Of Rivers & Respiration
It's April & you're going home.
I'm breathing you
out into the night
as I watch you from upstairs,
after I gave you back
everything
I still could. I once took
you into me. Now, as you pass
under my balcony I'm looking
out into a rainy darkness just
cool enough not to be summer
yet, as the Merrimack sighs
contented & wet,
fills the air with fog.
I wonder what you're feeling--
do you now understand why
I smoke? How else could I
see, quantify, a sigh?
A poem? No--though
it swallowed my heart
every time you'd sneak
your arms around my hips,
it is a trite image not
a Speaking Occasion. Muted,
I could only blow that hope
into the air
& watch it hover around us.
I'll miss walking
you to your car
in a light mist,
how the river thickened
the air
as if it could convey
that lovesickness
of the departing--helpless
surrender that felt deep
& broad inside me, epic
even in those old
overblown roles
(departing, forsaken)
& the clichéd setting:
the dark being so much more
beautiful than a clear night.
A sigh of the flowing away, more than
love, more than hope,
& what swirls around me
tonight is quietly shattered
fragments of everything I
ever felt in my life--
all at once & puissant--
still hoping,
still worrying, a cloud
in the night air.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
oldy but goody
Stop the Car
I'm on route 20
and it's dark with a smattering of headlights,
dots shining on the radar screen.
The cold steering wheel hurts my hands,
And it's 28 degrees, the radio man says.
In Baghdad, it's 28 degrees--
Celsius not Fahrenheit.
A despot is condemned to death,
another raindrop in the monsoon.
My eyes wander off the road
and in the midnight sky a flash
and a trail of a falling star, but is it
Space trash or meteorite?
These things don't matter much,
I still make a wish.
28 degrees?
It's cold or it's beautiful--
Saddam is dead?
Sunnis break their curfew to vow revenge,
Shiah break their curfew to shoot their guns
in elated joy. Both sides will explode themselves
the very next day.
I stop the car,
and call you, my love, just to listen
to something besides the radio voice drone,
because it's cold and I'm lonely
whether I saw space trash or a star.
I'm on route 20
and it's dark with a smattering of headlights,
dots shining on the radar screen.
The cold steering wheel hurts my hands,
And it's 28 degrees, the radio man says.
In Baghdad, it's 28 degrees--
Celsius not Fahrenheit.
A despot is condemned to death,
another raindrop in the monsoon.
My eyes wander off the road
and in the midnight sky a flash
and a trail of a falling star, but is it
Space trash or meteorite?
These things don't matter much,
I still make a wish.
28 degrees?
It's cold or it's beautiful--
Saddam is dead?
Sunnis break their curfew to vow revenge,
Shiah break their curfew to shoot their guns
in elated joy. Both sides will explode themselves
the very next day.
I stop the car,
and call you, my love, just to listen
to something besides the radio voice drone,
because it's cold and I'm lonely
whether I saw space trash or a star.
#8- Arthur
Years, Buried
I was never that aware of root vegetables,
unexpected sweetness of a beet
melted into a dish of yams—
the only hint it was there
the red-purple tint of the dish,
the surprising fuchsia, sugary taste.
I was never aware things could
taste red or that buried things still
matter, but people are of the Earth.
Unburying stores in us is wholesome
& nourishing, too. Time uproots
what we shied from showing.
I am finally holding this up,
looking at what I carried
so long under my coat, considering it
never: years later, in Salem
as I’m walking the historical tour
painted a pasty red-purple
on a sidewalk. Some city worker
has lifted sections of the line up
with manhole covers, put it
back crooked & in pieces
with little crosses & tangents along
the way—it reminds me of a time
when I readjusted all my covers,
attempted to walk my line more
straightly—lost contact with tangents,
which were present only as stories
over wine at a soiree: travels.
Places seen or found or felt.
But what matters? A rose garden
in Utrecht? Or what was said there,
or a philosophy hand-written in a letter
& sent overseas to me explaining
what would make people like us perfect lovers ,
or the time I saw the shy girl
obscuring her face but laughing at a camera.
Being what I am, a digger,
I wonder over every askew
line I might’ve followed
into an alley just once—
with that one girl I thought was
opaque even as she let me see
her dreams
over hours of talking, then I changed
my diet
but I couldn’t change the pang
of some feeling I knew was
but didn’t know where
because that deep, red
place in my heart wasn’t marked
on the map or in the garden patch.
I was never that aware of root vegetables,
unexpected sweetness of a beet
melted into a dish of yams—
the only hint it was there
the red-purple tint of the dish,
the surprising fuchsia, sugary taste.
I was never aware things could
taste red or that buried things still
matter, but people are of the Earth.
Unburying stores in us is wholesome
& nourishing, too. Time uproots
what we shied from showing.
