a queen ant lands

Hello oracle, how are you?
a queen ant lands on top of my papers making a sound like a raindrop.
waving scattershot with dumb feelers for an indeterminate item lost,

hermit crab
trolling along the lines, miraculously
with her one set of flimsy see-through wings
hastening blindly to the edge,
she does not jump or fall,
she turns, feeling her way along the top of the stack of papers
looking for where to rest and lay eggs?
or lost, away from help and alone?
non-fiction persuasive.
she has crawled willingly onto my un-offered arm.
up the bare skin to the shoulder, then falling beside my hand onto
the spool, it seems she has forgotten her wings.
she stumbles determinedly up the metal lever then down,
over the serrated knob
towards the moving inside parts of the typewriter

Okay, must save queen.
it becomes a struggle- back to the sheets now for a picture.
she is more frantically agile now from my body heat.
she won't and can't sit still or smile.
hastening again towards the edge,
she drops under the page, lost and not found.
gone, finally fallen, alone.
really, I can't find her
and am afraid to move for fear that I might crush her.

promise this is a real post

a little bit sorry for having cold feet.

the first time, imagine ...........

here is a trade, this one has not been seen

but wait a while longer....

(expectantly awaiting)

but they are here now

so soon?

so what now? Quickly smooth wrinkles and stand straight.


contemplate the two roads the one eye

this is what we thought was rounding the corner.

in fact, it has hit.


it's been years since i've heard this.


the beginning

lifted a bit

We are wasted from this exile. Look at our faces.
But see how this wind heals us and smoothes our sighs. I walked out in the afternoon after it rained, down the sidewalk. I'd been inside so long the fresh air felt like a tossing sea bath for my hair and skin washing my nostrils and cavities clean. I could feel the sun behind the clouds and the wind lifted. I took off my sweater. I walked down the golden archway of locust trees raining golden leaves on me- a private regal moment for me under their offerings of spiralling chocolate pods nested in fronds liquidly palpating the shifting air, while unknown to the city world I walked half a block without touching the cement.

Keep writing. Keep going. I say yes to this ache. I want to touch beauty.
Oh god, I am filled with smoke and bees for you.

to where with ink

I've heard of that one,
of all the queens that ever shone, she is the forever bride
wading ankle deep in rainbow oil slicks
trailing her puppy trail, ink and torit grey sludge seeping up
the folds of costumegown,
a beautiful stain with fingers climbing the hollows

i've seen her, after the party as the day breaks across asphalt asphodel
her dress was made for her perfectly careless steps,
bare feet tracing the spine of the horizon
the hard ridges and bumps under the puddle

I've seen her with finger to mouth,
regarding the unseen word, blind all-seeing gaze

following the feel of feet rolling from heel to toe
heel to toe, one in front of the other, where will we go?

Where she goes, round the empty curved arc of flat land against
reddening void, through ankle-deep lukewarm liquid,
covering the surface of the land like skin

her back is to us, we see what she sees
the weight of her sasses to the right and left.
swaying forward and back, but ultimately forward.

SPIDER

Salvaged From the Domestic Forest @ Future Tenant 7/17

shows in Pittsburgh!

Thurs 16 July
.... Most Wanted Fine Art --- w/ Melissa St. Pierre + Mike Tamburo
..... 8 pm

.... The Nerve --- w/ Dave Bernabo + Edgar Um Bucholtz + Christian Butcher
.... 11 pm

Fri 17 July
>> Salvaged from the Domestic Forest <<
new work by Joanne Hsieh and Melissa St. Pierre
....... Future Tenant Gallery (for Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Gallery Crawl)
....... 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm
....... performances at 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00 sharp

Sat 18 July
...... Unsmoke Systems (Braddock, PA) --- w/ Edgar Um Bucholtz + many others...
...... Benefit for Book 'Em --- program to bring books to prisoners ---

Mockingbird

Moments of clarity. Serviceable joy to the max. A reach for the ledge.
Under-pre-misconstrued points of departure are reality testing itself through credo,
soon to shift, to melt into opposing trajectory.

Rants used to share bliss, words used to undertake meaning.
Transient belief; momentary calm.
the undertaker with his palms clasped.
soon to jostle for surf space with a four hundred watt lightbulb wedged in the space
between my ears.
redo the makeup. Al is well.
May Al be Happy
May Al be Peaceful.

Smile.
This is how we will come to understand
that the mockingbird does point to a concrete reply.

transcription

2008
20" x 20"
oil on canvas

under the auspices

2009
72" x 72"
gouache, charcoal, crayon and
graphite on construction paper

Secret City Names

. . . .

This is hunger: a bare finger pointed at the sky.
It doesn’t take long for the branch to dry.
Skin wrapped tight against the bone.
Punch the clock and the dawn starts.
Save the last drop.

So let it begin
the dance
Blackened and split

A stark efficiency
that brings out the beast in everybody.
Stomach empty, body light.
Senses keen from want

quickened to search for food or lie frozen in wait,
yet taking life at a slow drip-
By whom?

All links in that cold chain,
How to cut the lock?

The road freezes,
the shopkeeper turns
to the dry dusty corner where the spirits lie.

What comes will come again,
for she moves between bed and desk
like the sun.
or house and field
eternally

Dropping keys along the way-
Here-
and here-
but for the return
since one can only look ahead.

They will sleep forever
from scene to scene,
wave to wave,
weekend to weekend.

So much easier for sun-blind boats to drift,
than to be dragged along to destiny
by pairs of hands and seeing eyes.
Finally free, stop trying to understand-
you're seeing what isn't there.

There is a shot and sparrows fall,
but don't let me look,
i must pass undisturbed -

Through hunger,
life orders itself-
Circles form as
winter comes to make bedfellows of all.
Go not knowing where.

What comes will come again,
and somewhere,
I know where--

I saw the road tilting upward, fringed with green as I passed by.
Please.
Driver, please turn around.
There's some country there, where I would walk forever
I know that road, I've searched it with my eyes closed-
and if I follow it, I know the way,

It leads to a back road, and there the mind is free.
A highway on which few cars pass...
On one side is a slope, desert and dry,
then the right side falls away,
and after a while, brown sunny hills.

a primordial place with hidden pools and sighing springs where god speaks
There I dared ask your name.

nuclear sunrise

2006
36" x 51 1/2"
pastel on butcher paper

Hand to Mouth

A meditation on human eating and human reproductive fixation.