two poems with one heart shared with you-all

Aperture

These that are things and not things both
They pepper the landscape
The landscape that is so and not so both
I walk amongst them
The I that is not an I after all, yet somehow is

It's not that I wonder about this apparent conundrum
As in feeling troubled or some kind of loss
Rather it is there or with it that I belong
Nothing of this casts me aside
All things that I am and am not Rest here

Whose favor would I garner
To look upon this any differently
Seeing is a communion after all
That each and every one of us
Has within the very fabric of being

Ultimately there is no such thing as compromise
And yet how often is there a sensation
Of All of This somehow tangled
Around my ankles that I possess
The I that has no counterpart

As we see through this aperture
Closure is a function of clarity
Focus celebrating the visual spectrum
Saturating this field in the unseen
An exposé of brilliance and crystallization

Open Open Open

This light pouring forth as everything
needs no on/off switch
Has no sign in the door
indicating readiness for business

And yet we play at the controls
and let us play
in the true order of things
transparent, wild, open without its opposite

This is Yes without a No
Form and formless seamlessly joined
Cacophony and symphony just as it is
We are playing this tune

Let us play
Let us play
No need to petition anything
Amongst this playground

Imunuri Poetry Collective Tribute poem - I try to write a poem about the entire universe…while also harvesting kiwis and it opens up a space in me to hear the laughter the Earth makes as it spins, speedily, round in dance, which reminds me of rolling down hills as a child, how, turning, our rolling traced slow circles, and this helps me understand how the tilt of the earth generates the seasons as well as the purpose for our lives….

For Mother Poet Barbara, who passed 12-27-14

I try to pick the atlas sphere like a kiwi ripening

in the cold sudden sunshine. The vine

of the milky way snakes gracefully, hop

ping and bumbling like an absent

minded pro (con)

fessor across the drape of magnolia

branch (ing). I think I hear ka (achoo)

zoos faintly. Feintly, feintingly

up on the lad(ud)der of gaia-kiwi-plucking

all-seeing, my vision zooms in on the

burgundy polka

dot ladybug irridescing.

We are these kiwis, worlds, galaxies:

of poets and poems.

We are the ladybugs tending the vines of connecting.

For years now, Imunuri poets, we’ve been up on ladders

plucking kiwi-poems from the arbor of gaia’s hair/the constellations of

the nearby universe. We have landed our pens on the passing asteroids

of ancient ideas, giving novel voice (seasonally arising now for tens of

thousands of years) to what has always been true. Hasn’t it?

We have been shout-singing praise-songs, plucking kiwis in

buckets, word-phrases in stanzas, prompting ourselves

up in the morning, into the thick vines, in gruff denim and swaddled in

sweaters of analogy, allegory, and allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the poetry of the united states (stars/kiwis) of imunuri…

If I am you and you are I, perhaps we are the kiwis, tangy swaddled in

brown hairy cocoons of temporary breath, plucked by the planetary

presences who are in carhartts and fleece. The earth grips us,

this day-being of us, this seasonal kiwi, thinking of how

to savor the kiwi-sweet-juice of us, our poem-songs a kind

of planetary nourishment, ingredients for a meal for the belly of gaia.

In which case, we have generated 148 recipes for gaian delight, we have

gingered the bananas, sautéed our metaphors in crisp, delicious

words, added the core holy spices of love and presence. We

have lit the fire (holy) with the freshness of our poetic breath.

Now we pause, having jumped, walloped, read, spun, sung, earthed,

tenderizing these verses for Earthly sauté. We have been the supple

soufflé, the stirring spoon, the serving fork. We have spun the plates and

gathered up the goblets, hummed the flowing libations into

poetry as offering for the universe unfurling, who is a clatch of chattering

kiwi pluckers, in for a break, air cold as breath, the breath clouds

themselves. All this. And the earth herself too, and the galaxies and planets.

I am you and you are I is not only about humuns; more so projective

empathy and cross-species, cross-being , cross-scale symbiosis. Hunkering at puters,

plunkering at ukuleles, in cafes from California to Oregon, in the dim dark possibilities of poem-birthing night, plucking kiwis, offering these sweet

juicy tastes of

delight to the maker-spheres of our heaven on earthing.

