Sampling Sherman Alexie two

The dice rolled out of the cup like the next available table
A child in the sky with and without grace
Bodies reasonably intact like a paternity test in the soil
She held her life in her own hands as if it were a constant presence
a house guest and permanent tenant who crept around all the rooms in their shared lives...
changing their temperature
"No, no, a thousand times no," he said his hand found one truth; that gravity is overrated
the invisible clouds covered the stars
When love is to open sky as loathing is to a bridge with black water pushing against the foundations
They will have arrived

Sampling Sherman Alexi

Up is down when
even the scientist knows
that gravity is overrated

Up is down when
the invisible clouds covered the stars
in her eyes that drove the darkness

Up is down when
big mountains range as dormant volcanoes

Up is down when
I pick up all Indian hitchhikers
and bring them a little closer to home

Up is down when
I can ask someone close if
he is like the toughest indian in the world

Up is down when
Rising from earth to sky
he became a new constellation

Up is down when
I wondered if I were a warrior
In this or a previous life

Up is down when
I traveled up river toward the place where
I was born and
my heart was filled with the thin white skeletons of
one thousand salmon.

List exercise

They discussed naming the stars
They made bonds inside fists full of fire
Their tongues were as light as feathers
While their words rose like bubbles in lakes the color of tea
Beside them were glasses for seeing through the light of the sun

As/Like If I were Janet Frame two

A secret sea that has crept inside your head for ever
Where we drank tea out of tiny china cups
We were warm and dry with wind and sun
The day not to have been a leafless cloudy secret hard to understand
Though she has no grammar of journeys
Naming the planets and their distance from the sun
Love, Laughter and tender tears

haiku exercise

They made bright firelight
They wore white sea salt
They were seahorse riders

haiku exercise two

silk and fine cotton
shining their light once
then twice a fortnight

As/Like if I were Janet Frame

A foreground blazed with looming and light
Visible and in motion as if brushed by secret currents and tides
Nothing belonged to me, not even my body
I could not call my feelings my own
The sun's hair stood on end
The sky accommodating all dark and light
Black polished, brick dusted, spotted ladybirds
Pleated wings like skywide curtains parting
For the rose resisting the inhabited forest of the heart
Accomplishing it's own private moments of growth