Blog

one hawk

has flown down.

it is cold,

sometimes snow does

not anticipate

wind

though what is not thought

does not wait

in the red hollow

of the bud,

in the squeaking

in the boughs

of the almost

unheard trees

Not only the quietly restless, but also the absent
unwaited themselves
in the courtyards through which time had passed.
That night the rain came singing
to quiet the uncertainties of the day's churnings.
Dogs retreated beneath their archways
and the old cobblestones paused in their unchanging.
Time stepped out of herself, her owners
departed for a while, and walked the rainy streets
smiling into every darkened churchyard,
bowing to every slamming door,
her impossibilities, of a sudden, endlessly manifest.
From the orange glows inside
came Salsa's sensual murmurs, wet cries of passion,
a fatigued silence of hidden loneliness.
Tea and Pisco mixed clumsily to fire swollen throats,
while black beer bloated tired bellies.
Everywhere the wanting roamed the plazas,
the back alleyways, the cold stone steps,
clacking their canes, huddling
beneath the awnings of their vacant shops,
waiting upon empty tables, their grand hearths sadly lit.
But she, she was timeless without herself,
beneath her feet old stones sighed out their histories,
the quiver of the night, an unheard lullaby.
That was how it was one night
in that city of eternal wanderings,
where every golden crumb was scavenged from the shit
festering in the streets, where desperation
begged to suck the milk affluence,
where life fed upon itself, continuously grieving
the imperfections that had made it whole.

11/27/08

Unbroken were the steps of summer

as shadows left behind their bodies

and flitted down to meet you,

their bat wings beating without pause.

Nothing felt but repetition.

Loneliness churned silently its echoey sea

with the arms of giant paddle wheels,

though not a sound was waiting,

not a voice you recognized. Even words

forgot themselves, falling from their branches

till the wind had lost its name.

And the summer still refused to leave you.

The days, elongating beneath your feet,

burned away the blankets of the morning

till you shivered, made naked by the heat.

From so many rooftops dogs howled

and you woke at night with eyes of smoke,

coughing desperately.

And still the summer would not leave you.

The dryness in your hands grew deep

as you scrubbed away the dirt,

picked clean the worry of your fingernails,

for you had only what you carried. What I tell

is that you knew, as if somehow you'd remember

the cats that cowered in your corners

anxious for something you might leave behind,

a scent of cold surrendered;

that everything that was yours to own,

that nothing you alone could claim.

at nighttime i wonder
about all the chilly breezing air i dance

and there is a poem i need to write
that i am afraid will not get written
until my dreamt up first kisses are first kissed

and it is not what i see in the mirror that matters
but whether i see how it is that i see it
otherwise i am lost in my own self-apprehension

and i can't sleep because i'm anxious again
so i just keep dancing, and when i don't get it
i let it get me

and maybe i'll find a new salsa partner
who doesn't mind if i step on her toes a little bit
or if my rhythm is off
because perhaps she likes me a little
and i'd gladly dance with her all night
only there's someone else i'd like to dance with
only i'm not sure what sort of dance to dance with her

and when i feel ill, it might just be because i am
and there are some little gifts in all of this i know
because even a lotus-flower long before blossom
bestowed many little gifts upon me
once i opened to them

even flowering impatience

of her lips when i see this tree i think
whether from the fullness of its bloom or
the richness of its crimson depths perhaps
it is its height this tree stands tall yet
is not proud in fact is a little humble
in its leaning not quite majestic
but grand all the same it still has not
shaken all the green out of its
leaves this tree and though
its beauty points to its own death
and back around again
it does not linger nor
merely return this tree

the first kiss
one can never return home
but must re-create it now of her lips

Trust
 
One moment of gratitude is enough
to see desire's perfect longing breathing
into every stone, into each missing paint chip--
even the steaming dog shit in the road
is warm with it.  And it is perfect,
so satiated by its own longing
that it needs nothing.  One moment, enough
to remember the love waiting in every corner:
The morning greets you with open arms,
kisses each doubt and every pain
as a mother kisses the cheeks of her newborn
as a father smiles proudly.
And you too feel proud and lucky--
because even your suffering has a home in this world.
Because even in that great sadness
stretching out before you, that mysteriously open
empty road--even in this is your belonging.

I have fished out meals from murky depths,
dredging ancient dormant eggs,
and caught evolution in the act:
I have presented past.

I bathed what could have been in light,
and watched what was return to life;
I witnessed what I left behind,
the what that held me back.

It felt so strange, so old and dead,
and yet a premonition
dragged me down to dread
and left the sting of recognition.

I felt myself both starved and fed
to see myself reflected.

I dove in the polluted lake,
its barrenness well documented:
algae sucked out oxygen,
copper mines were spilt therein,

one hundred thousand years mingling
in one hundred years of sediment.
I found the chain that led to me,
and thought I'd find no more.

