a momentary solace

i find the wind has taken down my favorite tree
and yet across the gray-skied bay
light unfurls along your slender peninsula--
a gown of ochers and reds

my brother

on that night they brought you up
did you tell them
how waves overwhelm the world
demand everything
how they rise against the unrelenting winds
and build with all their liquid weight
until they reach a height
that is unbearable
did you tell them
how they fall
full of what they are
and crash
a clamor of rage
did you say
waves are only water

beyond midnight

each word begins
         as a yearning

                 a wound

       each one a brick
                      a cinder block sinking

some surface too easily

                    he tries to be singular
                         but he's too tired to make anything
                                                                                last

       some chords composed by john cage are spears
                                                                         thrust into a sleeping man's side

                                                                         light cuts long
                                                                                         into the cockcrowed hour

beginning the second half-century

two women round the corner
they have nice asses
one pushes a stroller
they stand by the shore
and take snapshots of themselves

around another corner
the whir of electric wheelchairs
two boys their heads askew
their conversation is not unintelligible
they race each other and laugh

the sun is warm against this wall
the court is empty now
whirls of leaves are my companions
my constant companions
i speak the skittering language of leaves

a lapse of discretion

the street
once sunny in early october
maples’ orange leaves
the woman sits in a chair

her white collar and painted-on smile
how she looks out the window
at the fabric in the shop

the softness of her hand
a quality of cream
of linen as if it has no weight

only a scent of jasmine
a scent of hemlock
of lavender

the color of her silken blouse
a lilac purple
spruce green

a taste of powder
beneath her ear
behind her jaw

tight spirals
pressed dark
against temples

wavering breath
of parted lips
as if to speak a pleasure

over and over
starlings dot a sky that's almost blue 

persistence of vision

chair in a desert
every single day its shadow sweeps
from west to east

a young child kneels
forehead in sand
veil of skin covering ribs

a photographer frames the scene
weighs vulture against child
he has an eye for balance

he shoos the bird away
but the image remains
he cannot face it 

chair in a desert
every single day
a shadow

few know the sweetness of twisted apples*

on boyhood’s farm
my grandmother spoke a language
i never understood—
a winnowing wind among the apple boughs
gnarled fruit of a quitted land
her skinnied limbs her skull-boned eyes
i cawed to crows
in windmilled heights and maple trees
my father dug potatoes
a cow would lick my arm
the coarseness of its tongue
old john the lugan
the basement his home
a crooked table where he ate from cans
the bed of straw upon a metal frame
sunlight’s meager portion—
a pillar of dust across a concave floor
polished dirt beneath his shoeless feet
the stubble of a furrowed face
his only language a toothless smile
singsong of a sweet-wined drunk
displaced by war
his family lost
perhaps relocated
maybe never was
his hands weaving twine
carving tines
whittling away the wooden days
until nothing was left
of my grandmother
or the cow
or the ashes of the apple trees
my father moved him on
only the smooth earth
to remember the soles of his feet


* The title is taken from a line in Sherwood Anderson's "Winsburg, Ohio"

ode to a bird

this lone remnant of our conversation
white feather found on the floor
have i told you of the rain-beaten leaves
of how it rains nearly every day
lost little feather

its end has been clipped
its barbs undone
you at the next table over
all spun in cloaks and scarves
what is one feather to you

this thread of your vestment
opened wide open--
unfold before me
you flower of feathers
you bird
you song of pure air
all these leaves loosened by rain
it's already Fall
what are you doing
making a nest in my hair

exiled

amidst the hollow pieces of another night
dust owns everything
there is no help from stars
nor do books of stars carry any promise
I count my teeth
I don’t want to believe they can be incinerated—
the only remnants archeologists might excavate of me 
countless twigs scattered in the grass
is the oak even alive
or is it dying by an unperceived attrition
long after hammers strike
the notes reverberate
linger still in silence
nearly all my conversations are with the dead
many are foreigners
clinging to black bread—
leave us alone they say
we're tired of your soliloquies
go pester the crows

beyond the labyrinth

only the humming--
a monotone moan through a glass door
voice shaped by buildings of brick
held by a patina of rust
walls at right angles
a multitude of distances

beyond the labyrinth--
a small elm encircled by pavement
its yellow leaves roil
dark branches bend
preserve that which is rooted
it clings to the earth

pattern of etched mortar
chipped paint of white letters--
the severed clouds
sunlight framed by the shadows
once more the monotonous moan 
a meaningless outcry from nowhere to nothing

you hang over this small porcelain cup--
touched by how many fingers
mouthed by how many lips
whose breath was held here
and yet the wind
it speaks to you

look--
the leaves glisten with brilliance

burning bush

shadows of leaves on a burgundy curtain quiver
they move in muted sunlight across a Persian rug

you ache with things you shall never be—
the persistence of vision.

rise from this kneeling,
open the curtains of day.

among September winds
the leaves turn

redder than fire.

leaden

at dusk’s open window
a rushing wind—

oaks’ deafening herald

you stand before the dusty sill
a drumming echoes off your chest

a promise of sleep—

distant lightning

returning to earth

~ field ~

how green still clings to yellowing trees
and cattails bend over darkened waters
the blue-grey sky is violent with cloud
the slanting sun upon a knoll of beat-down hay
a few loosed leaves and branches lifted to wind

~ shed  ~

once the grey-grooved slats smelled sweet with pitch
the curled shingles smelled of tar
now the brown bent nails hold nothing--
round worn ends of bowing boards
outlast the carpenter's hands
his utilitarian plan given to the rootless moss

