This poem was written from the (Soma)tic poetry exercise "Seance Your Own Way," using incense given to me by kari edwards a month before she died. She brought the incense back from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in Pondicherry, India, a place kari and her life partner Fran Blau lived in for a short time. This poem was published as part of the anthology NO GENDER: REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE & WORK OF kari edwards (published by Litmus Press and Belladonna Books)

"after I am reborn, I'll try to read or write in a quiet place where the pigs can't get in and the cats send letters, it's really just too much . . . I truly can't face the world until I have slowly entered. I don't know if it's just me or not, but I can't come from ten thousand leagues under the sea to the present..."
       --kari edwards, from "a diary of lies" (Belladonna Books)

       CEDAR

                   pencil
          making arrows
             to the pain

                        green
                       washed from
                       liver
                          by the fire

       FRANKINCENSE

                        it is a tired
                       position on
                              the map
          can you afford the wait?

                        be asked first they
                          told us but
                      someone must
                    tell them to
                        ask so fuck it!

       MUSK

             dormancy entered a flayed
                                          bond by
         soda fountains of the world it
                  seems funny but it is
                    exactly funny how
                     exceptions cram
                   into the disappear

       EUCALYPTUS

          a streelight shows
              its pole for miles

                 (send message to kari)
                 you missed the man
                   flying across the
                 English Channel by
                backpack jet in 2008
                 it was on the news

       LEMONGRASS

                      you laughed when
             I suggested introducing
             spitting cobras
          to the parks
          of Philadelphia

                      you introduced a chip
                           from corn grown
                                    in Iowa

       OPIUM

                       spider lowers
                          on silk from
                    your finger

               you vouch for
          the fly about
             to escape

       MYRRH

          I'm a poet not a
            motivational speaker

              someone told me I can't
                hate death without
                  hating life they're so full of shit!
                    I'm hating death
                      looking for you between the
                        microscope and telescope

          WAKE UP AND UPDATE YOUR BLOG DAMMIT!