Poem for Monday, January 21, 2013

Apogee

We are at some grocery store, and I suddenly want to express
so many things.

Billie Holiday's "I'll Get By" melts out of
a dust-caked speaker nesting where wall meets ceiling.
With each strike of the piano, you drop a frozen dinner
into the shopping cart. Do you notice

our love, hidden among the stacks of mangoes?


* * *


We are at some post office, and I suddenly want to express
so many things.

Encased in glass is a set of stamps
featuring figures from Greek mythology. Helen is only a
square inch in size but gorgeous enough to redden
the Aegean. Our zip code

is lost among the smells of mail, ink, your hair.


* * *


We are at some coin laundry, and I suddenly want to express
so many things.

The Kenmore clunker rumbles under
your thighs while you finger an outdated Vanity Fair.
It takes more than two quarters in a slot to wash away
our mistakes. But the stains and spills

of yesteryear are expunged from this fabric and

We are on some moon now, far away from the sun,
           the color of jaundice,
           time a lost concept,
           I am a fatalist,
           you in a summer dress,
           and I suddenly want to express
so many things.

Poem for Wednesday, January 16, 2013

During the Flood

Two cardinals and a black-capped chickadee

fought with seedless stomachs

flew with cloud-stained feathers

to reach the bird feeder's remains.


The rain inundated everything just because

it could. Those birds

learned the concept of color, that sorrow

is relative


and meant to be shared.

Poem for Sunday, January 6, 2013

The Death of a Local Legend

He wasn't in his bed flanked by two
toothsome blonds like he said he
would be, and Elvis wasn't crooning
on the stereo. Ray Charles wasn't
wailing, either--that was his backup
plan. No half-empty glasses of scotch.
No smoke twirling sensually from a
half-lit stogie balanced on the edge of
a crystal ashtray. What kind of way
is that to go out, anyway? No, it just
happened one Sunday. He was on
his way out for some innocuous
errand--to grab a quart of milk or to
mail the check for the water bill. His
daddy's Bible was on the table by sheer
coincidence. He palmed his chest and
went down to one knee, then his back.
He fought for breath while the wind
swayed the blinds and the cuckoo clock
struck twelve. His final thought was
not his mother, the women he made love
to all those August afternoons or all the
money he made and blew. It was simply
how cool the solid oak floor felt
against the nape of his neck. Anyone
might think the same thing.

Poem for Wednesday, January 2, 2013

My Initial Indifference Regarding the Death of a Terrorist

While power walking out of a guanz in my Mongolian
countryside village, my phone rang out its contrived
Franz Liszt composition tone. Moments before, I had just
devoured a bowl of homemade noodles and mutton, and
my bowels began churning after three days of dormancy,
grumbling a dirge of discontent.


I fumbled through my right pocket. A friend with whom
I had not spoken in months was calling--a pleasant
yet untimely surprise. Walking past the breastfeeding
mother statue in front of the school, I answered. So began
the multitasking challenge from hell: exchanging pleasantries
while contracting my rectal muscles and scurrying through
the springtime desert wind.


He called me to share what was perhaps the most significant
international news of the year: Osama bin Laden had been
gunned down by US forces in a compound in northern
Pakistan. He wanted to make sure I was prepared in case
the locals sought me out to congratulate me, to ask me
questions or to express any opinions.


I cannot remember how I adverted then. I cannot
remember what color the sky was, how many children
waved at me and snickered as they disappeared behind
dilapidated fences of sod and stone. I lost mental count of the
six hundred and something steps it was to my khashaa. God,
I had counted that trek dozens of times before.


I thanked him for informing me and continued my pressured
stride, having been reminded for the first time in awhile that I
was American. I passed the five-room hospital without the
slightest tinge of vindication. I turned across from the dead tree
usurped by vultures perching with scrutiny. Instead of savoring
revenge or ruing the malicious murders that occurred that one
morning, I was simply hoping my body would not explode.


When I finally stepped through the rusty makeshift gate, I was
sweating. I laid--no, dropped--my bag against the side of the
outhouse, scrambled to untuck, unbutton and unload. Afterwards,
in a word, sublime. I regained my breath, removed some toilet
paper from my pocket and wiped while the sweat evaporated
from my brow. I squatted a bit longer then left to enter my ger.


My routine continued with washing my hands, tossing my bag
on my bed, contemplating dinner and dung for the fire. But
before the fire, I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and to gaze
from afar at any nomads that might be passing by, leading strings
of their burdened Bactrian camels along an endless line of
mountains.

Poem for Thursday, December 27, 2012

Gypsy in the Park

She would meet me and Cottontop under the persimmon
tree with fruit stains on her dimeshop blouse and girly little
hands


We did the secret handshake and Cotton pointed at the moon
It always went on like this no matter what color the sky
was


He pointed at the moon said there's a monster up there
Gypsy lit a clove and blew smoke out her bird nose (she swore
to God she had Choctaw blood in her veins and I believed her
alright)


Don't you think I look like a grown woman when I do that
Hush Gypsy pleaded Cotton as he shivered in the twilight
His overall pockets were stuffed with milkweeds from the
swamp


I put my arm around Cotton's shoulder and said the moon
ain't a monster and if it was the sun would lick it in a knife
fight and heat up its blood to keep everything yellow and
warm


A hoot owl launched itself from a branch and dove nearby
Cotton bolted and disappeared somewhere in the darkness
I had my back to Gypsy but felt her gaze penetrate through
me


What you know about the sun and the moon's blood
I turned around and met her sapphire eyes while she let a
stream of smoke slip softly between her pursed lips
Gypsy


Press your palms against mine and don't say nothing now
She did it without fear and pretended to understand the
night


Don't you think I look like a grown woman she whispered
The wind tore through our bones like the saddest haiku and I
nodded

Poem for Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Delores

She was standing by the sea when
I told her. The fall from the top
of the silo
                The siren-like echo of his
                neck snapping.
The blood flowed reluctantly, like it
understood its betrayal.


She took it in.
The tide is higher than usual, she
sighed
               But the salt ain't stinging
               my feet at all.
Goddamn you, tell me about the echo
one last time.

Poem for Monday, December 10, 2012

A Failed Parable

The final bird took flight out of autumn's
gray beard. It was a gosling without a mind
or a map. It honked like hell when the air
stung it out of youth. Suddenly.

It made a deal with the Lord. Just get me
south, Yahweh, and my first egg is yours.
The wind was incorrigible, sulking in a
corner. God thought of a metaphor about
love and incubation.

It made a deal with the devil. Just get me
south, Satan, and my first egg is yours.
The wind waltzed with finesse towards
Mexico. Satan likes his eggs scrambled
and drowned in Tabasco sauce.

It made a deal with humankind. Get me
south, and my first egg is yours. The
wind folded its hand. A man was sitting
in a church near the gulf, throwing Spanish
Hail Marys. Starving.

The bird landed in the middle of winter.
Right before its heart stopped, it laid the egg
next to a tortilla stand on a quiet street in
Huatabampo. It rolled at a tumbleweed pace
before halting in the muck:


               Man leapt forward with a loaded pistol.
               Satan struck with flames bitingly azul.
               God inundated the town with holy water.


The war was magnificent and worth everything.
Every tear shed in the sun. Every crack in the
desolate clay. Every fleck of blood stained
in the sage. Forever.