and grandpa doesn’t look too good
his eyes free of the glasses
a light salt beard snowing his chin
two clear tubes of air pointing from his nose to his walker

yes, i am still in new york

his ankles bloating over the side of black unlaced sneakers
he had a little diabetes and now he has a lot
he is following the news but it doesn’t matter anymore

here, eat a pear

i can feel grandma’s ghost shuffling around the kitchen with long fingers and her
silent hum

we sit and watch the tv,
muted

in silence we love each other
but can barely look.

thoughts from yoga, 3/29

in savasana, let your wings fall through the earth, dangling off your shoulder-blades like broken compass arrows

growing in all directions, as much as you let go, you are supported

acceptance is not complacency, but rather, clear seeing, which is a motor of change

focus on the exhale, the inhale will take care of itself

you have choices.

we are out where the subway slices sky like
a silver comet clicking on a tar rail
we are out
where we talk all night and watch the sun come up over manhattan-

you are new, but still play jazz

and i told you how:
yes, i am stepping forward into a new self
but there are claw marks in her from the old one

the old self is what brought me to you, howling, against the sky like the jmz line, express to all the old memories
i don’t want to let go of
she is the one you knew
she sifted through your new apartment for old remnants while your back was turned

there are no relics
i became a hummingbird in your bedroom

now
before i open my heart
i have to
ground down and through:

i’ve learned how to grow
steady
from the bottom-up

a narcissit a second-time around is not that attractive

did you even notice i was there?

or read the poems i emailed you

you never commented back

and when i said i loved you

you turned from a man into a boy, hailing a cab and riding off yellow into the night

i wondered where you went

when i said i loved you-

you turned from a man into a boy, hopping a cab and riding off yellow in the night

and the poems i sent you never came back

with comments

though i was trying to say i loved you

and not that i needed anything but just that

my thoughts were in words on a page and what did you think of them?

you were in the other room but i never heard back

summer

was a long stretch between semesters

and we didn’t go to the beach house, or europe

you went camping with your mom

and the retreat was solitary, and full,

like your heart

that i loved

but you said i was crazy

because i loved you?

and you were a bright light that faded

and i didn’t know why

and i like to know why

i felt like i had to know why

and the only crazy i was was with sadness

and not knowing why

you were silent

and you still are

i thought writers would talk more

and meditators would reflect more

than that-

community

sharing

family

future

these were words i wanted to associate with you

pinned on you like the magnetic words you bought for our fridge

but the brooklyn subway sound and sound of east river water

has been replaced by manhattan park din

always

playing music

always

in conversation

as i wanted to be with you

wanted to say and hear and feel and live!

and not put a cap on it

what is “goodbye”

but a big cap on it?

i never got to write back

or respond

where are you?

what happened to the man i thought i knew?

i write letters to myself in an endless loop

throw them out the window over thompkin square park

littering with letters and love the park we looped with miscommunication

the green bench that held me up when you said goodbye

i still love you

though you are now a light that fades when i close my eyes

i will always

though i’m taking that up inside me and moving through

without the knowing why

//

as i sit there the memories come back

of your hidden boil / and watching you shave your hair/head

and how it first surprised me

but then felt like how

(how i first was surprised you never removed it, but..)

and how you threw words out the window at the bowery and

they rained on the heads of the bpc poets and homeless men and baristas and condo-dwellers

on their walk home

and we sat with our eyes closed,

the lit image of you seared on our eyelids

your slow steady gutteral voice pouring from your adam’s apple

leading us through inner worlds of breath and sensation

and how intimate that was

and how i wondered how not everyone could fall in love with you

as you sat in navy socks by the bathroom making change for ones

and it smelled like a food co-op

and old wood

and faint insense

and you got out of your own way long enough

for your father to take the stage, or a friend

of your fathers

and the girls and boys wore their brains like beauties/jewelry??

i came in and sat in the back, then

sweaty from the dash from the retail job

with my work pants and fresh lipgloss

remembering

the rumbling of words at the poetry club downstairs

and how they streamed upwards, sometimes, through the floorboards

have you written about me at all?

poet

we were poets when we met/then

where did you go

and did i inspire you at all?

you inspired me

to leave manhattan

think about kids// and sharing a new life//

inspired me

to open up

a bridge between 2 hearts

i sat there

remembering my first meditation retreat

the silence

and how we got to know each other there

but you reminded me

that silence isn’t always communion

but sometimes separation, still

as your words shrivelled up

and began to rain on someone else’s head

burned someone else’s inner eyelids

your silence wasn’t a blanket

but an ocean

and i lost you there

somewhere

on the bowery

///

something had to give

and i felt like my heart had been blown open

like the screen porch door on a windy day

letting things off hinges

ripped open

windy

i had so much to say then it suddenly stopped

and now its started again, now that its spring

and its almost been a year

and you’ve turned silent again, i have things

to say

about how a heart is not always returned, so has to be replanted

resown, reseeded and re-nourished

how hope! hope! hope! gets torn down and regrown over and over in rings

or lines depending on the plot

and how i always had you, fingers crossed

and felt the way you walked, a little heavy in one foot

and the way you wrote, a little crooked with one hand

in my own body, so when you left i had to remember how to walk

and write on my own, straight, in my own way

how i wish you knew someone can love you and not want to leave

and how it feels to hold your seat, want to hold your seat, as pema said

not just on a cushion but in relation, when your heart is involved and not just your groin

and how i don’t care what big chin was stroking a beard for you

and opening doors with gold and many tibetan heads

how you were insecurities and lost words at the bottom of a drawer

i wanted to love, secretly

and how you flew away quicker than those words when

you cleaned out papers in a rush

i stashed them

i was shocked when the rooms were empty

like a honeycomb , only golden light

and i was riding the train over the bridge by myself not knowing

when you’d come home and trying to look for your figure against the skyline, lopsided

walking the heavy way home

how our hearts turned from light to heavy so quickly

i hope you learn i hope you learn

someone can love you and not want to leave!

do we fetishize gut feelings over thought? are gut feelings not always truer than thought, just another thing that’s arising?

in savasana, let your wings fall through the earth, dangling off your shoulder-blades like broken compass arrows

growing in all directions, //i still feel my toes on the mat, //as much as i let go, i’m supported

clear seeing, clear seeing, clear seeing …where i’ve been an expert at denial and how that’s served me

acceptance is not complacency, but a motor of change (ex. have to accept world hunger exists before you can change it)

i took the train back to you
out
where the subway slices sky like a silver comet clicking on a tar rail
out
where we talk all night and watch the sun come up over manhattan-

you are new, but still play jazz

and i told you how:
yes, i am stepping forward into a new self
but there are claw marks in her from the old one

the old self is what brought me to you, howling, against the sky like the jmz line, express to all the old memories
i don’t want to let go of
she is the one you knew
she sifted through your new apartment for old remnants while your back was turned

there are no relics
i became a hummingbird in your bedroom

because
now
before i open my heart
i have to
ground down and through:

i’ve learned how to grow
steady
from the bottom-up

More and more by-donation yoga seems to be popping up, which is great in its spirit, and for recession-practicality.

Here’s some online by-donation yoga audio downloads!

YOGI CHOCOLATE

grief,
you filled the empty spaces
//after he left//
you hugged me close
you walked around holding my hand with heavy thud boots and thick incomprehensible glove
you were there to come home to

grief
you were quiet, but never went anywhere
i could depend on you,
this year
you tucked me in

and as the days grow longer
and the sun shines brighter
i almost miss you

was is this lightness in my heart
but the absence of you?

Can%27t%20handle%20it.mp3