Yet life returned as I descended,
life as had not been known before;
I discovered life goes on and on,
and uncovered something hidden:

Death, like Life, is life-giving;
Life has been, but I was living.

some tastes also have the taste of past tastings.
this hot mulled cider is like that. it tastes of juicy
autumn apples – ones upstate new york
i picked once. it tastes of their grit, their skin,
their way of shining in the slightly dulled autumn
air breezing between stalls around fourteenth street.
i can taste the spices, cinnamon chief among them,
flirting with each other, and me. it is so hot i almost
put it back down, wait for it to cool off, but it smells
so delicious; familiar. i take one more taste, somehow
a sad taste. it tastes just as it's tasted before
only now something else— it tastes now
also of that past tasting. i can taste not only that i have
known this taste before: i can also taste that when.
i relive her look in this taste, the way she watched me
before things were clear, uncloaking myself
with the smell of the cider between us, no space
and uncomfortable stools. i can taste my desire
just to entwine a bit, perhaps our bodies hinting
toward intercourse, to the meaning of our dancing.
it tastes so strongly of that hiddenness she left for me
to move me more slowly into her, to make my own
sharing lush with attention, the weight of the thing,
the thing shared silently between us, the poem;
i taste now her refusal to recite that poem aloud
as she quietly muttered it to herself, knowing a poem
must be spoken. i'm tasting the icy chill of approaching
wintertime through the opened and reopened door,
the taste of a scarf and a cute hat, and especially
above all else, i taste in this familiar taste, her look
shyly out from behind whatever it was there between us
birthing love out of lust, birthing intimacy out of distance,
giving birth out from herself to a kind of me— the way
she looked at me when she let me look at her
and when she let her look mirror my need to see,
the intimation of some me-to-be, that hint, that taste.

yet i also taste a different tasting. her look was absent,
that i may never see her eyes again. waiting, drinking
hot mulled cider that i wished to be drinking with her,
and though i can taste that earlier taste now, and her look
and all that subtle starving presence, never almost,
i can taste, almost came. and now perhaps that never
has arrived. and yet, unfortunately, i can taste it
the never-againness of this taste i taste in this very mug.

I. distraction

my stomach grumbles
and i see her face

especially her mute-blue eyes,
holding themselves behind
dark pupils, and me.
what am i, holding her
little hand, as i slip
from hunger to hunger
further distraction
and isn’t it all?
what else matters if
i am unable to speak that blue
        or at least
                to adore it?

what else is on my mind?

        distance

especially her thin lips
        closest contact
how does one kiss those lips?
even to approach them is to overpower—
and yet the hunger.
my organs are failing
along with my words

even my eyes are failing me,
how long it took for me
to notice even her eyes
just to notice their patient blue
       are they withholding
       or is there nothing more to say?
or are my eyes failing me?

what of this image
is of her?
yes, my stomach grumbles
and as i turn my attention back
out from that place
       i glimpse her

especially my way of looking at her
without looking,
my way of thinking about her lips
instead of thirsting after them
but, oh, how does one thirst
for such lips—
what does that desire taste like?

or am i doing something
to myself,
my large intestine is ill
my liver is stressed
this jaundice
is the parasite
really
any other than
that abuse i tell myself will come
from her? are my organs failing
or am i my failing parents,
she my tool, my distraction
from just how disconnected
i am from her
toward-blue eyes, and me?

II. labial

something of lips
at least i can hear their sounds: p-, w-, m-
at least, i know, there is something i can trust

and i have no need to inquire anxiously
it is enough to observe
the way i see her eyes.

but more,
how do i feel her skin
though i have yet to touch even her hands?

it can be difficult to observe.
what is it i lose
when i lose myself
holding her face in my hands –
just to grace her cheeks, has there
ever been a face of such sensitive consistency?
how does her glance remain so open
all the while sharing so little…
her skin is not inviting, though it is welcoming,
have you seen the way her eyelashes flutter?
and when they part once more
once more her predawn-blue eyes
hold themselves almost back.

i do not believe it.

even her lips tease and deceive me,
i know, there is something i can trust.
what else is there?

and she is sweet, i know,
without pathetic self-destruction,
and has no need of my old habits though,
perhaps, of my new,
and she is out of reach,
and i perhaps will not let her eyes look into mine,
or will not let my eyes look into her looking into mine,
or perhaps i see something
fueling this hunger
something those soft blue eyes neither hide nor reveal,
and yet,
see so much more clearly

a past that has nearly destroyed me
remain.

III. cerebral

there are meandering thoughts and arguments
but, on the other hand, when i think
just a little
of her tongue

my lips, my hips, and my tongue
wriggle
expecting her to taste me
and lull my mind
back into my body

and really, all i was thinking
was what her tongue must do
for her to speak in so many languages.

and i wonder why i haven’t asked yet
for a recitation of Neruda in Spanish,
maybe one with a lot of r’s.

IV. guttural

as my eyes blink open
and my throat grumbles
i see her face

not sleeping well
i wonder
did i dream her so many times
or think of her each time i woke up?

yet this week i have seen her eyes:
i sleep fine,
it’s getting to bed that gives me trouble

some say heaven, but it's not heaven exactly.

that's eternity; up here everything just blows away.

and where are all the souls? are they

hiding? do they go haunting on stormy

afternoons, screeching down from heaven? well, it's not

heaven exactly. it makes one wonder

what God does with all those souls—

God, You Poet.

i wish i'd dream Your eyes, God,

just once more, so they could haunt

me awhile longer.

i'll never see a heaven that lasts,

but i'm holding on... just awhile longer.

it's Your eyes, God— they saw me once.