Definitely part of something big, spare, whole. Jumping through,

I come back to you, who, reading this, run the hand on the back of your neck

and yes you feel the kiwi fuzz there, you just start to turn around as you sense

the giant Gaian hand hovering for the pluck. We are being tended, gardened,

and poem-harvested for the delight of things so much larger than us

that all that’s needed, feeling the whisper air of the Earth-hand hovering to

pluck the juicy kiwi skin of us from the vine ripening weave of our connection,

all we

(can) do is

grin. 

grin the gaian grin of deep knowing

that we are ripe and ready for the festival (feast of alls) of earthly delight

which as we well know

helps the Earth, rolling down a hill on a summer day,

warm, over the voluption of grassy stars, starry night

nourishes the Gaian spin

Scooter Cascadia

12-31-14

The Danger and Delight of the Snake Dance as it brings us Death / Rebirth / Transmutation / Transfiguration...

                                         "Tiles"   cement / copper / silver solder  ~ Rachel L.

Joy and Dancing to you Dear Hearts!

I look forward to being invited to the next incarnation of Imunuri.

xoxo,

Rachel

Going our own way Together

I’M

drum solo

unburied from the ashes of a pit fire,

hand painted instruments in hand,

headed north to join

IMUNURI

poets,

in the cascades of their lives,

(UN)der

Mt. Hood

to blow cornets  in Portland 

neighborhoods

to pitch our words 

into Northern Light

mutations of our poetry

incense burning tonight.

U-R-I

******************************************************  

IMUNURI

A gathering heard

in Northern cafes,

online weekly

in Richmond CA

in Portland OR

in Taos NM

prompted by lively  writer spirits

to play with words

to pen poems

to riff together

now the song ends after

one last chorus

“Going our own way Together”

Adios Imunuri

*********************************************************

and an echo of an earlier post (from Drum Solo)

The Finish Line

breathless at last/

happy to have left

a few poems behind the

finish line

*******************************************************

Centrifugal force

Start in the center and move toward the edge.
Born of my mother, I’m moving that way.
Stones on the landscape are sometimes engraved.
    People I’ve moved with—all moving that way,
pausing to sigh on the narrowest ledge.

Once I pretended that I was a judge,
verdict and sentence my privilege to say.
Robed in that power—such power to taste—
    mercy or penalty, my right to say.
When the game ended, the rules had not budged.

Orders I give should be begged from the knees.
Centrifugal force preempts my request.
    Comfort my journey, I pray from the knees,
me and my loved ones and all of the rest.

IMUNURI Closure: Looking Back

Pink pig bed by Lauren Ari

The first IMUNURI prompt was "Doorway Into Balance." The directive was to meditate on the symbolic Door, and stand in a doorway in order to write.

Way back in 2010, we posted as comments on the prompt rather than as top-level posts. Since then, between you and I, we have posted many hundreds of poems here: free verse, formal poems, experiments, various types of art, video and audio files, explorations, epics—writings. 

Now your hosts sense a high tide of change upon us. We see IMUNURI isn't just changing participants or page design. It is passing through a more significant doorway.

We will invite you to participate in the big re-steering in the new year, but for now, we'd like you to post one more time.

We'd like everyone who has ever posted here at IMUNURI to post again.
 You can take "looking back" as a prompt; or "looking ahead."
You might re-post your favorite prior post, or post a new version of it, or a reply to it.
Or you can post something brand new.
You could put up a draft that never made it.
You could write in response to this artwork.
Or write a prose recollection of blogging here,
or post something that has no relation to IMUNURI except for appearing here.Write about closure or transition.
Pen a sonnet or a catawamp.
Write about spiders or Liberace. (Remember that one?)

Your choice is as wide open as capital U, so please bless this closure with your voice.

Please post before midnight on December 31, 2014.

