Category: Perspective

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More: 46th Post

                  MORE

                                              —War again
The F-16 cuts through air,
then more air, through clouds,
then more clouds, through whatever is
above clouds
above the round earth
with its prickles of cities,
its patchy fields and scratchy deserts
kept in by dented roads,
its pigs, wolverines,
& cats.
All that under it, &
more: perspective, view,
dreamy vision, memories of
front rooms, school rooms,
hospital rooms,
time striped, hatched,
notched on the face of it,
on the vast open face of it,
nothing subtracted, good
or ill. Nothing
taken away: not memories
of who one is supposed to hate
nor statues of who someone once
admired. Like when S said
emotions are only added,
added to themselves and to each
other, and that my reminder we needn’t
be lonely isn’t right, exactly.
The love is added in, she said:
added in like almonds or copper,
like copper to gold, injected
like insulin, inserted like
a grace note. She said,
the night bird will still call us to
wakefulness and we’ll be alone
before we’re together. Together,
I insisted. We are
alone and together,
and we’ll be wistful and satisfied,
and forgetful and reminded.
It’s the blessing in the red ridge
of a scar, she tells me.
The and of living more.

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Not Angels: 44th Post

ADMITTANCE TO THE CITY OF ANGELS

Returning from Central America I made
the smallest jest at the passport station
and found myself in line C4. Three places
ahead stood a Latino—tall, late thirties
perhaps, crisp white clothes, Panama hat,
shepherding two large bags and a
rolled hammock.

He stood straight and still as they
emptied his bags mechanically,
two factory workers deconstructing, unfolding trousers,
uncoiling a belt, unrolling mated socks, tossing item after item
on the stilled conveyor belt.
He kept his hands in his pockets as they opened bottles and tubes
and poured and squeezed them empty into a bucket
that smelled at first like wheat fields.

He removed his hands from his pockets and hung them
as they opened every envelope and read each letter,
hefted, smelled, and felt the safety razor, hairbrush, and dental floss,
removed the back from a framed picture and separated the photo from
its backing, tapped the heels of tall black boots, unscrewed the barrel
of a gold fountain pen, dropping each item
onto the growing heap.

They spoke, and he removed his hat. They slit the hatband
neatly as surgeons. I saw him breathe in
when they cut the cord that held the large hammock,
pulling the ornate poles from the grip
of knotted white loops, leaving them stretched and dangling,
close-parentheses in a tight row.
They pried off the ends of the poles and peered inside,
tilting them like telescopes toward the fluorescent lights above.

The agents closed the line and went away with the man
for half an hour. The rest of us waited, assembling our faces into
nothing. He was buttoning his white shirt as they returned.

After the agents turned to the next person in line, the man labored
to assemble the hammock but gave up, wrapping the pieces
in the stretched body. He worked over his clothes, moving
his large hands through the wrinkled heap of shirts,
pants, envelopes, camera, underwear. Just before I was called
I saw him wrap a belt around his hand and jab it into the solar plexus
of his bathrobe. He stood a moment, hand buried, then went on,
folding a towel, blue with a white monogram.

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One of My Favorite Birds: 43rd Post

the vulture eats between her meals
   a bottle fly, a pair of eels
a rotting carcass in the ditch
   a taste to make your stomach hitch
to tide her o'er till dinner bell
   a politician straight from hell
putrid, lifeless, soulless lout
   see the vulture crunch his snout
swallow his ears, his fingers, a toe
   spit out eyebrows, the tie must go
even the vulture has her limits
   she vomits him out in a matter of minutes
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Roots and Branches: 42nd Post

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THE LANDSCAPER

He feels for the roots
pushing cracked, lined hands through the soft dirt.
He removes the intruding hedge’s dark knots
to spare the thin struggle of a tree.

He wants assurance
that his new lady is the right choice.
He rolls a stone into place while
the earth turns on its axis.

I think of the farm my partner and I didn’t buy,
how we came to this house with no curtains instead.
The landscaper wants to know
if he will be a good parent.

The air smells of dislodged spearmint
and crushed lavender.
The blood blister on his palm swings skyward
as he cups a drooping branch and clips it off.

He does it over and over, the swinging and cupping.
What would mean “I don’t know” in my hands
is a pruning ballet in his,
the tall tree an answer.

