ALL RESPONSES |
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when I was a kid, we lived in
an apartment complex built
in the Italian style called
Chateau Du Nord.
one night it burned
so brightly that we
could feel the heat
from across the four lane
highway, and the next day
our cheeks were red
like we had been too
long in the sun.
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Please, bear with me. My sister Marie bought this Italian villa a few weeks ago, and needs someone she trusts to keep an eye on it, and hopefully, to make necessary repairs. I have accepted the challenge (and the opportunity to live in Italy for at least a year) and have moved in to the villa near Nizza Monferrato in the Province of Asti. Although the villa doesn't have broadband internet access (yet), I have located a very friendly establishment in a nearby village that will provide a wireless connection as long as I purchase coffee, wine, beer, or the local distilled concoction. Clear, unlabled, smooth, it slides down the throat like the first dew to settle on plum blossoms that have fallen to the earth in spring. After drinking several of them, Anna, the reigning proprieter, asked me a few questions, and, satisfied that I was here to stay, poured me one more for the road.
It would help if I knew Italian. |
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| The gravel road slipped in the front door of a house on the lake. He rubbed his feet twice on the bristle mat in the entry and passed through a short hallway into a living room where the carpet was white and piled like cumulus at ten a.m. The gravel road folded himself into tidy layers and lay face down on the glass top of the coffee table to watch. |
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1. We write our way into silence until all that’s left
is the sound of your heart (the sound of the ocean)
and the broken shell of mine.
2. I rewind every word you’ve said so that
stay with me
becomes what you really meant
go, go away
3. I lie on the beach, eyes closed, let the sun burn
your last words into my skin, hold my breath and
wish for emptiness, a sound like the bottom of the
ocean, a rock hitting a coffin.
4. I wonder how to crack words in half, crumble each letter
in my fingers until they mean what they are supposed to
time for us, becomes the end
I love you means nothing at all.
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At rush hour all radiance wanes.
The moon, dressed to the 9’s,
scolds us for our insecurities. We decide
that we want to make sense.
Headlights reflect our subtleties,
illuminate words never assumed.
Things left unsaid pile like passengers beside us
that sit quietly waiting for our hearts
to squeeze out the excess waste,
wring themselves dry.
Tonight a monsoon assaults my home, nurses
my past at its breast. Worlds away from my reach,
the docks splatter themselves with sea creatures.
A canvas of living things is rinsed of its color
as prayer finds itself caught in the storm.
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I’ve only been here a few days, and it already feels like home. The cheap mattress I threw in a corner is more than adequate during these quiet nights. There are bare walls, tile floors and windows that open to rolling vineyards. I eat most of my meals outside on one of the few tables that were left behind. They usually consist of bread, sausage and cheese. It’s a very simple life compared to what I was living in Minnesota a week ago.
Some friends have asked how I can just suddenly leave my family and job like this. Easy – buy a plane ticket, pack a suitcase and go. Everyone close to me knows I was overdue for this. And as for the job – there are always jobs. This was a huge opportunity, and I couldn’t pass it up. Can you blame me?
Maybe I will be able to do some writing while I’m here. Maybe I’ll never leave. |
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At rush hour all radiance wanes.
The moon, dressed to the 9’s,
scolds us for our insecurities. We decide
that we want to make sense.
Tonight a monsoon assaults my home, nurses
my past at its breast. Worlds away from my reach,
the docks splatter themselves with sea creatures.
A canvas of living things is rinsed of its color
as prayer finds itself caught in the storm.
Life’s regrets are stagnant; trapped between
our hopes like the rain water
snared in the storm gutter. Inside we
wear purple hearts, magentas and blues
that spill out onto the sunset.
We decide when the time has come to bleed.
At twilight, headlights reflect our subtleties,
illuminate words never assumed.
Things left unsaid pile like passengers beside us
that sit quietly waiting for our hearts
to squeeze out the excess waste,
wring themselves dry.
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A house, refuge and rest,
cozy-cornered and star-pillowed
dreams of grasshopper-green
sheets that smell of lemon
verbena, dreams of crusty bread
and olive oil, melons ripening
in the basket
wants to be wayfarer’s goal,
wants order on the flat rooftop
under pinch of pins: the rose-pink
lingerie, white cotton shirts,
bluebird skirt, moon-blue pants,
orange plaid apron with flowered
pockets, dishtowels with frayed red trim.
