Poem for Saturday, June 1, 2013

The American Southwest in Four Parts

I.

Entering and Leaving the Muskogee (Creek) Nation:

along the interstate is a row of dead
trees standing as ghosts among those green
and living. their branches imply they
died while dancing--wind-stripped and
painless. down further in an open field are
clusters of black cattle munching their
way through spring. there is nothing
else.

II.

Driving through a One-Horse Texas Town:

in Vega, TX exists one of the handful of
Shamrock gas stations left. across from it is
another gas station and across from it is
some kind of white silo or tower that
surrenders to the sun a little more each day.
across from it is a wooden building lettered with
'Saloon'. combine everything and what you have
is a lonely intersection.

III.

Cutting through the Land of Enchantment:

crossing the northeastern border is more
surreal with the radio on. the signal is aflame
and will crack-hiss until you find the first of
the four or five stations: mariachi band music.
spoiler alert: the others are honkytonk and classic
country. once upon a time, there were buckets
of blood spilled in this desert.

IV.

Cresting the Red Rock Formations in Sedona:

they are not mountains. mountains are formed
from upward thrusts of the earth. they are products
of sedimentation--erosion, wind, sand, clay, skin
and blood. there are two differences between us
and them; bones and the ability to endure time and
humanity. we shall never have the latter and they
have no need for the former. these are the things
to which we must succumb.

Poem for Friday, May 17, 2013

Vintage Love

We could be like a Motown song
that was recorded but never
released. Two parts soul in a
dusty basement studio:

You are in the corner lipping a
cigarette, the filter inevitably
rouged.

I watch the ashes scatter and tarnish
the floor to the crescendo of
trumpets.

*

After the sugarpies and honeybuns,
what we become is background
noise.

Poem for Monday, May 13, 2013

Spring of Consciousness

I walk west down the street

to examine the rebirth

of everything.

To the persimmons:

I loved you before your first

leaves shriveled

into existence.

To the pollen:

you top my endless list

of necessary evils.

I wonder why some women

are smitten by cliches:

your eyes are as blue

as the sky's.

I am a walking blue-eyed cliche

wistful with a

fistful of dandelions

yellow as the sun.

I am not due a heartbreak

for six more months.

Poem for Saturday, May 4, 2013

Ricochet

In the woods several miles
away from here,
the coyote--the Aztec
trickster--trades blood
with the moon. His howl
is savage, is beautiful
and the stars are
too civilized to not turn
their heads.

Closer, locomotion pierces
through blue collar
America. In the smoke
and singing metal, I am
eight again. I am a skin-
kneed train chaser, air rifle
cocked. I am wind-tossed
among red clover. Shoot.
Ricochet. Return to
twilit present.

Look how many nights
were stolen.

How far we have come
and gone.

Poem for Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Lagerstroemia

You, under dirt and lime, still speak to me
through sudden startles of wind and the bottoms
of my feet. Like this:

Angels are dressed as bread bums, you say.

Don't forget to bless your food, and one time,

How are my prized crape myrtles?
Are they clumping pink or white?

See, I learned about you through porch stories
those humid afternoons when I breathed in
intervals between cloud bursts and swatted away
the bumblebees.

Again, you speak. The wind screams against
everything then stops to reform. I nod down at you
in complete concurrence:

I will not take love lightly when it comes.

You were born in the summer
just like your flowers.

Poem for Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Talking about Existence on the Roof with Nadeem

I.

What he wanted to say was the
ineffable. The dogwood buds drooping
against humid night. The lights refracting
through the hospital windows across
the street. The magic
of hyper-awareness



II.

We smoked through the millenniums as the
occasional car trudged on to nowhere. Religion
then big bangs then the human brain and
all its synapses. The most poetic thing that could have
occurred then: a breeze-plucked leaf spiraling
towards the indifferent ground



III.

He was wearing a red polo and glancing at his
dangling feet. Then he gazed up at the
sloping wooden fence and remarked--as if on behalf of the
entire universe--everything has
meaning



IV.

Propellers in the sky interrupted. They sliced through
sleeping stratus clouds just because they could. They whirred
with the power of celestial acoustics. God
they could have delivered Derrida's gift
without warning or bow
 
                                       *

Something cannot come from nothing, he proclaimed
before the helicopter overtook us.
We descended

Poem for Friday, April 5, 2013

These Days Have Passed

My grandfather, who gave me my round countenance and sharp
ears, was a butcher by trade. He could cut and slice shanks just
like he could breathe.


One afternoon long ago, when most roads were gravel and Russia
was our main concern, he was fired from his job at a local super-
market. The manager


happened in the walk-in freezer, and there stood Angus, cleaver
in one hand and shiny silver flask in the other. Bloody-aproned.
Expression unknown.


I cannot say who was the manlier: the butcher juggling whiskey
and meat, or the man who had the courage to terminate him
without wetting himself.


I cannot remember from whom I heard this--my mother or my
grandmother--but I listened to them tell it, probably on a blue-
skied day, over a glass


of iced tea or a cigarette, against the background noises of my
lost generation, like it was the most important thing my ears and
heart would ever accept.