~ homestead ~

once there were potatoes and corn
white curtains rustling in a sunshined breeze
scent of apple pie
now the rusted rims of tractor wheels
the rotting harnesses of horseless fields
the odor of forgotten implements
clinging to the hollow of a broken barn

after the storm

mossy shadows
a hum through the branches
you say the mountain is cold
but I say it is still
water trickles over stones
leaves litter a rain-dampened path
the coarseness of pebbles beneath your pale feet
the puddle a mirror
the mirror a vision of sky
word you have forbid yourself to speak
breath slipped from tongue
dew sliding from leaf
translucent into a pool
a single circle
fragrance of chokecherries
in dusk you tell me
all you know of dissonance
how you crave the sound of crickets in cold
you wait in silence beneath the striated clouds

and this morning

is there sunlight
on your breast,

any yellow glowing amidst
your waking’s whiteness?

which wilted flower
lends it’s lone colored dab?

is it red, or orange?
tell me please it’s purple

you were draped in purple
in my dream,

purple in the sunlight
of my dream.

because they do not know

in the dead hours of night
you disassemble a piano

each shaped piece of wood a lever
the clutter of a pile of keys

beneath 87 and 88 a dime from ‘18
a bingo chip—  translucent red

the hidden edges of 63 through 75
stained from communion wine in ‘94

due to the chaotic situation
no consensus on the number

hammer 46
broken at the shaft

nearly lost
recovered from a potted plant

irreparably untunable
the piano cost a 100 dollars

to lay your fingers on the keys
and watch the hammers strike

for weeks you hear the silenced note
for years the ghosts beneath the bridge

like bamboo bells

once we watched the sunrise
through leaded window-glass

ate pheasant using silverware
inherited from aunts

now a spider waits for moths
among the toppled bricks

hollow husks of insects
rattle in the sills

harvest

i will walk across a field
with this basket i have made
the basket i was given
still some seeds to sew
empty basket made of woven thorns
i will walk across a field
dig among the roots
onions and potatoes
radishes
odor of dirt
how many years
beneath fingernails of hope
how white teeth gleam in sun

beneath my bed

a cigar box
i don't know what to do with
a volunteer firefighter badge
a 10 year pin from Harbison Walker
a 25 year pin

he used to give us pennies
flattened by 30 ton cars

all the jack knives bought as presents
now a tin of ground-down blades
all the watches arrested at random hours
what can they say of that hollow in time
all the Chinese money he brought back from WW II
unrolling across the floor

overtime

just solve this one last problem 
before going home for the evening... 

you round a corner
startle a thousand cowbirds

they lift into the sinking sunlight
their shadows climb a yellowed wall

you chase after them
running amidst their frenzy

you can't stop

if you do
you'll plummet to your death 

solitary

a small square hole
brilliant with light

     you are given what you are given
     the rest you take
     or leave alone
     abandon by the side of a road
     in some other country
     this place is not your own

sometimes they let you speak
other times they close the small square door

     you're left with what you can't abandon
     a few useless stones 
     from places you can never go back to
     a garden of poppies
     gone to seed
     crepe-paper petals
     a leather-bound bible reeking of incense
     you cannot mask the smell of death
     the raised scar on her sternum
     she addresses you as Jesus
     handfuls of dirt
     dislodged from a world of untruth
     two worn shillings covering eyes

the door opens
small square hole full of bright light

     her fingers perched upon the edge
     carmine color of lipstick
     mouthing inaudible words
     rounded edge of jaw
     what can you trade
     for the concept of time
     face buried in wind
     same old story
     woman and man
     how a glance lasts an instant
     you raise your head to speak

the small square door closes again

     a three tined fork slides off a white napkin
     rattles across a checkerboard floor
     a purple blouse
     her pulled-back hair
     consternation behind sunglasses
     somewhere a bent candle still burns
     a downpour washes away trash in Paris streets
     her swelled nipples
     cotton camisole
     everything ends at the ocean
     and its odor of salt
     how afternoon sun dries your face
     many years cannot kill the taste

a diffuse glow
through the small square hole

     she tells you to come to the house tonight
     asks you to bring your shoebox of moths
     she wants you to shake the dust from their wings
     rain makes a new kind of silence
     caught up in the heights of pines
     dew at 3am
     the whole night sky is yours alone
     long ago you named all the phenomena
     surrendered their wonder
     now you seek it through others eyes
     that's why they still keep you around
     you've learned to give them
     nearly everything they want

each new day

the threshed out
kernels of wheat
milled into flour

baked into bread
for strangers those
who would starve

without it who
always come back
in need of

more claiming it
with all manner
of hands each

misshapen by what
the years have
brought we all

must take this
burdened stalk of
wheat bent with

harvest broken for
us in every
field by those

whose names are
lost within this
silence of loaves

requiem

In this alley stinking of urine
littered with cigarette butts
waste-water pools,
mirrors the contours of clouds
blue sky
the sun--
a single point of brilliant light.