A house stands sentential over
the vineyard and dusty road, silent
but for insect buzz, geraniums
flock their feisty grins across the
panes, everyone is busy as daylight wanes.
A house gathers them to her
fire-lit ease, they do not hear
the eerie echo left on the wind,
the angel’s moan, the cruelest cry:
(the man who sifts through the garbage
and the woman who pushes her wheels
and the child in the doorway
and the bones in the desert):
"No place like home
No place like home
there’s no place like home..." |
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How I’d love to dress my bare shoulders
in the nip of Piemonte’s late afternoon air
or brush against its morning dew
before the climbing sun dazzles
the vinyards in sugared heat
Not sure, though, about Nizza –
So small a town
and that villa of Marie’s –
sleeping quarters lie up a
narrow, veering staircase
My knees hurt
just thinking about the ascent.
Consider, instead,
the small island of Aegina
just off Piraeus.
I once knew an old Greek-American
who invited tourists to stay with him
there, at his villa,
where the sea is crystal clear
and its small fish caress your feet
as you wade.
The south side of the island
calls especially
to summering German families
a virtual colony
So beer is sure to be in good supply.
Or maybe Nice
I’ve never been to the South of France
and my Francais far surpasses
my Italiano
(Greece finds me tongue-tied).
And I so prefer wine
vin, vino
to beer.
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4am July 5
Night of fireworks
Frightened Great Dane Emma
Whimpering shaking
Corgi Cooper still brushing tail
Pain is finally too much
Nobody to turn to
Oh well it’s 911 ambulance time
3 cracked ribs
Thought was just a major bruise
all is worry about the dogs
Emma’s Mom
didn’t come home
tonight from her lover
“Fell asleep
on Christine’s couch at 10 pm”
she later claimed
Called father at 8am from UMMC
please make sure the dogs are okay
bed designed for short people
forcing feet back
torture length
feel six foot three measure
crammed into a five foot ten box
trying not to be reminded
of a coffin
in diluted-fuel nightmares
Dammit every two hours they wake me
incompetent nurses always calling backup
“I cant find it” they tell
next expert draws
blood for the vitals
My guitarist hands
usually proudly showing
lifelines
Why disappeared now?
three weeks
time off
wasted in hell
Learned
to appreciate
August lakes
Seasides
Strolling ancient lanes
Holding Hands
Jumping docks
Floating boats
Late sunsets
Mosquitoes biting my arms while kissing
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i know it. i knew it.
i feel it. a sabbatical.
in bed. moths streaming
to a yellow porch light.
glows. moths are angels.
i pray for more minutes.
hot and sweat. tallow.
blue-black moving
clouds. they gist.
somewhere, a boat
drifts from its dock.
geese. instinctive.
wings whisper. she listens.
shows me what that means.
her mouth is heaven.
i drink until sated. |
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Invite me to your villa, will ya?
Or better yet, send a picture of the red
tile roof on it, the same color as the balance
on my mortgage payment ledger. What gorgeous
hedges you grew to guard your grand estate,
its flawless sward, my mortgage unrolled like sod,
all the houses in my neighborhood just green
monopoly blocks to your bank, and down below
none of us pass go, no one collects dollars,
and some of us never get out of jail, but you do,
so invite me to your villa— mine is gone.
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Did I tell you the wine is excellent here? One of my neighbors set out to convince me of that yesterday. It wasn’t a hard sell. Pietro, a retired hydraulics engineer, lives with his wife in an updated farmhouse about a kilometer down the road from me. We met when he saw me walking into the village, and offered me a ride. At first he thought I was British, but when I told him where I was from, he really warmed up to me. His son, he said, was in graduate school for Biochemistry at the University of Iowa. Ah, it's such a small world we live in!
Pietro insisted on taking me on a little tour in Nizza Monferrato right away. After he mailed a letter, he took me to a beautiful spot called La Signora in Rosso Enoteco on Via Crova 2. There he poured glass after glass of a light Barbera called Coppo L’avvocata. It was delightful. The name of the cheese they served escapes me, but it was rather light and tasty as well. Pietro and I sat in the courtyard, watching the Italian sky turn from powder blue to the color of our wine, spinning the crystals that remained in the bottom of the bottle in the shifting light. He spoke a great deal of his son. I thought of my family in Minnesota and showed him their photos in my wallet. “Bella!” he said. “Bella!”