I think of the child we didn’t adopt,
of her photo in the book: Kristy.
She had so many letters: ADHD, ODD, PTSD.
My lover couldn’t see the girl

in the forest of letters.
Next spring’s seed catalog lies on the seat
of the landscaper’s truck in the driveway;
a diagram of next year’s garden takes shape in his mind.

He hurries to lay gravel and sand
but loses to the rotation of the earth.
“Want to save this nest for your daughter?” he asks,
laying it carefully on the porch steps.

The daughter we did adopt.
The one to whom I am a good parent
most of the time,
alone in this house.

“Yes,” I say.  Yes to the lady, the good
parenthood, the nest.  Yes to the removal of roots
that held nothing so strongly that a mistake
couldn’t make it all fall down.

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The Relativity Stare-Down: 41st Post

A Portal Through Mysterious Woods sm*

 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

A tree isn’t “tall” except in relation to us,
who are “short.”  The heart of a hummingbird
fills the world.  Try
to apply this principle to loved ones
who shrink with age,
slow down and speed up according to
the weather, forget where things
are but remember how things were,
what it was like in Columbus Grove, Ohio,
how to tie a clove hitch, or a sheet bend,
but who’s that asking am I all right
and can I tell her who she is?
I’m anonymous as winter and twice as old
and she could be too—what’s the point of telling her
anything?  It’s a red and black flannel shirt
I remember,
with little rips in the shoulders
and soft threads that hang from the cuffs,
brushing against me like second thoughts.

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Erosion: 40th Post

Flowers starting to wilt sm

THE WOMAN WHO FELL INTO DISREPAIR

forgets that parts of her
are missing
that other parts once
angled for attention

she took time
as if it couldn’t be bent, flattened, eliminated, reordered
and effort
as if it was matter
as if it mattered
as if it could be compressed or exploded, colored in, Photoshopped out
with her everywhere,
twin burdens slung from a yoke

she ignored the warnings all around
the flags, sirens, scars, flashing
beacons, allergic reactions, slaps on the
cheek, fullness, emptiness, the color red,
the lack of color

she had let it go let it all go let it go let the cells
puff up or fall where they would into the cracks in her arms and legs
over the dents in her lips through the tunnels in her scalp
into the empty spaces she’d forgotten

a landfill of woman
a historical dustbin
an entire lost tribe
too remote and ugly to signify

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Avian Mythologue: 38th Post

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ORPHEUS, EURYDICE, AND HERMES

I.

She remembers she was keen, vigilant, and efficient.

She remembers that the kill was quick,

that hushed bones cracked deep inside the body.

 

Hovering, she was All gliding, All diving,

All futures soon to shriek

kee-ahrrr     down     down,     kee-ahrrr!

 

She remembers a sting, and trying to focus

in this dark place.  She whose electric glance

could track the wild tracings

 

of a fly two worlds away,

dazed, injured, unfocused.

She is in the dark for many futures.

 

Then Who-is-larger comes beside her

and pulls on her feet,

makes her feet go to him.

 

Pulling air with her wings she tries to escape

but Who-is-larger holds fast,

murmuring like leaves in autumn.

 

Together, for her feet seem fastened

to Who-is-larger now,

they move through the darkness.

 

 

II.

The sun puts its rats through their mazes,

sucks the waves from the sea,

forces open the reluctant lilies.

 

Its grief a white light on all it can reach,

the sun can do nothing

without looking.

 

III.

Stepping from the darkness

Who-is-larger closes his eyes against the bright light.

The sun, ecstatic, covers everything instantly.

 

She, tilting her head, with one eye glares skyward

then turns away

blinded, focused on nothing.

 

Powerless, now, to reach her,

the sun, severed, floats on, grieving

blood-red at the last.

 

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Wishing for Harmony: 37th Post

Woman 3

How nice it would be if both one’s internal and external dialogues could be peaceful…

 

REHEARSAL FOR AN ARGUMENT

I am a square-shouldered
decision, a kite
snagged long ago,
my tedious semaphore
unrelieved.

It’s snowing, but
I cut the sound:
everyone’s already heard
bloodthirsty barking,
the scrape of claws

on tree bark.
Let them imagine
the tap
of each crystal flake
shattering on impact.

Placing my ear
to a rock,
I wait patiently
for the translation.
A thousand frosts later

the answer is
mine in a
mound
of sturdy flour.
I spit

and knead:
a lunge of knuckles
and there’s bread
and blood
all over.

