ALL RESPONSES |
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Splendid lovemaking,
great gift only she gives you.
Others more complex.
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There is rain; tin and aluminum clouds, bark rippled and stained
by patterns of water. There is your hand, in mine, the moment
before thunder breaks and I kiss you, taste rain and each regret
you’ve yet to feel. There is the sheen love paints on cracked
sidewalks, the imprint of a leaf, its stem a thin vein, its body
a child’s palm full of sand. I want to hold the world, one
handful of it at a time, carry it to you, show you the shape
of love, how, with you, it is always & building. The lake today
if the color of the sky, the clouds shift to almond and I can’t
help but think of you; your body is my earth, your love
my sky, and I beg you, bury me under your skin, feed me
your thoughts, drown me in your words. Let me die in you.
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Michael: In November we traveled: Las Cruces
Silver City, Rome. My birthday fell on the
day of Thanksgiving or the day after or the day
before, so we left, split the scene.
I didn’t know until we drove out
of the parking lot
where we were headed.
Wendy: He said he didn’t want presents
but he would resent it if
you forgot. One year I had an espresso
machine shipped to him. I figured he was Italian,
why not? I was in Minneapolis before
grandchildren or grief.
Michael: I told her I wanted to send it back,
I didn’t want it. When she got home, I made
her a cup….
Wendy: He couldn’t live without it…
Michael: My lament, my lament:
send it back, I don’t want it
All of it, my downward spirals, her health-food,
her attempts to fix me, my decision to be here,
this life, especially
this life.
Alejandro: Back to the time before
we slept with our souls intertwined,
before I became her husband.
What does that mean
for better or for worse….?
Wendy: I changed from widow to wife
in such a short time. I took him on
that night, some nameless border
town when I realized what he intended
Alejandro: I mixed the blue pills with the white,
bought a bottle of tequila, I was thirsty and ready
to go, I asked her to let me swim out to sea…
Wendy: We hadn’t eaten all day, peeing in the
scrub by the side of the highway but
I did not walk across the parking lot
to the café at the no-name hotel
neon sign burning, still open 9 o’clock.
I didn’t shower, unpacked his briefs
to wear like a pajama
party, not like a farewell,
between us his life.
I wasn’t going to leave him,
I had promised him in the ceremony
meant to fix his papers, meant to give me
a reason to stand by his side
and now here we were: on the run
Alejandro: The pills were gripped in my left hand.
Not the one that gripped yours those hundreds of
miles of highway. We were lost in a
dark wood, we didn’t
know where we were, there were no
signs, just the ribbon of road, desperation,
a night of betrayal, a turning of fate
a call to the authorities, a leap over the border
we were running for home.
Wendy: Do you dare ask that I let you swim out
to sea? I have been here before. Every Thanksgiving
we faced that temptation. He would say
let me go, send me back.
Michael: When I turn 50 it will change.
When we get to Mexico it will change
When we get to Rome, it will change
Send me back,
it WILL change….
Wendy: In Italy Michael and I drank grappa by the
iridescent sea in a village tavern.
I was catching a cold, I had lost
patience, I was fed up with his
family. We had Thanksgiving at the
American air force base, his dad’s privilege,
turkey and gravy, sweet potatoes
with marshmallows, it was America.
I wanted pasta and amor, I wanted to
be alone in a velvet room, I wanted kisses
and promises.
.
Michael: I had the diamond ring
in a box. My father bought it
before he died. My mother said give it to her if that
is what you want. When I showed her, I said,
it doesn’t mean we’re engaged. I make
no promises, here’s where I cannot go.
Wendy: I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
We lived together eight years, I became a widow
when he died. Alejandro calls me his wife
and we slept together once, the pills
under our pillow. I wrapped myself around
him, I conquered his blackness, I said no
you can’t and it is time to sleep. In the
morning I wanted pan dulce and café con leche,
I wanted Mexico like a dream of freedom
I wanted the sea, I wanted to swing
in a hammock and drink cerveza, I wanted
to find ourselves home.
Alejandro: We set back out on the road, the sun was
blinding, we were running for home.
Michael and Alejandro: For richer or for poorer,
In sickness and in health
Wendy: The diamond went to my
daughter-in-law. She didn’t know
it had cut my heart into pieces
Michael and Alejandro. For better or for worse
Til death do us part
Wendy: He stayed behind
in Mexico, I took the plane
back to Albuquerque.
