ALL RESPONSES |
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There is always a tree.
There is always a hungry
limb knitted from the twigs
of small suspicions, the gnarled
knobs of not-knowing the true
heart of the other;
There is always a tree.
There is always a different
color to be questioned, a dissonant
accent, a body strangely enrobed
or exposed, or a ritual that bleeds
just beyond some random outline;
There is always a tree.
There is always a crowd wailing
from open sores, festered long from
unchanging, or from the lack of a porous
covering, some soft gauze that breathes,
open to the world;
There is always a rope.
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Roost
I pity thee
Who cannot see
For shadows cast
Good mind
If they charge forth
All vistas dwarfed
Fated better, dumb
And blind
Puffed up, they crow
These eggs are gold
Come near I’ll peck
Your eye
Thoughts cocked with wing
Yet penned terrene
Strut madly, Grace
Shall die. |
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There’s anger here
but she keeps it
to herself
If she loses her
temper it does things
and they hurt
much worse |
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a very pretty witch as white as aspirin pirouettes
with ease and the body still dangles
from the black tree
dying with toe tips
all the way
to hell’s stage
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[version 2, after comments]
There is always a tree.
There is always a hungry limb
knitted from twigs of suspicions,
gnarled knobs grown thick from
the whispers, the not-knowing
the heart of the other;
There is always a tree.
There is always another color
to question, a dissonant accent,
a body differently robed or ex-
posed, or a ritual that bleeds beyond
an agreed-upon border;
There is always a tree.
There is always an angry crowd
wailing from sores, long-festered
from unchanging or the lack of
a porous skin, some soft gauze
that breathes open to the world;
There is always a rope.
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It was the sideways smile, a notion
in your eye, the way your hips
would move from side to side.
I once caught sight of your white
shoulder- saw how it turned and shone.
I knew you would never be my own -
as one owned me, yet even in prayer,
your intentions were always clear.
While I sought to cleanse my soul
of a dark imagination, you returned,
an unclothed ghost, a succubus,
planted in my heart by hell's own hand.
Now with coiled collar you stand
awaiting tight and final truth
to free you from the world's embrace,
and me, from what I could not bear. |
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This is actually not a response to the stimulus. The daughter of close friends of mine was killed in a car crash two weeks ago. This is the first attempts to process it in writing. The driver was drunk, she had already gone to bed when her other friend, also killed, begged her to come out.
I was the person who caught her in my arms when she was born, so although we didn't stay in touch the last 4 years, she was a special part of my life. She was beautiful and vivacious and 300 people were at her memorial, heart-broken, devastated.
dedicated to Shimona Merced
Condolences become a honey of words too
sweet to swallow, look at how the very earth weeps,
the roses turned black on their stems, bowed
there is no one here but wind
Walking past an open door you might
glimpse a vessel carried in the palm
like a lamp, wick burning and air
singed with song
thinking it is too soon for her
sprit to greet and guide us
or to listen to our tears as if
they were banners of
balm, scented oil, nectar
when really they are about our emptiness.
Thinking it is too soon to
let the pain drift back
to the sheltered cave
of the heart, it is
better to let our lamentation
crest over the edge.
She isn’t coming back
from that distant land
we hope on, not to pester us
with a sigh or soothe with
a knowing smile, no ghostly trail of
electric shock, no unexpected
ring of the phone, only the wild
wind opening to her unimaginable joy
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Ride the air as long as you can.
Bliss comes in threes.
It does not matter how you land
only that you taste the ground
when you do.
We are both meant to fly, born
to tumble, circle our way in.
Gravity, darling, is cruel and always
wins. Look for me when you’re down,
search for me high and low.
You will know when to succumb--
surrender yourself completely.
Grace is amazing; release, bittersweet.
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Mary Esty, I spilled red rose petals
on your alter in 1999 hoping their sweet
scent sation would fill your bones with
the marrow needed to strike a pulse. |
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It's a grave thing.
Absent the living.
Objects arrayed.