Of course, I told him I expected them to come visit me. They eventually will, if only for a few weeks. And when it’s time, they can try to drag me back. “Try” being the operative word here. |
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we are contained
doored
windowed
roofed
shingled or stuccoed
maybe bricked
in country of good clay
safe
home
sheltered
against the swirls
the pelts
the rages
the circles really
all attempts
to take us back
from where we came
motes
grains
molecules
to wait again
for order
fit
perspective
measurable distance
a straight line
an edge
a corner
a box
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we built boxes
we built beautiful sharp corners
as opinions
as places full of rooms
there were windows
there were smiles from the street
as our laundry hung
as our tongues twisted together
we were lovers
we had volcano flows of red in our veins
such indigo desires
such indigo royalty
and the walks through fields
were walks through each others’ hearts
and my hat to hold off the sun
and your hat to hold off the sun/got dusty together
now we vacation here/in the wrinkles of the earth
now the sand is warm/but the sun is waning
and we know it is true/that we will not die together
and it is impossible/as impossible as life |
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I.
we built boxes/first raised ordered skeletons that began to live as they reached into the gut of the sky/then burnished inner corners/and stretched opinions like skins/overhead/to protect/to make new places full of rooms
we invited friends and others/held out our arms/to take each wondering someone across the sand smoothed wooden floors/to the windows to look out/and there were smiles from the street/people who were not ashamed/as we were not ashamed/as our laundry breathed in sunlight
eventually all tongues twisted together/and of course we were all lovers/we had lava flows/crimson/in our veins as we pressed our lips to once unknown roots/and such indigo desires/such indigo/royalty really/that our walks through dried-corn fields/became walks through each others’ beliefs/still seeing with our individual eyes
and my hat/worn/to hold off the sun/and your hat/worn/to hold off the sun/got dusty together
II.
so for years we lived/in stone ground truth/fearing nothing so much/as the pull of the sun and moon/both of which might have taken our swollen hearts/and run with them to oblivion
then/in time/for years we left/like terns far flung
but returned to sit/happy/holding together to the wrinkles of the earth/dirt warmed/though the sun was waning/and we knew it was true/that we would not die together/and it was impossible/as impossible as life/but we did not care/and still believed. |
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That house is a house, but more
and you are what you are, but more,
and everything that is is only
what it is, but more, and still
we are beautiful, radiant,
but petty for wanting more.
I'm waiting for the bus that
may not come, and is more
than that for it. |
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Over the highest villa, rays of the sun
beam a spotlight onto our legs,
intertwined as they are into the angle
we choose that day.
It is here that morning clears my throat
and softens my petulance. Where the smell of
earth is overwhelming and the ocean's gaze makes
our hearts un-riddle themselves out of their selfish enigmas.
I follow you into that dark water.
The sharks circle us like gray halos.
The undertow grows arms of moving water that grab
hastily at my feet.
Over the highest villa, I would leave
myself here for years. Standing upright,
aging comfortably
like a good bottle of wine left on the shelf.
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come visit me you say
In the first place
I do not know where you were
In the second place
I do not know where you have gone
if in fact you are truly gone
In the third place
as you speak mystical words like
villa near nizza
some light barbera
it becomes time to link onto
personal banking
or local weather news
change incredulity for
certainty of numbers
in the fourth place
it’s time to log off
roll huge lengths of timber
to block off visions
knowing all along the fantasy
or the actuality
will not click away
but remain
right there behind the screen
a scream away
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I was sure that stopping at a hashish café in Amsterdam was not a good idea. But I should have known. We had already been traveling 24 hours from Albuquerque and had a four hour lay-over in Amsterdam on the final leg of our journey to Rome. As restless as Michael could be, addicted to cigarettes and pot, why did I think we wouldn’t find a hashish café?
The walk along the canal was charming, the houses tidy with lace curtains, the smiles of the Dutch people, the air warm and moist despite it being almost Thanksgiving. There were plenty of cafes to choose from, just as we had been told. Once we had sipped our cappuchinos, we were escorted to the back room to choose from a menu of different varieties of hashish. I didn’t mind that Michael smoked a joint but when he proceeded to buy a baggie, my mind went numb in denial.