He could speak to this
until in shadow
beneath the bridge,
unacknowledged,
he was beaten to death
for a pint of gin.

heart as lesser creatures

dots darken and swell on pages
of a library book–
i worry about the rain

she uses the words gently fall
when she can just say
fall

i lay my hand
upon the bareness of her shoulder
instead of on her bare shoulder

grey beneath pines
a hummingbird appears
circling with eager drone

i want to knock it from the air
ask it
just what the fuck it's doing

fireflies in the forest
of my youth

shadow of the hills

returning

how surprised i am to find you
in your neighbor's bed of iris
(left untended many summers
before their cottage in the oaks)
you're on your knees
among the purple blossoms
a mound of wilting weeds behind you
there is sweat upon your brow
you look at me and smile
your hair as red as ever
as if you'd never lost it
i cannot help but help you
i bend to pull the final weed
you carry a whole armful
i have only one
i say it is a wild carrot
you lay your hand on mine
no, not wild carrots
all the misplaced years

jonah to the fish—

i knew i couldn’t save myself
so leapt into the unrelenting sea

resigned to death
i was well-pleased never to return

but who can speak
of the vastness of a sea

its unknown places
deep within darkness

your shadow passed
in silence

your measureless form
hidden in many waters

i was drowning and swallowed by waves
when you were called to take me in

and bear me down
to the bottom of the world

there
where there was no light

no hope
only one voice speaking

those unstirred waters
no warmth nor subsistence for you

yet you kept me
all the given days

as if your whole being meant nothing to you
until those words were spoken

and then in silence you ascended
through some uncharted way

to birth me on the blinding shore
of a new and sunlit land.

lost

and now you come back
with the rain
following the path of lightning
you beat on the door
in a landscape of flashes
i see all the drowned kittens
returned to life
mewing for milk
amidst inconsolable night
the yard is unraked
the house empty
what can i feed them
he is already here
waiting with ball peen and sack
is it only the weather
the way your wet dress
clings to your body
strands of dripping hair
the slightness of you
curling against me
as day begins to break

a bear and a boat

there's an old story
about a rowboat abandoned at sea
it's the same story
as the one about a wounded bear
staggering on a crag--
the spinning of the world
has been arrested
stars revolve without it
there are no tears which are not made
from parts of other stories
or rather there is only one story
told again and again
about how an oar cuts water
excavates a certain volume--
how much is removed
how much returned
what do you do with what's left over
there are no waters
that can fill a cavity
dug from fifty years of marriage
a man of ninety
tries to fill it with stories
too often retold
a bear in a boat
crosses an ocean
returns to the forest
where it was born
at midnight
when the night is cold
and overflowing with stars
the bear is summoned
by voices it has always known
called back again and again
by a name almost forgotten
the boat is empty and oarless
rocking on waves
the boat lies on shore
overturned
left for many years
its gray wooden frame
long surrendered to sand

orginality

Take Larry for instance,
he opened a service-station
in the middle of nowhere
and then added a bar--
for don't we all know those
whose car problems drive them to drink?
The paint has flaked
those years of sun have bleached
but who besides Larry
uses overturned pistons as cups?
Though some will tell you
his whiskey tastes like gasoline.

my contract with light

tell me which of the stars
have seared holes through all of my things—
or is it just the same quantum of light
returning again and again
now demanding the only bowl I have left

I confess in a whisper it is too late
thousands of years have already claimed it
white shards entwined by roots
that refuse to surrender
clinging black soil

but light is incessant
immutable
and wants everything back

apparitions

all the ukulele players
appearing out of fog
they walk by with their black cases
maybe forty men with beards
they vanish the same way

a violinist in a white dress
shining on the stage
she slides her bow and plays
back and forth
and back and forth

she's young enough
to be her daughter
and maybe not
a mathematician
but it doesn't matter
we're just dancing in a haze

what then?

shall the fissures of Earth actually win?
shall new continents form without our knowing?
how many dreams have already spilled from shaking hands?
and where do these dreams go,
washed away by rain
rattled into crevices by thunder
planted to be re-born as apples?
maybe all gardens are just the first garden
and the creme flesh of woman
shall once again have no fear of scales.
I cannot imagine a forest without rain,
life that doesn't feed off those that came before.
which falling star can claim to be an angel
or a bluebird with a broken wing?
don't cats already know each sparrow is numbered?
where is the factory of birds?
which politician could tell me?
I would vote for her
even if all the other candidates were women
just as clever.

Can any of this be denied?

Your very flesh
lying against the spillage of day
sky refusing light
promise of apricot--
a blush of red
against some yellow
never again to taste
pressed between lips
breaking taut skin
perfected edge
of worn down teeth.
They tell how kernels will settle
into August earth
long before autumn makes its claim.
If you do not believe in time
still it lays its reach of days
sings its strained melody.
Breathe its soft air
open your hungered mouth
to the nectar of lost fruit
apricots lifted into sky
beyond time's tale of centuries.
Who counts all these useless years? 
Why do so many demand them back
as if they could be bothered
for one last meal of love,
another's soft skin
pressed against your naked flesh,
can you not be warmed in any other way?

for those now dead

between a native's stone found in fields my father plowed
and a broken bough from a pine on a hill I climbed as a boy
I grind this fragrance from sprigs of lavender my mother planted
red stalks of rhubarb dug from her yard--
these I grow for pie 

sand

Rid yourself of all shattered glass
all the fucking bones
remove all the mirrors
excoriate all wood from the wastes.
Let the desert in
let winds eat everything away
even sound.
Let there be only sky
light
and crystalline sand.
Allow one single insect
a beetle clicking its wings
dying from want of water.
Let the poem contain only the word was
which indicates the past tense of to be
no more struggles with hope in the future tense.
Fill your mouth full of sand
spit it out
open your lips and breathe until they become
flakes of translucent skin.
Is it God that is nascent in desert?
What is this patten of shadowworn by a wandering Sun?
Nothing but light crossing an infinity
grain after grain
shifted by wind
into transecting crescents
rippling on and on.
All words are spelled there
and buried—
footprints eroded.
A young antelope
separated from its mother
finds her tracks and follows
but in the wrong direction.
The world itself is not cruel
hasn't God painted this desert?
The whole universe can be mapped
into a single grain of sand.
This is only circumstance.
We sift without knowing.
Not one is righteous.
Even the Moon
riddled with junk
is no longer holy.

passage

I was not given to the keeping of time
minutes   hours        days
continually spilling out of my pockets

