. Find who needs you alive & listen, help with hands & throat & your vibration will heighten to the next level of work – all ease & trust from here.
What is this restlessness?
Oh just to kick you forward a little. Remind you of your sparkling agency & all you are to stay alive. Wisdom & responsibility give unto a lightness, lightening. Diagonal & into the change you go, Peach <3
||
Maybe you could tell me what to do in the actual present OR – if the dead wrong title Idaho girl in the dream was you or a poem. I’d keep here awhile, hop around. I wish away a year ago for you, see you crying in bed not comatose but seething. I’ve chosen another way – not to look directly in the direction of looking. A form of powerful animal to remember. Our names.
You shouldn’t be surprised to know I love it best like this. Sure my death & hers are separate but at the end of the day who are we? Brown haired girls from Idaho who liked to feel nothing & everything at once. Find the way to get the heart out forward generously & don’t worry so much about the mechanics of things. Take tampon out & let body become external. If a teacher you knew decided to be quiet out of fear what would that show you? No time not to help, not to be externalizing love at all costs. No grief no mechanism, love only HOPE HOPE HOPE what names a machine. You must begin to make poems again & always. Grieve us that way – silence is gold & comes when it likes; there will be plenty later. Trust me & go on.
Everywhere around me now are siblings & those I cannot discern from the oldest of lives. I hear already you saying no need to search out the answer – let it surface & be awed as ever – time one human construction to adore.
Yeah pretty much. Don’t sweat about it – the blood has mixed with the salt water already, you know.
I return to the place you first found me to say hello & bring back what? Of course I return. & of course I seek guidance. A sort of fearlessness. I know you were capable of w. Where are you now & what helps? You, anyone, the trees.
Oh I am soft in rhododendron flowers – you thought I didn’t know, didn’t accompany you from desert over. Quiet giving me this voice & see how the bees go. It is more like that as I know in right current you know – a vibration, an interaction with wind. When you have filled this book, move forward – it does not need to be of me alone. Bring it around, let some other colors in. I am tranquil now for the moment. Ready to watch as any of you gather in any name. I love it. The celebrity.
& what of this time here? What am I meant to do, attract, listen to, forgive. Who now am I to become? Next.
Rest that you’ve become primarily yourself. Addition will occur but the center of the pearl is the pearl. Now know this & walk forward in it. As the flowers of branches sometimes touch the ground yet still attract the bees, the hummingbirds, you will. Don’t worry about perceptible gain. In the truth the dirt of me I cared little. I & the other dead are teaching you this always, you need to just know it already, exit in its grace trusting your pink & glowing hands to provide exactly what is needed. As for me, I need no grand gesture, no stones buried in earth. I benefit the most completely from the work you manage to pull from your temples, into & out of your hands. Trust in this & begin again. Begin again always & be that great spirit pressing on, out.
Thank you. I miss who you made me see.
&
& now on the rain side, water in one ear, a mile away we are here together late night victory lap, the air it sparkled, out of gas to drive.
I never got used to an airplane, metal star in sky. I’d pace around, make circles of myself in spirals, decorated sky.
Are we too much the same voice? Or is that all any voice is, if beckoned to properly, a coming together imperceptibly.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Twinkie, HoHo, rubber chicken, etc. What I would do is lay facedown or on gravel, stone turned to shards. Do anything to become an atom away from earth material. I could have stood in life to do that more, though you seem to have figured it out. Each measure a beat away from human time. Turn a few circles around & you find.
What else?
More tomorrow &
||
Reclined, I see! & preparing to begin. Don’t be afraid that the body takes time to catch up. Without one, it’s easier to appreciate that. All flaw & human filled with water, slow matter made of stars. I come into your view as the sky does – always here & working, language isn’t everything, as you have well begun to discern. How in the periphery to show what shadow next to shine on. Always another once one has been seen.
& what is that – this time, the shadow? Hello I am happy to hear you. Is this okay?
Don’t be stupid, you have my full permission. Shadow is about fun & hiding ourself. If you want this baby to come you have to find again the capacity for complete joy uncomplicated by notions of responsibility, knowing all will be accomplished through such an allowance. This is the doorway to expressing yourself filterless, allowing the divine to speak. You must not fear, trust your capabilities, your body, your own tender & beautiful heart. I help show you what a waste of a life it is to silence.
Thank you. I am ready to step into that light & I will stand barefooted each morning in trust. & you? How are you? Where? What now is your vantage.
Oh I am all vantage. No need to worry so much about the dead. Find who needs you alive & listen, help with hands & throat & your vibration will heighten to the next level of work – all ease & trust from here.
What is this restlessness?
Oh just to kick you forward a little. Remind you of your sparkling agency & all you are to stay alive. Wisdom & responsibility give unto a lightness, lightening. Diagonal & into the change you go, Peach <3
||
Maybe you could tell me what to do in the actual present OR – if the dead wrong title Idaho girl in the dream was you or a poem. I’d keep here awhile, hop around. I wish away a year ago for you, see you crying in bed not comatose but seething. I’ve chosen another way – not to look directly in the direction of looking. A form of powerful animal to remember. Our names.
You shouldn’t be surprised to know I love it best like this. Sure my death & hers are separate but at the end of the day who are we? Brown haired girls from Idaho who liked to feel nothing & everything at once. Find the way to get the heart out forward generously & don’t worry so much about the mechanics of things. Take tampon out & let body become external. If a teacher you knew decided to be quiet out of fear what would that show you? No time not to help, not to be externalizing love at all costs. No grief no mechanism, love only HOPE HOPE HOPE what names a machine. You must begin to make poems again & always. Grieve us that way – silence is gold & comes when it likes; there will be plenty later. Trust me & go on.
Everywhere around me now are siblings & those I cannot discern from the oldest of lives. I hear already you saying no need to search out the answer – let it surface & be awed as ever – time one human construction to adore.
Yeah pretty much. Don’t sweat about it – the blood has mixed with the salt water already, you know.
I return to the place you first found me to say hello & bring back what? Of course I return. & of course I seek guidance. A sort of fearlessness. I know you were capable of w. Where are you now & what helps? You, anyone, the trees.
Oh I am soft in rhododendron flowers – you thought I didn’t know, didn’t accompany you from desert over. Quiet giving me this voice & see how the bees go. It is more like that as I know in right current you know – a vibration, an interaction with wind. When you have filled this book, move forward – it does not need to be of me alone. Bring it around, let some other colors in. I am tranquil now for the moment. Ready to watch as any of you gather in any name. I love it. The celebrity.
& what of this time here? What am I meant to do, attract, listen to, forgive. Who now am I to become? Next.
Rest that you’ve become primarily yourself. Addition will occur but the center of the pearl is the pearl. Now know this & walk forward in it. As the flowers of branches sometimes touch the ground yet still attract the bees, the hummingbirds, you will. Don’t worry about perceptible gain. In the truth the dirt of me I cared little. I & the other dead are teaching you this always, you need to just know it already, exit in its grace trusting your pink & glowing hands to provide exactly what is needed. As for me, I need no grand gesture, no stones buried in earth. I benefit the most completely from the work you manage to pull from your temples, into & out of your hands. Trust in this & begin again. Begin again always & be that great spirit pressing on, out.
Thank you. I miss who you made me see.
&