Pose in light and shade,
Suggest meaning for the animate.
Here a yard or painting,
A sketch or a garden of stones,
A quenched flame,
A planet on the last day of all beings
Now silent, no more transforming
Amid the nova and nebula.
With fitful recollections,
Mere humans, inarticulate to earth will swing.
Creatures of the simplest plots. |
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She knew plants—
which were medicine, which were poison.
Some were both, depending
on the strength:
strength of the dose, strength of
the patient.
She knew touch—
how to set a broken bone in place.
And when a fever broke. Whether
to use hot or cold.
More—she knew when to call the pastor
or the priest, then leave the house.
Uncanny, what she knew.
The council of men bethought she knew
too much.
Those with whom she had shared
her knowledge, hurriedly
forgot it.
There was a charge.
There was a hasty, trumped-up trial.
There was a tall tree.
The village did not thrive. |
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I would have been fine without you;
without all of the fuss and the nonsense;
without love or joy or a pen that writes.
I think about the malnourished spine of life;
its poor discs that slip and require attention to move the legs-
to move the legs that never get home.
Your boyfriend and I trotted in the rainy potholes together
behind the food mart. We spoke fragments
under black and white rainbows and I told him
I didn’t plan on meeting with him so soon.
Besides I had group therapy at 3.
Time, without the white noise of its ticking
makes for dirty shoes and missing children.
Swaying in the hammock until 10
when we could not find her anymore. We could not find
her anywhere, in that old house,
holes in the floorboards were so deep
you could see right through to hell.
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It’s in the blue wind,
next to the blue water,
in the rocks spilling
from a blue hill
If you look, you’ll find
truth etched on a tree
trunk, beneath yellow
leaves
of root and soil. From
beginning to end—
Alpha to Omega—
the cirrus alphabet
(the Gnostics’cloud)
You might wait beside
the log and shake
honey out of its hollow,
eggs from a nest, red ants
from the end of a stick
You might read God’s name
on the back of a fish
in a blue pool;
God grows everywhere;
even at the end
of a tightening rope
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crystalline souls raze
autumn’s tears, hand at
mouth taste hollow weight |
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She should never have kept herbs
in her garden. All that trillium,
henbit and scilla. Should have
concentrated on flowers instead.
She shouldn’t have prayed
for the dead on All Saints Day
up at the black alabaster moon
knees down deep in the witchgrass.
She should have been more friendly
to Goody Hubbard, Goody Pryce,
pretended to like people in general.
Should have lowered her eyes
when encountering men,
perhaps not have scowled so much,
and watched her temper.
Should never have worn fancy lace,
and black only on special occasions,
instead been content to wear
tawny, brown and mulberry.
Should have been kinder to
Mercy Pell, Deliverance Hobbs
even when those little hellhounds
stole rhubarb from her garden.
She should have loudly recited
the Nicene Creed in church each Sunday,
and never transgressed “The Rule of Apostle
in usurping authority” over her husband.
Excommunicated she was
for publically accusing
a carpenter of overcharging.
Should never have trusted that
suspicions, always bittersweet,
would not eventually show,
like the black berries
of the devil’s herb—nightshade,
rows of dark-hearted peril
unanswerable.
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during the last hour and a half, I
watched a movie
on some documented
socio-schisms, fiction, that never were.
--
I saw a psychopath crowned
as the breath-moist sensitive underling
that a country had...has?..I don’t know.
the world outside his window
--
was jeweled with only one offering--
for him--How could the world
even be seen
as jeweled?
when our
history gets pressed under the stucco
that is spread on walls, and
blood seeps through in trails
--
that consistently lead back to
the idea that we simply “are,” when
you and I disagree
and disagree
and disagree
--
so that it becomes a pattern
every four years
every six
every day, every...“Why should I care?”