We cried when we said good-bye, torn
apart, we had fused into marriage.
This Thanksgiving I will feast
on prayers of praise, I will count myself
lucky. This year I kept someone alive.
Alejandro and Wendy: Til death do us part
we made it to home
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Your hair was slicked back; a cool jet black
with gel that stuck to my fingers.
Over the coming months I’ve grown more
attached to the idea of you.
Your eyes were a deep brown
the color of currents awash with silt
on a summer’s dawn. In the dream it was
now or never. Now you placate my sleep,
never you are wary of my feelings
now you slip past my reach
ruffle my hair with your body of wind
as cool as morning- as the humidity
gums my legs together, severs my grip.
I tell myself it’s now or never
I wonder what he would think
about that.
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Ask yourself what it means when the woman
stands nearer the bed and the man, the window,
where he can jump. And she, too; a bed can be
a reception. Lovers, sisters, the sick and dying
embark from it into the next hour, the next phase.
Not to mention how natural a bed is to sleepers,
many of whom leave the window open for air.
Circulation can be everything in a dour night,
struggling under showers of stale dreams.
What would we do without green? Day
is the welcomed guest in the reception room.
Black and whites return to blues, to yellows.
A pooch jumps for joy. A man’s hand, holding
his wife’s, begins to sweat with love again.
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the soft petals of peonies
white, and peach, radiating
from hand-held green stems
you have seen these with me
the seeds clustering, holding
time and eternal spring
like our marriage, as it is
again and again
our growing season |
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Pho is Vietnamese noodle soup. Unlike many other foods,
it carries meaning, but especially, is filled with love.
It is composed of complex broth, filled with rice noodles
and select meats. One throws in fresh basil leaves,
sprouts, hot pepper slices and squeezes lime into it.
These add to complexity, and are archived in memory
until the next bowl. A food like this can be created
by hundreds of years of cooking with available foods,
making best of what grows the most and perfecting it
through generations of tradition, or through imagination
and daring, which requires great skill. Sometimes both
are combined to create a thing of rare and lasting beauty.
The food is, like the bowl, a vessel for spiritual energy.
A unique mixture makes it what it is. Were it hastily
and thoughtlessly conceived, it would just be food.
One can live off of any food, but not always well,
without love or purpose. Tossing a hunk of fried meat
into a paper bag is a temporary solution to hunger,
but does nothing to fill the soul. It is merely absorbed,
transmitting no value to the mind other than the illusion
that one is satiated. It does not fill the vessel with love.
A true marriage must be like Pho. The vessel is filled
with truth, not hastily conceived, mixing the best ingredients.
It holds love that grew for many years before two souls met.
Add sex, as an act of pure love; else it is only sugar
that dissolves quickly in the mouth and fails to nourish.
It may satisfy appetites, but will not sustain the soul,
if not filled with love. If the soul is not sustained, all is lost.
One only eats, walks and sleeps until death arrives.
There is no hurry. We wait for water to boil. We fill our bowls
with fresh basil and lime. Each spoonful tastes fresh and new
on the tongue. We remember every sip, filled with love.
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The wrinkles in life are seldom this neat.
The bellies seldom so frankly extended.
Big hats are not so blatantly worn
and irreverently placed so near
to the empty shoes of
swollen feet.
The love felt is felt doubly.
Who you are - watching this transposition
of life into beautiful grease -
matters not, except that you know
that you are lucky,
and the threads
of the universe
hung all throughout
the room
also are lucky,
and night
has nothing on the sun
in such a place
as this.
There’s not a moment left to spare for anything
but what’s here,
in this moment,
begging for you to stop, and stare,
and be in each filament and each weft.
To be each thought that passes
in and out of this
trinity, soon,
a quartet.
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I whisper
I grab the leaf unknowingly
You are beautiful
rip it from its twig
she is heavy with modesty
it spins between my round fingertips
she takes a final seamless breath
I tear the green flesh away from
until she wants a kiss
its red skeleton
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I will find you where you stand, beloved,
cradle your rounding face in the cup of an open
hand. I will trace the softening line of your jaw
with the index and ring fingers of my left hand,
tell you how the change becomes you, your wisdom
ripening for ever.