I am finally holding this up,
looking at what I carried
so long under my coat, considering it
never: years later, in Salem
as I’m walking the historical tour
painted a pasty red-purple
on a sidewalk. Some city worker
has lifted sections of the line up
with manhole covers, put it
back crooked & in pieces
with little crosses & tangents along
the way—it reminds me of a time
when I readjusted all my covers,
attempted to walk my line more
straightly—lost contact with tangents,
which were present only as stories
over wine at a soiree: travels.
Places seen or found or felt.
But what matters? A rose garden
in Utrecht? Or what was said there,
or a philosophy hand-written in a letter
& sent overseas to me explaining
what would make people like us perfect lovers ,
or the time I saw the shy girl
obscuring her face but laughing at a camera.
Being what I am, a digger,
I wonder over every askew
line I might’ve followed
into an alley just once—
with that one girl I thought was
opaque even as she let me see
her dreams
over hours of talking, then I changed
my diet
but I couldn’t change the pang
of some feeling I knew was
but didn’t know where
because that deep, red
place in my heart wasn’t marked
on the map or in the garden patch.
#7: Mareike
The Spleen of U-----
Mr. Utterson was a man of a rugged countenance
but so would any of us be, dear reader,
watching a friend disintegrate
like that biblical shadow,
Lilith in Dys, once willing to be equal
of men, then queen of the unholy
urges & oddly nourished by evil
appetites. Were Jekyll but a fallen
woman U----- could ask, Wench:
have you been entered
by a demon?, but instead he must wear
a gentleman's aloof cheer
& a ragged beard the only shadow
darker than the night he walks with E-----.
What trifle could U----- be
about at this hour?
They say men aren't affected
by matters of spleen as women
are who swoon in the whalebone
scaffolding all the time
but then what is that dull ache
near U-----'s stomach about J-----?
This is sympathy among gentry,
allowing the accident one knows
will happen--arms crossed,
look wistful until Hyde bursts
into the room & shakes them awake.
It reminds me of something
Lilith's favorite nephew said,
arrogantly squinting into God's face:
Am I my brother's keeper?
Mr. Utterson was a man of a rugged countenance
but so would any of us be, dear reader,
watching a friend disintegrate
like that biblical shadow,
Lilith in Dys, once willing to be equal
of men, then queen of the unholy
urges & oddly nourished by evil
appetites. Were Jekyll but a fallen
woman U----- could ask, Wench:
have you been entered
by a demon?, but instead he must wear
a gentleman's aloof cheer
& a ragged beard the only shadow
darker than the night he walks with E-----.
What trifle could U----- be
about at this hour?
They say men aren't affected
by matters of spleen as women
are who swoon in the whalebone
scaffolding all the time
but then what is that dull ache
near U-----'s stomach about J-----?
This is sympathy among gentry,
allowing the accident one knows
will happen--arms crossed,
look wistful until Hyde bursts
into the room & shakes them awake.
It reminds me of something
Lilith's favorite nephew said,
arrogantly squinting into God's face:
Am I my brother's keeper?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Prompt #6: Liz
Paperweight
Finding solid ground in
this bittersweet
symphony I
found you.
When we had a party,
a cookout in our
new yard, you
carried you
lifted, I watch rapt
as your body moved
fluidly, your hand
gauging the weight
of a watermelon
while the other pushed
a large knife through--
when it split
the meat, a cavity in the heart--
we ate the heart out
& your heart? I
heard the blood
pump through your
chest, the relief you
supported my head,
supported weight, the push
like a knife through
the crowd to the front
of the concert hall
where the blue lights fell
right on the crown
of your head, we used
to arm wrestle, you'd
lose, we screwed
kitchen cabinets up
& lifted cups
into them, the soft
little clink, the pleasing
of placing life,
our grails on shelves
fastened
firmly.
Finding solid ground in
this bittersweet
symphony I
found you.
When we had a party,
a cookout in our
new yard, you
carried you
lifted, I watch rapt
as your body moved
fluidly, your hand
gauging the weight
of a watermelon
while the other pushed
a large knife through--
when it split
the meat, a cavity in the heart--
we ate the heart out
& your heart? I
heard the blood
pump through your
chest, the relief you
supported my head,
supported weight, the push
like a knife through
the crowd to the front
of the concert hall
where the blue lights fell
right on the crown
of your head, we used
to arm wrestle, you'd
lose, we screwed
kitchen cabinets up
& lifted cups
into them, the soft
little clink, the pleasing
of placing life,
our grails on shelves
fastened
firmly.
Prompt #5: Jenn-Jenn
The Problem of Knotwood
In the garden of bricks, mortar, & bamboo
a rockwall lay toppled & scattered in knotwood
stalks rising up to our chests,
granite markers in pieces
like the remains of a distant war,
of human works that crumbled,
covered by time & reclaimed by earth.
Reclaimed: the bamboo slashed down,
we remade the rockwall with stones four of us
hoisted together & laid sod there
on a grey day, making it the deepest green.
