Writers' Studio

What felt wrong last night, was the need to explain my fear, 

to justify my fear, 

to force my fear onto you?

Into you,

I want to pour,

to open, to offer only good things.  

But sometimes the asymmetry hurts.

The harbor shifted solid in darkness cracking, it
Came ashore with no life in it, serrated white forms lacking time.

Evenings heaving colder, our illusions tested, stuck
Inside woodframe cages with no air.

Five men, the paper said, decided not to live, all
Just as old as I knew, then two more.

The woman who pulled through before could not survive
The space between metal and pavement twice.

And the channel was not clear but the helicopter flew and
Hurling snow to clear my mind kept the ice at bay.

I think it was not fit,

but friction, when his limbs brushed

my back, he was already rushing, running, resisting. 

I was writing and he was life, 

a teacher; a man whose shirt was always unbuttoned

one button too low.  He was showing me how,

in fact, I was wanting you.  Now he is not wanting

to know me, now I am growing away from him, now I am

going where I am wanted. 

He was younger than you, yet, there was such richness

in rest or rant or wanting.  There was my writing.

4.

Here is a tree that is her horse away

from home; it carries her a way from her

home pain,this roaning out gelding, bay.  

Sitting at sixteen two hands; she is higher,

safer from ants and students alike.  She

is resting with her horse before the course.

She must be quiet and still for the tree

like a horse can sleep standing up, an old horse

can turn into one of the trees dotting the field.

She doesn’t stand on the second branch, it is sway

-backed, so she won’t pain the animal that way.

She is tender towards the tree, and he still yields

in a rustling of leaves and legs, he comes

to love; he wants to be her treehouse, horse, home.  

2.

Here is a tree drowsing;

there she is, walking along the trail.

She is singular, thinks the tree,

a human, out in the heat, without a dog. 

Humans, like dogs and birds, are pests, the tree thinks

heat makes humans smell most foul.

She has walked too far into the mid-west sun,

too far away from the university. 

She lets out a sigh of relief

after laying her cheek against the trunk

its thick bark.  The tree is learning it can offer relief,

if not to itself, to another, and that is a sort of power.

She is not nesting or shitting; she is only

resting; she and the tree together.

If horses were wishes… 

I would have taken the horse

on trial, for two weeks before I left for Iowa City. 

Would he stay sound?

He has four off-white hooves and they have tender frogs

in the spring grass.  I’ve never had a horse with so much chrome. 

He was very fancy. 

How would I win the hack? 

This horse would tell me how to ride him, not why.  His mouth was soft,

but his head was hard.

Was he too much horse for me?

Sometimes, I would have to be closing my fingers on the curb chain,

hoping to hold him back, back him off, half halt.  I must make contact from

my hands to his head.  I was afraid of failing. 

This horse as he was?

I was afraid of falling from him.  I was afraid of falling for him. 

What do I know?

I am afraid of heights, though this horse, he has kind eyes.

How like a bridge is a horse truly? 

A horse can carry a person across a bridge, closing up the distance.

Oh dear, difference is seductive.

They filter in separately,

Discussing themselves and eachother.

I donate some electrons.

Wait for it.

The sound of two

Narcissists colliding.

Is it our culture?

Microsoft Word Thesaurus connects the word forceful

with the word persuasive

(and powerful).

This thesaurus is a great dinosaur.

Neurobiology and Behavior

(Thank you for this conversation Paul Grobstein)

“Maybe, it isn't

That there is something

To behavior other than the brain; but,

That there is something

To the brain other than behavior.”

“But aren’t neurons black boxes?”

“I suspect so,

Still neurons are not the storyteller.”

“This is the story of science as a story?”

“Our undertaking is subject

To the VAGARIES of the currents, winds, and tides

And our own will or lack thereof.

Therefore,

We must return time

And again, not only to find

But to create, and again to find and create.”

“Neurons are stories.” 

“The nervous self system…”

“Now I see

How science is living by the sea. 

Where, washed upon the shore are stories;

There to be captured

And dropped down again. 

Again,

Littering the terrain, so

The terrain is never the same, so

Know that truth and time are interwoven,”

I wrote. 

“Yep

Rich powerful writing

Part of you

You have been keeping under wraps,”

Wrote the neurobiologist.

“Stories are black boxes.”

…

When I am storytelling my life,

People often ask what happened, and I reply,