ALL RESPONSES |
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In the corner,
between the window and the radiator
Infinite worlds
On each an Alexander weeping
at the impossible prospect
of universal dominion,
playing cosmological lotteries
for the largest prize of all;
pursuit of unreachable wealth.
You can hear his voices echo,
except for when he gave up arms
and we all spoke Farsi,
in the empty universe
he left behind. |
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They came in through
the window—or sent
the smallest boys.
Took everything would
go back out
by the same square root
of night.
A bedframe and a lamp
don't make no music,
no decor.
And who would want
a cherry-stained floor? |
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There was something odd
about the brightness
in that white-walled room
something odd indeed in contrast
to the black night fading the frame of
the bed left leaning up against the open window
the uniting of the black and white
extension chords reminded her
to bleed the radiator
and listen for his sigh.
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I looked into your eyes and found the wind,
the one that comes when we are done loving
and sweeps away all that remains,
as the traces of our scent
or the feelings we held inside
of a day where you and I
had more than superficial words,
more than empty glances
to share.
I looked into your eyes searching for the light,
in their color of dark wood
warm and solid,
the intensity and softness of brown leather,
the tenderness I had found in you, in your embraces,
the ones that you have forgotten
and I am trying to forget
While I miss you,
While I wish
I could shut close the window
That allowed your heart,
To empty itself
Of my name.
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his empty corner opens
into my heart of yesterday
and soon tomorrow;
first his love must depart,
then follows sorrow
father often says thank you
later good-bye, crossing
the threshhold, he walks
with aging feet to die
time was a son would pay
his father’s debts, no sooner
than life starts, begins regrets
your rage and absences
i tried to understand;
your weaknesses remain
your greatest mystery, often
wooden, reaction & stiffly
the past will soon be over;
we all eventually come in.
entering empty corners,
counting our sins |
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I died a little bit that day.
dried up,
fell off
and blew a w a y
unshod foot on
sidewalk with curled
leaves connect
harsh light in the corner
on mirror reflect |
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For the photo in a blur at 46...
Delighted enough by plague
colors in the feet, numbness
in the jock, my thin quivering lips—
I won’t let science! Don’t speak of this
or that cure, however necessary
for anxiety so you can force into me
one more sip, a stronger pill, a remedy...
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What can be made of the bleakness
of these walls, smudged by hands
wiped on oily jeans?
The bed/ cot stands alone
against a wall in this white-out.
*
Once a mind functioned this way.
Before the advent of color, all
was monotone white. Voices,
drifting in and out the door, blurred
into the land of shadowy farewells.
*
I don’t speak this language.
I don’t want to learn this language.
Even the dog has fallen silent and left
with his white tail between his legs.
*
The sky is white, the moon is white.
All heat is white. The shade is white.
A door is white, i.e., the exit is white.
The eye goes white; the footprint, chalk.
*
Bound in white. Can you
move your arms? Your legs?
*
This
room.
That
thatthatthatthatthat
white.
*
She has left this country. She’s
found the perfect little nook
near Thomas Hardy’s White Inn.
She works there on weekends
near a bloody lovely green glade.
*
Farewell, Herr White! You
who’ve changed your name
to blend in. Now your color
and odor are both close to ghost.
*
So! Someone walked through the door
when it was closed. So!
Someone else had to repair the smashed
panel with another. The paint there
is whiter. I’m glad neither smasher
nor repairer was I. Enough said.
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You are the reason I still love the world
and you are the reason I glow in the dark
like a lava lamp, my heart with its
opened arms: Come to me. I want to
enfold the child in you, feed you stories
without guile. Because if you knew
how fierce and unshakeable love can be,
you would drop all pretense, be stilled
by placid waters, be capable of fire,
rise up like a scourged god to
dispense miracles like mint blessings.
Regret can be a favorite tune on a cracked
vinyl or a way to spin a storm. But with the
weight and pull of the doorknob in your hand,
pause. Once you cross the threshold
you can’t turn back. We don’t know yet if this
is a passing dream. Perhaps we will awaken to the
first day of summer, blue and clear,
our limbs itching to run, our tongues
lit with a sudden urge to sing.
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In response to Chris Ludtke's photo, Get Connected.
When I was fourteen
I was confirmed,
named a Minnesota Lutheran,
called to be a part of the congregation.
Rev. Aga, short Norwegian
with black curly hair and blue eyes,
said the magic words that verified, corroborated,
proved my personhood.
But not before I spoke my piece:
the catechism. I knew
all the answers, my junior high mind
splendid at saying the proper words.
I would keep turning up,
chronic, like a disease.
What I was to be now was destined.
The reverend took each confirmand
aside, and asked:
“Do you love Jesus?” I cried,
out of frustration. He stared
at me from behind the desk, finally asked,
“Don’t you have an answer?”
No, you’ve got it all wrong, I thought,
though I did not speak.
The question is, does Jesus love me?
And if he does, why am I poor,
and why am I always hungry? And why do I feel so awful?
Have you memorized the answers, Reverend?
No matter, I could say the catechism,
and the Bible verses, on demand.
So he endorsed and sanctified me, his blue eyes calm.
The church itself was not above meanness.
A committee printed what every member gave.
One quarter our family’s total was 50 cents.
I knew this was mean.
But it was the church, and it was the reverend,
and didn’t they all know what was best for us?
My Lutheranism gradually faded.
I defaulted into Methodism.
My meannesses melded into theirs.
And they don’t have catechism.
