Danika Dinsmore
from 3:15 am - E.S.T.** August 1996
**The 3:15 poems are yearly collaborative-consciousness experiments.
Participants have included myself, Bernadette Mayer, Lee Ann Brown,
Jen Hofer, Myshel Prasad, Rebecca Bush, Kathleen Large,
Kitty Todorovich, and Russell Day. Forgive me if I have forgotten
anyone!**
8.1.96 - 8.31.96:
They say timing is a gift.
Like turquoise sky should
pull over & share the
duet
moving people A rock & roll
star. like
picking 900 leaves
I
waver
hint
soak you like
a trouble shooter small day
in the middle of a page
Jazz operations
skid kid trumpet
& the high sax stay awake
let it work it's recognition
wail wail
* * *
What if my river just dried up
do I know if I dig & keep digging
that eventually I'll hit a spring?
Control,
the taste of ink the sound of
thought echoes banging around this brain.
The sight of word clouds sky diving.
Smell of radio city wet sidewalk,
feel of my arm goose-bumping under cat purr.
Now go.
I said anyone could translate
the meaning of a word. I was
speaking of dictionaries & cocktail napkins. Era coffee-table books &
alphabetized soup cans.
Enjoy the 4-minute delay while you can.
Enlist the TV news cameras.
Predicting the weather is not as easy
as it looks, but you can
always prepare for the worst.
I tire too easily these days.
Prop myself up w/ a thread work long sentences
so I can follow
my trail back
if the search party gives up. I wouldn't
say I was long-winded, but
I could teach deep sea
diving w/ these lungs. Crush
a few heads while I'm
at it.
We can always rely on
our ability to play the
spoons & dig w/ them when
we get hungry.
Think for a while in your oxygen.
Pausing is not an option.
As long as you keep your grip
you can stay in the election.
At least I'm married
to a morning person. At least
I have pets.
Hold my keys high.
Step into the
supermarket culture.
* * *
I'm dichotomy, I'm dictation, I'm
drunk on upward spirals.
I'm left-out-in-the-rain
independent, chain-of-the-art
idealistic & hip to boot.
I need a xylophone. Wish
I could use the letter X more often.
I need an escape route &
my back yard won't cut it.
I understand the chase scene
writing debt recalls.
that grow w/ each
passing moment.
* * *
We rise to the occasion but
Temperature: it brings us down
Night sweats back of neck
damp in dream.
Martians in the cold shower
breeze through the international
dateline.
Call now, maybe the overseas breeze
will seize your senses, cool yes -
drenches, wipe away the
busybody sweat drops.
Sand rains claimed by
extraterrestrial studiers
students of the stars.
Space cools the overheated humans
in our overactive imaginations.
A lone star could comfort
stuffy lungs, short breath
pull in this weather
lasso it.
Cowboys on the moon polish
icetrays. Universe dogs
and cats chase their tails around
mars and lap
my milky way.
* * *
I've developed my day and poisoned the neighborhood fish, watching
water down the drain wasting water and precious time.
Coyote pup ran across the grassy entrance.
His tongue wagged at us like a pet.
Like a play. Trickster he toying
tried to chase him, but he
was quicker than a puff of smoke.
Coyote trickster, you pull my chain.
Mail order catalogues drop by
dozens in my silver box of permanent
residency. I never feel at home unless
there is a ghost in the house.
It's too quiet here.
But, there is a strange glow.
I know it's the streetlamp reflecting in my globe, like two
red eyes staring across the room.
Fear, it keeps me mortal. Let go,
let go, let go.
* * *
Those fast moving gigantic storm pipes that suffocated my body but not my brain & I escaped just in the nick
of time like a cliff hanger. I am powerful, wide, and often abrasive, but I made a seatbelt family of strangers in an empty cabin as the storm hit & shook us off
the foundation.
We were never afraid, only pitied the masses running due to their inability to predict weather.
These strangers are symbols of my collaboration junkies - I know because of the precariousness of the cliff where the cabin finally landed.
1,000 ft drop, sheer drop, like off a dam, to frothy waters, but we were heavy and our roots took.
As the eye of the storm passed I looked more carefully at my companions, a young bald girl, an immigrant, a businesswoman - what an unlikely team!