I break a branch
and years bleed away

frozen lake
grey beneath a grey sky

water once flowed--
a visage

of a grandfather clock
deep in the cold

time

time beaten into a broken watch
rattling among branches that would not bud
a time of blood
tasting of burnt dirt
that kept spilling
out of my pockets
out of my hands
and into that part
of the past we both have discarded
time which no longer turned
which could not be seen
which shot like a wobbling stick
into the heart of a dog
that kept running
long after it was dead

dead like a bone
hollow and gray
carved into flute
carved into holes
through which no water flowed
holes that held air
holes holding breath
letting it go
but not without sound
offering only a path through the sands
a hollow    that shards used to bound
a hollow   which hands used to cup
a hollow  nobody whispers
half-tasting of fractured sky

if not for dust

if not for dust
settling on everything
how could I understand
this passage of days

scattered amongst time
that no longer keeps anything--
a few kind words

someone who lingers--
just to ask
to lay a hand without asking

even my phone is a minute behind
doesn't anyone see--
these minor anachronisms

a day ago
a week
this very same spot

just last year
pressing our legs into each other
as if in oath

the girl behind the bar
never sees a thing
I take back our glasses

she fills yours with water
I drink from it
as if you were still here

now   where there is no dust--
no measure of either
days passed nor days yet to come

remember the game

we used to play in June
while the maples were greening
and the sweet-cherries ripe

how one by one
I’d take those shiny dark—
the inside of your thigh—

each ripened fruit
worked cool in between

my fingers flat
easing the warmth of your—

when Christ was crucified
each red tributary
told of how they—

over your white—
against your—
until you’d squeeze them together

how juice of sweet-cherries seeped
from the press of your legs
soaked into dusk

how Mary did bathe
His tattered flesh
water and blood

beneath greening maples
I would suckle this juice
from the shade of your—

Magdalena as hollow as the tomb
tell me where they have taken him
and I will bring him back
there will come a day
maranatha!
when the dead shall rise into the sky

why can’t you remember
the game we used to play
when the maples were greening
and the sweet-cherries ripe

maranatha!
there will come a day

rake

how many seasons of grass
wound in spokes
and rusted rims

hollow hubs
where once-black grease
clung thick with odor

silent row of iron tines
rarely now do children come
to sit upon the high-raised seat

a long un-coupled hitch
settled into earth
gear and lever seized into a curiosity

poplars have taken back the fields—
when you slit the bark with fingernail
you loose a scent like fresh-cut hay

you were never meant for plenty

but to walk among the windswept pines
to pause before the swelling of wave after wave
sea washing over each solemn stone
to lose yourself in hair you shall never caress

each petal of crocus
surrenders its purple
each rose-colored tulip—
lost before summer

you come home to the shore
a familiar odor of death in the breeze
you come home but never arrive
you are always departing—

how to make a killing machine

start with a child
(the child you once were for example
before your twelfth birthday)
make him witness someone murdered
preferably from his home-town
preferably while his home-town is burning
—by someone I mean his mother, your mother—
threaten to cut off his arm
if he refuses to kill his sister
shoot him full of drugs
before the sun goes down
preferably amphetamines
keep him up all night
early the next morning
teach him how to shoot a rifle
first at empty tins of cooking oil
then at gunny-sacks of straw—
use people instead
teachers from his school and church
give him more amphetamines
until half the fucking country’s gone
then dump him by an open sewer—
let someone else try to turn him back
into a human being

scrawled on torn paper

a little further on from Spain
you'll find Morocco

an all-day taxi-ride from Marrakesh
takes you to a village in the south

from there travel far into the Atlases
toward oblivion and wind

I must surrender

all the colors of that place in time adorned with holly hocks, and chrysanthemums where my mother and father were younger than me, their sky-blue corvette, black revolvers and beagles— burned by chemical processes into cracked emulsions I cannot repair; a drawer of dead watches that have lost their war against unquantified time; pocket knives, blades of tempered steel ground down to impotent points and turned to rust; boxes of pencils sharpened to stubs, depleted by the manufacturing of words and diagrams lifted to sky in ash; all the promises I once made, attempts to do better. I keep reminding my hands that burning candles has nothing to do with the diminishing wax. They never learn about light.

gusts

why are these children running across a red-painted bridge—
they laugh at petals of a locust blowing in the breeze

I sit at this broken table made of wood
far away from here I taste spices on the wind

it is warm and sunny
and our eyes have met again

I am here with my tarnished brass scale
weighing this dead fish of forever
against all the paper moments

they blow away
lifted high into the blue
like many yellow maple leaves caught up in a whirl

this crevice i have stumbled into

how can i not be thankful—
in darkness everything returns

the world’s many fields
wavering in sunlight
and shimmering with dew

understand

there comes a time when everything is taken

give what is asked
empty all hope
all will
all of what will become

he was also despised

empty yourself
of what you've been filled with
a vessel poured out

this is not your home
you must learn this yourself--
hope deferred makes the heart sick

but a longing fulfilled
is a tree of life

gasoline

a scientific term i don't recall
many colors in its sheen
that shimmer on a hot day
how fire burned inglorious
my father's brother--
uncle i would never have
fuck the Philippines and war
which can't be waged without it

half a world away

riding his bicycle down a country road
he is still on Zanzibar

Stone Town behind them
they’re headed to the east beaches

he coasts beneath mango trees
seeking shelter from equatorial sun

in the afternoon's silence
she pedals just beyond reach

Stone

One day he found a grain of sand
among the lint in his pocket.
It had a curious feel
he kept rolling it around
between his fingers.
He didn't notice
that it had grown into a pebble,
smooth and almost burgundy red.
When it was the size of a gemstone
he had a jeweler set it in a ring
that he was fond of wearing
until it bent the posts
and he had to wear it
on a chain around his neck.
It never occurred to him
that he should discard it
and when it grew too heavy
he carried it on his shoulders.
One day they found him
dead beneath it.
They buried him with it.
Now his grave is a hill
where strange mushrooms grow. 
Do not pick them
for they are poison.