We were always the last ones to board as he inhaled the last puffs of a cigarette. Exhausted from the over-night flight over the Atlantic, I was fed up. The excursion from and back to the airport had taken my last bit of energy and patience. I decided to go ahead and find my seat, leaving Michael to his addiction.
But imagine my shock when the pilot announced that the stewardesses should prepare the plane for take-off and Michael had not yet appeared! I went from numb to anxious in a split second. I was sure they had inspected his bag—there was a security search as we got on—and found the hash. I certainly didn’t want to claim him—no way was I going to jail in Europe. The seat next to mine was filled and one seat across and down the aisle empty and I suddenly understood that he had booked seats so we wouldn’t sit together. (Later he would tell me it was so we could meet different people.) My mood changed from worried to irritated. Leave it to Michael to create a scandal!
At that instant as the plane started its taxi away from the boarding station, I realized I was traveling without his sister’s address or phone number. I was on my way to Rome without a clue as to how to get in touch with his family! I didn’t even know his sister’s married name.
Just then he stumbled onto the plane, grinning nervously. They had checked his bags when the alarm went off—a false alarm, apparently. They hadn’t found the dope and I felt sure he had charmed them into not looking very thoroughly. Since the plane had already disengaged from the landing station, a set of stairs had to be wheeled up to the door, delaying our departure. I was glad he had arranged for separate seats. But mostly relieved that my traveling companion had made it and our trip would continue.
As he found his seat and settled in, I realized too late I should never have agreed to stop at the hashish café. Or maybe it was the adrenaline rush of traveling with the trickster that I should give up.
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Filling Space but really sleeping
away - to keep from thinking:
WE HAVEN’T SPOKEN SINCE
JUANITA’S BURGER BOY
- But we spoke tonight
and made love for hours.
The universe rewards guts
Better to write a hundred poems
and never hear them read,
or work on one-glorious-one
Time for the trip again. Last time: this time again.
Homeless in California again. Fucking
around again, confused again, sleepy again.
Feeble languid stars next to piercing sun again.
- Strange turns, and brain loaded, heavy, hurt.
This year went very quickly. Much easier –
less wasted time. Hold off life, and
don’t feel young. So much I won’t do.
Where: the bullshit question. |
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The sky resembled something
different last night
like something with something
else behind it
like looking at a snowglobe
in summer
or something like that
*
I left the house to remove
myself from the scene
to re-enact that which made
me happy earlier
alone, i did that thing
again:
i covered a dark patch on my face
with cream
*
No matter how long i stayed
outside
my name followed me
like a secret
but with no one there
to tell
In fairness, i'm thinking about
taking a sabbatical |
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| Stellana, on her hands and knees, arced a long, brown arm in semicircle across the floor ahead. She wiped the last bit of coral tile dry, folded the cotton towel in on itself and tucked it into her apron pocket as she stood up. She walked to the sink humming softly to no one, untied her apron, and straightened her crisp sundress. The bottoms of her bare feet knew this tile like she knew her own hands. On the hottest summer afternoons, before Joey came home, she would sprawl languid and naked, and turn her head so each cheek could rest against the cool tile. She picked up a lime wedge, and firmly squeezed its juice into a hand blown goblet - Joey’s work. Stellana then added water and, towel still tucked in its pocket, took her apron to the pantry and hung it on a hook just inside the doorway. She loved this pantry for its window out to the vineyard and its sharp smell of oregano and olives. Stellana took her morning espresso sipping at this window, watching songbirds dart in and around the grape vines. But now dusk had come, veiling the grape leaves in muted tones and she gazed from her window sipping her limewater, wishing Joey would talk. She knew he would not anytime soon, but this did not stop the fantasies that played several times a day through her mind. She missed his voice in her ear, telling her he loved her, how beautiful she looked in the morning, his hand pulling her hips close. Joey had not spoken, or touched her since the morning she had come from the bathroom and found him seizing violently on the floor next to their bed. |
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What you don't see
behind the high wall
is the old gardener,
whose ministrations
came with the purchase.
I'm told he spends hours,
in and out like a resident,
regular as the bell tolling
from the hill monastery.
It's not me he works for
--I pay him nothing--
but the imagined spirit
of a former owner,
the plants themselves, or
his own hands, their need
to go on lifting and turning. |
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What was his plan?
