ALL RESPONSES |
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(A late response to Jeremiah's photo)
Cantina cantatas
along las estradas
del pueblo veijo L.A.
donde mi madre once played
Los Anglos y Mexicanos
todos Americanos nuevos
primo generacion
La cantina cantatas stayed in East L.A.
while mi madre moved oeste
crossing Pico y La Cienega
(beachward)
where affluence
(and assimilation)
flourished in the sea-cooled air
Secular and sophisticated
we took our cues from
the living roomTV where
all the B&W faces were white, like ours
(Buckwheat & Tonto excepted)
We luxuriated in the exotic romanticism
of arm’s-length Hispanic culture
long school bus rides
through time
along El Camino Real
to Mission San Juan Capistrano
y otros
Flamenco dancers con
las damas muy bonitas
in full skirted costumes
staccato heels
stuttering castinets
a swirl, a flash of Latin colors
Their dark handsome men
strutting round them
moths to a lamp
but with passion enough to stir
even the heart of a grade school girl
Once or twice a year
our neighbors, whose names I never got to know,
would gather extended family
onto the backyard patio
adjacent to my bedroom window
with guitars and songs from
the old country
They’d croon through the night
their cantina cantatas
and those who didn’t
would yip and hoot
in a language I, too, longed
to toss about my tongue.
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“Shh! Should I wake him?’
Aunt Myrtle whispers to me
of the man snoring on the hospital couch
in the waiting room.
Approaching, she stares boldly down at him,
as if the power of her curiosity is enough
to rouse him from sedation. It doesn’t.
“Hot dog, he’s good-looking! He must belong to me,
but I don’t remember him. Is he my lover?” she asks.
The lady across the aisle grins as if she found that cute.
But Aunt Myrtle is right. He is a little beautiful
in his rumpled slacks and wrinkled suit coat.
I wonder if he’s an off-duty doctor, I think.
“Oooh, let’s wake him up!” she exclaims,
clapping her hands together with childish delight.
I try pulling her away, but she resists.
It’s not difficult to get control of her, though.
She’s so brittle and bird-like.
With little effort, I take her back to our seats.
Otherwise, there’s no telling what she’ll do
when her mind is blacked out,
emptied of all but imagination.
“His eyes will be hungry for life.
A runaway color, just like Charlie Edstrom’s.
‘Hubba hubba’ Charlie shouts when I walk by,”
she says, swinging her arms back and forth.
I try to picture a runaway color
the way I think she might see it.
The color of something missing.
A murky brown?
Like muddy sediment of earth’s ashes
swirling to rise from the bottom of a pool
to break free and know the sun?
“Ooow! Remember when I posed nude for that sculptor?
What I wouldn’t do to skinny-dip in clay with this gentleman.
I have a lovely figure, you know,” she shouts.
He stirs, flips over onto his back, but doesn’t wake.
I look at Myrtle; her smile is pie-in-the-sky wide.
That perfect body she thinks she has, is now just a frail myth.
Flinging her arms out, she twirls around in a circle, giggling.
I reach out to stop her, afraid she’ll hurt herself.
Ceasing abruptly, she recoils from the touch.
Her smile fades to a sly grin. Tipping her head,
she flirts with me by feeling herself up.
I know she doesn’t know who I am and can’t help it,
but I act shocked anyway for affect,
glancing around to see if anyone else is watching
(besides the lady across the way
who now shows heavy signs of viewing discomfort).
Exasperated, I catch Myrtle’s arm, tug her away.
She refuses to move and sobs liquid roars
as if she can simply flush away the years.
I’m about to find a nurse to calm her,
when she runs out of tears
and in a moment of clarity, says,
“My dear, I’m just tired of it all,” she sniffs.
I sigh. She has found herself again.
These times come so seldom nowadays.
For whole moments,
we sit on the family room sofa,
remembering back over our years together.