Divine garment, I will whisper, close to your lips
which will tingle, then, with the live-charge of spoken
word. Your in-breath wisely rolling the name like a pearl
in the soft, cushioned bed of your tongue. Your tongue
swelling to the richness of your heritage and swallowing.
This is where we meet, hand-in-hand, I-to-I. My ring yours
for ever and ever and ever
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With you the sky blue sky can shift to steely gray,
two blackbirds can sit on the wire, mocking the orange cat
who creeps in the grass in hopes of them.
With you each wish will never tarnish,
the stars will blink yellow, the moon will wax papery white.
Let it cut me, know what red is.
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In church you pretended
not to notice her leaning into you
for physical reassurance,
knowing she wanted an arm
around her or a pat on her thigh.
Always hearing enough of what’s said
to make believe you’re still listening.
The business trips taken lasting
a week. Sheets cool on one side
of the bed. In the morning the missing
indentation that marks like police tape
where a body has once been.
And the daemons and angels
that pirate the quiet, floating
the room’s moted darkness.
They come because of
the quietude, the absence
of noise’s perceptible shape,
and the presence of counted sheep.
They come with invisible will-call
tickets for your unclaimed soul.
Any moment
the alarm’s sure to be set off
by a burglar or cold-blooded killer.
Any moment
the silence will break
from the outside in.
Feeling it profoundly,
you roll over onto her side,
and have to touch yourself
to make sure you’re still alive.
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When two voices meet in a dream, they are surprised to find another.
They pause and consider the other, circling in a dark dance. At first,
They do not touch, but feel sensations as breathing bodies would.
Connection is made; attention is focused on the face, and all that lies
Behind is revealed in truth to the other. In the dreamstate body,
There is no longer any place to hide secrets. Eyes become portals
To memories and expectations, lips soft stones on which sacred glyphs
Are written. The two spirits dance in a ballroom filled with dreamers,
Each pair moving to their own music, clothed in their Selves, and time
Has no meaning in the ongoing party, which has no beginning, and no end.
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She measured the depth
of his eyes, the lake
of his blue soul.
She found him
outside the dance,
sprawled in a meadow
that swam in the scent of lilac.
He touched her shoulder
and found it warm.
They gave each other words
and paintings that night,
spoken in a language
understood by the moon,
and written in breaths. |
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Candles flame in outline of the nightmare
lighting chaos sovereign to his prayers
as the heights of life turn to rigors of
mortality where balance is crucial.
There comes a sweet, baptismal nursing found
in the skull, not appearing in the chest.
Of loves vain'd, having dried at the roots, know
it is the mind, not the heart, in sorrow!
In the mirror, he is already dead;
waxen and cold, too distant to hear his
own voice or see what it is he's written
in a poem come bleeding. He, alone in
this mirror, unsure of God's intentions.
His wife turns her blasphemed face from his. |
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If
What you wear says
What you can’t,
And
What you see is
What you get,
Or,
A picture is worth
1,000 words—
Then
By rights it stands
To reason,
That
We should extirpate,
All the brittle words;
Not
By their foliage alone
But by their dirty brittle roots—
And
Why stop there?
Gather all your gabardine,
Your
Saddle stitched
Ermine coats,
Those
Teeming heaped piles
Of unwashed blues
By which
We will build a bonfire
Of vainglorious proportions.
Now,
Stripped of all artifice
Painted by the blaze,
We waltz our dirty faces skyward
Ignorant of our sweet imperfections. |
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To the Arnolfinis: Coded memory,
Familial icon of legality,
An heirloom of hopeful enticement?
Or truly only a portrait of a lusty dog
To escape the glance of the casual observer
Like a nameless fisher in some Chinese landscape?
A catalog of wealth and fashion and fantasy,
Mocking like a sneering Warhol ahead of time
Or some antique Pharaoh's eye of hard stone?
A scalpel to flense scholastic certainty
Definitively, a burning lens of oil and canvas.
A bone lost to the river by some foolish hound,
Reflecting much, revealing little, growing in abstraction
In the absence of concrete account,
We know:
It has passed beyond the hands of its first subjects. |
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Behind the maple door
engraved with language of expectation,
we wear the white dress
entrapped in its silk and satin,
we use an alphabet assigned to us.
