ALL RESPONSES |
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This isn't like my great-grandfather's morning.
If you didn't bust your knuckles farming, you
worked a press in town, or carried bales to ships.
The educated sat inside with their machines,
typing qwerty words a minute for arrogant bosses,
heads of households driven by promises of wealth,
gas lamps, petrol-driven automobiles, the cure
taken in spring-fed spas on unspoiled hills
away from smells of smokey, sewaged cities.
Maybe it hasn't changed so much. Just more people
doing the same thing, but on steriods, on acid.
Descendant, think of 1907, breaking prairie soil
with implements bought on credit from shopkeepers
who somehow spoke enough of your language to sell
you everything your family needed to make it
through the winter, and God willing the crops
didn't fail, swarms of locusts didn't eat them
or winter didn't kill off all the milk cows.
Someone had to make some money along the way,
keep a little bit under the mattress where dad
never looked, just enough to send your bloodline
to college in Saint Paul or Northfield, unless
the church might help. They could always use
another pastor out in these parts, someone
of letters to spread the word and keep people
on track, out of saloons, in church, and kneeling
steadfastly in holy communion each sabbath day.
Wheels of tractors greased with Swede, Finn, German,
Pole, even Irish plowed everything in sight,
muscle tossed grain in barn and car, trains sailed
across states to mills of steel and lumber, steamed
with coal, manned with shiploads of Europeans,
sweating their dreams, drinking to the future
of great-grandchildren, who would know things
so far beyond their imagination, even beer and vodka
could never paint the picture of what was coming.
You can feel their cheers in the old haunts, now
with air-conditioning, television, professionals
hunched over computers, shimmering with information,
more than anyone can possibly ingest in a lifetime,
with expectations of success in enterprise, a sharing
of value that gives us hope for our grandchildren,
for us all, a clean, healthy world, where we can
once again bury our hands in earth, breathe deeply,
and enjoy the fruits of dignity and self respect. |
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to cover photo:
Looking for something to stop
the need for longing is essential for the woman
in the black overcoat whose hands fumble
the loose tobacco and silver change in her deep pockets.
It’s not in finding what’s lost,
it’s in the discovery that she’s found
a window opening the dawn of a new day;
at least that’s what she tells herself as she
traces the lines of the blue blanket left
crumpled among saffron slivers of light.
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There are ordinary days, too,
when things are extraordinary.
The moment creeps up on you
in fairytale light, sleepy-eyed dawn
as sky yawns into light’s labor.
Morning fleshes periwinkle and sienna,
giving birth to premature violet.
Suddenly you wonder
why you couldn't see before
how exquisite a world
that brings such tears to eyes.
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I waited all night
for an answer that never came.
Eyes swollen with thoughts
I found my way to this place
after wandering through the darkness
you left within me.
I still can’t believe all that happened,
all that yesterday was but today isn’t,
what I am left with.
I entered this space,
which used to be filled with words,
music, us, promises, laughter,
to find it empty, silent.
You have chosen a different path
one that will not see your feet
walk again the traces of steps,
light and shades,
left by us and time on this wooden floor.
You moved away from the windows,
covered now by white cloth,
hiding my pain, the loneliness,
the rooms in disarray
which ask why aren’t you here,
with me, within them.
What should I say to them and myself?
That all which to you, used to be life,
love, the air you breathed,
is already stored aside,
covered by white sheets
as furnishing in an old summer house
you abandoned for good?
I am here this morning
in this cold room, coat on, hands in pockets,
looking at the consequences
left into my dawn by your choices
asking myself if without you,
I’ll ever be whole again.
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(part i)
the sunset
acts as backdrop noise
carries me through
my room of possibility
where things can be
different next time
(part ii)
there you were
swaying in front of the piano
as if playing without fingers,
without hands
you struggled to shine
one last time
before the coming moon
painted you dead
and an empty chair
became the portrait
hanging in my mind
without a subject |
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Cloaked in midnight shadows,
nocturnal,
pounding the streets
lost in the mist of the witching hour.
He raises his dark handsome face
to the stars,
pleading,
but the stars are lost to city lights.
Can’t remember sanguine sunsets,
invisible,
hidden behind towering pillars
of cement and blue glass.