Then she tells of the young Myrtle,
the Hollywood legend,
dashing through her stories
as if afraid of losing them again.
The lady across from us meets my eyes,
with an approving smile, relieved
I’ve controlled the aberrant one.
Myrtle pats my hand, warmly
like I’m her confidant or best girlfriend
which I guess I am
I really am.
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Her piano sounds so different from her chair
It must have something to do with the quality of the air
one said to himself and nobody in particular, but everybody specifically
what is next, thought another?
Will she claim the lawn shovel has grown a cantancerous apostrophe?
Preposterous, that we are here at all,
under this roof in this house, where
a cup and a pail of coal isn't enough
to exhaust the sting in the chimney.
we can use the scissors to cut it
out, but first draw a circle around it
so no mistakes are made, then douse
the grave with dry leaves, and
pray it doesn't grow back.
experiment two.
I cannot escape the details of my body
In her purple shirt stretched taut
I think of pregnancy as
A: sharing your body with a stranger
B: A lowercase b carrying an uppercase P on its shoulders
The breeze carries up to me the scent
of dirty ashtray and dying soapsuds.
and even though we didn't sell our condo,
our neighbors now have more of an interest
in the world at large, and how it is bigger than
a sign in the front, and a clean kitchen.
I should remember to say to her tomorrow
how sweet her little son is, but somehow
I know I will forget, and she will think
nothing of it.
The deck has an of dirt left
where we don't step
It is hard to make a question mark upside down
Is it easier in Australia?
I shouldn't indulge these easy temptations.
I should fly there and try it myself.
Regarding negative spaces,
the floor is marked clean by our feet,
these soldiers that transmit,
according to my wife,
directly to our bed. |
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Gravity
I want to break out of this rut I’m in, break the law. Nothing as gendered as urinating on a public boulevard. Nothing as predictable as speeding down Main Street of a steroid cow town, blowing oil till the black and white runs me into the curb. Nothing as simple as disturbing the peace with a bass-bottom heavy bada-bing, bada-boom sound system. No,
I want to break a Newtonian Law, float off the floor or flattened grass, give my yellow, calloused feet a rest. I want to levitate to the top of the neighbors’ crab apple tree, see the Phoebes phoebe phoebe phoebeing in the treetop glaring at me. I’d rise to the top of the Wakeville High-rise, wave and peep at silver seniors, prepping for sewing bees and golden rendezvous,
I’d catch an aerial view of the town, look at the contractors sprawl. The jellybean cars rolling along the grey tracks by aqua jewels and patchwork quilt fields. Pass the slo-mo Goodyear blimp and wave at the crew. Maybe even hold my breath and count the solar panel squares on a dying sputnik waiting for it’s final spiral toward Terra Firma,
But the air is thin, and the moon is approaching soon, descend again, my Goliath view receding. By the time I soft land, squad cars fire trucks, FOX, and CNN congregate, crowding ‘round me, asking questions: what was it like, have you ever done this before, will you appear on our new reality show, will Angelina Jolie father your child? But I’m ready for home, my smile the only answer I want to give. My quest complete, under my smirk I surl, let them ticket me for that!
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Silent Justice
When Mimeo the Mime was finally brought up on charges, the circus circuit court mime judge deftly gestured a rope and loop in the air, staring at the defendant. Mimeo quietly pleaded, falling to his knees, wiping away invisible tears. Mimeo's mime lawyer, The Great Impresto, handed the judge Mimeo's handwritten explanation. Mimeo had uttered an "ouch" after his black and white foot had been run over by a clown car, filled to capacity with the "Happy, Slappy Smiling Twelve."
Story didn't wash. Quick mime justice. The thumbs down from the jury meant Mimeo was excommunicated from the Mime Guild and the circus. They stripped him of his black beret and plastic red rose boutonnière swabbed a large wet rag across his shocked face, smudging the black and white face paint. The jury built an imaginary box around him with their white-gloved mits, turning their backs with folded arms, shunning Mimeo. They led him by an invisible rope to the outskirts of Wakeville. The dangerous lights of town laughed at him, the steady hum of electricity and deafening sound resounding across the prairie night sky as the mime mob shuffled off back to the big top. |
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Blue Sky
A clear, blue sky this morning.
