K Michau

Texts






THE WORD

When the word comes in
I want to be right down front
with my anvil.

The church roof opens
and I can see my face in the clouds.
Wind whipped arras fall away.

The tune is good,
not too old.
No one wrote it.

mp3 of THE WORD



SONG

There is only sky where I come from
The birds the air the light in minds resume
Shallow waters come to see the foam
Bringing with them pearls to be alone

Now the folds of spring are singing new
Washing clean the stone supporting day
The quiet winds coming from the bay
Are telling me to say I love you

mp3 of SONG



SILENT PRAYER

A child sneaks through summer dark
hunting cicadas by ear alone

He is distracted by leaf-ghosts
humming on a baffle of wind

There under the warm rains of slumber
he dreams that souls taste like lemons

mp3 of SILENT PRAYER



FUNERAL

From bulging sky
water mists the hills
as far as the eye can see

Some say it's hard but it's easy
to feel so much hurt
a poet can speculate

I reach for water
withdraw in rain
salty and impossible

Goodbye we recommit
these pearls to the sea
Goodbye

mp3 of FUNERAL



PARABLE

A lack-luster night
Insects breathe in the trees
The stars sniffle
And turn their backs

Finally awake
In their well-crafted beds
The men come out
The women dance

Jewels are traded
Jewels are treasured
Nothing would stop
The arguments that ensue

At last things settle
So the stars
Set their flag
In the day

mp3 of PARABLE



CHURCH

This is a bad place.
Heroin users, thieves and suddenly
there's a fight, gunshots, is that a phone ringing?

Rush down an alley in the exploded
part of town, rags holding the wind, no flags,
shrink in the rainbow building.

Golden squares climb forgotten life,
broken as the genius on which they fall,
paint where paint used to be.

A needle used to live here,
someone must've been killed here.

Sleep, a flight through smoky dreams of order.
Sleep, miles of brilliant rain, and lights with crosses in them.

Someone put up a cross and now this,
this is my home and my church...

mp3 of CHURCH



HELPING THE DEAF

People, gather
around and look
how there will be no help
in the hunt.
You've heard the future
is deaf?

Well, the deaf
need not gather
around the future.
Rather, they can look
to the hunt
for help.

For those who have help
cannot be considered deaf
to the future, the hunt.
They gather
to look
for the future.

And though the future
might help
with a look, it will still pretend to be deaf
whenever we gather.
So the hunt

is not a hunt.
The future
will gather
no help. The deaf
will just have to look...

And as they look,
find the hunt
is as deaf as the future,
that even the future needs help
to gather.

This is why the deaf gather
to look for the future,
how they find help in their hunt.

mp3 of HELPING THE DEAF



WIND

The wind
blew up dust
in the leaves,
the final pulse
of this distant
time of day.

It was on a day
like this that the wind
seemed to come from a distant past,
a past of dust
speaking without a pulse
in its leaves.

But the leaves
were remembered anyway of day,
illuminating the pulse
in the wind.
So the dust
spoke of the distant

until the distant
were near as leaves.
Finally dust
returned to the day,
installing the wind
of night that pulsed with a pulse

like no other pulse.
Look how the distant
wind
begins to illuminate the leaves
of this new day.
It is thus that the dust

is excited, but dust
has no part in our pulse.
Our pulse betokens the day
when all that is distant
will be as leaves
possessed by wind,

a wind of dust
in which leaves may pulse
again on a distant day.

mp3 of WIND



COVENANT

A forest reaching for pleasure.
Safety stings.
Friction works on the far side.
Remember what people don't say.
Where you draw the line.
Explosions of color.
The rapid demise.
Better than you.
Dancing in the mountains.
The happy use their chlorophyll.
Join Hands.
What little is here exists.
Optimism pays the guardian form.
Things can be stored in kids.
What more?
Hope for a bulb.

mp3 of COVENANT



OPPOSING VISIONS

Of bloodless flesh and fleshless bones
Some boneless men devise foul zones
For some see sun where some see none
And thus undone they war as one

Tuneless birds in birdless skies
On skyless winds forlorn arise
Some men claim yet some deny
That birds were ever known to fly

Shelless snails on snailless trails
This aimless quest forever fails
Mere tacit tones of silent sonnet
And still I scrawl my title on it

Lifeless births and worthless coin
Opposing visions loathe enjoin
But judge if this is wrong or right
All darknesses are made of light

mp3 of OPPOSING VISIONS



Email: KMisho64@acmenet.net

© K Michau 2005