 Label your post with the keywords closure, poem, and your name/handle.
Direct any questions to efflux at sonic.net

Babafidrious

There is always even if unseen a perfectly reasonable reason
Now I understand how the light on dying magnolia looks like snow

In the morning equivalent of gloaming

We start with concentric circles from our heart

And if squeezed, becoming defended, we contract

And this pinched up inward drenching/trenching/quenching/squishing

Means our outsides are pulled in

This inward pinch brings issues of control, dominion

And attack because we’re smaller than we’re meant to be.

Anger, and its covert allies, quicken the pulse.

Finally, decades later, the anger slackens

Just for a day or two, enough to realize

How long it’s been there, pinching and defending.

What saved me will kill me if I don’t release

And reembody the extended spheres of being.

It unclenches.

My energy body recoheres.

I expand, and thus can release the dense clutter/tissue/emotional suppression

That I had been working so hard to clench in order to seem nice.

Unspiralwinding wholeness, loose and free.

Once again, my arms flap and bootie shimmies.

Qigong shaking. Happy dancing. Realigning.

To expand from the contraction also strangely brings more space

And also less clogging.

We set out thirty boxes for recycling in the predawn light.

The same light by which the November magnolia leaves

Appear to hold snow.

By a parallel token, twenty-one years after the death of my wife,

To the day, the anger leaves me. This glistening clearing

Purges even those old pains. To say “I am born anew”

Is babafidrious. Exactly so. Breaking through, bud bursting

And also effortless. A form of chrysalis opening. A time of

Butterflying. At last. At last. At last.

November 26, 2014

IMUNURI Prompt: Wordup

Exbibliation.

Quazon.

Hoverpie.

Arsk.

Make up a word,

Make it the title of your poem.

Write the poem.

[keywords: wordup, poem, your name]

Holding Hands with a Rock (Chant)

clap hands.

clap hands.

stones tremble.

stones ring. 

clap hands.

clap hands

stones tremble.

stones sing.

sumptuous earth

groundswell blessing
each little continent

whirls in hope turning

shape wrought of fire

wintered pucker, ropy water

bead breaker
seed shaker

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones ring.

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones sing. 

stone egg crack open
heart of stone released
fierce future brings together
stone hearts burst or cease

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones ring.

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones sing. 


future, guide our mending

ancestors, rout our sending

pebble cells and stone bodies
unmake our deadening

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones ring.

clap hands.
clap hands.
stones tremble.
stones sing. 

Stones of Memory Workshop 

2014

Dr. Charles Charlie Martin

One of the city’s marginal,

laughing in genuine mirth,

passed me going the other way.

That was last week.

Today a barefoot woman

roared at Market Street.

I had my face on,

and I didn’t know (often)

what I should do.

That’s part of urban life:

how busses are big red ads

and a busy street is a zoo.

It might have been the laughing man

who defaced the photo

where suddenly my feet

stopped: a doctor, stethoscope,

magic-marked red mouth,
neat black hair and bowtie,

and wet, beating heart

held on his fingertips

beneath the texture of trample. 

And the White Ginger is about to Bloom

“This will be a hard thing that I am going to tell you”

and with a shrimp taco (in red sauce) in front of me

R. told me how he had been to the top of the hospital parking lot a couple of times to look down and see how far he would fall if he went over the ledge and that two weeks ago he bought a half gallon of vodka that he carried up there with the intention of seeing if he uncapped and drank some he would gain enough courage to jump

“R. you gotta call Psych and tell them this and text me you called in”

and he apparently did as I received a text from R. that intake would be the next day

And the white ginger is about to bloom

the giant dahlia is above the deck communing with night blooming jasmine

the persimmons are turning gold/orange

big black “O” the barn cat finishes his perimeter check, sits in the deck door opening

and the white ginger is about to bloom.

IMUNURI Prompt: "Read" something illegible (Projective Symbiosis)

One of human's favorite activities is projecting meaning into the dense ineffable catterwaul of nature, culture, and life. Are these moments of fathomless oracular power or hopeless species-dominant voicings? Find something ineffable and actively project meaning into/through/with/in/and/on/as it. The scrollwork of beetles under bark. A painting of modern art. The fugue state of clouds. Bonus to metacognize in your poem or creation your idea about whether you are speaking through, as, or for. Bonus to include a visual representation of your projective symbiont.