And I, tired of watering, had wanted rain.
Hey, it’s Monday. The old Wash-day.
Doesn’t the sky know it’s the day to rain?
I’d woken up to clouds, my last hope
for rain. From the bedroom window
I watched a white and dark cloud
blend, she, on the bottom, her face
turned upwards toward his lips.
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them,
the couple had dissipated, leaving
an expressionless, faceless,
messy mass of cloud behind.
And then that, too, blew away.
A clear, blue sky ranges overhead now.
The grass is still parched.
The air, still hot.
The wind still around, taking all,
giving nothing. This is rough,
this love-less life.
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without a bleep may slips into june
over the weekend
suddenly she feels safer
begins belly breathing again
sleeps through summer nights
because you see
lilacs
counted by the sun
are not so heavy
peonies are only pink
petals
numbered by rain
each year she relives the leaving
not because she wants to
what does one do
after school
graduate matriculate fixate sublimate mortificate
obedient
she sets out to become a person
never mind she may already be one
clues are few
no yellow lines
she kisses herself off again
to what the world may believe it wants
graduation matriculation fixation sublimation mortification
june....moon....croon....tune
let's get it over with
she wants real lilacs
blooms that wither into light
brown ghosts
and peonies that don't
last after rain |
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two old timers
seated at the
breakfast counter
in eagle’s cafe
talk about
the weather
and how if we
don’t get more
rain soon
the crops won’t
come in
they complain
about prices in the grocery store
and a gallon of gas
how mr. edwards
had an auction sale
last week
sold all his equipment
broke up his acres
for a housing development
and grew pine trees
for a government program
titled "set-aside acres"
culture is a foreign concept
and their only brush
with the art world
was norman rockwell’s
paintings on a calendar
in the late sixties
or illustrations in the
farmer’s almanac
and...poetry is that
fluffy rhyme
found between pages
of hallmark cards
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To where goes the fretted child?
He goes no further than death.
Resolute
im pacem
This, a token of our beliefs
This, a mercy of God revealed.
Distance and hours become entwined
-these are years
Each man leaves behind a story
be it by passion, purpose,
or dream
We love, we fear,
we say goodbye
And unless the story is illusion
we don’t disappear
as there is no shade for night
It is, as if, the questions, though, are carried away
Just as tears had become a mark of vanity
when the dirt shifts
when the casket is weighted
at a time when the barkers bark no more
With experience passed
and with the knowing renewed
if this man is not holy
then no man is holy.
Man tells his story
with each exhale
There can be no religion,
no compassion, no prophecy
without these tales of breath
Nothing to be left behind
if we were not to breathe
So we do breathe.
Will you weep now, dear gentlemen?
The rose blooms no faster for you
than it does for me.
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she busted through my doors
& tried to rearrange things
called me pompous
when i didn't agree with her ideas
she finds my honesty
& direct approach
rude...
miss tuffit was bottle fed
condescension
trained in the art of patronization
passive aggression being
the corner stone of her culture
she gets angry
when...
i don't mince my words
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A patch that could be:
The memory of a sky,
The strange side of a ship
They never find in bottles,
The kind that never ferries
Stray edges of Picasso paintings
Blown up to surreal proportions.
Or perhaps the true hue of the root
Of feral dreams among fields
Of youths abuzz with speculations!
A postage stamp that has collided
With a paint can during a Do It Yourself project
In a sketchy neighborhood that hates Old Masters?
A blueprint for a sheet of origami paper
Upon which the true meaning of life will
Accidentally be scribbled
Like a cocktail napkin
Crumpled in a bar
Near the Tigris.
A square can be a continent to the right idea.