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In a Strange Land: 36th Post

Cloister ladies

Along with many of my closest friends and friends I don’t know yet, I often feel like I’m living in a landscape made hostile by the decisions, sometimes mere whims, of others over whom I have no control and with whom I doubt I could have a conversation that would include any meaningful mutual understanding. I wrote this poem many years ago, and enjoyed the self-imposed task of inventing a language and grammar to make it work, while also expressing the humor, homesickness, fear, and isolation that so often pushes one to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. It still feels true to me, so I share it today.

I’ve recited this poem at readings many times over the years, and it takes some rehearsal but is always fun to say aloud. To get you started, I’ll tell you that the speaker is a human writer living on another planet.

HIS LAND OF ROOMS

Please, come in.
Don’t be shy, take a seat.  Or,
I should say, extend your nemdops and lower your fleegrong’n.
—The candles?  Well, no, not for heat.  Does it bother you?  Sometimes,
for atmosphere,
—well, yes, they do use oxygen.  Never mind.
So, Pargffen, I hope this will be the first of many
—In English.  I plan to read in English.
(I cannot.  I will not.  I tried some lines:
fentonn reb fleedeep miss’rab soor
   nempebb, pebb nggit Pargffeen ho’or
The damned apostrophes are to be squeaked.
Insupportable.)  Shall we go on?
I’d like to begin with one of my early works that
—Yes, I understand your position on ownership.
I don’t own these words; I merely arrange them.
Shall I continue?  (This habit they have,
of putting reensamsam in their slomgrong’ni,
I should have expressly forbid it.)  All right.
This piece is called “Land of Rooms”
and I suppose I’d best explain a word or two:
Humans begin their lives as small, dependent creatures called children, who live in
“childhood.”
“Insomnia” is an inability to sleep.  It is usually frustrating.  Many things cause it,
believe me.
Let’s see, do you know what a “mistake” is?
—I thought not.  (Why did I pick this one to read?)
It means doing something wrong, unintentionally.
Sometimes you get to try again.
I think you’ll understand the rest.  Wait,
do you know “silence”?  (No,   no,   no,   no.)
Silence is the absence of sound.  As if your dapgrong’ni stopped working.
—But that’s possible to imagine, isn’t it?  Listen,
silence is sometimes very pleasant.  Humans find it restful,
which, as you know, we like.  Now, let’s proceed.
—Yes, Hjǽm?  —Ahh.
The idea is that I will read and you will listen
or rather, p’liff with your dapgrong’ni,
and at the end, if you enjoyed it,
you will applaud.  —Umm, you could wave your dapgrong’ni,
or push one rarpeen against the other until a sound comes out.  —Oh,
I had no idea.  Well,
how might you show approval then?  Perhaps you could just
nod your bogrong’n.  (Can we settle on it, please?)  Shall I just begin?
—Yes, I have, actually, tried to.  Describing this place
has been…challenging, shall we say.
—No, I’m not ready to read that piece; it’s not right yet.  (Never again.
I shall never do this again.)  —You must believe me when I say it’s a slow process.
No telling when I’ll be ready to share that one.  Please,
please can we go on?  (Oh no, it’s nearly ffenzod’nǿth time.
I should have chosen another day.)  I say,
would you prefer that we do this another time?
—Pardon me, I forgot.  (All time one ocean
and all that, god damn this place, even if it is,
by hell, all places.)  I’ll just read
while you zod’nǿthne, if that’s all right.
—No, no, I’m not unhappy; please don’t think that.
(I know what they do to unhappy aliens, by god.)  And neither is my poem.
Suppose we do this:
you’ll zod’nǿthne; I’ll read,
you’ll applaud—somehow; I’ll go back to my quarters and work,
and then sleep.
I shall sleep while you zod’nǿthne.  In the same time.

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Look. No, Really. Look: 35th Post

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Bird and Tree

There, again.  See?  A small darting thing
with sharp edges and a wide brim
went into the dark arms of the tall one that whispers
constantly, its mouths dangling from tiny handles.

The small one calls out, bragging—or
pleading—
its brim tucked away,
dagger mouth waving in the air.

It builds a little jail and stabs at it, then
goes in search of a prisoner.

The tall one waits.  Where are its eyes?