Did he have a plan?
He choose a villa for a setting,
a pink-stuccoed house by the sea,
a garden with walls overcrowded with vines.
He said it was beautiful.
He called it beautiful.
He took her there.
They flew to the nearest city’s airport,
rented a car and drove through cypress-
lined lanes, through a village,
its leaves and sunlight fluttering
shadows across the windshield,
then, turning off the main road,
they drove onto the driveway to the front door.
Afterwards he said it was wonderful.
He called those two weeks wonderful.
And they were. And she never
asked him if he thought she was beautiful.
Why would she embarrass him?
He was an honest man.
She knew a beautiful place
makes everything beautiful.
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Where he really is
In this instant.
Legions of Scipio
Approach Hannibal’s hordes,
Carthaginians brandish bright shields,
Elephants squeal
In Middle Earth sun.
Dust obscures fear.
By a river
Far from mountains,
Rumbling Harleys,
Growling pick-ups,
Waves of tires thumping
Concrete seams,
A house in need
Of new siding and windows.
By any definition,
Not a dream.
Beyond the brilliant blue illusion
Of a perfect summer day
Lies the tranquility of a storm,
That, while brutal,
Is altogether real,
Spinning around the origin-eye,
Winking in and out
Of existence. |
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AFTER KAY RYAN
Who would be Poet Laureate who could help it?
Should passion for poesy be placed so close
to the pulpit? Her inky fingers mark the roster
of those who’ve gone before her, forewords
beckon far and wide like a ride on a bronco.
She never knew her hyperbole would touch
the heart of eternity. She shrinks from eloquent
and bids a middle-of-the-room elephant. Kay Ryan
has her eye on the prize of the truly blessed—
a white rose pressed between pages of Shakespeare—
where creatures collide and the reader decides
between humor and hubris and if humor has furor
enough to withstand the hand that pounds
the gavel.
(Okay, so this has nothing to do with Italy...) |
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Peach colored stucco
tiled roof
Mediterranean design
in a temperate climate
suitable for cultivating
vineyard grapes
(were there space)
and olive skinned children
Our childhoods proved
an inconvenient disruption
to the lives of the adults
who, having brought us into the world,
were still struggling to find
their own way in it.
A time when they grabbed
for dreams beyond their reach
and stumbled
empty-handed
at first frustrated
and then beaten
down
to an indistinguishable existence
among millions of other
indistinguishable survivors
Joy swept
out the door,
we lost the home
we lost the grown-ups
who retreated
one to a place of shame
the other to a place of falsehoods
Our next dwelling
was coated in pale blue stucco
a more modest frame of American design
its interior furnished
in a plush sense of loss.
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Through the open window
comes the throaty whir
of a neighbor’s lawnmower
promising to fix an outmoded pattern,
as gentle wind billows the curtain,
and the lean black cat peers out.
This moment is like any other
soon to be forgotten.
I won’t recall the slight scent
of autumn in this end of summer air.
Or how, for no reason whatsoever,
it reminds of bourbon,
or anything dry, darkling,
and capable of a long, good burn.
No doubt I won’t remember
my earlier inner-fanfare
when a handsome skateboarder,
a minor god, whizzed past me
down my street as I took out the trash.
And I sure as heck won’t remember
my dinner of Campbell’s tomato soup
enriched with milk instead of water
or the two crackers broken into it.
Only the door hard closing,
how small the fissure
you walked through
out into the world.
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5. Each bend towards the horizon hurts just a little more
as I see in the rising moon our own waning.
6. I never asked for promises, but took them on my tongue
and let them dissolve, let them slip down my throat
7. so slowly the words I actually believe them. Know now
they meant only this; you have mistaken me
8. for some other love, caught my shadow and forgot
to look up, see the face of the women who makes it.
9. See that it was me all along, my name so easy
to write on a desk in a rented room.
10. My name so easy to erase.
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You ask me for a cigarette, cup your hand
as I strike the match. I watch you inhale, wait
for the smoke to curl from your parted lips,
follow it as it makes its way to the moon
& I wonder if the moon is nothing more
than the shell of every lost love
I listen to my body—nothing more than a breath,
a beat, the buzz of blood and buried, here, each word
you left upon my pillow, wove into my hair
you flick the ash, I fight the urge
to make the sign of the cross on my wrist.