Or it can be a side of that infernal block
Every writer stumbles upon,
Some never to recover. |
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Jim Morrison hangs out
on a short rise of sand
near the Pacific shore.
Old man sun is awake
but not the fortunetellers,
vegetarian cafes,
Korean hat vendors
or the roller-skating
Jimi Hendrix.
Morrison’s silver gray shades
hide his intent,
brown lion mane
moving so slightly
in the eastern breeze,
a grim rebel grin
on his face.
He wears my
summer-colored burlap poncho:
red, yellow, orange.
I watch him squat,
level tiny sand dunes
around him
with sides of tan hands,
even and concentric.
Sand magically circles around him,
a Zen garden
with Morrison at the center,
a wild desert rose,
tendrils pushing through sand,
a living compass,
all directions pointing north,
a Hopi magic circle
blessing morning light.
Sun glints off Morrison’s shades
as he draws lines in the sand
between us,
uniform furrows of ecru silica.
In a liquid voice he says,
“This is as far west as
you can go. From the shore
it turns back east, like Mars above.
From here it’s only East.”
I pause,
look at the disappearing face
of Morrison, obscured
by yellow-white sun.
Lower my right hand
into the sand drifts,
draw my own lines
and circles,
watch the collisions
of shapes my hand makes
until Morrison
fades like a mirage
on the face of the ocean
and east wind fills
my lines of sand.
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Preface…it was a dark and stormy night. The castle was visible through the rain. It was apparently empty. The door was wooden and heavy. I went in. Suits of armor with a candle over each lined the hallway. I heard noises…., or
STORMY NIGHT
Drums of thunder pounded the ground and lighting raked the sky.
Rain like sea waves swept me; my hand blindingly became my eye.
Monstrosterous castle walls reached out beckoning me within.
Reason had abandoned me, bones rattled within my skin.
Craving shelter, torn by the storm, I struggled in from the damp.
Sputtering candles, oozing dim light, illumined a ghostly camp.
Armored dead, campaigns long won, attended the narrow hall.
Above each helmet guttering flames. Death lingered over all.
A bulge in the floor, CRASHing open, like a trapdoor, gaping,
Screams poured forth, horrific groans, then The Sounds came, scraping.
Courage ran like a wounded dog, as the floor began to tilt,
Sliding me toward the hole, face down! Blood spilt,
Spewed, vomited from the maw, covering the floor with slime.
Shocked awake, I sat up. No more Edgar Allen Poe at bedtime.
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I was once a vessel
filled with knowledge and thought
hope and promise, full of
life and love. My body
solid and strong, able
to carry all the life,
the love of another.
I am fluid now
think cool shallow water
I carry fragrant
memories, shadows
of love until they
too cut themselves loose
drift swiftly away.
I am as constant and
as fleeting as the tide.
Tonight the moon, my closest
friend holds nothing too
but shadows, just a sliver
of light as thin, as piercing
as a blade of a knife.
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The night was cool and dry;
we were blessed with a breeze.
You could hear the forest sigh
in the needles and the leaves.
And now the sky is overcast,
the lake is chopped by steady wind;
the blue of yesterday has passed,
but I'll look for it again.
It's raining on Bear Island Lake,
and those that fled remain inside,
with no cause to stir or wake
in the cabins where they hide
from what they came to find;
breezes cleaning out the mind. |
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Carp Romano works at the Busy Bee Car Wash on the corner of Central Avenue and Mississippi Street Tuesdays and Thursdays. He opens the joint at 7am and stays until closing twelve hours later. On Thursdays he and Larry Taschida, a genuine workhorse, dress in their bumblebee costumes and go out front with a sign that reads, “Want a Honey of a Shine?” By 10:00am cars are six deep in line waiting for their shine.
Until this week.