--
every
--
she was old you know.
she was really alive; possibly
bitter--I do not really know. I
read a few stories of her, synopses,
--
on a webpage, search engine tutelage;
she was no longer young. the grind, the
shuffle--maybe it was better that she died
the way she did. at least she is remembered
--
on days when the limbs crack
in Boston; in America’s womb. with
the few short hours that she sat
in chains--the few short days--the few
terrible huffing, gavel crunching years--
all were levied against her, and
Now I question war? now I question
fear--I still hate--I think that is a feeling...
god I’ve lost religion, but why
--
do you smile at her tears? god?
I still cringe at the sight of
a kiss of love when it comes
from a murderer, but
if I had only glimpsed it through
--
the opening of a curtain
as I passed,
--
I might still
believe in love |
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IT’S NOT JUST THAT THE STOCK MARKET IS IN THE TANK (OR, IF YOU
CAN’T HIT THE HIGH NOTES YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE)
By the dawn’s early light, the fog
hangs over the river gorge.
Color splatters the trees that hug
the muscular banks, and the rocks
endure, The light changes
minute by minute this time of day.
So, proudly we hail at this
gleaming, and how that anthem
covers the whole of our history
in the whole of one day into
the night we are now passing. The rocket
has yet to show its last glare and the star
spangles of darkness give way to banners
furling in a furious wind.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars?
Who is gallant in this mess? The far
away bombs are bursting in air.
Where is the proof that our flag is still
there? Oh, say, about the free,
that bravery is no longer enough.
Enough is enough.
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The decree fulfilled
the noose loosed
the Bostonians
in their safe sleep
knew they’d be
rewarded in heaven
knew Mrs. Ann Hibbins’d not
torment them again
but the Bostonians
didn’t know
she’d be reborn
each time a woman
fools the sentinels at the gate
or outgrows the cement pot
into which she'd been sown
or wears her pride
like the lion his mane.
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It was always an oak
with low strong laterals
arms open to welcome
thieves
killers
adulterers
from among them all
each arose
majestic and alone
surrounded by grassland
tall prairie swaying in the wind
where many would gather
witness and fear
weakness and strength
more durable than justice
meted out on any given day
they braid the soil still
more tightly than
the hanging hemp held
those soon forgotten
in the smoke of
becoming ashes
the scent remains
of burning grass
dried leaves
old knotted ropes
and prejudice
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the real
tragedy
of this
relationship
is i love you
a little more
on the days
you say you
don’t love me
tomorrow,
i can’t say
this will
vary much |
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Ann Hibbin’s hanging is
executed nicely
according to a prescribed plan.
An old print from the 1600’s shows the rope still slack,
the horse’s neck still arched,
the deed not yet done.
Does the horse pull the ladder away
according to a prescribed plan
to execute nicely?
Does the rope give up its slack
as the horse’s neck straightens
according to a prescribed plan?
Will they find the devil’s mark
when they strip her later?
We do not know, the judges say.
She who suffered from
a naturally crabby temperament,
odiousness to neighbors,
tendencies to argue with men
(like the carpenter she says overcharged her)
hangs helplessly toward heaven
like black men later
executed nicely on the tree of life
in the hands of a lynch mob.
Did these, and Anne, sin against those
whom God had made their head?
Who are the sinners?
We do not know, the judges say.
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The words dripped from my lips,
fluttered into flame
then extinguished
in your hungry ears
Have our fingers forgot
their breathless embrace?
Eyes held the knowing silence
of our souls rising
through moonbeams,
resting in stardust
How fast we burn
for the loneliest of words
before we have to go |
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I hope you now realize
your fellow human beings
could have been
even more barbaric
by burning your body afterwards
as had been the custom before
when dealing with witches.
But then, really
you were not one and
surely
forgave them
their foolish deeds
even the last one
even before it was completed.
Seems to me
your last act was
to lift your eyes skyward
and bless the poor tree
the tip of whose branch
your life hung from
had been broken
in same fashion
before. |
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She was born precocious
and entirely too curious.
A sweet little flame lived
within her that could not
be extinguished.
Rumors about her spread
throughout her conservative
community.
No one bothered to ask.
