go to hell

Paul Celan - “Count Up the Almonds”

Count up the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you waking,
count me in too :

I sought your eye when you looked out and no one saw you,
I spun that secret thread
where the dew you mused on
slid down to pitchers
tended by a word that reached no one’s heart.

There you first fully entered the name that is yours,
you stepped toward yourself on steady feet,
the hammers swung free in the belfry of your silence,
things overheard thrust through to you,
what’s dead put its arm around you too,
and the three of you walked through the evening.

Render me bitter.
Number me among the almonds.

Wrong Type of Juice for Breakfast — A Haibun

     A dead bee, basking in the sun on a windowsill, wanted to crawl in my three-year-old hands, I thought. I pinched its wings and lifted; it twitched its wings and dropped. My big toe socket’d the stinger. Of course, tears joined the poison.

     I wanted my beagle for comfort. My mom wanted my beagle outside. She opened the door, unable to handle the weaving dog between her legs, when she was looking for a tweezers.

open gate, mommy…

puppy in street, car coming.

puppy come in? The

dog’s muscles get juiced into

cracks of the asphalt by tires.

Some “Modern” and “Classic” Haikus

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morning bathroom—

my shit looks like tile grout

when wiped on a towel

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my brother’s bedroom—

four oak walls, cushion floor

and a lid

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public nudity

live, natural comedy

socially dampened.

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