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.)

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.