Image: Bark Beetle Galleries from Wikimedia Commons

keywords: your name, poem, read

crossings (excerpt)

right after that woman made that racist comment in the diversity workshop

that went unattended about not being someone whose family had gotten here

by crossing a river, a friend and I raced, ran full out to catch up

to the group getting to the boats for a sunset cruise of the canal.  we

lunge with bags hefted and jettison all dec(orum) as we vault bionic

down the convention maze and I hear the duhduhduh of jamie summers as

we dodge left and lap right and leap onto the escalator, panting like dogs for our one last jump.

little did we know we didn’t need to race

for our lives (this time), though for us, whose ancestors crossed on boats

unwilling, shackled; for those whose ancestors crossed desperate or forced out;

and for those displaced and slaughtered by ancestors who came on boats;

we knew instantly how to run as if our lives depended

on it. we are a species crouched on the brink, the future

threatened to break, and we summon our strength, hurdle thump,

hurdle thump, hurdle thump. the waters we hurry to cross

are invisible: the deep, stained structures of ownership, denial, dominion.

what will the stories be, and the skills and cultures, ten lines down,

200 years from now? i hope it’s not the waters of the milky way

they cross, infecting other places. in the north american canals

of willingness, let the lapping waters soften us. it’s what we don’t take

that matters. what we put down. here at the brink. the chasm, the ridge

the cliff, the cleft, the jump-off, the bridge.  like fools leaping

off. or over. let our magic bags on a stick be light. filled with autumn leaves

of leaving, and seeds, magic beans, for saving. launching into the cool waters

willingly, this time, and for joy at how water teaches presence, teaches

that sky and land are one, mirrored partners in beauty, this cloud, this water, this land

without gizmos or plugging in, we are part of the river of life running through.

let us be this clear, there is no where at all to go. water teaches:

we are right here. water: river, ocean, giver generous. quivering sun and moon,

giving these back. flexible fabric of connection. slaking thirst and making life.

at the verge of these inner crossings, we lay down

the need to flee in fear either from or toward some migration to somewhere

else. we no longer know whether our children’s children

of all species will survive. we know some will make it through.

we have the canny craft of those who came before. the whisper

wisdom of those who are to come. we lift up a handful of leaves

and crinkle them into duff. the trees have already contracted the green

the chloroplasts, and hunkered off. make your choices. here in the winter

of planetary life, we contract, saving what matters

which is not something

that can be

plugged in.

Unipedally Riffed

Left,
Left,
Left, left, left.

I left
Jeff Taft
bereft by a cliff.

He sniffed,
miffed
that I stiffed him in the lift.

I laughed
'til I coughed
as I rebuffed his guff.

Our theft
was deft
staffed by Steffi Graf.

He cuffed
me on the cleft,
and that's when I

Left,
Left,
Left, left, left. 

Hopped UP

                                                

Hopped up

Came down

Ears flapped

Same foot

Pogo sticky left

Behind

Written on it:

"Right to bare arms"

W/ thanks to my Muse

IMUNURI Prompt: Hopalong

Xpogo RioCC BY-SA 3.0  Wikimedia Commons

Pogo sticks
Kangaroos
Rockets to the moon

Jump on one foot for one whole minute (time it) then write a poem (about that or about anything) - bonus for noticing - how does it change the pace and rhythm of your writing?

Extra credit: pretend you are in a slow motion movie for part of the time, gravity permitting. How does that change it?

Tags: hopalong, poet name, poem

Broken Eggs

cottage built of old pallets

fruit case ads bleed thru yellowed kitchen ceiling

must/dust cat fur on room rug,

walls bare, except 

Egyptian wall hanging spattered with egg yolk

 Horus weighs a (Red) heart against a feather (Blue )

burn marks on wall 

reflect indoor bottle rocket launches

induced haunts

upstairs one hot room before, 

only furniture a metal four-post bed

four more stairs lead up to a (duck!) short opening to a small room with a child size mattress

bay breeze drafts through windowless space

chills the day after

no window left unbroken

Edge talk