Poem for Friday, January 29, 2010

If This Is Death, I Want Death

Even in its purest form the snow

still smothers

all creatures

kills all souls.

The oaks & birches

naked and frozen

tell me they haven't grown a single leaf

in months.

Don't worry

I understand

I'm naked and frozen too.

If this is death

I saw it

from my window

euthanizing us

with an ivory-toothed smile

holding our hands

while carefully pulling the plug

from the outlet.

The maples & pines

ask me if heaven is green

before it's gold.

How should I know

I wonder

I've never been there.

If that is heaven

I sang about it

from a dusty hymnal

long ago

long before

I saw

the snow.

Poem for Sunday, January 24, 2010

International Relations

3 different countries sat together at the table

my Saudi friend cooked ketsah, spread it out

on a sheet of aluminum

my Kazakh friend told stories

I listened happily, looking very American (my

skin/hair lit by incandescence)

& our hands were greasy

right after we shook them

rice slowly creeping in

the grooves between our fingers

almost sensual

guava juice

one of the best meals of my life

we finished, sat in front of the computer

excavated our cultures

an Arab woman sang & danced, sans hijab

the audience clapped with the rhythm

of locomotive & steel

I saw a video of Almaty (a glorified

Las Vegas on a vast, yurt-dotted farm)

& then we watched

Palestinian-Americans

scream bloody murder at

the Israeli president

somber silence

then, "Wow"

all I could think about was

they taught me "I love you"

in their native tongues

sadly, I've already forgotten

Poem for Thursday, January 21, 2010

Untitled

we met like reflections in Christmas ornaments
beneath metallic tinsel (it was so shiny
I was intimidated)

we met like a little boy and his lamb
in pre-Jesus Israel (you bled after a year &
I was inconsolable)

we met like port and starboard on U.S.S. Something
in a hostile Manila (cannonballs sleeked with
Spanish tears)

we met like compounds in a chemical reaction
that yields no oxygen (since when could we
breathe around each other)

we have never met
but I see you
everywhere

I see you hanging from the pseudo-spruce in December

I see you bleeding while I sob in incoherent Hebrew

I see you getting flanked by the red & yellow flag

I see you trading your atoms like marbles

we have never met
but I dreamed
all this happened

Poem for Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Shaving Ritual

Last

night I realized I was a man so I would

start looking like one.

Fresh out of the shower I stood in front of

the mirror that had become a portal

blurred with condensation.

It was time to shave what little hair I had

little hair sprouting like pint-sized stalks of

corn from a feeble harvest. My face is a feeble

harvest but it still has time.

For

a while I met my own young blue-eyes &

saw myself in a semi-narcissistic fashion.

A lukewarm water droplet inched

down from the corner of my (mirror) eye. I

have not cried in a long time.

When

I was no longer spellbound I rubbed a thin

layer of shaving cream on my face.

My face--round & rosy

with pensive eyebrows--sits atop

my stringy body. I am a balloon.

I shivered from the sensation of

shaving cream colder than

refrigerated butter.

The

razor blade was dull & contaminated with

my previous shaves but

I do not require much sharpness. Five minutes

later my face--complete with beady

lumps of blood beneath my chin (I always cut

myself in the process)--was bare

except for my mustache.

Last

night I decided I would never shave off

my mustache again. It separates

twenty-two years from sixteen years

just like the portal mirror separates

clean slates from mistakes

Europe from the United States & water from

wine.

Clean

-ing out the sink I gazed at the drain

that sucked down the last of something. When

exactly did this happen? Why did I

first touch that metal to my tender face

ten summers ago? My right hand

curled involuntarily to grip an

imaginary briefcase. A tie would be around

my neck soon.

Last night I stared at a man.

I have not cried in a long time.

Poem for Tuesday, January 12, 2010

That Trivial Moment

From my window I oversaw

your three a.m. departure

green lungs and muscles

stiffened by precipitation

my friend. You

got into your car

got back out again

clasped your hands

and began to work.

I could not see your breath

you were a cream silhouette

against a night of blackened

bitter

coffee.

I could not see the cold

diffusing through your milky bones

because no one can see

what they fear.

You scrubbed your windshield

fist tucked in peacoat sleeve

shaved off the ice

like two-week stubble.

It parachuted

over your tundra hood

down past your door and

I swear I thought

a second snow had come.

That trivial moment

is pasted in my timeline

between my first words and my

impending

heart attack.

That trivial moment

I beheld with eyes

blue as your circulation

crushed by sleep's anvils.

I finally closed them.

Poem for Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Two Best Poets of the 21st Century

are not you and I

as we maintain

as we drunkenly

declare with six-inch rum

voices & text

messages.

then again, maybe

we are.

dig?

Poem for Friday, January 8, 2010

Delirium in Brevity

Clara sleeps.

Her sweat seeps in

Egyptian cotton sheets

her toes, uncovered

the cold

slithers between them with

unclear intent.

Old sun paints prisms

on her grandmother's crystal

chimes, dangling above the

window; they ring.

The doorbell downstairs rings.

The hidden telephone rings.

Still asleep, she

sings an Italian love song:

Buona notte, principe

Buona notte, amore.

Her vibrato is the same

blown from brass trumpets

but she cannot speak

this language, only

sing it.

The sound breaks the mirror.

Her feet ache with frostbite.

Waking up, her

grandmother is sitting

grandmother, knitting

the burgundy scarf

she made for Clara's

ninth birthday; it

was

plush.

Poem for Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Snow Cycles

The snow that tickled our

brown-shingled roofs

last night is

the same snow

that

feathered down between

the (sharp) blades of grass

in the German

countryside

a century or so ago

that very same snow

covered, cooled

blood

shell-spilling from

poor farmboys

lying on that grass

next to canteens

bibles and

memories of Shawnee, Oklahoma

looking up at the heavens

without

blinking.

* * *

The snow that glided atop

our windows, windshields

just last night is

the same snow that

killed crops

soured spirits

transformed the

American dream

into a frozen molecular

nightmare

nearly a century ago

that

very

same snow

devoured all the pennies

from Wall Street to the

breezy Pacific coast.

* * *

The snow that

kissed our bodies

last night

is the same snow

that was salted

on the highways

that was salted

by your tears

when I said

we were one person

one entity so

let's be free

together

hands linked like

history