The city screams
and he’s forgotten
how to escape,
crying at his reflection in a blue screen.
Green is something beyond his grasp
in the red light district.
He sleeps through sunlit hours
dreaming of a girl
who swims naked
in an enchanting dream
world wilderness,
ethereal and wholesome.
The fine hairs on his arms rise,
while painted ladies with stiletto heels
stick their tongues in his ears.
He cries with rage and indignation,
but he suffers oh so beautifully
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Morning consequences. How I feel,
often, looking at a shambles.
I’ve trained myself to think beyond
the mess to the unpacked box:
It could have something nice inside,
at a disadvantage, poor packaging.
I understand this; I hate gift wrapping.
But here the mess is so Dutchy clean.
The floors, gilded in morning sunlight.
Sheer curtains over warehouse windows.
An open cellar door in the floor
could mean delivery or a hole
where mystery rises like smoke.
Where there’s fire, there’s....
The plot advances. Who cares
who the lonely man is inside the room?
To him, I say, take this all in.
Be glad you have a blue crate to open,
that your work is cut out before you. |
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I see the bag fall to the ground,
a gray rock, weathered by too many storms
she stands at the counter, a dark wool coat with mittens in hand
sliding over a five for some coffee.
Each Saturday morning we meet like this,
I sit in the corner, my nest of comfort
she blows in through the door, dropping weights of all kinds.
I turn my pages, losing the plot
as she ties thick mahogany hair into a loose ponytail
and sits at the table near mine.
I try to meet hazel eyes, as if to say “here we are again, let’s talk”
but before my stare can be translated
she just looks away—
beyond the cup of caffeine, through the brick walls,
across the street, into some other dimension of the here and now.
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for Cafe Reflections
It must be
evening when
a soot-branded
young man
with candles
sets one on
the table. And
when lights
fall so afternoon
talk, thought,
and letter
writing stop,
it must be
evening. |
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"pine trees fell forever
in placid lakes,
aluminum turned the surface
argent from reflections"
your eyelids rest softly
and a muted afternoon
happiness fills
the brain
as you relate nervousness
with silver canoe
fishing net with hope
pine tree with chance
water with perception
without inebriated
thoughts swirling
like lily pads
during thunderstorms,
objects relate happily
but
in
sadness
eyes are kept
open in tears
the world dissolves
like weak sunlight
through eyelashes
the day arrives
in shapes.
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that after hours in a museum are as quiet
as the painting of three red chairs
once, i imagine, occupied by people
who laughed at each other’s humor
that the lake of your father’s mind
must be lovely and quiet,
with small sunfish nibbling
delightfully at its surface.
that the air above your sleeping
son’s head is as holy as the rain
outside his open window.
that nothing is perfect, not even
if the next person you meet
may be the only you’ll ever have
a chance to be in love with.
that the coming snow will make
so little noise while falling.
it is nearly midnight and October
iin Minnesota nearly finished.
many of its small towns are left in fallen leaves. |
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It's about as close as you will get.
The space between was always
two arms' lengths. Sometimes
you both wanted even more.
Now that he's gone, you can't
pretend to close the gap.
Good clean quiet in the room--
space and light enough to set
an old man free. Air enough
to set a young man thinking.
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The light in your eyes
glistens amphibiously--
Hubcap spins, heads/tails. |
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not morning, although the quiet
is as healing as eggs
cracking on the stove
and mom asking, one or two?
not evening, although the two
lean toward each
other like a drink of
spring water in sun
light or animal gladness
sniffing the terrain.
not mid-afternoon, although
dust motes swirl in serenity
after the crowds are gone
to infiltrate the mind’s
busy chatter. but there
under the surface
where we still hope
for connection
is the thrum of cricket
songs, the cry of the wolf.
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After three days
on the train
the first shower
in America
extasy
She bade
father and I
should be first.
When I stepped out,
she was sobbing
in father's arms.
I do not recall
when her tears stopped,
at least outwardly.
I did not know the reason then
only that
the last time
she cried
was five years back.
The dawn had just broken.
The furniture
had been swaddled
to protect it from dust
and sunlight.
Windows taped,
just in case a bomb
would hit nearby
but not the house.
My father
could console her then.
They were younger,
and she was kissable.
Besides,
we would be back,
a matter of a month or two.
