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.

Poem for Sunday, December 2, 2012

Like the Aftermath

of some eclipse. When the ring was illuminated, a bird stopped
flying. A memory was dipped in black. The moon trumped the
sun and cackled till the glass cracked. She

dreamed for me when I could not. We danced in the shadows
until our legs bled. She talked about science, explained the
physics of her peppermint kisses. Oh god she

laughed when she crushed my eyes; like the ice melting in my
mimosa, she decided. Like a river born
from the whitest flag.

Poem for Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving Day

The little cousins play hide-and-seek outside with sweet
potatoes fresh on their breath. Granny approaches by the
porch after she snubs out her cigarette: want me to show you

how an Indian whips his wife? She twists

the skin on my forearm until it wrinkles and burns. Sacagawea
stirs in her Wyoming grave then resumes dreaming of the
plains. The trees bleed in scarlet clumps. The cranberries

stick to the backs of our teeth. An infant

mole lies dead on the asphalt with cat marks and muddled fur.
Croquet on the lawn. Dad snoring in the bedroom. Mom
collecting acorns in a zip-lock bag to present to the girls.

The wind--the silly wind--blows all these anticlimaxes out

of  proportion.

Poem for Thursday, November 15, 2012

Black

The color of the coffee steaming

in the cracked, glued-back-together

mug. The color of the mug. The color
of the morning as the frost crystallizes

against the glass. The color of the glass--

trick question.

The feeling of the anvil dropping.

The act of conceding. The unanswered

questions, the spaces lingering around
the cosmos and the shadow of Charon

himself.

The residuals from the camp fire and

the absence of warmth. The distance

between the two points in the line on the
coordinate plane. The skin of the Maasai

and the Serengeti at midnight. The use
of metaphor.

The texture of stillness and the taste of

salt. The color of colorlessness. The The The.

The last line of the poem and at times
the poem itself:

This is no          exception.

Poem for Thursday, November 8, 2012

Release

if I were to
summarize
my life in a
haiku

it would go
something
like this:

             born in dixieland
             i learned to be verbose &
             eat sleep write love etc.

i would take
all my verbs
string them to
a kite's tail

release them
on a cloudless
windy day in
mid-March:

watch, now
watch as my love
drags the ground