Rusumo Bridge

but this migration of possessions
is familiar

one day at the soldiers quarters
wives and mistresses begin to smile

all the china plates
silverware without tables

nearly every man in the border-unit
with a boom-box on his shoulder

UNHCR tarps
US vegetable oil appearing in the market

belongings carried across kilometers
over ridges of rock and swamps

borne —by remnants of families
whole neighborhoods—

through relentless rain
the river swelling

with those whose passage
required more

dispossessed of heads and hands
they accumulate beneath the falls

a modern lesson

his mother taught him math--
instead of using x, y and z
she used a pig, cow, and fly

only later did he understand
what she was showing him

his father was a pig
his mother a cow
he was the fly

unlike Isadora

you shall bear no photo of your dead
nor twice wound scarf
about your own broken neck

how a single cloud consumes the evening sky
loosens each heavenly body
from its assigned place

without intent you remove furniture
in nearly the same way
the mirror's tarnished light

ask yourself which is worse
losing one who goes unasked or one who chooses
to go on without you

a hanged poet
farewell friend written in blood—
both of these from lack of ink

a drawer of dry fountain pens
bottles of dust
irreparable stains of blue

whose desk is this anyway
whose has it always been—
this was never your home

a few more things

so many empty rings
all the gemstones gone
I find a few scattered in snow
under moonlight at 3am

I possess many magnifying glasses
an enormous pine cone
all this amplification of scale is wonderful
but I seek to diminish

the art I'm interested in—
miniature landscapes
painted by dead artists
a dirt road leading to a pond that isn't there anymore

all colors are muted
the light grown frail
the distant hills
have turned into shadows

more and more I write
about nothing
about only a few crows
rising from a scribble of branches

I undertake a journey
trying to discover some answer
I come back
with a only two pieces of turquoise

there's not much left—
small wooden canisters
where I collect fragments
of things I have broken
 
my wife tells me trivial things
keeps filling my pockets with stones
she's heaving me out
of this boat we've made together

even I'm getting sick of myself
knowing what I've seen
of my rare attempts—
trying to be human

counterproductive

They were going over
areas of study
I kept saying that's about the human body

the other day I forgot my hat
and when I found my hat I lost my gloves
and when I had my hat and gloves
a friend came running with my backpack
she said what are you thinking so much about?

her hair had caught in my beard
I said so
now there are many days between us

It is February and I am old
I have way too many notebooks
piling up in my room

my room is so dusty
I keep stepping on stones
I've collected them over the years
I bring everything in
I sleep in a forest

recent excavations

what remains
at the edge of town
where all the numbers are gone
from the only mailbox you’ve ever known

where no cigarette’s touched
for a thousand years
a handmade ashtray wrapped
in newspaper

and all that’s left
are holes in the carpet
where a reclining chair once sat
during the era of television

what do rose petals signify
especially now
the bush is just a few grey branches
and worn-down thorns

wheat pennies and peace dollars
end up in other places
scattered
among foreigners

why is it
everything you’ve ever made
or given
is now returned

do you know
going through shoeboxes of letters
where the others are
the ones you were supposed to save

what disparity
between something given
and a taken thing--
oh such absence of hands

let us lie down

how many times
have i asked the stars
without any need of answer

i am certain it is i
and not you
if blame is required

in the lawless winter night
clouds part
Arcturus claims the east

i pause in summer too
just to face some evening breeze--
there's also room enough for you

don't bother dividing
all these things that will outlast us
i've already surrendered my portion

primrose

Can you bundle up the sea
everything in it
and send it back home?

Once I found a tuft of buffalo hair
and mailed it to my lover
how could I not?

It had such a curious quality
both fuzzy and coarse.
I stuffed it in a box made for a ring--
imagine her surprise.

When you see all the color
in an instant of sky
you want to keep it.

Mom used to grow evening primrose
it bloomed when the day was through
such a pale yellow flower in the dusk.

lipstick

red lipstick on a white cup
red lipstick
on a white cup
her lipstick
red lipstick
her lips
on a cup
red lips
her red
red
red

toppled

wind carves the sleepless forest
lifts in tumult
then lies down

it wanders among pines
bears no voice
of malice nor praise

the last vase broken

sprigs of lavender scatter across dark ice
too dull to mirror the moonless stars
surrendering in droves

as if what cleaves ice
also tears a sequined gown
from the frigid breast of night

vestiges

Calciferous stains still ring
rocks overgrown with briars.

How many years have emptied
that lost creek?

Vines entwine all evidence
of an old traveled way.

Were there ever any arbutus
growing among the pines?