Alone in her garden
mesmerised by the colors
she made a ring of flowers
for her head.
A scarlet bird landed
on her fence post.
When he flew away
she foolishly followed
him into the forest.
It was there she discovered
the most beautiful man
swimming naked in a hidden pool.
She quietly watched as he rose
from the water,
an aura of her passion around him.
That moment the scarlet bird
landed at her feet.
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the blue edge of smoke curls and winds
its way around itself
cursive, less decisive than fire
finds the rim of the window
and lies there
until you walk in
and wake even the ash.
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Words tripped from my lips,
fluttered into flame
Then exhausted themselves
in your hungry ears
Have our fingers forgotten
their breathless embrace?
Twisting stray moonbeams
with the lightest touch
Your eyes; a gentle pool
To lie beside long after you had gone
now wash through my hands like rain
How fast we burn
For the loneliest of words
Before we have to go |
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This is a new day in America, a new day on Earth. Perhaps
a more hopeful stimulus is in order now that we have
known the past together.
Sharon Elizabeth |
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The nation dangles from a thin branch;
a rope of fear warms her neck.
In the haunting hours of autumn,
I am touched by the unseen.
It floats over rooftops,
it tickles trees-it captures me.
The world waits beneath our toes,
her trench dug deep.
Hope falls for tired hands--
and we are cut free. History.
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| You will never elect me. I’m much too honest and straightforward. As a matter of fact, I’m an artist – a poet, a painter, a sculptor, what have you. Not a politician. But I can speak – eloquently. Every word I say will arouse you, pick you up and send you to levels you’ll never want to leave. But you won’t elect me. I won’t even run. I’ll take over by way of political coercion, threats, intimidation and, if necessary, military takeover. My strong-arm militia will march in and seat me on the throne. And still, you’ll love me. Oil will flow again. Bread will bake. Everyone will work towards the common goal. And I promise – I promise this – there will always be beer. Cheap beer, of high quality, golden and consistent with our high standards. A beer to be proud of. So let’s drink! Drink to me! Your Poet-President, your Painter-Warrior, your Emperor, your God! Drink! |
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I Say Poet
for Roop Kanwar, 18 year old widow burned alive in 1987 on her deceased husband’s pyre.
Neither puppet, nor parrot
I say
Poet
I speak my mind
Through my heart -
If I aim to pierce your heart
With the aureate fluttering
Of Peter Pan lashes that tassel
Moon-bright boy eyes
Or the mordant billowing
Of dutiful sati that sear
A Rajput girl’s horizon
Forgive me
For I know
The honeycombed heart
Thrums more effuse
‘Neath the beaten skin
Of a talking drum
Sharon Staum |
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I hear jack boots clomping
Down hard plank floors
Towards what turns out
To be a quickly closing door. |
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I don't ever walk in a straight line.. I never have.. I don't know why that is.. My legs are the same size... My feet and toes look like everybody else's. It looks like I walk the same.. but I don't. I talk in a lopsided way too. Nobody understands my words... I try my hardest.. but my words don't sound like everyone else's. I am misunderstood a lot.
I'm from another world and I know it.. Well, I'm not from another world.. but I'm special. When I dream I leave my body.. I have pretty wings made out of light.. I look just like an angel... and I FLY..
All the people I meet are just like me.. We are all children in the sky.. We laugh and play... Once I met a little girl who said she was 950 years old. I believe her. It is our job to travel the earth while people are sleeping and bring peace to them. This sounds easy, but it isn't. It is very hard work. The farther I travel, the smaller my wings become until it is time for me to float back to earth and wake up one more time.
My daughter says my dreams are real.. She is the only person in this world who understands me when I talk. Do you understand me? Do you know me? I know you.. Every night I wish you peace. You don't see me, but I see you.. with the eyeballs of my heart.. Your hearts have eyeballs too.. Did you know that? :) We might not all talk the same way or walk the same way, but we all are children.. We all can see.. We all can listen.. We all can fly... |
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