Wednesday, July 31, 2013

In patches I will strip my skin
And roll in soil
until the flesh is stinging
dark
and I am of the earth

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Black plastic bag: as used for corner liquor sales
just lay flat and died in the last green patch of grass, ragweed and mugwort
on the block north of Rising sun and the Boulevard.
All round that area treestumps blossom with stuffed bears
named for the dead, sacrificed and offered, heart and bone
to the gods of american automotive excellence
turned to meat like possums or deer
ground like burger
after being raised so carefully
and taught their figures
1 and 1 make 2
and hourglass makes a wolf whistle
grass drinks sun and rain
all the seasons pass in sequence
over the row home roofs
and the asphalt, cement, brick tile metal world
makes dens for young and old
to huddle in, til the next warm quiet day


Thursday, July 25, 2013

I'd learn french
for Brel
bengali for Tagore
persian for Rumi
music for bach
for my history, yiddish, russian, swedish, hebrew, cherokee.
welsh, for the sound.
chinese for chen taiji.
german for weltschmertz
and still
there you are
impenetrable.

copout

existing is easy
but damn I wish
a lot of things



Brick houses stand
At ridiculous attention
Like buckingham guards
Tourist trees and cats
make giggling attempts
To shake them out

Imagine the world
On fire
houses burning
Tar streets ablaze
eager seeds on updrafts
Spreading

A heat wave has broken and
colder winds carry another august
Stores change signs
Pretending, behind glass
they belong to the seasons
mannequins wear
" Your fall fashions "
In bus mirrors I wear thinning clothes
My face narrows without fat
With fewer teeth
Tonight I saw a dying raspberry
New planted
Later
A cab honked, still got stuck at red
A bartender carried her bottle opener in her right jean pocket
Like a gunfighter
Pistol ready
Took many shots
All hit
Tonight I saw the slow river
flowing in a movie paced with
The brown water
Next to me a friend
We dated in high school
Stole kisses in auditoriums
She aged like a mirror
I see her fifteen years
And more to come
other years not taken
she touched her leg in the theater, sighing
People want things in their own time
you may be inches off
they don't want you.
you're a witness
I saw billboards
Tires spinning
Drivers eager
Their best shoes useless
I have made myself a passenger
can't disembark. Can't backtrack.
to the summer
Your arms
I heard tonight a stampede clap of dress shoes on pavement
Short black dresses running
White skirts running
The whole 10th and market
Like a marathon race
From mystery to mystery
a hundred strangers
with a schedule
keeping time

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Another message typed and  left unsent
Another night of dreams of discontent
We speak, we kiss, occasionally I search for where you've gone
But always, you. Which makes my waking hours seem wan, pathetic, wasted - but - instead of dying to a final "no" I leave you be, and die in silence, slow.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

burials.

the cat's brought in by a nurse
borne high, raised in the air
like royalty
draped in a deep red knit shawl,
bedded on a blanket
produced from the corner of a pristine lab
nasa for the insides of dogs
blinking ultrasounds; shining chrome; white plastic;
rows of screens, and rolling devices
and somewhere in that, a pile of old blankets
for the king.

He's placed with ceremony on a steel slab
looks around weakly, panting
the nurse has learned eye contact
and offers "all the time you need"
but if he could "give more time" -
well, it's a cruel joke, if not meant to be 

it's a very small body under the fur.
so where the catheter and tape are wrapped
the leg's too tiny, doesn't fit the whole

the vet on call is shaking,
she's put down two of her own this year
she apologizes often, to us, and to the patient
and explains like "Naming of Parts"
"this is to flush the catheter"
"and it will be quick"
"and he may stretch"
japonica in the spring and cock the rifles
he'll be gone, 
unless we stop her pressing a plunger.

well.
it's been fifteen years
of yellow eyes engaging, disengaging,
meeting mine, or studying walls
intensely
which seemed to me uninteresting

those animals we sometimes see, meat by the road
they weren't ours
we have not seen the world with them. 

It's practice for our own mortality
or we're practicing all the time
and maybe the cat says fuck you
cause he's not practicing anything
but mostly he's grey, like the vet's two cats
and mostly he's panting
until all at once he relaxes.

There's a lot of joking
held back for the sake of strangers.
A claw catches as I lift the limp body, on that strange regal cowl of a shawl
in life he never could manage his claws
and would catch
and plead to be released from
screens, and carpets. sofas. skin.
"help".

I spoke for him often.
gave him a deep, curt voice, that said things so matter of fact. 
and as the needle goes in the catheter, full of milky fluid, and the poor vet 
allows herself to act               -           to proceed
I hear him say
"what's that thing do?"
but I don't voice it

for her sake.

Of course he's been dead for verses now
but we replay things.
trying to find what we've let go

most of my writing is moments of wish
ing back 

shoveling dirt in the height of a hot day
sweating
all the emotion is lost
muscles engaged elsewhere
lift, turn, lever, push
perhaps I'll plant a tree
I know one, still small nearby, that may be movable.

Announcing the moment
is an action 
like brushing one's teeth when one would rather not

"friends" 
with whom I never speak
now know.

the dirty secret of mourning
is life - everyone knows it - 
elephant at the cocktail party, trying to look prim
of course we see our lives still pass
still want another bite of lunch
even when our loves have left us at the altar

those deaths sting like wasps
the living leaving us
keep leaving daily
bees sting once, drop the stinger, have done
when the dead are buried, really we've let them go

pat myself on the back, for letting go.
instead of snarling.
"you weak so and so - go try again.

we're so strong
when we dig a grave
spoon dirt over it
leave rocks
tell stories... drink.                  oppressed,
by time, who leaves us standing, when we say we'd go.

but the living give us chances
to go first
we cower              -             or are you not like me?
I cower, then. the water's cold...
so after all, I'll live.

he slept like the dead, so often, I observed
teeth bared
paw in the air
curled oddly

here he is with no heart
and of course all those times
I was correct to say so.

when I have no heart
someone will bury me
and who might look for me in my old bed? you'll be looked for - not by me,
but:
someone will stand by; affect a funny voice, to mimic mine.
"Why didn't you come to my funeral"?
Didn't he always sound that way? Wondering why people had gone?
He couldn't stay present - accept what he had. Wanted someone new
or old 
or happier days.
he was a funny sort of cat




Thursday, July 11, 2013

minor edit

because you've not asked me
I have nothing to give
these words must float as clouds, like fog, obscuring light
because you must be looking past them, for the meaning
or for me
and I can't offer those
except through words,
and those not chosen but found, not arranged but scattered,
like crumbs
what would you even ask?
what answer?
if you read aloud, perhaps?
but even then. the worlds around you
are louder than these words.

Monday, July 8, 2013

listening to beethoven

at the crescendo
I'm terrified
the end is near
Remembering thirteen years
gone by in a memory
which takes no time at all
no none
how many times I've cut my nails
learned one new thing
forgotten
how I was young but old already
and hadn't met
the ones I've lost
did not know 
they were ahead 
if I'd learned to better read the road
I might have steered with confidence
and should I fear blinking
to wake with Alice's White King
or:
 hold my eyes closed?
the real terror is:
taking one slow breath
and peering past thought
to be aware...
   a moment, fully felt, is less than air
not even cold
but empty



Thursday, July 4, 2013

another new project - novel

what did mary see in her rear view?
as a car passed
3 buses lined behind hers
green the closest, then blue; red the furthest, keeping pace
as a hawk wheeled ahead and the road curved left
engines singing barbershop with the brake and gas
the mobile university
out of dickinson
onto 94
toward billings