Smooth stones once paved a path
back to the ruins of an inheritance

stolen by shadows of crows
hording echoes in crevices

beneath moss-covered cairns
where once stood statues

now desecrated by the anarchy
of a failing mind.

bare now many winters

the sun burns everything to dust
the faded colors
petals flaked to powder

with what shall i dye the answer
which word offers peace
how long ago the basket emptied

willows cut from living tree
a blade against the circling bark
sweetness of the verdant turned gray

terminus

outside the dark square
diminishing temperature
stiffens the fingers

a lone light bulb pushes
a half-circle of yellow
off a closed door

all attempts-- feeble
a soul slipping through
absolute zero

out the window of Angela's new home in the city

civilization's rectilinear divisions
nature's naked bifurcation
sharp winds blow grey

Capella

she asks if he's ever been afraid
beneath the thought of an infinite night sky
he says no, unless by fear you mean awe

billions of stars just beyond reach
she replies I had to clutch the ground
and he as if you'd fall away from Earth

he tells her of a scintillating star
he can name it but she's already telling him
a whole landscape aflame with light

ash

leave the door open just a crack
and a cold breeze sidles across the floor
our mothers slip into some mumbling dream
their wax-paper skin translucent as time
that lifts generations of leaves

they begin to speak in a language
they used to know before our infancy intervened
as if they never cut their hair
and it fills a whole room
with the volume of a birth-song

maybe their passing is one gusting exhalation
of light and a vacating of voices
which have been in labor
all these long years
of our wasted lives

even we plant our seed
in the mothers of our children
we are re-born in them
we empty ourselves
sometimes hope is a backward looking

a reminiscence of a future
already lived in some broken revolution
spinning through another universe of impossible
the door flies open
shadows with the force of gales

rattle porcelain heirlooms
a stampede from the pastoral linage
a pail of spilled milk
blood of fowl upon a dulled paring knife
the grinding-wheel's coarse edge

a sun-bleached cotton dress
heather in a garden
a wormy radish in earth-darkened fingernails
the sprouting of a green potato skin
sunlight through corn-dust in a crib

the half-warmth of a blue-veined hand
laid against a cheek
red runny nose
a waft of tomato soup
wet washcloth for sweaty locks

song almost in whisper on the long unlit hearth
darkness of solstice held back by sparking log
when tiny cinders glow they speak a truth
one by one they darken to ash

meal at the bar

I have become unfamiliar with the notebook
once a thing of dependance
a crutch or bridge of some sort.
Now I return to it as a pastime
though I still hope for some conversation.
I am at the age where I can only read headlines.
I've forgotten my glasses.
I have come here to eat.
There is only the putting of food in my mouth.
I am hungry.
This is a fact I keep telling myself
far too long to believe it's actually true.
This is a place I know.
I know what to order.
I know where to sit.
Even if the counter is cold
it's familiar.
I like pita and hummus.
That's why I'm here.
Even if I must live beyond hope
I have a full stomach.
Some possibility of conversation is present
but as with all good things
it slowly turns to dust. 

fade

reaching out for      barkless branch
                             weathered grey touch
                                                       dust kiss
                                                                  white ash once moist
whats left               ?
                             ...brown leaves rattling
                                                                                          rattling

hope

eleven dead birds
each a new color
laid out on a table
dark eyes lost to light

a tuft of chickadee
upside-down in a glass
the sparrow's spiny tail
points to some other idea of sky

cowbirds swept into a kitchen corner
(more numerous than fallen leaves)
clogging the sink drains
plugging the toilet

one of each species placed
in a refrigerator
a robin a blue-jay a cardinal
in separate bowls

crows heaped in piles
atop my blankets
each night I'm roused
by muffled thuds

at 3am these birds are still alive
they fly around in song
whitewashing all the furniture

crowbar

have you really come to dismantle all the machinery?
where did you learn to melt steel as if it were lead?
all that I've manufactured through many hard years
see how you've left me in this pool of black oil?
what do I do with these handfuls of bolts?
even if I could consult the lost diagrams
you'd only work your cheap crowbar
deeper into the mechanisms

walking with my son

There's a trail that weaves through a grove of small poplar
that we walk in the evenings as the sun goes down,
when the young bending trunks take on such a color of pink
I can never remember but always dream,
where we sit in summer as green leaves grow
among the rattle of come-and-go breezes,
and find in the fall the color of yellow against a roaring blue
until one day the nakedness of branches--
a landscape becomes part of you.
Why do I speak of this in the present tense?
They're nothing now
just splinters
a swath of bulldozer tracks
beneath electric lines.

Lovers in a re-run with a poet

We were in a Planet of the Apes movie running from a mob.  You were nursing someone's baby.  Keith Taylor was with us, he wore a white lab coat.  We fled up a high hill along a winding road that had been recently asphalted. The hill had been excavated, a huge gully of bare earth cut a dangerous angle down into the city. We came to a solitary structure, a church without a steeple, an abandoned big-box store. Was the baby an orangutang? The mob would soon approach. I knew this. I had already seen the movie. Our plan was to take the stairs up to the balcony. If we could just reach it maybe the mob would be too lazy to follow. Keith placed himself behind a counter and planned to use it as a pulpit from which to shout, "ape has killed ape!" hoping this would provide a distraction. Meanwhile at the far end of the balcony you began to page through some harlequin novels which you'd found on a small end-table. Things were falling apart fast. I needed to find a way to encounter the mole-men who were supposed to save us. They lived beneath the ruins of New York City with the last remaining Intercontinental Ballistic missile. Though they had plastic faces they were supposed to be helpful to humans. The warhead was still armed.

Root of Njaro

When asked by my seventeen year old daughter
to provide a line for her creative writing class
I tell her to say, I come from banana leaves

which Hemingway used to wipe his great white ass.
Her mother strongly disagrees.  Alright, I say,
just tell them you come from an absence of latitude.