Reclaimed: Jenn bought this house to dismantle
the destruction of a slumlord--the neighbors
were anxious, then watched, then brought pizza
as a gift for her replacing the jungle next door
(where the tenants used to slaughter
chickens in full view of the children)
with a lawn.
She said, I've found a calling I can
Live inside. It's the shadow
of her own monumental undertaking--
when one works, one gets
to go home at the end of the day,
whereas she lived in this mess,
one floor up from torn up floors
& FUBAR subfloors. How can you sleep?, I
asked & she said, Sleep?
Yes, but the house morphed
into this beautiful place--French doors,
new egress, responsible tile,
even a baby stumbling around--
I almost wish the Ecuadorian immigrants
who trashed it had lived in
this incarnation: they might have
sat in the backyard & felt the grass.
But no, their roots were shallow,
replanted where the jobs were, or
where the feds wouldn't find.
Knotwood is an invasive species
like slumlords in a neighborhood,
bedbugs in an apartment across the road,
they had to throw out all,
all their belongings!
The only solution to the problem
of knotwood is to pull out the bad
roots, plant something stronger
in its place.
In the garden of bricks, mortar, & bamboo
a rockwall lay toppled & scattered in knotwood
stalks rising up to our chests,
granite markers in pieces
like the remains of a distant war,
of human works that crumbled,
covered by time & reclaimed by earth.
Reclaimed: the bamboo slashed down,
we remade the rockwall with stones four of us
hoisted together & laid sod there
on a grey day, making it the deepest green.
Reclaimed: Jenn bought this house to dismantle
the destruction of a slumlord--the neighbors
were anxious, then watched, then brought pizza
as a gift for her replacing the jungle next door
(where the tenants used to slaughter
chickens in full view of the children)
with a lawn.
She said, I've found a calling I can
Live inside. It's the shadow
of her own monumental undertaking--
when one works, one gets
to go home at the end of the day,
whereas she lived in this mess,
one floor up from torn up floors
& FUBAR subfloors. How can you sleep?, I
asked & she said, Sleep?
Yes, but the house morphed
into this beautiful place--French doors,
new egress, responsible tile,
even a baby stumbling around--
I almost wish the Ecuadorian immigrants
who trashed it had lived in
this incarnation: they might have
sat in the backyard & felt the grass.
But no, their roots were shallow,
replanted where the jobs were, or
where the feds wouldn't find.
Knotwood is an invasive species
like slumlords in a neighborhood,
bedbugs in an apartment across the road,
they had to throw out all,
all their belongings!
The only solution to the problem
of knotwood is to pull out the bad
roots, plant something stronger
in its place.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Prompt #4: Dan
Dear Postmodern Slinkie
One time, I saw a slinkie in an elevator--
trapped in that metal box, a forlorn
mortal coil, such metaphors were obvious.
It reminded me how I felt tricked
& trapped at a Palm Sunday mass
& you could've stamped JEW
across my reddened forehead
as I was told at length how my
people did awful things to Jesus--
How I clung to a palm frond
like a crucifix! If I'd only
had you, slinkie, to keep me;
we need to stick together.
Dear slinkie, I feel kinship
with your awkwardness,
your lack of context as none
of the yuppies who scatter
gum wrappers around you
will stop to reassure your anxiety.
If there be a heaven (once
maintanence throws you away)
let it be the grandest staircase
steeper than building code allows
us on this mortal plane,
you deserve it for affirming
in your small, cheap-metal way
that postmodern angst
should not turn us into solipsists,
should not turn us from
a slinkie-like heart of humanity
that expands & contracts
when asked by circumstance.
I'm sorry, truly sorry
for not picking you up
& releasing you down
a staircase and into the forever--
like opening the butterfly jar
or uncaging an alligator
it could've been so beautiful
even though I know you'll never
love me: like the wild
don't you just want to be free?
One time, I saw a slinkie in an elevator--
trapped in that metal box, a forlorn
mortal coil, such metaphors were obvious.
It reminded me how I felt tricked
& trapped at a Palm Sunday mass
& you could've stamped JEW
across my reddened forehead
as I was told at length how my
people did awful things to Jesus--
How I clung to a palm frond
like a crucifix! If I'd only
had you, slinkie, to keep me;
we need to stick together.
Dear slinkie, I feel kinship
with your awkwardness,
your lack of context as none
of the yuppies who scatter
gum wrappers around you
will stop to reassure your anxiety.
If there be a heaven (once
maintanence throws you away)
let it be the grandest staircase
steeper than building code allows
us on this mortal plane,
you deserve it for affirming
in your small, cheap-metal way
that postmodern angst
should not turn us into solipsists,
should not turn us from
a slinkie-like heart of humanity
that expands & contracts
when asked by circumstance.
I'm sorry, truly sorry
for not picking you up
& releasing you down
a staircase and into the forever--
like opening the butterfly jar
or uncaging an alligator
it could've been so beautiful
even though I know you'll never
love me: like the wild
don't you just want to be free?
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