Concerto

i. Vivace
The Body and Brain create a near-constant concerto,
Orchestral ensemble that one piece of the body
May be tasked with– the soloist, for a moment–
The violin of your legs stands in the spotlight
Lifting the bow back, striking the perfect legato
When you lift each leg to strike the pedal: rising, falling,
Rising, falling, in perfect détaché, the synchrony,
Breathtaking, a veritable martelé, up and down,
Crescendoing, up and down, faster and faster,
Staccatos building as you climb that little kicker,
Beast of a hill, every note separate and distinct and
Purposeful and achingly beautiful, melody in movement

ii. Largo
The reality is that the soloist,
The part of the brain or body that is on display, is
Accompanied by an orchestra of other reactions,
Symphony, an entire production of body-brain actors
Breath increasing as you crest the top of the climb
Then wide, expansive sucks of air through your lungs as you
Descend, behind the soloist your legged
String instrument, a complex array of bodily musical
Tools, exchanges of sensory information via energy, chemicals,
Afferent and efferent neural fibers, we know this
But to experience it is so much more vivid, vibrant,
Actual art an afferent neuron gathering signals from

iii. Adagio
The skin like the finely tuned drumhead of the timpani
You’re pedaling along at a rapid pace and your
Neurons are sending each breeze that crests your
Quadricep, each flexion of your fingers as you
Reposition your palm to the vibration of your handlebars
You begin to really circle, pushing, leaning into the
Pedals with more and more force, lifting your
Foot up to keep time and pace with the peloton
This is where the sensory experience really
Begins to take off, you’re in the pace line driving
Your muscles pumping with blood, efferent signals,
Through the femoral profunda, spiccato of oxygen

iv. Finale
Feeding the whole quadricepal system: vastus medialis,
Vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius, and rectus femoris
Don’t forget the glutes, rich, ringing riot of
brain-body orchestration, molto crescendo
Coming in hot… finish line, and stop!

Polyphonic Technicolor Synesthesia

this is how it feels to be in an autumn
wood at sunset, the entire mountain
set ablaze, a conflagration of color in
that warm waning light, each leaf in
stark relief to something visually near–
brittle topaz bark, white aspen trunk, every

sense housed in neon-rich sculptural portals
a magpie cackles from a scrub oak turning
amber its wings that look so black in flight
reflect a deep maxixe beryl,
oceanic opalescent contrast Paul Klee’s
Polyphic Setting for White

poets, mostly, long for synesthesia
so that they can produce that contrast
that catch of the craw between all worlds–
senses coming undone in an autumn
wood or at the very least they’d like to produce
it on the page, certainly the experience

might be so disconcerting as to be
horrible but if you could see autumn
lanced by a sunset or a taste a technicolor
leaf as it fell in a stream of wild wind,
maybe if you’re there long enough
in the woods, the colors begin to have

a particular flavor, like the brown dry leaves
of wyethia amplexicaulis, mule-ears become
tiramisu in the mushroom undergrowth
they take on a shape in your psyche
like a rhombus with the sun setting above
the far angle, always forty-five degrees

Thin

i do not know what
it is about now, every-
thing just feels papery
a little thin around the
edges, a little dry and
flat

To Write a Poem

to write a poem
is a lot of staring out
of eyes through windows

Send Your Kids Weird Texts

Send your kids weird texts
Tell them that you’ll
Give them lunch money
If, when you are really
Old, almost gone, they
Will let you run your
Papery, age-spotted hand
Through the thicket
Of their hair
Make them pause
Question the sanity
Of your replies
Make them promise
So that your five bucks
Is paid forward in your
Elder years, it’ll be worth it
To give them a future
Imagination of how
Much you will
Always love them

Abandon All Solutions

One of my good friends
Heard this in a dream
Or in a wakened state
Where she was contacted
By the Universe,
So the advice wasn’t really
Given directly to me,
But it has come to mean
Everything