I tell you my favorite sound is rain
and you tell me it is my voice. Even when
it is silent. Shy now, I blow a kiss to the moon
whisper, do not get lost in the shadows
& wonder if you can hear in me desire building
every song buried under my skin, every
wish made luminous and whole for you.
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you sit on the flare of moon-glow
coming down, but you are traveling
up into the cosmos, sure of
almost everything,
and he wonders, seeing you ride forward,
beyond the clouds, if you remember
the way that he sang aloud to you, even
while stuck thigh deep in the tide-plain;
simple magic hands of water wave back and forth
into his reach, their surface reflecting your position
even though the string of his love is being
unreeled and finally slips away, but he remembers,
such a strange dragon, knowing that he must stay
to swallow the rivers of the world while
you move away;
***
far off, you reach upward past the moon to
try and touch the midnight paper sky that
stars punch through, silly moments of
impossibility, none can reach to them, but
none can see their aim either, as they spread
insistence across forever--can you mount the lunar seas
and stretch up, and hold--maybe
if you climb the peaks of how you see us
you will be able to find our fatal impossibility; now,
god, he knows what you have given back to him--belief,
as a child sitting on the chilled tile floor
in the Easter dawn believed, but somehow stranger--
the null and void of impression, back straightened up
more than back then, but also the waves coming in
and his breathing is unnecessary, and his eyes
remain open underwater;
***
if we can all be Jonathan Livingston seagulls--bobbing
on the surface in the black black night, realizing
that we all must fly, treading air with wings
as heavy as lead split-shot, pressing
up into the mariners’ sky and looking for our home--our
minds can scream at us that there is safety below, but
then our knowing kicks in like a set of engine cylinders,
making us fly farther, higher, little wings eventually
bring us back to the surface of societies bulbous kelp, but
then the diving begins, and the laughter; when
years have aged your perfect matte surface, and
you look down again to see if I am in, I will be
deep forever in this world--I do not know if I can
come to meet your scion’s gaze, where you have a slightly
puckered surface but know everything about me that
I could tell you before I was gone, trust that I am home,
maybe a burning pyre on the last level of Alexandria’s tower,
maybe a fire raging in the hallowed halls
of its university, but if you cannot see my flames, at least
know that I tried a lifetime for you--we all
tried a lifetime for you--to touch your sole before we were gone,
our ashes feeding the next generation. |
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It’s how the spirit needs the thing.
The way rocks hold shells
A watery swell.
The way swirls and meanders
on canyon walls say wind
The way it is a sinking into female sound
into sandstone breasts and belly.
Egg shaped holes
doorways into the deep world.
The indurate wind
a surprise for skin and bone
heart of cloud, limestone.
The way dusk is a breathing field of horses
nuzzling neck flap
quick bright tongue lick
a cocksure scrannel of sound.
The way the visible houses the invisible.
In the Hercules constellation
a diamond shaped cluster
in the lower corner
(550 million stars)
looks like one pendant
on black velvet.
Oh fluctuant cloud – our own blood.
A star dust universe of eyes and faces
homes for the spirits of places.
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Hannibal's defeat, dressed in a rebel's bloody irony, taught us that tending two Gods would yield the battlefield. It was all for us, for our taking; the strong, the armored, the still-standing. Draped in robes and stolen gems, we mistook our luck for merit and spawned a tribal myth - facade for a rotting, leaky trailer, carpeted, dirty blue shag. Burning heaps of trash. One by one, we wrapped the little girls in pink feathers and auctioned them off to feed this hubris. Hannibal, indeed might be Hannah today. One warrior of many, forced to swallow the humiliation of a man's defeat by the age of six. If motherless, still standing. She guards her pink walls, keeps the enemy out. From afar, she dares him to near, and when he does, strikes violently. Kills him at once. Claims victory the myth child.
Sharon Elizabeth |
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The thickness of the rope hid
the thin edge of the ice
and a fine and subtle layer of hope
still hangs there today.
Someone else's child, not mine,
whose dreams, perched slight higher
than silence, were reached, only half-way.
Someone's son, not mine
certain the anchors would be there
so sure the shelf would hold,
against the eager heat of his breath,
all of the books, the memories,
all of the weight
of his body; the shelf that finally gave up.
Perhaps, in his own solitude, he was hoping
for peace, for connections that didn't fall, apart
unlike many of us, unlike myself, often.