Tonight,
she wore the same old coat
for the last time.
Little could I know
she knew it then,
at that very moment
she would never
stand in that dawn
again.
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from the Clinton Rost painting
Sit in a corner, minimizing chances of side-by-side strangers
Open the shield of your laptop to repel any intruder
Robotically sip from a half-lifted cup, with cover,
Eyes remaining attentive to a screen only sometimes seen.
Once in awhile I see you, always cornered, by what?
Always quiet, inexpressive, withdrawn inward,
And only on sunny, windy days. I admire your
Solitary survivalist de-caf socialization.
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mother
who lost her mind in
wallpaper memories
spaced red flower buds around
rooms
like notes in measures.
as flowers budding,
my music is free
yet as
stubborn as
eyebrows
I hold
my angry
forearms out
as violins' bows
and play sardonic
music with
the immovable
while plucking my words and
breathing shallow rests,
I move
fingers
like parts of a loom
“endless son,
are your acts organized
or blindly
stitched like the river water
symphony
through rocks
we know?”
her angry words
sound like a bottomless oboe
brown tones le a n
helplessly
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it has been years since i thought of you. it has been dust roads and rain showers, passing smiles and kisses, two children that i am still missing, divorce and gladness, yes--gladness, and other things. small other things.
once when on a road, in December, sixteen miles from home, stranded, walking anyway, i looked up to see the North Star and came back with the resolution to never view stars again, even though i had never seen their greatness except in magazines. I came back with the need to hear Albert King and roaring passionate rages--stages of elocution, and small other things;
and when i saw the water shatter from the stone, when i heard your moan from underneath me, when i had pressured hate into your every pore, when the water bore me up and i walked like just a man, when the wind spat piss yellow drops of blood, so strained that it could not find truth, i ate your heart and lolled out chunks onto the ground, with small other things.
the spring ran to the step of my feet; the horn and the keyboard and the timbral tapped against the raw earth and soothed her sores; a crow sat on a tree somewhere rustic, then dove and suicided against the window of a log cabin, sure that there would be no better death than to shatter someone's dreams;
And in the alleyway near a London Circus a homeless man stood straight up and silent for fifteen hours, being told that he would soon join Christ,
even thought calmed to massage his shoulders;
somewhere a bomb exploded...somewhere a womb ripped...somewhere a handshake gave away incompetence...somewhere the pages of a novel were turned by an eighty-three year old woman who once had ten children...somewhere a preacher choked...somewhere a child with tuberculosis wove fabric...somewhere a hippie lost her dreams...somewhere your favorite band sold out for a few well chosen, damn good reasons...somewhere a fourteen year old boy stepped from the top of a quarry and into the subconscious record of his home town--a one hundred twelve foot fall--a legend...
somewhere one-hundred-forty-three Back-to-the-Fifties cars rolled down Snelling Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota, eating up the lunches of two hundred Afghani refugees...Somewhere...
And my fingers cramp, my eyes dull, my fury is sated, my loss is reconciled to me, my need is shown to be useless by time, my arms wither, i strain to regain conscousness only to find that i was not entitled to my dreams and have to live in the gray lines between knowledge and reason. I stoop to pick a stone from the gravel of my past and place it in my pocket. no more worries.
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I came home to find your chair empty.
It was pushed in, its plush cushion stroking the counter’s edge,
it’s supposed to be out on the floor, annoying me.
It waits for you,
like I do, standing in some couple’s kitchen.
So many weeks since your end,
I still glance at the sink and wait
for your strong arm to extend
when the flour is too high or the pan too heavy.
You say the onions never make a man cry,
yeah right.
This chair is empty, no crease from a body,
nothing to press into it, hug it closely.
For I can’t sit at this table and drink coffee
or lie in bed and turn toward nothing.
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for the painting Across From the Corner Saloon
Golden rays,
mellow wood.
The color of caramel,
smooth and sweet.
Blue lid,
white bottle,
diamond glass glittering.
October and
a cup of coffee
in a quiet Café.
Peek-a-boo
from behind the clouds
up high,
from behind the golden leaves
down there,
from behind a wall
casting a shade over my table
right here.
Warmth spills inside
while my thoughts
spill outside this window
and I let myself be caressed
by the sun of a midday hour.