Fleece Jones pulled his 2001 Suburban in at the usual time on Tuesday, drove up to the door and honked twice, but nothing happened. Routinely either Carp or Larry came out at the sound of the horn with wet towels in hand for the dashboard wipe down. Fleece got out of his car, lowered his antennae, peered in the window and saw no sign of life. He walked to the front door and fudged with the handle, but it was locked. 8:47am read the clock on the wall through the window. He’d just come from the post office so he knew there was no holiday he’d forgotten about. Fleece got back in his car and just as he was about to put it in reverse and head back out on Central, he saw the carwash door lift open.
Simultaneously the bee team came out the front door. Fleece rolled down his window and shouted, “Sure as shit had me worried for a minute; thought you were switching to banker’s hours on me.” The bees laughed in unison. Fleece opened the door of the Suburban and got out. “Give me the #3, but vacuum the trunk this time, guys. Last time you left a dried turd in there.” Fleece cackled his way to the lobby for a cup of machine coffee and local news.
The phone rang behind the counter but no one answered. Shorthanded, Fleece thought. Recycling water how many times, and they still can’t make a go of it. After a fifth ring the phone stopped. Fleece looked around for the morning paper but didn’t see it. He went over to the television sitting next to the microwave to turn it on but it didn’t respond. He picked at a scab on the back of his left hand until it bled. Then he sucked on it and looked around. It was awful quiet, too quiet for a carwash.
Fleece walked back out of the lobby and into the wash port. Where was his car? Where were Larry and Carp? All that was left were the two abandoned bee costumes. Fleece went back into the lobby with his hands in his pockets. As he walked in the phone was once again ringing. He reached behind the counter and picked it up. “Funny boy, that you?” Fleece listened. “Might want to go to the bif and shove your pal’s head down the toilet with that fresh turd left in there.” The sepia stain left on the phone from his torn scab ran wild.
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on the way to work,
a rusted elbow of a muffler
all wrinkled and bent
and cut in half and laying flat
by the side of the road
waiting for me to stop
my bike
(as if I could!)
to pick it up,
and bring it in
and give it a name
and a place
and teach it words
like "useless" and
"abandoned"
on the way to work,
a twisted branch
from a fallen tree
lay forlorn in the path
waiting for me to stop
my bike
(as if I would!)
and carry it in my teeth
and put it to work
and give it a phone
and a desk and teach
it how to make calls
and send e-mails
and get sh*t done
on the way to work,
the smell of cool green
wafts up from the lake
greeting me like a refreshingly
simple rot that can't be
washed away by the waves,
waiting for me to stop
(at least slow down!)
my bike for a moment
and let it into a lidded jar
and bring it to work
and introduce it
to our cleaning lady
and her friends the chemicals.
Together they can sing
those unpronounceable names
of labrotories and factories
I think that would
be a fine idea,
a fine idea indeed.
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Beauty all places
here, inside us, between us
we, looking deeper
Beauty all places
her, look inside yourself now
look deeper, it’s there
Think of making love
to the work that you do here
think of it as song,
music whispering, a painting,
a tongue of someone you love
Think of a sweet place
now that you are here, in all
this darkness, blue where
you are standing with yourself
wherever you have to go
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When I see this shade of blue
I think of summer mornings
80 degrees, sunny, cloudless,
children out of school,
the whole block to themselves.
I think of those kids waking
to inhale peace in the breeze
and the bigness of it all.
Never too young
to dread responsibility,
kids learn quickly
that days of freedom evaporate
as fast as ice cream melting
on a hot afternoon
drips down arms
before its full sweetness
can be licked.
If they’re smart
they’ll take advantage
of the hours with no goodbyes,
of sun and love,
getting so dag-on dirty outside,
each night they need a bath.
In this way they’ll learn
the importance of soil,
by the smell and taste of it,
creating mud-pies, worm caves,
digging it all
with their plastic pail and shovel
to find backyard buried treasure.
When they do,
they should run hard inside,
show their parents
that found drive-in token.
Yes.
