Tell them I'm struggling to sing with angels

who hint at it in black words printed on old paper gold-edged by time

Tell them I wrestle the mirror every morning

Tell them I sit here invisible in space

nose running, coffee cold & bitter

Tell them I tell them everything

& everything is never enough

Tell them I'm another cross-wired babbling being

songs coming out all ends to meet & flash above the disc above my brain

Tell them I'm a dreamer, newborn shaman

sitting cross-legged in trance-stupor

turning into the magic feather contemplated

Tell them there are moments when clay peels off my bones

& feeds a river passing faces downstream

Tell them I'm davening & voices rise up from within to startle children

Tell them I walk off into the woods to sing

Tell them I sing loudest next to waterfalls

Tell them the books get fewer, words go deeper

some take months to get thru

Tell them there are moments when it's all perfect above & below, it's perfect

even moments in between where sparks in space

(terrible, beautiful sparks in space)

are merely metaphors for the void between one pore & another