Instead of my sister's for left-overs

I choose a coffee shop on the south side of the street because I like the way the sun illuminates storefronts on the other side. This may not be the primary reason. The primary reason is I want to go somewhere public to write. This might not be the primary reason either.  Maybe the primary reason is to overhear conversation which I can insert at random locations into this narrative and so enliven it. A cup of coffee must figure in somewhere. Somehow it interlaces an image of J__ one night at the bar, though she drank hot chocolate, and I rye beer which the bar does not serve. Or does the coffee, from Ethiopia, take me back beneath an overgrown coffee tree, where coffee nuts on reed mats dry in the sun? Why does it always come down to a vision of small breasts in a mirror? (It's because this vision interjects itself into everything, even if there is no garlic, which to me is as great of a sin as having no tahini.) I use tahini in everything. See how this introduces into the reader's mind a connection between tahini and small breasts? Let's take an erotic leap—picture small breasts smeared with tahini. Note: please do not involve J__ with this connection. I do not intend it. They are not her breasts. She would be offended by this intimation. Perhaps this also offends the reader. This is not about the reader. A haze of cloud has shifted between the buildings across the street and the rays of sunlight that would illuminate the storefronts. Winter is here after all, regardless of how many people came for Thanksgiving dinner, or what size the breast was. The tip of a turkey wing, nearly all crispy skin, was the only meat I allowed myself. I love skin. Take that statement and isolate it. I love skin. See how the meaning changes entirely? Now expand this idea to encompass the whole piece of prose. That's both the trouble with, and the beauty of words. I love the flavor of unadulterated coffee. I am still attempting to ascertain the primary reason for my being here, at this coffee shop I mean. Regarding my reason for existing at all, well... As I drove down here through the early morning forests I concluded that I'm quite useless for most things, but none-the-less, here I am. I've determined I no longer need to justify my own existence, and perhaps this realization might be useful to others. The sun's come out; I'm down to the grounds. See how these statements are loaded with symbolism? I guess I'll come back the next time I'm in town.

'if' and the unreal past

if
the snow would stop snowing
wind stop blowing

oak leaves turned brown

if
the sun did not set
in a crack of horizon

orange of another color

if the tips
of my fingers
weren't freezing

naked cold fingers clicking the camera

if the photos weren't blurry...

but how could they capture
that miraculous light
glowing then fading

winter comes early
oak leaves are stubborn

what's left of love
goes on stinging
deep into this cold night

lamentations for Jesus

yesterday the sunrise
such a color
I keep trying to go back

~~~

all these miles
did I really think
none of them would change me

~~~

how could her hands
those tiny pinkies
begin to move a sea

~~~

desert winds
arise from nowhere
take away the sky

~~~

are the years more numerous
always grinding boulders into pebbles
pebbles into sand

~~~

You've made promises
I have too
but yours aren't mine and mine aren't yours

~~~

many years are as a second
chance given to a fool

~~~

a trail leads into the forest
much overgrown
through intervening years

~~~

how long will it take
to see that life is a borrowing
I'm only a beggar

~~~

the color red should fit into this somewhere
and its dancing on waters
beneath a setting sun

~~~

weariness overtakes me
as it always does
a sudden noise wakes me

~~~

I see the diagram repeats its arcs and equations
as if this is never going to end
and there's no period represented