Some other mother's child is laying breathless
and cold
somewhere
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If life is like a river,
mine started in my native Piedmont,
carried me to the ocean and what laid across, America.
Then, after 23 years, it was taking me back.
Twenty-three years made of drops of H2O
that had found their way back,
and now brought me standing in front of this wooden door.
The house came to view after a bend in the road
in a sunny and muggy July day.
The thin blue air of lunchtime
washed away the colors around us,
but not the view of what is now our new home.
Excitement and fear
were playing a ping-pong match in my throat;
was this, what I really wanted?
I felt tears fill my eyes
when the key turned and the door opened.
It felt strange to enter this house made of bricks and mortar,
so different from the wooden one we left behind...
We opened the shutters to let in the light and warm air,
walked in silence the empty rooms, checked the water flow...
is this really happening?
The crunchy sound of gravel under our shoes said yes. It is.
The river had become the ocean and then vapor,
clouds and then rain.
Rain, which carried my heart back home
in the form of millions of tiny drops,
to then, let it fall and rest once more
where everything had started.
I turned and looked into the eyes of my daughter
looking for an answer to our choice.
Had I, had we been too bold?
She looked at me and smiled assuredly.
I pointed at the front yard and said,
"There is enough space here"
and when I saw her puzzled look, I added
"...for the colors of our hearts,"
and from my bag pulled out our two flags.
It all works out in the end; at least,
this is how I dream it.
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The pungent linger of first coffee.
The yeasty bread still warm. Unsalted
butter a thin film on the palate. And
the dawn itch of wool against the chest.
The give of damp soil. The deep inhale
of moss accrued. Twisted vines reminding
of a hundred harvests. Celebrations
of the crystalline ruby, acidic and smooth.
The tickle of a distant fountain. A deep
dog's bark. The absence of wind. A smooth
car's engine arcing close and then fading.
The still moment before the other men arrive.
Half a dozen steep hills over, two calloused
thumbs. Sparse movement in the dissipating
darkness. The thin pinch as fat black olives fall
into a sling. Rolling a cigarette at first light.
Then the call of a bird. The new sun catching
up to the men. The sudden emerald of pines.
The absence of light reflected. The ordinary
masking the impossible. The hidden magic of it all. |
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A prayer of thanksgiving is what this night is
startling thunder, pounding rain, each drop in slow motion
a cup overflowing, silver and mercurial.
And come morning, day breaks like a psalm, sings
yellow, sings dew, sings of a night draped in music
sings of you, how we are a river, a swift
current pulls us further from home but closer
to shore, and you tell me, sweet jesus is misunderstood
He walked on water, we stand watching the rain.
Not everybody loves a storm. Not everybody
wants the darkness of night to wrap itself around them
to reduce the world to what we see when our eyes
shut, to what I feel when you stir the air with my name
a call like a prayer, a song like a psalm, you make my body
light, about to burst, stone me with your love, pin me to this earth.
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Italy is a gorgeous place, but it was time to leave. You would probably enjoy staying in any of the bedrooms -- they face directly into lush vineyards that roll for a kilometer down to what remains of a Roman road. I've walked it every day for the past three weeks, thinking about the cohorts and merchants that tread two thousands years before. It's a convenient shortcut as well, snaking though vines and olive branches to the village. Walking back at night after long discussions in the cafe, I sometimes thought I heard the soft song of metal against leather and soldier's complaints, sighed in Latin. Ghosts, whether real or imagined, will clutch your heart equally well.
I had to come back, though. My son is starting his first year at Macalester, and the bills need to be paid. Besides, I received an unbelievable job offer, selling overseas properties to liberal arts professors. If you're interested, please give me a call! |
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This
is the place
we're all looking for
the place
where nothing happens.
The quiet sky, the quiet sky,
the waft of oil and burning wood,
the clack of a shutter in the breeze,
a willowy rustle, wind in the pines.
Neighbors shouting down the valley
and laughing their way home
the freedom of a foreign language
spoken all around you.
The hard and beautiful smell of
that first pulled shot of espresso.
The day slipping by, sliding down
like a sweet cool drink with Anna at the cafe.
This is the place
we're all looking for
that place where words begin
and life falls to the page
like the Italian sunshine
This is the place
where everything happens. |
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