Instructions for Planning a New Life (a first version)

____In Praise of Han Shan

____Cold Mountain and Cold Mountain became the same thing in the mind,
____The first last seen
________slipping into a crevice in the second.
____Only the poems remained,
____________scrawled on rocks and trees,
____Nothing's undoing among the self-stung unfolding of things.


____Charles Wright



white light, mikecole


FIRST PAGE EPIGRAM

____Dedication 1
if your hair is like fire,
__when you walk it moves,
__leaves imaginary fireflies.

____Dedication 2
you stare out at unmoving cars.
hand grows red gripped tootight around a stationary
steering wheel.
__a child from the car besides looks back at you,
__you share sleepy eyes.


____Dedication 3
you and your abacus count off your days.
you've memorized the calender.

there's too much light behind this closed door,
it can't be held back forever.
didn't you know?
enough light can start to sing.


____Dedication 4
see you soon.
i miss our silence.



SECOND PAGE: CONTENTS
(INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLANNING A NEW LIFE, 2008)

1. things to be concerned with
   
2. stitch together sunrise to sunset using mermaids
3. allow love to evaporate from off your skin
4. dream castles out of snowflakes
5. fathom yourself with wings and clench your teeth till they (or at least tulips) sprout
6. forget
   __forget (watch your step)
   ______forget gravity (drift off and swim away
   
7. fall asleep to the sound of
8. sleep peacefully

____ONE

__- stars rising from off your forehead as your sleep
__- love-making
__- the well-tempered klavier
__- the other colors trapped in the black ink of black pens
__- the interpretation of sighs
__- algorithmic approach to the taxonomy of facial expressions
__- parting and reunion
__- the incessant hum of eternity ticking



____TWO: ONDINE

(there's enough of it there to call it that (red).

*__*__*
I'll finish the image for you:
__a spring enclosed in the green fist of nature,
__all streams end there: listen, hear it?
__(the murmur is its heartbeat.)

the rainbow starts here. rest your head on it,
the indigo mark on your cheek will wipe off later, don't worry.

dip in the water.

a mermaid emerges.
swims from spring to rainbow,
once a fish always a bird.
__(somewhere a harp is heard)
__an angel drinks from the spring and watches the scene.
__a tree sways, dancing, too slow for anyone to notice.

__infinity rests here.

you lead and an army of dreams smile and gallop to follow you.



____THREE: for me

all the lovemercury trapped in my epidermis
makes a man heavy (hard to walk).
how can the meaning of life make me so metallic?

__i lay in the sun, try and melt it out,
memory has its own boiling point- i'm not even close.

__i pray, hoping for cracks in my skin.
hold my hands vertical and wait to see it drip out from fingernail cracks.

__it grows dark. i sleep. a human alloy.
once poisoned by love, always a robot-
whatever you say to me, I'll understand



____FOUR: Nothing's undoing among the self-stung unfolding of things.

Dear God,
i am unwrapped now. i have fingerprint clues about tomorrow.
If i promise sincerity, can you help me with: love, bread, and morality?
i have papers to send and hopes to water.
i am a sandman. My home is a sandhome.
You are the only clock that keeps the time.
You are the only sun that feeds the seed.
Only your fingers play my tune.
(i once touched my forhead to a redish carpet that resembled Your lips...
__remember me?
(i'm unfolded now. What does it say when You read me?)



____FIVE

fathom yourself with wings and clench your teeth till they (or at least tulips) sprout



____SIX: MOUNTAIN SONG

day:
dust, sand, rocks... soo white.
the sun's teeth.

night:
somewhere a blue phone beeps.

a balcony is occupied.

in the darkness
footsteps are heard.
a couple walk and laugh inside each other.
__(soo many worlds to be a part of)

______- what? __yeah, I totally agree. __(the balcony conversation continues)

the conversation is a slow hike.

in the darkness
the lights turn on.
the mountain only takes a short nap between the day and night shifts.

the steam of a teamug meets cigarette smoke.
i like that our air make friends.

____- we'll miss this one day hey.
____- you reckon?
____- probably
____- __yeah. you might be right.



____SEVEN

__- hands rubbing together
__- Memory
__- motionless cellos
__- trees humming Parsifal



____EIGHT

sweet dreams angel.


*__*__*

Of In Praise of Han Shan Wright writes: "Endgame. Last poem in a book, Buffalo Yoga, poet subsumed by his subject matter, leaving heiroglyphs from one on the heiroglyphs of the other. Art for nothing's sake."