~~~

a single tone
sustained by repetitively drawing
a horsehair bow across a wire

~~~

A long time passes
waiting for

what keeps you alive kills you

her pock-marked face
floats up the stairwell
rising from an empty bus-stop

he's trying to destroy himself
in some far-off place
an anonymous city

lies of bought love
her small breasts
in an afternoon's mirror

a vision like pomegranates
and her neck-- a white crane
in the light of a vacating sun

she takes his un-buttoned shirt
covers her own corpse
and walks down the hall to take a piss

exodus

departing the city
leafless poplars
armless hopes
clutter

theatrics

the whole war seemed no less absurd
than that bare-chested butcher
dripping with cow blood
brandishing his cleaver
like an underpaid
b movie pirate
drunk on
rubisi

clutter

what I wanted to make of my life
just a few smooth pebbles
handful of dry lavender

a single worn limb
from a pine on a hill
where I overlooked everything

the gazelles have run off
two rusted arrows
remain in a corner

dust-covered stones
I stole from Mount Fuji
I should have left them in the sun

the observatory's purpose

professor x points his telescope
beyond impossible clouds

catalogs un-lit parsecs
with the blue glass of his robotic eye

he scans a certain number of familiar ticks
until he has the right-ascension

a few more degrees of declination
to the nebula he calls his lover's grave 

leafless poplars

i point out crows to my son
patches of yellow through gaps

rolls of dark clouds
hurled over high dunes

tell him over and over
look--

a landscape of branches emerges
surrenders its leaves to novemeber

we follow sunlight
it spills from a crevice of sky

a copper burnish
in the heights of oaks

but dusk comes
and light diminishes into leafless poplars

grey on a knoll set apart long ago
because of its color of moonlight

among the pine shadows
like a fair-skinned daughter lost to fever

armless hopes

abandoned on the road to death
because everyone else goes to much more beautiful places
because i just sit and listen to piano music
from someone else's hard times

this is a sad can of beans--
i taste blood on the lid
it takes everything with it
as if beginning to speak
in some instant that never arrives

i kill it with wanting
a whole day of giving others back messages
listening to what the machine does
when nobody's watching

scintillating in an un-submerged eye

Was it Ichabod's head
on its ear in the mud
mouth framing
a half-watered exhortation
to the horseman in the Moon?

saturday night

i roam the familiar avoiding those i should love
like i wandered through alleys in foreign cities
beyond the understanding of others i chose not to visit
in search of cloudy horizons burning with brilliance

i walk the winds of november
a few stubborn leaves still cling to ink branches
alleys that smell of last night's beer
corners reeking of urine

others dine together in restaurants along front street
where with clear plastic sheets they've cast out the weather
replaced it with music from women--
up and coming musicians or someone well known

cup of espresso gone cold in my hand
i find a sheltered moment of sun
it's caught on a wall of old brick without windows
casting a light from some other country

traffic noise pauses
the roar of distant surf
falls around corners of buildings
along paths i'm unable to follow

lingering light dwindles
i am left with the diminishing sound my of own footsteps 
wondering if they bear even a single genuine thing

departing the city

red leaves of maple
trodden into wet sidewalks

by the impatience of others
retired from gathering winds

stray traces of white
settle on concrete and vanish

i start down back streets
emptied of restaurant music

walk them over and over
again and again until

i can't bear what they want
they can't give what i seek

i'm off towards clouds
toppling over western hills

where dark winds devour all
the sun had to give

furled

mast-stays sing
I remember a woman from Amsterdam
though not her name

the six-inch scar across her cheek
the left corner of her mouth
but not her name

her face like sun on calm ocean
the white scar   a thin straight wave
she had taken in   a solitary grace

her soft voice never told of the knife I imagined
only asked if I liked the swimsuit she was buying
she was already dreaming of sailing

and I was already with her
forever
 

found

after many years
alone in the woods
elation
brick
shame
lost rivers
a freeway
murmuration
dusk

after many years

a house missing one wall
crumbles into a banana grove
earth-red among burgeoning growth
the white linens of childhood still on a bed
as if the whole world were only a bedroom closet

alone in the woods

eleven grackles in a quaking aspen in the sun
saw-toothed yellow leaves still cling rattling in the wind
the grackles chatter high above the browning bracken
all things grown from earth now returning to earth
damp with thawed frost the decomposing grass
red berries bountiful on still-green holly

elation

alone in the jack-pines
far behind the hills
a man sits naked in a pond

a woman in black pours water
from a bowl upon his head 
it trickles through his long white beard

ripples radiate across the sky
a fading smear of peach
stars begin to fall

they're not what we suppose
but burning coals of bluish ice
the size of fists

they smolder in the pond
but pierce the ground
like bullets cutting through un-fired clay

crows fly out from smoking holes
kirtland warblers
wrens

on the edges of their wings--
fire

brick

a brick has borne a wall
so long that weight has been forgotten
like I have forgotten
the presence of so many people
who have not noticed
a bricked-in archway

I wonder how many times I have passed
through doorways un-filled with brick
how many I still must pass
and that's the thing--

most don't realize
all the doorways they shall never enter
numbering in the billions
nor do they know
which doorways they entered for the very last time
how could they

shame

I have broken the sacred bone
spilled the bloodied wine

turned the yellowed page
crumbled the fallen word
stained the dark frock

I have pounded on piano keys
and knocked the porcelain Joseph off

lost rivers

a fresh-painted wall
filled with photographs strangers have taken of places unlabeled--

black and white rivers
framed waters arrested behind glass that has cracked 

visions of unknown eras
redeemed from others' garages unpacked from lost boxes discovered in attics abandoned

silent rivers cutting through forests of deciduous trees
leaves returned long ago to soil carried away by currents forgotten

a freeway

divides
  shadowed farmhouse from red setting sun

parts that which was sold--
  hay-fields where house-trailers for migrants now rust
  creek-beds and knolls foraged for mushrooms

it severs
  the oiled dirt road still traveled in dreams
  the sand-blow where a lone tree towered--
  the maple I climbed as a boy
  to name with a jack-knife
  my first true love

murmuration

see how a thousand starlings rise--
a vast amebic cloud
above the building's broken silhouette

how a soldier stoops across a purple sky
to take a pack of cigarettes
from a dead man in the mall

see how a single ember circles darkness
scribes its empty orbit through the black

dusk

down the shoulder of a straight and narrow highway
across fields of bowed and rain-damp grass
the gravel sky hangs heavy
and from a dark and jagged forest
black eyes rooted in shadows watch

the highway leads nowhere you have been
comes from where you can't return
no one else is traveling in this weather
even the light has flown from the wide valley's folds
a brown-watered stream carries it trickling away

too late you ask where you can rest
no answer gives comfort
it's not comfort that you seek
your long-coat blows tattered in the wind
pockets worn through long ago

abandoned robots in the basement

AR.1
a voice activated R2D2 no longer responds
it used to carry cans of coca cola
I reattached its leg with a six-inch decking screw
accidentally pierced the circuit board
a kind of electronic crucifixion
its corroded batteries leak white powdery acid

AR.2
replaced by a later model with humanoid hands
a Robosapien face down on the floor
the programmers gave it only one word--
Rosebud
it spoke when powered down
the death scene in Citizen Kane
that mysterious last word 
name of the sled he had as a boy
before his mother sent him away
pet name for the clitoris of Marion Davies 

Sunday at the Cafe'

Sitting at your little table in the haze of the Sun
quiet breezes stirring the first yellow leaves

You coaxed me from my dull somnambulation
and nudged all else away-- the spiny creatures
mumbling soldiers, all the lazy moths clinging to my shoulders

A sprig of ivy tangled in a smooth strand of your hair

I played with you like a riddle
your language like a puzzle
holding each word as I turned it in circles

Until ink-made letters perturbed with my prolonged goodbye
leapt from that edgy crossword at the far side of the table
and menaced me as I fled down the street

displaced

Thin and pliable, they've been blown across fields from where the wind is unrelenting
   they have nothing to say, they've forgotten how to speak and if they could: atrocity--
where does one begin? They have slowly turned porous, nearly all have vanished
   relocating to invisible houses in countries of quiet meadows on worlds we've yet to discover
no matter how many radio signals we beam at them from Arecibo they're not coming back.
  They've traveled intentionally by indirect paths so convoluted they can't retrace them
even if threatened or tortured, even for their children; they are identical in this way.