By 30, we must claim
our other half. Through olive oil and glass cleaner,
I must bend to fit your picture frame
its rust causes tetanus in my thumbs
its placidity forms callus in my
ribs. (I did not get them
from you) I speak for all of us when I say
it. Small children wait for me in 10 or 20 years,
they expect me to blow them up like balloons,
and hold them upright only to fly away again
and continue the cycle of growing up.
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I want you to scatter my ashes
at dusk on a beach near Lake
Superior
just as night slips into morning,
just as another man climbs
out of bed and reaches
for his wife because she was there
earlier
I want the waves to carry my skin
out across the water, my eyelashes
to sink and my eyes to blink
from the bottom
that it’s time for you to return home
and kiss your now absent husband |
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We receive gifts from others
happy to know simply
that we exist,
for being who we are.
Gifts, given to us
with no conditions,
Nothing expected in return,
especially not love,
the greatest gift.
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They’ve got it all wrong. This fellow is
the father of the bride. He moves toward
the door with his daughter’s open hand,
prepared to make the solemn presentation.
He gestures toward the long-awaited guest,
while she waits in demure anticipation,
and the little dog stands guard, for one last time,
between his mistress and this dreaded stranger.
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Your name is mentioned in hush tone
as though you are adored
or abhorred.
The unknown links hearts
with another unknown
writing oaths
that even the most resolute
individual
would need to break
during times of hardship.
There is loneliness in sharing
one’s soul
opening the door showing off
the orange bedroom
that once held desire like cancer.
These subtle contractions
of the birth canal
control the flow of life,
for one brief moment
we enter eternity.
It is simple. It is productive.
It is the next item on your life list.
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When you are ready to nail yourself to the cross, grab a hammer, a few spikes, and stand firmly on the main section. Both feet should be placed together, on a spot measured to ensure your head will rest just above the cross member when the process is complete. Now, lean forward and place a spike on the top center of one of your feet, just an inch above your toes. Grasp the spike firmly, and bring the hammer down on it as forcefully as possible. You really want to get this right the first time. The blow should drive the spike all the way through your foot into the wood, holding it securely in place. Repeat for the other foot.
At this point both feet should be nailed onto the cross. Now, with your arms reached out behind you, bend your knees and lower yourself until you are sitting down. Lean over to one side and place one hand on the end of the cross-member, holding another spike upright with the pointed end resting in the center of your palm. Take the hammer in your other hand, and strike the spike through your hand into the wood. You now have both feet and one hand nailed to the cross.
You will not be able to nail your remaining hand to the cross-member. For this, you will need the assistance of a friend, preferably a lover. Have your lover drive the last spike through your open palm into the wood. You will be on your back, completely nailed to the cross, with your knees slightly bent. It will take several people to raise the cross and mount it in a pre-dug hole. You may also want to have someone place a crown of thorns on your head, although barbed-wire might be easier to come by. Once raised, there are several tortures that your friends may perform on you. It is recommended, however, that you opt out of bone-breaking and wounding, as these may prove fatal.
It is up to you how long you wish to remain crucified. Your friends should be instructed to take you down immediately if you pass out at any time. They should also be given the opportunity to take photos from several angles, both of the process and the final hanging. The best images should be posted on the web for all to see. When your scars heal and you are able to type again, you will be able to share your thoughts and feeling with the world. You may even be inspired to write a few poems.
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Drop biscuits and mashed potatoes.
The table spread out like a car crash.
The bread picked up - then broken.
Grave gravy takes a spill from the boat.
Little mushrooms cut into pieces and drown.
a yam ate olives; the spoon buried in berries. |
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we are so detailed in love,
so full of interest,
and look at times, at
our lounging object which
could be lost, as if
there were no movement
to its limbs--its arms
frozen in a gasp--
the youth
spent
in gathering
flowers
instead of digging clams--
a line of gunpowder
burning from both
one end and another--
but here,
across this room,
his eyes
are sure
of the string pulled ligament
that connects both
care and fear
to the possibility of loss;
I am sure
of your taunts--how
could I not be--a sliver
of grace
left to me, but really
you are, you are, you are,
my motion of mountains
left in the sky. |
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