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He left the lamp and
radiator, light and heat
and the walls that talk. |
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You must open your heart to sky
to earth, to moon,
brittle iron
northern clarity
The hard light of ice crust still glints
off palaces
of broken gods
a pockmarked white
Where waves froze in full storm, you must
hold both silence
and children close
a cipher in wind
When your face fades you must begin
to search for new
carrying what’s old
to be sun blessed
Everything touched by you stays in
an empty room
waiting for warmth
heart dreaming it
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For The Long Wait
During the long wait
you swing wind beneath your feet,
the sun in shadows
piebald across your bare legs.
To deny the shiver rivering
across your summer skin
you push off harder.
If it wasn’t storming you wouldn’t be here at all,
off, instead, where twelve-year-olds go
when they can’t wait to make themselves lost.
That’s why you understand what’s happening in the street:
that sudden rain from fist-clenched clouds
smacking pavement in a fast run
can't possibly escape into gutters unhurt.
This is the same as knowing
your father’s love for you
is like his love for your mother,
nested tiny in a Russian tea doll’s
smallest compartment
because you were born a girl.
Sometimes, even thunder doesn’t shout loud enough
to overcome the noise of a place,
so you cover your ears even to the chinking
of chains proclaiming the weight
of your years--iron shrieking across iron--
but can’t block out your mother’s last wail
how much it sounded like an animal in heat.
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it seemed small when he first left
almost
wrinkling the fabric of the bed
cover
smiling as he walked away
now I know that I am all alone
at home
with the turning of the clock dials
hands
missing
I could call him up
ask him to come home
but the distance
of a wave is now
what we have between us
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The wood floor still glows,
carries the radiator
neatly tucked away
in the useless corner
by the window,
and the smell of new paint lingers.
It is small enough
to be a child's room.
Now the makeshift bed,
too large to avoid spatter
and too much bother
to be taken out
remains propped against
the wall that was painted first.
The torchiere, an anachronism
makes the viewing
too bright, nearly obscene.
How many occupants
left this space with no regret.
The last one departed,
seemingly pissed,
leaving behind
as witness
a single swath
of new paint
on the creaky old door.
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Please see the image Vacant Eden
there are animals in the city
tonight off in the distance
sounding like conch horns
warning the motel
of oncoming rust,
waxing its doors
with nostalgia
men and women have been coming
here for years, their hearts speaking
to each other without accents
dreaming after intercourse
about love, and their hearts,
though talking tough, bruising
easily, waking in morning
to walk in the world yet again
in search of the perfect
one-night-stand |
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There is a delusion of time spent
on intimacies, our life work
getting past the absurd
like fellow prisoners sharing a cell
we discussed ways to break the laws
of humanity while still loving each other.
Now we are left with dread on the heels
of dreams as these are the trials
meant to build a future.
From January to August
you left me closed off
in a passage leading from here
to forgetfulness
feebly depleted, feeling cheated
while cheating.
I offer now my defense.
It looks like a present with a bow
covered in carefully chosen paper.
Tomorrow we will argue over
who gets to keep the floor lamp.
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I just heard my favorite band
broke away from their roots
leaving only questions behind—
a lamp and an extension cord,
a bed frame and a mattress—
one to light the past
one to bring it close to us
one that dreams will have a base
the last to place our heads on
crying that youth is gone
the radiator rushes in
to hold the temperature
of our sins steady as
the window allows all eyes
to pry into the almost empty room;
I am caught taking pictures
by the old ways that
are slowly disappearing like
light and shadows
on and in a doorway
outside a car rushes past
blaring music that seems familiar
in its cadence, but we all know
that the stone has rolled away
leaving nothing in its place,
except maybe a hole, the brown
of lowbrow finds its way
into my vernacular
saying that I still love Them
the sirens of anonymity
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Good on you, Chris Ludtke. Your photograph has brought
vibrant responses from writers. Credit to your talent and eye.
Thanks so much for space to play! dp |
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Each day the same, brings anything but rain, but relief
from this heat that had burned the life out of
every living thing. All left wanting a night of hard rain
a cool blue pool, a morning crisp and clear & to know
that tomorrow comes clean. I no longer know what moves me,
only that sun I carry on my skin, heat inside me. Come August
I join the cicadas, climb to the canopy and sing with my legs.
Look carefully at the base of the tree, for you will find
our bodies there, empty & shed, glassine and brittle,
too small to hold us, in wait of a wind to carry us away.
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You are showing me a room
under con-or-destruction.
In all sincerity,
I don't like the white corner.
It's sterile. There is no life in it.
The lamp's light futile,
its warmth overwhelmed
by a cold, anonymous
source of illumination.
The window open but mute,
ready to in-di/gest the night,
just as colorless as its surroundings.
The bed, unashamed, leans against the wall,
showing the undergarment of its mattress,
and the vulgar nudity of the frame...
Should I be inspired by this sight?
There is something cold and detached
in this image, something missing.
Even the open door says nothing
as the white paint stripe on the door.
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More than anything
I would dream you back from the silence
the ache of good-byes
would become the hollow
ness of bones in the wing
the sweet taste of a summer
wave upon the shore foaming
around my feet. The suitcase
emptied like Aladdin’s
cave, look what I brought you-
look what I have saved. More
than anything I would take
back the last tears and the mean words
before I bought the ticket out
I would sing and wander the river,
I would find a way to stay.
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Faint ghostly shadows
beneath fresh layers
of Titanium white
accuse me:
Too soon
you sweep clean
the emptied chambers
of your heart
Too soon
you take new brush in hand
and scrape clean the dried residues
of yesterday’s palette.
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