Everyone should have such times
to draw from memory
for that inevitable summer
after the last parent dies
and sweet pain of nostalgia
full-to-bursting
lays down upon their hearts.
And what they wouldn’t give
to be so whole again
back in those days of playing
until the streetlights go on
or the cows come home.
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lying in the loft, 5pm,
lying there just staring at
the light across the ceiling.
warm light,
the best day of the year,
with my palm to the ceiling, I push myself
into the mattress. right leg curled over
the edge of the bed, the sterile blue mattress
beneath two dirty layers of sheets,
curled against the cold metal bars of the loft.
toes stretch into empty space.
I push my hand against the ceiling
feel for the pulse of the building.
I try to push the building away, but
only sink into the bed.
I push against sheets that had
sat on my shelf a few months,
still full of the smell of him, and
I lie here a while and don't think about him.
hold my breath
on the best day of the year
when wind whips through the city with vengeance,
tears buds off fresh trees,
when my stomach is so full of sugar
I can still taste it on my lips.
I lie on the bed and
wait for clarity in my head to match the quality of the light,
the clear blue wash of the sky.
close my eyes and imagine
all my possessions still clutter the empty space
beneath me. imagine my shelves still hold books,
my clothing, clear out the secrets.
another siren.
another gulp of water, as
I find clarity of thought in its absence,
in the admiration of light on my ceiling.
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I fix my eyes beyond you
and being human you look too.
Do I read that sign? You will also
notice the special, what percent off.
Do I watch that girl? You will also
follow her curls, her eyes.
Am I gazing out the window? Then you will also
become lost in the piled clouds
and thoughts of driving west,
of growing old, of the hues you will miss
when you are blind. And if I stare through
the painted words, the girl, glass, sky,
through everything? You will also
turn your head like you'd been hit. |
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The trees have taken the wandering rain
and decked themselves in clothes of ice.
The ground is a salad of leaves tossed with snow.
The darkness is Medieval.
Soon the sun will strip them bare.
Soon, I’ll wander to your house.
I’ll stamp out the snow and you’ll let me in,
take off my coat. You’ll be wearing white.
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As beautiful as you are now
I still remember your thin face,
your eyes, like perfect stones
resembled a solitaire game of marbles on white sand;
soon you burned your features on the skin of my hands
You’ve changed like the sun has changed:
the aging threads barely noticeable to the naked eye,
the rays still reaching much further than the shadows,
the inner bursts, barely tamed by time;
yet your voice has moved to a different tone
As beautiful as you were back then
I can’t stop admiring you, right now
sitting quietly to hide, the intensity of your thoughts
looking intently at the rapidly moving fingers of the piano player,
dancing, images of warmth to your ears
The striking of those chords feeds your restless mind
the same way your lips on mine still stop the world
from falling, face down on the greed of others;
Your smiles still hold the power you’ve gained
in this short lifetime of ours
Yet your voice has moved closer
Softer than the sinuous mountains that take us to the sea
Sweeter than the juice of fresh wild hibiscus flowers
Deeper than the craters your touch bores in your lover’s heart
Today as before you continue to surround me...
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Two for Ones: all Day, Everyday! (for Tim D.)
Jerome didn't want two avocado coladas, just one, a single colada at his quiet table for one. Two was too much, in the sticky brown booth by the ill-lit restrooms. He was content with one, yet the waitress always brought an extra, which was sent back, and dumped into the stainless steel barkeep's sink.
The dour wait staff dreaded two for ones and Happy Hour in general. Half of Chuckles, the Cheers Bar of Sibley, ordered "exotic shit," as Captain Fred, the bartender pit boss would say. Bar policy never wavered or swerved; two for ones for everyone on everything and anything with booze in it.
There were others, but they never sent their drinks back. Tiny Felton always ordered Pile Drivers, vodka prune juice. Edward Kepply rarely deviated from his mugs of Pumpkin Blasters. Marjorie Aho loved the Hawaiian Punch Scotch combination, along with umbrella and plaid coaster.
