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.

Poem for Friday, March 29, 2013

Equinox

Through still dead arms of oak and birch
a single-engine plane sputters
across its own equator

angering the very sun.

It is no secret that we are still between
seasons. That an ice-wind
oligarchy can rule with

stone-faced vengeance.

It is no secret that we are still between
seasons. Still dead crops
out the plane window

choked by wildflowers.

Here we have the age-old cycle: waking
from a silly kind of death

to thaw
  to bloom
    to whisper sweet nothings
       to your love across the room.

Poem for Monday, February 25, 2013

In February

The morning appears through naked branches
and leaves

The evening
I trudge through, sloshing in cold-wet buckskin

There is no bitter taste in between;
There are the ghosts of pines,
Their whispers sapped with swill:

                   We heard the stars knock boots, they say
                   We buried Icarus in the Ozarks, they say
                   We kept our secrets

Like good little trees should.

Poem for Tuesday, February 8, 2013

Dunkirk 

I.

We must first establish this:

the salt in the ocean those days in 1940
is the same salt
in the ocean these days
is the same salt
in our vulnerable bodies, yours and mine.

(This is transitivity.)

___________________________

II.

I dreamed I swam days to save you
as the Atlantic diffused through me.

I dreamed the salt sliced my eyes
when the blue-tinged sun ignited.

I dreamed everything ignited
and your skin peeled and bled.

I dreamed my arms almost broke
then I collided with a skiff's hull.

I dreamed the skiff belonged to
a bearded man from Hastings.

I dreamed he and his young son
were pulling in soldiers with cod.

I dreamed you were on the skiff
emaciated and beautiful.

I dreamed you could not believe
how I came to your rescue.

I dreamed of course, how could I not
and was glad for German indifference.

(This is subconsciousness.)

___________________________

III.

I wake up, cotton-mouthed.

I drink fresh water.

You sleep still.

I check your pulse.

Your skin, pale prunes.

I trudge towards the kitchen.

God, thirsty.

(This is consciousness.)

___________________________

IV.

Suddenly, I love the way our kitchen
is decorated. Cornflower blue tile
tessellating around an oak island.

Does it smell brinier now? For
breakfast I'll have an egg and tomato
sandwich on wheat.

I never sharpen the knives, but I
get them out anyway. The cutting
board is stained with last meals.

Ever appreciated the sensation
of slicing a tomato? A grooved
blade easing into ripe red skin?

It is one thing I allow myself. I
palm the fruit, wet it under the tap
and lay it down for surgery.

The juice--blood in the ocean.
The aroma of last night's tilapia
seeps through the garbage.

Suddenly, there is a clamor of ships
outside. My arms are underwater
again, anvil-crushed.

You are still asleep, but I am strong and
buoyant. I will swim for you through
a thousand morning lights.

(This is epiphany.)

___________________________

V.

My heart

                in

                     Dunkirk.

(To be continued.)