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.