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Should I focus myself for you
with words and faces?
Here's my card. All the data
is there, embossed in black and blue.
Phone numbers. An address. Email.
Let's shake hands and eat
lunch, today's special soup,
chicken wrap, and sex.
Lord Byron ate here once.
He stood out in this St. Paul
coffeeshop, so British,
blue-blooded, arrogant
and dressed in finest damask.
Mary bought him cappuccino
to smoothe the edges
drawn by whiskey pencils.
If he had taught me to write
sonnets, I would have baked
him cake and poured his rum.
But John Donne sat there
in the far corner, shaking
his English head, imploring
us to forsake our earthly
words, our deck of cards. |
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for White Fur Hood
You sit alone, reading. You watch and wait.
This coat too will be abandoned some day.
Left in the closet one season too long,
and this coffee forgotten, pissed away
like memory of strangers in bars.
Solitary and waiting, passing time.
You have seen me in airports, buses,
a thousand cups of sour coffee in long
forgotten cafes and unknown streets.
Desire: an arrow in search of a bow.
The sun on formica, dusty and worn
handprints of travelers in cities long gone |
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for photo: I Wish I Knew
I watch you from afar,
you two sitting across a table,
not touching or holding hands,
heads bowed,
looking as if in a serious
and deep sort of conversation.
Are you two together?
Are you breaking up,
or are you furtive lovers
meeting in the midday hours
while most other people
are still at their desks?
I sit alone at my table
in the same place with you
even though,
in this sunny October afternoon,
I feel as if I were light-years
apart from where you two are sitting.
We are across from the corner saloon
and while I sip at my coffee,
share my glances between the Bar's red walls,
your red hair, and your friend's red scarf,
I can’t help but asking myself
what you too are so intensively
talking about.
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for Café Reflections
Standing outside this Café
I wait for my bus to arrive.
The wind blows into my jacket
forcing me to find repair
against the building.
I look inside the softly lighted room,
its golden and rust tones, yellow wall,
tables and plush chairs.
Light fixtures cast a soft glow
over open books and newspapers.
Time, is as fast as the slow jazz they are playing.
Something moves.
My reflection on the glass pane is cold.
The man sitting in the café
reading the newspaper near the window
looks at me, smiles and nods.
I feel awkward but raise my hand,
salute him back, then I turn around.
My bus has finally arrived.
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Women and men, not so
different, really. Most
are noticeably one or the other
but when it comes to
essentials -- need, passion and
things that sag with age,
we’re all in the realm
of sameness. Yesterday
I saw a bluebird
in the yard of a purple house.
I’ve never seen a bluebird,
at least never that close.
It’s the closeness
that divides us. Women
climb trees for it,
men run long
distances to get away
from what will kill them
at the end, if they spurn it.
That bluebird, its likeness
repeated in idioms, tattoos,
knows its life of seeds,
the crunch of insects,
call of a mate.
This all, of course, is generality
and generality killed
the messenger.
What is essential
is passion, the need for
birds and other winged things,
Like self and other
and tools and art
and what is it for you?
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At ports in the storm
they ride the surf’s electric
salt currents, not quite adrift
for anchors have weighed
but not quite ashore,
where throngs the native life
They pass one another
in search of safe harbor
avoiding approach
for fear of running aground
yet hoping somehow
to make landfall.
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As the sun broke the sill he said
the first thing called life
was a turtle or perhaps a jelly fish.
The first thing called living
was a tree. A blade of grass was next,
he said, the next living thing.
Life requires arms, he waves his, even if
you don’t know how to use them. Living
you just need to know how to be.
The sun this morning has long arms,
reaching shadows, it moves from our toes,
hits knees and bellies, gets tangled in our hair.
My world is thick with dust specks, unrecognizable
pieces of what once lived, all airborne. Search my heart
and you will find the bones of a dream, sun dried
and chalky; the shells of old lovers
I’ve lived in. Pour water on them & they glisten.
Light a match and they will smolder.
It is time to get up, he says. I’m hungry.
I wonder if this is how a caterpillar feels—
time to leave this body, trade legs for wings,
time to push out or up. Wind or waves
to ride, I’m not sure, but it is time
to be the next thing, the next living thing.
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