I felt like director, protector, and as the demons came, the demons always eventually come, I had the compassion and strength to usurp their balance.
I noticed the roof had come off in the storm, and that the sky was bright blue.
* * *
A minute or two alone
whirlwind to earth
plummet.
Approaching zero velocity,
air, it travels radioactive
silence.
Stretch of mind & matter,
crashing culture to bone we
are alone.
Breath like white
fire, like plastic desire
combs the rubble of night.
10 long hours of dream
musters tepid skin
& knocks the wall between.
Consolidate eventual kiss
of shoe to board
of movement as this.
Chaos we label domicile
burns to crumble
softly tumbles awhile.
Court yourself as professional
to annihilate the sole
entrance and recessional.
Come, crazy ones, wings
are plenty in my
powerful adolescence.
* * *
Ghost hand-me-downs
play peek-a-boo
drowsy master of own desk
Nothing better than
proper names
Nothing wider than
shadow
* * *
Oh my vision
reluctance a mind pain
playing the slanted field.
Let's be receptors, transceivers, detectors
and transmitters.
Let's shock our bones into delivery
Ride a custom bus through the city
PICK ME UP baby!
Just can't get used to this random system.
Want to pluck you out of your
chair & give a speech to a
thousand assorted vegetables.
When we regroup it's sheer genius.
* * *
Words slip like old braggart dustballs
a game of keep away
sink song of my life
waiting for the blow hole
tension spring wound
so tight my teeth ache.
No wonder I have control problems
livin' in the land of fixer-uppers
lookin' around the room at the majority
tryin' to FEEL YOUR PAIN
I FEEL your pain
Taped in @ the seams
the horn emerges, my calvary,
my inner sanctum
Last night I noticed the
sky getting dark w/out clouds
Stories suspended themselves
in milky brain waves.
I forgot to water the plants again.
* * *
Growing up, I put my hand to
myself, was a ratgirl gone in
the mouth
Blank dreams in America, but
ah, the millennium is young.
* * *
Knock away the deafening cloud of
sweat in my sleep,
damp billow.
Await the breeze while
mouth dries like bones.
Gift to head is this sudden
water.
Fall, a corner of the year
My corner muddy sky
wet streets
windows of droplets & steam.
Everyone has gone to bed.
The glass empty.
Air chokes blood.
No favors from autumn sift the leaves
Dig for company,
Dig.
The moon so bright it looks
like dawn.
* * *
In the dream Richard lay in the grass
a new haircut, clothes, young face
soaking in the sun. I commented
on his good fortune.
Interrupted today w/a tap dance, modern
& funky lead in to the political
convention & Aretha Franklin belting
out the National anthem.
Narrative, thus, day begetting day.
Last night the moon
woke at 3 am to let it in eerie light
last night the moon had languid
bangs last night the moon
died from bacteria in cat shit
the innocent bandwagon
last night the moon on the lake
caught me back seat mirrored &
unexpected last night big, orange
last night the moon
open mouth, insert laugh, cheese
for the public free ride
open mouth insert drug the CIA
planted your poison veins
Last night the moon woke
up slow in the trees, waited for
my commute, for my commune
last night the moon last night the moon.
* * *
(Berry picking @ dusk)
Snap of branches turns head
hoof beats and hoots
smear over-ripeness into bucket
hand caught in spider web
sandals through grass dew
the feet.
Flying ants shed wings
on fall sweater, swat away the
remaining bodies.
Swarms of mosquitoes bite
through clothes
more branches, fur
& tracks on trail.
Bring the berries in, consider a
rest.
Consider this subtle white blue sky.
Consider the voice box making
stories into tears.
Consider the snake under the
door jamb, ticked into
a plastic garbage can &
let into the wilderness
sans cats.
Consider silhouette-trees
sharp black edges
under plane screech.
I don't consider this easy,
consider it one-sided.
Don't consider.
* * *
almost letting go
rush of skin over tongue
down back of throat
my degree comes in handy
in solitude.
The task at hand
was circumscribing your
own painful news
save the drop
cascade
sweat
all the way down
the
page into
body bag
Copyright © 1996 Danika Dinsmore
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