(my writing : profile : bio : real talk)

An escapist very young. Finding adventure in books. I chase worlds, not conversations. I was always very good at beginning, never ending the story. As I grow older, I have aims to recreate snippets of life, imagined or close enough.

In my writings, I attempt to stay near my own reality with a personal challenge to avoid sound descriptions. I adhere to vibrations or things that are felt. I don’t hear and would only be aping if I wrote about noise. I gift touch, sight, the third eye and all that entails the sense of being present.

(signer, cook, dancer, reader, lover, lifer, philosopher, sensor, i am- in pieces)

the day I saw a seal

along the shores of industry
geometric monoliths collect scraps
discarded things sharing
the tide with pleasure
boats- vessels that brought us here
brought us here
and send things back to trade
in far-away foggy marinas
the elasticity of water holding us all up
hulls bent by industry asail, awash of waves
the steaming towers at once familar a mystery

along the port of a sort
diving ducks working for dinner at the table
people bringing ancestry to the table
we eat, pleasing the hunger gnawing
at the scraps of industry
a seal dove today tomorrow
it is knots away not knowing the longing
as its head ducked through the spray
the shoreline tilts towards us
we trudge rotating machinery
lugging material goods, material toxic
toss scraps mangled becomes dinner
for the sea dog, sleek lithe
and living in trade for the yearly grind

along the cranes that move boxes
and the cranes roaming from continent
to continent, scrapping a yard of crushed cars
reduced to nails, to rails
rails haul ships out to the bay
sailor, sea dog, ahoy mate
take me with you and drench my feet
crash against the immutable water wall
and I go floating under-tow
coral, seaweed, and a crab claw pull at my clothes
dragging at Civilization, I cast off the last
adding scales and weighing in my choice
the earth sludges and the turf turns
gills draw in a watery shudder, bubbles
under the bay a living industry
see industry being industry

along the home of a maid
of the calm teeming depths
working for my dinner at the table
swimming in dust, I try
try to be made of seafoam
watch my dive take a bow a good night and a thank you
I’ll be miles miles away from the lighthouse
from the house boat, from the boat house
my house is full under the darting eyes
of the bald eagle and the albatross
my home is now in the trenches
laden with volcanoes spewing forth
a home-concoctioned brew of comfort

title: the day I saw a seal ; haley mcbride
photograph: haley mcbride
location: pacific northwest’s Commencement Bay

the light show

cartwheeling on the level of fireworks
ricocheting off my sightline
glitters fade to notify the next of kin
gasps running chasing
the dandelion of lights blasting the patterns of all
all is measured by smoke billowing in exhales
and inhales out the swelling chaos of that bangarang
encompassing the increasing sense of speed
rapid swathes of ribbons burning against my chest
a sweeping attack by the simplest of being
i
am a sliver of the bright and shining from the blast gong
enveloping striving never stopping in boom town

title: the light show ; haley mcbride
April 5, 2014

how i converse

skip the abcs
          impressions flatten smooth
across the pond
          letters fodder for turtles

words for you
          pottery the clay
sculpted by fingers
          my face the kiln

stories the totem pole
          I carved stacks
the day I met you
          in the distance

another signer another
          expressionist
actor of literary concrete
          linked by air between

the abstract precise
          i point point
this this against
          my hand

a bottom that rhymes
          in scattered stones
flung wild bones
          fingers; THIS

title: how i converse ; haley mcbride
(for the first National American Sign Langauge Day : April 15, 2014)

the origin of the gift

smoke exalts from a broken-off crumb
in the oven, a scissor is put to thumb-
to ribbon- a whipping flourish

and its waft curls wrapping after a wish
signaling to the hills of the heart
for the birthday girl whom prefers tart

her rhubarb lips, poisonous raw
and blackberry irises brambles a warning law
on the sill above the blueberry-stained sink

mouths a smeared promise and an empty pie wink
yes, agreed, beggars can ride as wishes
are turned into horses

title: the origin of the gift ; haley mcbride
April 14, 2014

to be a bull

she breaks at night and is glued by day
careful delicate
paying attention to the details
as she lines up the edges
but when it’s down to a thousand
pieces, one’s bound to get under the bed
there is a hole in her clavicle
a breeze winds through, stirs head to toe
she jokes that she’s a jackrabbit
with the ears that survives a desert
now, she’s glad she’s a sieve
and not the parable of a china shop

title: to be a bull ; haley mcbride
April 13, 2014

(writer’s block tried to shoulder in. i counter, with a simple poem. keeping on, keeping on)

window

the curtains bloom
as if clarity longs to be edged by darkness
trees put on their leaving clothes
as if suddenly aware they were long too honest
but when the laying heat becomes real
and the path spots dappled underfoot
but when the cliff sparrows fly the open loop
to that place where vertical beauty
meets horizontal adoration
I’m carrying you there
on a drift
and you’ll miss out on nevermind

title: window ; haley mcbride
April 8, 2014

sentient

Lions drown in a rare downpour
floating manes roar susurrations
leaving behind a note
Fireflies leave the light on
until power runs out
from steady to nothing
Rams find their inner lemming
rocks and horns strike
for one last spark
Fish from the deep deep
rocket towards the surface
a scaling disintegration
Spiders free fall unspooling
from an half-finished web
to the end of their line
Humans wrote themselves
off long ago
ago

title: sentient ; haley mcbride
April 4, 2014

good night fruit

a grin grew in the greenhouse
the dimple caught dew
when I think of pretty you
I feel peaches
fuzzy navels and a blush
a flush and some soft down
living with a rush
and a skin to sleep in

title: good night fruit ; haley mcbride
April 5, 2014

how whales fly

if i were to have a super-power
it’d be slow-motion
for all the times you turned heads sky-ward
although i’d have to make rules for non-interference
such as letting your teardrop hit the dirt-floor
otherwise we’d sink to the bottom of a saltless-sea

title: how whales fly ; haley mcbride
April 2, 2014