poetry

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.

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.

i can read you

i see your mind working

you speak one 

language i can read

and a few others i'm learning

you speak at least one 

language i cannot understand

though i've read about it, thought about it

it seems a language you can only learn first hand

and i've had no teachers

when i learn to speak, we will commune

perhaps

After he had rowed far enough from shore
the man kept on the gunwale his elbows and his knife. 
A thin line dangled from the starboard oarlock,
which held a pin of rusted iron.  When the man rowed,
that pin groaned against the dinghy hull
and flaked the white from its boards.
Now that he sat, watching the tension in his dangled line,
the pin creaked only softly with the swells
and the man allowed his breath to match the steady bouncing of his craft.
And when the line jerked taut
the man hoisted up the small fish that he had caught;
and lanced it with his knife and let it die.
He took off his shirt then and stowed its body,
wrapped in ice beneath the seat.  He knew the sun,
he would thirst before eating.
And he let himself sit idly a moment and watched the glittering of the surface
before taking up his oar to row.

everything-- while everything may 

regard everyone, everything is not about

every one alone; though you forget

that some see the world this way.

you too see the world this way,

revolving around you, and you forget, 

everything and everyone;

is he guilty, as you say?

he is. and you are taking things personally,

and there is no way to keep this

from turning out like this.

even worse than when you see 

yourself as center of the universe, is 

when you see the universe as his.

The shrimp was still dying

when I gave it to my mouth.

The man behind the counter

cut away its shell with a swift blade

as he gave it to me

on a small square of bamboo.

I held it with my mouth

its body warm, still quivering

light on my tongue—nothing.

It was swollen with heat

and when I bit the juice inside

tasted of nothing

and it crunched wetly,

nothing the taste of cooked shrimp

this liquid, sea-sweet

flesh energy—almost nothing

but the taste of feeling

relaxing in my mouth, dissolving

between my teeth, dissipating

as its emptied body slid coolly down,

the petal of a wet tulip

closing.

When I have slept the spring
and from my open window
a wind chime sounds, all is not
the soft persisting of rain's needlepoint.

I have had my sleep.  I wake aching
as the world’s turning out and I—
as if we’ve only now discovered end
without end.  Stepping out,

a gregarious pebble traps inside my shoe
to goad my crooked step.
The crow glints, yawing black.

Even the ironwork of fences call to me
in wavering, touchless song.  I am shorn.
My sadness feels the ecstasy of light.