Maybe it was just the fact that Jerome never drank the second avocado colada. It sat at his black forest table long after he toddled off. On the coaster, the full, perspiring glass of green froth waited for someone to pick it up, annoyed it ever had a twin.
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I watch the cottonwood burrs walk along the path
Coating the moist air with spring
hiding the trails of waterfowl in the lake;
If I hear the young leaves, catching the wind
like eagles testing the range of their wings
I save the moment for you
I learned to wonder about unsaid ghosts
when my mouth first met yours
I often think, what if, what if I hadn’t said a word and
the drizzling mood of April had never arrived,
would I still have pressed my thigh against yours?
and in a tentative gesture of escape
would I still have dreamt of you in my arms?
Was it too early then?
Along the years I’ve learned, that life is led to love
by the weight of necessity, the weight of hunger;
with the slow expedience of hungry slugs,
languidly collecting the world beneath them,
I once crawled over, swallowing everything you gave me
Today I lightly carry your tokens on my shoulders,
the memories of the beginning on my back,
the many mysterious layers of you right under my skin
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I sleep and wake, burrowing
into the months since you left –
you failed me and therefore I failed
myself
as a present finds me caught between
two walls of bricks
loss and bitterness
like stacked miscreant emotions
and my remaining strength
is that of disappearance
arms hang heavily as though lead
has replaced its blood
sounds of between are acutely
overdeveloped,
the details illusive and fine.
* *
Why should the coolness of water
cause memory loss?
I drank from dreams
and now the word “goodbye”
mixes amnesiac potions of details
with past misdeeds and last arguments
failing to find resolution.
My body is embalmed
in a state of calm
weighted down only by emotion,
memories form the only movement
stirring in the background
of desire crisply fried and fleeting,
scar the dust on my heart.
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Let's start with something small
like bluegills
about fifty of them
each about as big as my hand
which is quite small, for a man
Now, take a sharp knife
and pierce the skin
next to the dorsal fin
all the way to the head
and back again, to the tail
Do this on both sides
keep it close to the fin
slip the knife with finesse
between the spine and the flesh
peeling it away from the ribs
You'll have it down on fish nine
and will no longer wonder
what the red and brown things do
or think the wide black eyes
are looking at you |
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The whole darn world was ours to cherish
and damsels in distress ours to defend,
the future ours, while all our foes would perish.
There was a time! And you, my trusted friend.
We took no time to think, ran to discover
what lay ahead of us, just past the bend–-
a great adventure! or, perhaps, a lover?
Now we fend off our friendship’s end
with letters . . . which we write . . .but never send.
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Languorously
rising upward
from the depths of night wandering
night wondering
decelerating atmospheric re-entry
mindful of bends coming up
friction burns falling down
and all the painful hazards
born of dreams and wakings
too hastily conspired.
Gently
eyes seduced
by morning’s glow
to ope, accept its gifts of light
and lead the way for twitters and chirps
of earlier birds, hungering for sunrise
to strike their chords on consciousness.
Next, command control arrives
to inventory night-errant body parts
distal first, the digits
then limbs, and finally trunk entire
orchestrating a crescendo
of coordinated, purposive motion.
Vertical, afoot,
fast forward past ritual cleansings
(bladder, oral cavity, a face the world will see)
to start the coffee, feed the caged birds,
then luxuriate in the ceremonial high-point:
Sacred caffeination
Set before a SE bank of windows
where radiance spreads across
an illusory expanse of uncrowded horizon
– treetops, sloping lawn,
an uninterrupted expanse of sky
where swallows swoop and cartwheel
in sheer, mid-air pleasure
My throne awaits
angled back just so
extended legs can bring heels
to berth successfully upon the lower window sill
and there, again, revel briefly
in the horizontal plane
while night trails unskein
their mysterious images and meanings
offering to make peace with
plans of newcoming day.
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